Ukulaliens unite!

We probably don’t need more indigenous focus in our class. But I’m glad I looked at Borrowed Power. I focused on Stop Stealing Native Stories,” an essay by Lenore Keeshig-Tobias. Gerard sent me to Canlitguides.ca where there is a great assignment based on stolen stories. The readings included led me to “The Cattle Theif,” (1895) by E. Pauline Johnson. I kept coming back to this poem and could not shake the powerful message…from 1895!  I would encourage you to read the following aloud…

“The Cattle Thief” by E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)

They were coming across the prairie, they were galloping hard and fast;

For the eyes of those desperate riders had sighted their man at last—

Sighted him off to Eastward, where the Cree encampment lay,

Where the cotton woods fringed the river, miles and miles away.

Mistake him? Never!—Mistake him? the famous Eagle Chief!

That terror to all the settlers, that desperate Cattle Thief—

That monstrous, fearless Indian, who lorded it over the plain,

Who thieved and raided, and scouted, who rode like a hurricane!

But they’ve tracked him across the prairie; they’ve followed him hard and fast;

For those desperate English settlers have sighted their man at last.

Up they wheeled to the tepees, all their British blood aflame,

Bent on bullets and bloodshed, bent on bringing down their game;

But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that lion had left his lair,

And they cursed like a troop of demons—for the women alone were there.

The sneaking Indian coward, they hissed; he hides while yet he can;

He’ll come in the night for cattle, but he’s scared to face a man.

Never! and up from the cotton woods rang the voice of the Eagle Chief;

And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the Cattle Thief.

Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty years had rolled

Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the bone and old;

Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the warmth of blood.

Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the sight of food.

He turned, like a hunted lion: I know not fear, said he;

And the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in the language of the Cree.

I’ll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I kill you all, he said;

But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen balls of lead

Whizzed through the air about him like a shower of metal rain,

And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped dead on the open plain.

And that band of cursing settlers gave one triumphant yell,

And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that writhed and fell.

Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carcass on the plain;

Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he’d have treated us the same!

A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed high,

But the first stroke was arrested by a woman’s strange, wild cry.

And out into the open, with a courage past belief,

She dashed, and spread her blanket o’er the corpse of the Cattle Thief;

And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in the language of the Cree,

If you mean to touch that body, you must cut your way through me.

And that band of cursing settlers dropped backward one by one,

For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was a woman to let alone.

And then she raved in a frenzy that they scarcely understood,

Raved of the wrongs she had suffered since her earliest babyhood:

Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch that dead man to your shame;

You have stolen my father’s spirit, but his body I only claim.

You have killed him, but you shall not dare to touch him now he’s dead.

You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief, though you robbed him first of bread—

Robbed him and robbed my people—look there, at that shrunken face,

Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and your race!

What have you left to us of land, what have you left of game,

What have you brought but evil, and curses since you came?

How have you paid us for our game? how paid us for our land?

By a book, to save our souls from the sins you brought in your other hand!

Go back with your new religion, we never have understood

Your robbing an Indian’s body, and mocking his soul with food!

Go back with your new religion, and find—if find you can—

The honest man you have ever made from out a starving man.

You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not our meat;

When you pay for the land you live in, we’ll pay for the meat we eat!

Give back our land and our country, give back our herds of game;

Give back the furs and the forests that were ours before you came;

Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come with your new belief,

And blame, if you dare, the hunger that drove him to be a thief.

Attali- Noise The Political Economy of Music

Afterword by Susan McClary

“The subject of Attali’s book is noise, and his method is likewise noise. His unconcealed ideological premises, his penchant for sullying the purity of pitch structures with references to violence, death, and (worst of all) money, and his radically different account of the history of Western music all jar cacophonously against the neat ordering of institutionalized music scholarship, especially as it is practiced in the United States. It is, therefore, quite conceivable that those trained in music will perceive the book’s content also as noise- that is, as nonsense- and dismiss it out of hand.”

 

Attali breaks music into 4 ‘Networks’ throughout history:

1. Sacrificial Ritual
   1. Music’s distributive network- how music is passed from person to person
   2. Music is used in society to further religious, social, economic, symbolic ideologies
   3. Music is decentralized economically
2. Representation
   1. Music becomes a spectacle- how music is passed has changed
   2. Music is experienced in concert halls, or specific places, you must go to it for it
   3. Money is being exchanged, entrance fees… follow the money…
3. Repetition
   1. Music’s network changes dramatically- music maker no longer passes the music
   2. Recording: storing representation
   3. Music is consumed individually (network no longer relies on society)
4. Composition
   1. Music is performed for the musician’s own enjoyment- not necessarily even passed…
   2. No other goal, other than that of the music making itself
   3. Proposes a radical social model: personal transcendence

 

As community musicians, are we helping to build the social construct around music needed in order to achieve Attali’s final network, Composition? 

As community musicians, how does money fit into our narrative of where we would like society to go, musically? Do we need it to sustain our music?

