Talking to the people of Kalihi & Waikiki was an insight into the slum vs city/tourist spots of Honolulu. I soon got answers ranging from good to okay of civilians opinions of things that stood out for them. Its like when this man in a market store on the district of Kahlili would say that people from the city were scared of Kalihi scene and frame. It gives Kahili this unsafe and hard feeling of violence even though it not necessarily like that. The city in itself was pretty bent out of shape, with old market stores that had mold on the side of the walls, Houses looked kinda charcoal burnt, bars which look more like tavern on the outside (No inside for me sadly), and just a environment that looks destructive but a community of loving people.
Allow me to enlighten you on a spot of time where this perception was happening right in front of me. One day we were greeted by a elderly woman who was clearly homeless and drugged out no offense to the woman, but Gordie and I saw her on our way to pick up snacks for our first journey in Hawaii. We say her fidget and mumble things from afar. As we approached the counter when in the store this woman turns to me and Gordie as she belts out “Step off the gas man!” At first I took it as a threat and gave a confused gesture back that said “No you step on the gas…”. The clerk then says to me as aI turn and comfirm my confusing to “pay her no mind she’s talking to her friend” I then am even more puzzled at what friend the clerk meant. Very shortly I found out with just a few seconds though and was even more curious if this is normal in Hawaii or anywhere else for that manner. As I left “Step off the gas man!” became a inside joke between me and Gordie, if you ever want me to tell you a story I got a few of Hawaii and all of them extreme and pretty funny events.
This week, I have really focused on creating musical pieces to capture my experience in Los Angeles. My previous blog posts already do a pretty good job of summarizing my experiences and learning, therefore for my songs I will be continuing to showcase my learning but through an expressive means. While in Los Angeles, I played a lot of music in my room. I brought a practice amplifier, a guitar, a pedal, and a keyboard along with me. On nights that I did not go out, I spent quite a lot of time reading my self-assigned books, listening to music from Los Angeles, and playing music in my room. One thing that artistically struck me about L.A. was how eclectic the ‘sounds’ are that come out of this city. While many cities are known for being the birthplace of a particular sound (and make it quite apparent), the nature of Los Angeles’s decentralized and immigrant/transplant population creates such a diversity of ideas that there really is not one concrete sound that defines the L.A. music scene, which is something I really enjoyed about the area. However, the themes I will be playing upon in my music will not be as “sunshine-y” as the famed ‘California sound’ that I discussed.
One major theme I will be focusing on is Alienation. As I talked about previously, I felt an extreme sense of alienation while traveling by foot around the city. The sidewalk was a barren place. In many places that I walked, the only other people I would see on foot were usually homeless. When I told one of my interviewees that I had walked to Studio City from Sherman Oaks (about 4 miles) he said “NOBODY I’ve ever known would do that!”. He further told me that when people see you walking down a street such as Ventura Blvd. at night alone, they assume either you’re mentally ill or homeless. I remember one night when I was walking from Encino to Sherman Oaks and I was literally the only person on the sidewalk the entire time, while many cars were just whizzing by. I felt very alone. I found the situation almost comical and began laughing really loudly, only to realize how weird I must look to cars passing me. I was not alone, I was constantly surrounded.
