Here are a few more pics. These were taken on my way back from visiting my friend Fritz at Young Life's Wildhorse Canyon. I was trying really hard to get back home in time to meet some of my Mom's friends, but the stupid landscape wouldn't stop being so gorgeous. Blast all the beauty in central Oregon!
It's starting to set in that it might take a really long time to raise support for my work with Pioneers. Actually, it's quite likely that it'll take much longer than I currently feel I have patience for. I really don't want to slip into a depression over this, which would not be a surprising way for me to deal with things I don't like. I could really use prayer that I can be satisfied enough with my current situation that I'm content, but not so much that I stop working to get the partnerships I need. While my own introversion really helps with the creative side of what I will eventually be doing, it's a killer when it comes to interpersonal relationships and connections. Oh, and if any of you want to check with your home church about partnering with me, you have my blessing. It's a long road ahead of me, but someday, certainly not in my timing, you all will be hearing tales from across the world of what God's doing.
Well, I have to say that the B&W inspiration is coming from this "Digital Photographer Black & White" publication I bought today at Costco. Digital Photographer is on the top of my list right now for periodicals. Insightful and expensive. I highly recommend it. Cheaper at Costco. Anyway, here's two more. Let me know what you think, eh?
So I'm just about to send out prayer letters to anyone and everyone. Thanks for everyone's patience. They shouldn't have taken so long to get out, but it's been a busy few weeks. I haven't yet learned exactly how much financial support I'll have to raise, but word on the street is that it's going to be $2000+ which is a little intimidating, considering my pool of rich friends is quite shallow. However, I know that God is good, and that it'll come in all at the right time. Thanks for your patience. And while you're waiting, you can check out my latest Kenya video below.
From the time my sister Daylan first showed me Nickel Creek, I’ve been a fan of Chris Thile. Not only is he a master mandolin player, he’s a master musician. He is the reason I ever considered taking up the mandolin. And he’s one of the handful of musicians who ever lent any credibility to bluegrass music in the ears of this musical snob. And now I can say, with no small measure of glee, that I’ve seen and heard him in person, and I was not disappointed.
Chris Thile has been producing solo albums from before Nickel Creek was in existence, the last of which was entitled “How to Grow a Woman From the Ground.” So take the exact musicians from that album, give them the name Punch Brothers, and you have the group I saw at Portland’s Aladdin Theater last night. First of all, they’re extraordinarily tight as a group. More than once, a group note of unusual syncopation was so well executed that I uncontrollably grinned from ear to ear. It was the closest I’ve been to aural utopia in a long time.
The only album Punch Brothers have under their current guise is entitled Punch. Thematically, the album circles frontman Thile’s troubled marriage and ultimate breakup. While the album has a couple near-radio-friendly tracks on it, the majority of the album consists of a four-movement masterpiece entitled “The Blind Leaving the Blind.” Having grown up playing and listening to non-vocal jazz and classical music, I nearly always prefer instrumental over vocal music. For my taste, this piece is the ultimate combination of instrumental and vocal music, probably 70% instrumental, 30% vocal. The piece is a complex musical journey rich in virtuosic opportunity, an astonishing feat for a 28-year-old mando-player.
Most of Punch Brothers’ album was performed as well as a smattering of songs from “How to Grow a Woman From the Ground,” and a few traditional bluegrass-style pieces. Each instrument was individually miked, and two large-diaphragm mics stood at the front of the stage, used for vocals and solo parts. Because of the microphone setup, the band-members were forced to play like a real ensemble, utilizing real dynamics, and even physical positioning to play as a cohesive unit. Coming from a classical background, I hugely appreciated the fact that the band felt natural, like instrument and vocal levels weren’t being puppeteered by the sound engineer. A very natural and basic sound.
The set was split in two, with the first two parts of “The Blind Leaving the Blind” mixed into the first half’s performance, and second two parts mixed into the second. Due to the depressing nature of the piece as a whole, this split made the piece much more palatable in a live setting. The show was an enjoyable mixture of music from their two albums: Watch ‘at Breakdown, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, The Eleventh Reel, Punch Bowl, and The Blind Leaving the Blind. After playing two entire sets, Punch Brothers received an ecstatic standing ovation, followed by an encore of three songs. Following a beautiful Wilco cover, Punch Brothers brought one of Portland’s local fiddlers to the stage for a couple of traditional bluegrass songs.
One of my favorite parts of the show was the fact that they really played like a team. Like a band. It was great to see people playing dynamically with each other without any one person hogging the spotlight. It was true musicality in action. A pleasure to behold.
The entire show was a delight. Not only to hear live what I’ve listened to dozens of times on my own, but to see true musicality in such a young group. I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m now a bigger fan of Chris Thile and Punch Brothers. Well done guys.
So I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
This summer I'm planning on recording my first album, something I've thought about before, but finally the timing is right. My journey as a song-writer has been relatively slow. I don't often play with other people, something all musicians need. I also have taste in music that far exceeds my ability to play. And to top it all off, my personal journey has retarded my growth as a songwriter.
If you've read my blog for a while, or know me well, you probably know that I've been undergoing some serious life change in recent years, though this hasn't really been apparent to me until the last couple years. As I stand now, I am painfully aware of many of my own limitations, areas in which I need serious work and attention. I'm also at a point where I'm willing to own those things, willing to talk about them, willing to make them known. (For a list of my shortcomings, send me your mailing address and one of my close friends or I will be happy to send you Dayn Arnold's Shortcomings: Volume One for three monthly installments of $29.95 plus shipping and handling.) So due to my own state of denial, most of the songs I have written have been very impersonal, or masked so that the listener would think I was singing about someone else. And sure, a couple of those songs have been decent, but very few of them really meant anything personal to me. As I have progressed in my own life journey, and as I've progressed in my songwriting ability, I've discovered a different side to my writing. A side that's not as pleasant and quasi-utopian as some of my previous work. But a side that is far more real.
So the album I'm working on is tentatively called 9-Years because it is a musical journey through my last 9 years of life. As some of you know, I've had my share of ups and downs in the last 9 years. Bouts of nearly unbearable depression, anxiety, bitterness, anger juxtaposed against those few incredible and irrepressible moments of euphoric clarity, like poking my head above the clouds for a split second before my own self-pity dragged me back down to earth. My musical idea is to take a particular moment in each year, or a year's impression, and use a song to show that point in my own history. Some of those years' defining moments were awesome, and some were scrape-your-face-in-the-dirt-awful. Some were filled with despair, some with incredible revelation. So while much of this music is much better in the fact that it's more personal, some of it seems bleak. However, like all of us, we must take these life-snapshots in the context of the entire story. I'm a little afraid people will take songs out of the context of the entire album, like taking one scene in a movie as its own unit, unrelated to the rest of the story.
Anyway, I've been working on writing some new lyrics, and noticed that some of them are more hopeless than anything I've ever written for public viewing. But in the context of my life, these dark times defined where my life was to go, not where it was to stay. It's the contrasts in life that make the good times good. Without the bad, how would we know what was truly good? Or WHO was good? Think about it.
