Cultural Icons 2: A Purple Hole in Our Hearts

The day after Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died (we lost them June 25, 2009, and we lost Ed McMahon 2 days earlier) I wrote a piece called "Cultural Icons". It started "....I remember the day Elvis died..."

Its been 2 weeks since the world lost Prince.

2016 has not been kind. Lemmy's death in late December of 2015 seemed to kick off a storm of epic proportions, shattering our days. David Bowie and Glenn Frey and Paul Kantner and Keith Emerson and Merle Haggard the best known of them, but more still.

And then, most unexpectedly, Prince is gone.

Poem Series: Minor Chords

Minor Chords

Liz Fink-Davenport

Don't you apologize.

Don't dare think that you need to say you are sorry. Because when I bleed, I bleed freely. My blood. I crack open my ribs and like a song bird's cage, I reach in and hold out my finger. Tentatively my Heart trusts, and steps gingerly on. A small inch forward at a time. To come out in the light of day and be exposed to the elements and predators. Shaking and clinging to the hand it knows has betrayed it before, Heart is feeling the cold wind and light rain and missing it's warm darkness. (I'd rather beat alone unharmed.) But she always sings when I ask. Sings like its the first song. Sings the same song. Strong and calling. Clear and bright. But now I can hear the melancholy and minor chords. Just underneath. Barely. Not noticed by you. Never by you. Or you. Or you. Heart is offered as a gift. An unguided uncaged treasure thrust forward on a trembling finger. Take it. Here. It's yours. It sings for you. Aren't you pulled in like a siren's song and crashed against MY rock piercing coast? This time? Ah. No. Look. She was cupped in your palm for a moment, but her movements were too much. Her strength and beating and song didn't pull you. You lied to her. Whispered offerings of shelter and a home but you meant for a moment. Just to be entertained by her melody. She is thrust back. No. Not this song. Not this beat. There is a better song. A different rhythm. Later.

Heart comes home to rest. Closes the cage herself. Dreams of a bolt on the door. Prays for no outstretched finger..."Sing for me your love song, one more time, it is beautiful and you will win him. This time." No. Please leave me here. In the warm dark cave of a chest that walks the world. And tells you not to be sorry. Don't apologize. Don't you dare. You don't deserve the damn credit. It was my finger. It was my cage. It was my song bird I harmed. I am learning to find the beauty in her minor chords. And locks.

Poem Series: CHANGE

~Change~

Liz Fink-Davenport

I am allowed to change my mind. Mid thought. Mid life. You are too.

I am allowed to be not what I thought I would be. What I set out to be. What the world made of me. What heartache took from me.

I am allowed to roar in to the distance and receive the echo. Look in the mirror and accept the too harsh reflection. Push in to the dark and feel the cold fog densely defending. Touch a tender place and feel the wince. But...it's healed a bit.

I am allowed to redefine me. On a Wednesday at 2pm or on a Saturday at moon-past midnight. I can morph and change. I can adapt and mould. I am not a rigid thing. I am all the most wretched and base things done to my heart, all the promises unkept and the whispers not fulfilled. I am the hope of the words spilled in to me from that which I loved and then sliced from me. I am the timid approach of a child climbing too high in a tree. One branch more. And I could drop. A long drop. But I am also fire. And white hot lightening. And all things that set your hairs on end.

I am not going to keep seeing sunsets. I am going to look to sunrises. The peek of fire over the hill to tell me I have
Another chance
Another day
Another promise
Another warm fingertip over my lip
Another whispered word

I am allowed to change. Hell yes. But...my world....it doesn't have to. God. It can stay. Static. The world does not have to change its mind. Mid life. Mid thought. And, my loves, you can not do a damn thing about it.

"Breaking Out of the Box" #2 - Alan Robinson

The Power of "Power Chords": Part 2

Alan Robinson

Hey everyone! Back to yield the power of power chords. In the last segment we looked at power chords in the traditional fingering of root/fifth. In this segment we are going to invert the chord and place the fifth on the lower string (Example 1). We now have the interval of a fourth but the chord is still a G5 in tonality. By inverting the chord we can generate a whole new set of voicing's to expand our chord and fretboard knowledge.

Just as we did in the previous segment, let’s look at the G major scale played in power chords on string set 3&4. (Example 2) Not again that the seventh chord in the sequence is the only fingering change in comparison to the rest. Again, we will come back to this chord in a future segment.

Tonya Kay: "The Things that Make Us Human"

You can read our interview (in 2 parts) with Tonya Kay here.

And this is from her blog:

This ritual is dedicated to the things that make us human. Postcards, rocking chairs, rain storms, eye contact. Kissing.

This ritual is dedicated to staying in bed sick. Mending socks. Crows at sunset. Senior citizens.

My humanness is under attack daily. Devices, commercials, aspiration, plastic containers. Coffins.Tooth whitening, auto-tuning, retouching, CGI.....(read the rest HERE)

Ray Kurzweil receives 2015 Technical Grammy Award

Ray Kurzweil received the 2015 Technical Grammy Award on February 7, 2015 for his outstanding achievements in the field of music technology.

