Music Notes & Events:

Chamber Music for Guitar with the JH Symphony

"The Alliance" video released

"Hoot in the Hole" video released

"Cable to the Sky" video released

YouTube.com, "Old Tyme Holiday Celebration & Ice Show"

Pending: "Spring Concert at the Museum of Wildlife Art"

Pending: "Byron's annual Birthday Concert 28^th June

Byron Paul Tomingas has appeared as soloist, with chamber groups and Symphonic Orchestras on stage, live radio and as the feature in more than 20 Public Broadcast television productions.  Instructor to multiple thousands of students and Composer of award winning film scores Tomingas has received such concert reviews as: “Enchanted Animation,” “Brilliant,” “Splendid Musicality” for his Classical and Originals concerts.  

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Byron only plays Jose Oribe guitars in concert by preferrence, not by contract, concession or special arrangement.  Tomingas has stated: “Oribe guitars are the Holy Grail of the Luthier’s craft, living, breathing creatures with gorgeous personalities”.      

My Oribe Guitar by Byron Tomingas (a typical Tomingas long winded account)

When I finally saw the light and went to a serious music school to learn what it was that had enchanted me from birth, I arrived in downtown Los Angeles California from a small town in Wyoming which was quite a culture shock.  I now say that Southern California is a great place to go learn things. Unfortunately, you also learn a lot of things you really didn’t want to know; still I wouldn’t exchange that growing experience.  There were great talents that befriended me and we were all caught up in the heady excitement of rapid progress in skill, knowledge and testing the power of being able to change the world with our ideas and actions. 

When this kid from a town of 1000 in Wyoming arrived in downtown Los Angeles at California Institute of the Arts, more of a collection of schools such as; Music, Theater, Dance, Film and Fine Art, I could play Chet Atkins style renderings of several songs, including the one I auditioned with, “Yesterday” by Lennon & McCartney.  They were not impressed as I couldn’t read music and knew nothing about theory, music history and certainly couldn’t play a note of classical music and I was duly mortified and humbled, I’ve always been a little sensitive, well okay, a lot sensitive. 

I had always played a lot, 5 hours was a minimum, not because I felt compelled to, but simply because I enjoyed the act of making music and inventing new combinations.  Beautifully shaped sensual notes contrasted with high-energy exuberance, I come alive when rendering those moments.  My first guitar had been a steel string and I did indeed make my finger tips bleed with that one and often had a bandage on the end of my middle finger.  Prior to going to a music college, the longest I ever sat was 17 hours just dreaming away with my guitar, and I fell asleep playing as I often did, I just had to try one more thing.  Unfortunately, I don’t have that passion about playing in public, it’s a lot of fun to get others excited about the music but not what I live for, I tend to hide out instead probably a side effect from the overly sensitive side of me.  In truth, I would rather not be noticed at all, but that’s not an option in the field I’m in, so the end result is that it’s hard to get me out there.  I have the same passion about long walks in the mountains with my pups; I revel in high alpine meadows and I just have to see what’s over that ridge or around that knoll, I often have walk back miles in the dark.  The smooth elegance of Figure skating also gives me that thrill that takes you to a place beyond mortal existence and I always ache to skate just a little longer to get one more perfectly smooth, turn.  Truly though, the only comparison with making music is a passionate partner who adores you, unfortunately they can be a bit more demanding and troublesome than mountains or a guitar.

Jose Oribe & Byron Tomingas

2007

Photo by Juanita Oribe

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On my birthday, June 28th I gave a free concert as a thank you to all those who share their musical enthusiasm with this kid. Many of them are gone, but not for me, I still hear Stippy's mischeif in my music, nearly every chord I play makes me think of kind Marc Schupman who taught me the single most import facet of guitar understanding, how chords work up and down the neck. When I enjoy a symphonic work I always think of the Schulers who took me to my first classical concert at Grand Teton Lodge and how they loved music. When I get up in front of people I always think of gentle Ellie Sines who believed in me when I was just beginning in this field.

