TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Dr. Lester CN Simon
I thought I should write this article to the Daily Observer to let off some steam because it seems I get too angry too quickly and that I may need anger management classes. But I have to say straight up that I think I have the patience of Job. Seriously. When you consider the things I go through in this country on a daily basis I should be vexed every day and every night or maybe I should have been born vexed to prepare me for this ton of wanton vexation.
Since I was little, I learnt to deal with vexation but vexation these days comes from corners and quarters I never expected. The first time in my life I remember getting really upset and having to deal with anger management was when I was little and liked this sweet little girl in my village. I planned out a detailed conversation with this princess, in my mind. I rehearsed the conversation over and over, even looking in the mirror to see her reaction, and my reaction too. Imagine then, when I met the princess and opened the conversation, the well planned conversation, by saying to her that I had a dream about her last night, all the ugly duckling could find to ask me was who told me to dream about her. I didn’t plan for that at all.
But I learnt from that. I learnt that I must always be prepared for the unexpected. But the unexpectedness I am getting these days is beyond all unexpectedness. It’s as if the devil sent some people on earth with my name in their mouths and with explicit instructions to seek me out and render me botheration.
Take St. Mary’s Street, the busiest exit from the city. There are no traffic lights at the top, so if you have to turn right, you have to hope that some sensible person will not block the exit when the traffic light ahead of them is red. The other day, I drove up to the intersection and ever so gently, kindly, and very softly, asked a driver to reverse a little so that I could drive out. The man looked me straight in the eye as if to say I must come out of my vehicle, walk over to his car, put his car in neutral, pull up the hand break, take off his seatbelt, drag him out, throw him to the ground, or gently put him to sit down on the sidewalk and then reverse his car myself. Now, if I were to follow his clear instructions and do that, the police would not understand I was following orders. I had to take a deep breath.
Some say that deep breathing is the solution to anger. Deep breathing means that you do not breathe from the top of your chest like you do when you are panting; neither do you breathe solely from your chest wall by pushing out your chest. They suggest that you breathe from your diaphragm, which is below and attached to your chest wall. When you do that, by pushing your stomach out to breathe in, your chest opens more and your lungs take in as much air as possible. It is difficult to be angry and breathe deeply. But years of getting angry have led me to conclude that anger is rational.
In a recent book, called The Logic of Life, the celebrated economist, Tim Harford writes that although many of our actions and decisions may seem irrational, there is an underlying logic to our choices. There is a method in our madness. Take crime, for example. Most people do not commit crime because of fear of punishment; they calculatedly commit crime because they know they stand a very good chance of not getting caught. Or if they got caught in Antigua and Barbuda, they stand a very good chance of not going to trial or of the case being dismissed.
Criminals are some of the most rational persons on earth. Misfits yes; but diabolically clever and rational. Those who claim that prison and the death penalty work are not really saying that they are deterrents, they are saying that they prevent the imprisoned or the executed from committing crimes. In the case of these penalties being wrongly applied, the consequences are obvious.
In The Logic of Life, Harford uses the principles of economics to tell us why in the face of the risk of HIV infection, a prostitute will occasionally have sex without a condom for a higher fee. As bizarre as this might seem at first, she (or he) is said to be making a similar economic choice as other workers such as policemen or soldiers, who get higher salaries for engaging in legitimate high risk work. This means that although we know that deep breathing will help to avert anger, we will deliberately breathe badly when we huff and puff and blow the house down because we are making a learnt, rational, economic choice. The reward is that we feel good after a good anger and sometimes even while we are in the state of anger too. Some people actually go out of their way to get angry or force others to get them angry so they can feel good afterwards.
We wonder why boys are doing poorly in school and seemingly making poor choices but maybe there is logic at work here. We have always been told that education is to prepare us for the job market (which sounds so much like slavery all over again). Why then would a street-smart boy go to school when he has a job already, even though he is out of work every now and then, like some educated people? And do not tell the delinquent school boy that he is missing out on the "aha" experience, the joy of learning and discovering in school. He has been there and done that already on the streets where you live.
As the message by D. Gisele Isaac on Observer Radio implies, we have to change the way he understand education. This might mean setting up small schools all over the community, starting at home, or incorporating the places where children go, play and skylark to ply the new education. Maybe we need a new type of teacher, a new chalkboard and a new type of textbook. If education is to prepare us for life, why go to school when we already have the life we think we want? The mountain of education must move to Mohammed (as Barach Obama is showing).
The premise of The Logic of Life is that we are rational beings responding to incentives and rewards even when our choices seem bizarre. Take the recent arguments about legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. Whenever these discussions arise, they always end up in smoke because the arguments are not fair and logical. The arguments usually surround two themes, one of which is to compare marijuana to other substances. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the data show that marijuana is just as safe as or even safer than alcohol or tobacco. We cannot them move from that conclusion and add to the reasons for the use of marijuana by saying that it is a natural substance. That is a non sequitur. We might as well smoke “cassi” bush.
