Hank's Blog
Thursday, April 29, 2004
Santo Daime, what is your religion?
The Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light is a spiritual work which aims at self-knowledge and the experience of God or the Superior I Inside. To accomplish this task we use, within a ritual context, the sacramental enteogen beverage known as ayahuasca re-baptized by Master Irineu as Santo Daime. The use of enteogen substances as a sacrament seems to have been part of the main religion traditions of ancient times and gave the visionary basis for many of the most important religions that exist in the world today.
The Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light is a spiritual work which aims at self-knowledge and the experience of God or the Superior I Inside. To accomplish this task we use, within a ritual context, the sacramental enteogen beverage known as ayahuasca re-baptized by Master Irineu as Santo Daime. The use of enteogen substances as a sacrament seems to have been part of the main religion traditions of ancient times and gave the visionary basis for many of the most important religions that exist in the world today.Our liturgical religion, which consists in sharing the sacramental tea in appropriate dates, is called Eclectic for its roots are deeply buried in a strong syncretism of various folk, cultural and religious elements. We praise God, Jesus Christ, saints, angels and spiritual beings of many cultures, especially the Christian, Indigenous and African ones. The use of the Santo Daime sacrament is done in the dates of its festivities calendar, following the ritual rules set by both Master Irineu and Padrinho Sebastião.
read more...
Sunday, April 25, 2004
new order for Orixás:
Orixás Total Running Time: 54:45
1) Exú (3:42)
2) Ibejis (2:25)
3) Ossain (3:13)
4) Yemanjá (3:13)
5) Iansã (3:29)
6) Ogun (3:23)
7) Omolu (3:21)
8) Xango (3:00)
9) Oxossi (3:11)
10) Ewa (3:13)
11) (was 12) Oba (3:05)
12) (was 13) Oxalá (0:44)
13) (was 11) Nana (3:21)
14) Oxum (3:01)
15) Maria Conga (3:47)
16) Dambala Wedo (8:37)
this makes a lot more sense
Orixás Total Running Time: 54:45
1) Exú (3:42)
2) Ibejis (2:25)
3) Ossain (3:13)
4) Yemanjá (3:13)
5) Iansã (3:29)
6) Ogun (3:23)
7) Omolu (3:21)
8) Xango (3:00)
9) Oxossi (3:11)
10) Ewa (3:13)
11) (was 12) Oba (3:05)
12) (was 13) Oxalá (0:44)
13) (was 11) Nana (3:21)
14) Oxum (3:01)
15) Maria Conga (3:47)
16) Dambala Wedo (8:37)
this makes a lot more sense
making Orixás
by Hank Schroy
This record began as a study of the chants and percussion patterns of Yoruba religious traditions, namely Candomblé and Umbanda, as well as Santeria. We chose to make an offering of 16 different songs for 16 different Orixás, 16 being considered a magical number and the Orixás being basic cosmic building blocks of the Universal Soul. We wanted to make music that would put the listener directly in touch with the feeling of each Orixá, in a way that’s immediately accesible and in a way that represents a futuristic vision for an interconnected cosmopolitan pan-national music scene. Making the point that the essential elements of this music are unfathomably ancient, and that this culture is at the root of all Brazilian music, we bring these primal ingredients into the world of tranced-out space-age mantras music.
The great musicians that came through to help us make this record all fell into the spirit of the thing. The mantras are by necessity short and easy to learn, the musical parts clear and transferable between instruments. The sound is reflecting the jazz musician’s spirit while respecting the ancient intention of calling to the Orixás and asking for their assistance. Knowing that the interplay is not only from musician to musician but also from individual soul to Cosmic Being, a new approach is formed. Therefore the musician can only approach these mantras with the proper intention. The result is uplifting for the players as well as listeners, and the mantras invite everyone to share in the energy.
