Greetings, One & All~

Your August A 440 Newsletter is a cool and sweet mid-summer treat brimming with refreshing good news to help you beat the heat. Take a sip and enjoy!

Sound Power

On three consecutive evenings, August 22nd, 23rd and 24th, I’ll conduct workshops at world-renowned wellness and self-transformation destination Canyon Ranch in Tucson AZ as part of The Healing Power of Sound, a week-long series of events designed “to tune in to your authentic rhythm and voice and commit to living out loud from deeper within.”

Sacred Clay (Wednesday August 22nd at 7 PM in the Yoga Studio)

Using the udu (a ceramic drum that embodies earth, air, fire and water) participants ground themselves in the vibrations of the four elements.

Green Jaguar (Thursday August 23rd at 8 PM in the Yoga Studio)

Using the berimbau (Brazilian bow harp), the tongue drum (melodically tuned box drum) and the anklung (tuned Balinese bamboo rattles) participants renew and liberate the untamed creative spirit within them.

Silent Space (Friday August 24th at 7 PM in the Sanctuary)

Using the hang (melodically tuned metallophone), Tibetan bowls, chimes and Nepalese tingsha, participants explore the sound of silence and the beauty of space, integrating heartbeat, breathing and brainwaves with the harmonic oscillations of the instruments.

more info at
https://www.canyonranch.com/tucson/events/the-healing-power-of-sound/

Rhythmic ARC

My Rhythms of Recovery workshop at Acceptance Recovery Center in Scottsdale AZ was a hit with clients and staff, and a total delight for yours truly. ARC has posted some photos of our event on its website, where you can gain more insight into its programs.

https://www.acceptancerecoverycenter.com/photo-gallery/music-therapy-group/

Duo Dance

I’ve been back in the studio at Clamsville Productions with contemporary instrumental flute goddess Sherry Finzer recording, mixing and mastering the first four songs from our new Heart Dance Records duo project. These tracks will be released as singles, one per month on the last Fridays of August through November, in a build-up to the release of the full-length album. The first single Evening at Angkor Wat drops on Friday August 31st.

Somewhere New

Speaking of Heart Dance projects, the CD Somewhere New is being played on the world’s leading contemporary instrumental radio station Echoes by host John Diliberto. Yours truly brought a pan-global groove to seven of the twelve tracks featuring the aforementioned mystical multi-flutist Sherry Finzer, indigenous world flute avatar Mark Holland and scary-gifted pianist/guitarist Cory Edwards, among other stellar musicians.

listen at
www.echoes.org

Digital Jukebox

Shadow Chant is now available worldwide through CD Baby International Distribution, and will soon be available song-by-song on a Digital Jukebox website page that singer/songwriter/guitarist/flutist Leon Littlebird is creating for our music.

Near Horizon

Early September will find yours truly back in Colorado for two performances with Native American flute master and cultural icon R. Carlos Nakai: September 6th at 7:30 PM at the historic Sherbino Theater in Ridgway CO; and Saturday September 8th at 8 PM at the world-renowned TANK Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely CO. The TANK is the subject of a fascinating feature article in The New Yorker by music writer Alex Ross.

Sherbino info and tickets at:
https://sherbino.org/events/music/371-awakening-the-fire-r-carlos-nakai-and-will-clipman

TANK info and tickets at:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3570065

The New Yorker TANK article:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/24/a-water-tank-turned-music-venue

photo courtesy A’toka Arts Management

Far Horizon

It’s one of those tricks of vision that sometimes an event on the far horizon comes into focus more clearly than that which is right before our eyes. Such is the case with my appearance as Percussionist-in-Residence at the 2019 Solstice Flute Festival, which will take place in Midway UT on June 17-21, 2019. Stay tuned for more on this event.

photo courtesy Shery Christopher Photography

Poem of the Month

Perhaps because we have so few trees in the desert, losing even one feels like losing a family member. Your August Poem of the Month commemorates one of ours.

Offering

Little Aleppo. Original Yule.
I planted you at the winter solstice
and twelve years later at the summer solstice
had to cut you down.

Such high hopes. You’d come
from Syria, a welcome refugee
to join our towering grandfather tree
who’d graced our land for half a century.

But in this brutal heat and drought
you had no future. You flourished
for over a decade, lovingly watered and pruned.
You grew from four to six to more than ten feel tall,

your needles a startling alpine green
against the sapphire desert sky.
But in the end you hit rock-hard
caliche underneath the shallow soil,

and like the roots of two
mesquites before you, yours
could not quite penetrate to water’s depth.
Now the incense of your heartwood

perfumes our living room, precisely sawed
in foot-long logs. Next winter solstice
you’ll go up in fragrant smoke:
an offering. A prayer.

© Will Clipman 2018

Photo of the Month

Like our trees, our wild animals are part of our family here at Rancho Improvisoso. We thought we’d lost our javelina to a mountain lion, but after an absence of nearly a month Javierreturned recently, much to our delight. Shery got up close and personal for this welcome-home portrait, which she shares as your August Photo of the Month.

photo courtesy Shery Christopher Photography

~Be well and walk in beauty with a cool body~

Knowledge is what one knows; wisdom is how one uses what one knows.

~Guillaume Henri

Will Clipman
poet ~ percussionist ~ maskmaker ~ storyteller ~ performing artist ~ educator

www.willclipman.com
williamclipman@aol.com
www.facebook.com/willclipman
520.591.0776