The Music of David Salminen

Posts tagged ‘space humanity understanding’

a thought exercise…

Wm. Blake painting – Glad Day

Something I discovered while reading literary commentaries by A.R. Orage: “One of the exercises in the [right] use of imagination is that of the frequent shift from the personal to the universal, and vice versa.” How nice to see this particular idea presented so clearly! It jives with the context I’ve referenced for my personal/universal cosmic metaphor piano concerts for years & years. And it’s a useful shock indeed to find that others may actually understand what you are aiming for, in your work, better than you do!

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The Jan 15, 2017 “Cosmos” concert has been cancelled

outer-space-stars-galaxies-nasa-hubble_www-wall321-com_31

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

other inspirations behind David Salminen’s July 10, 2016 concert – Portland, Oregon

Vardas Pictures 1 083

photo by Christopher Vardas

An ancient idea occurring across many cultures is the notion that being in harmony with oneself is related to being in harmony with the world at large. Whether or not the brain waves, of a relaxed human being, vibrate at the same frequency as the earth (said to be 8 cycles per second and known as the Schumann Resonance) – composers such as myself aspire to intuitively find a music that helps people get back into a harmonic balance… this has been noted by many people. Please join us if you can, for this free concert at the Portland Piano Company on July 10, 2016, 3 to 4:30 p.m. – There is a comprehensive announcement in the Portland Mercury: http://www.portlandmercury.com/events/18292535/earth-you-are-here
If you can’t make it to the concert, or just want to hear an example of David’s music, there’s a concert excerpt on YouTube from this past January, recorded by John-Henry Dale, using a special 360 degree camera (interactive) and a new kind of microphone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xBxrRAsgPE

David’s summer concert – Portland, Oregon

earth by NASA

(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:

The Sun and the Air – winter concert – Portland, Oregon, USA

black hat photo by C Vardas

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.

 

Lao-Tzu on “three treasures”

“I constantly have three treasures; Hold onto them and treasure them. The first is compassion; The second is frugality; And the  third is not presuming to be at the forefront in the world. Now, it’s because I’m compassionate that I therefore can be courageous; And it’s because I’m frugal that I therefore can be magnanimous; And it’s because I don’t presume to be at the forefront in the world that I therefore can be the head of those with complete talent.”

Te-Tao Ching, Chapter 67. Translated by Robert G. Henricks from the Ma-wang-tui Texts. This is a most excellent translation. It incorporates the 1973 discovery, of early copies of Lao-Tzu’s classic, in the village of Ma-wang-tui in Hunan Province – published by Ballantine Books, 1989.

October 27, 2012 concert in Portland, Oregon

Prelude to my concert in Portland, Oregon, Oct 27, 2012 – 3 pm – at the Sherman Clay Pianos facility (no tickets necessary): Now I’m really gearing up for the concert this Saturday, which is dedicated to the recent discovery of the Higgs boson. I can’t pretend to follow all the scientific details and speculations about sub-atomic particle physics, what’s next in terms of research into the Higgs boson and how it operates, etc. But I still believe that it’s useful for non-scientists like myself to try to follow the gist of it. And also – as a non-scientist artist, I think that it’s important for members of the society at large to contemplate what these contemporary developments on the frontiers of discovery might mean to us. So, I’m dipping into several books on the topic – even one published just after the Higgs boson discovery was first announced out of CERN in Europe on July 4, 2012. You know, (you may know this) the physicist who’s work was central to predicting the existence of Higgs bosons some 40 years ago, particles which are said to go along with and somehow interact with quarks and gluons… a veritable “zoo” of sub-atomic particles… in order to give them “mass”, a fellow named Peter Higgs, was still alive to see this validation of his theoretical work! That alone is interesting to me, that a person might say to the world that such and such a “thing” must be there, according to his calculations and ideas, somewhere in the virtually unseen world, and then to be validated some decades later when the technology and testing procedures catch up with his predictions. So, I’m enjoying some far out reading, and imagining different ways to make music to match…

The biggest projects humanity has ever undertaken… but who “gets” the big picture?

In reference to the question of trusting our experts to understand the big picture: “What surprised me was that not one person I met knew clearly why we were going into space or how it had come about. Each man had one story and his opinion, each had the rationalization of his own speciality and background, whether in science, engineering, politics, war, or business.” Alexander Marshack, recalling research in 1963 for a space book written in collaboration with Dr. Robert Jastrow, then head of a division of the Goddard Space Flight Center, and including interviews with President John F. Kennedy’s science advisor – and planners, leaders & scientists associated with NASA, Rand, the big aviation-space corporations, and including some Nobel Prize winners from various fields of science, et al. This quote was excerpted from Chapter One of Marshack’s now-classic work The Roots of Civilization (1991).

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