Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Enfolded within the mountains...
Since shutting the doors of the restaurant I have been one hell of a busy man.
My father fell and broke his hip in September. He is recovering but it seems to be a very up and down drama of events.
Aging is not as wonderful as some would have us believe. I've made two trips to Utah since closing. I find it amazing how people live in that state! Sooooo many people, Soooooo many energies all over the place. I spent the past week helping my parents in the town I lived as a baby and into my late teens. I moved away from Utah so many times when I was in my 20s only to return? I was bouncing up and down in the seat of my pick up as I drove into the snowy mountains of the Wasatch Range. God, I stopped in Evanston Wy for coffee and kissed the ground!
Drove to Sage Jct. then into Cokeville. South-end pass could take one's breath away! I love where I live. At times I was the only person on the road. I sang along with my I Pod tunes and when the mood overtook my mind I would drive off the road into the sage brush and inhale the perfume of sagebrush, snowy clean air and freedom. I poured a cup of strong black coffee, climbed into the back of the truck and gazed at the robin egg blue sky... fluffy white clouds and the occasional deer, rabbit, and the slow hypnotic spiraling flight of hawks as they circled high above my head. I gazed out over the horizon knowing that I still had miles to go, but over the mountains I would nestle in the arms of mountains I love and call home.
My piano sounds like a symphony. I played for hours yesterday. I will fly to New Orleans on November 7, then into NYC on the 10th. Return to Wyoming on the 14th, finish closing the house and business, then back to Utah and on to New Zealand.
The Southern Alps of New Zealand are pure magic. My strength comes from mountains. They haunt me. I can't imagine life without hills and valleys. Snow capped peaks that reflect the sunrise and sunset in all it's celestial glory. Possibly why I feel so close to mountains is: My life has been full of high and low points... peaks and valleys. Never ever a flat surface. Thank God and the Universe.
My father fell and broke his hip in September. He is recovering but it seems to be a very up and down drama of events.
Aging is not as wonderful as some would have us believe. I've made two trips to Utah since closing. I find it amazing how people live in that state! Sooooo many people, Soooooo many energies all over the place. I spent the past week helping my parents in the town I lived as a baby and into my late teens. I moved away from Utah so many times when I was in my 20s only to return? I was bouncing up and down in the seat of my pick up as I drove into the snowy mountains of the Wasatch Range. God, I stopped in Evanston Wy for coffee and kissed the ground!
Drove to Sage Jct. then into Cokeville. South-end pass could take one's breath away! I love where I live. At times I was the only person on the road. I sang along with my I Pod tunes and when the mood overtook my mind I would drive off the road into the sage brush and inhale the perfume of sagebrush, snowy clean air and freedom. I poured a cup of strong black coffee, climbed into the back of the truck and gazed at the robin egg blue sky... fluffy white clouds and the occasional deer, rabbit, and the slow hypnotic spiraling flight of hawks as they circled high above my head. I gazed out over the horizon knowing that I still had miles to go, but over the mountains I would nestle in the arms of mountains I love and call home.
My piano sounds like a symphony. I played for hours yesterday. I will fly to New Orleans on November 7, then into NYC on the 10th. Return to Wyoming on the 14th, finish closing the house and business, then back to Utah and on to New Zealand.
The Southern Alps of New Zealand are pure magic. My strength comes from mountains. They haunt me. I can't imagine life without hills and valleys. Snow capped peaks that reflect the sunrise and sunset in all it's celestial glory. Possibly why I feel so close to mountains is: My life has been full of high and low points... peaks and valleys. Never ever a flat surface. Thank God and the Universe.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN
Back when I was a little boy, in the Spring of 1952 there was this one afternoon I will never forget.
My mother had bathed my newly born baby sister in the kitchen sink, rubbed her body with Johnson & Johnson's baby oil and laid her in a small crib for her nap. New born babies sleep a lot. I had been outside walking through the pastures. The sky was the color of Tuscan Blue... high clouds and windy. The wash on the clothes line was flapping in the breeze and there was the scent of smoke in the air from farmers burning off weeds that grow along the banks and inside irrigation ditches.
As a little boy I treasured my "alone time" walking along fence posts, avoiding cow pies, thistle and sand burrs. My mother hated when I would come in with sand burrs stuck to my pants, socks and clay like mud from my laying inside sunken mud holes that water had created.
The wind literally lifted my six year old body to the back steps of our house. The back door opened into the kitchen.
