Tag Archives: Music

David Francey

Off I went on the subway last night to the first of my three concerts at Hugh’s Room, a small folk music venue. One of my musical heroes – David Francey – was the reason for the evening.  I was given a table for one tucked into a corner at the back.  I had a great sightline to the stage and “back” was actually pretty close.  I arrived really early because I had made a dinner reservation.

As people started coming in, I looked at them.  Almost all couples (sigh) and hardly anybody as old as me (no sigh).  Lots of laughing, lots of hugging … the room was bright and sweet.  I sat back in my little alcove and smiled a bit.  The universe was flowing along as it was meant to do.

A couple maybe in their 60s took their seats at the table in front of me.  She was on the left and he on the right.  I didn’t see them touch.  As David began singing, the gentleman leaned his head way to the right.  At first, I concentrated on maintaining the tiny window I was left with, but later I let in the distance between man and woman.  I urged them closer in my brain but that was not to be.

At intermission … how wrong I was.  My unknown friends shared large smiles.  He put his arm over her shoulder and she rubbed that arm lovingly.  And so my persona as keen analyst of the human condition frittered away.

In front of these two was a waist-high wall.  Beyond that towards the stage, the seating was lower so all I could see of those folks was their heads.  During the break, I saw a grey-haired fellow right at the front, looking ahead.  A woman was leaning the back of her head against his back.  How lovely, I thought.  Just the type of relationship I enjoy observing.

How wrong I was.  It was a trick of the eye, my view of this couple.  In fact, they weren’t a couple.  They weren’t even at the same table.  She was leaning forward, talking to her friends.  Gosh, a fellow can only be wrong so many times.  Can’t he?

And then there was David’s music.  He creates word pictures that any human being can relate to … all the emotions that bubble up over the course of a lifetime.

The joy of youth, as revealed in the song “Paper Boy”:

And my feet flew in the morning light
Racing the dawn as the sky grew bright
And everything in the world was right
When I was a paper boy

The angst of teenage passion (“Broken Glass”):

Saw you standing in the cafeteria line
I’d have given the world just to make you mine
Saw you at your locker, in the high school hall
And it didn’t take a minute for my heart to fall

The loss of love (“The Waking Hour”):

She was once my heart’s delight
My need and my desire
She was my day, she was my night
My water and my fire
And I was once the same to her
When we still walked together
But the heavy heart at the waking hour’s
Expecting heavy weather

Thank you, David, for your humanity
And the same gratitude for my fellow audience members

Jane Siberry

I listened to Jane Siberry at the Aeolian Hall in London last night.  She’s a Canadian singer-songwriter who goes her own way.  She has refused to adjust her songs so they’ll be more commercially acceptable.  She’s raised money for her own record label instead of bowing down to the profit-first demands of corporations.  It’s quite the breath of fresh air just reading this.  More so when she walked onto the stage.

Jane sings of love and Spirit:

I love you, yes I do
I love everything about you
I love how you laugh in your sleep
How you smell of roses when you weep
I love your style
your wide-open prairie smile
Hide not your light under a bushel

***

Marjorie works the diner
At the five and dime
Making sure that no one feels alone
She’s famous for her kindness
And her Solomon’s advice
But if you saw her on the bus
You’d not look twice

***

Oh darlin, only touch the things that turn you on
Let whatever makes you dark and dull and drained be gone
Even if people criticize you and say you’re wrong

***

The heart is worn on her sleeve.  Sometimes, the midst of a gorgeous tune and lyrics, Jane started talking to us, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion.  She laughed a lot.  At one point she said, “I guess you’re used to a break.”  She usually pushes on through to the end.  A woman who’s totally herself … no apologies, no arrogance, no pretense.  It was lovely to see.

Jane was embarrassed to talk about us buying a CD at intermission.  Still, she offered us an “ambassador CD”.  “Give it to someone who might be interested in my music.”  Buy one, give one.  So cool.

There was no announcement of the last number.  Jane just said something like “That’s it.”  After we absorbed this message, almost all of us rose for a standing O.  It was well deserved.  Once the applause had settled, she simply said “I’d like to do an encore.  None of this going offstage and then coming back on.”  So she sat down at her piano and gave us more of her soul.  Easily remembered, this Jane Siberry.

