uTopianTurtleTop

Making art is a meditation practice.

Concentrating on the beautiful.

Writing a song, learning a part, acting, drawing, manipulating tapes –- it all takes concentration.

Technical questions -– scansion, harmony, rhythm, color, line -– are of interest to people on the meditation-creation path.  For instance, if I write a song and set myself a challenge – “every chord should have the note 'C,'” for instance – that may be of interest to a fellow songwriter, or a player, or it may not.  I don’t see how it could be of interest to someone not involved in the creation of music.

(As it happens, after I wrote the song, I realized the central line of the lyric is, “these are the things I see,” and the climax comes with, “you never know what you’ll see.”  “See” sounds like “C,” si?  I can imagine somebody figuring this out and getting annoyed -– what a pseudo-clever bugger that songwriter is! -– but I swear by my breath, it was unconscious, your honor!)

(Similarly with the song about the birth of my son, which used music I had already written where every chord had to have the major second in it –- the “second” being an “addition,” as is, ha-ha!, my son –- again, the coincidence was unconscious!)

None of this matters to the listening ear.  Does the song move you?  That’s all.