PAGASARRI

Published by DEIA, May 26, 2011




Returning from Madrid from a collaboration, several meetings and the Music Award’s Event still in my mind. Just before coming to Bilbo I notice the slopes of Pagasarri and I discover the leafiness and the coloring of a spring in its complete effervescence. Passed a few days I decide to take a stroll around there.

The mountain Pagasarri belongs to Ganekogorta's mountain mass that, with its 1,000 meters of height, which is a natural border between the territories of Bizkaia and Araba. In the trajectory I can clearly see that the Paga is alive and vitality becoming the lungs of such a frantic city like Bilbao. In an article they commented that this area lodges surprisingly a rich fauna that, without a doubt, revalue’s the surroundings with residents like the aesculapius snake, the peregrine falcon or the sparrow hawk among others. With a burning sun on top I continue my walk throw the intense green grasslands and seeing some more and more privileged sights thinking about how difficult it is to me to believe that animal species so savage may inhabit a place so near to a dense urban nucleus like Bilbao than it seems that it would have to have lost his ecological value, as if the same went by human patterns.

Nature does not circumscribe only to distant and paradisiacal places. Animal and vegetal species, that now seem ecological treasures for us, thousand years ago it did not populate our lands exemplifying that nature is somewhat lively, changing, that evolves and develops itself for parameters, I would even say, we are unaware of in great measure. Before sparrow hawks, falcons, etc were species that we only could see in books or visiting very distant and agrestal areas. Today, even in surroundings so humanized like the Pagasarri, we can enjoy them.




Let's not get carried away always of pessimistic and alarming messages, true it is that not all is good but it is not less true that we achieve bigger things. I believe that we have to learn from the animals, because only they get carried away by their instinct, for what they need and what they are. And they always CORRECT. Maybe someday even we will learn, right?

www.kepajunkera.com

SILBO

Published in DEIA, May 19, 2011







It’s has been pondering in my head for quite awhile about the different adaptations that throughout history of the many animal species as in the plant world have carried out. And the most mind-blowing of them is the role that the planet and its circumstances play as like architect of the molding of each and everyone and one of them in terms of the needs of the individual.

Some days ago I visited the city of The Lagoon, in Tenerife, (The Canary Islands) to collaborate with my friend Rogelio Botanz in his recording of a CD-DVD, in which he glimpsed back at his career surrounded by different friends. Rogelio was born in Legazpi a small town in Guipuzcoa, but leaving to do the military service in Tenerife and, ever since, he lives there, dedicated to teaching in addition to the music. So much so that Rogelio has become an absolute specialist in island sonorities in which I would personally highlight one that is of the "Silbo Gomero".

Aside from having been declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and of being an expression of the cultural folkways of The Gomera, the "Silbo" (Whistling) is one of the most incredible adaptations carried out by the man. It consists in using a complex variety of whistles and to make with it a means of communication, which makes them to be understood for people that are far away from others. As well said by my friend Rogelio, expert in this area about the "Silbo", it is not a language in itself, but a substitutive way and, of course, the correct reflection of the capacity of the human being’s overcoming.

This way of communication, not only demands a great power when whistling, but also a control of its technique cause, for the wealth of its vocabulary, the acoustic resources of the oral cavity are used to its fullest. Although before the "Silbo" was showed from teacher to pupil today and thanks to the effort of a great many people they give Silbo's classes in all the schools of the island, achieving its use, knowledge and survival between the new generations. A huge treasure.

We are a result of what we need and the sum of what we have turns into a reflection of what we can become to be.


www.kepajunkera.com

LLARIEGU

Published by DEIA, May 12, 2011




Just a few days ago I visited the city of Gijon because I collaborated in recorded a CD - DVD on behalf of the Band of Gaitas of Llariegu. I know that it sounds a little bit as a topic but every time that I visit Cantabria, Asturias or Galicia, for a concert or to collaborate with musicians of the area, I feel very special things because of the different encounters and at the same time being unique. And I say that after traveling through so many countries in which I feel very comfortable, yet there is something in these communities and in their people that fills me with energy and makes me feel just as in home.

In this occasion I was going to spend a few days collaborating with the band of bagpipes due to the complexity of the project: Preparation, rehearsals, concert, etc. Now what really caught my interest are the passion and the desire that each and every members of the band had in every moment. The Gaitas's Band of Llariegu is an amateur band, of enthusiastic people having much talent that has nothing to envy any professional group since by not living by the music doesn’t sincerely make a difference at the time of effort and to embroider a project as we were doing.