The fact that marijuana is natural does not bestow any special advantages to it. Oxygen is natural and yet it can be harmful under some circumstances. Sunlight is essential yet sunrays can cause cancer. Many disasters are natural. The very act of smoking marijuana releases a number of harmful substances that are released from many substances that are burnt. This means that the burning of incense in church or barbecuing chicken and even natural vegetables might be harmful. Indeed, one wonders the effect it would have had on him if Moses had to stand in front of the burning bush every day for excessive lengths of time.
So, if the science shows that marijuana is as safe as or even safer than legal substances, that is the argument for legalization or decriminalization. We should admit to the scientific fact that burning many substances, including marijuana, can be dangerous to health. We can then decide if the risk of smoking it is an acceptable risk and stop trying to confuse the arguments by invoking the naturalness of the marijuana plant. If this argument makes you angry, this is one time to defy the prescription for anger management and do not take a deep breath.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
MORE GARDENERS
DEAD FLAT
Dear Editor
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to keep the St. John’s Public Cemetery and almost all our other cemeteries, apart from the one at the Anglican Cathedral, in immaculate condition? Some cemeteries are so dirty and unkempt, one is tempted to defy nature and live forever; unless one favours burial at sea or cremation.
I am suggesting that the primary reason is probably because the graves are convex instead of flat. Initially, it probably makes sense to pile up the dirt on top of the graves since excess dirt would remain after the interment. On second thought, it is probably better to spread the excess dirt around and leave the top of the graves flat. This would make for easier cleaning with a lawn mower.
Did we always have convex graves? If the main concern is for the settling of the grave over time then surely dirt removed from a new grave site can be added to an older grave that is settling and just beginning to become hollow. But graves as old as, or even older than seven years still have a convex mound. So why can’t we have flat graves by spreading the excess dirt around the grave yard? Surely it cannot be that we do not want to mix the dirt from one grave with another.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Dear Editor
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to keep the St. John’s Public Cemetery and almost all our other cemeteries, apart from the one at the Anglican Cathedral, in immaculate condition? Some cemeteries are so dirty and unkempt, one is tempted to defy nature and live forever; unless one favours burial at sea or cremation.
I am suggesting that the primary reason is probably because the graves are convex instead of flat. Initially, it probably makes sense to pile up the dirt on top of the graves since excess dirt would remain after the interment. On second thought, it is probably better to spread the excess dirt around and leave the top of the graves flat. This would make for easier cleaning with a lawn mower.
Did we always have convex graves? If the main concern is for the settling of the grave over time then surely dirt removed from a new grave site can be added to an older grave that is settling and just beginning to become hollow. But graves as old as, or even older than seven years still have a convex mound. So why can’t we have flat graves by spreading the excess dirt around the grave yard? Surely it cannot be that we do not want to mix the dirt from one grave with another.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
FOR MY DEAR FRIEND BERT
THE GARDENER OF THE CEMETERY
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We, West Indians, plantation people, Black, White, Mulatto, Doughlah, Mixed, Mixed-up, Indian, Indigo, Chinese and in-betweens, must compute the elemental fact that attention to at least three of the underpinnings of our conjoint, harrowing history must be the pillars of our new society: family, education and how we look after our dead.
We cannot talk of a society until and unless we understand the significance of slavery and plantation life. This is neither a Black Power nor a Back-to-Africa positioning. Truth to tell, the Back-to-Africa fairy tale has led us to tell each other and ourselves many untrue stories. Grammatically and otherwise, we cannot reunite a continent or a country that was never united in the first place. Only when we understand the facts of African tribal differences and the further separation of inter-tribal as well as the deliberate separation of intra-tribal peoples of African descent, will we hold on to, and near-strangle the fact that it’s all about family.
But we have to define what we mean by family and extended family. In so doing, we move from a nuclear family to a peripheral community. Any West Indian society (especially since we fought for and won our freedom) that does not make political, social and economic provisions for this nuclear and extended family, gathering at work and at play, is doomed to extended and perpetual slavery….worse, by our own hands.
Refusing to acknowledge the significance of plantation life and always looking back with myopic eyes whilst refusing to look ahead and plan the building of a West Indian society will prevent us from understanding, among other things, how enslaving and abhorrent it is for West Indian men to rape West Indian women. It also prevents us from accepting that education, not tourism, is everybody’s business. Elementary, my dear. Somebody has to say that if Antiguan and Barbudan nearga think we can build a modern society with the abolition of income tax for 28 years and live and educate children on halfpenny replacement levies administered by unaccountable politicians and uncivil civil servants, slavery is alive and well and kicking.
I wanted to call Observer Radio one day when the host of Voice of The People said that a good friend of his, who was once a Black Power advocate, said that he had to put away all of that when he became the minister of tourism in a nearby island. The sad fact is that the man, as is the case with so many of us, failed to understand what Black Power should be about in the first place. I cannot earnestly welcome tourists and ask them to enjoy themselves in my land, if I am not at peace with who and what I am, what I want to be. Real Black Power means that I have moved on from some outer, dashiki insignia to an intrinsic moral high ground because of the new West Indian society we are building. This is indeed the new, second and misunderstood, mental and societal, post-slavery, “middle passage” that all West Indians of all hues must pass through.
