IKUSTEZINA

May 27, 2010

The music or sound occurs because a body vibrates and it is transmitted into the environment. There have been many who have tried to clarify the reasons for why the music and the sounds exercise such power inside of each and everyone of us. How can something so present in our lives be so unknown? For many years, my life has been and is linked to everything that has to do with music and anything that is related to the world of the seven notes and their various combinations awakens my curiosity to an almost endless thirst for knowledge. In ancient times, the music was used to communicate with the gods, and in Greece it was closely linked to the mathematics, specially, thanks to Pythagoras assigns the seven musical notes and talks about the number 7 as the perfect number, calling his attention that the music, as the gods, creates emotion and being invisible, that is, something that cannot be seen but produces visible effects. Today it is known that the music is able to heal both mentally and physically, that each note has its own vibration and that vibration may change a heart rate, creating in us an altered state of consciousness and it can even get us mad. The music is to feel it, embrace it and make it our own so it can become part of us in an exciting adventure into our inner selves. Clearly it is a language, a method of communication but at the same time it is science and art and as such we should take it into consideration when creating a better and advanced society. We can not pass up the opportunity to continue on seeking its knowledge and, above all, its understanding. We must go further on and discover all the richness that lies within that accompanies us daily in our lives in which we take as a common everyday thing. We must evaluate it much more, because it is an important part of ourselves and what surround us.


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JAIALDIA

May 20, 2010

Our backgrounds, our roots, a sense of belonging are an importance in the human being. We all feel the urgent need to belong to something, to feel that we share a common origin and in a similar way to feel and live it. But when the individual, for whatever reason, has to travel far and continue his existence in a different place from where he was born this feeling invades his soul stronger, even forcing him to carry out a series of actions to offset somehow his “hunger” for his roots, his essence. Throughout the past week I’ve been in Boise, Idaho recording, performing and enjoying the party in which it has become for me my stay there. The truth is I’ve been totally amazed at the dedication, love and the attitude of the people there. It’s a shame I can not stay at “Jaialdia”, a festival that the Basque community in Boise celebrates every five years and this year it will be from July 26 till the 1st of August, in which 2005 the festival attracted over 30,000 people. There are various performances of music, Basque dances, rural sports, etc… bringing together thousands of people seeking their roots in a place to meet. A real Basque party, thousands of miles away from the cultural epicenter of it. This is the magic of the people far away from their homeland experiencing our same backgrounds in a passionate way. Their feelings, that maybe because of the distance or the absence produced a healthy envy in me making me live a very special feeling, as unique as the American men and women of Basque descent live it. Here no one asks if he can dance the Basque dances, if you know our history, or if you speak the language and even whether you have Basque descent. All that is required is an absolute respect, the major of passions and the maximum excitement about sharing with others the only thing that makes them different, their love for the Basque. To live like this, to the fullest, is what I always look for and without any doubt in Boise…
“I lived it!”


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INGUMA (Magical Goblin)

May 13, 2010

Being the first in anything is something I’ve have never lost a good night sleep, in fact, being able to achieve something before anyone else doesn’t particularly attract me. What really is important that, in any area of life, is not to do thinks quickly or even get there before anyone, instead in how and what has been done to get to it. There are always many roads to follow to reach the same destiny and we are who choose on or another depending on the needs and efforts that we are willing to give. The extraordinary guitarist and living legend of flamenco, Paco de Lucia, has been invested Doctor Honorius Cause at the age of 63 by the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston (USA). Emulating musicians such as Sting, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin or my friend Pat Metheny, the author of “Entre dos aguas” or “La Barrosa” has become the fist Spanish citizen to receive such recognition. But in my opinion, what does stand out is that someone like Paco de Lucia, who has devoted his life to the art of flamenco and the guitar, has achieved something so important. Until recent years, the flamenco musical style was not only minority but also stigmatized, but the example of the “maestro” his efforts and those of many others, this very particular musical style has achieved a more consistent level of recognition in its essences, as in the words of Paco “I have spent many years fighting for things like this to happen.” They say all things are impossible while you think they are and I would add that anything is possible if you dream and believe in yourself. Zorionak! “Maestro” , with or without a doctorate you were, is and will remain, an unique artist with a real flamenco “magic” in your soul, which exudes humility, had work and effort because nobody can reach the peak only armed with talent. In the best case, it’s inherent in our being and it is the work and our effort that transforms this talent into genius and that, my friend you know well.

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ARDIEN NAGUSI

May 6, 2010


Throughout this time in the States which as become something like my headquarters, I have come to meet so many interesting people, for many different reason. For the Basques, America has become a very special place. There were many who one day decided to leave everything and embarked on the adventure of looking for a better future for them, far away, on this continent which then became a habor of dreams, promises and opportunities. Today I will talk about an “authentic person” like many others, showing us that human beings are capable of anything when he proposes it. Ramon Echeveste, born in Doneztebe, Navarre who currently lives in Firebaugh California, dedicated to sheep raising. But the story that interests us begins when Ramon at the age of 20 decided to leave his home to try his luck in the United States with nothing but what he had on, 2 coins in his pocket and a heart full of dreams and illusions. He arrived in Fresno from the hand of the Western Range Association created by Basques in charge of bringing people of Euskal Herria to America in order to find them work among them in the different businesses. He began working as a shepherd for different farmers until one day he realized that he actually ran the company on his own but without the benefits of it so then bravely he takes the chance and creates his own sheep company. Those years were tough, exciting and every intense, working from sunrise to sunset, battling coyotes, adverse weather conditions and the worst of all, the loneliness. Within time he founded a family, with his thousands of sheep and today he is a recognized successful sheep raiser in the area. In this own way, Ramon has also created something from the nothing. The necessity sharpens the wit, they say “beharra” (Basque word meaning necessity) Ramon says, and the truth is that from my experience I would say it is. Echeveste is a self-made man, like many others, tanned in a thousand battles that exemplify the extraordinary ability of the human being to overcome the difficulties, something we all have inside, right?