This certain afternoon I have no idea where everyone had gone. I walked into the kitchen removing my coat and shoes. Our house always had comforting smells. Scrubbed floors, polished furniture, baking bread and at times the pungent scent of raw cow's milk. I walked into our living room.
We had mullioned windows with venetian blinds on the windows. My mother was always tipping the slats to create certain effects with the light. The carpet was a floral pattern as well as the wall paper.
I remember sitting in the middle of the room, the rays of light from the blinds casting beams of the most intense sparkling light. I laid on the carpet watching the dancing beams of energy... then into my head entered a voice. A voice that was not the sound of my child like voice... it was a different voice. Words that speak in the sound of THOUGHTS.
"You will never ever be like the rest. You are not like other boys or girls... you are NOT like anyone else..." I remember feeling not sad or concerned. I simply felt a sweet peace. I never for a moment felt or imagined I was not loved. I knew as a 6 year old boy that for the next 15 years of my life I would have to "join in"... "fall in line" with certain expectations and beliefs in order to survive.
I cannot explain what I was experiencing except that it was MAGIC. When you live in the middle of open spaces, fields of corn, tomatoes, potatoes, water melons and onions interspersed with cattle, pheasants, pigs, chickens, meadow larks and red robins, long cold winters and desert heat in the summers... it makes you see the world differently. You see magic!
Myself, I've been looking for magic my whole life. Still looking and will never stop! It's not an easy way to live. I have cried and laughed enough to fill volumes with reasons of why I love my quest for magic.
It's hard to leave parts of one's life. When I was 6 years old I never wanted to leave my life because it was as perfect as any child could ever dream of. Then school, church, and so many events would take all that away.
When my mother was pregnant with my first sister Sharon, I learned it took 9 months for a baby to develop to the point where it was able to be born. I did the math backwards from my birthday and figured I was a very special little boy because I started around February 14,1946, Valentine's day and was born 9 months later mid November.
My introduction to nature, food, music, and books were from the instant I was conceived. My parents and their families loved music and were able to sing, dance and play instruments. My mother was an avid reader and belonged to a book club where every month certain books would arrive in our mail box.
I envied people that could read. I begged my mother to teach me how to read.
She taught me how letters of the alphabet were the building blocks that created words! She would read me Fairy Tales and move her index finger under the words as she read out loud. She taught me how to hold a pencil. How to write my name.
Most of all she gave me a sacred respect and reverence for the written word. She told me that if a person could read they could do anything. I believe that is a truth beyond reproach to this very day.
Food was very sacred to my family. To enjoy good food one must summon all of his sensory trigger points into symphony. Touch, smell, sight, taste and the sounds of food cooking, it's presentation and eating together as a family or with friends was a blessing.
Being a little boy amid farms, animals and the four seasons I learned how life was created. Through rhythms, vibrations and Cycles. Most of all I learned the power of attraction. The power of negativity and positivity. To this very day I can step into a room of people and sense negative or passive vibrations. Electric currents that flow between human beings. We radiate our unspoken thoughts in the form of energy.
To the north of our house was a Fruit orchard. In front of the house was an irrigation ditch which all summer and part of the autumn carried running water to acres of farm land. Cattle lived in a huge paddock across the street and north of the calves and cows was a smelly silo pit full of rotting corn. Open spaces filled with alfalfa, stalks of corn, pungent fields of tomato plants, potatoes, sugar beets. From the time I was a little baby I was surrounded by the five sacred things of life: Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Spirit.
ll
LIGHT & SHADOW
Tables can be unique. They are one of the most important pieces of furniture within a home. We had a square wooden table near the east window in our kitchen. I often wonder where that table ended up.
Every meal was eaten around that table. My mother composed letters to her many sisters at that table. Once a month she wrote checks to pay bills as she sat at that table. After she had stuffed the envelopes I was allowed to lick the stamps.
When she would bake that table was the resting place for her cakes, cookies, breads as well as so many things besides food. I regard kitchen tables as alters where families and friends join together.
In the late 40's early 50's my father would sit after dinner at that table and Tool leather.
He held tools with his hands and gently tapped them against a pattern he had drawn on the surface of the leather. Leather releases a very sensuous scent.
I would sit and watch images blossom into acorns, pine cones, trees, all kinds of arabesques and even animals.
He never said much as I sat holding my chin in my hands watching hypnotically as he tapped away.
From observing his hands, I learned how SHADOW AND LIGHT play upon surfaces to create beauty. He referred to it as "highlights" and "shadows".
