Daniel Buckley Arts

Next Cine Plaza at the Fox screening brings classic Mexican film Maclovia

Another landmark of Mexican cinema is coming to Tucson’s Fox Theatre, 17 W Congress St., on Sunday, June 30 as part of the ongoing Cine Plaza at the Fox film series.

MACLOVIA is a 1948 Mexican romantic drama directed by Emilio (El Indio) Fernández and starring María Félix and Pedro Armendáriz., Miguel Inclan, and Carlos López Mectezuma. The movie was acclaimed during the 1949 edition of the Venice Film Festival.

On the beautiful island of Janitzio, in the middle of Pátzcuaro Lake in the state of Michoacán, Mexico lives Maclovia (María Félix), the beautiful daughter of the leader of the local Tarasco Indian community. Maclovia loves José (Pedro Armendáriz), a young very poor Indian but her father does not approve of the relationship. The arrival of a battalion of soldiers from the Mexican mainland causes additional conflicts when the brutal sergeant leading the battalion (Carlos López Moctezuma) develops eyes for Maclovia.

Mexico’s landscape has never been as beautiful and breath taking and Maria Felix has never looked lovelier thanks to the wonderful award winning work on Maclovia of Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa.

Established in 2010, the Cine Plaza series offers first class Spanish language films and original documentaries of Tucson and Southwestern Latino culture. The sixth of the Cine Plaza documentaries, on how Tucson was transformed by its mariachi and folklórico cultures, is now in production for a 2014 release.

If You Go:

What: Cine Plaza at the Fox presents the classic Mexican film Maclovia

When: June 30, 2 p.m.

Where: Tucson’s Fox Theatre, 7 W Congress St

Admission: $3 donation suggested

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Uncategorized

Train recording diary, 06/24/13

Back recording trains. This time I got two at once. One was moving very slowly as I got here. The second went up in the opposite direction at a serious clip. This time using two recorder to catch soft and loud sounds. Another beautiful moon and still air. Best recording conditions possible.

Feeling the rumble of another one heading this way.

It stopped about 100 yards from me.

Recording trains is like fishing. You never know when or if something will happen. Then when it does it’s exciting as hell for a few minutes, and then you wait some more.

Inching toward me now. Wish there were fewer automobiles driving by.

Lovely sound!

I see a light on the track to the east. Who knows when or if it’ll get here. Another half hour and I’ll call it quits. Glad I brought a folding chair tonight. Next time I’m bringing one with some cushion.

Just packing it in for the night when I hear the whistle blow. I run back, fire up the recorder and set it down. Four locomotives pulling the longest line of railroad cars I’ve ever seen, rolling slowly with plenty of rumble and squeak. Grinds to a halt in front of me with as much yet to come as has passed. Guess I’ll be here a while longer.

I hear a sound like an air horn running out of canned air. Then the train rolls back about a foot. Long pause. Some more quick squeaking and then it just sits there in silence.

Finally rolling again and handily the best sounds of the night. Glad I stayed, and glad too that I use lithium batteries. The end is in sight and the coolest sounds saved for last. Calling it a night as soon as it gets out of earshot.

Posted in Uncategorized

This time we made it!

After being $7,000 away from the $15,000 goal less than 10 hours before Friday’s 7:30 p.m. deadline, Tucson stepped up and made up the difference to put the Mariachis Transform Tucson Kickstarter campaign over the goal post.

Kickstarter is an all or nothing crowd funding technique, meaning that if you haven’t reached the financial goal you set before the deadline, you receive none of the money pledged, and no one is charged.

But Tucson clearly saw something it liked in this project which provides seed money for early filming, applying for foundation support, transcription support and more.

In addition, Pima Country provided another $4,000 to support the hiring of paid interns for the film from the University of Arizona journalism department and Tucson high schools.

“I would like to express my gratitude to all of the donors and to Tucson in general for its support of the project,” said documentary producer/director Daniel Buckley. “This is a huge first step when combined with the $5,000 received from the Tucson Pima Arts Council’s PLACE Initiative Grant Program.”

Emma and Leo Carrillo in 2004

A sense of urgency was felt during the fundraising campaign with the unexpected death of Leo Carrillo. Mr. Carrillo was the father of Mariachi Cobre Members Randy and Steve Carrillo, and a man who supported their mariachi dreams from the time they were small kids in Tucson’s pioneering youth mariachi, Los Changuitos Feos. Mr. Carrillo’s passing sparked the immediate targeting of older members of the mariachi community for interviews in conjunction with the film.

