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Let’s give a warm welcome to John Manchester! aka Luminous Muse
I’m pleased to announce the release of my new album Transformation!
Available:
My last post here about my previous album Delight inspired a Balloon Juice collaboration, between me and ema of the lovely YouTube Channel Secret Strolls. Ema edited video of the NYBG Orchid Show to my music here; I married her video of Central Park to my piece “Winter’s End” here.
The title Transformation means several things to me. There’s personal transformation, something I’ve chased for over fifty years, through the hell realms of a spiritual cult and recently, more happily, through Vipassana meditation.
Transformation also refers to the good old alchemy of the blues, in which through music, fear, sorrow, and anger can flower into trust, joy and even love.
The third meaning of my title Transformation is in the sense of Musical Development. Wikipedia says-“In music, development is a process by which a musical idea is transformed and restated in the course of a composition.”
By the time I got to college in the fall of 1968, I’d been playing guitar for six years, had performed as a folkie and played in several bands. Rock was in its heyday, a new mind-blowing album coming out every month. The closest I’d come to classical music was in the Christmas carol sings I accompanied on piano. (As I couldn’t read music, I pretended to follow the music as I pounded out chords.) A survey course, Music 101, exposed me to Bach’s B Minor Mass, Beethoven’s 9th and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. Though my career path might have been simpler without that input, they were sounds I’ve never be able to unhear. My musical north star of the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, and Joni Mitchell began to compete with another, much older compass.
Bach turned me onto counterpoint. I found precious few examples in pop music but as I started writing songs I felt an instinctive need for counterpoint, putting notes other than the roots of chords in the bass so that the melody and bass formed contrapuntal lines. And though guitar was the instrument i was good at, I started writing on piano where two hands can more easily do two different things at the same time.
Beethoven introduced me to musical development, of which he was the undisputed master. In 1969, when I heard the Grateful Dead perform the medley that begins I had another touchstone moment. Though improvised, this music took the same kind of exhilarating journey as a Beethoven symphony. Joni Mitchell’s “Down to You” from Court and Spark in 1974 was the best example in pop music of a theme that underwent serious transformation. And not just of the musical sort. As Joni and a piano evolve into a choir and lush orchestra you can hear her feelings changing, sadness expanding into beauty.
As pop music made more and more money, it lost its sophistication and musical ambition. Things like development were left by the wayside.
There are many motivations for making music. You can seek fame and fortune, or good times that just keep rolling. (And good luck to you!) You can want your deepest feelings to be heard. Like me, you can make music to put food on your family’s table. Those are external, social things.
It’s the inner experience in the moment of creation that keeps me making music now. And that experience is truly transformative. I find frequent access to the state of flow, absorbed in the music to the exclusion of troubles, and pain, and even thought. I’ve always had trouble accessing my feelings – not only what I’m feeling but sometimes even the fact that I’m feeling at all. I don’t know how it happens, but somehow when I write a piece, after making ten thousand choices of notes, sounds, and articulations, I play the finished work and I FEEL all this stuff I wasn’t aware of as I worked. And dark or light, those feelings are alive.
But on the purely musical level, there’s something else. Perhaps the purest motivation for creating music is so you can listen to the piece that you want to hear. My ideal piece has got all the folk and rock DNA that I came up with. It’s also got counterpoint and development. I don’t hear anyone else doing these things, even in the classical realm. While the contemporary classical stuff I hear has gotten past the worst of mid-century atonality, it’s still infected with the lesser sins of minimalism. It sounds timid to me, frightened of complex thought or feeling.
If I want to hear the piece I want to hear, I have to make it myself.
WaterGirl
John, please let us know when you get here – I’m betting that there will be questions!
West of the Rockies
Gorgeous cover art, wonderful music!
KatKapCC
Ooh, I like it! It feels very…cinematic, I think is the word I want? Very grand and stirring.
Luminous Muse
@WaterGirl: Here now!
Luminous Muse
@West of the Rockies: (Composer here) Thanks!
WaterGirl
@Luminous Muse: Welcome!
I added your nym up top.
Luminous Muse
@KatKapCC:
@KatKapCC: Nice to hear
KatKapCC
@Luminous Muse: Sounds like you started playing music as a young teen — did you have any musicians in your family, like parents or grandparents, who got you into it, or was it all on your own?
Luminous Muse
@KatKapCC: No musicians in the family aside from father who played harmonica
Betty
Congratulations on the new album. I enjoyed the sample you provided and your description of your various influences. As KatKapCC suggested, it sounds like a movie soundtrack. Majestic.