We Play On

Tonight was the night!  I dressed formal, vaguely remembering how to tie a Windsor knot.  Then Renato and I headed to the London airport.  Thirty white chairs sat in the concourse.  Slowly they filled … with musicians from the former Orchestra London.  When they lost their government funding, the organization went into bankruptcy, but many of the members continued playing as the We Play On Orchestra..

In front of the podium hung a red sign: “Conduct Us!”  So we did.  Young and old and medium.  Musicians and novices.  Those with confidence and those shaking in their boots.

When it was my turn, I took the baton from the concertmaster (the number one violinist), stepped onto the podium, tapped the music stand and raised my arms.  Smiles from many of the players.  Then we were off, into some fast Christmas piece whose name I can’t remember.  I swirled my arms during the loud parts and pulled in my limbs during the tender sections.  I was a conductor!  And I was enthralled.  A female violinist to my left kept grinning.  Actually she did so for every one of the conductors, maybe thirty in all.  Oh, bliss!  I had so looked forward to tapping that stand and directing such immensely talented musicians.  Dreams do come true.

Here are a few of my favourite moments:

  1. A little boy doesn’t want to take off his baseball cap off when conducting.  A helpful adult turned it around so we could see his face.  Then he gave ‘er.
  2. A young woman in a green down coat clearly had never done this before but soldiered on with a huge smile adorning her face throughout.  Wild applause from her friends standing at the back.
  3. A 2-year-old girl wearing a pink toque is carried by her mom and together they lead the orchestra.  Later, when another child was on the podium, the little one kept conducting in the wings, using a pink straw to great effect.
  4. A man in his twenties keeps a steady beat while his girlfriend films the whole thing.  When the piece was over, he sat down beside her.  They held hands and she leaned her head against his neck.
  5. As her young daughter conducts, mom holds her cell phone high and just beams love.  An eternal smile … ecstasy beyond words.
  6. An elderly man gives it his all.  His technique was muted, a little bit jerky, but the universe doesn’t care.  He led.  The musicians followed.  It was good.
  7. A 10-year-old girl grabs the baton and jerks it up and down with gusto, then starts dancing mid-performance.  The podium survived nicely.

Throughout, the concertmaster welcomed each conductor, encouraging the nervous ones, and letting the folks with more confidence do their thing.  Instruments came alive in the hands of professional Christmas celebrators.  Violin, cello, viola, double bass, trumpet, trombone, bassoon, clarinet, drums, and others not remembered – all were happy to be there.  So were the throngs coming in on the latest flight and their loved ones there to pick them up.  A fine time was had by all.

“God bless us, every one”

 

 

Eighty-Four Days … Part Two

As the weeks of silence rolled on, music came into my head … and stayed.  I was awake 18 hours a day and I’d guess that towards the end of the retreat the songs were alive and well for 16 of those hours.  First it was recognizable tunes, such as “All Through The Night” and “Pachelbel Canon”.   But then the words and known melodies faded away, in favour of unknown music.  I went for a three mile walk every day and one particular melody stayed with me for the whole time.  It was vibrant and danceable, and my body often responded with a jig and a jag.  That one song went on for an hour or more.

During periods of sitting meditation, the melodies were usually slow and sweet but occasionally the orchestra inside my head would swell to ecstatic highs – great runs of fast notes.  My head and the rest of my body rose up.  I was still sitting but my spine was erect.  It felt like I was reaching for heaven.  I worried that my fellow yogis could hear my silent singing.  One of my teachers commented, “Bruce, have you ever heard music that’s inside people?  No?  Neither have I.  They can’t hear you!”

For the first few days back at home, the melodies kept coming.  Now, two weeks from the end of the retreat, I don’t hear the songs anymore.  And I miss them.  Sometimes in the meditation hall, I tried to stop them.  I scrunched my forehead.  I lowered my head between my legs.  And still the music flowed.  I eventually let go and let it all wash over me.  Now I want it to come back.  And I can’t control that either.  Ten days ago, I sat at the piano and felt the music in my fingers.  I want to do that again.