Another big theme was waste. It is a wild and completely 21st century notion that civilization in the middle of the desert is even possible. With increasing population and decreasing resources comes many issues. One that I have been focusing on is the water crisis, being one that is effecting the entire west coast as well as the entire world. Having grown up in Minnesota, one of my first encounters with the idea of California (besides television and almost every movie) was when I was younger and many Minnesotans were up in arms about how California lobbyists were lobbying for the taking water from Minnesota lakes and using it for Los Angeles. In fact, a third of the water that comes to Los Angeles is sourced from Lake Superior, as well as Lake Michigan. I remember hearing people complain as a child about how unfair it was that a state could just take another states water because it had more money and was more powerful. Being in the state, it was wild to see how wasteful people were still being with water. One woman I talked to (a friend of the daughter whose house I was staying at), told me that she didn’t believe in the water shortage at all. Because the water crisis isn’t effecting many people in the United States (especially Los Angeles due to shipped/piped in water), it can give people a level of comfort. Water comes out of the sink, and it always has and will in their mind. People are constantly going to the car wash as well. Living across the street from a car wash, I was always surrounded by traffic going in and out from the business. I don’t know how so many people are able to keep their cars clean, seeing as my car was constantly dirty (even after I washed it) from the dust and bugs. One thing that I learned about water legislation in L.A. that I found interesting was how water laws affect different communities within the city. For instance, most sub-cities have laws as to when/how much water can be used weekly. The exception is Beverly Hills. There are no restrictions to watering lawns there, and the result is extremely visible. Green, large fields. And at the end of the property line, the desert continues, creating quite an unnatural sight.
The brick wall. Everyday I would wake up, walk around the apartment, say hello to whomever was awake and we would all slowly congregate for our breakfast, morning coffee and cigarette while standing on the 3 and a half foot wide 14 foot long porch, connected to the backside of the apartment building. I would rest my hands on the railing and inhale the fresh morning air of Kalihi. Everyday we sat on this back porch and talked, relaxed, ate, and drank. our view from the porch was somewhat grey, kind of blockish. It was a brick wall that stood directly in front of us. Our view of what would have been a perfect view of one the bays and shipping yards near by.
The house I stayed in was only a two bedroom that had four people already living in it and they were kind enough to take me and kimani in for a week. It was a tight squeeze but we made it work. Kimani and I would switch back and forth between sleeping on an air mattress in the house or a hammock on the back porch. I really enjoyed sleeping in the hammock on the porch, it doesn’t get a whole lot better then sleeping outside under the stars in Hawaii, which was one of the reasons the brick wall came in handy. There was a street light on just on the other side of the building which would’ve shined right in my eyes if the wall was not there. Listening to the sounds of the city winding down for the night was a very relaxing time. The sound of the wind whipping through the alley and the creeks of the hammock rope became a very soothing sound to hear at night. Police sirens wailing at all hours of the night just became a drone blending in with the cool night air.
When the morning came, it was very noticeable with the change in sound and how it echoed through the alley and bounced off the walls. Early in the morning, around 4 am when my friend Burke would get up for work i was usually awakened too. I could hear the steady movement of traffic already heading into chinatown to set up for the day’s grind. A lot of times I was up early enough to catch the morning sunrise just to the right of the brick wall. There was a little sliver of openness in which you could see the sun coming up from the water, past the brick wall and into the sky to burn off all the cool air from the night.
The brick wall was a thing of imagery. Although the wall had no murals or paintings on its surface, it was an intriguing wall. It was something that you could stare at for hours and continue to make different shapes and objects out of the stains and bird droppings on the bricks. The longer you stared the more intricate the objects would become. On one of the days I sat on the porch for a couple hours with my sketchbook to see what shapes and figures I could make out on the wall. needless to say, it was an interestingly fun couple of hours. I have never really drawn images from trying to create them from scratch by stairing at different stains on a wall.
Hawaii has walls throughout its towns and cities that are filled with beauty. Kimani and I were told by a some locals that an artist named Ron Artis is an artist from North Shore that does a lot of wall murals and art. We were able to get a ride up to north shore one day and we found some of his wall art and thought how incredibly detailed and beautiful the wall murals are but how he can turn a simple brick wall into a priceless piece of art.
there were some days I couldn’t help but imagine what life would’ve been like had that wall not been there. I probably would’ve gotten much more sunburn, but on the other hand I would have been able to see the ocean from my back porch. think I can honestly say that I’ve never really had this much interaction just staring at a brick wall with nothing really on it. But I can also honestly say that I kind of enjoyed it, seeing different art pop up before my eyes out of nowhere was a very interesting experience.
