Walk in Beauty

With beauty, may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.
~ Excerpt from the Navajo Night Way Ceremony


Mage Music 61  

While beauty truly is in the eye (and ear) of the beholder, one thing that most people would agree to is that too much sameness is pretty darned boring, and that rule applies to what can be found in nature or in human-created works of art.  It is contrast that makes the difference – but not in just any which way.

Balance is beautiful

Contrast is the difference in surroundings that makes the contrasting thing stand out and be noticed.

Humans are quick to notice differences in patterns of everything around them.  Things that have changed leap out and attract our attention, because evolutionary survival has taught us that changed circumstances are often immediately followed by things that leap out and make us dinner.  This ability to take note of changes in pattern is so important to survival that it is an involuntary response of the brain.  Our response to sudden change is hardwired into us.

No one could survive, however, if they spent all their time reacting to every change.  There would be no time for anything else in life. We tolerate lots of change in our daily lives just fine.  Our brains don’t automatically shove us into involuntary survival mode every time there’s a difference in what we perceive.  We need to take time to differentiate between bad things and good - after all, just because something changes doesn't mean we won't like it.    

Being able to appreciate the contrasts in our environment, not just involuntarily run from them, is a good thing, too, because artists rely on contrast to give life to their work.  

Light and shade

Normal humans are most comfortable in a middle-ground of contrast, but we seek entertainment outside of the comfort zone.  We look for the maximum difference that doesn't tip us over into the danger zone. We all flirt with discomfort and risk for fun and enjoyment to one degree or another.

Contrast is interesting. We are attracted to it.  Beauty happens when there is just the right amount of contrast, which means balance. Sameness may be pretty on the first go-round, but artfully balanced contrast will stand the test of time.

Jimmy Page refers to contrast as light and shade. These are terms for visual arts, but the terms obviously apply to music, too. The important thing for music and any form of art is to find the delicate point of balance between too much and too little, and when you are dealing with things that are not necessarily alike, it becomes a juggling act.

Balance is beautiful

We humans have an innate understanding of music. We know instinctively when various components satisfy intuitive benchmarks. We seek out pattern and completion, and we know when the contrasts are beautiful or boring.

It’s not so easy to satisfy us though. The light and shade – contrast – that provides interest doesn't come from simple juxtaposition of opposites, which would be too predictable and therefore boring. Musical contrast doesn't come from just going from loud to soft, from fast to slow, from plain vanilla to heavy effects – it comes from mixing all possible combinations of musical values in contrasting patterns. Juggling, if you will.

Balance in art is a tricky thing. Great beauty comes from balancing on the edge of chaos – after all, juggling one tennis ball is not nearly as interesting as juggling a couple of raw eggs along with a sharp dagger or two.

When it comes to Magick, it’s even trickier.


Beauty in the heart of contrast
Consider how a downhill skier handles the many changing conditions there are on a run: Speed, slope, snow quality, obstacles, wind, and more. The skier finds an internal place of balance in the heart of the onslaught of new and constantly changing conditions, letting her body move around that center, rather than trying to move her center in reaction to the conditions. Knees flex, skis bounce, poles poke and drag, the body sways – a flurry of movement centered on a core of balance.  

 
A Mage steps from what is now to what will be by dwelling in the quiet point of balance between the inner world of his own desire and will, and external reality. Walking in beauty is dwelling in the quiet heart of contrast.  

I believe if you listen to the music of Jimmy Page, you will hear exactly what I'm talking about.

Alchemy: Led Into Gold (Part 5) Jimmy Page in the 21st Century

…from a juggernaut to a dragonfly in a moment...
~ Roger Taylor (Queen) UK Hall of Fame Induction of Led Zeppelin

Mage Music 26

Jimmy Page has been criticized for appearing to back off from music after the turn of this century, particularly compared to Led Zeppelin band mate Robert Plant, who was putting out albums and touring. That appearance would, of course, only be true if Mr. Page was simply a rock guitarist - but of course he is so much more than that: Besides the private and personal inner world of Mage, beyond composer and performer of music that is his public face, Jimmy Page has also always been the complete artist. Arranger, producer, engineer, dreamer - Mr. Page’s vision encompasses a complete experience, whether it be song, show, album, band or career.  Jimmy Page's interests are widespread, his passion is for perfection in all areas of his creations; given Mr. Page's well-known compulsion for perfection of detail, anything he produced would have to be hands-on, not just something he signed off on.

