Telesma - Action in Inaction

When trying to describe Telesma, you quickly find yourself coming up with so many different qualities that one can scarcely imagine all of them applying to the same group. Yet after hearing them you have to concede that yes, they are indeed a tribal-techno-psychedelic-trans-cultural rock band. And their new album Action In Inaction perfectly captures the magic of a band whose music is spiritually uplifting, emotionally moving, intellectually stimulating, infectiously rhythmic and hard rocking - all at once.

Playing For The Kids...Again!

I was delighted to be asked, for the third year in a row, to play a series of classical shows for kids at various branches of the Enoch Pratt Library system in Baltimore. There is an over-arching fairy tale theme for all the events, and the kids, mostly ages 3 to 6, are encouraged to wear costumes. The library staff plans various activities, story time and snacks. Sometimes the music is the center of attention, other times it's just in the background, but I always feel good about being there.

May 2012 Gig Schedule-Newsletter

April was a great month! I had such a great time playing for the Enoch Pratt library kids events again this year, click here to read my blog post on that. Let's plunge forward into the May schedule which has some great shows, and I'm including a sneak preview of the June schedule, because there are some genuinely special events coming up that you will not want to miss! Click "read more" to, um, read more.

Guitar Adventurers

Just wanted to share some music by some great guitar players who are sailing off into the uncharted realms that lie between the frets. I never get over the thrill of discovering players like these, so full of creativity, commitment, talent and exuberance, in such a diverse range of styles.

W.A. Mathieu

I first discovered the work of W.A. Mathieu over 15 years ago, when I came across an audio version of The Listening Book at a local library. Mathieu is an American pianist and musical scholar, trained in jazz, classical, Indian and African music. He also has the gift of explaining deep musical concepts in a way that anyone can understand; his mission is to show that music is an essential part of life itself. Those two cassettes I got at the library that day were life changing because they made tangible what I had always felt but never could quite express: that music is everywhere, in everything. The more you get that, the deeper your personal connection to music can be; this can lead to creative and even spiritual awakening. And yet it's as easy as walking down the street.

Temperament, Equal and Otherwise

If you are studying music, sooner or later you arrive at the question of what "in tune" really means and how it is determined. Especially if you play a fretted instrument like guitar, you start thinking about the notes between the frets, the bent notes, and you wonder, where are they in our musical system? The answer is nowhere. Suddenly a rabbit hole opens up and you are dropped into a new universe of musical concepts. Things you thought you understood, like, you know, notes and chords, are suddenly revealed as incredibly deep subjects. You are obliged to look deeper into the meaning of intervals, overtones and harmonics, and discover their relationship to the history of tuning. You discover Pythagorean tuning, just intonation, mean-tone temperament, microtonalism, the harmonic series, resonance and more. You start listening to sitar music. You finally come to realize what you've known intuitively all along; our whole modern system of equal temperament is wholly inadequate to really describe music. How could this have happened??

March 2012 Newsletter-Schedule

February 2012 marked the loss of the most beloved of gig-mobiles, our 1994 Toyota Camry station wagon. It was the fault of a clueless teenager, not looking where he was going, who pulled out in front of me as I was driving to a gig, forcing a collision. It did minor damage to his rear bumper, but thoroughly smashed my front end.

And of course due to the age of the car, the insurance company wasted no time in declaring it a total loss, and offering a pathetic pittance in compensation. Fortunately I was not injured, and even managed to get my gear into another vehicle and actually made it to the gig. I was probably not at my best, but I do have one simple rule I try to follow in life: show up.
But wait, there's more. Click "read more" to, you know, like, read more - about the really the weird part.