And as we pass through that second “middle passage”, we will one day pass on. Death is always a difficult subject to write about. Like music, it is something we all understand at times and at other times, it overwhelms us to bawling tears. The commonality of music and death is probably echoed in the saying that music in the universal language, the voice of all humanity, the speech of angels. Indeed, William Wordsworth wrote that, “The music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more”. Plato wrote that, “Music is a moral law….It gives a soul to the universe. It is the essence of order.” Derek Walcott wrote of Spoiler, the calypsonian, “Tell Desperadoes when you reach the hill, I decompose, but I composing still”.
The cycle of call and response and the very nature of creating music out of a simple set of fundamental notes and sounds must be related to our genesis from dust and our exodus, not just back to dust and ashes but to echoing memories of the sacrifices we made, the countless lives we touched and saved, adding to human kind and humanity. We get reminders, sometimes in the most unusual places and at the most inopportune times, of the fun and laughter and sadness, the verbal quarrels and fights and sweet peacemaking that we contributed to this earthy world in our third and most significant “middle passage”.
The everlasting music of death tells me that just as the musician must be paid and must eat first at the feast before all others, so too must the gardener of the cemetery be honoured and respected. You can talk about going to heaven or to hell until you and the cows get there; the simple, earthly fact is that the cemetery is a living place. The biology of its plants and trees, its flora and fauna, contribute to life around us, even when we are literally turned over in our graves after years of interment. For those who forget that business starts with us and think that it is tourism that is everybody’s business, a well-kept cemetery is good business.
Again, we West Indians, plantation people, should have the deepest respect for how we deal with our dead. It is the true test and testimony of the community of the moral high ground we have attained. If we cannot respect the resting place of our dead, whom we used to see and know, how can we talk of God and heaven?
Maybe funerals should be bedecked with tens of shovels so that all of us can get our hands a little earthy. We should banish the backhoe and see who really wants to go to the funeral. We may then be able to look after the gardener of the cemetery. Because those who have passed on have affected our lives; because grieving families, friends and loved ones must know and feel that our innumerable, positive thoughts, our overflowing, cushioning tears and our celebrations of the inter-relatedness of all lives and all deaths, surround them in their moments of grief, we are all gardeners.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
We, West Indians, plantation people, Black, White, Mulatto, Doughlah, Mixed, Mixed-up, Indian, Indigo, Chinese and in-betweens, must compute the elemental fact that attention to at least three of the underpinnings of our conjoint, harrowing history must be the pillars of our new society: family, education and how we look after our dead.
We cannot talk of a society until and unless we understand the significance of slavery and plantation life. This is neither a Black Power nor a Back-to-Africa positioning. Truth to tell, the Back-to-Africa fairy tale has led us to tell each other and ourselves many untrue stories. Grammatically and otherwise, we cannot reunite a continent or a country that was never united in the first place. Only when we understand the facts of African tribal differences and the further separation of inter-tribal as well as the deliberate separation of intra-tribal peoples of African descent, will we hold on to, and near-strangle the fact that it’s all about family.
But we have to define what we mean by family and extended family. In so doing, we move from a nuclear family to a peripheral community. Any West Indian society (especially since we fought for and won our freedom) that does not make political, social and economic provisions for this nuclear and extended family, gathering at work and at play, is doomed to extended and perpetual slavery….worse, by our own hands.
Refusing to acknowledge the significance of plantation life and always looking back with myopic eyes whilst refusing to look ahead and plan the building of a West Indian society will prevent us from understanding, among other things, how enslaving and abhorrent it is for West Indian men to rape West Indian women. It also prevents us from accepting that education, not tourism, is everybody’s business. Elementary, my dear. Somebody has to say that if Antiguan and Barbudan nearga think we can build a modern society with the abolition of income tax for 28 years and live and educate children on halfpenny replacement levies administered by unaccountable politicians and uncivil civil servants, slavery is alive and well and kicking.
I wanted to call Observer Radio one day when the host of Voice of The People said that a good friend of his, who was once a Black Power advocate, said that he had to put away all of that when he became the minister of tourism in a nearby island. The sad fact is that the man, as is the case with so many of us, failed to understand what Black Power should be about in the first place. I cannot earnestly welcome tourists and ask them to enjoy themselves in my land, if I am not at peace with who and what I am, what I want to be. Real Black Power means that I have moved on from some outer, dashiki insignia to an intrinsic moral high ground because of the new West Indian society we are building. This is indeed the new, second and misunderstood, mental and societal, post-slavery, “middle passage” that all West Indians of all hues must pass through.
And as we pass through that second “middle passage”, we will one day pass on. Death is always a difficult subject to write about. Like music, it is something we all understand at times and at other times, it overwhelms us to bawling tears. The commonality of music and death is probably echoed in the saying that music in the universal language, the voice of all humanity, the speech of angels. Indeed, William Wordsworth wrote that, “The music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more”. Plato wrote that, “Music is a moral law….It gives a soul to the universe. It is the essence of order.” Derek Walcott wrote of Spoiler, the calypsonian, “Tell Desperadoes when you reach the hill, I decompose, but I composing still”.