One of his primary inventions paved the way for re-creating acoustic instruments with electronic equivalents.

The Technical Grammy Award is a Special Merit Award presented by vote of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences Trustees, for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field.....

Read it all HERE.

Poem Series: Wildflowers and Splinters

Wildflowers and Splinters

Liz Fink-Davenport

Some things are too hard to write about. Some things stay trapped behind a heavy tongue and the dark of your eyes. Too heartbreakingly glass to risk outside the body soft. Some things are 2am thieves.

Tell me. When it's too hard. You can tell me. I want your words. Like moths gathered and pulled close by a glow in my ribs. I don't want to keep quiet. I want to cry to the cracks in the mountains. I want to whisper to the creek bed rocks. I want my words on the air that carries the leaves and geese.

Your lips will be the last I kiss. Your breath will be the last I share mouth to mouth. Your hands tangled in my hair and your fingers under my chin tilting my face towards yours...will be the last fingers. Last hand.

The boy who climbs fences to pick wild flowers will be the last boy. But it's too hard to say. Not my words. Yours. Coaxed out like a splinter. Flowers left on my pillow. Fingers tracing my jaw as they leave. 2am stealing my last kiss. My Wildflower Boy. Outside the body. Too soft.

"Breaking Out of the Box" #1 - Alan Robinson

The Power of “Power Chords”: Part 1

Alan Robinson

Hey everyone! I am very excited to introduce this lesson series with Skinny Devil Magazine.  I hope that I can share some information that will allow you to enhance your playing and fretboard knowledge to a whole new level. So without any delay...let’s jump in!

How would you like to expand your chord vocabulary without spending hours upon hours looking at chord books and diagrams that look like your fingers are playing Twister? Where you can achieve all of those sophisticated sounds to include 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, and more but not study calculus and trigonometry in order to understand! Okay, those may be exaggerations to an extent but what if you could accomplish these goals by using 2 notes? Well, you can!

The “Power chord” or chords based on Root/Fifth (i.e. E5, A5, G5, etc…) have been best friends with rock guitarist since the beginning of time. The great news is that they can become an even better friend in creating these awesome advanced sounds. With some simple adjustments and application, power chords placed in the proper locations yield a multitude of harmonic possibilities.

Poem Series: IN JAZZ

In Jazz
Liz Fink-Davenport

I found my love in three quarter time 

I found my love in the back room at the bookstore where no one goes because it smells how I like it best

I found my love tucked under a damp pillow

I found my love in the change falling from a hole in a pocket; like a waterfall 

I found my love in the backseat of a taxi; unnoticed 

I found my love in dust motes dancing in afternoon sunlight right above his eyelashes

I found my love in tears on another's cheek

I found my love in the last sips of coffee in the cold cup

I found my love forgotten 

I found my love in proud pearls on a Sunday 

I found my love in that smile

In those eyes

In that warm hand; in a soft fist with calluses 

In that curled lip

In that hip

In that scar

And along this dark path. 

Never. Never did I find my love in spite. In heartache. In MY tears. In pain. In my ribs being wrenched like a door I gave no access to...the key forced...the hinges pulled with a screech. No. I found no love there. In the tangled brambles of a road too long traversed. 

I found my love in a sunrise over a misted pond with eggs being cooked and jazz being played and a hand so easy on my low back to guide me to a lap waiting for my weight. I found my love 

In three quarter time

No, I lied, I found it in 

Nina Simone and How Do You Like Your Eggs. Yes. And a bookstore. The forgotten back room.

Poem Series: BOY CHILD

Boy Child

Liz Fink-Davenport

You took your playthings and went home. Like a child. Frightened boy.

They say Anger is Sad's bodyguard. That what a woman scorned puts forth is just heart wrenchingly dropped pennies. Only that they rolled and went lost. No. Hell no. Sorrow rakes your ribs across gravel. It begs you to take your own heart and scrape a shallow grave in the wet cold dirt and then place it there. Cover it up. Walk. Away. And then look for it again in every set of eyes. But it beats back in a field under moonlight. And Anger...at love being awakened and then discarded like wet tissue? That is this. Hell HATH no fury. Gather your torches. Walk with me.

You dared whisper your long deeply sunk ocean secrets. Only to me. You traced fingers on my jaw and tilted my head to dawn's gold glow to call me beloved. You swore souls and lifetimes and rolls through eternities. And then you cringed. And regretted. And scurried. And fled. You small boy child.

I had playthings. Once. I had my one heart. My joy. But now watch me be carved out fury and fire lit sky. Breathing cinders and ravaging the earth with my steps. I have an army all with empty cages of rattling ribs. Coming. All with dirt crusted hands from their own burials. A staccato march of hollow. We will set the world ablaze and eat other hearts like air. Be frightened, boy. Anger killed our Sad.