connection

a message to those who don't respect the sacred exchange

do not intentionally and repeatedly move the mic from where i have placed it. do not push it into my face or violin. do not throw cigarettes at me. do not throw beer on me or my precious, irreplaceable instrument. do not film me inappropriately. and in case what i find inappropriate isn't clear: putting a camera inches away from my crotch, and/or trying to put it up my skirt far surpasses that line.

to those who so appallingly disrespected me: you have violated a sacred trust. i do not accept your violent behavior. next time, i will not hesitate to kick the camera out of your hand. know that i did not play for you.

BOUNDARIES

"armadillo...
armor all my boundaries,
teach me my shields,
reflect all the hurt,
so i will not yield.

armadillo wears its armor on its back, its medicine a part of its body. its boundaries of safety are a part of its total being. armadillo can roll into a ball and never be penetrated by enemies.

what a gift it is to set your boundaries so that harmful words or intentions just roll off. your lesson is in setting up what you are willing to experience. if you do not wish to experience feeling invaded, just call on armadillo medicine.

a clue to how to proceed is to make a circle on a piece of paper and see it as a medicine shield. in the body of the shield, write all that you desiring to have, do, or experience. include all things that give you joy. this sets up boundaries that allow only these chosen experiences to be a part of your life. these boundaries become a shield that wards off the things which are undesirable to you. the shield reflects what you are and what your will is to others on an unconscious level. outside of the shield you may put what you are willing to experience by invitation only, for example, a visit from a long lost relative, or criticism from friends, or people needing handouts.

if armadillo has waddled into the cards you chose, it is time to define your space. you may have been too willing to let your home become a bus station. you may find that you cannot say no even when you know that you will have to cancel plans to be obliging. this routine can get old in a hurry!

it may be time to ask yourself the following questions:
1 - am i honoring the time i need for my personal enjoyment?
2 - do others treat me like a doormat?
3 - why do i always get upset when i'm taken for granted?
4 - is there a reason for my being a "yes" person?

all of the answers to these questions relate to setting up boundaries: what you will and won't do; what makes you feel uncomfortable and what is comforting to you. how you react in any circumstance has to do with your ability to be objective. you cannot be objective if you cannot tell where the other person's personality stops and where yours begins. if you have no boundaries, you are like a sponge. it will seem as if all the feelings in a room full of people must be yours. ask yourself if you are really feeling depressed, or if this feeling actually belongs to the person you are talking to. then allow armadillo's armor to slice in-between, giving you back your sense of self."

---

you will respect me.
you will respect me as a fellow human.
you will respect me as a woman.
you will respect me as a musician.
you will respect my instrument.
you will respect my body.
you will respect how i choose to take care of myself in order to do my job - whether or not it is your way.

you will respect me.
you will respect me.
YOU WILL RESPECT ME.

and i will uphold my end of this sacred agreement night after night.

i am so incredibly honored to do this work. thank you for teaching me. thank you for respecting me. thank you for listening - in the deepest sense. thank you, thank you, thank you.

dance party for one: total liberation

so unbelievably honored to have played on both of these covers by the incredible jherek bischoff. he is just magical. so kind, so himself, so brilliant. one of my dearest friends and collaborators.

i have enjoyed many solo dance parties to these tracks...

THE TERMS: original song by X-RAY PRESS, cover by JHEREK BISCHOFF
The Terms (Jherek Bischoff version) by Jherek Bischoff
amy denio - sax
jherek bischoff - everything else!!

---

KULE KULE: original song by KONONO NO.1, cover by JHEREK BISCHOFF
Kule Kule (Orchestral Version) by Jherek Bischoff
released on TRADI-MODS VS. ROCKERS, CRAMMED DISCS (2011)
jherek bischoff - bass / cello
brianna atwell - viola
beth fleenor - bass clarinet
samantha boshnack - trumpet
fred hawkinson - trombone

human buttons!!

i'm human, you're human, we're all human - it IS a shared experience

it's time. i'm ready. (and i'm only a lot scared.)

i have hidden from this for 18 months. 535 days, to be exact. i pushed myself to the edge of my abilities, to the place i no longer felt masterful, in control, or safe. i didn't touch my violin the entire time. i didn't even bring it to the theater. i got naked in front of friends and complete strangers (all at different stages of receiving / viewing from a wide array of perspectives - acceptance, love, judgement...) and layed out all of my insides - my wounds, my shortcomings, my hopes, my desires, my thoughts about myself and humanity. total exposure. absolute vulnerability. followed by - let's pretend this never happened and never speak of it again.

i worked until the last second. it wasn't finished. it was never finished. is anything like this ever finished? i demanded a lot out of a lot of people. who was i to do this? i didn't know what i was doing. i was the first to say, "i don't know what i'm doing."

i still don't know what i'm doing.

but after 535 days, the letting go of an old reality, and the acceptance of the process behind the building of a new one, i'm ready to face it.

i am going to watch the video of bridging wounds.

