Introducing myself

[dewdrop_world]

Hi folks, new here.

I'm not currently involved with soulforce, but I expect that to change! I'm very interested in dialogue between spiritually-minded queerfolk and people who are struggling with how their church relates to issues of sexuality. It comes up as a recurring theme on my blog (http://www.dewdrop-world.net/words), where I often find myself lamenting the scarcity of opportunities to bring about more understanding in this area.

I really appreciate how healthy the community is here. It's an amazing contrast to (for instance) the homosexuality debate board on beliefnet.com. While I admire the tenacity and dedication of the lgbtq's there who act powerfully as a first line of defense against the undisguised hatred that is often posted there, I find the lack of commitment to deep listening and nonviolent engagement results in a toxic atmosphere. Whenever I go there thinking I might participate, the negativity is just so overwhelming I can't bring myself to do it.

Just a quick bio for now, I'll save the details for later. My journey starts with a childhood in a loving, happy and open-minded Catholic family--my parents are the kind of (liberal) Catholics who make it impossible to write off the whole church! I had a brief stint in an Assembly of God youth group in junior high and high school, but left of my own free will after my junior year when I realized I couldn't go along with the theology. Remarkably, that experience didn't damage me too badly. In college I drifted away from Catholicism, and in my mid-twenties found my way to Buddhism, landing firmly and joyfully in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh (who has more than a few things to say about nonviolent dialogue!).

I live in Northern Virginia with my partner of three years, and in my spare time (what's that?) I write electronic music using my own custom software. What can I say, I'm a geek!

Hope to get involved, little by little, as time permits--nice to meet you all.
James

[Jennifer5]

Welcome! Glad you're here! I think you'll find that this is a great place to be... I think we all make friends easily here... Hope to see you more around the forums!:)

[Zerbie]

Hearty welcome to ya!

Your observations about the quality of energy on the various message boards seem to be spot-on, though I haven't (yet) checked out the boards on beliefnet. I'll take you at your word. Folks here are incredibly patient. All determined to listen to one another. This is the most open bunch of folk I've encounted yet in online communities. Consider, there is a tremendous amount of justifiable anger in the queer community, and sometimes it runs about freely on the internet. The emotional pain sometimes causes otherwise brilliant people to rush to confrontational words, sometimes even when it's clear from outside the reactions aren't warranted. Perfectly understandable, and I admit to my own fair share of rage. What's great about this forum is that there's always someone, usually many people, calm and ready to restore a clear perspective without getting lost in all that heaviness.

Electronic music? Hmm. That label always makes me think of weird experimental things like the old 'inside a cow's stomach' thing from the world fair, when was that? The 1960s?

Thanks for introducing yourself. Please come back and post some more! You sound like someone with a lot of insights to share, and a strong positive energy. We'll enjoy having you around!

[dewdrop_world]

Electronic music? Hmm. That label always makes me think of weird experimental things like the old 'inside a cow's stomach' thing from the world fair, when was that? The 1960s?
Ah yes, you're probably referring to the Philips Pavilion (http://ccrma.stanford.edu/CCRMA/Courses/154/Varese%20images.html) in the 1958 World's Fair, architecture by Le Corbusier and music by Edgard Varèse. Heady times, everyone wanted to look toward the future.

My own work is a lot more accessible! There are some excerpts on my web site.

I will be checking in from time to time -- thanks for the warm welcome!
James

[Zerbie]

Yes yes! That's it! Varese. Wasn't it called "Poeme électronique"? Yea, that's what I thought of when you said electronic music. Heheh.

As far as living composers whose work I've enjoyed, there are only a few I can even think of, and as far as I know, none of them relying on electronic media. Some stuff by Libby Larsen. An opera I liked by (?) Daniel Catan (I think that's his name). Otherwise, dead guys. Lately I've developed an appreciation for Strauss and Wagner. I used to be all about 19th and 20th C French subtleties. And any Italian opera with oop pah pah in the bass, toe-tapping while they execute the hero and heroine type stuff. Fun!