Even before funding came in Buckley has been interviewing mariachis, parents and students of multiple generations since October of 2012, along with numerous mariachi and folklórico dance events. Plans are to continue filming for another 12 months before taking another six months to edit years of interviews and performances into the final film, which will show how mariachi and folklórico programs have shaped Tucson’s educational, financial, political and cultural landscape.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, folklorico, Kickstarter, Leo Carrillo, Los Changuitos Feos, mariachi, Mariachi Cobre, Randy Carrillo, Steve Carrillo

My friend Maria Lopez recently bought a place next to the railroad tracks.

In going by and visiting her I was reminded of the world of sounds trains make. The huge blast of sound as the locomotive passes. The distant whistle, The rumble and clack of the individual cars as they pass. The squeal of the brakes and the high whistling sound the rails make when a long trains starts up again from a dead stop. And the giant “clunk” when the switch operator changes which line the train well travel on.

It is a symphony of noise, and one I’ve always enjoyed.

As a boy growing up on the Hudson River I would often sit at the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and watch the trains pass along the opposite shore, waiting for the sound to make it the nearly 1-mile width of the river at that point, and listening to the doppler effect.

In the early 1990s I used to travel to Gila Bend, Arizona and dangle a stereo microphone out the window of the Space Age Lodge to capture the sounds of the many trains that passed it by, recording them into a 16 bit/48k Digital Audio Tape deck. But the upper harmonic subtleties were lost on that mere CD quality sound system.

Today there are small 24 bit, 96k field recorders that are more ideally suited to the corona of exotic sounds passing trains produce.

Even with decent equipment, it’s not easy. Trains typically run parallel to streets and highways, so there’s extraneous noise to deal with.  It also takes some guessing to figure out how low you need to set the gain so that you don’t overload the signal. The last thing you want to do is find yourself fiddling with knobs while a train is passing and misrepresent the sonic arc. And then there’s the waiting, late in the night to keep the traffic sound at a minimum.

Last night I recorded from 2-4:30 a.m. and captured one train. But that train stopped next to me as it passed, which gave me all the wonderful sounds of it starting and stopping, as well as the main pass, the very different rhythms a slow train makes and more.  I was very lucky and didn’t overload my recorder.

But I hadn’t checked the auxiliary power on my high quality external stereo microphone, and was forced to use the built in X-Y microphones of my Zoom H4n field recorder instead. These proved quite effective, I might add.

Pointing the microphones perpendicular to the run of the track proved very useful. Doing so generated the full left/right experience of the approaching and receding train, and a sense of what odd sounds sere coming from where.

But while I got the overall arc of sound without clipping, that reduced volume meant I also lost the punch of the softer sounds. So for my next attempt I will use a second field recorder, set somewhat higher, to capture those softer sounds, without having to worry about the big sonic blasts.

It will take some finesse but I hope to get some sounds that can be fed into sampling keyboards, looped, tuned and turned into musical elements.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Daniel Buckley Music, Slice of Life, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, recording, trains

Click title for link:

• Super Moon 1 – Movement 1 of the Super Moon series, scored for solo instruments (electric piano in this case)and FabFilter effects. Composed by Daniel Buckley. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• Super Moon 2 – Scored for guitar and FabFilter creative effects (Volcano and Timeless 2). Composed by Daniel Buckley, Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• Super Moon 5 – Work for 8Dio Wrenchenspiel and FabFilter effects. Composed by Daniel Buckley. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• Show Your Work – Rhythm bed for new dance piece. Composed by Daniel Buckley, Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• Clouds – Soundtrack to a time lapse film of clouds building up for the summer monsoon season in Tucson, Arizona. Scored for synthesizer and clarinet. Composed and performed by Daniel Buckley, Saguaro Furnace Music, copyright 2013, all rights reserved. Link to video follows: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzQKI5pO4iI

• Runes 2 – Runes takes its title from the old Norse alphabet used in writing, divination and magic. While they can be insightful, runes are seldom kind and more mysterious than not. Scored for assorted synthesizers, prepared piano, sampled metallics and altered water phone. Music composed and performed by Daniel Buckley. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• In the Wind – Work in progress for clarinet, oboe and wind chimes. Copyright 2013, Daniel Buckley Arts/Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

Skull sculpture by Patricia Shorty Gonzalez Silva

• Throw Down – Working on badly bent beats for the Jonestown Totentanzes. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved. Composed and performed By Daniel Buckley.

