PERFORMING WITH HEART AND MIND

Folks, my radio is turned on as soon as I enter my residence. First I tune in to the news and then switch to classical music. 

But I also watch concerts and find great sympathy for our musicians. I think those who perform classical music are really a dedicated group. They endeavored to learn and read melodic notes, or scores which are not that simple to learn. 

I sympathize most with the conductors who have to deal with 50 or more musicians of various types -- wind, brass, strings, percussion and so much more -- indigenous instruments. 

Their greatest problem is how to make the instrumentalist play in harmony and as an ensemble. 

But the greatest problem of our musicians in general, when playing foreign classical music is how to touch the hearts of the audience with their performance. 

First of all, they have to overcome the racial barrier between them and the composer. Chopin, Tschaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and others are all white and foreign. Their works reflect the lives they have led, or rather their works are based on their lives as born in the European countries. 

Hence, our Philippine musicians have to overcome first of all the inculcation of colonial mentality when we were still growing up (maybe the millennials have overcome this. Although some women are really hook line and sinker in following the fashion in the west showing their complete subservience culturally).

Secondly, they have to place themselves in the shoes of the composers, thinking, feeling how he or she could have composed those pieces and find out what feelings should be conveyed. This is what you would call, performing with the heart and mind. 

Otherwise, if the instrumentalists do not do this then the performance would just be a technical one -- the scores are followed to the detail but not the feelings of the composer. 

So no matter how hard a conductor tries to extract those feelings from the instrumentalists, if the latter do not exert effort to imagine the roots of the composition and the composer, then the performance would not have that what you would call "Oomph!" or Pizzazz!

I would try to expound on this topic some more in the future. 

My motto when attending any cultural program: "Gusto ko kikilabutan ako kapag nanonood ako o nakikinig sa isang palabas."

WHEN POWER IS USED TO DESTROY HISTORICAL ICONS

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

Folks, who said that quote? Guess. 

You see, that guy in the WH is tasting power and what has he done? What kind of character does he have? Zero, as in Z E R O morality. 

He has made ridiculous the historical past of the United States. He bans immigrants when historically immigrants make up the color of the US. 

 "More than 12 million immigrants entered the U.S. through the Ellis Island gateway from 1892 to 1954, with its majestic neighbor, the Statue of Liberty, welcoming them home. https://parade.com/311395/viannguyen/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-statue-of-liberty-she-was-almost-gold"

So what historical icon has he debased? The Statue of Liberty. 

He keeps harping on Hillary which shows his low regard for women. He has kept Hillary from winning the presidency yet he acts so vulgar in his labeling her to God knows what language he uses. 

Apart from the above, which other historical peoples has he vulgarized?

1. The Quakers. 

 " Quakers have been a significant part of the movements for the abolition of slavery, to promote equal rights for women, and peace."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quakers

2. Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) 

"..was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery " 

(Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_B._Anthony)

3. Sojourner Truth - anti-slavery and feminist

"And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

The above is excerpted from Sojourner Truth's speech 

1851, a women’s rights conference in Akron, Ohio, where she delivered her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?”

          4. The Africans whose countries he has called using gutter language. 

Yet if we examine American history we will find that Afro-Americans contributed greatly to the efforts at equalizing their society. 

These ten individuals - African-Americans- are heroes of the Civil War, which gave " equal legal protection to all citizens, whether black or white. " 

10 Andre Cailloux, 

9 Robert Smalls

8William A. Jackson

7William H. Carney

.

6Aaron Anderson

5Powhatan Beaty

4Alexander Thomas Augusta

3Miles James

2James Daniel Gardner

1John Lawson

Look up in (istverse.com/2013/09/19/10-african-american-heroes-of-the-civil-war/) and  The Transnational Significance of the American Civil War by Editors 

Jörg Nagler

Don H. Doyle

Marcus Gräser

5. Mothers

As the WH illegal occupant casts aspersions against women all the time,  he is de facto denying mothers, his own mother even,  their rightful place in cultural, political, economic, spiritual, and social history. so very opposite to what the hero said about his mother. And what did Lincoln say about his mother? 

" I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/abraham_lincoln_145909


When a person is destroying historical icons, isn't it time to rethink and ask, MY GOD, WHAT IS HE DOING IN THE WHITE HOUSE? 

