“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”
There is a particular Bach fugue that I like to practice (I am a keyboard artist) to the mental rhythm of “I love you, (wife’s name)”. It works for me, as a kind of meditation. I leave out the exact identifications here, of both the fugue and my wife, as that sort of thing is different for every musician/husband, artist/wife, plumber/partner, et al.
April 7, 2018 ~ 3 pm to 430 pm (with an intermission) ~ Classic Pianos Recital Hall, 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, Oregon 97202 ~ phone (503) 546-5622 ~ Admission is free. Donations are welcome.
Salminen’s concerts, especially since his “cosmic series” began, with “Beyond Termination Shock” in 2005, but even before the “cosmic series” started, have been recognized by many for being “musical meditations”… opportunities to relax and let the mind roam free… This particular concert is inspired by the astronomical phenomenon known as the Cosmic Light Horizon, which refers to the limit as to how far back in time our telescopes can see into the history of the Universe, and begs the question, “What is beyond the Horizon?” as a kind of impossible query, like a Zen Koan. In honor of the late great physicist Stephen Hawking, this concert is dedicated to him and inspired by a statement he made in an interview on National Geographic’s StarTalk, “The boundary condition of the universe… is that it has no boundary.”
From critics and fans: “At David’s concerts, “We, the listeners, become the music.” ~ Cheryl Kolander, Aurora Silk. “contains the very spark of life” ~ Julia Sopalski, for The Anchorage Times. “Salminen uses his rather unconventional methods to create [music] bursting with life, feeling and spectral intensity.” ~ Metro Magazine, Anchorage, Alaska
For more information ~ see the website: https://davidsalminen.com/ ~ or email: david@wholeworks.net
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”.
David’s next concert, in Portland, Oregon, on Oct. 28, 2017, 1 pm, is inspired by thinking about “The Relative Brightness of the Stars”. It will happen at the Recital Hall inside of Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland, OR, USA 97202.
It turns out that stars, just like us humans, have life cycles… most stars can be found in what astronomers call “the main sequence”… but there are many outliers, as well. The stars are similar to us, or – as we are each and all made of star dust – we are similar to the stars. (No admission charge; donations to help cover expenses and support David’s efforts are welcome.) Please share this announcement with your friends as you see fit.
NASA image – public domainDavid Salminen’s concerts over the past few years start from an idea or a feeling generated by a Cosmic perspective about our place in the Universe, or our understanding of some aspect of the Universe. The July 10, 2016 “EARTH – YOU ARE HERE” concert comes more from a feeling than an idea – a feeling for our home planet, a place so rare – unique really, to the best of our certain knowledge – that we cannot overemphasize its importance to us, in terms of place and time.While I am not closed to the idea of life on other worlds – even on many planets throughout the Universe, what we know for sure at this point is that our home planet, Earth, is the place, in the whole of the Universe, that we know is hospitable to life forms such as us. In this sense, the oneness of life here on Earth, as well as our individual lives as we each experience life, is central – the very center – of the Universe. “Each of us – whoever and wherever he may be – is then the center, and within him, whether he knows it or not, is that Mind at Large, the laws of which are the laws not only of all minds but of all space as well. For as I have already pointed out, we are the children of this beautiful planet that we have lately seen photographed from the moon. We were not delivered into it by some god. but have come forth from it.” page 274 of Joseph Campbell’s book “Myths to Live By”. http://www.portlandmercury.com/events/18292535/earth-you-are-here
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.
“Music, as the beauty of sound, proceeds from a transcendental affirmation that is beyond all self-hood. Music in nature does not differ, in any essential way, from music in art. The thrush and the nightingale, the bull, the stallion and the lion are all artists re-creating in sound the cosmic affirmation which brought them into existence. From the time that earth first received its atmosphere, the music of wind and waves was there, a thousand million years before life had ears to hear it.” – an excerpt from “The Dramatic Universe” by J.G. Bennett (Vol III, p. 112)
The Second Law of Synchronicity – David Salminen – live in concert – exploratory piano improvisations
Sunday, March 30, 2014, 3 pm
Portland Piano Company, 711 SW 14th Ave. Portland, OR 97205 http://www.portlandpianocompany.com
This concert is a chance to listen to music under special conditions which may facilitate the perception of synchronicities (before, during, and after the event). There is little needed in the way of explanation, but some explanation is in order:
The First Law of Synchronicity is the principle of Common Presence – the feeling of simply being here together in this moment, not somewhere else, and not later than… this moment! Being is the operative word.
The Second Law of Synchronicity is the phenomenon of Mutual Adjustment – without the necessity of a before and after process in time. We’ve all seen or heard this kind of thing somewhere, as in the synchronized flight of a flock of birds (especially murmuration) and in really “tight” performances by musical groups.