I haven’t meditated much since I got home.  Tomorrow, I’m going to sit for an hour or so and see what emerges.  Not an act of will.  A letting be.  But I feel my attachment to the music.  Like I did with Ginette, I need to let that go.  By grace do we receive.

I might even go for a walk.

 

 

 

The Messiah … Part One

I went to see Handel’s Messiah at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Ontario last night.  Fifty members of the Pro Musica Choir were joined by about twenty string musicians from the former Orchestra London.  Four soloists (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone) shared their passion with us.  The ceiling was lofty, the stained glass was exquisite, and we filled the church.

Maybe fifteen years ago, I sang The Messiah with the members of the Knox Presbyterian Church choir in St. Thomas, Ontario.  It was a precious event for me … just like yesterday.

I didn’t time things too well and walked into the church only ten minutes before showtime.  The place was packed.  I walked to the front, saw an empty seat in the second row on the aisle and asked the woman sitting beside it if the space was occupied.  No, it wasn’t.  I sat down, marvelling at how blessed I am in this life.

The context of The Messiah is Christian and the “He” being referred to in song is of course Jesus.  As I listened to the short interlocking pieces, though, I saw another way of holding the words.  Here are some reflections, some fostered by the Buddha, and some just entering my head unbidden:

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
And all flesh shall see it together

What is to be revealed? Perhaps the animation of daily life, where each moment can be breathed into (“animus” in Latin), and a dimension of spirit accessed within the flow of the daily round.  Even within our difficult times, we can hold the world with new eyes.  And to be among a group of people who consciously walk this path, such as during the meditation retreat I just experienced, is lovely.

But who may abide the day of his coming?
And who shall stand when he appeareth?

To abide.  To stand.  No forward movement.  No becoming something new.  Rather being in place and allowing the essence of being to escape through the pores.

Nowhere to go
Nothing to do
Nothing to know
No one to be

In the conventional world, such phrases may appear to be nonsense.  But I think not …

And he shall purify the sons of Levi
That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness

It seems that there’s a natural force of purification that seeps into folks who embrace a spiritual practice.  Often the need to accumulate diminishes, as well as the need to protect ourselves.  Fear lessens.  The heart opens.  And what was so important last year just isn’t so anymore.  Such as being right, being strong, being assertive.  What’s left is appropriate behaviour that often touches others.

Lift up thy voice with strength.  Lift it up.  Be not afraid
Arise.  Shine.  For thy light is come

As fear of what others think drops away, we speak wisely, with head held high.  We speak without demand, without needing to convince, without dominating.  We speak what is welling up inside us.  And people notice.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light

There is the story of Plato’s cave.  Chained human beings face the back wall, observing shadows that they believe are real.  Such as “I need more, better and different.”  When unchained, they turn around, walk to the mouth of the cave, and behold the sun.  Perhaps terrifying.  Too bright.  But home nonetheless.

Unto us a son is given
And the government shall be upon his shoulder

Something is born in us.  Some mysterious energy.  And we feel the responsibility to do good in this world, to love unconditionally, to be kind.

Glory to God in the highest
And peace on earth.  Goodwill toward men

We are peace.  And the inside becomes the outside.  Simply “being with” people is a joy.

His yoke is easy and his burthen is light

Suffering still happens but something is different.  Fear, anger and sadness are held tenderly, embraced as part of life.  They still hurt but somehow there’s a sweetness within the pain.

Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world

I look at the ways I’ve hurt people and I feel remorse.  Still, self-compassion washes over me and I see the fragile, imperfect human being that I am.  Some energy is holding me up.

***

Hmm.  I’m tired, and I’m only halfway through The Messiah.  But I’m having fun.  I think I’ll tackle the second half tomorrow.  Goodnight.

Day Twenty-Seven … Music To My Ears

I love traditions, even ones that I’ve only been marginally a part of.  Most every Sunday in the new millennium, Lance has made breakfast for his family – fluffy pancakes and bacon.  I mean this guy knows how to make pancakes, and when they’re drizzled with maple syrup …  Yum!  On Sunday, Nona was still dozing but “the boys” (five of us) chowed down.  I suggested we talk “man stuff” but none of us could figure out what that was.

