I went to a great party this past weekend in Victoria.  I’m fairly new to this city and have been having a hard time sometimes integrating socially.  I’m the type of person who makes a definite effort to reach out to other people, but I had been finding that the same spirit wasn’t fully being returned to me by others.

Then I went to this event where a number of people reached out in small ways to me.  And I am very grateful for this.  One sparkly young woman walked up to me and presented me with a small mesh bag, indicating that I was to reach inside and take the little piece of paper.  This paper contained some beautiful words that were warming to my heart (see picture above).

This little piece of paper and the action behind it got me to thinking about intentional dance culture and what it means to me.  I realized that it is the first culture with any meaning and depth to it that I have been a part of.

I first discovered this culture at age 15 and before that the only culture that had ever been offered to me was the culture of mainstream North America where meaning is supposed to be found in television, fast food, competition, etc.  I think this is a big part of why I continue to be drawn to intentional dance culture: because it played a major role in me discovering what’s important to me.  I am very grateful for this and I strive to give back to the community.

Especially for the fully conscious youth in the parts of the world where this culture can be found, I think it is vital.  It is vital to those young people like myself who otherwise would not know a culture with any true depth to it.

I spent this past weekend making some experimental hip hop with a very good, old friend.  Whenever we get together to make some tunes we invariably end up talking about music almost as much as making it.  We both are super passionate about the topic and have lots of thoughts about it.

We were talking about the various musical cultures around the world and sharing our thoughts on what we feel are the unique contributions of these cultures to music as a whole on this planet.  We both feel that western music has contributed a lot in terms of harmony and orchestration.  Places like India and Africa, among other things, have contributed a lot in terms of rhythm/percussion.  Western music is still in rhythmic kindergarten when compared with these cultures.

We both feel that electronic music has become an important component of the world’s musical pallet.  Where we were once limited to the sounds that could be made by instruments constructed out of wood, metal, bone, etc, a computer with the right software provides an absolutely endless organic salad bar of sounds and arrangements.  With the right computer and software combination you can do almost anything you can think of.

You can combine a hundred different human voices and make an instrument out of these that you can play on your keyboard.  You can record drops of water falling onto various surfaces and play an intricate percussive pattern with the sounds.  It’s endless.

Is music history being made?

- Oliver Giving