Nickelback – If Today Was Your Last Day

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-OlqERixVE

I have had interesting discussions lately with friends on the subject of love and of our paradigms and world views of what that is. My journey has been both wonderful and painful. In the process a friend from the Great White North sent me this song which is new to me. I hope you love the lyrics as much as I do.

I will tell you two things that came up in discussions on the subject of love that interested me:

  • We use words to describe what things are. But in different cultures those words carry different connotations. The thing itself has not changed, but the word we use to describe it can cause miscommunication. And as most of us know it’s our perception that is king. A thing does not necessarily have an inherent quality; it’s what we project on it. So two people might see something the same, but use different words to describe the same thing.
  • Are there many loves or just one? I had always had the understanding there were different types of love like Agape and Eros. But one person I talked to said “No! There is only ONE love”. This is a new way of thinking for me.

And this ties back into the Nickelback song posted here. Would your actions on love be different if it was your last day?

Cirque Du Soleil ZAIA Band 2009

zaia-band

The Cirque Du Soleil ZAIA band, June 2009 in Macau, China. A rare moment where all the musicians are together for a photo opp.

In this photo: Eduard Harutyunyan (percussion), Jay Elfenbein (viol, dare I say cello, strings, bass guitar), Darrin Johnson (drummer), Olivier Milchberg (guitar, Turkish banjo, plucked strings), Maria Andersson (singer), Steven Bach (keyboards – bandleader), Rose Winebrenner (vocalist), Racheal Cogan (recorder, EWI)and Conrad Askland (keyboards, assistant bandleader).

My First Private Lesson in Mandarin Chinese

I’ve lived in China over a year now and I don’t know any Cantonese or Mandarin. Surprisingly it’s been difficult to find a private tutor for Mandarin. Cantonese is the main language spoken where I live (Macau and Hong Kong), but variations of Mandarin are spoken throughout China. I had an interpreter tell me the best way to learn is to start with Mandarin and then go into Cantonese. Mandarin has four tones and Cantonese has nine.

Continue reading “My First Private Lesson in Mandarin Chinese” →

My Favorite Song

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TfAyX8l5-g

This is my #1 favorite song in all of music.  If you are interested in more information on this piece, I have a previous post with translation and background information here:

https://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2006/11/ave-verum-corpus-wa-mozart/

Ave Verum Corpus by W.A. Mozart.

Personal Evolution on the Language of Music

This is a thought on the language of music and how my personal vocabulary has changed since working with Cirque and working in China.

I don’t know if this would qualify as a “paradigm shift”, but I had an eye opener today. I had a friend send me a video of a music performance. It’s a group that plays a style of music I used to play. And when I watched it, it was like a foreign language to me. Like something distant I recognized just faintly. And this was a style of music I played for many years.

Continue reading “Personal Evolution on the Language of Music” →

Freddy Fender in concert 2003

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj4ohpzU4vQ

Freddy singing “before the next teardrop” and “wasted days and wasted nights” New Mexico State Fair 2003. Conrad Askland is playing keyboards with Freddy in this video. Not a great video, but just happened to run across it while surfing YouTube. Augie Meyers is also playing accordion with us in this video.

Asian Buddhism and the Lay Population

Mmmmm…….another blog post about nothing that I am an expert on. Just an observation from my limited personal experience. This post is about my perspective of religion and Buddhism in Asia and the lay population. (“Lay people” are ordinary people like you and me. Members of congregations and everyday people. They are not church leaders, monks or ministers.)

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Zaia Music Soundtrack CD

The soundtrack for the Cirque Du Soleil ZAIA show is completed and will be printed to CD soon and available to the public. I don’t know a specific release date, but somewhere around early Summer 2009.

My part in the project was to play keyboards and arrange string parts recorded by members of the Hong Kong Symphony. Most of the recording was done on location in Macau (SAR) China, and the string parts with the HK Philharmonic players was completed at a recording studio in Hong Kong.

Rumor mill on the street is that Guy LaLiberte (founder of Cirque Du Soleil) has heard the soundtrack and loved it. I’ve even been told he asked to hear a second time the next morning.

Members of the ZAIA band got to hear a preview of the finished soundtrack with composer Violaine Corradi at the end of February. I won’t give you any spoilers, except to say that I was very pleased with the project and enjoyed the creativity in the mixes.

Violaine Corradi (ZAIA composer) told me one of her goals of the finished soundtrack was to have it be like looking at a prism held in your hand, then rotating it to look at the prism from different perspectives. I definately got that feeling from the soundtrack.

To my knowledge, this is also the first Cirque Du Soleil soundtrack CD recorded by the actual performing musicians in the show. The other soundtracks are recorded with studio musicians in Montreal I’ve heard. (With the exception of some subsequent live releases from shows like Mystere).

So I hope you all enjoy our work on the ZAIA CD when it’s released. Of course I’ll post on my blog when I know the official release date.

What Makes Online Communities So Special

My fingers are actually sore from doing site updates for several online communities over the last week. There are many downsides to running online communities. It’s a financial black hole, it always needs attention, there are always security updates to do and I get my share of stalkers who a lot of time on their hands and not a lot of direction for more worthwhile pursuits.

But, there are moments that make it all worthwhile. I have a small number of strong friendships that have developed from these communities; and no matter the state of my personal life I make sure the best I can that the communities trudge on.

Today someone posted this note from one of my communities that provides free supp0rt for a serious illness. We’ve been running this for about 7 years now and it’s blossomed into a very special place. These members are somedays just fine, and other days can barely sit up to get to their computer. I was very touched by her comments, here it is:

Continue reading “What Makes Online Communities So Special” →

Forum Opening

I have opened a forum for my website at http://forum.conradaskland.com

It’s against my better judgement to open a forum on a personal website, but I can’t keep up with the number of email questions I’m getting now. Hopefully the forum will allow people to exchange resources. I receive many of the same questions via email – so this is also a way to answer people in detail and en masse.

I run many other online forum communities but have never had one on my own site before. This will also be a test area for me to try new forum functionality before bringing live to other communities.