Ember was bipping here and there around our feet, hoping for a tasty morsel.  Tasty but not very good for her.  She managed a piece of bacon.  Above the table, all mouths were kept discreetly closed as we chewed, except for sometimes.  All this was a convenient, but nutritionally necessary excuse to hang out together.  I wonder if Jagger, Jace and Jaxon will realize at 35 how very special their morning breakies with dad were.  I hope so.

In the afternoon, it was off to the Longstock Music and Arts Festival, held in a park only a block from Lance and Nona’s place in Longview.  How’s that for convenient?  We six carried our lawn chairs down the way and plunked ourselves down among the audience.  Ten gallon hats were sprinkled among the crowd.  Smiles were far more common than that.  And onto the stage there strolled “The Travelling Mabels”, three Alberta women anchored by the spirit of Eva Levesque, who actually is a neighbour of Lance’s.  These women told great stories within their melodies and harmonies.  I hummed along and sometimes sang along.  I tried to get Nona to get up on stage with me to sing a few ditties but she demurred with a smile.  Ahead of us, I saw a woman whose long hair was a gorgeous combo of auburn and blonde.  I wanted that, rather than the current grey highlights that I’m sporting.  Nona wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

My favourite song from the Mabels was “Teach Your Children Well”, written by Graham Nash.  I definitely sang along to that one.  It’s part of my history.

Words for me:

You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself because the past is just a goodbye

Words for Lance and Nona:

Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you

Words for Jaxon, Jagger and Jace:

 And you, of the tender years can’t know the fears that your elders grew by
And so please help them with your youth, they seek the truth before they can die

After the music, I strolled into a tent and met an artist named Carol.  On the wall was a pencil drawing of Andy Russell, an outdoorsman who lived on a hill just outside of Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta.  As a young man, I worked at the Prince of Wales Hotel in the park and often looked up at Andy’s place and longed to follow the driveway to his soul.  But I never did meet the author of Tales Of A Wilderness Wanderer and Horns In The High Country.  Reading those pages, I got such a sense of the Southern Alberta foothills and mountains.  It was like coming home.  And next week, Lance and Nona will be bringing me home to Waterton.  I’ll be saying hi to the Bruce who lived 40 years ago.

***

I told Jace that it was his turn to add a final word to today’s post, if he wanted to.  I said that who knows how many people would be reading this.  What do you want to say to them?  Dad piped up with “Imagine you’re speaking to all of them in a big hall.”  So what was the result, you ask?

“Get off your butt and go outside!”

Day Nine … Resonating In My Heart

My day began with slight miscalculations.  I’m staying near Kamloops, BC on August 1 and 2.  Since Kamloops is directly west of Edmonton, I figured I’d spend the night of July 31 in Alberta’s capital.  I could sit in the West Edmonton Mall for a few hours and drink in the aura of rampant commercialism.  However, truth be told, Kamloops is directly west of Calgary.  So skip the mall and revel in the beauty of the Icefield Parkway between Banff and Jasper … gorgeous mountains on all sides, complete with a few glaciers.  I can’t wait.

Laundry time yesterday morning.  Real showed me the washer and everything looked straightforward.  So around went the clothes.  Then the drier.  As I reached for a Bounce sheet, I had the niggly feeling that I hadn’t put anything of a similar nature into the washer, such as detergent.  Sadly, I was correct.  My T-shirts  and shorts were very wet and still stinky.  So back into the washer they went.

I like my brain, even when I forget stuff, like standing in the basement wondering why I’m there.  I mean, who wants a totally efficient mind?  If I was focused all the time, there wouldn’t be any room to contemplate life, death and the universe.

In the afternoon, I went to see Taiko drummers at the Japanese Garden in Lethbridge – eleven women and one man who smashed the heck out of the skins atop two-foot-high wooden drums which looked like giant teacups without the handles.  The fellow especially gave it his all.  His whole body moved to the rhythms of his sticks.  Wide stance, trance-like facial expressions, small Japanese words slipping out of his mouth.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him.  The women were in their 40’s to 60’s, I’d say, and you could see the exhaustion on their faces at the end of a piece.  All sorts of rhythms from the different drummers.  Quiet tappings that grew into thrusts of power and back again.  I was gone into the music.  Thank you, Taiko folks.