I had a crazy busy week since my last post– our main sound person had to drop out last minute, and one of our collective members, Melanie, stepped up and offered to do it, then got horribly sick with the flu and couldn’t do that or perform which was so sad. She put so much effort into the mini fest for Signal Flow that it was such a bummer she missed it completely. But then we had the issue of no sound person aside from me, and I was performing so late in the night that I didn’t wanna do the whole event alone. Because we are a female and trans only collective we couldn’t rely on any of our friends outside of those identities to pick up slack and we pulled it together and I trained a couple of our members how to do sound the day of, which was a little terrifying but it worked out in the end. The event was from 6PM-2AM and I was running on 4 hours of sleep, and my nerves weren’t helping, but I knew we were capable and that it would take a lot but we could do it all!
The show went so well, and I had many people show deep appreciation for having an event that featured and was run by women and trans identified people exclusively. It was also my very first set with visuals made for me, and I had many good responses afterwards, which is great because my friend Krysta who made them wants to continue to collaborate. I was so nervous when I went on, and while I usually allow part of myself to relax by having a drink and letting my intuition sense the room and guide parts of my set, this time was different; I had a set that was completely pre-determined by order and to the minute, and I was having a hard time (which has happened often) letting myself be completely open and knowing how to be a performer while playing other people’s music. I decided about 2 songs in that making eye contact with the audience would help, remembering when someone commented once that he wished I had looked up at the audience so he could show me how much he liked this particular song I had played. I looked up from my gear and down to the audience, and the floor was filled with people – way more than I thought would be there – and I started to see familiar faces throughout the crowd, all smiling and beaming and dancing beautifully. I especially was getting some good energy exchange with Krysta, after all the work we put into that set, like mental hugs and high-fives. Pretty awesome and unique experience. So it clicked right there, and my body relaxed. Not only that but I also was able to smile and laugh with friends down in front while I was playing music for them.
Because of the weight of the recent shooting that a cop inflicted on two young black men, the week had been really heavy, in addition to the stress of trying to coordinate this show which was a few days after the shooting. I had wondered if the show would be a good place for people to let some of that heavy energy release, and before the show, one of my friends who was performing expressed the same sentiment, but more assured than I was. Afterwards, I had that reflected back to me from other people as well, and I felt lucky to have been able to provide a show for people to do that, and a set for people to physically release some of that to also. It felt actually pretty spiritual, and the next day when I finally woke up, the energetic release from everything leading up to the show was palpable in my body. I am so grateful to my friends and to music for allowing that to happen.
I also finally got my pictures back from Don’s camera, and was able to see my first exploration with black and white film while (mostly) in the Bay:
Jesse after we saw Shlohmo at Berkeley
Kinsey, one of my temporary housemates in Oakland with her dog
Victor, one of my oldest friends from Olympia!
Oakland beach time! It’s safe to assume all these people lived in Olympia
Clearly restate the purpose and research question of your study I was originally going to research the connection between Portland and poetry but my research changed a couple weeks into the study to researching differences between the Olympia Slam scene and Portland Slam. Classify the research methods employed in your research and report their effectiveness I attended weekly readings in Olympia or Portland – each time keeping an eye out…
The past week has been a big change for me. From Texas me and Vanessa have decided to take a huge plunge and finalize living in Washington. This means I have had about a week steady on the road. As I was in her car, I didn’t want to drive much (and she didn’t really want me to drive too much either) simply because the idea of holding that responsibility in my hands is a little bit scary, so, the trip back home took a little longer than we had planned. While I did drive, it wasn’t very much, and we ended up having to get a hotel just about every night, for 5 nights in total. The drive however, was still beautiful almost all the way through.
Pretty close to the route we took, minus some small detours for food, lodging and leisure.
