How Miko's Mind Works
Dec. 8th, 2005 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I've been reading a few long fan fiction stories lately, and that's taken up most of my spare time when I'm not at work. But last night I wanted to do something else. I didn't feel like writing, I didn't feel like playing Second Life or any other game... and then I remembered that there was a cd I wanted to assemble.
Two of the bands I've been listening to a lot lately are Korpiklaani and Yat-Kha. Korpiklaani is yet another of my weird Finnish folk metal groups (add them to the list that includes Tolkien-metal fantasy masters Battlelore, medieval folk-metal band Ensiferum, and that loveable band of thrash-polka party trolls, Finntroll. And probably one or two other bands that I'm momentarily forgetting.)
While most of these bands lean towards fantasy for their inspiration, Korpiklaani is more interested in ancient Finnish traditions, in old stories and shamanistic beliefs. Their first cd was entitled "Spirit of the Forest" and included a song about someone who learns from the bear spirit how to become a "god of the wind" which basically involves defeating the bear and taking on his claws, his fur, his role. Another song is about a search for a magical spirit drum, and the quest to become worthy of such an item. On their new cd, "Voice of Wilderness" there is a song called "Spirit of the Forest" (yes, like King's X, they decided to write a song for their second cd that bore the actual title of their first cd. Go figure). Anyway the song is about the Spirit of the Forest, how it dwells in the northern lights and how it affects humanity. Like I said, very shamanistic themes.
Yat-Kha of course is my favorite Tuvan throat-singing folk-rock band, with the man with the scariest bass vocals in history. While they don't dwell on shamanistic themes so much, a lot of their songs are on traditional Tuvan music themes, which includes songs of the steppes, of their horses, and the like. And Tuvan culture like many related steppe cultures still holds to a lot of shamanistic belief, and some of their songs (sung in Tuvan) sound exotic and potentially shamanistic to my ears even when the actual lyrics aren't really about such things.
So all of this got me to thinking about making a "shaman music" themed cd, and last night I decided to assemble it. For starters I had a couple of good tuned from Finntroll and Hedningarna, I had the Aino song from Varttina which is a tale of an old man cursing a snake for biting him. I had three cds of music by Wimme Sarri, who is a Sammi joiker (Sammi being the name of the far-North indigenous people found on the edges of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, sometimes called Lapplanders, while "joiking" is their style of singing/chanting that sounds quite a bit like Native American chant). Then I had some tunes from Celtic-inspired bands that I thought could pass, and I had music from Yothu Yindi, the Australian Aboriginal rock band, that I thought could fit in very well, and then of course whatever Native American music I could come up with that utilized chant. Which, it turns out, I had several sources for that... a rock band called Payuma, the band Wayra that Kristin bought for me in Norway, a compilation cd of Native American music called Tribal Fires, and whatever else I could find.
Along the way I did some net searches and was able to download a couple of songs from a cd called TranceSiberian, which was shamanistic singing set to dance club electronica beats. Perfect!
And then I was looking at stuff on Amazon.com, and I saw one cd that I thought could work, "Drum Medicine", although it wasn't actually by real Native Americans that I could see. And I looked at R. Carlos Nakai's work. I was thinking about the Christmas cd of his that I had, and wondering why I had never picked up anything else of his, when I came across one cd where he works with a Tibetan flute musician. What a cool idea, I thought. Then I looked at the cd, and looked again. It looked very familiar.
In fact, on second thought, I was pretty sure I owned that cd. But if I did, where was it?
I went and looked at the handful of cds that were sitting on top of my stereo in the corner. Most of them have been gathering dust there for maybe 3 or 4 years.
Yep, there it was. I did own that cd! Woo! And, would you look at that? I actually own that silly Drum Medicine cd too!
(Which is more amazing -- that I owned two cds that I didn't know I owned, or that I knew exactly where to look for them?)
Well anyway I'd like to tell you there was a happy ending to my shaman cd story, but the truth is I was up to past 4 am (well past my new bedtime), did not get enough sleep last night, and in the morning discovered that nero burning rom refused to burn my new cd. It failed three times in a row, even after a reboot. Based on how it's been acting lately, I suspect the cd burner itself is dying. I've always been cheap and avoided getting a cd-burner in my two newer gaming computers, so now I guess it's time to buy a new cd burner!
Sometimes you gotta wonder about the people that design some of the things found at Engrish.com. Today's offering, for example, is a woman's shirt with the words "waiting for you" on the front... and right below those words, the back end of a cartoon dog, with a certain detail... er, detailed. I mean, this isn't a case of bad English... it's a case of just plain monumental weirdness. What the heck kind of message are they trying to send? Waiting for you... to do what? And what woman in her right mind is going to wear what might otherwise be a nice top, but which has the rear end of a dog on it?
