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.
