This morning I bicycled over to Upaya to submit to a filmed interview about our journey to Kham and Roshi Joan for a documentary. While riding up the hill and then along the dirt road I was wondering what I could possible say that would be useful. Our 6 weeks in Tibet have become like a pointillist painting to me – when one takes a few steps back, one no longer notices the individual dots. But once we started, it was easy and even enjoyable to talk about that time.
I realized that I would like to do another journey like that one. Yesterday there was talk at the table about Roshi’s recent trip to China and Japan. And while I would love to see some of the ancient temples of Buddhism, I am not eager to go because what made the Kham journey so wonderful for me was the fact that I experienced the landscape on foot – the only true way to experience/learn a landscape. I have no interest in sitting in a bus/train/plane to travel from one location to the next. You might say, that is what I do for a living anyway, for it is very much like being on tour. Lobby-call at 8AM, bus leaves at 8:30, 11AM arrival at temple, lunch at 12:30PM etc…
“Are musicians, and by that I mean people who study and play a traditional musical instrument, a dying breed?â€
Yes. I fully expect the instrument I play and have studied for 40 years (the double bass) to completely disappear within the next 50 years.
Maybe, but I actually don’t think that’s going to happen. There is a delight in drawing sound from an acoustic musical instrument that affects both the player and the listener. Sure, at this point we are fascinated by the possibilities and choices offered by electronics and computers, but I believe we will find that nothing can replace that primal joy of hitting a drum or making that guitar or bass sing. Sometimes the most simple food is the most nourishing – last night I had dinner with friends at Aqua Santa and ordered lentil soup and that felt/tasted better than any fancy dish would have.
It is very possible that you are correct, Steve. I also think it is indeed possible that the classical orchestra will vanish (as expressed by another musician here), but I also feel that while the professional orchestra is at risk because of the sheer cost of it and the lack of public interest, we might see the rise of amateur orchestras. Let’s remember that until less than two hundred years ago most orchestras were made up of amateurs.
Maybe that image from Kham/Tibet happened because the kids were not exposed to MTV and the internet, but I think we might all quite possibly return to that fascination with “real” musical instruments at some point.
I mean, there is nothing like the sensation a bassist gets from playing the upright… it’s a very physical sensation, the resonance of the wood, the feeling of the low notes through one’s body. There is a physical pleasure that derives from playing an acoustic instrument that is unlike anything else.
Eventually society will see the importance of teaching music and fine art in all schools. A life without art and artistic expression is an un-elegant life indeed. Words alone will never express the un-expressable as well as the stroke of a brush or a melody. And while I appreciate the cerebral ideas that are so current, they can never extent me the physical pleasure of acoustic music. In the meantime many musicians have to just weather the drought.