The cycle of call and response and the very nature of creating music out of a simple set of fundamental notes and sounds must be related to our genesis from dust and our exodus, not just back to dust and ashes but to echoing memories of the sacrifices we made, the countless lives we touched and saved, adding to human kind and humanity. We get reminders, sometimes in the most unusual places and at the most inopportune times, of the fun and laughter and sadness, the verbal quarrels and fights and sweet peacemaking that we contributed to this earthy world in our third and most significant “middle passage”.
The everlasting music of death tells me that just as the musician must be paid and must eat first at the feast before all others, so too must the gardener of the cemetery be honoured and respected. You can talk about going to heaven or to hell until you and the cows get there; the simple, earthly fact is that the cemetery is a living place. The biology of its plants and trees, its flora and fauna, contribute to life around us, even when we are literally turned over in our graves after years of interment. For those who forget that business starts with us and think that it is tourism that is everybody’s business, a well-kept cemetery is good business.
Again, we West Indians, plantation people, should have the deepest respect for how we deal with our dead. It is the true test and testimony of the community of the moral high ground we have attained. If we cannot respect the resting place of our dead, whom we used to see and know, how can we talk of God and heaven?
Maybe funerals should be bedecked with tens of shovels so that all of us can get our hands a little earthy. We should banish the backhoe and see who really wants to go to the funeral. We may then be able to look after the gardener of the cemetery. Because those who have passed on have affected our lives; because grieving families, friends and loved ones must know and feel that our innumerable, positive thoughts, our overflowing, cushioning tears and our celebrations of the inter-relatedness of all lives and all deaths, surround them in their moments of grief, we are all gardeners.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Universal Language
CLASSICAL CALYPSO
Dear Editor
I am forced to write to correct a misconception some people might have got from reading the article, Why We Hate Steel Band Music published in The Daily Observer. Someone suggested to me that I was promoting classical music as being superior to other types of music, including our own calypso.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A lot of classical music, like a lot of any type of music, is plan rubbish to my ears. The point I was trying to make was simply that one type of music can inform another. A lot of classical music was commissioned by kings and persons of high office. This did not start in Europe. It started in Africa. So if we borrow from classical music we are simply taking back what we started.
Here is a simple example of how music and art carry universal themes. I once heard a provocative, some would even say erotic, rendition of music called Nights in the Garden of Spain by the Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla. Anyone could easily imagine from listening to the music, all of the nocturnal goings on in the garden, even though the composer was known to be a most pious man.
A few years later, I read a poem by Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott, called Nights in the Garden of Port of Spain. It was the poetry equivalent of The Mighty Sparrow’s Jean and Dinah and the same nocturnal goings on that Manuel de Falla wrote into his classical music.
We are not as different as some of us like to think, we just look, talk and do a few things differently.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Dear Editor
I am forced to write to correct a misconception some people might have got from reading the article, Why We Hate Steel Band Music published in The Daily Observer. Someone suggested to me that I was promoting classical music as being superior to other types of music, including our own calypso.
Nothing could be further from the truth. A lot of classical music, like a lot of any type of music, is plan rubbish to my ears. The point I was trying to make was simply that one type of music can inform another. A lot of classical music was commissioned by kings and persons of high office. This did not start in Europe. It started in Africa. So if we borrow from classical music we are simply taking back what we started.
Here is a simple example of how music and art carry universal themes. I once heard a provocative, some would even say erotic, rendition of music called Nights in the Garden of Spain by the Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla. Anyone could easily imagine from listening to the music, all of the nocturnal goings on in the garden, even though the composer was known to be a most pious man.
A few years later, I read a poem by Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott, called Nights in the Garden of Port of Spain. It was the poetry equivalent of The Mighty Sparrow’s Jean and Dinah and the same nocturnal goings on that Manuel de Falla wrote into his classical music.
We are not as different as some of us like to think, we just look, talk and do a few things differently.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
School Daze
OUR SCHOOLS OF EXCELLENCE
Dear Editor
This is an open letter to the most honorable prime minister, informing him that many of us would forego all the presents for Christmas, including the dollar barrel, if the government would work with us to usher in a fundamental and revolutionary change in education in 2008.
We have written, we have spoken, we have cursed and we have prayed about the unacceptable level of crime and about the equally unacceptable level of disinterestedness and hopelessness amongst our youths, particularly our school boys. When almost everything else has been tried and failure continues to stalk us, we have to consider structure or form to understand why our operations and results are so dysfunctional.
We are proposing a drastic reduction in the size and function of the Ministry of Education along with the decentralization of its functions to allow for the autonomous running of secondary schools. These schools should be run by boards comprising members of the community. Board membership should comprise people living and working within as well as without the environs of the school including parents and guardians of school children.
We need to feel and experience a more intimate sense of ownership of the elements of our development. Decentralizing the running of secondary schools will put communities in charge of crucial aspects of education and help to forge the necessary community spirit and expertise that running a school demands. Those who point to the fact that many parents do not attend PTA meetings should reflect on the proverbial chicken and egg question. People are not stupid. People first means education First.
