Jay Harper on the Dharma and his Music
August 20, 2010 by max · Leave a Comment
Jay Harper is a songwriter/producer and the Creative Director of SunZoo Studios in South Florida. Jay’s song Lu Shan Cha is featured our album Dhamma Gita: Music of Young Practitioners Inspired by the Dhamma. In this podcast he explains his inspiration, his Dharma practice, and his music.
Jay says, “Lu Shan Cha is my interpretation of an incense prayer song that we sing at the St Dak Tong Buddhist temple where my wife Abi and I are students of Grand Master Sheng-Yen Lu. The monk who teaches at St Dak Tong – Fasi Lien Hum – taught us to sing it. I was so inspired by the song that I wrote this piece. We have learned so much from the Dharma teachings and one thing we know to be true is there is a gold mine inside of all of us, but we must tunnel deep into ourselves to claim our riches. Wealth is not of the pocket, it is of the heart and mind.”
Dharma Music Can Sound Like Anything
July 16, 2010 by Mike · Leave a Comment
Dhamma Gita artist, Ravenna Michalsen, is featured in a podcast interview on Personal Life Media. She explains why dharma music need not sound the way we think it should (think monks chanting in Asian in a cave).
Listen to the podcast or read the transcript here:
http://personallifemedia.com/podcasts/236-buddhist-geeks/episodes/48011-dharma-music-sound-like
Artist Lucky Vita’s Dharma Inspiration
July 13, 2010 by Mike · Leave a Comment
Lucky Vita is an audio/visual alchemist from San Francisco, California. Music and film are his lifelong creative passions, and they are deeply affected by his spirituality. He works primarily in collaboration with other musical performers, making music videos and recordings of live performances. Lucky is one of the 14 artists featured on Dhamma Gita: Music of Young Practitioners Inspired by The Dhamma.
Lucky recently spoke with More Than Sound about how his practice inspires and influences his creative projects.
Young Burmese Nuns Chanting Their Lessons
In 2005 I was a part of a recording project in Burma. The goal of the trip was to document older monks, nuns, and lay people describing their meditation experiences. We called this The Wisdom Preservation Project. The vast majority of those recordings were in Burmese and have yet to be translated. Happily, we were able to record many jewels of wisdom for posterity before the these elder practitioners passed on (some of them have already).
Throughout this trip we stayed in monasteries and retreat centers and so I had the good fortune to record some young nuns as they were studying their lessons. Chanting is used as a memorization technique. Part of the training of Theravadan monks and nuns includes not dancing, singing, or making/listening to music or any kind of entertainment show. So, while they don’t think of this chanting as music, there is voice and rhythm. Though this is a more traditional Buddhist context than Dhamma Gita, they are both young people are using sound and Dhamma together. Here are the nuns and their chanting:
