Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

A great day in Vallejo began shortly after 11:00 a.m. at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Caf? on September 16. Instead of the caf??s usual Saturday morning serving of singer/songwriter or acoustic instrumental fare, morning [tag]ragas[/tag] from [tag]North India[/tag] were performed by [tag]Joan Allekotte[/tag] on vocal, tamboura, and harmonium and [tag]Dennis Ocampo[/tag] on tabla.

Ragas in India, as Joan and Dennis explained to an audience comprised of friends and the regulars who gather at the caf? on Saturday morning, correspond to specific times of the day. [tag]Morning ragas[/tag] are always performed during the morning hours, afternoon ragas are for the afternoon, and so on. A raga may also have a narrative vocal relevant to the time period. The subjects of the ragas performed on this particular morning involved subjects like awakening in the forest among the animals and swarming bees, a thanking of the guru, and a translation of the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (Latin to Hindi?) that lost none of its spirituality from one language to the other.

In between the second and third ragas, Joan and Dennis gave brief descriptions of their instruments.

Joan had been accompanying her voice on [tag]tamboura[/tag], which she played horizontally on her lap. The tamboura provided the drone sound within the music, that serves more as foundation for the music than as an instrument for soloing. She explained how the tamboura?s characteristic sound is a result of a thin thread placed between the bridge and strings, how the instrument?s name has a different spelling and pronunciation in certain regions of India, and how there are male and female versions of the instrument.

Dennis explained the physical structure of [tag]the tabla[/tag], its goatskin head, the inner circle section responsible for the drum?s tonal possibilities, the wooden or copper body for the different sizes of drums and their individual names, and the oral tradition of learning the corresponding name of each sound available on them. He even demonstrated how the tradition works by playing a brief percussion improvisation and saying the name of each tone as he played it.

The music performed was constructed in 12- or 16-beat formats. They demonstrated how each style would work by playing and counting to the appropriate number of beats. Joan stated how the goal was to wind up at the same place and that she would watch Dennis? head, which he would periodically nod at on the twelfth or sixteenth beat, as a point of reference.

Watching their interplay during each raga reminded me of a pianoless jazz trio. The bass and drums have to provide a solid base for the soloist while moving the music in a direction with melodic possibilties, rather than riffing on the same bassline and drumbeats and letting the soloist ? Sonny Rollins excepted ? play until he or she runs out of ideas (Does Sonny Rollins EVER run out of ideas?). The same rules seemed to apply to these ragas. Joan?s tamboura and harmonium mapped out tonal landscapes for each piece, while Dennis? tabla gave the melody and drone a sense of direction.

The most surprising aspect of watching them play was the fingerwork: tabla is played with a very pianistic style, rather than the slapping technique associated with congas, bongos, djembe, and the majority of hand percussion. Piano is, at its most basic level, a percussion instrument and Dennis is an outstanding pianist, so playing tabla would seem to be a natural fit for him. It is. Conversely, Joan?s fingers crawled like a very sleepy spider across the neck of her tamboura, from side to side, over and over.

Joan?s voice was a natural fit for these compositions. She filled the room with sonic beauty on that morning. Consider Joni Mitchell?s ?Court and Spark? vocal style with its swoops and elongated notes: Joan?s approach to singing was similar, although it seemed to be very much rooted in a traditional sound. She did not sound like she was trying to reinvent the wheel; instead, she seemed to use the wheel to move from one place to the next.

The best assessment of the morning?s music may have been from a young skateboarder who came in for coffee and sat at the table closest to the stage. Within minutes he was silently tapping his fingers on the tabletop to the music and singing along with Joan at a respectfully low volume. I do not know whether he knew the songs or not, though he seemed to understand them immediately. He stayed for nearly the entire performance and made a point of thanking Joan and shaking her hand before he left the caf? when the music ended at noon.

A few blocks away, after the sun and moon had changed positions in the sky and night was well underway, Karma Moffett?s Tibetan Bell Experience was taking place at the Adara Yoga studio at 532 Georgia Street. Adara Yoga has joined forces with Bellyfire Yoga and Fitness to form [tag]The Vallejo Yoga Collective[/tag]. The collective presented, as the tickets stated, ?an evening of vibrational sound.?

Chairs and yoga mats had been provided on the floor for the audience, which split almost 50-50 between the two modes of viewing the presentation. Hannah Callaway of Bellyfire introduced Karma at 8:00 p.m., who proceeded to give a brief description of the format of what he referred to as ?the ceremony? and invited everyone to experience it in a way that would maximize the experience: do yoga, lie down with closed eyes, stand, face in different directions, whatever worked best for the listener.

Karma sat on a pillow, surrounded by wooden flutes of various sizes, bells, bowls, an eight- or nine-foot long horn similar to the ones associated with the Swiss Alps and Ricola Herb Throat Drops commercials (?Reee-co-laaaaa!?), conch shells, and small hand percussion instruments. He began to play simple repetitive phrases on what appeared to be a shakuhachi and continued on smaller, higher-pitched flutes, eventually progressing to smaller horns played in tandem with hand percussion, and eventually to the bowls.

The bowls are, if not the centerpiece of his ceremonies, at least one of its high points. The size of each bowl determines its pitch and sonic length before its vibrations decay into silence. Karma played the bowls with various sized mallets, which determined the tone, for example, the bigger the mallet head, the mellower the sound, and would overlay various combinations of bowl tones and mallet styles to create a deeply felt meditative state. One could not help but slip into a mode of calmness from listening to it.

I looked around at the audience during various sections of Karma?s presentation. Some watched him as they probably would at any other performance. Some sat in lotus position; those who did were not all facing him, or would face in different directions throughout the course of the evening. Some remained horizontal and stared at the ceiling. Some waved their hands in the air in a manner usually seen at Pentecostal churches. Everyone seemed to be in the moment.

At one point he was betrayed by acoustics: he began ringing bells, which seemed shrill and overpowering within the room?s confines. At other times he was able to use the room to his advantage: the above-mentioned long horn and the conch shells had a longer sustain to their notes than I expected from them. Karma was even able to briefly overlay tones in the long horn.

In the end, I think he was right to call the evening a ceremony. It was not a virtuoso?s recital of dazzling techniques, nor was it a showcase of cutting-edge compositions. Instead, it was a return to the most basic of music, the simple sharing of sound from one person to a group. Listening to him blow his conch shells, I could easily picture an Aztec on a beach sounding the warning signal to his community upon seeing the galleons approaching the shores of home. Karma helped to put the unspeakable, the timeless, into the room.

Or maybe it was best described by Hannah as my wife Dariece and I were saying our goodbyes to her: ?I think we just had a cultural event here!? It was a great day in Vallejo.

[tags]concert review[/tags]

Be Sociable, Share!

•