MCMF and the Realization: There's Harp Building Blood in the Family

• Diana Stork of MCMF and I plucking out an Irish tune together
• Diana's Paraguayan, Celtic, Medieval harps

The blog worthy portion of this realization begins with this past fall semester, when I began to seriously mill over the ideas I had had of what I wanted to do when I graduated from University. From my studying to earn a degree in cultural anthropology and a minor in music, I knew I wanted help people develop better understanding and respect for each other by providing opportunities to experience the meaningful art of other cultures around the world. Language, music, dancing, painting, sculpture, drama, literature, film (and more) are different ways we can access the topics and feelings that sit at the heart of an individual or a group of people. In my experience, listening to and gaining an appreciation for the music of my own or another culture, has given me one more way to better understand the people I've met and will meet.
My next step was to find out if there was some organization that already doing this. I decided I would google "multicultural" and "music", just for kicks. A page of results appeared on my computer screen and one name in particular caught my eye: The Multicultural Music Fellowship (MCMF). To make a long story worthy of space in this blog, I ended up meeting the director of MCMF, Diana Stork, in Berkeley Californ-i-a. I absolutely loved every granola, eco-friendly bit of that place and I especially loved the things I learned about Diana. I felt one of those "kindred spirit" friendships with her as we discussed what she has done to promote multicultural music appreciation in the Bay area through the harp. She is an accomplished harpist who performs, gives workshops around the world, directs youth harp ensembles, and organizes music festivals, including an annual festival of harps. She has great connections in the harp world and the multicultural music world.

What is interesting about me finding MCMF and making all these plans to come out to the San Francisco Bay area to meet Diana, was that in the process of trying to find a job and housing I found I had family that lived a few hours away from her AND through emailing them, I found out that my Dad's cousin built (builds) harps. I've been playing for 7 years now, and just now, I find out I have family connections to a harp builder! I have no idea how this happened.

Yet, with the process, I feel very lucky to have met Diana and to have such a valuable contact as MCMF.

The Harp Maker's Apprentice

Week 1

"Number 59"

I have recently embarked on my newest, grandest adventure: a trip to the east coast to learn how to build harps. To help answer the question of how I ever got the whimsical idea into my mind to fly out to Maryland to be a harp maker's apprentice, you first need to meet my father Lorin H. Low.

My Dad is a doctor, a dentist actually, in our little rural town of Cardston in Southern Alberta Canada. But more than his profession, he is a father and a dreamer. He does the things people talk about doing but never actually follow through with. As he was nearing his 50-year mark, he realized that just because he had chosen dentistry as his initial career path, it wasn't a single path leading to his retirement and eventual demise. He had many other interests set back on the shelf of his mind while he went through dental school, started his dental practice, and helped his lovely wife raise 5 remarkably attractive children and he realized that he could pursue his dream of doing a family sabbatical in Mexico. Realizing this initial dream in 1999 (when I was 12) proved to him that he could do the things he wanted to do in life; he didn’t need to stick to some prescribed life path that seems to permeate our mentality and direct our big life choices. His realization came as somewhat of a shock after 50 years of living, and for that reason, Lorin has put forth every effort to instill in his children the belief that anything is possible. Both of my parents give daily of their time and thought and especially enthusiasm, to support our family’s pursuit of collective and individual dreams.

One Family Home Evening night, my Dad asked us:

If you could do anything, anything at all what would you do? Suspend for a moment the things that get in the way your imagination running free. Forget that maybe you just don't have the time or perhaps the money to do what you want to do right now.

If you could have anything --things, skills, experiences, a way of thinking or being-- what would you want?

What do you really want?

The setting for all this was one of us in the big overstuffed chair, one person giving them a foot massage, while Dad would ask them “What do you want?” He wouldn’t say anything else, just a single question, and he wrote down our thoughts as they came and at the end, we had a list of 50 or so “things” we wanted.

I have added to that list since.

Number 59 on my list reads: Learn to build my own harp

Surprise!!

I'm back and baking.  My newest creations have been of the oven, the one above being little french loaves baked on stones in my oven.  are you ready for THE SECRET to the smiles on our faces?