Two of the bands I've been listening to a lot lately are Korpiklaani and Yat-Kha. Korpiklaani is yet another of my weird Finnish folk metal groups (add them to the list that includes Tolkien-metal fantasy masters Battlelore, medieval folk-metal band Ensiferum, and that loveable band of thrash-polka party trolls, Finntroll. And probably one or two other bands that I'm momentarily forgetting.)
While most of these bands lean towards fantasy for their inspiration, Korpiklaani is more interested in ancient Finnish traditions, in old stories and shamanistic beliefs. Their first cd was entitled "Spirit of the Forest" and included a song about someone who learns from the bear spirit how to become a "god of the wind" which basically involves defeating the bear and taking on his claws, his fur, his role. Another song is about a search for a magical spirit drum, and the quest to become worthy of such an item. On their new cd, "Voice of Wilderness" there is a song called "Spirit of the Forest" (yes, like King's X, they decided to write a song for their second cd that bore the actual title of their first cd. Go figure). Anyway the song is about the Spirit of the Forest, how it dwells in the northern lights and how it affects humanity. Like I said, very shamanistic themes.
Yat-Kha of course is my favorite Tuvan throat-singing folk-rock band, with the man with the scariest bass vocals in history. While they don't dwell on shamanistic themes so much, a lot of their songs are on traditional Tuvan music themes, which includes songs of the steppes, of their horses, and the like. And Tuvan culture like many related steppe cultures still holds to a lot of shamanistic belief, and some of their songs (sung in Tuvan) sound exotic and potentially shamanistic to my ears even when the actual lyrics aren't really about such things.
So all of this got me to thinking about making a "shaman music" themed cd, and last night I decided to assemble it. For starters I had a couple of good tuned from Finntroll and Hedningarna, I had the Aino song from Varttina which is a tale of an old man cursing a snake for biting him. I had three cds of music by Wimme Sarri, who is a Sammi joiker (Sammi being the name of the far-North indigenous people found on the edges of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, sometimes called Lapplanders, while "joiking" is their style of singing/chanting that sounds quite a bit like Native American chant). Then I had some tunes from Celtic-inspired bands that I thought could pass, and I had music from Yothu Yindi, the Australian Aboriginal rock band, that I thought could fit in very well, and then of course whatever Native American music I could come up with that utilized chant. Which, it turns out, I had several sources for that... a rock band called Payuma, the band Wayra that Kristin bought for me in Norway, a compilation cd of Native American music called Tribal Fires, and whatever else I could find.
Along the way I did some net searches and was able to download a couple of songs from a cd called TranceSiberian, which was shamanistic singing set to dance club electronica beats. Perfect!
And then I was looking at stuff on Amazon.com, and I saw one cd that I thought could work, "Drum Medicine", although it wasn't actually by real Native Americans that I could see. And I looked at R. Carlos Nakai's work. I was thinking about the Christmas cd of his that I had, and wondering why I had never picked up anything else of his, when I came across one cd where he works with a Tibetan flute musician. What a cool idea, I thought. Then I looked at the cd, and looked again. It looked very familiar.
In fact, on second thought, I was pretty sure I owned that cd. But if I did, where was it?
I went and looked at the handful of cds that were sitting on top of my stereo in the corner. Most of them have been gathering dust there for maybe 3 or 4 years.
Yep, there it was. I did own that cd! Woo! And, would you look at that? I actually own that silly Drum Medicine cd too!
(Which is more amazing -- that I owned two cds that I didn't know I owned, or that I knew exactly where to look for them?)
Well anyway I'd like to tell you there was a happy ending to my shaman cd story, but the truth is I was up to past 4 am (well past my new bedtime), did not get enough sleep last night, and in the morning discovered that nero burning rom refused to burn my new cd. It failed three times in a row, even after a reboot. Based on how it's been acting lately, I suspect the cd burner itself is dying. I've always been cheap and avoided getting a cd-burner in my two newer gaming computers, so now I guess it's time to buy a new cd burner!
Sometimes you gotta wonder about the people that design some of the things found at Engrish.com. Today's offering, for example, is a woman's shirt with the words "waiting for you" on the front... and right below those words, the back end of a cartoon dog, with a certain detail... er, detailed. I mean, this isn't a case of bad English... it's a case of just plain monumental weirdness. What the heck kind of message are they trying to send? Waiting for you... to do what? And what woman in her right mind is going to wear what might otherwise be a nice top, but which has the rear end of a dog on it?
