Studio Ink: On handwriting and open studios

photo by by Martin_Heigan

"Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting down like clean
white sand.

A cicada sends
its sawing song
high into the empty air.

The world is
a glass overflowing
with water." 
 — Pablo Neruda

There was a widely circulated article in the New York Times last week "What's Lost as Handwriting Fades" concerning educational development  and handwriting. In this digital age, handwriting is barely taught past first grade and researchers are finding there are consequences to creativity and memory retention. This doesn't surprise me: when I need to memorize something, I often write it out first...and then work on writing it out from memory. I also note that when I initiate writing something by hand it has a different quality, is more immediate and authentic somehow.
Neruda, as sensitive a human being and poet as they come, held a similar mind on the power of handwriting, choosing longhand over the typewriter:

"Ever since I had an accident in which I broke a finger and couldn’t use the typewriter for a few months, I have followed the custom of my youth and gone back to writing by hand. I discovered when my finger was better and I could type again that my poetry when written by hand was more sensitive; its plastic forms could change more easily. In an interview, Robert Graves says that in order to think one should have as little as possible around that is not handmade. He could have added that poetry ought to be written by hand. The typewriter separated me from a deeper intimacy with poetry, and my hand brought me closer to that intimacy again." —Pablo Neruda, The Art of Poetry No. 14, in The Paris Review
 

No surprise that Neruda thought about handwriting down to the color of his ink. Amid his epic, prolific and influential life, he often chose to write in green ink, "his personal symbol for desire and hope" and call for abundance.
The glass overflowing world makes for busy weekends around here. Amid it all, I noticed a slew of artist Open Studios signs all over the East Bay. Open Studios always remind me how much art is being made all the time. This year 400 East Bay art studios are throwing their doors open for two weekends of art share. Check out this map of possibility HERE.
Studios are some of my favorite places to be, be they visual art, music or yoga related, and I'm in at least one each day. This weekend we were in the music studio again, finishing mixes on the KCDC project. More to share on that in a bit. In the meantime, here's a Neruda-inspired tune by Brazilian Girls:

Artist Interview: The Pete Ahonen Experience

Energetic, funny and passionate about making music, Oakland songwriter Pete Ahonen has been captivating audiences throughout the San Francisco Bay Area with his own brand of outlaw country/folk rock. Upon the completion his debut CD “In the Blood” (Lost Monkey Records), the East Bay native is poised to take his music to a wider audience. Ahonen recently answered a few questions about his influences, writing process and the making of “In the Blood.”

Q Who do you count as major influences?

PA: Mason Jennings, Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, [and] Shane Macgowen.

Q When did you write your first song? What's your writing process like?

PA: I learned to play guitar when I was 10. My neighbor was a church music leader and he taught me some stuff. Before I knew it, I was just spending a lot of time sitting in my room alone playing guitar and messing around with stuff to see what I could do. Around the age of 13, my musical cherry got popped, I guess you could say. I started listening to Freddy King and got really into it. I ended up writing a little blues shuffle about a girl who didn’t exist — and that was it.  I was hooked.  I was pretty self conscious about my voice at first, and then one day someone showed me Jimmy Hendrix. I learned that he was self conscious about his voice too, but I was so blown away, not only by his guitar playing — he was a killer songwriter, too.

Pete Ahonen and bassist Andrew Gibson.

I always enjoyed being creative and writing short stories and stuff. I could play guitar pretty well so I started turning those short stories into little ditties. My writing process is kind of like... I sit down, try and cultivate a mood... I’ll pull out a snippet of a line I wrote down while I was walking around somewhere, and try to channel a vibe or a feeling about it. If I sit down with the intention of writing a song, it’s bullshit. Nothing comes out. My muse is really about keeping myself fed with information and experience in order for something to come out. I spend a lot of time just sitting on my porch, and my neighborhood is kind of crazy so I get a lot of inspiration just from that. It could be a couple having a fight, or a drunk guy having a good ol time, or this a lady whose always looking for change in the gutters. At that point I’ll kind of hear the guitar or notes in my head, so I’ll try to hum a line and then it just sort of happens from there. And then other times, I’ll be trying to write a song for like two years and I just can’t get it.  It never gets finished. You kind of just have to let it come naturally.

Q How did you go about selecting the songs for this CD?

PA: Kind of like the song writing process, it’s in the song itself. The song will tell me that it’s the one for the album. Before going into the studio, I had a lot of songs in the hole, or at least parts of songs. And I think a theme kind of presented itself during the recording process. We recorded the first song, for example, and we were all like, wow,  this is a really special tune. And going in... I had no idea it would turn out like that.  I really think the musicians I play with are a huge part of that too. Every song we recorded had a different theme and the content wasn’t really the same, but in the end the ones we picked felt like they were from the same tribe and they were meant to be together on the album.

Q Describe the recording process for you? Did songs take on different directions in the studio?

PA: I think the songs took on a bit of a different direction, especially musically. The lyrics, and the tone was basically pretty dialed in already, but musically we would sharpen different things to kind of add to that mood. But I think that’s what happens when you work on something creative, everyone has an idea of what something should look like in their head...and your songs can be shitty if you go into it with that approach. You have a general idea, but it doesn’t mean anything until you put your hands on it and start working on it, and the smallest thing can change everything. You have to be flexible and open to where it can take you. I think it depends on what you value, and what you’re after. When you’re singing with intent and emotion and you say ‘I want to play my song well’, and you do it with feeling - maybe there’s a squeak, or something’s out of tune, but it doesn’t really matter. To me, songs are more about the experience and not about it being perfect.

To buy "In the Blood" and find out about Ahonen's upcoming live shows, visit: http://peteahonen.com/

I'm recording a new project...

...and I'd love your help with completing it!   I'm partway through recording my latest release and am asking your help in taking it to completion. Make a donation and you'll be the first to receive the new tunes as well as special benefits, including pre-release specials and other perks. The songs I'm currently recording were written over the last three years of playing, writing, performing and traveling (including two several-month-long forays to India to study yoga and Carnatic voice). Exploring faith, relationship, lineage and legacy, I'm enthused both for the project's lyrical content and the chance it's giving me to fill in my Americana palette that much more: I'm working with noted jazz artist and composer Art Khu — whose played on previous recordings — in the producer chair.
I'm halfway there....but your donations are crucial to covering the next half of my basic recording. Please take a look and listen to see how to help me finish my project. Many thanks! Deborah

National Co-op Month: A Collective Project

co·op·er·a·tive (k - p r- -t v, - -r t v, - p r -). adj. 1. Done in cooperation with others: a cooperative effort. 2. Marked by willingness to cooperatee.

I'm not officially a member of a co-op but given the number of co-operative ventures that populate my life: the SF Bike Coalition, City CarShare, the Bay Area Songwriter Collective, eating at Cheeseboard, or shopping @ Rainbow Grocery, it's clear how much I'm drawn to that model. And as I described the process of recording and assembling my latest EP, the about-to-be "Other Halves," to an engineer, it became clear that it was hardly MY Cd. Not much happens if you don't communicate and collaborate clearly toward a common goal, aka cooperatively, and while yes, the recording is of songs I penned, it has not been solo endeavor. From my band mates, to the handful of local studios both seasoned and newly-minted in which I recorded, to the artwork & duplication , it's been a seriously collective, and local, experience. I couldn't have planned a better way to commemorate National Co-Op month . The EP is just getting pressed this week. If you're at my November shows, you'll be able to pick up a copy. In the meantime, you can listen to the lead-off track "Off Sides."

Off Sides by Deborah Crooks