18 months after the premiere, i have tracked down a copy of the closing night's performance and i am going to watch it.

today.

right now.

(stop procrastinating)

BRIDGING WOUNDS: staying the course of uncertainty
presented as the inaugural performance of the LIVE AT THE FILM FORUM series - september 17/18/19, 2009

philemon and baukis

i'm working on this piece by lou harrison for violin and javanese gamelan for a performance at the seattle asian art museum with local group, gamelan pacifica. the violin part is hand-written in standard western notation, but to read it as such, i have to de-tune my violin by approximately 1 half step and adjust intervalic spacing note-to-note. without frets, so much of violin playing is dictated by muscle memory. you memorize the hand shapes. you memorize where to place your fingers in relation to other fingers. you memorize how the spacing between 1st and 2nd finger in 1st position on the A string feels in your hand.

this piece poses 2 unique (and daunting!) challenges. 1: i have to listen differently. i have to hear pitch differently. i have to hear the relationships between pitches differently. i have to try to get inside of the sound of the orchestra, of the tuning, of the timbres, while setting on top of it as a soloist. and 2: i have to alter my hand shapes. i have to alter 22 years of muscle memory. i have to change and relearn the feeling of where to place 1st finger in relation to 2nd finger.

i have to suspend my aural and physical associations cultivated and built-in over nearly a lifetime of study.

it makes me consider what else i've spent nearly a lifetime cultivating - patterns, aspects of personality, reactions, likes, dislikes, ways of communicating (or not communicating)...and the resistance, difficulty, and huge fear often associated with enacting change. it helps me have compassion for myself around change, transformation, evolution, undoing, relearning...and it helps me also believe that it's possible. change is possible. change is positive. change is necessary. and the less resistance and fear i meet it with, the more ease and joy i can find in the process.

tuning reference no. 1:


tuning reference no. 2:

immersion composition society

ICS session - 2.9.11 - 4:30pm-12am








her_no.1
found amp / detuned electric bass / broken violin bow


her_no.2
2 cassette recordings of 'her_no.1' played/manipulated using 2 tape players (sans digital effects/manipulations)


her_no.3
violin / voice


her_no.4
cassette tapes i've found, made, or that have been given to me, played/manipulated live on 3 tape players / voice (sans pop filter................hello, oversight!)

precious gifts

thank you, you...

a dance. a recipe. a solo. 5 minutes. (maybe less)

february 4 - 8:28am

watching a date in a bar. it was like i was on it and like it was on tv, then like i was coaching katie through it via text. i could see what was happening until i couldn't. i wanted to know. she bought him a drink and told him if she liked his story, he'd know. she caressed his leg with hers under the table as she said this. it went well and she was taking him home. i found them on the street. she had invited 3 other friends who all had dates that looked like them. they disappeared up the stairs. i was in a shoe(?) store. steve martinish type wanted a book from a few doors down. he wanted a particular edition - the one he had gone out of his way the night before to get me. i hadn't even looked in the bag yet, so he went to get it for himself. i was walking down the street trying to decide where to go. i felt alone. her place? his place? my place? i had the keys to all 3. i would be alone at any of them. i had a bag of my boots. i was barefoot and carrying my favorites in one hand. i kept looking through the bag to make sure i had them all. i couldn't tell. i couldn't see. i felt frantic. a man started following me and calling me dillion. he had long, stringy, silver hair. there weren't very many people on the street. it was like prudence street in tucson. i turned down one of the side streets without him noticing. it curved to the right. i could see him through the brush. i had that feeling like i couldn't run. i was half crawling, half running along the curve, praying he wouldn't see me, still frantically checking to see if i had all my boots.

words from a 5 year old me

"now i'm gonna play you some hanukkah songs. these are really fun. these are like my most favorite to play."

"that was a fun little tune! and now, i'm gonna play another folk tune. and the speed is gonna go moderately. so, i'll play it kind of medium - kind of slow, kind of fast. you'll notice, also, that this is a little active tune, too."

"that was a dandy little tune! now, we're gonna play another song. it's a folk tune and it's in an allegretto speed."