Throughout the world, ancient shamanistic ways of life exist side by side with institutionalized religion. The old cultures are not only dismissed as pagan, wicked, black magic, evil, the devil’s work, etc.. but are also severely persecuted. Many people leave the culture they grew up in and become “born again” into this or that state-sponsored religious clan. I’ve heard so many stories about Brazilians who used to be in Umbanda or Candomblé but who’ve now renounced these old ways as evil and have found their savior in the church of Jesus. However, at the same time, many people around the world are discovering the complexity and sophisticated beauty of the worlds of Vodou or Candomblé.
Before we made this record, I could have told you something about Yemanjá or Xango, but I didn’t have the faintest idea about Nana, Ewa, Oba, and many others. Jorge grew up in Umbanda, his grandmother raised him in and around the ceremonies and temples of this religion, and this is the very foundation of his role as a drummer and percussionist, but he also was vague on the story behind this or that Orixá. So we made this record in a way to teach ourselves about the Orixás, and in the process were opened up to a whole new world of how to play with each other and other musicians, of how to make music.
by Hank Schroy
This record began as a study of the chants and percussion patterns of Yoruba religious traditions, namely Candomblé and Umbanda, as well as Santeria. We chose to make an offering of 16 different songs for 16 different Orixás, 16 being considered a magical number and the Orixás being basic cosmic building blocks of the Universal Soul. We wanted to make music that would put the listener directly in touch with the feeling of each Orixá, in a way that’s immediately accesible and in a way that represents a futuristic vision for an interconnected cosmopolitan pan-national music scene. Making the point that the essential elements of this music are unfathomably ancient, and that this culture is at the root of all Brazilian music, we bring these primal ingredients into the world of tranced-out space-age mantras music.
The great musicians that came through to help us make this record all fell into the spirit of the thing. The mantras are by necessity short and easy to learn, the musical parts clear and transferable between instruments. The sound is reflecting the jazz musician’s spirit while respecting the ancient intention of calling to the Orixás and asking for their assistance. Knowing that the interplay is not only from musician to musician but also from individual soul to Cosmic Being, a new approach is formed. Therefore the musician can only approach these mantras with the proper intention. The result is uplifting for the players as well as listeners, and the mantras invite everyone to share in the energy.
Throughout the world, ancient shamanistic ways of life exist side by side with institutionalized religion. The old cultures are not only dismissed as pagan, wicked, black magic, evil, the devil’s work, etc.. but are also severely persecuted. Many people leave the culture they grew up in and become “born again” into this or that state-sponsored religious clan. I’ve heard so many stories about Brazilians who used to be in Umbanda or Candomblé but who’ve now renounced these old ways as evil and have found their savior in the church of Jesus. However, at the same time, many people around the world are discovering the complexity and sophisticated beauty of the worlds of Vodou or Candomblé.
Before we made this record, I could have told you something about Yemanjá or Xango, but I didn’t have the faintest idea about Nana, Ewa, Oba, and many others. Jorge grew up in Umbanda, his grandmother raised him in and around the ceremonies and temples of this religion, and this is the very foundation of his role as a drummer and percussionist, but he also was vague on the story behind this or that Orixá. So we made this record in a way to teach ourselves about the Orixás, and in the process were opened up to a whole new world of how to play with each other and other musicians, of how to make music.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Known Unknown, the new record from Vernon Reid & Masque, is available May 4th, 2004!
VERNON REID & MASQUE is:
Vernon Reid - Guitar and Guitar Synth
Leon Gruenbaum - Organ, Piano, Casio, Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeeeee
Hank Schroy - Bass
Marlon Browden - Drums
DJ Logic - Special Guest on Voodoo Pimp Stroll
Monday, April 19, 2004
A Beta version of a freeware Samchillian standalone application is now
available for the PC.
http://www.samchillian.com/standalonepc.html
available for the PC.
http://www.samchillian.com/standalonepc.html
from About Samchillian:
"It's all Relative!"
The Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeeeee (patent #5,565,641) is a keyboard MIDI controller ... based on changes of pitch, rather than fixed pitches. This scheme gives the performer the ability to perform extremely quick, rhapsodical lines.
Here's how it works: each key on the keyboard does not denote a fixed pitch, as it would on a normal keyboard, but rather a change of pitch. A user first selects a scale and a key (e.g. F# pentatonic), and then every note played will be in that set of notes.
read more...
What a Difference Tone Is
When two pure tones are played together, it sometimes sounds as though a third tone is also present. For example, a person simultaneously hearing two loud tones of 800 and 1000 hertz may also report hearing another, quieter tone at about the pitch one would expect from a 200 hz stimulus. More generally, if two generating tones (or primary tones) of frequency U (for the upper tone) and L (for the lower tone) are played together, people will under some conditions report hearing a difference tone (or first difference tone) that sounds like a tone presented at frequency U - L, despite the fact that waveform analysis may show no sound wave at that frequency.
read more...
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
nologo.org: Naomi Klein's website
... I have gone to the mosques and street demonstrations and listened to Muqtada al-Sadr's supporters shout "Death to America, Death to the Jews," and it is indeed chilling. But it is the profound sense of disappointment and betrayal expressed by a pro-US businessman running a Pepsi plant that attests to the depths of the US-created disaster here. "I'm disappointed, not because I hate the Americans," Khamis tells me, "but because I like them. And when you love someone and they hurt you, it hurts even more." ...
... At the end of March, building on his Order 39 of last September, [US occupation chief Paul] Bremer passed yet another law further opening up Iraq's economy to foreign ownership, a law that Iraq's next government is prohibited from changing under the terms of the interim constitution. Bremer also announced the establishment of several independent regulators, which will drastically reduce the power of Iraqi government ministries. For instance, the Financial Times reports that "officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority said the regulator would prevent communications minister Haider al-Abadi, a thorn in the side of the coalition, from carrying out his threat to cancel licenses the coalition awarded to foreign-managed consortia to operate three mobile networks and the national broadcaster."
The CPA has also confirmed that after June 30, the $18.4 billion the US government is spending on reconstruction will be administered by the US embassy in Iraq. The money will be spent over five years and will fundamentally redesign Iraq's most basic infrastructure, including its electricity, water, oil and communications sectors, as well as its courts and police. Iraq's future governments will have no say in the construction of these core sectors of Iraqi society. Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Project Management Office, which administers the funds, describes the $18.4 billion as "a gift from the American people to the people of Iraq."
He appears to have forgotten the part about gifts being something you actually give up. ...
Friday, April 09, 2004
I know I posted a link for Otha Turner and the Afrossippi Allstars down below, which is a pretty good disc, but "Everybody Hollerin' Goat" is pure genius...
The Vodou Quantum Leap; Alternative Realities, Power, and Mysticism
by Reginald O. Crosley
by Reginald O. Crosley
from the Foreword by Max G. Beauvoir, Houngan at the Temple of Yehwe:
... people in the world should no longer act as if they [are] independent from one another, neither as individuals nor as nations. Our lives are all intertwined, whether we like it or not, whether in fact we acknowledge it or not. The time has finally arrived for a new spiritual and ethical awareness. Religious people, practicing atheists, agnostics, or humanists should all abide to this self-evidence. It would indeed be better for all people of all races, nations, and religions to understand it, and each other...
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Sunday, April 04, 2004
ONE
One song can spark a moment, One flower can wake the dream. One tree can start a forest, One bird can herald spring. One smile begins a friendship, One handclasp lifts a soul. One star can guide a ship at sea, One word can frame the goal.One vote can change a nation, One sunbeam lights a room. One candle wipes out darkness, One laugh will conquer gloom. One step must start each journey, One word must start each prayer. One hope will raise our spirits, One touch can show you care. One voice can speak with wisdom, One life can make the difference, You see, its up to you.
- Future Positive