He made belts, vests and various pieces but the most beautiful thing was a loose leaf binder out of leather. I have no idea where that binder ever ended up, but he carried it with him for years.
He was very talented in the art of drawing. When I was 5 or 6 years old he showed me how to draw cartoon faces. People with huge noses, where upon you could draw warts, swollen lips and strange eyes. They were always PROFILES! He also showed me how to color with crayons.
SHADING was the key. He would draw on flannel pulled taunt over a board. My mother would use these in her Sunday School presentations. He'd draw a landscape upon which my mother would place cut outs depicting stories from the Bible. He used crayons to paint rocks, mountains, skies full of clouds and even oceans. I'd sit and watch him. He taught me how to draw clouds. The underneath part of a cloud must be darker than the top. Once more a lesson in shadow and light.
Pressure. One had to apply more energy against the surface of the paper in order to create a dark shade, less pressure to create a soft light color. I applied this lesson to the keys of the piano! More weight on a key created a loud, dark sound, a light touch gave forth a soft, delicate sound.
My mother dabbled in ceramics. She set up a card table in our living room and covered it with old news papers upon which she would place her figurines and paint them as she turned them in the light. The silken surfaces of the plaster would reflect light. One time she made these wall sconces that she placed Air Ferns in. She told me they literally lived on air! Maybe they did!
In the living room Mother kept an oval glass fish bowl on the radio/record player . The bowl had gold fish swimming inside it's clear waters. She fed those fish daily and fussed over the water, changing it every so many days as well as adding certain colored rocks and corrals to the bottom of the bowl.
I recall one day as she was feeding the fish they leaped from the bowl landing on the carpet. She screamed grabbing them and placing them back into the water. The fish lived as most things my mother ever touches seem to find a way to heal regardless of what ever is wrong and they go on living.
Once more a lesson. I would sit and gaze at that fish bowl as light filtered through the water and breathed light into the scales of the fish. The way the fish dove to the bottom of the glass orb and then swam to the surface of the crystal water leaving tiny bubbles that created motion in the water as well as shadow and light.
Years later I read that Debussy spent precious money of which he could not afford, on a Oriental print of Gold Fish. To this very day I always stop beside a stream or pond and look for fish. Stunned by the motion of crystal waters, light, darkness and the eternal song of silence that through music takes wings into the mystical dimension of melody and harmony.
My mother was forever moving furniture in the living room. (to save the carpet?) She'd get something placed and stand back... shake her head and then off we'd go again shoving and pushing. She was actually quite strong.
Once it was all re-arranged we'd sit on the sofa and she would smile a certain way if everything looked right and frown if she did not like it. Her eyes told her things I was only beginning to see. She was not aware of the fact she was teaching me lessons in BALANCE.
Weight and lightness within a room create a sense of well being. Mother taught me that if you place a large heavy piece of furniture at one end of the room you must balance it by putting something on the other end of the room that created evenness.
She taught me how in door plants reach for the light. She always placed plants near windows because they would be happy plants! I applied this technique in music and food presentation. I love plants. They are mirrors that reflect our inner most feelings. I always place live plants near windows and around my piano... VIBRATIONS.
When you plate food, you avoid making food appear FLAT. You associate color, hills and valleys and balance so that the plate is appealing to the eye as well as the palate.
The magic of LIGHT, SHADOW, TOUCH and MOTION then finding a BALANCE would have sacred meaning in my ability to create music and food.
lll
HEARING IS BELIEVING
My father milked cows every morning and every night. My little brother and I would stand in cow dung and watch our father's strong hands pull and squeeze hot white milk from cow's udders as the cows munched on green, pungent hay.
He would lift his rich baritone voice in song and the boards of the entire milking shed would vibrate with the sound of his voice. To think, his very voice is still alive in the atmosphere and inside many people's minds.
When I was a very little boy I remember hearing my father singing in fields far away. His voice raised in song was an omen, a symbol of safety and most of all he was happy.
When my mother and her sisters gathered together they would sing. They had a magical quality that only siblings have. Their vibratos matched. This is what made the Lennon Sisters so famous, the Osmonds, the King Sisters as well as many other singing families.
My mother's siblings could play bongos, shakers, spoons, banjos, guitars and ukuleles. I could not wait to go to my Grandpa and Grandma Keller's Parties because my uncles, and all of my aunts would kiss, hug and laugh. Good food, but most of all the music! The music was magic.
