“The past is history, the future a mystery, that’s why we call this moment a present.”
- proverb from a dunny wall
Journaling current events, as an auto ethnography to my musical practice, reveals deeper philosophical dimensions and psychological conditions requiring some reflective response in feeling through, into, our sudden, collective progression of accepting large group gathering restrictions, concert cancellations and venue closures, as we quickly proceed from social distancing morphing into self-isolation. I/we have all come into a Big Now.
The only known place to actually Be and Become.
A well-known space of focused attention stripped of any future imaginings or past ruminations.
Perceiving a Gap in our habitual unconscious ~ consciousness of:
Who, How, What, Where ... R.U.
Now ...
An evolving personal and collective matrix of experience cycling through Awareness.
A call and response, song and dance, where all the power and agency that has ever been is Here/Now.
A Psycho-physical condition where You are an expression of that Awareness in Action.
A Singular manifestation in Relationship with all Others.
Now; a No-thing, easily ignored, that when acknowledged and explored proves to be mighty Big.
This is no secret. Every-body knows it. Repeated experience demonstrates how fleeting or timelessly consuming this moment becomes. That near accident on the highway, or actual auto crash, often takes place in a perceptual Big Now. A chronological event, clocking seconds, that will be exquisitely lived as an expanded perception of a time (a metaphysical concept, akin to ‘consciousness’, that is another known-unknown).
My own Now takes its place in a novel space on a rural farm. An admittedly privileged condition, outside of urban spaces, consisting of fresh air, gardens, animals (domestic and wild) and several other adult humans who mind their own business and keep to physical – distancing with good humour. We have a home, veggie gardens and a pretty ideal “studio” in the yard looking out onto trees and mountains. Don’t weep for me ... It/Is Ideal.
However, physical dimensions aside, the C-19 pandemic event has more or less stopped us all in our tracks. Acceptance and Adaptation to ‘what is’ have come to the fore along with Patience and Kindness. Operative strategies in surfing the day by day revelations and physical separations having consequential outcomes, with the global responses threatening to collapse the economic (sic.) juggernaut we have all been operating within for decades.
This can become a Good Thing; or not.
Depending on how we choose to act and experience Now as a personal and collective choice.
Care & Love vs. Fear & Reaction.
The old outlaw cliché: “Your money or your life ...” being publicly presented as our Epidemiological “Sophie’s Choice”.
What matters, Now, becoming an existential question for everyone as a recognition comes “that we’re all in this together”.
A perennial truth exposing all the cracks in our consensus reality of the 24/7 “just in time” treadmill society-culture that has just turned our dogmatic assumptions on its head (sic.) in manifesting a mighty Pivot into a new era.
Here, in this cognitive space (despite my ideal conditions) I become uncharacteristically beached upon the tidal shoals of “reality selection” where the relevance of a tuba performance thesis without concerts sinks into apathy. What does it matter, when I realize, once again, that my large musical ensemble practice remains the major performance energizer of my tuba bass sound philosophical quest? Alone (once again) with no ensemble to play with or concert hall to resonate within (nor any reasonable expectations of returning to that special space) I experience Stacas; of being stopped in place at attention, alert and questioning .
Musical ensemble performance is a Gestalt manifestation of the composed music, by the performer(s) in a concert space with an audience all being empowered through collective focused attention. We experience this while progressing through a process bound by its agreed metrical time, yet, in doing so, evoking a timeless space. An entire concert can pass “in no time at all” while certain problematical or ecstatic moments, within a musical performative experience, can expand into ... a whatever time of deeper musical expansion and rich creativity.
It Is Why I Do What I do; It Is Sublime.
This previous, if precarious, Known-known of ensemble practice and concert performance is currently in “lockdown” (sic.) while my personal, cognitively dissonant, mentation becomes preoccupied with understanding (sic.) this novel collective event. A Singularity where the cumulative information remains conflicted and all the loose ends won’t tie up. A time where the old cliché of “Whatever” becomes “It Is What It Is ...”
Acceptance and Adaptation in Being Here/Now.
In this mode of reflection and contemplation I notice for myself (while other respected musicians go on-line to technologically craft auto-duets and create remote ensembles), that the “old standards” (which I have praised in the past) no longer appeal ... begging the obvious question of what does ... ?
Like a mythical sea monster surfacing from the psychological depths a vague fear arises of my being shallow, a one-trick pony, a musician who without his “ensemble” will pack up his tuba and sulk at home. A “shadow” aspect revealed within my thesis ‘performance practice’ that feels heavy and sad (of course). But when patiently contemplated and honestly explored reveals Chthonic richness.
Stopped in the Big Now, with a big horn, I eventually reverted to my basic form, after a couple of days of isolation, and begin sounding, winding, big sounds. Foundational bass sounds, overtone sounds, projected from out of and back into my personal psychological void, through singing out spontaneous contrabass tuba sounds into the farm paddocks (to be mostly ignored and occasionally answered by other bellowing beasts).
This renewed ‘embodied’ experience of my ‘Big Now ~ Big Sound’ brass exposition successfully opens a gap within my apathetic “pity party” and cuts through my emotional resistances, to Re-member my Self in Epiphonic (sonic epiphany) experiences, in other places, “playing” and ‘sounding’ tuba in various mountain ranges, canyons, valleys, deserts and cathedrals. Personal knowing’s of a resonant communion with what IS.
So, What ...?
An ear worm appears.
Music for tuba that I have never attempted ... where It comes from (Now) into my mind I don’t really know ... but its pervasiveness provokes an unconscious instinct to attempt my own rendition of John Williams, Star Wars tuba solo, Jabba the Hut ... the cosmic humour of this tuba excerpt “playing” in my mind, with its musical, metaphorical, implications becomes immediately intriguing:
Who is “Jabba the Hut” (fill in the blank)?
What does John Williams indicate about the mood of this music with “Tempo de Jabba”?
How to musically characterize a psychologically debased gangster war lord Archetype?
Accessing the music (thank you Google) and deconstructing its musical notation (I remember now why this hasn’t been on my stand before) and playing the sounds, IT becomes obvious how to make this my own. A slow, sleazy, hallucinated tango, sounded down an octave 8va basso.
Thus, some of my Mojo returns in taking an eccentric tilt at an obscure tuba solo excerpt. Presented with apologies to JW (or anyone else offended) by my taking such liberties ...
Here/Now a work in progress: *
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