I had a colleague who played the shakuhachi,
but unfortunately he passed away a few years ago now after a prolonged battle
with cancer. I can only imagine he utilized the practice as a centering tool or
a meditative outlet to remove himself from thoughts or pain associated with it.
In fact, “Ro is the lowest note on the shakuhachi … Blowing the note Ro for 10 minutes to an
hour a day is traditional training for shakuhachi players. Ro focuses breath,
embouchure, timbre and listening.” That sounds about right. My colleague was
certainly a contemplative soul.
Todd Barton’s been around a long time – in
fact, Ro was originally self-released in 2003, but we get a reprieve from its
scarcity with this new edition from Flying Moonlight. While you can usually
find Barton tooling around a Buchla, Serge, or Hordijk synthesizer, or giving a
talk or a workshop in Rome or Berlin or Vienna or some city far away from his
hometown of Portland, Oregon, but here we’re treated to the talents of a true
multi-instrumentalist. Not only are the recordings on Ro remarkably tranquil
and dreamlike, but they’re also focused and purposeful, and concentrating all
your attention and energy on them produces a sort of clearminded trance – an
elevation of mind to a higher level? Who knows, and my mind is certainly not
one to take that next leap to a hitherto unreached mental state (despite my
impressive vocabulary), but maybe I’m just not doing it right. Maybe I just
have to adjust the knobs and dials of my focus a smidge … ah,
[ZEN]
…there we go.
--Ryan
Posts
