Gigging under ground and a painted sky.

Gigs are what musicians call work as in “I’m gigging Saturday night and can’t come to your party.” Weddings, funerals, rehearsals are all gigs too. So this past week I did some shows, gigs, in Texas took me from the edge of Space at the Mayborn Planetarium and Space Theater then deep below the Earth in the Cave Without a Name. Science, music and art—sounds like a perfect combination to me. It was a trio at the Planetarium including me on Flutes, Hang and Halo, Voice and Jodi Roberts on Bowls and Gongs and Stephanie Phillips on Viola. The audience flew through the cosmos while we performed live music. It was otherworldly and a nice experience. The next gig was in underground cave for a private workshop and sound healing for a group of around 24 or so. It was powerful, especially when we turned off all the lights. In that deep darkness you could only hear the dripping of water, breathing, chanting and the sound of my Halo, a tonal percussion instrument in the Pan family of instruments. Playing my unamplified flute, drums and singing in such a space was a real privilege and treat.

So this weekend I am the featured performer at the Spirit of the Painted Sky Powwow in El Paso, TX. It is the first annual intertribal gathering of its kind here. I’m honored. Again the “sky” figures into the gig. I like that. The venue (where we play) is in McKelligon Canyon once a sacred gathering place for the Mesoamerican tribes and later Rio Grande tribes. I know as I play my flutes there I will connect with, possibly, some of my ancestors and bringing it full circle. I’ve been humbled by where my own Native American flute path has taken me. Places I never expected to perform, opportunities, exposure, spiritual exploration and a search for my own lineage all branching from my decision in the winter of 2003 to buy my first flute. The people I’ve met and connected with, the musicians I’ve shared the stage with, the people I hear from telling me how my flute music has touched them, healed them, and moved them all mean a great deal to me. I am excited about my future in music.

May 15^th our trio will perform again at the famed Rothko Chapel in Houston, TX. Some notable people who have spoken there include the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Jonas Salk,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We will play for a special membership appreciation event. What an incredible honor. Go here for information www.rothkochapel.org/Members%20Event%202010.htm

Later in May I’ll be performing at the Native Treasures Arts Show in Santa Fe. While up north I’ll attend the 23^rd  New Mexico Industry Awards banquet in Albuquerque. I’m happy to report I received four nominations this year in the categories of “Native American Contemporary” “World Beat” and “New Age Contemporary.” Check out the other nominees at www.newmexicomusicawards.com/ So my music takes me to gigs in space, underground and under a painted sky. Bookmark my Calendar to see if I’m coming to where you are and come and say hello. Here is a video collage of a Halo solo from the Earth Day concert.

Randy

Jodi Roberts, Randy Granger

Remembering what music does.

Saturday I played for the Mesilla Valley  Hospice memorial walk. It was intended that people would walk around the campus and gardens and end with a remembrance ceremony in the Veteran's Garden with words, music release white doves at the close. It rained however. It was moved inside and there were about 200 people there, the family, friends and people involved with the end of life care both inpatient and home hospice.

Two Chaplains gave words and one read a poem which I've included here. 270 names were read out loud as I played my Native flutes and an instrument called a Halo. As I heard the sniffles and gentle weeping of the crowd i was reminded how fortunate I am to have people and dogs I keep alive in my heart and how my gift of music is something that transcends my ups and downs, petty and profound moments. We moved outside to a drizzle. I began Amazing Grace on my flute while the Doves were freed and circled above us following each other so trustingly. The tears in the crowd were loud now and a girl of about 3 came up to me and tagged me telling me to look up and said, "Look up there, did you see them?" I nodded my flute in mouth up and down to indicate yes before her mother came and got her.... That was great, she reminded me "I" was certainly not the attraction--it was the birds and the sky.

