Mystical Mentors in Our Lives

When I was a Performance Piano Major at the University of Utah, I know my Face Book states I studied music at WSC in Ogden Utah which I did.  In 1965 they had an amazing faculty.  Years later I attended the University of Utah.

My piano teacher at the time I was a student at the UofU was Lowell Farr.  He introduced me to so many pieces in the piano literature beyond the standard works I learned from Childhood.  Schubert, Hayden, lots of Bach and Beethoven then the love of my life:  Claude A. Debussy.  Lowell claimed the Preludes Book 1 and 11 by Debussy were as sacred as Bach's Preludes and Fugues Books 1 and 11.  He showed me so many amazing intricate mathematical equations and phrases within the lines and spaces Debussy sat upon the canvas of a musical manuscript!

Plato said, "music penetrates to the center of the soul and gains possession of it in the most energetic fashion"

Isaac the Syrian:  "He who has SEEN HIMSELF is greater than the one who has seen ANGLES!"

I love the Syrian's quote.  Anyone that practices music night and day endure freighting experiences of SEEING WHO THEY ARE!  They discover all of their weakest parts, plus their STRONGEST and most durable parts.  Next comes the FEARS!  the forever ANGST when performing in front of anything.  It can be a live audience, a microphone, playing knowing someone in the next room is listening...  the worst situation for me years ago:  a lapse of memory!  the most terrifying feeling in the world.  I had an amazing ability to capture musical pieces and hold them firmly inside my musical mind!  There have been times when something did not CONNECT and I was floundering like a fish out of water... these are times one thanks GOD for musical theory.  "OMG!  I am in the key of E flat.  The melody is within my reach..."  you grasp and improvise like magic to recover when in the hell you "snapped".

The daily practice of music teaches you how to FORGIVE and MOVE ON and leave your mistakes by the wayside!

When I practice and read Debussy I see myself in a different light.

Music, with It's powerful ability to deduce, contains a delicate element of the INVISIBLE WORLD!

It penetrates one's being through "suggestion".  It is not a fable that in antiquity music was considered a gift from the gods and that ancients played music fervently.

Like a woman's perfume, music is a very powerful element.  Most masculine musicians will shun and try not to surrender their beliefs in science, technology and ability to REASON when it comes to the chemical that overcomes a musician when feeling complete EMOTION!

Remember David and his Lyre and Harp?  His flute and gift for dance?  The Songs of Solomon?  In my childhood I converted to a RELIGION not many people would regard as divine and pure.  I felt and knew the TRUTH within MUSIC.

I have never and still do not understand how the OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW TESTAMENT OF THE BIBLES BELONG TOGETHER??????  I have read the Bible 13 times from cover to cover not skipping a word.  The God of murder, blood sacrifice, concubines, etc. in the Old Testament then the LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU IN THE N.T.  Most all wars are have deep religious origins!  

Give me Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmanninoff, even CCWR, Beatles, Oscar Peterson and list is endless.  Debussy and yes ALL GENRES of sound.

I will forever need to live near mountains and waters.  The sea is never too far away from any river.  A river is a living vessel of living water.

Legato, rubato, are curves like a snake's slow incandescent undulations within green grass.  The snake and river are strong, winding and full of rebellious life flowing into something hidden...

I live across from the Snake River.  I watch this river move like a beacon through my past 30 years.

I have witnessed this river in drought.  Extremely LOW water levels and at intense HIGH levels.  I have cried when my eyes watch darts of light dance on this water at sunset.  I have seen rocks, fish, soil and plant life that only live near the music of rivers.

Debussy said:  MUSIC IS THE EXPRESSION OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE WATERS, THE PLAY OF CURVES DESCRIBED BY CHANGING BREEZES.

The haunting words are play of curves changing the breezes!  Deja vu often comes to me in my every moment of breathing and observing nature.

Debussy belonged to some very strange and esoteric groups of thinkers and artists.  I like this fact!  He was NOT controlled by dogmas.   His music forever reveals to me who and what I am.  What secret gift beyond imagination!