Add ingredients and mix well
Jimmy Page continued to keep his performance skills - and his public presence - honed by appearances with other musicians from 2000 on, while simultaneously working on other projects that required his time and attention. He produced the Led Zeppelin DVD of 2003 (choice concert material from over the years) and also in 2003 How the West Was Won (the "ideal" 1972 Led Zeppelin concert complied from the Los Angeles Forum and Long Beach Arena shows of that year). In 2007 Mothership was released, as was the remastered Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same. During this time Jimmy Page also continued his work on behalf of two Brazilian charities dedicated to the welfare of the poverty-stricken children of Brazil, and was involved with more events (including ceremonies in which he received and presented awards) outside of performing music than most people are aware of - all of which required, and benefited from, Jimmy Page’s personal touch.

The biggie of 2007, of course, was the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert, better known as the Led Zeppelin O2 reunion. Not quite a reunion without John Bonham, of course, but Bonzo’s son Jason seemed to channel his father, allowing the three surviving members of the band to definitively demonstrate that the Led Zeppelin legacy was not only alive but vitally alive, and the talents of the Mage Musician still as powerful as ever.

Cook until done, serve when ready
It is instructive to note that Jimmy Page has always been committed to "everything in its own time - and only in its own time”.  This may explain why, in January of 2010 when asked about a DVD of the show, Mr. Page said, "I can't give you an answer on that” - yet we now know that just a year later he was involved in production of the movie, surely a task that was not spur of the moment. It has been made quite clear in the 2012 press conferences that prefaced the Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day movie release that Led Zeppelin would not be reuniting to tour as a band again. The full reasons for this will likely be revealed – if ever – well in the future, when the time is considered right and not a moment before.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Page forged on with new projects, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics closing ceremony (Whole Lotta Love with Leona Lewis), the It Might Get Loud documentary, a Genesis Publications limited-edition photo autobiography Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page, and a website at jimmypage.com, the latter two being fully controlled by Mr. Page, focused and concerned, as always, with the details.

Soul food
Ironically, the more Jimmy Page has seemed to open up to the world, the more mysterious he has become. While it is true that he has made his work more accessible and available, and while he has been willing to talk more about the music in terms of how it was done, the life of Jimmy Page as expressed by Jimmy Page remains limited to his life as a musician. Brad Tolinski says in his just published book, Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page, that Mr. Page considers creating music to be a transcendental endeavor.

We know this to be true by the music we hear; by his preference, however, the inner life of the Mage Musician may only be revealed through his work, not through words.  In 2011, Mr. Page released a sweet but fleeting solo piece on his website, called Summer's Day. His comment about it was simply:  "I had a day off."

♪

(Note: Led Zeppelin will be presented with an award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts on December 1, 2012. The 35th Kennedy Center Honors medals will be presented at a dinner at the State Department and will be followed the next day by a reception at the White House and a performance at the Kennedy Center. The event will be taped for a television broadcast on Dec. 26 at 9 p.m. on CBS. It is unknown at this time whether the Led Zeppelin/Jason Bonham band will perform.) 

♫

YouTube Playlist - Alchemy: Led Into Gold (Part 5)
Individual songs


2001 Page & Fred Durst & Les Scantlin, Thank You (live) MTV Europe Video Music Awards

2001 Page & Plant, Baby Let's Play House (live) Montreux Jazz Festival

2002 Jimmy Page, Dazed and Confused (live) with Paul Weller band, Feb 09, 2002 Royal Albert Hall, Children's Cancer Trust benefit

2005 Jimmy Page, Whole Lotta Love (live) NY Stock Exchange

2006  Led Zeppelin UK Hall of Fame Induction by Roger Taylor of Queen  (live)

2007 Led Zeppelin/Jason Bonham, Nobody's Fault But Mine (live) O2 Concert

2008 Jimmy Page, Kashmir (live) Kashmir chords

2008 Page, Jones & Foo Fighters, Rock and Roll (live) Wembley Stadium

2011 Jimmy Page & Donovan, Sunshine Superman (live) Royal Albert Hall

2011 Jimmy Page & Roy Harper, The Same Old Rock (live) Royal Festival Hall Onstage at 2:40

2011 Jimmy Page, Summer's Day (studio) unk - featured on JimmyPage.com 08/12/11

Light & Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page

Brad Tolinski's new book, Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page will be available October 23. Tolinski is the Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World Magazine and is Editorial Director of Future US’s music division, which includes Guitar Aficionado and Revolver magazines.

