mendel

From perennial favorite Meditation Matters, where Ellie Finlay notes, "this is an excellent way of clarifying the distinction between letting go and indifference:"

Once we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are attached to things staying the same, we realize that relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live. Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

-- Jack Kornfield

The only English calligraphy done by Shunryu Suzuki roshi, founder of the San Francisco Zen Centre. (I wonder if it was from a rakusu?) Via sweep the dust, sweep the dirt.

You know, it's funny that I get all hurr durr over the cello when I've got so many other fun instruments lying around. I haven't played more than a few notes on the flute since.. a long time, really. It shows a little here but like I've said before, my plan is to record early and record often!

This is a tune I picked up off of one of the first flute albums I owned, Matt Molloy's "Stony Steps".

I can't stop watching it.

(thanks to eyeteeth)

A quick update on my previous post:

First, leolo raised a good point in the comments that since I'm renting I ought to take advantage of the ability to return it and then rent again later if necessary without there being any kind of finality to doing so.

And at dinner with nyxie the other night I had a couple of eerie moments of clarity:

The first is that I have about the same number of classical, jazz, and folk CDs (and equivalents), but that I hardly ever listen to jazz (no surprise, got a little burned out on jazz when I got burned out on bass), and I only occasionally listen to classical, but I listen to folk all the time -- and that while I've ripped every folk CD I have, I've barely started on the classical and jazz.

Hmm.

The second was a great little revelation: As a joke I said "I could play banjo instead!" and I realized, huh, I probably would enjoy owning a banjo more than owning a cello. Cello's been very rewarding but it's not exactly fun, I suppose.

So yeah, I think I'm going to wait another few weeks in case I change my mind, and then back goes the cello. (No, I'm not buying a banjo right away. But for perspective, the price of a decent cello could get me a banjo and a new flute and still have some left over. Hmm again!)

And just so this isn't all about me: Is it a grand gesture to anonymously give a woman I think is beautiful a banjo?

hay eyeteeth if you wanted to link to the "eerie moment of clarity" comic in the comments you'd make a happy mendel

So much wrong.



(Found at an Autozone, via The Daily What.)

So ever since I parted ways with my cello teacher back in December, I haven't touched the cello much. And this produces a bit of a dilemma -- well, a dilemma with more than two options, so, uh, a THING.

Anyhow, the thing: There are a lot of instruments in the house and kinds of music that I'm interested in playing, and I'm not sure where to best direct my attention and time and monkey. This would not be a big problem except that I am renting the cello (although I've got money from my double bass that was earmarked for a cello), so I feel kind of silly not playing it regularly. On the other hand taking it back to the Sound Post makes it feel like a decision to give it up.

On the other hand, as much as I've enjoyed going from nothing to Bach, the folk music world has a lot of appeal for me as well. I'm decent on the Irish flute and tinwhistle, and I think I could get to "pretty good" with regular practice. And then there's the guitar and tiny-accordion and bodhran*.

So I'm not sure what to do! It was nice to pick up the cello after years of not playing the bass I owned; it sort of felt like I was going back to classical music on my own terms after failing to do it on other people's terms back in school. But I think I set my sights a little too high on how dedicated I was going to be to getting good, and there's something about the amateur/professional divide and the "adult amateur" classical world and conservatory exams I'm not sure about.

Folk and Irish music on the other hand is for the most part a big welcoming community, and one that I enjoy being part of. You can't make a living with it unless you luck out, unlike the classical world, so you don't have the divide, and it's not quite as... classist? as the classical music world. (Never mind Comhaltas for now.)

(Of course, if I already owned the cello I'd be fine: it can sit as long as it needs to until I'm ready to play more. But going out and buying a cello at this point to solve that problem doesn't seem like a good plan.)

But like nyxie points out, I tend to get bored with things quickly -- although I wouldn't so much call it boredom with the current thing as it is getting interested in the next thing. And I feel silly putting a year of hard work into the cello only to stop, although perhaps part of the problem was that I put a year of hard work in instead of a year of fun.

I don't know how other multi-instrumentalists do it, either, although I think part of it is "get really good before adulthood and then maintain that".

Hurr.

* which I'd have to get reskinned or replaced; the weather won over the goat at some point there.

From today's Tricycle email:

When we get sick, our suffering can put us in touch with the pain of others. When things go well, however, our mind easily accepts this. Like oil absorbing into our skin, attachment to favorable circumstances blends smoothly and invisibly into our thoughts and feelings. Without realizing what's happening, we can become infatuated with our achievements, fame, and wealth. It's difficult to extricate ourselves from positive obstacles. If we could have everything we wish for—wealth, a comfortable house, nice clothing—he advises us to view this good fortune as illusory, like a beautiful dream, and not let it seduce us into complacency.

- Pema Chödrön, from "Cutting Ties: The Fruits of Solitude" (Winter, 2005)

The phrase I bolded there particularly caught my attention.

I did another! I don't think I can keep up "daily" but I like the idea of recording myself often. This one's an Irish folk tune, "Kilkelly, Ireland", written by Peter Jones and made famous by the Clancy Brothers.