The last few months have been pretty hard-core winter here in New Jersey. It’s cold, often grey, and the days have been short. It’s not my favorite weather, though I’ve made a good faith effort to embrace the energy of the season and put it to good use. Hence the intense practicing.
I haven’t been doing any traveling or concertizing, just holing up in my basement room, shedding away. “Shedding” is short for “woodshedding,” a term jazz musicians coined that means going deep into practicing. (Some of the major jazz musicians in the early part of the 20th century were banished by their families to practice in the backyard woodshed . . .) In the Hindustani realm we call it “riaz”, which basically means dedicated practicing. “Sadhana” is yet another level, where the practicing and life become entirely intertwined, one and the same, complete dedication. Here is a good and short interview with one of the major Hindustani musicians of our time discussing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ThcVhMxZYg.
I feel it is arrogant to say that I’m completely in the realm of sadhana (especially as there are distractions at home with the kids and various administrative duties I have to attend to for the university and otherwise), but still I’m pretty much wrapped up with practicing, composing, and teaching from early morning until late at night seven days a week. Of course I take short breaks to rest my mind and body, but then I’m soon itching to get singing or playing marimba again. The inspiration is flowing.
In fact, I DID have a musical event scheduled for last night (March 5), a late night experience up at the university. I was planning to sing some Raga Chandrakauns and then bring in the beats, but Mother Nature had other ideas. She unleashed a powerful snow storm that shut down all of North Jersey and shut down the university. I was disappointed as I had put a lot of effort into promoting the event–not to mention the work to get ready musically–but what could I do? Well, there was one thing I could do and I did just that: practice. I put in a good session on marimba and also sang. It was quite lovely watching the blizzard outside through the window while I sang Raga Chandrakauns!
Payton MacDonald 