We must stop the antiquated and unintelligent practice of promoting excellent teachers by moving them from schools to desk jobs in the Ministry of Education. This underscores the fact that were school boards in place and autonomous, the best teachers with the best results would have got the best job in the first place, attracted the best pay and remained in the best jobs doing what they love best. To those who will charge us with elitism, our response is as simple as the mind of an uneducated school child (an oxymoron): In times like these, we have to start at the top in order to show others where to go. That is why we are writing to you, Sir.
Who are we?
Dr. Lester CN Simon and a posse of potential thieves, thugs, vagabonds, duncy-head, crack-head, homicidal, suicidal, misguided, lonely and walking-jumbie youths in waiting.
Dear Editor
This is an open letter to the most honorable prime minister, informing him that many of us would forego all the presents for Christmas, including the dollar barrel, if the government would work with us to usher in a fundamental and revolutionary change in education in 2008.
We have written, we have spoken, we have cursed and we have prayed about the unacceptable level of crime and about the equally unacceptable level of disinterestedness and hopelessness amongst our youths, particularly our school boys. When almost everything else has been tried and failure continues to stalk us, we have to consider structure or form to understand why our operations and results are so dysfunctional.
We are proposing a drastic reduction in the size and function of the Ministry of Education along with the decentralization of its functions to allow for the autonomous running of secondary schools. These schools should be run by boards comprising members of the community. Board membership should comprise people living and working within as well as without the environs of the school including parents and guardians of school children.
We need to feel and experience a more intimate sense of ownership of the elements of our development. Decentralizing the running of secondary schools will put communities in charge of crucial aspects of education and help to forge the necessary community spirit and expertise that running a school demands. Those who point to the fact that many parents do not attend PTA meetings should reflect on the proverbial chicken and egg question. People are not stupid. People first means education First.
We must stop the antiquated and unintelligent practice of promoting excellent teachers by moving them from schools to desk jobs in the Ministry of Education. This underscores the fact that were school boards in place and autonomous, the best teachers with the best results would have got the best job in the first place, attracted the best pay and remained in the best jobs doing what they love best. To those who will charge us with elitism, our response is as simple as the mind of an uneducated school child (an oxymoron): In times like these, we have to start at the top in order to show others where to go. That is why we are writing to you, Sir.
Who are we?
Dr. Lester CN Simon and a posse of potential thieves, thugs, vagabonds, duncy-head, crack-head, homicidal, suicidal, misguided, lonely and walking-jumbie youths in waiting.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Too Much Noise At My Head
WHY WE HATE STEEL BAND MUSIC
Dr. Lester CN Simon
One of these days, someone will say there are a lot of people who hate steel band music. He has been holding back the bad news because he knows from personal experience that there are many types of music some people dislike; like country and western, or classical music. The keeper of this awful secret will let out the bad news because steel band music is not a musical genre. Steel pans are musical instruments. All genres of music can be played on the steel pan. The precise problem is that many people, including many West Indians, feel that music played on steel pans is nothing but a clutter of noise. He thinks he knows why.
It was round about 1966 when he consciously decided that classical music was the worse thing in the world and unworthy of his attention. He had recently acquired his first saxophone (from a cousin who introduced Andy Narell to steel pan). It came with a book of classical sounding music, which was as foreign to him and as distant from him as the premier moon landing a few years later.
Over 10 years later, he embarked on a journey to understand country and western and classical music. He was undertaking a music course and trying to come to grips with music theory and practice in all its forms. His epiphany came via the response to an interviewer who condescendingly suggested to a great jazz player that some musician played jazz like folk music. Charles Mingus responded that all music was folk music because horses don’t sing. Country and western music and calypso became thematically identical.
His about turn around classical music might lead to a similar turn for those who despise steel pan music. The vexing conclusion is that the main reason for your dislike of steel pan music lies primarily not with you but in a fundamental problem with many, but thankfully not all, steel pan music arrangers and players.
Despite becoming aware of music theory, he made a deliberate effort when he started to listen to classical music, to listen as he would look at a movie for the first time. Relax and see if he enjoyed it; if it made sense. To this end, he stayed away initially from the noise of the classical music symphonies. He started with the concertos, music surrounding a particular instrument. Loving the sound of the cello, he listened to many cello concertos. Fortuitously, the first one was Dvorak’s with the French cellist, Paul Tortelier. He swore he heard Tortelier played a run of notes in the allegro that was like dancing to calypso music.
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of a cello pan or tenor pan concerto in steel band music. He thinks we need it. He does not refer to the cello pan playing a classical concerto. We need composers to write cello pan concertos for calypso music not classical music. This format will force the pan players to pay attention to the single most important thing that underlies the dislike for steel pan music by many West Indians.
His next stop was the classical string quartet. Here, he made a simple but amazing discovery. All four instruments of the string quartet have a similar timbre or sonority even though they have different ranges or pitches. The key to good string quartet playing is the interplay between the instruments so as to effect a musical conversation. Any composer, arranger or player of classical music string quartet or jazz saxophone quartet or steel pan quartet must understand that without this interplay and conversation, the result is nothing but cheap strings, noisy sounding brass and a cacophony of tinkling cymbals.