Talking about the intellectual experimentation in 20th C music with my hubby, (Babbitt squares and Elliot Carter, stuff like that), he said, "why bother with composition? If you're going to do all of that, why not just program it into a computer and let IT write the piece?" I think what draws human beings to music is an emotional impulse, and a lot of what went on in the 20th C ran counter to it. It's my opinion (heads-up, I'm extremely opinionated!) that many 20th C composers fell into a trap of placing extraordinary value on the intellect, and by so doing, they cut the greater part of themselves off. It's not all about the frontal lobe, ya know?

I'll have to check out your site and the sound clips - haven't got that much time right at this moment. Soon.

[dewdrop_world]

Yes, it was "Poème Electronique."

Heh heh ... I'm naturally very opinionated about this also! It's a subject near and dear to my heart (I'm a classically trained composer, Ph.D. Duke 2001 in fact, but I usually keep that tidbit to myself). What follows is pretty intellectual but you asked ;)

Obviously it's a huge subject to go into and I don't have time to do it justice right now. With some distance from the rarified atmosphere of post-WWII Europe, I agree that an unhealthy mental state emerged among composers at that time. When you start with a mania for "innovation," and then (as some critics suggest, rightly I think) allow the barbarism of the Holocaust to turn mistrust of emotion into an exaggerated faith in "compositional logic," it does indeed result in a large body of cold, unapproachable music. That's not a bad thing in itself--we wouldn't have had Sgt. Pepper's... without some of the experiments of the previous two decades--but it also seems like they were afraid of recognizing the fringe nature of what they were doing, so they argued violently for the significance of their work. That's the real problem, bullying other composers into following their lead for fear of being labeled as reactionary or irrelevant. (I never fully forgave Pierre Boulez for his polemic about how composers who were not pursuing his kind of complexity were "useless.")

But there's lots of bad music written in every generation, and it takes time for the cream to rise. Luciano Berio is one of the standouts, especially the emotionally wrenching Sinfonia of 1968, a true masterpiece by any standard. Stockhausen had some great moments too (Gesang der Jünglinge), before he went nuts and eventually said that the Twin Towers attack was one of the greatest pieces of performance art he'd heard of. :confused:

I just try to keep my ears and mind open and not prejudge, though I have a pretty finely honed bull:eek: detector by now and I have no patience for music that doesn't move me. I've come very near to walking out of concerts where the music was complex but empty.

So most of the time I listen to early music, Brahms (and I love the 19th-20th-century French also!), Bach, some of the minimalists (Steve Reich especially), Louis Andriessen, the "spiritual minimalists" (Arvo Pärt, John Tavener), and... funky, gospel-y deep house!

Enough of my soapbox :p ... for now anyway. It's nice to run across someone who's been exposed to some music outside the mainstream. All too rare!

James

[Zerbie]

Just spent a few minutes surfing around your site. Heard 2 of your excerpts - what fun! Note to everyone else, pop by dewdrop world and have look 'round and a quick listen. There's some fun stuff there! I wanted to do a modern dance performance to some of what I heard (particularly amusing since I'm not really a dancer, but I fake very well!).

Thanks for stopping by to introduce yourself! Dewdrop/James, you've got a lot of healthy, positive energy to share, which I hope you'll continue to share with us. It's desperately needed, especially with the world appearing the way it is, these days.

As for music, I'm abysmally ignorant of Berio, and while I remember being exposed to Stockhausen, and some minimalists, I mostly don't remember the music. Probably fair enough, because I would have only remembered my previous thoughts about the music better than the music itself, and my perceptions have really changed since then. Hubby recently pulled out an old video he has of Nixon in China and sat me down in front of it. Musically, I really enjoyed it and thought it worked effectively for an opera. I didn't know, going into the experience, if I would think so.

Come back and chat some more!!!!!
:)