• Shhhhhhh! – A quiet piece for hand muted piano and solo strings, copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music. Sampleism’s Palm Mused Piano and 8DIO Adagio Strings used.

• Etude For Giant – Study for prepared piano using Native Instruments’ The Giant sample library. All rights reserved, Saguaro Furnace music, 2013.

• El Hombre en Sombre – Work in progress sketch for prepared piano, composed by Daniel Buckley for his Prevailing Westerlies series. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

• Club It – Composed by Daniel Buckley. Scored for prepared piano, drums and electronic percussion. Copyright 2013, Saguaro Furnace Music, all rights reserved.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Music, Jonestown progress, Slice of Life, Uncategorized
Tags: Ambient, Classical, dance music, Daniel Buckley, Electronic, Saguaro Furnace Music.

When you do a film like this one on how Tucson has been transformed by mariachis and folklorico dancers, things pop up along the way that you never would have expected.

People you had not heard of, who actually had key roles in the birth of the music and dance, materialize. And unexpected stories, better than anything you could make up, arrive because someone heard about what you’re doing.

Doing a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the film project does more than just provide seed money. It spreads word of the project, and gets news of it into the hands of people who have something to contribute to the story.

As the Kickstarter campaign winds down (it ends this Friday at 6 p.m. PDT/MST), I have been going through old photos I’ve shot of young mariachis over the years, some of whom are now in high school or beyond, to promote the project.

A photo I used to illustrate that we’re down to five days in the countdown featured a trio of young girls who, back a few years ago, were part of Mariachi Aguilitas de Davis Elementary School. The father of the girl on the left in the photo dropped me the following note.

”

June 16, 2013

Hi Mr. Buckley,
In your most recent photograph, “5 Days” (June 16, 2013), there are three little girls featured (they are now young women – all attending high school). The young woman on the left is my daughter, Nizhoni Camille Begay – currently residing in San Antonio, Texas – another hot spot for Mariachi music, tradition, and culture.

Nizhoni is half Navajo (Diné), one-quarter Mexican and one-quarter Peruvian. Nizhoni’s mother, Felicia, is originally from Tucson…and her maternal grandparents continue to reside there. I am 4/4 Navajo (her Dad) from Sawmill, Arizona (a community north of Ft. Defiance, and south of Canyon DeChelly, on the Navajo Nation). Her name translates as “beautiful”, in the Navajo language. To our knowledge, Nizhoni is the only Navajo (and perhaps the only Native American) performing Mariachi music in the United States.

Nizhoni got her start in Mariachi music with the legendary Mariachi los Aguilitas de Davis at the Davis Bilingual Magnet School in Tucson, under the guidance and mentorship of maestros, Alfredo Valenzuela and his son Jaime Valenzuela. In 2007, Nizhoni moved to San Antonio with her mother, and remained connected to mariachi music. More recently, she has expanded her musical repertoire to include Conjunto music, learning to play the diatonic accordion (buttons not keys).

In 2010, Nizhoni won 1st Place honors in the Middle School Category Vocal Competition category at the prestigious Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza (MVE). The following link is to a YouTube video of the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bppkG_s3Lw . The Navajo Times (the newspaper of the Navajo Nation) covered Nizhoni’s first place finish:
http://www.navajotimes.com/entertainment/people/2010/1210/121810mariachi.php .

Again, in 2012, Nizhoni won 1st Place honors, this time in the High School Vocal Competition category at the MVE (rarely do Freshman students win 1st Place at this event). The following link lists all Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza competition winners: http://www.mariachimusic.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=21&Itemid=116 . The following link is to a YouTube video of her performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgC34557TZE . The Navajo Times, again, highlighted Nizhoni’s 2012 First Place finish with the following article:
http://www.navajotimes.com/entertainment/2013/0113/010313niz.php .

