The Celestial Way is Like Water
30 min. excerpt from the new album The Celestial Way.
The Celestial Way, or way of heaven, is of course the Tao, and the way of the sage. Across all cultures it can be thought of as the way of conforming the will to the phenomena of existence, which is how the Stoics put it, or of transcending the ego in general and seeing the world and the human condition more reasonably, being less attached to material things and all that.
The ancient and the state-of-the-art are interwoven cultural themes in contemporary China, as I noticed while spending ten days there recently on what might easily, if archaically, be called a whirlwind tour-- a hectic, though graciously hosted, journey through areas both urban and rural, plainly conceived to leave the visitor with the best possible impressions. There is indeed much beauty to experience, particularly in the Yangshuo area, with its karst mountains and the Li River, and much of this album was inspired by the environment there. While the music retains a western perspective, it is nonetheless composed of impressions and aural sketches brought to mind while passing through, and captured briefly in the field recordings of the birds, wind, and water one morning around five am.
The ancient and the state-of-the-art are interwoven cultural themes in contemporary China, as I noticed while spending ten days there recently on what might easily, if archaically, be called a whirlwind tour-- a hectic, though graciously hosted, journey through areas both urban and rural, plainly conceived to leave the visitor with the best possible impressions. There is indeed much beauty to experience, particularly in the Yangshuo area, with its karst mountains and the Li River, and much of this album was inspired by the environment there. While the music retains a western perspective, it is nonetheless composed of impressions and aural sketches brought to mind while passing through, and captured briefly in the field recordings of the birds, wind, and water one morning around five am.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments opened Jan. 2016. All comments moderated, out of respect for the intelligence of the audience.