An August 9, 2012 Guitar World article states:  "Light & Shade is drawn from the best of more than 50 hours worth of conversations that touch on everything from the music scene of the ’60s; Page’s early years as England’s top session guitarist working with The Who, The Kinks and Eric Clapton; his time with The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin and his post-Zep projects. The book provides readers with the most complete picture of the media-shy guitarist ever published."

“Light & Shade illuminates the haunted genius of Jimmy Page in an original and completely satisfying way. The conversational dynamic between the author and the subject reveals a wealth of info about the man, the music, and the magic.” – Kirk Hammett, Metallica

Light and Shade: Conversations with Jimmy Page may be pre-ordered at Amazon.com now in Kindle or hardcover for the October 23, 2012 release date.

Mage Music: Imagine This

Mage Music: Imagine This

Aubrey Beardsley
Frontispiece to The Wonderful History of
Vergilius the Sorcerer1893 

What exactly makes a mage powerful?  Unlike what is portrayed in fiction, a mage doesn’t have to be a person in black robes, and isn’t a person who has a lot of magic stored up in amulets or who is born with magical power.  A mage doesn’t “have” magic any more than a computer “has” the internet.  Magic is like Yoda’s Force – it is the energy source of life.  Like a Jedi who masters the Force, a true mage is one who has the skill, talent and will to open to that energy and to use it to make changes in the world. 

Think of the relationship of a mage to magic the same way you do of the device you use to access the internet to the internet itself.  The internet is gigantic, so big it is for all practical purposes infinite – there’s no way your device can access it all.  Still, the more powerful the device the better it can access the internet and the more data it can process, providing it isn’t hampered by malware, poor programming or by just not having sufficient capacity.

It’s the same with a mage.  All of us access the energy of the universe without even thinking about it – it’s called being alive.  A mage, however, accesses that energy on purpose, using clarity of mind to visualize the desired outcome, and then ritual of some sort to focus the mind on the desired outcome.

The clarity both comes from and results in enlightenment – literally aligning with the energy of the universe.  The most proficient use of the energy comes through focus.  The actual process is not truly important – alignment with the energy of the universe can be equally achieved through magick, meditation, the sciences, art or, in the case of Jimmy Page, through music.  The product of true enlightenment is readily apparent to anyone who sees experiences it. 

It can be easily seen why Jimmy Page is considered a mage:  He engages purposeful clarity of vision, and focuses through the ritual of the music on a desired outcome.  Music is the ritual of his magic.

Jimmy Page is well known for his attention to detail and his control of all aspects of his vision.  Thus when comparing the John Lennon/Yoko Ono 1972 film, Imagine,  to the Jimmy Page acoustic segment deleted from the 2008 video It Might Get Loud, we must wonder what Mr. Page’s choices meant in the context of the music he was playing.

It would be very hard to believe that Jimmy Page had never seen the Lennon/Ono film, if not when it first came out then sometime over the next thirty-something years, when Mr. Page makes a video of himself playing an unnamed acoustic guitar piece in a room so identical to the one in the Lennon/Ono film that one might only tell the difference by checking out the scenery through the windows and details of the rooms.

A white empty room; a white chair for Jimmy Page, a white piano for John Lennon:  We must believe Jimmy Page didn’t just “happen” to choose that room to be filmed in or that his chair placement, in basically the same location as John Lennon’s piano, was accidental.  We must believe that the video starts and ends with visual focus on a reflection in the floor rather than the guitarist for a reason.  We must believe that there is purpose for everything in this video because control of detail has always been in Jimmy Page’s nature.  He is, after all, a master mage – he is performing ritual - but it is for his own purposes and it is up to us to take meaning from it.

The music

John Lennon’s song is very different from Jimmy Page’s.  Lennon’s is finished and polished.  It has lyrics that carry the meaning; the music is support for the lyrics.  Jimmy Page’s song sounds raw and unfinished.  It doesn’t even seem like it was meant for an acoustic guitar; it sounds very much like he was hearing an electric guitar in his head along with support instruments.  It has no need for lyrics because the music itself carries the meaning.