This upcoming school year, Nizhoni will be a sophomore student at Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio. She is also a member of an all-star high school Mariachi group representing the City of San Antonio, Mariachi Corazon de San Antonio, http://www.mainplazaconservancy.org/254322.html . Nizhoni earned a place with “Corazon” through a competitive process that included a performance. This group takes pride in representing the city, and plans are in the making to perform at various venues across the country. In addition, University scholarship opportunities are associated with this honor. Nizhoni is also a member of the Madrigals, an elite choir of the Incarnate Word High School. I was invited to attend a rehearsal…I’ve seen high school football practices with less intensity. These young women are driven to excel, and they go about rehearsals with the energy and intensity of an athletic team.

Tucson has produced some legendary musicians…and continues to be a place for up-and-coming Mariachi talent to blossom. Qualities necessary to succeed in music, spill over into other areas of life, as I have witnessed with my daughter and her academic success. I am very proud of Nizhoni…and very grateful for the opportunities created by a community here in Tucson that has, for so many years, focused on the importance of the Mariachi culture…as expressed in the quality of music associated with the Mariachi school programs in the city.

Do not hesitate to contact me at 520/975-6479, or tommyb@u.arizona.edu, should you like more information, or have any questions. I will also be thinking of ways to assist you with getting additional funds to finish your project – an important story that needs to be told.

Sincerely,

– Tommy K. Begay”

• Somehow we will find a way to include her story in this film as well as it shows both how Tucson’s youth mariachi programs have been a launch pad for young musical talent, AND the diversity these programs cultivate. We see young Asians, Anglos, African Americans and others among the ranks of our mariachi groups and they too are helping to transform our communities, not just in Tucson but beyond.

  I am grateful to Mr. Begay and to all of the folks who have helped me see the picture from a broader perspective. Ultimately their valuable input will make for a much stronger story, and a stronger resulting film.

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Arts, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Arizona, conjunto, Daniel Buckley, folklorico, mariachi, Mexican, Mexico, Navajo, Nizhoni Camille Begay, Peruvian, Tucson

Become part of making this film a reality. Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1834268733/mariachis-transform-tucson-a-documentary

Selected endorsements from the mariachi and broader musical worlds

Linda Ronstadt with her dad, Gilbert Ronstadt

“Dan Buckley knows this material inside and out, backwards and forward.

He was on the scene when the Changuitos Feos and the first mariachi conferences began in Tucson and has had a chance to witness over a long period of time the positive effect it has had on aspiring youth in our communities.

I can’t think of anyone who could tell this important story with more authority and integrity.”

Linda Ronstadt

Joey Burns of Calexico

“The Mariachi music scene in Tucson Arizona has been a massive influence for me personally and with our music group Calexico. Daniel Buckley has been there consistently for so many years documenting, attending and helping bring people together in celebrating one of Tucson’s most cherished cultural and familial treasures. Let’s help Daniel and everyone make this film a testament to the love and appreciation for our community’s Mariachi heritage and tradition.”

Joey Burns, Calexico

Randy Carrillo, Mariachi Cobre

“I have known Dan professionally for close to 30 years. First while at the Tucson Citizen, as a music critic he covered Mariachi Cobre’s performances, TV appearances, recordings and tour with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops. He has covered the Tucson International Mariachi Conference since the beginning and chronicled many important collaborations. His idea of researching and documenting the birth and chronology of mariachi music and mariachi groups throughout the United States is an important and worthwhile musicological effort in which I support Dan.”

Randy Carrillo, Director, Mariachi Cobre

“As a member and advocate of the mariachi community in Tucson, it is refreshing to find an ally and voice in Daniel Buckley to tell our story. He genuinely feels a connection to the people whose stories must be told. He realizes an exceptional value that we Hispanics sometimes take for granted. It takes this sensitivity, this appreciation for cultural values that makes Daniel Buckley so gifted at documenting the most amazing aspects of our culture, our history, our accomplishments. His documentaries continue to honor our ancestors. Their story of sacrifice must be told and retold to re-enforce and preserve our human cultural values for future generations.”

Ruben Moreno, Mariachi Luz de Luna/mariachi educator

 For more on the film, go to:

Home page: http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/home/bios/daniel-buckley-documentary-maker/documentary-on-the-rise-of-the-mariachi-movement-in-tucson-begins/

Blog: http://www.danielbuckleyarts.com/category/mariachi-documentary/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Rise-of-the-Mariachi-Movement-in-Tucson-documentary/141036049384584?fref=ts

Posted in Cine Plaza progress, Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Uncategorized
Tags: Calexico, Daniel Buckley, Joey Burns, Linda Ronstadt, Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Luz de Luna, Randy Carrillo, Ruben Moreno

Emma and Leo Carrillo in 2004

The recent passing of Leo Carrillo set me thinking again about how important parents are in youth  mariachi and folklorico programs.