What a beautiful reminder that what I do as a musician is what all musicians have done for eons; that is we connect feelings and emotions like no other art form. Whether you feel patriotic at hearing the Star Spangled Banner at the Olympics, pure joy at listening to James Brown or comforted by hearing Amazing Grace on the Native American flute something about music is universally moving. As I'm in the midst of recording and planning for upcoming tours and performances I can loose sight of the power of music. To play and hear people start to cry gives me a huge sense of responsibility and I find myself become a human instrument. My whole body and movements become the instrument I'm playing. Maybe that is from being trained and as a singer, I don't know. I talk a lot, probably too much, about how a musicians really needs to woodshed as we say, practice, explore every angle of their instrument so that you collect a huge toolbox of things you can call on for a song. It is all about expression. And think how something as simple as an alphabet or a language enables you to express yourself and you get the idea.

Muchas Gracias
Randy

How to Shine - "Pura Vida"

“An activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better” – John Updike

Calling yourself an artist of any kind can seem lofty, almost pretentious. So how do you? I have found that as a musician it is when you don’t settle or compromise in what you are recording or what you present in performance. In other words, someone hears you and knows you cared enough to craft something original and practice it enough that it appears effortless. With so many people able to record onto the laptop domain, burn, design and release a CD today the filter of learning the process of making a record free of mediocrity is gone forever. I receive a butt load of CD’s by flute players for instance with the same cover—some guy, or gal in silhouette and some name like Whispering Canyon Winds. Hey, good for them. But it has been done and done so much so that I don’t listen to a single one out of sheer time. This is not to dismiss anyone for wanting to express. The reason I make light is because you have to know your craft first, work it, test it, pay some dues and then, if you are lucky, create something original and lasting—something with legs as we say. Same is true for writers, poets, artists etc.

What usually accompanies new artists is a manifesto (used in the technical definition) that says something like I don’t create, I channel the art, it has nothing to do with me….I just get out of the way. Recently I heard an interview with Jakob Dylan and Neko Case about a new album. These are two of the best, by any definition, songwriters working today. The interviewer asked how they write songs. Dylan said it is hard, really hard work and that he never knows if another one is coming.  Case said she feels like damaged goods because it takes her so long. The question came up of songsters who channel etc. They both went on a rant about “that is the biggest load of crap” and more. Dylan said he maybe thought it was an excuse for people who didn’t want to take responsibility for their art. That if you don’t like it they had nothing to do with it…in fact they didn’t really like it either. He was being playful of course. His sentiment is one I share nonetheless. I get that many people in my genre have never been musicians before. Awesome. But we, who put in the hours, sacrifice a life of gentle comfort and pretty much put our blood, sweat and spirit into our music feel just as dismissed. But I’m not going to whine here.

What I’ll say instead is an artist cares very much about making what they do transcend. There is something that exists in the pauses of reflection that connects you with every artistic thing ever done. It’s no coincidence that pyramids went up in Egypt, Asia, Central America and other places at the same time. To think we are not connected by a shared experience is a lonely thought I don’t want to entertain. See, when someone tells me they are going a play a song on stage they didn’t practice because they never play the same song twice, they channel it, I am concerned for the audience. Andy Warhol took this idea and played with it. The idea that art is everywhere, on a soup can, in the color separation of prints, on the box of Brilo. Someone designed that. Someone probably Had to care about it.  As I’m recording my newest album I know that every song I’m doing is informed by my cumulative experience. Every lesson, rehearsal, practice and song, film, poem, book I’ve ingested is digested and distilled into a communication of notes and rhythm. And that is exciting. Because only I have my experience as do you your own. This album is a return journey to my roots as a percussionist and singer. I am so excited that I no longer care if I can perform the song live as a solo artist. I’m creating for the ears who will hear this now and eons to come. There is freedom in being unconcerned with genre or expectations. It is Pura Vida, Pure Life which is incidentally the title song. I’ve invited a Mariachi trumpeter to play, a poet to co-write a song, an overtone singer to teach me and so many instruments to support me that I am running out of tracks. I care very much about making this something my nieces and nephews and their grandchildren will be glad to play and say he is our relation, he was a musician, and he was an artist.

“Fly on Home”