07 Apr 2012 Leave a comment
in 2012, birth death & in between II, our times our cultureII, vaguely about music II Tags: birth, death, music, our culture, Our Times
No Background Music
There’ll be no background music then;
Valleys that refuse to sing,
Glens that ring out nothing –
Dales too.
Only
Quiet.
How to get used to the mute
Unqualified;
No angel choir,
No Gabriel to tootie toot.
There being so much music
In the background –
Does that frighten you?
No Background Music 2.11.2012
Vaguely About Music II; Birth Death & In Between II; Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
19 Feb 2009 Leave a comment
in 1992, 2009, circling round reality, circling round vanities, vaguely about music Tags: music, performing, reality, vanity
Showing And Sharing
Why do I perform, I ask you?
Kent and I, we talked it through.
“Why do we do what we do?”
Musicians both, asking about both sloth and troth.
“Why not stay at home, just play at home?”
The need to play for them, where does it come from?
Why not warble in a corner,
Trade Jack Warner for Jack Horner?
The path, pith, analysis, seed of non-paralysis
Lies in the need to share each bar,
Ensnare them in the repertoire:
Acquired, inspired and fired solo.
To play for those who know is where share becomes the show.To share the stuff you’re made of,
One likes to give and get the love.
The gig may be just one night long,
Player’s voice imbibing song.
That’s why birds have beaks,
Actors paint their cheeks,
Nuns not called freaks,
Why climbers climb outrageous peaks:
To show and share’s their form of care, of who they are,
A wearing off of vanity and learning of humility:
The real way to get somewhere.
Why seek the gigs, and time on time risk disapproval?
Bumpy lyrics, chords that stump,
Mental blocks to shock a heart that gasps to pump;
Sometimes on your frumpy rump
When you’re a grumpy, dumpy lump;
Handling cash, the boss
Without the foolishness of loss;
And gathering the strength
To stand with dignity against the length
Of lustful arms and eyes,
Seductive men and women: lies.
In some mysterious mirror way
You need to hear the stuff you play
Through other’s ears and other’s eyes.
It’s the response that makes you wise,
The music genie rise.
I’m giving up the claim to fame,
(Which only means you know my name)
The thing I can’t give up’s the call,
Which means, of course, the playing hall.
Knowing, daring, going, baring,
Learning, doing, wooing, paring:
That’s the showing and the sharing:
©Showing & Sharing #1 11.4.1992 rev2009
Vaguely About Music; Circling Round Reality; Circling Round Vanities;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 1962, lessons to be learned, nature of & in reality, vaguely about music Tags: 1962, art, bass, Charles Mingus, I Is Always We Is You, jazz, lessons to be learned, love, music, nature in & of reality, nature of & in reality, processes creative meditative thinking, processes creative thinking meditative, processes:creative, the creative processes, the real you, vaguely about music
To The Soul Not Yet Whole
If swingin’s
All you’re bringin’
To music,
That’s not art,
But only part.
Or change your bit:
That isn’t it,
That’s only sham.
That is, if swingin’s
All you bring
To music.
Refrain:
Soul music may have heart,
Soul music may be smart;
Soul music may be art –
But not necessarily so.
Disdain:
Swing, man, hard and loud,
But man, you’re clinging to a cloud.
Call horn x,
Call music y,
Call yourself small letter i.
Remember son,
You modern soul,
The abstraction,
Means, the goal –
The three in one
Is solely you.
Practice one or all of these,
For art is born of one-in-threes.
Love will do,
And horn will do,
And absoluting you will do
Too.
©To The Soul Not Yet Whole (on hearing a record by Charlie Mingus) 1962
Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 1994, definitely didactic, lessons to be learned, life, vaguely about music Tags: 1994, art, big bands, creativity, definitely didactic, finding spontaneity, jazz, lessons to be learned, life, music, processes creative meditative thinking, processes creative thinking meditative, processes:creative, the creative processes, the real you, vaguely about music
The Trick Is To Stay Fresh
I heard a band four decades old.