The drive through Texas wasn’t anything to shake a stick at. I stopped at Roscoe to visit some friends for a few hours and we had lunch. On the way there I was surprised by the amount of trains carrying whatever is in their endless carriages from place to place. Even living in Tennessee I’ve never seen so many, and the closer we got to New Mexico, the more trains there were. This all of course made sense since Texas has been an agricultural and shipping hub for ages now, and ultimately was fun to see.
Travelling through New Mexico was fun. The highway was capped at a speed limit of about 80 and it’s pretty much just a straight line through the deserts and towns. At night it was beautiful and of course, more trains by the hundreds. However you’d imagined New Mexico, it’s probably like it. It’s definitely an acquired taste but has it’s own charms. The desert is vast and beautiful, but at times relentlessly boring. The art throughout New Mexico was incredible though, and the themes often morbid. Beautiful all the way through though.
Visiting Utah I didn’t have as much fun as I thought I’d have to be honest. It seemed a little superfluous in environment but I probably just went through a bad route. Some lovely scenery regardless and definitely broke up the trip from New Mexico.
Idaho was fantastic as well but my real favorite was Oregon. Oregon was truly fantastic in every way. Towards the end of the trip seeing Mount Rainier was one of the most exhilarating experiences ever… both because of it’s beauty and because it meant we were two hours away from our destination point. As for the whole of the trip it went incredibly smoothly. It was enjoyable all the way through. I’m glad to be back in Olympia (I’m currently unpacking to move into my new apartment) and can’t wait to do my presentation the coming week.
Neither chapter 13 nor chapter 14 actually include a list of terms.
Chapter 15: Further Techniques of Harmonic Development
Chromatic Substitution: The substitution of a chromatic harmony for an expected diatonic harmony.
Mixture of Mode: Borrowing a chord from the parallel minor mode.
Elision: The omission of an expected chord in a progression.
Multiple Chromatic Substitution: The substitution of several chromatic harmonies for expected diatonic harmonies.
Incomplete Progression: The omission of a chord which is expected as the harmonic goal of a progression.
Nontonic Beginning: A composition which starts on a harmony which is not the tonic, or in what might otherwise be the middle of a harmonic progression.
Chromatic Modulation: A modulatory progression with a chromatic triad as the goal/quasi-tonic.
Principle of Proximity: The principle that no consonant triad is far removed from the harmonic axis. If a harmony is distant in terms of a relation of the 5th, then it is close melodically (by a 2nd relation).
Chromatic Sequence: A sequence which moves chromatically. Such a progression is dependent on the repeated pattern (sequence) rather than the harmonic axis.
I’ve now been back long enough to start drawing conclusions from the experiences of the past 5 weeks. The initial goal was to become immersed in the city. I feel this was accomplished. If you want to study the connections between the city and music, what better way to understand than through the eyes of a musician? From this perspective is where we were able to centralize our ideas and it also allowed us to immerse ourselves immediately. Knowing we might have potential show opportunities, everyday consisted of the right amount of work and leisure time to ask questions from an artist’s point of view as well as an audience point of view. (Audience referring to the people watching the city as if the city itself were a performance piece)
From here the second goal was to try and understand while Los Angele is such a musical hub and what was the way so many musicians became inspired in this city. Our listening playlist consisted of many talented Southern California artists such as Tyler the Creator and his team of collaborating artists including: Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt Domo Genesis and others that make up the group Odd Future. Other artists were: Kendrick Lamar (Compton) Pusha T (Compton) The Dirty Heads (Huntington Beach) and many more that I can’t remember.
What we found in LA was a mindset that fueled the ecosystem of the city. People everywhere were working hard to find new ways to be successful and proactive. The people and their common life style choices create an atmosphere the surrounding establishments have to cater to. You’re basically forced into eating healthy or terrible there’s no in between. The places where the gym, whole foods, acai berry stores and “green” stores are, are all together and visa versa for the fast food restaurants and convenient stores. Common interests connect all sections of the town and the people in those areas are working towards common goals.
