Building a new tune: staying open to learn, continuing the songlines ... a great gift to Earth on Earth Day, 2020

Flicker was busy. Finding breakfast. Robins were up earlier, calling the day, as I lay beside Pete. My mind? Already checking lists doing inventory: how I felt and what I could do. We've eaten our way through our groceries. Yesterday we talked our way through the rough terrain of frustrations and updated how we organize getting our needs met. My body is working deep, my mind needs a tweak to open more space to loosen my over-active defenses.

I'm into the process of caring for myself, juggling the changing details for coping, accepting the limitations of our Otis life, and figuring out where my trust meter needs greasing, again. If I slip on the grease and become fearful and controlling, the fog that comes because I don't know where I'm going? I tighten up, create  a harsh chord or judge too quickly.


One of the elements of healing and encouraging self-care that helps is music. For a Fixed sign like me (Scorpio Sun, Capricorn Moon) the flow of music adds lightness. The light loosens me and I can trust, again. Again and again I find music to safety pin on my posts here: the sounds and hula from Hawaii soothe me at deep and familial ways; old favorites from long-playing vinyl soften my ground, and jazz surprises me.

Herbie Hancock, is my hero, and I can't help myself ... I gush with enthusiasm for the human being. An unexpected hero. Jazz had not been my favorite music, but Herbie Hancock has made a believer outta me. It all started when an old friend I rarely see posted a video on his FB page a couple, maybe three years ago. It was Herbie Hancock. The video, is changing my life.

Today while Pete and I sat on the futon, waiting for our shopper to bring our groceries we had a chance to listen and watch another Hancock video, "Building a tune: with Herbie Hancock." I'd listened to this incredible and informing experience a few nights ago. Late at night when sleep would not come, I put my earphones on while Pete slept. Sometimes, when bed rest can not find a place in my restless body, music will. Pete and I watched and listened to the process of building a tune, making music, with Herbie Hancock, a group of young musicians, and an audience.

The gift I received from re-watching and opening up to the lessons of building a tune was this: each musician contributed to the whole. 

The tune was composed of many parts. Herbie Hancock was part of the process; the bass filled where one bit left space between another; the horns added lift; the drums kept the beat; the pianist worked with Herbie Hancock who orchestrated from his keyboard to lay-down the root chords to a melody. The audience suggested four random notes to get the two pianists started, then named the piece at the end: 'Rock My Soul.' Pete said at the end of the video, "I learned more about jazz in one hour, than I did in the rest of my life."

If there is something, or somethings wonderful and evolutionary that could come from our human experience at this point in our history let it be something that combines my insight (everyone contributing to the whole) and Pete's (learning something new about something, late in life). 

Jazz is about improvisation. Building upon one thing, leading into another, being open to unexpected. Late in the video "Building a tune: with Herbie Hancock," Herbie tells a story about fellow musician Wayne Shorter walking down the street with Miles Davis. Someone (maybe a stranger) is walking close-by, and stumbles a little. "Play that!" said Miles Davis. That's the thing about jazz. So many different events going on in a life, all at once. Choreographing or composing a tune from all the jazz? Magic, art, life.

Thank you, Herbie Hancock. The entire presentation from JAZZ DAY, 2019 from Sydney, Australia was a lesson in the continuum of Songlines, beginning with the respectful opening address acknowledging the First Peoples and caretakers of that continent. With that laying of songline, the Ancestors gave their permission. The Ancestors recognized these people know how to care for this place ... this home.

Reserve an hour and a half to listen and watch the program below. Enjoy an experience with jazz,  building a tune, incorporating songlines into your life with a fine human being and master musician, Herbie Hancock. It could open windows, and inspire y(our) future in unexpected ways.

What a great way to celebrate a beautiful day on Earth. Earth Day, 2020.

Peace! ☮

 

The photograph that opens this post is that of bamboo growing on our friend Jude's land. Bamboo: wild, giant grass that is as strong as steel when it must be, and flexible as wind because it can be. I took the picture during a late summer day in the Maxwelton Watershed, on occupied Coast Salish Land. Have you heard the music bamboo makes with wind?


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