HE IS DEBASING IT. 

And the funny thing is that the leaders of the Republican Party are smiling all along with him. Isn't it high time to ask what the United States stands for?

WHAT TO DO NOW?

What is the role of a political party? Is it only to get the highest post be occupied by one of their members regardless of that person's credibility and qualifications?

I think the Republican Party is in a fix. They are supporting a president who is turning upside down all the ethical principles that the heroes of their party had fought hard for in the past like Abraham Lincoln. They are completely mum on accepting that they had made a mistake and therefore they must apologize to the American people now. 

Yet, the American people are now in a daze by the flurry of events, by the series of political mistakes and inanities coming from the WH. The WH has been tainted. It cannot regain its glorious past with the ascendancy of such an individual who makes a mockery of all the humane principles that we uphold. He is simply a political gangster who has gone berserk over the enormous powers that he now wields. 

I think there should be an overhaul of the principles of the Republican Party, a return to the basics of basics and that is to uphold democratic principles above all else. Blatantly speaking, their president now does not possess an ounce of democratic idea nor any thought about governance.  He stumbles here and there and even internationally at that, making a comedy of all the universal principles of human rights that this world has attended to since the creation of the United Nations. 

All the UN countries must stand up to the Republican Party now and make them men (and women enough) to admit that have made a mistake in supporting such a guy and the time has come to completely restore mental normalcy in the running of the government of a so called superpower, if it still could be called as such. 

Folks let's pray hard to make our global return to that time when people used to fight for the most pristine principles that would raise the dignity of all human beings, peacefully 




The Scream, Painting by Edvard Munch

WATCH OUT!

Folks, the world is in a very precarious situation. The rise of Neo Nazis and the illegal president of the USA, is scattering havoc all over. We need to be alert.

While the American people are reeling from the rise of such a man who is transforming their society from a democratically conscious to a tyrannical one, let us insure that our own country is shielded from their
influences.

INANG KALIKASAN: Kasama sa pagpapalit ng taon

Napakaginaw, wari'y 12 degrees centigrade sa Antipolo. Nagising ako sa huni ng mga ibon. At pagbukas ko ng pinto ng bahay na sinilungan ko, ang bumungad sa akin ay pitong pato na naghihintay mabiyayaan ng mais.


Nagdiwang ako ng pagpapalit ng taon sa isa sa mga bundok ng Antipolo at kaysarap ng pakiramdam. Walang agam-agam. Nawala lahat ng tension. At ang pinakamaganda sa lahat ay preskong hangin, mga simoy ng hangin na dala ay bagong putol na mga damo.


Mga kasama ko ay isang pamilya na matagal nang naninirahan duon na naghanda pa ng sangkatutak na pagkain -- fruit salad, kinilaw na kambing, gulaman, buko, at mga prutas na hango sa paligid -- chico, saging na saba.


Simple ang handa. Simple ang pamumuhay, bagamat salat sa cash, Mayaman naman sa mayabong at malusog na kalikasan. May problema ba? Tubig, galing sa balon; kuryente? Galing sa araw. Gutom -- mga prutas.


Sana si Inang Kalikasan ay mapangalagaan natin upang maibalik natin ang ating masayang pamumuhay na madalas na dinudurog ng mga isyung hindi na natin dapat pang maranasan matapos ang Kilusang Sambayanang Kapangyarihan o People Power Movement na nilunsad natin noong 1986.     


Parang ayaw ko nang bumaba pa ng Maynila. Maraming Salamat, Amelia, Inggo, Bebang, Arnel at Irene, Tiray at Paul, Bekbek at Juan na tinulungan akong umakyat at bumaba ng bundok, Imboy, Balong, mga apo -- Ayesha, Adrian, Alexis, at sa lahat na hindi ko mabanggit, Nawa'y maging maganda ang pagpasok ng Bagong Taon.


Mga Kababayan, Mabuhay ang ating Bansa, Mabuhay ang Sambayanan at mga tapat na Pinuno ng pamahalaan.  Huwag tayong makakalimot magdasal ng taimtim na manatiling tahimik at payapa ang ating bansa at magkaroon ng busilak na paniniwala ang lahat ng ating kapwa, sa loob at labas ng ating bansa.