From my musician point of view the city is like the music. Its what the artist has worked for to show the audience and let the audience observe and understand. There is no real connection between the city and the music like there is no connection between the acai berry and Los Angeles. They may not have acai bowl shops around Washington but its not because it doesn’t grow there – it’s the idea behind eating it and it being healthy – it goes with the mindset of the people in California. The music being played in LA wasn’t grown there; it’s a bunch of bands from everywhere else that play there because the music resonates with the mindset of the people.
The connection between cities and music is the people. Everything else stems from the people.
The image of the city of Los Angeles is not distinct for me; it’s not a skyline or an iconic building. For me the image I think of is a suburbia house with a business being started in the garage. It’s a person seeing the potential in their own dreams and rather than sitting around waiting for the opportunity to arise, they are up the time the suns up making opportunities with the people and resources that their given. The connection is to the audience; Los Angeles resonates with the audience because it’s where it is happening. But it’s made for the right kind of people. If you’re not ready for it will eat you right up. The connections ive seen between all artists – Steve Jobs to Kendrick Lamar – is that you’re going to get knocked down, but you gotta pull yourself up and keep going, because that’s what being successful is all about.
Much of experience seems to be treading water. The LSD. The Psilocybin. DMT. Factories for mind management rotating motors, cogs combusting and moving wheels. Lennon once said,
“If the Beatles or the Sixties had a message, it was to learn to swim. Period. And once you learn to swim, swim. The people who are hung up on the Beatles’ and the Sixties’ dream missed the whole point when the Beatles’ and the Sixties’ dream became the point. Carrying the Beatles’ or the Sixties’ dream around all your life is like carrying the Second World War and Glenn Miller around. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy Glenn Miller or the Beatles, but to live in that dream is the twilight zone. It’s not living now. It’s an illusion.”
Yet we backpedal over The Beatles as individuals because only a few ever learn to swim. We idolize and enshrine those people when it is the music itself that is the product of swimming. You don’t swim for yourself or to reach a destination; there is none. You swim for the music, for the people, to show others how. We all drown in the end so swim now.
Frank Ocean
Some of the Los Angeles based musical influences I was surrounded with in her hazy twilight were Frank Ocean, Dirty Heads, Tyler the Creator, Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre. Producing hip hop for Eli has led me to examine a lot of popular Hip Hop and contrast it with a deeper understanding of older rap and Rn’B. I’m not sure which, if any, of these artists I’ll hear in our music when it is finished in the coming weeks but what I did notice is how much of an effect working with another producer had on my knowledge of production, audio quality and use of Logic Pro X. Perhaps if I were to specifically target an artists sound with the technical knowledge I have I can create similar sounding instrumentals. This means that if a grid were applied to learning how to compose music electronically the initial foundation that genre specific grooves are laid on is an abstract technical knowledge of “How to__.” You can always watch youtube videos and learn specific tricks that others use to produce sounds but I am engaged in discovering how exactly my experience sounds when given the same tools as professionals but with no avenue specific education. What elements of music do I hear and extract? Then, how do I implement those ideas into new compositions without knowing ‘how’ it was done initially? It is through my experience of other musicians I meet in the flesh that I learn how my individual consciousness distributes expectation and anticipation in my music. When someone I respect advises me on music I will always try it at least once. There are pieces of advice that have worked for me for years and others I used for years that turned out to be holding me back. By reading texts on the effect of music on the industry of music business and the effect of music on the brain I comprehend the methods of musicians around me with greater detail, perhaps discovering patterns that they didn’t intend to be exercising. As a producer, the capability to coach an artist to attain the desired effect of their musicianship is part of my job. Listening to the needs of others and, with an open mind, absorbing the process of those around me will bring me to a broader understanding of the grid of music. There is a time for examining the intricate details of ‘how – t0′ and a time for looking at music from beyond the atmosphere through the eyes of other dreamers.
