On An Overgrown Path

rchrd has left a new comment on your post " Well, music next by Rachmaninov...": We leave the radio on for our two parrots while we're not home. Not to BBC Radio 3, but the local San Francisco equivalent of top forty classical music, KDFC . They start laughing (if parrots laugh) when the announcers come on with their inane chatter. I once heard them (announcer, not parrot) say: "That Mozart! What a great guy!". However, I've found that their (the parrots') favorite musician is Ornette Coleman . Something about the sound of his music makes them very happy and talkative. And, you won't ever find that on KDFC Ornette Coleman was Favourite Stoned Listening and also features in Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami . Now read about a classical radio presenter who made his mistakes with style . Header image is Musical Instruments and a Parrot by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for...

A reader reports that Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst make a surprise appearance in the adult humour comic Viz . Copyright, not to mention good taste, prevents me from reproducing the whole comic strip, but the heavily edited samples above gives the general idea. Imo and Ben appear together in rather more congenial surroundings here . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Much comment elsewhere about the Arts Council England funding cuts. Of course any threat to the vibrancy of the arts is to be deplored. But among all the gloom three points should not be ignored. First, the Britten Sinfonia's grant has increased by 31.6%. Second, Aldeburgh Music's funding has been maintained. And third, the chair of Arts Council England Liz Forgan declined to appear on a BBC Radio 4 programme alongside Norman Lebrecht. All of which suggests Arts Council England are not as stupid as some people are making them out to be. Or, as the Prophet Mohammed said "Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first ". My header photo was taken outside the apartment we rented in Tamraght in southern Morocco during our recent visit. The boy in the picture and his sister were shepherding on their own a large herd of dromedaries, sheep and goats that had travelled up from the Sahara to the south in search of grazing. For more on a way of life that can teach us a lot abo...

'Man's happiness is to move higher, to develop his highest faculties, to gain knowledge of the higher and highest things and, if possible, to 'see God'. If he moves lower, develops only his lower faculties, which he shares with the animals, then he makes himself deeply unhappy, even to the point of despair' - from E.F. Schumacher's 1972 A Guide for the Perplexed . 'A little while ago I mentioned Christine in Devon who emailed wondering whether plants enjoy listening to music. She certainly has evidence of it as her radio is often tuned to Radio 3, she has some tomato plants and the nearest ones to the radio are doing the best. And you are not alone Christine, Carol has just texted in to say "I always have Radio 3 playing throughout the house and was known as the plant doctor who took friends ailing plants for a break and returned them healed - yes, they liked music". And Jack texted in to say cows give more milk if listening to music. Well, music ...

It may conceivably be possible to live without churches; but it is not possible to live without religion, that is, without the systematic work to keep in contact with, and develop towards, higher levels than those of 'ordinary life' with all its pleasure or pain, sensation, gratification, refinement or crudity - whatever it may be. The modern experiment to live without religion has failed, and once we have understood this, we know what our 'post modern' tasks really are. My epigraph is taken from E.F. Schumacher's exploration of the twilight zone between science and belief A Guide for the Perplexed and the featured CD is the syncretic mix of Ustad Nishat Khan improvising on sitar in response to the Ensemble Gilles Binchois' Gregorian chant. Plainsong and its influence is something of a leitmotif on the path and there is a thread that takes us back in time from the Orlando Consort's Mantr a project and June Boyce-Tillman's Revelations of Divine Lo...

Digital culture hates ambiguity. What could be less ambiguous than a binary digit, a YouTube promotional video or the 44.1kHz sampling rate of a CD? What could be less ambiguous than the last X Factor winner or the next André Rieu album ? What could be less ambiguous than consensus culture where power lies not with the individual but with the commercial/intermediary complex ? Creativity loves ambiguity . Ambiguous overtones, not precisely defined fundamentals, give music its uniqueness, and it is no coincidence that ambiguous music is currently producing the most creative sounds. But not the contrived ambiguity of musical tourism . Rather, the spontaneous ambiguity of musicians who could not give a damn that their latest album eludes capture in 140 characters. Like Allos Musica's new CD in fact. Lamentations is an exercise in ambiguity. Allos Musica , which is led by Chicago based clarinettist and composer James Falzone , is a flexible ensemble that changes its instrumentation...

Since East and West increasingly meet under unlikely circumstances it might be wise to remember two myths - one Eastern, one Western - which provide a caution to the human race. The Indian myth maintains we are living in the age of Kalyug , which presages the end of the world. Kalyug is characterised by speed. Speed, being the enemy of reflection, will spread fantasy with such velocity that humans, in their pursuit of escape, will ultimately destroy themselves. The Western myth, as expressed in Goethe's Faust, introduces the devil as a poodle, welcomed as something harmless and amusing until it turns into the implacable force that exacts damnation as a goal - from Gita Mehta's Karma Cola . Collaborations is a lavish boxed set compiled by Olivia Harrison to mark Ravi Shankar's 90th birthday in 2010. Available in a limited edition, the multi-disc compilation celebrates the collaboration between George Harrison and Ravi Shankar with a beautifully produced 56 page hardcover ...

Suze Rotolo has died. A search on the path returns some appropriately freewheelin' links . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

From Sacred Journey by photographer and seeker David Howard . This gorgeous book from Taschen is well worth seeking out despite the Freudian typo. Now beware, this man is dangerous . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk