“My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, and circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Friendship”
…. algorithmic Ableton music compositions – inspired by great chess matches… audible patterns in strategy & intuition… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWiqiyt9jIs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3d2i-ceTnqJy9lYVTZ8nEBjjMNIrX1CBf_2Sy1tech6_v6jcW0hzkvKaY
David Salminen, pianist, in concert ~ Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, 1:30 pm ~ at a new venue (for him): Michelle’s Piano Company ~ 600 SE Stark St. Portland, Oregon 97214 ~ admission free (donations welcome to cover costs and support the artist) ~ program: cosmic improvisations and toning with tones ~ email david@wholeworks.net for more info ~ more about the location: https://www.michellespiano.com/about/
It may well be that Western music’s “major scale” is a musical metaphor: do is the moment of commitment. re is establishing contact with the work you’re doing, the process. mi is when you start to feel the process taking on a life of its own. mi-fa is a crisis point, wherein you suffer some disillusionment with certain presumptions and expectations. sol is when the power returns… you’re more than halfway there! But also here is temptation, the temptation to “coast”. la is when you re-commit, on a deeper level, knowing that in following the process, you have a chance to enter into the truly creative – something unforeseeable. si-do is the transition to letting go of the “push” and just allowing the result to manifest itself! ~ David Salminen’s re-working of a very old tradition, inspired by J.G. Bennett’s explanation of Gurdjieff’s mysterious law of heptaparaparshinokh, found in Bennett’s book: “Talks on Beelzebub’s Tales”.
image: NASA – Hubble telescope – outer space… stars & galaxies
DUE TO PROBLEMATIC CONTINUING WEATHER CONDITIONS IN PORTLAND AND THE SURROUNDING AREAS, THE JANUARY 15, 2017 CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED – IT WILL BE RE-SCHEDULED, BUT WE DON’T HAVE A NEW DATE, AS OF YET.
David Salminen’s improvisational concerts, in addition to being live demonstrations of the pleasures and surprises of the spontaneous moment, are vehicles for communicating ways in which listening to music can foster creativity in anyone, in any area a person has a need for it… these events are not simply about music. Really, so much in our lives could be improved, made better, etc. with a little bit more creativity, and we all possess unlimited potential for it – fresh ideas & new ways of seeing, hearing, and doing things. Dedication: In appreciation of Pauline Oliveros 1932-2016, an American composer and the champion of “deep listening”.
At David’s concerts “We, the listeners, become the music.” Cheryl Kolander – Aurora Silk
For more information: https://davidsalminen.com
Email: david@wholeworks.net
Phone: 503-762-6387
(photo credit – NASA image – public domain)
“Earth – You Are Here”
David Salminen, piano improvisations
July 10, 2016, 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Portland Piano Company, 711 SW 14th Ave, Portland, OR 97205 – phone 503.775.2480
free admission and open to the public – donations welcome
The idea behind this “Earth – You Are Here” concert is suggested by the NASA images of Earth from space, beginning from the time of the Apollo missions of the late 1960’s and continuing. These images remind us of the unity of humanity and the wholeness of life as we know it – from a cosmic perspective. David’s improvisations build intuitively and spontaneously on the extraordinary resonances that are possible with the modern grand piano, via the 88 keys as entry points, in activating the sounding board as a vehicle for a holistic experience of endlessly evolving complexes of harmony and harmonics.
BY THE WAY – If you can’t attend in person – please check this out, for the fun of it:
When I can remember myself a little more consistently, it is music that I believe in… along the lines of the famous Leonard Bernstein remark – to the effect that his response to violence would be to pursue music more passionately than ever, or Albert Schweitzer’s famous footnote to all his philosophizing about “reverence for life” – something to the effect that his life was his argument. Many good and generous people have made possible my development as a musician, by showing up and giving attention to my spontaneous aspiration toward harmony via mellifluous string plucking at the piano, and this has helped make my life meaningful. Remarkably, the making happen & the taking in of music & art, and any effort toward value realization, gives one courage – courage from the inside – a courage not dependent on external recognition. This kind of courage is linked to maturity and self-realization – not as a claim, but as an aim.
“Know your strengths and own them and don’t apologize for them.” attributed to Annabel Acton (seen on the Forbes.com website, 5/11/16) – As a kind of example… I have been able to improvise at the piano, quite amiably, since the beginning of my own memories, from around the age of 5. More importantly, as I discovered in the fall of 1980, it is possible to improvise with great purpose and result, given special circumstances. Describing such “circumstances” could result in a very long story – and one that I hope to be able to share someday. Meanwhile – let me just say that I am very, very grateful to all the people who have attended my musical meditations over the past 30-odd years, with the kind of openness and attitude that facilitates a methodology driven by spontaneity.
David Salminen in concert – solo piano
3 p.m. Sunday, January 31, 2016 – open to the public – no tickets necessary – donations to support the artist and the work are welcome.
Portland Piano Company
711 SW 14th Avenue, Portland Oregon
http://portlandpianocompany.com
There’s something special about the sun and the air at this time of year, different from the warmer seasons. Whether the day is gray or rainy or sunny, it is… winter… nature is resting, somewhat. While many of us are looking forward toward Spring, and the return of longer days, and the rush of greenery as it comes out of hiding, the special quality of winter days and nights is not something to be taken for granted. Contemplating any particular season is an avenue into a deeper relationship with all the seasons – and life in general.
Salminen’s concerts are a kind of guided tour toward finding wholeness and oneness for the individual, in larger and larger contexts – thus the tag “cosmic”. The poetic themes, images, and ideas of any one concert represent particular facets of a deepening human awareness, and the healing of any sense of isolation or alienation from life & nature, the solar system & the galaxy, oneself, and other people. Music, being a time-based art form, offers the opportunity to play with transformational impulses in process, as on-going moments that have both continuity and non-continuity. Non-continuity is when something new breaks into the stream of consciousness that is of a different kind, even while being an integral part of the whole “piece”. It is that dynamic quality of music which gives us a different way of understanding our lives – different from things like philosophy (words) or imagery (pictures). Of course, philosophy and imagery and all the arts each have their place, but music is something else, and David, in his concerts, strives to realize that “something else” explicitly.
“Music is the only language that can give voice to the ineffable. The feelings that arise listening to David’s work share a kinship with the witness and awe many of us feel when seeing the interstellar wonders scoped by Hubble. But the greater gift in his music is the invitation to explore those inner worlds that saints and sages have been messaging us about for ages. This is the music of the spheres of the highest order, a taste of the wine-dark endlessness that embraces our origins and our destiny.” James Farrelly, Caretaker of Sheep at Asteroid B-612
Examples of David’s concert music are available on his website – things like “The Efficiency of Black Holes” and “Andromeda”, and more.
Our earnest looking and listening, into the essence of all things, really does matter – to the universe, and to the evolutionary possibilities of life on this planet… somehow, it all matters. However, our half-baked opinions about – and reactions to – practically everything under the sun, are of little account in the big scheme of things. Dec. 9, 2015, 9:11 p.m. Pacific Time
Pinwheel Galaxy – Hubble Space Telescope image
David Salminen 