"hi, grandma! i'm back again! now, i'm going to sing some songs for you like i told you i would. but i'm not gonna sing o christmas tree for you because i'm having a little problem with it. now, i'm going to sing one hanukkah song. it's called, my dreidel."

---

transcribed from a mixtape my parents made me for christmas - 90 minutes of myself singing and playing violin, ages 3-6. this portion was taken from a tape i made my grandmother when i was 5.

other gems include:

yamaha keyboard jams
classical violin jams for my grandparent's 50th anniversary
excerpts from a fiddle lesson
a voice lesson (age 3) where the teacher made me state words of my choice with increasing emotion:

pretty, prettier, prettiest
proud, prouder, proudest
calm, calmer, calmest
brave, braver, bravest

and

songs recorded at "center stage" (remember that recording studio in the malls for a while?) including:

the rose
somewhere over the rainbow
don't worry, be happy
cabaret
zing went the strings of my heart
jailhouse rock

[WOUND: to dream that you are wounded signifies grief, anger, or distress. you need to slow down and take time to heal. consider the location, size, and type of wound.]



[CORNERED: to dream that you are cornered signifies feelings of frustration and lack of control in making decisions. you may feel trapped. it indicates self-punishment.]



[SURGERY: to dream that you or someone else is undergoing surgery signifies the opening of the self and/or the need for emotional healing. you need to cut out or eliminate something from your life.]



[FEAR: to dream that you are scared indicates feelings of self-doubt, incompetence, and lack of control in your waking life. perhaps you are having second thoughts about a decision you've made. anger often masquerades as fear, so also consider issues about which you are angry in your waking life.]



[TRANSSEXUAL: to dream about a transsexual indicates that the masculine and feminine aspects of your self have been damaged. you may be unwilling to confront your shadow self.]



[CHASE: to be chased in a dream signifies that you are avoiding a situation you don't think is conquerable. it is a metaphor for some form of insecurity. in particular, to dream that you are chased by an animal represents your own unexpressed and unacknowledged anger which is being projected onto that animal. you may be running away from a primal urge or fear.]

january 16 - 9:10am

running through the streets with two others (for
exercise). it was someone else's idea and she was leading (sometimes from behind) without telling me which way to turn. frustrated. flailing.
she questioned turning up a dirt path. there was supposed to be a sleeping rattlesnake on the right - that's how we'd know we were on the right path. there were many anthills to walk over. i feared they would spring out and attack me as i walked over them. we came across the snake on the right. i didn't notice him at first. he was gigantic and coiled. i was too scared to pass by. imagined him waking up and lashing out as i did. the other two passed by. i turned around to go back the way we had come. i heard something shooting through the water. it made a wizzing, rattling, torpedo-like sound. it was him. i contemplated going back for the other two. he passed by me again.
i ran.

SQUASHED IMPULSES

investigate.

re-installed

clarity emerging...

this also happened

kultur shock recording session no. 15:

jherek and paris make an egyptian orchestra - 26 violin tracks: 3 octaves, 2 violins, one lady.

currently editing "choko" with special friends - vino and beetlejuice on vhs:




daylight come and me wanna go home...

yeah, winona. yeah.

recents

doing what i can with what i have

heading back into the studio tomorrow to start tracking violin for kultur shock's upcoming release, ministry of kultur. just finished a 5 hour practice session with the rough mixes (drums/bass/guitar) from our mid-november sessions at soundhouse with jack endino.

folded my foam pad bed out of the way to create tonight's work space.

feeling ready. BRING IT.

i am/want (to work on)

THE process
-
facing myself
-
independence
-
self-sufficiency
-
letting myself be bad at things
-
experimentation with things i don't have command over
-
facing my humanness, accepting it, valuing it
-
definitions of beauty and perfection
-
a space to suck
-
growing up feeling anything but creative - thinking it wasn't in me, i wasn't capable of it - in constant immersion of activities with clear cut right and wrong, good and bad, success and failure: catholic church, ballet, classical violin, concerto competitions, seat checks in orchestra...
-
i fear you? well then i'm going to walk toward you.
-
i want to write. i want to dance. i want to work with sound in new ways. i want to experiment. i want to be self-sufficient in these ways. i want to eliminate excuses.
-
i want to dismantle my relationship to violin/music/art/dance/what it means to be an artist/what work is or isn't/what i should or shouldn't be doing...
-
letting myself be human - perfection and beauty in imperfection

themes of now (ongoing investigations)