And then there was the peace of the garden.  Gently curving paths. Gently curving grassy slopes.  A reflection pond hosting pagoda statues.  A four-foot-high copper gong that I rang with an oiled horizontal post.  Then I held the gong for a couple of minutes until the vibration died.  Sweet.

A family of five came towards me on the path.  I’d guess they were from India.  I asked them If they’d like me to take their picture.  “Of course.  Thank you.”  After I had done the deed, the girl of about ten smiled at me .. so fully, so lovingly, so much beyond the usual contact we have with each other.  Like the drumming, the outside flooded the inside.  Thank you, young lady.

I had a nice talk with the hostess at the visitor centre.  When I was about to leave, she asked if she could hug me.  So we did … for a long time.  Just holding – no tapping or crushing.  Lovely.

Veronica, Real and I went out to dinner at Luigi’s Pizza and Steak House in Lethbridge.  Our server was a nervous young man.  He tried describing the daily special but all he could manage was “chicken filet”.  Veronica told him, “Luigi’s has such a big menu.  It must be hard to keep track of it all.”  When he walked away from the table, I gave her the thumbs up.  That’s just what the world needs: compassion.

Back home again, Veronica and I sat for a bit on the deck.  We talked of the last hours of her mom Joan and my Jody.  Of letting go.  Of telling them that it was okay to go.  Wanting to be alone with our loved one as she died.  Four moist eyes embraced our loves in the dark of the evening.

Then it was time with Real and Veronica’s two dogs.  Luigi, a furry little white thing, lay in my lap, purring with my petting.  Riggs, a British bulldog, occupied my other hand with rubs.  So here and so now.

Today, I’m visiting my sister-in-law Nona’s dad Gordon in a nursing home before Scarlet guides me to Calgary.  I’m staying with my friend Isabelle and her husband … Bruce.  I don’t know.  Two Bruces in one house?  Could be trouble.

How I met Isabelle is another story.  Tomorrow.

Passion for the Music

I leaned on the front of the stage at SunFest last night.  Eight feet away from me was a cellist, a member of the Ukrainian quartet Dakha Brakha.  Here’s what the program had to say about them:

Three striking women in white wedding dresses and tall black Astrakhan hats … harmonizing in mighty steel-tearing Ukrainian white voice, two band members pounding drums and the third digging into a folk-pattern-painted cello with massive abrasive energy, plus a male singer wielding accordion and trombone

Indeed.

To be so close to a woman who closed her eyes, threw her head back and sang unknown words was a marvel.  She held her cello between her knees at an angle rather than straight on.  She played some incredibly high notes and would slide her finger down for the next one, creating a mournful wail.  Again with her eyes often closed.

To see those women in their embroidered dresses, wearing many loops of large grey beads around their necks, and to feel the power of the drums … Wow.  Some kind entity allowed me to experience the driving beat and the tender ballads from a few feet away.  I’ve had so many intense moments over the last month, usually with music, and I feel my heart continuing to open and stay open.  Something is happening to me.

Spirit in the Afternoon … Spirit in the Evening

I’m in Toronto this weekend to draw closer to God, Spirit, Essence, Love … whichever word you choose.

After lunch yesterday, I headed to the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre on Titan Road.  How did I know it was there?  Well, the hotel I was staying at displayed The Toronto Star at the front desk, and the Weekend Life section’s front page had an article entitled “Hometown Tourist: Tibet”.  We readers were directed towards the best of Tibetan culture, religion, restaurants and shopping.  And I found myself directed to Titan Road for the 80th birthday celebration of the Dalai Lama.  Someone is taking care of me.  And I bet her name is Jody.

As I walked towards the centre, I saw families gathered under the trees, many of them dressed in Tibetan dresses and robes.  Happy faces in the shade.  Colourful prayer flags were strung between the branches, and were lifted by the breeze.  At the entrance stood two eight-foot prayer wheels, which folks were turning clockwise.  The adults tended to rotate the wheels slowly but when it was the kids’ turn, the symbols on the cylinders blurred in the spin.  Both were perfect expressions of God animating our world.