Tyler the Creator
The sun influenced me. Hours I would spend laying in the grass turned to days and I believe, other than the people I met, I will always remember floating two feet high over Kory’s lawn as dusk settled into a warm night. Surrounded on all sides; walls of successful and expectant people crowd around. What do you have to offer? Dreams became part of my sleep again.
“Nothing.”
Drifting off in a White Suburban I remember my 4-cylinder. I think about the young kids living in Compton beating their fists against Hollywood Blvd. I think about Childish Gambino and how he is from Georgia and how that makes sense. The thread of thought moves into Drake’s Canadian heritage, his name is Aubrey, this all makes sense. Kendrick comes on.
Dre comes on. “People come from all over the world for the women weed and weather.”
I fell asleep with a blunt in my hand.
I dreamt of women I’d never met.
The sun lives in my skin.
“It ain’t my fault that it’s 82 degrees and my tops peeled off.”
As I walked through the bustling “hub ub”, noise and commotion of this strange environment, it felt so new and far from home. The chatter and pure human energy with which people seemed to have ran through their everyday tasks. The busy block was filled with things that overwhelmed my senses, a great deal of meat displays which carried a salivating aroma through the wind. That along with the warm pungent blistering tropical wind, made me realize how foreign this chinatown environment had been to me, so far away and vastly different from home. The harsh humidity brought heavy sweats and heat, that whipped through the streets and created swells down the deep pacific currents. I breathed in the sweet salty air and faced into the hot island wind. Immersed myself in it, acknowledging this rare opportunity to experience paradise with all my senses. Summer-like weather stays constant, with a consistent island breeze. Many of Oahu buildings were built with serious consideration of the wind. Not just a mild gust here and there, but a strong steady breeze that slowly increased.
Kimani and I spent several days walking around a vast amount of Honolulu, Waikiki and other nearby surrounding towns. We noticed a pattern of short and stalky buildings in parts of the town, that had been affected by strong winds over a long period of time. Over centuries, the island landscape has been honed by humans to best withstand the intense elements that the north shore of Oahu, in particular, has to offer. We experienced one of the most visually stunning island breezes. We saw the rain and vaporous clouds move over the luscious mountain top, that were getting slowly pushed by the wind. As we looked out on the raging sea from our lookout on the serene white sand beach I noticed how different the wind here affected the waves, it seemed to just toss the water in all directions. We also ran into a stunning piece of modern art downtown in Honolulu that completely captured just how powerful the wind was, able to propel two gigantic pieces of steel, in a way framing, the natural phenomenon of these strong air currents. north eastern trade winds blow through bi annually causing all sorts of varying intense types of weather, one of which being rains that make for the extremely lush and fertile valleys, pineapple plantations, average rainfall in hawaii is between 25 and 30 inches a year.
Wind is also what makes for some of the different types of sports that hawaii is known for, including paragliding, wind surfing, surfing. none of this would be possible without wind, the winds bring in swells that make for the extreme weather conditions and waves that the islands are known for, this appears in such movies as riding giants, where some of the top surfers in the world battle deadly 50 foot waves. it seems hawaii is defined by this type of extreme , and almost fantastical islands. Still part of our country but so far off deep out there in the middle of the abyss that is the vast body of water we call the pacific ocean.
Reflecting on this epic journey now from my comfortable northwest home it seems so far away, so lost in time, or as if my lovely days spent wandering the sun soaked beaches palm trees rustling in the island breeze. Inside the trees of the jungle is where the wind would die down a bit, but as I looked at the tops of the trees I noticed the limbs still moving with a good amount of force. The floor of the forest was able to experience a moment of calmness with the help of the jungle canopy helping to block out the initial wind gusts.
It was a lot of fun and interesting being able to experience how the natural winds on the island were able to help influence the outcome of the place and help for the locations of certain buildings, tents, and other structures. Im very curious now to see what other places in the world are influenced by wind as much as Honolulu, Oahu is.
