The Whole Music Experience

Purposeful Music & Preservation for the Sustainable Age: A Filetta, Wikipedia As I write this essay on bringing back the true intent and purpose of folkloric music, I’m listening to the Corsican polyphony group, A Filetta. In 2006 I co-produced a segment on Corsican polyphony music for “The Old Country,” a radio show produced at the community radio station, KBCS (Bellevue, WA). During my research (which took months), I discovered that this vocal music found its roots in the Corsican shepherds who took their herds up into the Corsican island’s mountains. In fact, I learned that the Corse language was nearly lost because of French bans placed upon it for several decades (I might be wrong about the time frame), and the language was only preserved because of this Corsican vocal tradition and the fact that the shepherds, the ones carrying on this tradition, spent that time in the mountains. The Finnish language also nearly went extinct, but again was preserved through an or...

Caspian Hat Dance We Say No Talk Fishbowl Studios I’ll admit on days like today when I find it challenging to crawl out of bed, I need rousing-kick-me-in-the-butt music. And if the band Caspian Hat Dance’s klezmer-Balkan-Russian extravaganza can’t do it, I don’t know what can. These days, dealing with a high degree of stress and time constraints, I regret that I don’t have time to visit a band’s website, read other reviews, and indulge in those luxuries of the past. Fortunately, this music on the recording, We Say No Talk speaks for itself—a bit wacko, but played with great finesse and enthusiasm. Darn, if these musicians aren’t in love with Eastern European gypsy and Jewish music. The only other band I can think of while listening to this recording is Les Yeux Noirs, though you would need to subtract the French gypsy swing element to get a taste of Caspian Hat Dance. If Fiddler on the Roof meets Romanian gypsies is your thing, then you’d enjoy Caspian Hat Dance’s r...

photo by Patricia Herlevi Employing Music to Untangle Your Nerves We've all had those days where every muscle and tendon in our bodies seems to have tied themselves in knots.  The head throbs, and one more loud noise could send us into a dark place, well, literally, if you end up with a migraine (like I do).  And those of you out there who work in the healing profession or in the arts lean towards oversensitivity to stimuli causing you to feel the stress of this burdened planet more than others.  I know, I'm one among you.  But because of my acute sensitivity, I learned how to employ the healing power of music in my life. The problem is that someone could be extremely sensitive and not know it.  I went most of my life, until my late thirties before I knew why certain stimuli left me with a pounding head and a nauseated stomach.  I thought my jangled nerves were just a normal after-effect of living in the modern world, not that I cared to live in s...

Ballakè Sissoko Vincent Segal Chamber Music Six Degrees Records When we think of the cello, we hear a somber, melancholic sound, mostly attached to European classical music. And when we hear the shimmering sound of a West African kora, the mood that arrives, (though no less sedate than the mood of a cello), feels spiritually uplifting. So pairing these two instruments might seem awkward at first. That is until you hear the beautiful marriage of tones and timbre. While I’m not sure that I would call Ballakè Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Segal (cello) album Chamber Music groundbreaking, certainly it represents one of the most spellbinding albums to come along. The moods of the cello and kora appear to balance each other out, leaving listeners somewhere between melancholy and relaxation. I find this music healing, even powerfully so. Personally, I find Chamber Music deeply relaxing, so relaxing in fact, that I want to crawl back in bed and absorb its warm tones, rather than ty...