Heroes Not Zombies

I have so enjoyed the series on Scotland’s Music with Phil Cunningham on BBC. The final part in the series is called Home and Away and traces some of Scottish music’s origins and its influences around the world.

Well, Tommy Bibey, imagine my surprise when Phil’s journey from Scotland took him to Cape Breton then down through Appalachia to the home of bluegrass music! Bluegrass has just been a name to me really but when Dr Bibey connected to me through this blog I got more interested – really because I enjoyed his writing so, and he’s impressed me as the kind of doctor, doctors should aspire to be – caring, passionate and humble. He told me his favourite bluegrass had its origins in Scotland and Ireland. It made more of a connection between us. The Scotland’s Music series (by the way, it looks like the BBC has now removed all the video clips from the earlier parts of this series – boo!) was something I recorded on my hard drive and I just got round to watching the last episode yesterday. I watched in anticipation and sure enough he made the link with bluegrass and with Alison Brown in particular (whose album ‘Stolen Moments’ is on my pod – the track ‘I’m naked and I’m going to Glasgow’ always brings a smile to my face on the Stirling/Glasgow Scotrail train!). So, it turns out I had some bluegrass in my collection after all!

I have a very diverse musical collection, and that shouldn’t surprise anyone who reads this blog – I am a great fan of diversity. Neither uniformity nor conformity appeal to me. Why is that? What is it about diversity that I find so appealing?

Two things spring to mind –

first of all, Deleuze has a great concept which he terms “lines of flight” – it’s the idea of not thinking of anything as having fixed co-ordinates, not seeing anything as existing as a point, but instead seeing all points as lines, so that a point is just a cross-section through a line or a thread or even a vapour trail

I love that idea of seeing whatever it is you’re considering in its origins and its becoming (see that subtitle at the top of the blog? “Becoming not being…….”) It makes everything dynamic, changing, moving, developing and it connects what is both to what was and what is to come.

Secondly, I love the idea of connections, seeing patterns and resonances. I think that’s why ‘Linked‘ appealed to me so much.

Amy, has a lovely post about ripples of connection and what a good metaphor that is for blogging…..and there we go…..a whole other set of paths to follow…..the threads that connect us…….and the stories that weave us together.