The sacrifices they make are countered by the joy that seeing their children fall in love with the music and dance of their culture brings.

I remember seeing Leo at Symphony Hall in Boston on the night Mariachi Cobre, with his sons Steve and Randy, made its debut with the Boston Pops. It was a moment that made both the musicians in the orchestra and the audience sit up and take notice that something extraordinary was coming to the symphonic world.

Leo was beaming. I doubt he was thinking of the many times he drove those kids to practice, and the numerous occasions when he and his wife, Emma, would chaperon out-of-town gigs. But that moment would never have happened without the many things they did for their boys.

Emma Carrillo once told me about how she would listen to Mariachi Vargas’ records and carefully transcribe the lyrics to the songs while her sons were in school. They did not speak Spanish at that time, so she had to teach them the words, the pronunciation, and what they meant.

Neither parent spoke with any sense that what they did was a chore. Clearly it was something they loved every second of.

I often ran into Leo and Emma at the Tucson International Mariachi Conference. They were dedicated fans of the music, whether Cobre was playing or not. They just loved the music and seeing the next group of kids coming along.

Over the years I have seen many special parents. The Carrillos and Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz – Mack’s parents – who were among the pioneers when Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos was the only youth mariachi in town. Eduardo Baca who has done so much to make Ballet Folklorico Tapatio flourish, along with Ralph and Mary Gonzalez whose unending support help Julie Gallego create another folklorico dynasty.

There are many more who I have run into in recent years – of Mexican and other cultural backgrounds – who have done so much to support their kids, and who in turn have become boosters of mariachi and folklorico programs in town. I hope to interview a number of them for the film and tell their stories of the joy it has brought them.

Leo’s passing and my own turning 60 on June 3 remind me of why making this film now is so critical. The “tall trees” of this community must be interviewed while they are still around, and while their memories are clear. My own physical limitations became very clear to me this year at the mariachi conference where lugging gear became more difficult this year than any year prior.

For more on The Mariachi Miracle go to http://www.mariachimiracle.com/.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Documentaries, Mariachi blog, Mariachi documentary, Slice of Life, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, Eduardo Baca, Emma Carrillo, Julie Gallego, Leo Carillo, Mack Ruiz, Mariachi Los Changuitos Feos, Mary Gonzalez, Ralph Gonzalez

When is a piano not a piano?

When it’s a prepared piano.

A prepared piano is typically a grand piano that has been either modified in some way or is being played using atypical methods.

One might prepare the piano by putting mutes, coins or bolts s into the strings. One might lay chains or paper on top of the strings, or reach inside to smack the frame with a mallet. Mallets might be used to strike the strings,  or one might use one’s finer to select the harmonics of a particular string. Sometime a metal bar is rolled along the strings to create sweeping glissandos. Even bows have been used on piano strings.

Amplification produces another sonic layer in the prepared piano world.

Putting a variety of such unusual techniques into practice on a single piano adds up to a prepared piano. And while one might go to great lengths to note the locations and types of preparations, no two are ever completely the same.

I’ve worked with a lot of sampled prepared piano libraries between the late 1980s and now, but none has completely satisfied me.

The original John Cage library issued by McGill University was a good first start. The range of sounds was excellent, and the sound quite good for its day. But you had to build your own keyboards, and there was no deep sampling of how things sounds at various gradations of touch.

A few more came along in the 16 bit era but none better than the Cage library.

The 24 bit era has seen several approaches, most recently the UVI IRCAM Prepared Piano Library. It had a wealth of intriguing sounds and a broad range of sampled sound production techniques. It also let one create custom layered sounds, But while it had some depth, it still lacked round robin triggering which could have made it substantially more versatile and believable.

Soniccouture has produced bowed and mallet pianos, and Vienna Symphonic Libraries has produced an excellent prepared piano library, albeit without round robins and requiring numerous instances to get a fuller range of sounds. And just recently a library of palm muted piano sounds came out for Kontakt from Sampleism.