The visuals

While each song is being played, the music is the focus.  But before and after each song, the visuals are the focus. 

At the beginning of Imagine, Yoko Ono and John Lennon walk together to the room where the music will take place.  At the end they look at each other, then kiss – excluding the viewer and, in making the video be about the two of them, leaving the message of the song behind.  The song is over.

At the beginning of the Jimmy Page acoustic video the camera focuses on the reflective floor before panning to the musician.  At the end, Jimmy Page sits back and looks out the window, redirecting focus out to the world before turning to look at the camera, which then pans to the reflective floor.  The music has been given to the world, and then to the viewer, and then… the reflection.  Has the song, or more importantly the message, actually ended?

This brings us to the message, the intent of the work of the ritual.

The message

No one can read the mind of the artist or the mage, or presume to know what the meaning of a work is.  The inner vision is the artist’s alone and each person brings to a work his or her own life experience, which acts as a filter and framework for interpretation.

Nevertheless, we can make some statements about the message of Jimmy Page’s video.  The setting is meant to evoke another setting.  The beginning and end focus on a reflective surface:  This video is meant to reflect something else.  There are no lyrics, so the music and the video itself convey the message.  Jimmy Page’s song and video have no name, but reflects the Lennon/Ono film and song:  Imagine.  To me the message is just that:  Imagine what this song of Jimmy Page’s - still in process, still more in his head than in the world – will be.  Imagine, because there is so much more than what is seen and heard there.

Of course there is no way to know if any of this interpretation was meant by Jimmy Page. Sometimes, perhaps often, the creator doesn't actually know what the work means - he or she only knows that it must be created.  Still... keep in mind what Albert Einstein said:  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Technology can come in many forms, can't it?  Science or art, video or music - whatever it is, advanced enough and it is indistinguishable from magic.  

Light and Shade: Domino

Painters and other visual artists will, in the process of creation, discover something – a technique, an image detail, color combinations, shapes – that intrigue them and lead them into exploration in their next works. All creative artists look at other artists’ work, at life around them or deep inside themselves and discover something that intrigues them. They will absorb it, play with it and reinterpret it, make it their own and let it come out in their subsequent work. Thus the artistic products evolve. It has ever been so with all artwork, and students of the various artistic mediums can follow the evolution of the inspiration from artist to artist, and within one artist’s work.

Once Led Zeppelin was formed and Jimmy Page was able to become fully creative with his own music we can more clearly hear his exploration of themes and pushing of the musical envelope that is so characteristic of his musical genius. Expression of “light and shade” has always been a fundamental part of Mr. Page’s music. He may have picked up the term during his time at art school, although the use of light and shade to provide contrast is a concept used in all forms of art. Unlike in life when things may be much the same for long periods of time, an artist has control over the use of contrast to bring focus to and highlight certain areas of the work.

Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette,1885–1886, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum

In music, the technique of light and shade may be brought about through changes in volume, tone, rhythm and speed, the use of different instruments, of melody versus chorus, and various other techniques. Jimmy Page uses every means in his considerable arsenal to achieve contrast with just one musical instrument - his guitar - intensifying the depth of his music to an incredible degree. Part of the magic of his music is in his use of light and shade, which draws us in and delivers us to the heights and depths of Mr. Page’s inner vision.

One of the light and shade areas that Jimmy Page appears to be drawn to is that of allowing his music to rise from a version of drone. In music, drone is a note or chord that is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. We know that Middle Eastern tuning is one of the techniques Page uses (Kashmir, discussed last week, being a great example); drone originated in instrumental music of southwestern Asia and spread to Europe, India and Africa.  It can be used to evoke an emotional atmosphere, which we see Mr. Page do to great effect, such as can be heard in in Domino (1999), where sometimes the extended low growl of the guitar’s chords is used as a drone and other places it is the memory of the drone and the return to it that gives the impression of drone.

Domino YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-W-G5txkbw

Page’s melodies rise out of the drone effect throughout Domino, and using light/shade, he returns to the drone again and again to give the mind rest before the contrast of the notes that rise like a fiery phoenix from the dark.