My Grandma Keller would sit at her piano and plunk out tunes, but when she would put a piano roll in and have us pump the pedals at the bottom of the piano with out feet! I was in heaven. Being children there were times we simply pumped too fast... running. She would stop anything she was doing and reprimand us. BALANCE! You pedal at a pace that makes the music beautiful!
From my mother's family I learned a very special phrase: " JUST PLAY IT BY EAR!"
I never doubted that I would not be able to play by ear! It was part of my inheritance. To this day when I audition a student that wishes to study with me the first thing I try to discover is if they can retain a MELODY within their mind and reproduce it on the keyboard minus a written score.
My parents purchased a Television when I was about 8 years old. I watched the Liberace show... the Bell Telephone Hour... I watched the Hit Parade... The Kate Smith Show, The Omnibus Play House, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason with the June Taylor Dancers, The Loretta Young Show... All these black and white mono sound television shows taught me things I use to this very day when I make music.
The Hit Parade was long before American Bandstand. The Hit Parade released the top 10 songs on the CHARTS and they were performed with "sets". When Rose Mary Clooney came out with THIS OLD HOUSE... I remember watching the Hit Parade where a stage set of a very old house literally collapsed. As silly as the stage sets were by today's standards they made 'imprints' within my musical mind that to this day haunt me.
The Bell Telephone Hour showcased some of the greatest artists of the day. Ballet, Opera, Piano, Violin and Symphony. My piano teacher, Seymour Bernstein with whom I have studied longer than any teacher I ever had in my youth, appeared on the Kate Smith Show three times!
Loretta Young... I can still play (by ear) her theme song. Her show always presented a stage drama. She would come twirling through these French doors in a full gown... She featured so many great actresses and actors on her show. Ida Lappino, Burt Lancaster, Helen Hayes, Orson Wells the list is endless.
The catalyst that influenced me with the Televisions shows was: THE MUSIC. THE BACK GROUND MUSIC.
The way the music enhanced the unsay-able emotions and drama during any performance.
In later years I put this influence to great use. Background music enhances food! It balances the digestive system. It creates ambiance. Candle light would paint shadows and light... the very way a dinning room was arranged would balance the over all effect of music, food and create high lights. My mother and my father gave me the foundation upon which everything I have learned and will ever know about music, food and life evolved from.
I cannot forget the value of vibrations, color, sound, pain and yes, ever so many misunderstandings inside my life's adventure, but forever there has been a sacred jewel hidden amid all the tears and laughter: the value of love and above all else the blessing of forgiveness and unconditional love.
My mother and father to this day, in their 80's love me and the people I love without CONDITIONS. Mind you, there were years when I know they did judge me according to their beliefs in religion, politics and philosophy. Many of their beliefs I could not embrace... however, I learned one precious lesson and the words were spoken from my mother's mouth in the late 60's..."What a person believes and what a person loves are entirely two different things."
lll
MUSICAL
My piano lessons were a one on one learning experience. My father took me to a woman piano teacher when I was 11 years old Dorothy Code. She showed me how chords were created out of a 12 note scale. The scale being the alphabet and from those letters you created the Golden Mean. CHORDS. She taught me how the left hand notes and the the right hand created harmony and melody. She showed me how fingering worked. She taught me how to write my musical thoughts out on manuscript paper thus the creation of my own MUSIC!!!
She had a Parakette Bird in her house. The bird flew every where and scarred the hell out of me. I had the fear that it would bite my neck or fingers.
She taught me that clutter was not always a state of disorder. She kept a very messy house and claimed it was because of her low blood sugar!
She loved composing music. She had studied with one of the Mormon Tabernacle organist's DR. FRANK ASPER. I adored her until I discovered she actually hated so many local musicians. I then turned to James Pingree. He was very kind to me and introduced me to so many composers. He was a steppingstone into a new horizon and dimension I could NOT as a 13 year old boy imagine.
He introduced me me to Debbusy, Brahms., Bach, Chopin.... and most of all scales...arpeggios, octaves and how to play phrases.
I have never done well in class rooms. My musical education has been a "ONE ON ONE" learning experience. Therefore, I have sought out the most prestigious teachers in the world.
I learn from observation, demonstration which my eyes, ears, and emotions absorb like a sponge in water. My teachers have been celestial guides. (I learned years ago I have deslyxisa as well as a bit of Ausberger's disease) I have used those learning disabilities as gifts rather than curses.
My musical guides respected my individual talent as well as had the gift of drawing out as it were, my need to create my individual talent which over the years would touch the hearts and minds of many people.