Our first encounter was in their site of rehearsal, in Sariegu, where for the first time I felt the true potential of the group with the percussions and the bagpipes clobbering to the maximum. What a sound! How much strength! It is incredible to feel yourself wrapped up with so much energy and to be able to contribute with your own that, at the same time, multiplies by moment.

The concert was in La Laboral of Gijon, ancient university recycled now in a building for several activities and with a very special charm. A curious and shocking place all at the same time. The repertoire was of the most interesting and in my case I played several themes of the Breton culturehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif while we interpreted some parades it reminded harmoniously to me our arin-arin.

The first impression, so many times, is the one that counts, although, at times, we make a great effort in dimming our feeling with our minds.

I drew a smile the first day that I listened to them and I thought: “It is clear that the musical travels by air ...” Let's not give it a second thought.

Back to www.kepajunkera.com

BIDEAK

Published by DEIA, April 28, 2011



EUNANTE, situated in Navarre, is a precious jewel consider of the Knights of Templars in the route to the Sepulture of St. James.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems so curious that so many times the path in which we have already traveled from in which today surround us has come to us along time ago. A bill of exchange of those that we use to carry payments and cashing payments has a close connection, to my surprise with the Middle Ages and with a very famous chivalric order.

In the year 1119, nine of French Knights carried out vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. They were lodged in the stables of King Balduino II of Jerusalem that he constructed over the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. They were The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon, otherwise called Templars, half monk, half soldier. Their mission was preserving the many pilgrims of the holy places. And that is where this order became a type of bank of pilgrims that traveled to meet with the Holy Sepulcher. They needed to take a lot of money and an enormous infrastructure if they wanted to carry out their journey the pilgrims, in which is why The Templers signed for them a series of bills for which they could exchange for lodge, food etc. in each Templar commission of the road. In return the Templars calculated by means of the different documents the costs and they charged them with the had proven to have from their departure staying with all of the money, thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife lands and houses if the pilgrim was perishing in the company. That way, in 2 centuries of existence the Templars treasured such an incredible wealth that the same king of France and the Pope of the epoch, finished with their Order’s adventure due to conflicting interests. The Knights, war-like monks and swords flow in a formulate banking system that even today we continue working with, demonstrating the multiple existing springs in the human essence.

What a strange existing surprise the relationship between the bill of exchange and The Knights of Templar and at the same time how fascinating to think all what’s is still to know and to discover.
C’est the vie!

Back to kepajunkera.com

ILUSIONAK

Published by DEIA, April 21, 2011





It is very easy to say that we should have illusion when everything is going all right, when our vital expectations are intact. What's difficult is keeping the same attitude when something goes the wrong way, a disease or an event can tarnish all that until then we believed and became the illusion and the passion into memories of a dream we wanted.
Jason Becker is a born guitar player in United States, July of 1969. From a very young boy he began to play the guitar by ear, in a self-educated way, and soon he was interpreting Dylan's, Clapton’s, Hendrix’s songs etc so that, thanks to his unorthodox way of evolving, went beyond the influences of his teachers and managed to develop an own style becoming one of the best guitar players of all times. At the age of 20 Jason was diagnosed with the disease of Lou Gehrig, a disease that left him at wheelchair.
But this has not made him quit and now, instead of interpreting, he composes music and continues to be working and fighting to break new frontiers, becoming another example of the amazing capacity of the human being to surpass obstacles, transforming a feeling of survival into something almost miraculous and fascinating. The true effort is finding a way to be able to grab on hope, even when that that we were excited about had disappeared forever. Normally it is necessary to knock down the barriers that we all have internally, the ones that almost always are nourished by the suffering and the fear of loss and to failure. Why people with so hard lives a priori achieve so many goals and dreams while others not? The fear to lose what we have tortures us, belittle us and makes us not be all that we can be. It is complicated that that one that believes that has nothing to lose is afraid of it and perhaps... Won't that be its true secret and at the same time paradoxically his true fortune? Let's brush fear aside and let's enjoy of what life offers us, it is an obligation.
So... Gentlemen do game !

Back to kepajunkera.com