How it all began. Sort of.

Reverse psychology works pretty well on me.

It was 1985ish, if memory serves, and I was home doing homework and listening to the radio. The station was 105.3 here in San Francisco. At that time I had been playing the flute for awhile already (about 10 years). It was about 9 in the evening and the DJ on the air was Steve Masters. He played a song by Men Without Hats, who at that time were trying to make a comeback. The song was "On Tuesday" and it featured a guest appearance by Ian Anderson.

I don't remember much about the song or Ian Anderson's flute solo. Truthfully that was the only time I've ever listened to him. I kid you not. I haven't been purposely avoiding him or anything. I just have never gotten around to hearing any Jethro Tull.
But anyway Steve Masters started talking after the song and he declared, "You know, I just don't believe the flute has any place in rock music. I just don't."

I took that very personally, for no good reason other than I was a teenager and therefore prone to overreact. I sat up really straight and scowled and said, "Hey!" indignantly to the radio.

I wish I could say I started practicing feverishly that very night, and wore my lips out every day thereafter for the next 20 years, trying to become the Next Great Rock Flutist. I didn't. I went right on following the path toward being a classical flute player for quite a long time after that. But at least my mind was open enough to disagree with old Steve Masters.

The MusicVine

I have a summary page on mp3.com. Mp3.com has a feature called "MusicVine", in which artists orbit around each other in alleged "spheres of influence". As far as I know artists aren't consulted about who their influences are. Somebody else comes up with that.

So if you click on the MusicVine while you're looking at my page on mp3.com, I come up in a constellation where my closest influence is Steven Halpern. This came as a bit of a surprise since I have never listened to his music on purpose. There was a time when I worked at a metaphysical bookshop, and his music was on sale there, and sometimes we played it over the PA system for atmosphere.

The music industry is just a big alien galaxy. Most musicians just shake their heads over it. But, if you want people to hear your music in any appreciable numbers, you have to engage with it somehow. One of the first things that has to be determined is how to classify you.

I know my music is very hard to classify and that's how I like it. When my last two albums came out, I hired radio promotions firms, and in order to do their job and get me added to radio stations, they had to come up with a way to pitch me. For Summerland, Peter Hay, who promoted me, focused on the Celtic slant of my lyrics and pitched me as a modern folk artist. For Diogenes, Musik International zeroed in on my mysticism and promoted me as a New Age artist. The album even charted on New Age Reporter.

So this is apparently what stuck for mp3.com, who have me in a sphere of influence with Steven Halpern, and a little bit further over, Gabrielle Roth (who I have listened to quite a lot on purpose). I would rather be orbiting around with my real influences but there's nothing I can do about it. So go listen to my tunes anyway!

Alexander technique. Maybe that will be the ticket.

Tomorrow morning I've got an appointment with an Alexander teacher.

My first experience with Alexander Technique was when I took a masterclass with Ann LaBerge in 1989. She is also an Alexander teacher and that one lesson I had was really eye-opening. So when I was making my list of things I would try in order to treat my injury, Alexander Technique was definitely on the list.

Repetitive stress injuries are common in flute players (and all instrumental musicians). Mine is tendinitis. I suffered with it originally in my left forearm ("tennis elbow") and later on in my shoulder -- bicipital tendinitis. Various practitioners have treated it with prescription drugs, physical therapy, cortisone shots, Chinese herbs and acupuncture. All of them helped somewhat (except for the cortisone shots. Those were an unqualified bust). My forearm pain actually went away. But the shoulder continues to be a problem. I have had pain of some kind, from mild to severe, every time I've played the flute since 1988.

I now have a flute with an offset G key, which has been a goal of mine for years. It's taken the stress off my left arm that the inline flute keys of my old flute used to put on it. Now that the instrument is no longer in my way, I've got to make sure that I myself stop getting in my own way. I hope the Alexander lesson tomorrow gets me on the path.

He's so sweet with his jet-black stare...

A few weeks back somebody from the SFPD came on TV and warned the public not to feed the pigeons, because, he said, "they're taking over." And I came out onto the street from some building that day and there *did* seem to be more of them. That's really the kind of takeover though that I could get behind. It would be a liberation of sorts. Pigeons have such mellow energy. I think if the pigeons took over and marched in formation down the streets of San Francisco, I would stand on the sidewalk and wave my handkerchief.