“Good God, I thought, what a good band!”
How do they do it? Forty years?
What do they think night after night
When each man steps up to the stand –
Night after night his horn in hand,
Old licks, clichés
Takes his solos even on the days
His wife is sick?
And still they’re slick and stick it out
Night after night, year after year,
Internal tensions always there.
It must be like a factory job,
To entertain the drinking mob.
Or maybe not.
Maybe jobs have been a ball,
A chance to leave four walls,
Create, maintain a freshness,
Make some music on the spot,
Feelings tapped, without pretence;
Spontaneous, and proud of what
The dents he’s chalked up on his horn
All signify.
Perhaps, instead of blasé scorn
He manages to like the crowd –
The drunks, the dancers raw and loud.
Maybe the leader has charisma –
Makes each guy feel that he’s good;
Shows respect for solos
Drummer, sax or trumpet blows;
Drumming, blasting, bellowing.
By hook or crook, the trick’s eternal:
Keep the kernel of renewal growing,
Tapped and showing;
Ever crowing.
The trick is to stay fresh.
©The Trick Is To Stay Fresh 94.11.30
Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 1997, lessons to be learned, vaguely about music Tags: 1997, authenticity, excellence, jazz, lessons to be learned, music, performing, processes creative meditative thinking, processes creative thinking meditative, processes:creative, singing, special people, sue raney, vaguely about music
The Songbird
I heard a singer and was moved,
Which proves not much.
We’re touched by mediocrity,
The second-rate,
The bait of glamour.
Hers was honesty,
Simplicity dug deep in skill.
Talent and ability.
Oh, so good, voice many-hued.
Interpretation, even the
Pronunciation, woven in
The loveliness.
A jazz parfait: a marmalade,
Jade luminesence
Honesty, simplicity,
Substance in each nicety;
Who wouldn’t want to sing so well,
That those who heard would feel compelled
To tell the world what you exude
Though under-known and undervalued?
(such a gift might give me hubris where, too satisfied,
I’d have to watch for sins of pride.)
For now, there’s happiness-near-bliss,
Aesthetic saturation
Having heard this songbird sing.*
©
The Songbird 97.10.4Special People, Special Occasions; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
* Sue Raney
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 1993, lessons to be learned, vaguely about music Tags: 1993, inauthenticity, lessons to be learned, music, performing, processes creative thinking meditative, small stories, small stories book, special people, vaguely about music
The Sadly Futile Pretence
“This is the last song that you’ll ever hear me play,” he roared.
He sat down at his organ, striking one great chord.
“…the last song that I’ll ever play in this damned pub!”
And he walked up to the organ while the boss looked bored.
He played a song he’d often played, but with a great emotion.
He played his heart out, as they say. He played with great devotion
To the theme, and as he finished with a grand dramatic pause,
He took his beer, he wiped a tear and looked for some applause.
But folk continued talking; clinking glass was all you heard.
For the saddest cut of all was that, in fact, nobody cared.
“They’ll see they cannot do without me. They’ll be sorry yet…!”
He was thinking this with every pounded note he played that set.
Just a drunken little fellow who showed up each night at six,
And who stayed till two each morning showing off his tattered tricks.
Who’d begun to think he owned the club – played host and bossed around
Other players who showed up to play. He had to share the stand.
And if someone had a birthday or a graduation day,
Or if someone wanted Strauss, or asked to sing, then he would play.
Good old Charlie-at-the-ready, with unsteady hand could
Play light opera or a folk song. In his genre good.
Not professional, but in his amateurish way he played quite well,
Playing harmonies – not incorrect – just, what shall we say, – stale.
Dearest Charlie, dear loud Charlie, he could turn a tune.
And he sometimes changed the light-bulbs in his home in the saloon.
I’d have sworn he’d gone forever, if you’d asked me on that night.
But on showing up myself next week, he’d far from taken flight.
Walking round the club as always, telling all who gave an ear,
How he’d fixed the mike, had cleaned the keys, wouldn’t say no to beer:
“A strong one, please!”
