Sunday, March 2, 2014

Lubomyr Melnyk in concert. YU as ark.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian

Following the Lubomyr Melnyk lecture at PSU on Friday, having just heard from Melnyk himself that the majority of his career has been spent playing to very small audiences, it was nice to see a sizable crowd forming at the expansive Yale Union arts complex for the artist’s evening concert.

Wandering the building’s spacious and vaulted upper floor, and pacing through its various enclaves, I found myself in a unique position to both engage socially, and detach for intervals of roving solitude, an opportunity typically not afforded patrons of other lovely but less spacially endowed arts venues.

I also found time in the course of the evening to lie down on the floor, taking in the sights and soaring sounds of Melnyk’s undulating compositions from the perspective of the worn, wooden floors of this former laundry building.

Through my wandering and lying down stretched out I was able to reap the unspoken rewards of attending these types of subtle meditative events. Through thought meanderings and reflections of all kinds, the mind is given a chance to unwind, easing symptoms of the day-to-day, and giving the brain a much needed break from common strains of information deluge.

On one occasion while wandering, I was having a familiar interior monologue about the ways in which people’s sense for the spiritual seems to be evolving. I began to liken the building’s cavernous interior to that of a modernist church, a stark, concrete and wooden ark (to use a Christian metaphor). I even noticed how the large wooden beams overhead resembled a giant cross.

To be clear, these metaphors and symbols have nothing to do with my identifying with the Christian faith, or having any desire to see its numbers grow. I am not a Christian (except perhaps in the loose anthropological sense promoted by Mircea Eliade.) What I am saying is that, as part of my own peculiar mental landscape, these images and symbols have taken on an altered meaning. They speak strongly as metaphor.

To liken this concert (featuring a modern composer performing at a center for contemporary art) to a church gathering is only to draw attention to the analogous climate of solemnity and reverence. But reverence for what? This is a question often waged at the newly appearing “atheist churches” cropping up in cities throughout the U.S. and Great Britain.

Though I can’t answer the question (but for myself), what I did note at YU was that many of the desired effects one might look for in a church service (solemnity, tranquility, reverence, shared experience, a balance of anonymity and sociability, transcendence, a welcome distraction, inspiring speech) were all available without evoking any of the conventional flavors of god issuing from the world’s popular religions.

Instead, there was a tranquil atmosphere, a shared sense of knowing, a container for the private landscapes of individuals to flourish in.

Richard Rorty, an influential American philosopher who in his later life preferred to be seen as an “anti-clericalist” rather than an atheist, nonetheless envisioned a future for religion—if not for himself, at least for others who experience more of a ‘religious impulse’ than he did.

The religion of the future, according to Rorty, would emphasize the private spirituality of individuals, avoiding the tendency toward universality. Arguably all matters of ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ are highly private and individualized even in the more dogmatic realms of institutional religion. In a sense, there really is no religion but a religion of one’s own.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian

Melnyk’s last song was a lengthy one, with a memorable theme that developed slowly atop one of the composer’s signature “continuous” streams of arpeggios. He had indicated that for his final piece (as in an earlier one) he would play overtop a recording he had made of himself playing the same piano earlier that evening. He emphasized the importance of making the prerecording on the day of the event (and using the same piano) to ensure consistency, and also to establish the nowness of the gesture.

Admittedly, it was difficult for me to discern the prerecording from the live playing while lying on my back staring at the ceiling, but the distinction was far from my mind. Instead my mind was flooded with the content of my own psyche.

At a point, it seemed possible (though I’m cautious of projecting) that being amidst this thought-full crowd, a certain unspoken appreciation was being channelled. A thankfulness (foremost) for the beautiful music and for the evening's tranquil ambiance, but also for being among the beneficiaries of yet another magical visitation, this time by Melnyk, one of the most recent to pass through Portland’s revolving door of sublimity.

Photo: Scott Mayoral | Central Meridian

Friday, February 28, 2014

Lubomyr Melnyk: comments on the divine [with his fingers].

This afternoon I left the bottling line (my job at the kombucha production facility) to attend a lecture/workshop by Lubomyr Melnyk, a modern composer regarded for his unique playing style which he calls “continuous music”. It was a welcome change from operating a bottling machine that was crushing bottles and going haywire for the day. Instead I transported myself to my alma mater, Portland State University, and spent the afternoon taking in the sunshine on my walk to the music building, before witnessing a fantastic lecture by Melnyk in a small day-lit room with a piano (a Steinway!! which Melnyk lambasted for its apparent deficiencies in the upper range… he called it “half a piano” and went on to exclaim that this would never happen in Europe where Steinways are rarely encountered.) The disheveled, long-bearded Melnyk kept the small group of attendees in relative suspense as he lamented the Steinway and confessed to being in a bad mood on account of his luggage (containing some essential references for his lecture) having been caught up at the Canadian border. But the man of humble appearances quickly endeared himself with his authentic demeanor and palpable love for music and the art of his craft.

In the course of his lecture which culminated in an intimate performance, Melnyk rhapsodized at length about the various techniques and philosophies which inform and help to distinguish his music. He emphasized the training of the fingers, not simply in terms of the repetitious or compulsory learning of notes and scores by famous composers, and not just where to place the fingers and when, but how to place the fingers and with what sort of conviction. This instruction has resonance particularly for serious musicians striving for a high degree of facility on their instrument, but it also is an inspiration to anyone honing a craft and emphasizes the need for lengthy durations of practice. A style like Melnyks cannot be approximated. He has invented a way of playing which is uniquely his own. His finger movements stem from the wrists but have roots in his entire body. He says his gut so informs his playing that he avoids putting anything in his stomach before a concert.

During his performance (a piece which for all I know may have been invented on the spot) Lubomyr Melnyk and his small audience were (I’m prepared to say) transported into another realm of time. A space was created by the sound created by Melnyk that was like undulating fingers pouring over you in the form of melody.

These are the moments which I look for, or that find me with a lucky degree of regularity. That’s not to say that they can readily be compared one to the other. But it’s the stuff of patient people of subtle genius. Sometimes it's more pronounced, perhaps in the case of Melnyk who exuded an archetypal sage-genius inspiration that made him seem like a conduit for the sublime arpeggios of the cosmos. But it can happen to lesser, or simply different degrees. And in a way transitioning in and out of these moments of *special* space and time is becoming one of the great privileges of my life.