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LUX AURUMQUE

April 29, 2010

While watching the video that a friend of mine just sent me through e-mail, a deep emotion comes over me remembering the experience that we did at the Technological Park in Zamudio. At that time we divide our band into two rooms: txalaparta, drums and alboka in one room and in the other the guitar, bass and the accordion, using a sophisticated technological system we could play at the same time, four songs of our repertoire. I have to say that, that experience really caught my attention, showing me that with advance science we have an infinite of possibilities open to us to create. On this occasion I was invited to visit an Internet site in which this video was absolutely fascinating. In it, the American orchestra director, Eric Whitacre, directs 185 singers from 12 different countries singing “Lux Aurumque” a song composed by him. So far, normal, right? Now what is so curious about the whole affair is that the members of this virtual choir recorded their performances at their home! They later sent their recording to the director for further post-production. To do this, Eric published the scores and a video with him directing the theme for all those interested in participating in the choir, to then be used to record their voices in it. The final result was an original virtual choir, innovative and open up to anyone who was interested in taking part in. I think that things in life should be exploited to the fullest. Normally we all have the idea that technology and scientific advances thwart us in a way, and that our creativity is already given out to us. But somehow I think we should advantage of it turning things around. Let’s just say that these advances can serve us as impetus for our imagination in using them to develop an exponentially creative project, for example, this choir. The music, image, space, assembly, editing and effects are perfectly talented, the imagination and the creativity of the human being.

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LAS MIL TONÁS

April 22, 2010


Fortunately, the frontiers, those imaginary lines created to separate or delimited cities, towns, regions or countries are really just that, imaginary and nonexistent. Although circumstantial and even administratively try to define the bounders, we have to surrender to the evidences that the customs, the languages or the cultures are not classifiable in such a drastic way. Among the people and the neighboring regions there is always a closer cultural relationship, a much greater complicity. Throughout the years 2008 and 2009, the Cantabrian journalist Maxi de la Peña held a series of 51 interviews of renowned names of the Cantabrian folk, all collected and published in his book, “La tierra de las Mil Tonás”. From the veterans as Lines Vejo, Adela Gómez, El Malvís de Tanos, etc. to younger names as Chema Puente, Begoña Lozano, Miguel Cadavieco or Alba Gutiérrez, having them all participated as witnesses of a musical reality unknown to most of the public. My friend Maxi is a curious person, filled with many inquietudes, throwing him into an unusual fervor to what he is passionate about. That’s what most captivated me of him when we met. Some time ago he mentioned his idea along with Dulce Pontes, Uxía, Luis Delgado, Ana Alcaide and Paco Díez to write a short pretext for his book. This book is a collection of testimonies over the musical human journey in which shows, as well said by Dulce Pontes “folklore is a musical array expression of the people, for excellence”. Maxi de la Peña has done a great job in favor of their traditions and their culture. I hope that this book will be an open door to future projects, to complement the musical cultural map of a region, as rich and varied as ours, in which people from Basque Country, Asturian, Galician, Castile and Cantabrian etc… sharing a common essence and understood in a thousand different ways.


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USADIO ZAHARRAK

April 16, 2010

When did “civilized” man lose his contact with nature? When did the huge explosion of our bound that connected us to the circle of live occur? When did we move from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic or what is the same, when did man stop being a nomadic hunter and gatherer to become a pastor, rancher or farmer. A few weeks ago while I was channel hopping, I came upon an incredible documentary called The Lion Hunt with the Bow. It explained how hunters from the Gaos´s tribe, located in the region of Yatakala, Nigeria hunted lions with the help of a bow, arrows and the Nadyi, a powerful poison that attacks the nervous system. Throughout the documentary they narrated on how they produced, all by hand, everything needed for this task. The bows were made of Farev´s branches, a kind of African bush, the arrows from rush wood, while the village’s blacksmith forges the tips with an amazing master, drawing series of spirals so that the poison would adhere better to it. The poison is obtained by cooking the fruit of a tree called Nadyinya. The making of this poison itself is considered very “serious” for them, produced only every 4 years. To do so they head into the savannah, far away from the village, because the “poison” is an evil thing. The people of the tribe responsible for making this poison carries out a series of rituals so that the evil will not affect then or stay joined to them and they can return to be normal men. It’s striking that what for us would be pride to own and to use this, for the people of Gaos the Nadyi is something evil, terrible, something that embodies almost the forbidden. How many customs, atavistic rituals that bounded us to our mother Earth, showing respect has been forgotten. Today, this is a type of current or a new awareness that fosters a spiritual return to our roots, the truth is that we have it a bit complicated but we are obligated to take this into serious account.

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