So, Atalli is great and all but Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros really scared the hell out of me…Silence

I don’t share much, I am not a sharer. But this one is pretty cool: I can’t hear silence. I have tinnitus, which is pretty common, and most closely associated with a perceived ringing in the ear. Medical science now tells us that this is happening in the brain, and not the inner ear, as was initially believed. After an MRI and a really excited ENT Specialist, who just loved the scans of my inner ear, I found there is nothing physically wrong with me (well, my ears anyways).

So with no apparent reason or cause, this is my situation: The worst reaction I get is very similar to what happens in a modern action flick (most notably Saving Private Ryan types) where there is a loud explosion! Nothing is heard on the soundtrack except a ringing… the other sounds slowly come back… This happens rarely, and without the explosion of course. Instead of an explosion I get a strange feeling that takes my attention away from what I am doing for a moment. Then sounds fade very quickly (under a second) and the ringing is turned up to whatever level it is going to go to. It varies from loud, shout type ranges to a quiet whisper of a voice.

The most subtle version of my condition is what really freaks me out. And I knew I would encounter it and would want to experiment a little with it while going through some of the practices outlined in the book. Ya, the book. Remember? This is all about a book…

Try this: find your quiet space, your quietest space where there is no sound. As trained musicians we know that we will always hear some sort of sound. If we try this in a classroom, you will immediately notice the sounds of the building breathing (or living if you will). If you can manage to find an actual quiet space, where there are no sounds, chances are, when you focus enough, you will hear something. I always have my little ringing friend, it is always there, like an old tube television in the next room showing static with the volume at about 10%. You can hear it if you try, and if you are trying to hear something, you will notice it. Almost like a constant hiss in the background.

Anyways, I knew some of the practices outlined by Oliveros would take me into this space, a space I really didn’t want to go, despite my interest in fucking around with my own situation a little bit (kind of a ‘kan’t beat em, join em type of attitude). So instead of focusing on trying to take you through some of the practices outlined in the book, I focused on trying to have those without tinnitus experience, perhaps, hearing with a constant ringing. So that will be the focus of my presentation.

More about the book:

Oliveros writes: “What is Deep Listening? This question is answered in the process of practicing listening with the understanding that the complex wave forms continuously transmitted to the auditory cortex from the outside world by the ear require active engagement with attention.” (xxi)

The author begins by explaining that hearing is made possible by the use of the ear and the science and physiology that makes the waves recognizable and analyzable. Listening requires attention, it is not merely a passive act.

So the Deep part “has to do with the complexity and boundaries, or edges beyond ordinary or habitual understanding.” (xxiii) Oliveros explains the relationship between Deep and Listening involves the “whole space/time continuum of sound– encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible.” (xxiii)

With this information, we can begin to play with out attention and our focus during different listening activities. The book has a fantastic repertoire of Oliveros’ activities, workshops, and practices that she has developed over the past couple of decades.

Moreover, Oliveros goes to to explain that Deep Listening is also a form of meditation in that “Attention is directed to the interplay of sounds and silences or the sound/silence continuum.” (xxiv)

The practice of Deep Listening takes practice, control, and discipline and is intended to expand conciousness to the whole space/time continuum of sound/silences… a process that extends the listener to this continuum as well as to focus instantaneously on a single sound or sequence of sound/silence.” (xxiv)

Final thoughts: Best quote from the whole book that had the biggest impact on my listening: Deep listening comes from noticing my listening or listening to my listening and discerning the effects in my bodymind continuum…” (xxiv)

Listen to your listening. Listen…listen…

Oral, Physical Things, Recording and Broadcasting

No intro needed if you know what I’m ‘blogging’ about by now. If so, no need to continue. Just confirm/deny/alter/dispute/ignore.

If you don’t, we may find ourselves in similar watercraft.

As I try to wrap my head around this book (Noise: The Political Economy of Music) I find myself trying to truncate Attali’s thoughts and ideas. I have found that reading through this as I was once taught by a history professor (at WLU) has helped. Read through the chapter titles, then paragraph topic/concluding sentences, and fill in where you think you need to.

Being unfamiliar with half of the main words in the title scared me at first, but we have been told to follow the money and I’m not one to shy from a challenge. (Except blogging, I’m not a fan.)

I will do my best to use this medium to explain Attali’s ideas to myself and to you, a ukulalien in disguise.

 

Post Script: Why do we even have post script anymore? We can simply go edit our original. Not like them days with tablets and chisels…

I have many names. They coincide with different eras of my life. Most recently I am known as Jonathan Marsh, professional Teacher. I have been Jonny Danger and also Dr. Jonny Fever. My name means gift from god, if you believe in that sort of thing. But here is a link to my favourite rendition: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jonathan.

My people are as yet unknown to me. I feel more like a nomad travelling from tribe to tribe. Not really in search of anything yet, just the nature of my situation.

My location is where I make music, where I am at home. Saxophones and ukuleles are my thing.

My sense of meaning in terms of my being here, involving myself in a community of music, is more about keeping in touch with my own musicality, while helping others explore theirs.