One of those teacher was a woman named LOIS JOHNSTON MANNING. She knew where my heart, mind and hands were going.
She had walked down some paths I would eventually walk. She is one of my musical angels.
To this very day I carry a note from her. She gave it to me with a camera as I was leaving the train station in Ogden Utah. "I WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU NEED ME." She has been with me when I have needed a musical angel.
My father and mother have also been with me along my journey and my grandparents.
I can go on writing for ever about why and how I am the person I am today.
I am 63 years old. I have survived many things that no one except myself would understand. Possibly one day I will write a book about my entire life. My pets, the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island. The Wasatch Mountain Range,Wyoming, New York City, New Zealand, Iceland and men landing on the moon.
My life in music has been the guiding light that has taken me every single place I was meant to go. Because of music I toured the world and shared my music with people from Asia to Europe. America and New Zealand. Because of music I have loved beyond most men's dreams. Because of music I have suffered beyond most men's capacity for pain.
When anyone asks me the question, "How did you learn to make music and to
cook?" I tell them that THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN... and they usually look at me with an even bigger question, like WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
I have loved poetry all of my life. Wm Wordsworth is one of my favorite poets.
In the movie "A River Runs Through" this poem is spoken as a duet.
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY from RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
The child is the father of the man;
and I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by mutual piety...
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
Hath had elsewhere it's setting
And cometh from afar:
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
As Sarah Williams said: "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of
the night..."
My mother had bathed my newly born baby sister in the kitchen sink, rubbed her body with Johnson & Johnson's baby oil and laid her in a small crib for her nap. New born babies sleep a lot. I had been outside walking through the pastures. The sky was the color of Tuscan Blue... high clouds and windy. The wash on the clothes line was flapping in the breeze and there was the scent of smoke in the air from farmers burning off weeds that grow along the banks and inside irrigation ditches.
As a little boy I treasured my "alone time" walking along fence posts, avoiding cow pies, thistle and sand burrs. My mother hated when I would come in with sand burrs stuck to my pants, socks and clay like mud from my laying inside sunken mud holes that water had created.
The wind literally lifted my six year old body to the back steps of our house. The back door opened into the kitchen.
This certain afternoon I have no idea where everyone had gone. I walked into the kitchen removing my coat and shoes. Our house always had comforting smells. Scrubbed floors, polished furniture, baking bread and at times the pungent scent of raw cow's milk. I walked into our living room.
We had mullioned windows with venetian blinds on the windows. My mother was always tipping the slats to create certain effects with the light. The carpet was a floral pattern as well as the wall paper.
I remember sitting in the middle of the room, the rays of light from the blinds casting beams of the most intense sparkling light. I laid on the carpet watching the dancing beams of energy... then into my head entered a voice. A voice that was not the sound of my child like voice... it was a different voice. Words that speak in the sound of THOUGHTS.
"You will never ever be like the rest. You are not like other boys or girls... you are NOT like anyone else..." I remember feeling not sad or concerned. I simply felt a sweet peace. I never for a moment felt or imagined I was not loved. I knew as a 6 year old boy that for the next 15 years of my life I would have to "join in"... "fall in line" with certain expectations and beliefs in order to survive.
I cannot explain what I was experiencing except that it was MAGIC. When you live in the middle of open spaces, fields of corn, tomatoes, potatoes, water melons and onions interspersed with cattle, pheasants, pigs, chickens, meadow larks and red robins, long cold winters and desert heat in the summers... it makes you see the world differently. You see magic!
Myself, I've been looking for magic my whole life. Still looking and will never stop! It's not an easy way to live. I have cried and laughed enough to fill volumes with reasons of why I love my quest for magic.
It's hard to leave parts of one's life. When I was 6 years old I never wanted to leave my life because it was as perfect as any child could ever dream of. Then school, church, and so many events would take all that away.
When my mother was pregnant with my first sister Sharon, I learned it took 9 months for a baby to develop to the point where it was able to be born. I did the math backwards from my birthday and figured I was a very special little boy because I started around February 14,1946, Valentine's day and was born 9 months later mid November.
My introduction to nature, food, music, and books were from the instant I was conceived. My parents and their families loved music and were able to sing, dance and play instruments. My mother was an avid reader and belonged to a book club where every month certain books would arrive in our mail box.
I envied people that could read. I begged my mother to teach me how to read.
She taught me how letters of the alphabet were the building blocks that created words! She would read me Fairy Tales and move her index finger under the words as she read out loud. She taught me how to hold a pencil. How to write my name.