It all started when one day, my Dad and I wanted to try to make Indian naan bread for the curry dish we were having that evening.  I had made pita bread in the oven a few times at BYU and thought seriously, naan bread couldn't be too much different.  With a little magic that only google and youtube can provide, I had a recipe for naan bread and a step by step instructional video on how to do it in your kitchen.  The only thing I lacked was a baking stone which Nanjula, our youtube naan guru used.  I called people I knew around town that might have such ambitions to use a baking stone and found--no one. Not a soul.  My dad and I were left to our own wits if we were going to have our naan bread.  And have it we would.  While contemplating how we would get a baking stone, I looked down at the black tiles on floor of our kitchen's back entry and asked, "Dad, what are those tiles made out of?" And with that, we were off to find the slate tiles that were left over after the floor was put down. We washed them and heated them up in the oven to cook off any toxins and when our bread dough had proofed (which means that the yeast made it grow double its size. - you know, those wierd little beige balls of... who knows what) we were ready to do some baking, Indian style.  We rolled the dough out flat, patted some water on one side of the dough and slapped it on the hot stone.  We forgot one important detail that saved the future naan breads to come.  You have to poke the dough before you bake it our else it blows up like a balloon and cooks into a papery piece of parchment.  SO uncharacteristic of the tender naan bread I've sampled at Bombay House

The results with the naan were beautiful and that experience paved the way for these cute italian loaves to grace our table.  I learned my love for baking creations from the cute chic on the left.  We do have a slight resemblance wouldn't you say?  

Right now, I'm up in the woods and forest glens of Waterton Lakes National Park (aka the garden of Eden).  More pictures to come... 

" A real musical culture should not be a museum culture based on music of past ages....It should be the active embodiment in sound of the life of a community---of the everyday demands of people's work and play and of heir deepest spiritual needs."

--Wilfrid Mellers

Music Is Rediscovered

After listening to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart for my music appreciation class I realized that I have heard this piece many times growing up in my home.  But today there was something different. When I listened to this piece of music today, it was as if it were the most beautiful piece of music ever written.  I have found that when I learn something new about a piece of music and then turn that CD on to hear it again, the music becomes increasingly beautiful; more stirring than ever.  That is the value of learning how music is structured and the history of what was going on when the music was being written.  The power the music has to communicate is stronger than ever because we have a background of what the composer of that music is saying through his music.  

"Voices, instruments, and all possible sounds--even silence itself--must tend toward one goal, which is expression."  --C.W. Gluck

SUMMER!

Summers never seem to last long enough, so to make this summer and every subsequent summer memorable, Chuck (my sister Karli) and I decided to have themed summers. So now, it is time to publicly announce the this summer's theme:
This summer is the Summer of Bananas.

Chuck and I read about this idea of having themed summers in a magazine and decided we should theme ours. A banana themed summer seemed like the perfect fit because we have been so excited about bananas ever since we moved in together. It could be their fantastic color -yellow always makes me happy-, their place in my books as nature's best convenience food, or the fact that monkeys are associated with them. I love monkeys, I always have.
In Junior High, I had a little white plush monkey named Herman, and he was the pride and joy of my life. My friends and I took him on our epic adventures to Echo Lake, he journied to Mr Patterson's math class in my backpack, and I even brought him to Merida, Mexico for the time my family spent there together in 1999-2000. I told my friends that my favorite animal was a monkey, just like Herman, and that I would have a little white monkey, with a beard, when I was older.
Once again, I love monkeys and the bananas that are associated with them.

So what does one do with a banana themed summer? I have some ideas:
1) THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER: is to always have bananas on hand. You never know when they could be incorporated into our summer activities.
2) Banana smoothies. Our Austrailian friend showed us this banana smoothie concoction that will go down in history-at least my history. It has bananas of course, breyers icecream, Canadian honey (thanks to my parents), and a little something I had never thought of before, but it makes all the difference. NUTMEG! What a potent little spice that puts a banana smoothie to the next galaxy. Wow.
3) Banana T-shirts. A themed summer would not be complete with out rocking a banana T-shirt. If anyone has a winning design, send it my way.
4) Banana grocery bag (pronounced BAAY-guh in Canadian). Since Chuck moved in with me, we have decided to be more environmentally friendly and use reuseable grocery bags. They are quite plain and need some banana-y decoration.
5) Alliteration always brings out great ideas. Banana bandanas, banana bags, banana bombs, banana boats, banana bugs, banana BBQ, banana books, banana buddhas, banana boots, banana babies, banana boxes, banana binoculars.

Hit me with all of your ideas!
Bring on the summer of Bananas!

Acuarela is another word for watercolor, in Spanish, and it is one of my new favorite things to do.  I wouldn't say that I actually do watercolor but I really do enjoy experimenting with it.  What is neat about watercolor is that it uses water as a medium (go figure) and you can get beautiful effects.   Stay posted, there's more to come, hopefully improving as they come along.