Imagine my surprise at getting Native Instruments’ The Giant Kontakt sample library as part of its Komplete Ultimate package. I assumed it was an upright piano library until I started screwing around with it and discovered it had much more under the hood than mere upright piano sampled. There were strums and smacks of the soundboard, winding sounds, harmonics and much more. Long durations sounds and quick tones. Chimes and muted sounds. And it appeared that there was also a bit of round robin triggering to make sequential triggering of the same key result in something very realistic sounding.

The sample package is available as a stand-alone library for $99. It requires full Kontakt 5. But it includes far more than just prepared piano sounds. It may well be the most versatile upright piano sample library on the market.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Music, Jonestown progress, Uncategorized
Tags: Daniel Buckley, Ircam, Kontakt, Native Instruments, prepared piano, UVI

Buckley in Meteor Crater, Arizona, 1972

I came to the University of Arizona intending to study the geology of the moon.

And I did.

But what I came away with more importantly was a profound education that would impact the way I’ve thought about everything ever since.

One of the teachers I expected the least of and who taught me the most was a geochronologist named Terah Smiley.

Geochronology is the study of figuring out the time sequence of the earth, its strata and soils. It’s complex yet simple stuff.

I remember Dr. Smiley asking us what radiocarbon dating was. And we offered our answers, most centering on some permutation of the idea that one could determine the age of some carbon-based material by measuring the ratio of two carbon isotopes.

We came at it from every direction, and Smiley kept saying, “No.” It was a measurement of the two isotopes, one of us said. “No,” he again replied, puffing on his pipe. This went on for quite a while as we racked our brains to figure out what we could possibly have wrong.

Eventually we were stumped and fell silent.

“it’s what some scientist claims to have measured,” Smiley eventually revealed. He might be wrong in his measurement, or he might out and out have lied.

“You have to be skeptical,” he insisted. “Make them prove it. You have to independently verify those results.”

I watched Smiley make some of the best minds in geology squirm like 5 year olds at the weekly geology colloquia as they delivered their research papers. Not just students but acclaimed professors from around the world. Smiley had a way of cutting the crap that was impossible to walk away from unshaken if there was any weak point in your scientific argument.

It was one of those things I’ve carried with me throughout my life. It served me well when I was a journalist, as people lied to me outright or came to believe some fairy dust notions fairly routinely.

My own business of reviewing music was likewise highly subjective, and sometimes I would find myself thinking, “What would Dr. Smiley say about this?”

My days as a geologist were an integral part of how I reviewed concerts for the Tucson Citizen. It was all about relationships. How the sound came together in a sort of continuum of time and space. A landscape, of sorts, evolving before my ears.

Were there unconformities – places where the sound just didn’t come together for whatever reason. Did something happen to the music in a broadly architectural sense that made it go awry?

Of course a lot of my writing of music was also based on style and culture, but conceptually it was always instant geology in my mind.

As a composer I still write in geologic ways.

I had another professor whose name sadly escapes me. He taught crystallography, which was something I had no interest in whatsoever until I took his course.

In one lecture he spoke about impurities in minerals and what they really were. Most of us thought they might be dirt or some debris randomly distributed. But it was anything but random.

He spoke of how in some minerals the basic crystal structure would repeat itself, sometimes hundreds of thousands of times before a single atom of the so-called “Impurity” would drop into place. And then the structure would repeat itself again precisely that same number of repetitions before another single atom would drop in place, and on and on and on. It seemed impossible to imagine but he explained that the crystal had precipitated out over an extraordinary time and that each atom had found its exactly ideal distance from the rest based on such factors as gravity, charge and relative buoyancy. It was mind blowing stuff.

He also explained how these very complex structures that seemed numerically impossible could always be reduced to a series of simpler mathematical equations acting in tandem.

It was really beyond the grasp of my imagination, but it would form the basis of one of my own guiding ideas – that the impossible could always be broken down into many possible parts.

I love that I have that geological background within me. It gives me a sense of place and wonder everywhere I travel as I try to unravel what had happened in a geological sense as I pass various rock cuts along the highway or look out over mountains, valleys, rivers and the like. There’s always something more to discover.

I suspect it is a huge part of my fascination with photographing landscapes, which also manifests itself in video time lapse photography. In time lapse, the desert seems upside down and the river runs fluidly across the sky. I am as drawn to the sky and clouds as to the desert terrain and unique plant life.

Posted in Daniel Buckley Arts, Slice of Life, Uncategorized