Music: I practiced my harp.

Community and politics: I went to an open house for Election Officers because I'm working on Nov 4.

TV: I wrote a blog entry at flickfilosopher.com about the "Robin of Sherwood" DVD set. I re-watched "Saving Grace" from last night during lunch. Pretty rockin'. And I kept on doggedly dubbing old VHS tapes to DVD via this nifty little SONY machine that does transfers.

Dog Agility Training: I watched my neighbor run her sheltie through an obstacle course on the grounds outside our building.

Sweat equity: I jogged this morning in the sticky heat.

Pet care and feeding: I brushed my cat.

Communications: I put in a day of work for my client via about 8 million emails, two telecons, 8 versions of a "to-do" spreadsheet and one RSVP to a farewell pizza party for tomorrow.

Creativity: I wrote in my journal this morning and I'm writing this and working on my script treatment right now at my coffeehouse.

Household maintenance: I washed the dishes, vacuumed multi-grain chips from the living room carpet, and rescued a spider to be put outdoors (I think that last one qualifies as Pet Care, too).

Driving: Between all those afore-mentioned locations outside of my domicile.

Welcome to my world.

Tuned my harp from the standard 440 mhz to 424 mhz per Ra music approach.

It works.

Everything felt and sounded more grounded. Everything felt and sounded more resonant. It was fun to play some of the same stuff again because it sounded different. More rich.

Try it.

One of the most fascinating discoveries I made at the Global Sound Conference in May was meeting the founders of Ra Music.  Ra Music was created by Hollywood SFX producer and composer Alan Howarth. Alan co-led a workshop at the conference.

Basically, Ra Music is about the fact that most music is composed today to a man-made standard of A=440 so that people can play music with each other and be in tune with each other. Throughout history, "A" has equaled different frequencies in ancient cathedral organs or in world-renowned symphonies, anywhere from 415 to 445.

Alan and friends, through research in some pretty cool places, discovered that Nature creates sound with A=424. And, that music converted from 440 to 424 has a deeper resonance with our own natures. They built a little demo sound bubble for their exhibit space. I sat in it and heard the difference. It's profound. I got so excited I invited anyone walking by to sit down and hear the difference.

So I'm tuning my harp to 424 and we'll see what happens. As soon as I get my sampling equipment set up, I'll post some files on My Music page. If you have an electric keyboard where you can adjust the master tuning with the turn of a dial, as we did at Alan's booth, check it out for yourself. It's really, really cool! 

I just spent the last few days at a Global Sound Conference in Los Angeles. As a musician, I've long intuited the calming/healing power of music, or, fundamentally, sound. The glorious image at left was painted by Michael Garfield during the live concerts, which featured luminaries such as Yungchen Llamo and the awesome-forever Sheila Chandra! (On his site, scroll down to the lower right Slideshow of all the paintings he's done at different concerts. You can buy giclees or laser prints. He stands on stage with an easel and light and paints away!) All of it gave me some new ideas for my own music work, and exposed me to some incredible people with incredible visions doing incredible things. People leading drum circles in the northern part of Iraq with Shiites and Kurdes all in the same group playing *together.* (See the Health Rhythms and Drum Circles sections at Remo.com.) People designing sound environments into hospitals and hospices. People exploring the field of cymatics and how vibrations shape liquids or particles into incredible patterns. People playing drums and gongs and quartz singing bowls. A key message to wrap your brain around is that we're all made of energy, a.k.a. sound waves. Drill down into the smallest structure of your being and you'll still find sound waves. Health and education and human development and conflict resolution structures of the future will integrate music and sound within their operational practices because they "get" that sound is a fundamental re-energizer, re-aligner, re-lifer force.

... every time. Tonight, it was the Not-So-Modern Jazz Quartet ("plus two") at St. Elmo's Coffeehouse. Some very talented older gentlemen in their red polo shirts -- on string bass, electric guitar, upright piano, clarinet, saxophone ... vocals by several lovely women whose voices take you right back to the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo park. These guys are good. And everybody loves listening. All ages. Elmo's goes "young at heart" every Thursday night with this crowd. How lucky we are.