Most of all she gave me a sacred respect and reverence for the written word. She told me that if a person could read they could do anything. I believe that is a truth beyond reproach to this very day.
Food was very sacred to my family. To enjoy good food one must summon all of his sensory trigger points into symphony. Touch, smell, sight, taste and the sounds of food cooking, it's presentation and eating together as a family or with friends was a blessing.
Being a little boy amid farms, animals and the four seasons I learned how life was created. Through rhythms, vibrations and Cycles. Most of all I learned the power of attraction. The power of negativity and positivity. To this very day I can step into a room of people and sense negative or passive vibrations. Electric currents that flow between human beings. We radiate our unspoken thoughts in the form of energy.
To the north of our house was a Fruit orchard. In front of the house was an irrigation ditch which all summer and part of the autumn carried running water to acres of farm land. Cattle lived in a huge paddock across the street and north of the calves and cows was a smelly silo pit full of rotting corn. Open spaces filled with alfalfa, stalks of corn, pungent fields of tomato plants, potatoes, sugar beets. From the time I was a little baby I was surrounded by the five sacred things of life: Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Spirit.
ll
LIGHT & SHADOW
Tables can be unique. They are one of the most important pieces of furniture within a home. We had a square wooden table near the east window in our kitchen. I often wonder where that table ended up.
Every meal was eaten around that table. My mother composed letters to her many sisters at that table. Once a month she wrote checks to pay bills as she sat at that table. After she had stuffed the envelopes I was allowed to lick the stamps.
When she would bake that table was the resting place for her cakes, cookies, breads as well as so many things besides food. I regard kitchen tables as alters where families and friends join together.
In the late 40's early 50's my father would sit after dinner at that table and Tool leather.
He held tools with his hands and gently tapped them against a pattern he had drawn on the surface of the leather. Leather releases a very sensuous scent.
I would sit and watch images blossom into acorns, pine cones, trees, all kinds of arabesques and even animals.
He never said much as I sat holding my chin in my hands watching hypnotically as he tapped away.
From observing his hands, I learned how SHADOW AND LIGHT play upon surfaces to create beauty. He referred to it as "highlights" and "shadows".
He made belts, vests and various pieces but the most beautiful thing was a loose leaf binder out of leather. I have no idea where that binder ever ended up, but he carried it with him for years.
He was very talented in the art of drawing. When I was 5 or 6 years old he showed me how to draw cartoon faces. People with huge noses, where upon you could draw warts, swollen lips and strange eyes. They were always PROFILES! He also showed me how to color with crayons.
SHADING was the key. He would draw on flannel pulled taunt over a board. My mother would use these in her Sunday School presentations. He'd draw a landscape upon which my mother would place cut outs depicting stories from the Bible. He used crayons to paint rocks, mountains, skies full of clouds and even oceans. I'd sit and watch him. He taught me how to draw clouds. The underneath part of a cloud must be darker than the top. Once more a lesson in shadow and light.
Pressure. One had to apply more energy against the surface of the paper in order to create a dark shade, less pressure to create a soft light color. I applied this lesson to the keys of the piano! More weight on a key created a loud, dark sound, a light touch gave forth a soft, delicate sound.
My mother dabbled in ceramics. She set up a card table in our living room and covered it with old news papers upon which she would place her figurines and paint them as she turned them in the light. The silken surfaces of the plaster would reflect light. One time she made these wall sconces that she placed Air Ferns in. She told me they literally lived on air! Maybe they did!
In the living room Mother kept an oval glass fish bowl on the radio/record player . The bowl had gold fish swimming inside it's clear waters. She fed those fish daily and fussed over the water, changing it every so many days as well as adding certain colored rocks and corrals to the bottom of the bowl.
I recall one day as she was feeding the fish they leaped from the bowl landing on the carpet. She screamed grabbing them and placing them back into the water. The fish lived as most things my mother ever touches seem to find a way to heal regardless of what ever is wrong and they go on living.
Once more a lesson. I would sit and gaze at that fish bowl as light filtered through the water and breathed light into the scales of the fish. The way the fish dove to the bottom of the glass orb and then swam to the surface of the crystal water leaving tiny bubbles that created motion in the water as well as shadow and light.
Years later I read that Debussy spent precious money of which he could not afford, on a Oriental print of Gold Fish. To this very day I always stop beside a stream or pond and look for fish. Stunned by the motion of crystal waters, light, darkness and the eternal song of silence that through music takes wings into the mystical dimension of melody and harmony.