In steel pan music, we have a format near enough to the equivalent of the string quartet. It is the five-a-side format made popular by Moods of Pan. It comprises 4 pan players and a drummer. As he listened to Moods of Pan this year, he felt they should drop the drummer. We do need a drummer in the full steel orchestra with close to or over one hundred players. Steel pan music is in dire need of a steel pan quartet without the drummer, leaving the single tenor, the pair of double second pans, the triple guitar pans and the bass.
Such a naked steel pan quartet will force the arrangers and composers to rely on the interplay and the conversation that is at the heart of not just good pan music, but define the very soul of the only pan music worth listening to, particularly because of the nature of steel pans. This lack of interplay and conversation, leaving you with cluttering noises, is highlighted a hundred fold when you hear the full steel pan orchestra, unless you are lucky enough to hear the works of a master arranger. And they are few and far between.
Whilst mastering the interplay and the conversation, we must continue research into materials for the steel pan and the properties of the rubber for the pan sticks. If you think steel pan music is loud and noisy, ask some veteran steel band players if it is loud and noisy. Unfortunately, they would either say it certainly is not, or they would just look at you quizzically: Because they are deaf, or as we say here, “diff”, or “hard a hearing”. The ENT surgeon knows this. There is a lot of work to do to realize the potential of the steel pan.
Now, when he listens to some classical music symphonies or a classical orchestral playing Jerusalem by Parry, a quintessential English song, he can recall with emotional and motional quiver the days when his primary school teacher took them outside the concrete, multi-classroom jungle and sat them down on the grass. It was there that musical interplay and conversation defined what singing was all about.
To borrow a mixed metaphor from Professor Rex Nettleford, our steel pan musicians must harness and release the subterranean and submarine motifs of our ancestral folks to enrich our music with more interplay and conversation. In so doing they will help to remove the dislike for steel band music and summon the love and familiarity of all forms of our folk music, including the calypso of singing horses.
Dr. Lester CN Simon
One of these days, someone will say there are a lot of people who hate steel band music. He has been holding back the bad news because he knows from personal experience that there are many types of music some people dislike; like country and western, or classical music. The keeper of this awful secret will let out the bad news because steel band music is not a musical genre. Steel pans are musical instruments. All genres of music can be played on the steel pan. The precise problem is that many people, including many West Indians, feel that music played on steel pans is nothing but a clutter of noise. He thinks he knows why.
It was round about 1966 when he consciously decided that classical music was the worse thing in the world and unworthy of his attention. He had recently acquired his first saxophone (from a cousin who introduced Andy Narell to steel pan). It came with a book of classical sounding music, which was as foreign to him and as distant from him as the premier moon landing a few years later.
Over 10 years later, he embarked on a journey to understand country and western and classical music. He was undertaking a music course and trying to come to grips with music theory and practice in all its forms. His epiphany came via the response to an interviewer who condescendingly suggested to a great jazz player that some musician played jazz like folk music. Charles Mingus responded that all music was folk music because horses don’t sing. Country and western music and calypso became thematically identical.
His about turn around classical music might lead to a similar turn for those who despise steel pan music. The vexing conclusion is that the main reason for your dislike of steel pan music lies primarily not with you but in a fundamental problem with many, but thankfully not all, steel pan music arrangers and players.
Despite becoming aware of music theory, he made a deliberate effort when he started to listen to classical music, to listen as he would look at a movie for the first time. Relax and see if he enjoyed it; if it made sense. To this end, he stayed away initially from the noise of the classical music symphonies. He started with the concertos, music surrounding a particular instrument. Loving the sound of the cello, he listened to many cello concertos. Fortuitously, the first one was Dvorak’s with the French cellist, Paul Tortelier. He swore he heard Tortelier played a run of notes in the allegro that was like dancing to calypso music.
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of a cello pan or tenor pan concerto in steel band music. He thinks we need it. He does not refer to the cello pan playing a classical concerto. We need composers to write cello pan concertos for calypso music not classical music. This format will force the pan players to pay attention to the single most important thing that underlies the dislike for steel pan music by many West Indians.
His next stop was the classical string quartet. Here, he made a simple but amazing discovery. All four instruments of the string quartet have a similar timbre or sonority even though they have different ranges or pitches. The key to good string quartet playing is the interplay between the instruments so as to effect a musical conversation. Any composer, arranger or player of classical music string quartet or jazz saxophone quartet or steel pan quartet must understand that without this interplay and conversation, the result is nothing but cheap strings, noisy sounding brass and a cacophony of tinkling cymbals.
In steel pan music, we have a format near enough to the equivalent of the string quartet. It is the five-a-side format made popular by Moods of Pan. It comprises 4 pan players and a drummer. As he listened to Moods of Pan this year, he felt they should drop the drummer. We do need a drummer in the full steel orchestra with close to or over one hundred players. Steel pan music is in dire need of a steel pan quartet without the drummer, leaving the single tenor, the pair of double second pans, the triple guitar pans and the bass.
Such a naked steel pan quartet will force the arrangers and composers to rely on the interplay and the conversation that is at the heart of not just good pan music, but define the very soul of the only pan music worth listening to, particularly because of the nature of steel pans. This lack of interplay and conversation, leaving you with cluttering noises, is highlighted a hundred fold when you hear the full steel pan orchestra, unless you are lucky enough to hear the works of a master arranger. And they are few and far between.