©The Sadly Futile Pretence 93.7.5
Vaguely About Music; Special People Special Occasions; Small Stories Book;
Arlene Corwin
.
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 1992, pure nakedness, vaguely about music Tags: 1992, music, performing, processes creative meditative thinking, processes creative thinking meditative, processes:creative, pure nakedness, show business, the real you, vaguely about music
The PerformerShe makes her face up, picks her frock,
Goes to the club and hopes she doesn’t play a crock
Of shitty, shoddy work that night.
Gets there on time; the sound is set.
She starts to play; she’s planned her set.
The baby pink is not quite right –
You know, the baby pink spotlight.
Her phrasing’s delicate but bright.
Though she’s a pro, raring to go
There’s always just a bit of nerves:
The need to please. She feels she serves.
That’s good. The voice is good, quite good.
That song came out as best it could.
The people clap. Some even shout
And whistle. “How about
Another tune?’ She sings another.
Finally the evening’s over.
Just like that: a moment’s bubble.
Was it really worth the trouble?
People who’ve just seen the act,
The ones who sat, admired, practically
Dying for a skill they lack,
Who long for what seem so attractive,
Think that after she’s performed
She goes to any place but home,
But that’s exactly where she’s headed:
Home, a bite to eat and bed.
No frilly glamour in this art,
Just daily practicing and heart,
Mind, soul, evolving luck;
A mucking in, not mucking up.
The underlying need to grow
Sleeps underneath the this-night’s show.
A groping upward, outward and
A digging inward guides her hands
And every member of the band’s.
©The Performer 92.12.6
Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in vaguely about music Tags: 1995, circling round woman, defiant doggerel, jazz, music, silly poems, vaguely about music, women bass players
The Only Jazz Bass Playing Lady I Know
Why would a lady start playing the bass?
Take on an instrument weighing a ton?
It can’t be much fun to transport;
Schlep a four-stringéd buddy
And bow for good measure?
What pleasure from plucking four beats,
The occasional solo and jazz waltz for treats?
Feminine creature,
Petite and demure,
Training, her muscles, sustaining technique– not leery
Of playing for bleary-eyed, tone-deaf, demandingly dreary
Old guys and young punks.
If I were that lady I’d play something else:
The flute or the conch or the singing chipmunks.
(I remember them well.)
Yet let’s toast the bass,
The chalice of callus,
The lady who carries the bass loaded case,
Who has broken the caste of the plucking male race.
©The Only Lady Jazz Bass Playing Lady I Know 95.1.8
A Sense Of The Ridiculous; Circling Round Woman; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 2008, lessons to be learned, life, vaguely about music Tags: 2008, I Is Always We Is You, lessons to be learned, life, music, processes:creative, the chain of life, vaguely about music, writing a song
The Nature Of Chains
He writes a song.
Somebody listens.
Hears it,
Likes it.
Someone takes it
To his body-brain
And hums it,
Learns it,
Goes into the world and sings it.
Loyalties
Bring royalties.
And when the royalties
Have run
Their time,
The melody –
It’s rhythm, rhyme
Stays on infecting and connecting.
Almost never done
And finished with:
The chain.
© The Nature of Chains 4.9.2008
Nature Of & In Reality; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
11 Nov 2008 Leave a comment
in 2007, definitely didactic, lessons to be learned, life, vaguely about music Tags: 2007, completion, definitely didactic, developing, fear, I Is Always We Is You, lessons to be learned, life, losing fear, music, vaguely about music
The Fear Is Gone
The fear is gone; A song is there.
In place a song-like atmosphere.
Gone, longing for…in four/four time
All of the time
Not letting in
The villain
In the fingered melodies,
In leading tones and harmonies,
In asking for the things I want
And wanting what turns up.
All along the song was fear.
Now sweet,
What’s left is to complete…
Close up the circle,
Fix the faults,
End the story
For a glimpse of glory –
Hidden.
©The Fear Is Gone 07.10.25 (revised from 02.10.1)
Lyrics; Vaguely About Music;
Arlene Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 