My mother was forever moving furniture in the living room. (to save the carpet?) She'd get something placed and stand back... shake her head and then off we'd go again shoving and pushing. She was actually quite strong.
Once it was all re-arranged we'd sit on the sofa and she would smile a certain way if everything looked right and frown if she did not like it. Her eyes told her things I was only beginning to see. She was not aware of the fact she was teaching me lessons in BALANCE.
Weight and lightness within a room create a sense of well being. Mother taught me that if you place a large heavy piece of furniture at one end of the room you must balance it by putting something on the other end of the room that created evenness.
She taught me how in door plants reach for the light. She always placed plants near windows because they would be happy plants! I applied this technique in music and food presentation. I love plants. They are mirrors that reflect our inner most feelings. I always place live plants near windows and around my piano... VIBRATIONS.
When you plate food, you avoid making food appear FLAT. You associate color, hills and valleys and balance so that the plate is appealing to the eye as well as the palate.
The magic of LIGHT, SHADOW, TOUCH and MOTION then finding a BALANCE would have sacred meaning in my ability to create music and food.
lll
HEARING IS BELIEVING
My father milked cows every morning and every night. My little brother and I would stand in cow dung and watch our father's strong hands pull and squeeze hot white milk from cow's udders as the cows munched on green, pungent hay.
He would lift his rich baritone voice in song and the boards of the entire milking shed would vibrate with the sound of his voice. To think, his very voice is still alive in the atmosphere and inside many people's minds.
When I was a very little boy I remember hearing my father singing in fields far away. His voice raised in song was an omen, a symbol of safety and most of all he was happy.
When my mother and her sisters gathered together they would sing. They had a magical quality that only siblings have. Their vibratos matched. This is what made the Lennon Sisters so famous, the Osmonds, the King Sisters as well as many other singing families.
My mother's siblings could play bongos, shakers, spoons, banjos, guitars and ukuleles. I could not wait to go to my Grandpa and Grandma Keller's Parties because my uncles, and all of my aunts would kiss, hug and laugh. Good food, but most of all the music! The music was magic.
My Grandma Keller would sit at her piano and plunk out tunes, but when she would put a piano roll in and have us pump the pedals at the bottom of the piano with out feet! I was in heaven. Being children there were times we simply pumped too fast... running. She would stop anything she was doing and reprimand us. BALANCE! You pedal at a pace that makes the music beautiful!
From my mother's family I learned a very special phrase: " JUST PLAY IT BY EAR!"
I never doubted that I would not be able to play by ear! It was part of my inheritance. To this day when I audition a student that wishes to study with me the first thing I try to discover is if they can retain a MELODY within their mind and reproduce it on the keyboard minus a written score.
My parents purchased a Television when I was about 8 years old. I watched the Liberace show... the Bell Telephone Hour... I watched the Hit Parade... The Kate Smith Show, The Omnibus Play House, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason with the June Taylor Dancers, The Loretta Young Show... All these black and white mono sound television shows taught me things I use to this very day when I make music.
The Hit Parade was long before American Bandstand. The Hit Parade released the top 10 songs on the CHARTS and they were performed with "sets". When Rose Mary Clooney came out with THIS OLD HOUSE... I remember watching the Hit Parade where a stage set of a very old house literally collapsed. As silly as the stage sets were by today's standards they made 'imprints' within my musical mind that to this day haunt me.
The Bell Telephone Hour showcased some of the greatest artists of the day. Ballet, Opera, Piano, Violin and Symphony. My piano teacher, Seymour Bernstein with whom I have studied longer than any teacher I ever had in my youth, appeared on the Kate Smith Show three times!
Loretta Young... I can still play (by ear) her theme song. Her show always presented a stage drama. She would come twirling through these French doors in a full gown... She featured so many great actresses and actors on her show. Ida Lappino, Burt Lancaster, Helen Hayes, Orson Wells the list is endless.
The catalyst that influenced me with the Televisions shows was: THE MUSIC. THE BACK GROUND MUSIC.
The way the music enhanced the unsay-able emotions and drama during any performance.
In later years I put this influence to great use. Background music enhances food! It balances the digestive system. It creates ambiance. Candle light would paint shadows and light... the very way a dinning room was arranged would balance the over all effect of music, food and create high lights. My mother and my father gave me the foundation upon which everything I have learned and will ever know about music, food and life evolved from.
I cannot forget the value of vibrations, color, sound, pain and yes, ever so many misunderstandings inside my life's adventure, but forever there has been a sacred jewel hidden amid all the tears and laughter: the value of love and above all else the blessing of forgiveness and unconditional love.
