From the logs of The Whalesong Project, located in Kihei on Maui: We witnessed a beautiful and unusual, from a modern western perspective, event this week. Raina Ferris visited us from Aotearoa, New Zealand, and we took her out on the ocean to support her cultural interest and connection to the whales. Raina is a Maori kai-karanga tahuna (spiritual chanter) and professor of Maori studies at Te Wanganga O Raukawa in Otaki. She came to Maui to share Maori tradition, and to further research on ancient ties between Maui and Aotearoa – alluded to in the ancestral chants of her …
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Here’s an mp3 post for a rainy Friday afternoon, another contemplative moment. This is Allegri’s Miserere, a stunning piece of choral music composed in the 1630s. It is so sublime that for a long time it was only performed once a year and anyone who wrote it down would be excommunicated for doing so. The story goes that Mozart (whose 250th birthday is today) broke the ban by hearing the piece, transcribing it from memory and then giving it away. In this respect Wolfgang may have preceeded Napster by a couple hundred years. Thanks to Wolfgang’s transgressions, this Miserere is …
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It’s been an age since I posted, mostly because I was on Maui over New Years, unplugged for the most part and not at all inclined to blog. So I’ll ease back into it, with some music to start of your new year. While on Maui I bought a bunch of slack key guitar records by the likes of Sonny Lim and George Kahumoku Jr. Slack key guitar is a Hawai’ian style that originated with the Mexican paniolo cowboys that helped establish ranching in the early 20th century across the Hawai’ian islands. These dudes brought their Mexican cowboy guitar styles, …
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Getting near Christmas, and I love the sacred music that gets sung at this time of year. Although this track isn’t Christmas music, it is from the Ukranian Orthodox Christian tradition, and is a haunting and meditative chant. This is from a fine site of russian orthodox music and information. This is an Antiphon, chanted text that is sung in a servics, often in a planisong setting. mp3: Brethern of the Valaam Monestary – First Antiphon of the THE Valaam Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
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Friday, and time for another mp3 posting. This one is in honour of the fact that yesterday I was promoted to brown belt, which in my tae kwon do training is two belts below black. So to celebrate, here is a solo track played on a Korean flute called a Dae Geum. I love the way this instrument cracks like a trumpet or a sax. I don’t know if there is a reed involved or how the mechanics of it work, but it adds to the despairing feel of the piece. It reminds me of how much martial arts there …