Inside, after a few minutes of looking around, I came to the conclusion that I was the only non-Oriental person present.  And it was a good feeling.  Not once did I feel excluded.  I sat down with hundreds of others to hear Tibetan music and listen to speakers, all in a language I didn’t understand.  It still felt like home.  A woman had graciously offered me a chair near her family.  Later in the afternoon, there was a buffet spread out on a few long tables, and people started lining up, including several monks in their red robes.  A woman approached me and in English invited me to join the line.  She had such a big smile.  I couldn’t help return it.  One male server kindly warned me about the sauce I was about to glob onto my noodles.  “Very hot.”  So I took just a bit, still enough to attack my innards for a few hours.  Oh well.  When in Rome …

I wandered around the room, looking at the homemade posters on the walls honouring the Dalai Lama.  Many of them were done by kids.  Here’s a quote from His Holiness:

The planet does not need more “successful people”.  The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.”

Amen.

***

Last night, I sat on the steps of the Metropolitan United Church in downtown Toronto, becoming friends with Andrea and David.  Hundreds of us were waiting for the doors to open.  Krishna Das had come to lead us in two-and-a-half hours of Sanskrit chanting.  We sang the names of God in a huge sanctuary framed by tall stained glass windows.  Krishna would sing a line such as “Om Namo Bhagavaate Vaasudevaaya” and we would send it right back to him.  Just as earlier in the day, I didn’t know what the words meant, but the speaking of them touched the core of me.  As we chanted, I was often lost in love.  Sometimes the music sent my arms and legs into spirals and rhythms.  At other times, I was perfectly quiet, head bowed, just listening to the choir.

Where did those hours go?  I don’t know.  Strangely, I didn’t feel the urge to pee, or to shift my bottom on those hard wooden pews.  Lost in a lovely space.  And Jody was right there with me.  Thank you, Jodiette.

At the end, many people, including David, walked up to the front to say a word to Krishna.  I saw David wait patiently as Krishna talked to other people first.  And the man of the hour was so gracious … smiling, hugging and posing for photos with his new friends.  The Spirit is alive in him.

“The man of the hour”?  Well, that’s really not right.  In the afternoon and in the evening, each of us – male or female, young or old – was the person, not of the hour, but of the moment.  Such a huge family.

Two Women

In the early 70’s, London had a coffee house downtown called Smale’s Pace.  Last night was the fifth Smale’s Pace Reunion, with nine folk musicians appearing in front of us at Aeolian Hall.  Such talent and passion for songs that tell a story.

Seven of the performers were men.  I was transfixed by the other two, especially when they were listening to other folks sing and play.  Laura Smith swayed to the music and joined in the choruses.  Then it was her turn:

I built a boat
I built her for one
I didn’t find any flaws
Until long after I was done
Everything was fine
Until I lost sight of shore
Then I knew
I didn’t want to be
In a boat for one anymore
You should see me working
I’m tearing her apart
Working night and day
Rebuilding with my heart
It’s there in all the pieces
I see it in every curve
The flawed design
I built a boat with fear
And shattered nerve
I’m building a boat
I’m building her for two
The hardest part was starting
I don’t know when I’ll be through
You should see me working
I’m tearing her apart
Working night and day
Rebuilding with my heart
I’m taking all the time I want to
All the time I need
I’m building her for comfort
I’m not interested in speed
I’m building a boat
I’m building her for two
She’s going to catch the wind
The way that lovers do

I’m so glad we built a boat for two, Jodiette.

My gate’s wide open and the world is coming in

 ***
My gate’s wide open and my dreams are getting out

What a lovely life to lead

***

And then there was Sue Lothrop.  She smiled and smiled as others played.  Actually, at first I couldn’t guarantee she was smiling.  A neighbour’s music stand covered the bottom half of her face.  But you can tell from the top half, can’t you?  All the muscles were up and the eyes were shining.

As one fellow played virtuoso ukulele, Sue’s whole being widened in astonishment.  Her hands were curled together on her lap, the left over the right.  Then she opened her left hand, fingertips stretching upwards, only to move in applause at the end of the piece.

I was there.  Oh, what a lucky boy am I.