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Month: January 2009

Using Disclaimers Where They Really Count

Published on January 15, 2009

I just purchased a printing of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali (with an introduction by W.B. Yeats). It includes the following disclaimer on the title page:

“This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

Wow. Quite a caveat for the reader or monitor for the reader.

Just a couple of things:

First, at no place in this printing does it identify WHEN this book was written, except by coincidence in the Yeats’ introduction, which is dated “September 1912”. The publishing date says (c) 2008 Wilder Publications, and also reads “First Edition”. Really! A 2008 first edition is a product of THIS time. But I know that not to be the case, so what “time” is this book really the product of? And come to think of it, have the views promulgated in this writing REALLY changed all that much, for the majority of people? Probably not.

Second, who is this warning for? What uninformed soul is likely to read this prose poem unawares?

Finally, and perhaps most puzzling, why isn’t this disclaimer printed in LARGE, BOLD LETTERS on the title page of the BIBLE?

It seems a far more appropriate warning there, doesn’t it?

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The Wrong Side

Published on January 13, 2009

We all want to be the victor,
to believe that right is always on our side;
and to those who would oppose us,
any kind of sympathy we would deny.

Keeping score, mind on the numbers,
so we never lose an inch of precious ground;
‘Cause there’s only so much of it all,
and never quite enough to go around.

It’s a constant state of vigilance,
just making sure you always end up on the top;
only fools and weak kneed cowards
dare suggest that anyone would dare to stop.

At what price, this precious victory?
To win, at last, and be alone and free;
with no one to share the moment with,
no one to dare to doubt or disagree.

You know, the world is full of choices
and each one of us must live as we decide;
So before you burn your bridges
best make sure to not be stuck on the wrong side.

13 JAN 2009

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A New Technique for Slap and Funk Bass

Published on January 2, 2009

OK … so here it is.

Last night whilst playing my usual gig with Hardrick Rivers and company at the Pioneer Pub in Natchitoches, I believe that I discovered a new (and potentially revolutionary) technique for playing slap, pop and funk bass.

I had been thinking on two different wavelengths prior to last night.

The first was Victor Wooten’s right hand technique, particularly the thumb technique where he uses his thumb as if he were wearing a thumb pick – as opposed to a Larry Graham/Bootsy Collins thumb technique which approaches the strings vertically (i.e., the thumb pops up vertically from the string in a primarily percussive thwack), Victor’s technique involves popping with the thumb horizontally so it can perform an upstroke for additional speed and effect. When he combines this with left guitarist technique for hammer-ons and pull-offs, the end result is dazzling speed.

The second was Jaco Pastorius’ use of chording and false harmonics. When exploring different chord shapes and voices around the neck, I sounded the chords out using arpeggios played with my thumb, index, middle (and sometimes ring) fingers – not an unusual approach when one is playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar – or banjo. Particularly claw hammer style banjo.

The innovation is the claw hammer approach. I admit I was troubled with the “double-thumb” technique of Victor’s. Why not just use a thumb-pick, as you would on a banjo, instead of resting (and in a sense, limiting the range of motion of) your thumb. I’ve always avoided techniques that involved resting the hand in anyway on the strings or nearby props (like the old Precision thumb rests). And my thumb slap technique was deeply rooted in the vertical style.

But to use the thumb and first fingers in combination, and move the thumb for a second combination stroke with subsequent index and ring finger “plucks”? Keeping an underlying rhythm going consisting of sounded notes and/or muted string unsounded notes while the hand floats above the strings (and along the neck)? That, my friends, is “claw hammer funk” bass.

I’m still working out the details and some of the mechanics. But the end result should be (provided that you have sufficient hand strength) a bass style that provides both thumb and finger pop and slap, with a fluidity and dexterity akin to Earl Scruggs banjo technique.

And there you have it.

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Space Between Breath

Published on January 2, 2009

What still remains when words have run their course,
and soundless, lay exuberant and spent
beyond the realm of sound? What is the source
that waits between each breath, self-evident

for just the briefest moment, as the lull
when one idea dies and one is born
expands in pregnant silence and is full
of consonants and vowels not yet quite formed?

In which dimension does such time exist?
It has no breadth or width, nor is it tall.
It has no form, but hangs like evening mist
on summer nights surrendering to fall.

And past that quiet whisper, when all sound
has faded into nothing and is gone,
the meaning of the universe is found:
the stuff that only dreams are built upon.

02 JAN 2009

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