Whilst mastering the interplay and the conversation, we must continue research into materials for the steel pan and the properties of the rubber for the pan sticks. If you think steel pan music is loud and noisy, ask some veteran steel band players if it is loud and noisy. Unfortunately, they would either say it certainly is not, or they would just look at you quizzically: Because they are deaf, or as we say here, “diff”, or “hard a hearing”. The ENT surgeon knows this. There is a lot of work to do to realize the potential of the steel pan.
Now, when he listens to some classical music symphonies or a classical orchestral playing Jerusalem by Parry, a quintessential English song, he can recall with emotional and motional quiver the days when his primary school teacher took them outside the concrete, multi-classroom jungle and sat them down on the grass. It was there that musical interplay and conversation defined what singing was all about.
To borrow a mixed metaphor from Professor Rex Nettleford, our steel pan musicians must harness and release the subterranean and submarine motifs of our ancestral folks to enrich our music with more interplay and conversation. In so doing they will help to remove the dislike for steel band music and summon the love and familiarity of all forms of our folk music, including the calypso of singing horses.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
A Christmas Play
THE IMMACULATE RECEPTION
A One Act Christmas Play
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Scene: The reception area of a small hotel in Antigua.
Jonathan: Joseph, I know it’s none of my business but I think you should do a paternity test on the child.
Joseph: There is no point in doing a paternity test. I know the child is not mine, in one way. But in another way, the child belongs to me and to all of us.
Jonathan: Yea right. So; since the child belongs to all of us, all of us want to know who is the real father.
Joseph: I know who is the real father and you know who is the real father.
Jonathan: Yes, but if you do the paternity test we can see what the DNA of the real father looks like. I made a call to the lab and they said that you and the child can do the test. The mother does not have to take the test since it is the father we are concerned about.
Joseph: We?
Jonathan: Yes, we. You said the child belongs to all of us.
Another worker enters.
Mizpah: Good afternoon. I see you two are busy chatting away as usual. Might I remind you that we are here to work? Look at how untidy the place looks. The reception area must be immaculate. It is the first place where the visitors stop.
Jonathan: That’s the very same thing we were discussing, Mizpah: The conception of immaculate reception; or is it the reception of immaculate….
Mizpah: Jonathan. I think you should leave Joseph alone and mind your own business.
Jonathan: But Joseph said it is everybody’s business; just like tourism.
Mizpah: Yes, and knowing your big, long mouth, the beach is just the beginning too.
Jonathan: Precisely. Imagine how many tourists we would get if the child not just walked on the beach but walked on water and came to one of our celebrity weddings and turned water into wine.
Mizpah: Pity you will not come forth after you drop down dead from all this foolish, ungodly talk.
Jonathan: What’s so wrong about Joseph and the child doing the test? The mother doesn’t have to know.
Mizpah: The mother is the legal guardian of the child. The lab cannot legally and ethically do the test without her consent.
Jonathan: That’s even better. All three of them can do the test. We will find out who the father is and who is the mother. You know what that means Joseph?
Joseph: Since you are the expert and you will tell me anyhow, tell me.
Jonathan: We might just find out that no DNA at all came from the mother. If none of the DNA in the child came from the mother it means that the entire DNA of the child must have come from the real father.
Mizpah: That would mean that the real father exists as male and female. Looking at such a DNA test result would be like looking into the very soul of....……I can’t even think about it. Drop the whole argument. Nobody is going to harass the young mother to consent to any DNA test. She has had enough to bear already.
Jonathan: I notice whenever arguments come up about man and woman business, you Mizpah are always defending women. I have to start watching you day and night.
Mizpah: Start watching me? I look like your daughter? Listen, Jonathan. Mind I don’t put my tongue on you.
Jonathan: Please Mizpah. Don’t threaten me. I am not one of your female friends. All I am saying is that good King Wenceslas is not the only one looking out. Do you hear what I hear? Your chestnuts are roasting on an open fire.
Joseph: This thing has gone too far; much too far.
Mizpah: Well talk to your friend Joseph. I work here during the day. Only shepherds watch their flocks by night; so tell Jonathan to just drop me at the foot of the cross.
Jonathan: It’s just a joke. Let’s get back to work.
Mizpah: You insult me and then call it a joke? Joseph; please talk to your friend, otherwise when I am done with him, he will want more than two front teeth for Christmas. I don’t understand you men. Every time women defend each another, it’s one big argument about power and sexuality. All I am saying is to let the young mother rest. She carried so much for so many. Nobody is doing any DNA test for paternity, maternity, fraternity or anything else. Nobody. Tell him Joseph.
After an awkward moment of silence.
Mizpah: If women don’t look out for each other, who will? My name, Mizpah, means watchtower. You read in Genesis that God said, “Let us make man in our image”. What do you think “us” and “our” mean? They must mean male and female. And yet, throughout the ages, the role of women, from biblical times to now, has been played down. Deliberately. Do you know there is a Gospel of Mary and that there are other Gnostic Gospels? Do you know there was a big, historical quarrel between Christians, with some calling themselves orthodox and branding other Christians as heretics? There was a deliberate attempt to wipe out virtually all the feminine imagery of God from orthodox Christian tradition, as the brilliant historian, Dr. Elaine Pagels noted. The revered Gnostic texts were omitted from the selected, canonical collection called the New Testament. Do you know that?
