Photo credit: Peter Bonavich
If you are sick and tired of the Phoenix heat, why not head up to Flagstaff for the 11th annual Flagstaff Folk Festival? I’ll be playing with the Strand in the main amphitheater at 11:30 on Saturday. Better yet, take the week off from work, stop in Flagg for the weekend, on your way up to the Grand Canyon. You know you want to!
This was a crazy, busy, weekend for me. I spent Saturday with my IHTP mentor, working bedside at the hospice, and that means that Sunday is a catch up day. But still, I wanted to take a quick jaunt out to play for Random Acts of Harping Day. I knew I would regret it later if I skipped it this year.
The problem with RAOHD in Phoenix is that it happens in late June. Playing outside is not something we relish, exactly, when it’s 108 degrees. So I decided to go to our great little froyo place. Locally owned, and laid back, this place has a shaded porch where I could kill two birds with one stone.
After loading up on raspberry/strawberry/lemonade and lots of strawberries, I sat outside next to the sweet old dog who hangs out on the porch. Did I tell you that this place was laid back? They make milk-bone yogurt for the dogs.
This poor doggie, though, was afraid of my little harp. He barked and whined when I got it out, and hid behind a column for the 5 minutes that I played it. What torture for the poor fella.
So my Random Acts of Harping Day was pretty brief. Maybe I should have skipped it this year. 😦
Join us at Sozo Coffee on May 5 for a special tea tasting event.
Featuring a variety of exotic, organic, locally crafted teas by Master Tea Blender, Laureen Grenus of Herbescent Organics.
Vanta Thomas owner of Sweet Bamboo Massage will be offering $1/minute Chair massages
And I will be playing harp.
The Strand competed in the music portion of the Feis in the Desert today, and we won first place! Rick Boyle and I played a set consisting of Gallahger’s Frolic and The Mouse in the Mug.
The Mary Boyle Trophy for winning the Feis in the Desert Instrumental Competition
My favorite thing to do when I am town on Saturdays is to hit up Dunkin’ Donuts (warning – musical link) for an iced latte and apple-n-spice donut, and then head to the Arizona School of Massage Therapy.
Right now, its the end of the quarter for ASMT, and that means two for one days are in full swing, and the Saturday Clinic is a hoppin’. I mean, who wouldn’t want an hour-long massage for $12.50, right? So what’s the catch?
There’s no catch, really, except that the law of Supply and Demand kicks in. You want an hour long massage for $12.50? All you have to do is stand in line for 3o minutes to sign up for one, and then wait another 90 minutes until your name is called!
Lots of people in a room together, waiting to relax? This sounds like the perfect setting for harp music for me. The management agreed, with the caveat that I would have to quit if there were any complaints.
People listened. I was amazed that when I started, the sound level in the room dropped by about 50%. People came by to thank me and ask questions. Some people were already aware of therapeutic harp music. Someone called me an angel. And when I had to quit playing for my massage, my therapist say “Wow, it just got really loud in here!”
Dunkin Donuts, massage, and harp music – a win-win-win situation.
Last Saturday was National Random Acts of Harping Day.  I set out with my teeny-weeny little black Fullsicle.
At the Arizona State University Art Museum, I played for about an hour, until they closed at 5pm. That’s such a perfect place to play — the entrance is underground, so nice and cool, with a fountain. The acoustics are great, too. Plenty of people stopped to listen, and after I left, one man stopped to thank me for the music. The management was super nice, too.
| After that, I hit up the Desert Botanical Gardens. It’s hard to find a good spot to play outdoors in June in Phoenix, but I did manage to find a shady spot just off the trail where I could concentrate on my music. It is so nice to be a little off the beaten path – I could see people stopping to listen. One woman stayed for quite a while, and I saw a family hang out for a bit also.
Even better than watching was listening – the birds were out making a racket, even in the heat of the day, and the breeze through the grass is always a soothing sound. There was barely enough breeze to set my harpstrings humming. I had heard Aolean harps in San Francisco years ago, but hadn’t made the connection until that first time I could hear the breeze in my own harp strings. There is nothing like that sound. It’s soothing and otherworldly all at the same time – if you’ve ever heard a bowed piano (Steven Scott‘s music is a good example of this), you know what I mean. On Saturdays, the DBG has an evening flashlight tour. As I packed up to leave, one of the tour volunteers decided to “volunteer” a little information to me. I had been sitting next to a big box (and I mean BIG — this thing was about the size of a small kitchen island) box of snakes. Yikes! I’m glad that the people were easier to spot than those critters! |
A good day!
Tonight, I went to a performance by the Arizona Contemporary Music Ensemble, at Arizona State University. The performance was part of a festival celebrating the music of the Greek composer Iannis Xenakis.
This is not everyone’s cup of tea, admittedly, but I have found contemporary music to be both calming and energizing. My first experience with this was when I was young. As a student, we were challenged to listen to everything around us, and to attend all kinds of events. One semester, our school hosted a contemporary music symposium, including both scholarly talks and performances of all kinds of sounds, from Tibetan throat singing to multiphonics in woodwinds. It takes a certain kind of listening to appreciate this music, and I admit, it takes repeated listening for me to hear any kind of structure (more about that in a later post) to this kind of music, but once I find that, I am usually hooked on the piece.
If you are not a fan of this kind of music, try this experiment: Find a quiet space sometime when you don’t have any pressing thoughts or tasks. Just sit quietly, and listen, really listen, to what is around you: the air currents, the traffic sounds, the building settling (if you are inside). Then listen to Xenakis again, and see if your perception changes. I’d be interested in hearing your experiences with this. If they are anything like mine were, we just might see each other at the next ACME performance.
Shannon Schumann, CTHP, RMT 