do what you can with what you have
-
make something out of nothing
-
that's just an idea you have about yourself (that person, that thing)...what if you had other ideas about yourself? you could have other ideals about yourself. non-attachment. let it go.
-
exploring and sharing my humanness as part of my process and in the hopes of inspiring others to do the same - or their version of it - or at least allow themselves to be human
-
self-sufficiency
-
what are my definitions of / needs for comfort and home? how can i work with them?
-
working with letting go of my ideas of perfection, letting myself create and then letting it be what it is, letting its imperfections be beautiful and important and inherently perfect, accepting it all as a part of the process
-
sometimes the most growth comes from discomfort - but it's difficult to choose discomfort over comfort, to choose difficulty over ease - who does? what does that look like?
-
non-attachment - space for things to enter
-
aversion to discomfort
-
independence without isolation - independence as a choice rather than an imposed state
-
wanting to break down and redefine my relationship to the violin and music. i feel like it limits / restricts access to my creativity
-
i desperately want to be an artist. i feel like i am an artist at my core, but i don't feel like i know how to be one now. yet. i don't feel like being a violinist is being an artist. why not? where does that come from?
-
cultivate discipline - forcing myself to show up. show up and do your job.
-
daily systems
-
weekly systems
-
i can't build until i know what i'm building!
(dismantle phase --- experiment/explore phase --- build phase)
-
tapas: the hard work of healing
-
"a genius is one who is most like himself" (thelonious monk)
-
taking action without having the "perfect" system mapped out before even starting
-
accountability to self
-
make a decision, move in a direction
-
wabi-sabi: the acceptance of transience. beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete
-
"i'm an immersion person"

the reality of being a woman in music

check out this powerful piece by beloved friend/collaborator/badass, beth fleenor (clarinet(s), voice, percussion, composition, performance, installation, director of the frank agency - innovative arts management):

ALWAYS - MUSIC FIRST. REPEAT AFTER ME - MUSIC FIRST.

YES. THANK YOU.

in the studio with kultur shock

lines
-or-
how to focus the mind, hour 46 of 49

i want to feel at home here

apparently, aeropostale is a clothing store for fancy kids - not a blond flexy dancer from the 80's - who knew?

i've started texting myself whatever half conscious synopsis i can muster when i wake up from a dream in the middle of the night.

6:05 am -

was trying to learn to dance again, frustrated and lost because i didn't know how to go about it, i didn't feel good at it. mom? suggested i call in aeropostale (totally 80's out blond in leotard who traveled between rooms doing showy 80's ish flexy moves). ended up in my mom's room on montecito (but not), was telling her (aeropostale woman) my background and asking how i get back into it, how to get it back. telling how i didn't think i had it anymore (but did). started noticing spiders in the corners of the room, more and more, big, they started swinging at me on strands of their webs as she spoke. i had to duck.

brain: externalized

in hiding. or is it hibernation?

public vs. private - where's the line? how do i maintain a feeling of safety as i explore the depths - a process that pretty much guarantees the emergence of and near constant living as the worst versions of oneself - weak, raw, vulnerable, jealous, ugly, silly, insecure, self-deprecating, anything but masterful...

prior to about a year ago, i was never one to share anything but the most constructed, most in-command-over version of myself. if i didn't trust my opinion and feel very strongly about something, i wouldn't say anything at all. if i didn't know someone, i wouldn't speak to them for fear of what would come out of my mouth when put on the spot. if i hadn't rehearsed something 'sufficiently,' it wouldn't be seen or heard by anyone - or if i had to show it anyway, i would be absolutely mortified and go into hiding for weeks or sometimes even months after, until i was able to let it go and stop beating myself up for the disgraceful monstrosity i had released upon the world. oh, the embarrassment!

i am not so different now...

but i have been working with forcing myself to practice - and continue practicing - letting her out. letting her be silly, letting her try new things and be bad at them, letting her be super emotional, letting her just be without all the judgement - and then letting that be a public state of being - on the street, when meeting new people, when seeing shows, when showing work that is SO NOT DONE, when talking to people after a show, and now through this even more public vehicle. it's a practice to let myself be okay with the process, to let myself go through the process, to show the process...this post is a part of that practice - one i have hidden from for more then 2 months.

---

loving this passage from julia cameron's "the artist's way" :

"we want to be great - immediately great - but that is not how recovery works. it is an awkward, tentative, even embarrassing process. there will be many times when we won't look good - to ourselves or anyone else. we need to stop demanding that we do. it is impossible to get better and look good at the same time."

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO GET BETTER AND LOOK GOOD AT THE SAME TIME.

okay.