Jonathan: All I know is that Nietzsche, the philosopher, wrote that there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.
Mizpah: And who brought him into this world? And who was there to the very earthly end at the foot of the cross with him?
Joseph: Enough. Let the whole thing rest. Please. All I have to say to you Mizpah and to you Jonathan is simply this: Mary Christmas. Mary Christmas to you.
A One Act Christmas Play
Dr. Lester CN Simon
Scene: The reception area of a small hotel in Antigua.
Jonathan: Joseph, I know it’s none of my business but I think you should do a paternity test on the child.
Joseph: There is no point in doing a paternity test. I know the child is not mine, in one way. But in another way, the child belongs to me and to all of us.
Jonathan: Yea right. So; since the child belongs to all of us, all of us want to know who is the real father.
Joseph: I know who is the real father and you know who is the real father.
Jonathan: Yes, but if you do the paternity test we can see what the DNA of the real father looks like. I made a call to the lab and they said that you and the child can do the test. The mother does not have to take the test since it is the father we are concerned about.
Joseph: We?
Jonathan: Yes, we. You said the child belongs to all of us.
Another worker enters.
Mizpah: Good afternoon. I see you two are busy chatting away as usual. Might I remind you that we are here to work? Look at how untidy the place looks. The reception area must be immaculate. It is the first place where the visitors stop.
Jonathan: That’s the very same thing we were discussing, Mizpah: The conception of immaculate reception; or is it the reception of immaculate….
Mizpah: Jonathan. I think you should leave Joseph alone and mind your own business.
Jonathan: But Joseph said it is everybody’s business; just like tourism.
Mizpah: Yes, and knowing your big, long mouth, the beach is just the beginning too.
Jonathan: Precisely. Imagine how many tourists we would get if the child not just walked on the beach but walked on water and came to one of our celebrity weddings and turned water into wine.
Mizpah: Pity you will not come forth after you drop down dead from all this foolish, ungodly talk.
Jonathan: What’s so wrong about Joseph and the child doing the test? The mother doesn’t have to know.
Mizpah: The mother is the legal guardian of the child. The lab cannot legally and ethically do the test without her consent.
Jonathan: That’s even better. All three of them can do the test. We will find out who the father is and who is the mother. You know what that means Joseph?
Joseph: Since you are the expert and you will tell me anyhow, tell me.
Jonathan: We might just find out that no DNA at all came from the mother. If none of the DNA in the child came from the mother it means that the entire DNA of the child must have come from the real father.
Mizpah: That would mean that the real father exists as male and female. Looking at such a DNA test result would be like looking into the very soul of....……I can’t even think about it. Drop the whole argument. Nobody is going to harass the young mother to consent to any DNA test. She has had enough to bear already.
Jonathan: I notice whenever arguments come up about man and woman business, you Mizpah are always defending women. I have to start watching you day and night.
Mizpah: Start watching me? I look like your daughter? Listen, Jonathan. Mind I don’t put my tongue on you.
Jonathan: Please Mizpah. Don’t threaten me. I am not one of your female friends. All I am saying is that good King Wenceslas is not the only one looking out. Do you hear what I hear? Your chestnuts are roasting on an open fire.
Joseph: This thing has gone too far; much too far.
Mizpah: Well talk to your friend Joseph. I work here during the day. Only shepherds watch their flocks by night; so tell Jonathan to just drop me at the foot of the cross.
Jonathan: It’s just a joke. Let’s get back to work.
Mizpah: You insult me and then call it a joke? Joseph; please talk to your friend, otherwise when I am done with him, he will want more than two front teeth for Christmas. I don’t understand you men. Every time women defend each another, it’s one big argument about power and sexuality. All I am saying is to let the young mother rest. She carried so much for so many. Nobody is doing any DNA test for paternity, maternity, fraternity or anything else. Nobody. Tell him Joseph.
After an awkward moment of silence.
Mizpah: If women don’t look out for each other, who will? My name, Mizpah, means watchtower. You read in Genesis that God said, “Let us make man in our image”. What do you think “us” and “our” mean? They must mean male and female. And yet, throughout the ages, the role of women, from biblical times to now, has been played down. Deliberately. Do you know there is a Gospel of Mary and that there are other Gnostic Gospels? Do you know there was a big, historical quarrel between Christians, with some calling themselves orthodox and branding other Christians as heretics? There was a deliberate attempt to wipe out virtually all the feminine imagery of God from orthodox Christian tradition, as the brilliant historian, Dr. Elaine Pagels noted. The revered Gnostic texts were omitted from the selected, canonical collection called the New Testament. Do you know that?
Jonathan: All I know is that Nietzsche, the philosopher, wrote that there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.
Mizpah: And who brought him into this world? And who was there to the very earthly end at the foot of the cross with him?
Joseph: Enough. Let the whole thing rest. Please. All I have to say to you Mizpah and to you Jonathan is simply this: Mary Christmas. Mary Christmas to you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)