On Polk Street I saw a pigeon who had lost a foot and was gimping around on the stump of his leg. I tried to target him with some pieces of granola bar. The others fought him for the food, of course. This went on for a little while and then all of a sudden, a homeless guy appeared beside me on my left. He seemed to come out of nowhere, and I wondered if maybe one of the pigeons, making use of some transformative powers we don't know yet that they have, had turned himself into a homeless guy...he said that he was really hungry, and that he hadn't eaten in three days. I was very impressed and gave him the whole granola bar.

I walked down to the corner and another woman shook her head at me and said, "You really shouldn't feed them." I wondered whether she meant pigeons, or homeless people.

The Nashville biosphere

I'm just now back from the NFA convention in Nashville. I thought last year's surroundings in Las Vegas were over the top but it was tame compared to this year's environment! The Gaylord Opryland Resort is a nine-acre self-contained complex under glass domes. It's all climate-controlled, so that you can walk around during the day feeling like you're outside, but you're not really, and you're protected from the hot and sticky weather outside. When the sun goes down it seems like they dial the air conditioning back a bit, maybe 15 degrees, so that it seems like nighttime, but you still don't have to wear a jacket.

There's a jungle planted in there. There are hundreds of tropical plants and lots of fountains, a river, lots of pools, and waterfalls. Everything is connected by a maze of paths and escalators and stairways. It's very easy to get lost and I did, a few times. It was SO Logan's Run.

There are restaurants and shops. Everything is hella expensive though, and there was very little I could eat. I ate a $4.00 bagel with cream cheese one morning. I didn't really buy much food, relying on the granola bars I brought from home, and using my $10.00 daily volunteer reimbursement to get a salad or equal for dinner.

Volunteering was fun. I threw myself into my duties as door monitor for several events. I shared a hotel room with three very nice women. Katie Zimmer was from Michigan, Carla Holtz was from Ohio, and Angela Heo was from Korea. She gave the Korean flute workshop which unfortunately I didn't get to go to because I had an early flight home Sunday morning.

I really enjoyed Camilla Hoitenga's concert, "Savage Aural Hotbed". I got to see Robert Dick unveil his Glissando Headjoint at the Brannen Brothers exhibitor showcase (yay!!!!). I liked Paul Edmund-Davies' rendition of the John Harbison flute concerto. Shannon Heaton's Celtic flute workshop was very very cool. So was the lecture/demonstration put on by Indian flute boy wonder Shashank.But now I'm back and it's time to readjust and get back on all the tasks that have been waiting for me to finish traveling. I've got the first set of recording sessions for Not Made of Stone set up for January 2005, and it's time to start rehearsing for those.

Fahrenheit 9/11 & Scotland the Brave

Regarding Michael Moore's movie, if you haven't seen it yet, you need to. TRUST me. :)

Now then, I just got back from a wonderful vacation in Scotland, which included Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Banff & Macduff, and the Orkneys. I was very much focused on ancient monuments...which is interesting because my album's going to be called Not Made of Stone, but I was intent on photographing things that were made of stone, in Scotland. I visited Rosslyn Chapel (mysteriously carved stone), 6 stone circles in Aberdeenshire, and 6 ancient monuments on West Mainland Orkney, including Skara Brae, Unstan Cairn, Maeshowe, the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Ring of Brogar, and Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn.

It was so moving finally to see Skara Brae, after writing my piece about it in 1995, and always hoping to see it. It's well cared for by Historic Scotland, but that gives it kind of an antiseptic, unreal quality, the way the grass is kept closely clipped, and the way it's surrounded by explanatory markers. I know it has to be done in order to preserve it. I really learned a lot, and there was a lot of energy to be sensed from the ruins themselves and from Skaill Bay. Skaill House, the home of the laird who build the seawall to protect Skara Brae after it was discovered in 1850, is right nearby and can be seen in the background of one of my photos.
The Ben Nevis & Glen Coe area was glorious to drive through. It's quite a thing how the mountains there look as imposing as anything we have in California, and yet when you look at the map, they're all only about 1,000 feet high! When I go back, I'm definitely staying in the Orkneys longer, plus longer stays in Banff/Macduff and Aberdeen. Those were the places I really connected with the most.Having only just gotten over that trip, I'm off early Wednesday morning for Nashville to attend the NFA convention. I'm not performing this year, just hangin' out and volunteering and hoping to sell a flute.