My mother and father to this day, in their 80's love me and the people I love without CONDITIONS. Mind you, there were years when I know they did judge me according to their beliefs in religion, politics and philosophy. Many of their beliefs I could not embrace... however, I learned one precious lesson and the words were spoken from my mother's mouth in the late 60's..."What a person believes and what a person loves are entirely two different things."
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MUSICAL
My piano lessons were a one on one learning experience. My father took me to a woman piano teacher when I was 11 years old Dorothy Code. She showed me how chords were created out of a 12 note scale. The scale being the alphabet and from those letters you created the Golden Mean. CHORDS. She taught me how the left hand notes and the the right hand created harmony and melody. She showed me how fingering worked. She taught me how to write my musical thoughts out on manuscript paper thus the creation of my own MUSIC!!!
She had a Parakette Bird in her house. The bird flew every where and scarred the hell out of me. I had the fear that it would bite my neck or fingers.
She taught me that clutter was not always a state of disorder. She kept a very messy house and claimed it was because of her low blood sugar!
She loved composing music. She had studied with one of the Mormon Tabernacle organist's DR. FRANK ASPER. I adored her until I discovered she actually hated so many local musicians. I then turned to James Pingree. He was very kind to me and introduced me to so many composers. He was a steppingstone into a new horizon and dimension I could NOT as a 13 year old boy imagine.
He introduced me me to Debbusy, Brahms., Bach, Chopin.... and most of all scales...arpeggios, octaves and how to play phrases.
I have never done well in class rooms. My musical education has been a "ONE ON ONE" learning experience. Therefore, I have sought out the most prestigious teachers in the world.
I learn from observation, demonstration which my eyes, ears, and emotions absorb like a sponge in water. My teachers have been celestial guides. (I learned years ago I have deslyxisa as well as a bit of Ausberger's disease) I have used those learning disabilities as gifts rather than curses.
My musical guides respected my individual talent as well as had the gift of drawing out as it were, my need to create my individual talent which over the years would touch the hearts and minds of many people.
One of those teacher was a woman named LOIS JOHNSTON MANNING. She knew where my heart, mind and hands were going.
She had walked down some paths I would eventually walk. She is one of my musical angels.
To this very day I carry a note from her. She gave it to me with a camera as I was leaving the train station in Ogden Utah. "I WILL BE THERE WHEN YOU NEED ME." She has been with me when I have needed a musical angel.
My father and mother have also been with me along my journey and my grandparents.
I can go on writing for ever about why and how I am the person I am today.
I am 63 years old. I have survived many things that no one except myself would understand. Possibly one day I will write a book about my entire life. My pets, the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island. The Wasatch Mountain Range,Wyoming, New York City, New Zealand, Iceland and men landing on the moon.
My life in music has been the guiding light that has taken me every single place I was meant to go. Because of music I toured the world and shared my music with people from Asia to Europe. America and New Zealand. Because of music I have loved beyond most men's dreams. Because of music I have suffered beyond most men's capacity for pain.
When anyone asks me the question, "How did you learn to make music and to
cook?" I tell them that THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN... and they usually look at me with an even bigger question, like WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
I have loved poetry all of my life. Wm Wordsworth is one of my favorite poets.
In the movie "A River Runs Through" this poem is spoken as a duet.
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY from RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
The child is the father of the man;
and I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by mutual piety...
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
Hath had elsewhere it's setting
And cometh from afar:
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
As Sarah Williams said: "I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of
the night..."
Friday, October 15, 2010
It's been a while since...
We closed the Nordic Inn on October 3, 2010. Had a great season. Fantastic weather, lots of wonderful people and most of all I was healthy, happy and DID IT! I look forward to writing my thoughts and the amazing feeling of actually being apart of something greater than myself... something that really is OUT THERE!
Right now, I am gorging myself on a brilliant INDIAN SUMMER. Frosty mornings with the moon and stars... first light kissing the mountain peaks and COLOR. OMG, COLOR... vibrations... music everywhere. I love the fall time.
Before I fly to New Orleans and NYC I will write about the events of this summer.
Right now, I am gorging myself on a brilliant INDIAN SUMMER. Frosty mornings with the moon and stars... first light kissing the mountain peaks and COLOR. OMG, COLOR... vibrations... music everywhere. I love the fall time.
Before I fly to New Orleans and NYC I will write about the events of this summer.
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