Subcommandante Yakbreath
Lovely. Thanks for sharing.
XeckyGilchrist
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing this!
KatKapCC
@Luminous Muse: That’s interesting! I feel like when I talk to people I know who are musicians, they either come from a family full of them or none of their relatives have any musicality at all, LOL.
waspuppet
That’s so completely obvious and yet I never thought of it before. I’m just getting to the point where I can do what I want instead of just what I’m capable of doing, if you know what I mean, and this just what I need to point me from here on out.
Luminous Muse
@KatKapCC: Bach is my favorite composer – he came from a family of so many musicians that the name “Bach” was synonymous with musician in Germany of the time
Luminous Muse
@waspuppet: What medium do you work in?
KatKapCC
@Luminous Muse: Wow, an early adopter of branding your identity :) My parents love classical music so I grew up hearing a lot of it. Chopin was probably my favorite but I found beauty in all of it. I have no musical talent at all and I’m so impressed with people who do.
Luminous Muse
@KatKapCC: Talent is a funny thing. Many artists – even accomplished ones – Agonize over whether they have talent or not. I think I’m too old to go there now.
WereBear
I find it wonderful to write to. Bookmarked 👍
Luminous Muse
@WereBear: Nice to hear. Question – I’ve thought of making playlists and full album videos -would that help in using it as background for writing?
KatKapCC
@Luminous Muse: Ooh, I would like it for reading! I can’t concentrate well in total silence so I like to have instrumental stuff in the background. Your stuff would work great for that.
waspuppet
@Luminous Muse: I’m just a rock & roll moron, albeit one who stayed awake in music theory and likes electronic instruments/noises too. I make music with my old high school bandmate by WeTransferring tracks back and forth.
WereBear
@Luminous Muse: Oh, yes, I’d say so. Writing Music is big in my circle.
My brother favors orchestral movie soundtracks. I play an era’s music when writing something historic.
It’s about finding the right pace and mood. Lush and pastoral for romance… Screaming strings for a thriller, and they could have genre names.
For instance 😁 just ideas.
prostratedragon
I like “(Not So Simple) Gifts” from my phone. Will enjoy it (and the others, I’m sure) when I get to the good equipment.
Luminous Muse
@waspuppet: I use WeTransfer for mixing/mastering, which my second cousin Tim Green does. He does a fine job, especially given that he mostly does post-punk! Great ears are great ears
waspuppet
@Luminous Muse: Yeah, your stuff is beautiful, and beautifully done.
We were gonna have a full reunion of our high school band and finally get real, decent recordings of our old songs. For the whole year we worked, I joked that the personalities hadn’t changed, both for good and ill. And sure enough, one guy blew up at the other two of us and that was the end of it.
But then I got in contact with the other guy, and we started recording ourselves. Trouble was, the guy who left was the producer, which left me as the equivalent of the guy in the movie who has to land the plane because his one flying lesson is more than anyone else aboard. There was a steep learning curve, but I think it’s starting to sound OK.
We went with almost all new songs so the third guy wouldn’t get mad at us, but he did anyway. Oh well—a 43-year friendship gone.
Sorry; I had to get that off my chest. But how often do you get your stuff done live?
Luminous Muse
@WereBear: Thanks for this input. I was thinking of making playlists grouping pieces by mood, etc. Now I’m going to do it!
Luminous Muse
@waspuppet: I used to record live stuff in NYC. The players were great but I could never afford a full orchestra. Had that once in Prague….the players weren’t great.
You have more patience than me to still work with band members. Some of my old ones are still mad at me and it’s been 50 years!
waspuppet
@Luminous Muse: It does occur to me that staging a concert for an orchestra is something like putting on a play—it takes a LOT of people, and if one or two of them are no good the whole thing is kinda not worth doing (something I’m afraid I know something about).
PS: My cynical answer would be I need my bandmate because I’m a terrible singer, but the fact is whenever he adds a part my instinct is to hate it, but in a couple of days I know I’ll realize it’s actually great.
Luminous Muse
@waspuppet: I went to Prague because the Philharmonic Orchestra is cheap. They’re actually good for some kinds of music – but not mine. My stuff would sound great with the LA film orchestra or the London Phil. No way could I afford that
WaterGirl
@Luminous Muse: Not sure how long you will stick around, but when you do head out, I hope you will check back in the morning. People often come late to these and they may have questions, and you will surely want to see the comments.
Thanks for sharing your work with us!
ema
I love your music, and the NYBG video set to your music is one of my absolute favorites, thank you!
Luminous Muse
@ema: Thanks, ema. Your footage was great