Updated: Jul 9, 2021
Looking forward to performing another live-stream concert - this time we'll be celebrating the summer and sunlight at the piano on Friday, July 23, 2021, 12:30pm PDT. Pour yourself a nice glass of wine, gather up a tasty appetizer for your lunchtime plate and join me for a short concert featuring great standards and rhythm for your soul. To connect to the performance, just click here - simple! See you there...
Last night, an image came to mind so I made a quick pencil sketch of it:
There is a curtained stage with a podium, on top of which is a single Dynaudio monitor speaker. In the back, the speaker is plugged into something behind the curtain, presumably an electrical outlet. The audience is comprised entirely of ears, specifically the right ear. There is no person operating the speaker and the ears are not attached to heads, they are disembodied entirely. It can't be determined from the setting whether or not the speaker is producing any sound, but the ears are all in place, either already taking in the sound or waiting to do so, after which the question arises, "if there are no heads to perceive the sound, then are the ears actually listening?"
The piece has the title Modern Fascism since modern authoritarian propaganda transmits quickly and easily through social media. Although social media is primarily a visual medium, the method for conveying inauthentic messages to a large group of people involves the use of "bots," who have no face or personality (and therefore imageless). When individuals become ensnared in a web of untruth, we are no longer active participants in a two-way conversation, but instead become passive recipients, only waiting for an emotional "fix" the same way addicts do. Addicts in the full expression of their addiction are themselves disembodied in a metaphorical sense, and in a literal sense when they die from their condition.
So this image is also a description of the nature of addicts, and the addictive nature of propaganda & social media, as well as an observation that the content or message of the propaganda is irrelevant to the listener, or even the speaker. More important is the constructed situation of "something speaking and something listening." The human-ness has been removed.
Updated: Jun 3, 2021
I used to be totally uncomfortable with the idea of live streaming, so it took me practically the entire length of the pandemic to finally put a live stream together. That performance is visible on YouTube in it's entirety (click here for the unedited performance), but now you can also just view the individual songs:
I am so grateful to Ray Obiedo, who provided the excellent large diaphragm mics and also manned the streaming setup during the performance. Also many thanks to Alvon Johnson for being there serendipitously and providing great atmosphere!
Of course, this is a long winded way of saying the next live stream is coming up on Friday, June 4th (rescheduled to Friday, July 9th!) to celebrate the beginning of summertime (scholastically speaking at least) - so please stay tuned for more details as the days approach and in the meantime, please enjoy the music linked above as well as this lovely collection of photos that Ray took during the session (below)...
Thank you so much! Looking forward to seeing you online again soon!