With a little bit of luck, this unique concert will facilitate special individual experiences within the heart-mind – one’s own personal meaning factory – of what is going on both within us and around us, synchronistically. Connections and insights arise out of music spontaneously, when time & space have been set aside for such experiences.
Diving into the sound stream, as in a concert of this kind, and catching and releasing various things along the way, is done by way of analogy to the cosmic process. This process, like the famous I Ching of the Chinese people, is a “book of changes” – gradual, sudden, recurrent, unique, and so on – and all of it merely part of the flow. The ideas inspiring this concert come in part out of the Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching, a book which has been a friend of the performer’s for over forty years. The 1949 forward to the book, by C. G. Jung, aptly describes the mystery of synchronicity in contemporary terms, as in the following on page xxiv. “The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist, who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure.”
My brief notes re “The Laws of Synchronicity” (actually six in number) are adapted from The Dramatic Universe, a four-volume work by J. G. Bennett, section 10.26.3. He cites Jung’s I Ching forward, in this choice bit clarifying synchronicity as denoting: “a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves, as well as with the subjective (psychic) state of the observer or observers.”
Donations to help make additional events like this more feasible are gratefully accepted. For more information, please call 503.762.6387 or visit https://davidsalminen.com/
David Salminen, pianist – in concert
“The Zone of Avoidance”
(cosmic improvisations)
(photo by Christopher Vardas)
Sunday, July 21, 2013 at 2 pm
Portland Piano Company
711 SW 14th Ave in Portland, Oregon 97205
http://www.portlandpianocompany.com phone 503.775.2480
Admission: this event is offered to the public, on a “pay what you want” basis.
The “Zone of Avoidance” – or ZoA – is a term coined by the astronomer Edwin Hubble, after whom NASA’s famous & awe-inspiring space-based Hubble telescope is named. For many years, optical astronomers avoided looking into or across our Milky Way’s galactic equator, because of the obscuring effects of interstellar dust. Early optical “efforts” were better spent looking elsewhere – anywhere else – than directly into the ZoA!
However, in recent years, it has become possible for us – embedded though we are on a spiral-arm of the Milky Way galaxy – to finally look straight into & through the ZoA, using innovations like radio astronomy and infra-red imaging. At the right wavelengths, the visually opaque galactic plane becomes transparent, and the ZoA changes into whole new realms of interest and possibility!
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/Z/Zone+Of+Avoidance
Artistically, the “avoidance” notion is a veritable cornucopia of metaphor. So much of the world we live in seems opaque to us… yet it can be very productive to turn our attention toward our own private “ZoA’s”, looking with different eyes. In another metaphor, to be really experiencing the flow of music is an ever fresh and by definition “harmonious” way to explore perceptions.
Always evolving, the music David manifests comes out of long experience in cultivating the mutual benefits to both performer and audience in putting attention on the creative process in music, rather than the roles of “presenting” something or “receiving” something. The traditional roles of performer and audience are still there, of course, but the aim is to activate another dimension of appreciation – the spontaneous element in all art. In any event – in all forms of music presentation – it can be postulated that there are still the same three creative elements: an expressive manifestation through an artist – the attention and inner life “river rafting” of listeners – and the ineffable mystery of music itself.
Salminen’s education in classical music included: the David Hochstein Music School in Rochester, NY (Louise Young, Chuck Mangione); Clark University in Worcester, Mass (Relly Raffman, Wesley Fuller); the Sherborne Academy in England (J.G. & Elizabeth Bennett, Anthony Hodgson, et al.); and the University of Alaska (Jean-Paul Billaud, Dean Epperson). Another major influence was Vipassana meditation training with The Ven. Vira “Bhante” Dharmawara.
Transition: In 1979, after twenty years of classical training, David’s connection with music began to change. His emerging knack for improvisation brought him into new musical situations with dancers and singers & also with meditative musical healing – a dynamically audible working through and re-blending of the energies of experience. This work – or play – has led to many concerts over the past 30-odd years, of extemporized music exploring extra-musical themes – often cosmic in nature. Combined with guidance in music appreciation, this format fosters a creative blending of the known with the unexpected… so much so, in fact, that people coming to David’s concerts often find that afterwards they hear anew the joyousness of other music – both live and recorded.
Music recordings, videos, blog, etc. https://davidsalminen.com/music/
More videos: https://vimeo.com/davidsalminen
For more information: phone (503) 762-6387 email david@wholeworks.net
Salminen’s music “contains the very spark of life, and the listeners catch that spark.” Julia Sopalski, The Anchorage Times
Salminen “uses his rather unconventional methods to create [music] bursting with life, feeling, and spectral intensity.” Metro Magazine, Anchorage, Alaska
David Salminen 