There were also all the terrific professional performers Dave Yeary, Bernie Waters, Bill Choat, Rusty Draper, Ellie Sines and so many others who would play at the Wort Hotel and I would stand just outside the bar in the lobby when I was about 14 and listen all night.

."Byron's Birthday Concert" Program Notes:

REDWING / STARS & STRIPES

For my Dad and my oldest Brother Robby

I was fortunate; I was raised in a family that loved music making.  One of my fondest moments as a child, was to see my father get together with his brothers.  These uniquely talented men who were normally, very quiet, very polite, enormously intelligent but difficult to know as they were so reserved, would suddenly transform with instruments in their hands, coming alive with shouts of laughter and uproar, yelling “Let’s shoot another tune!” and they would launch into “Turkey in the Straw” or some other Tomingas favorite like “Redwing”.  All four of them were close enough in age so they had a Barn Dance Band in Gillette WY with fiddles, guitars, banjo’s and mandolin’s when they were still teens, in their later years, they had reunions and made uproarious music into the wee hours. 

My Mom went to school here and sang in a girls quartet, wonderful “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” sort of things.  She has a beautiful singing voice and I always loved the days she would be humming little parts of songs.

My brother Henry would play guitar and our oldest brother Robby would play Mandolin and they won lots of contests playing “Under the Double Eagle” as Robby could really fly double picking.  In fact, it was Robby that was the musical prodigy, certainly not me, my brother Henry was the creative one, I was so shy that even today you can’t get me out very often; Robby was easily the best of us all.  Robby’s main instrument was Trumpet, he could triple tongue at 10 years old and played “Buglers Holiday” as one of the soloists with the High School band when he was only eleven.  I still see him playing on the gymnasium floor with the band and can hear the song as clearly as if I had just heard it a minute ago.  However, Robbie’s life and dreams of having a band like Harry James was not to be, two years before the Polio vaccine came out, Robby succumbed to the terrible thing that it was.  My family was devastated; he was only 12 years old.  Music became so painful to everyone that pretty soon all the instruments left the house and music simply stopped. Years later, my brother Henry came to the rescue.

Redwing is for my Dad and his brothers’ musical adventures and it is merged with the great marching song, Stars and Stripes which always reminds’ me of my oldest brother Robby and how he could fly musically.

NASHVILLE RAMBLER by Tomingas

For Marc Schupman, guitarist & good guy

This composition was written for a documentary film that went on to win awards and has become required viewing at all California schools.  It was called the Bountiful Harvest of Steinbeck Country and tracked the growing and delivery of all the food grown in the Salinas Valley.  The work uses some of the knowledge of chords that I learned from Marc Schupman as does nearly every song I arrange or compose.

When I first started playing guitar, my Mom arranged for guitar lessons from Marc Schupman.  I used to carry my guitar (no case) down the road to Marc’s house all one winter and then he would try to find something to teach me.  I was not a very good student, I wanted to play that new thing called “Rock n Roll”, Marc played Country music which I didn’t have any interest in, that was adult music.  But he still wound up teaching me the single most valuable thing I ever learned in guitar, how chords work.  He showed me that all Barre Chords were simply the first position chords slid up the neck and re-fingered to cover the open strings.  It was a revelation, but I was so shy and retiring that I’m certain he never knew what a big deal this was to me but it was a major milestone.  From then on, every single note riff I would learn, I would try to turn it into complete chord transitions.

I remember my brother and I talking in awe about Marc and what a great guitar player was, how he knew exactly which string his pick was on at every moment.  Marc was a young man at the time, his children were very young, he was handsome, very athletic with a build that body builder would envy, a terrific quick smile and an incredible amount of energy and enthusiasm.  I still remember him clearly sitting in his small office with a Fender Piggy Back amplifier, a Chet Atkins Gretch guitar, one of the red ones.  I looked at that whole setup, it was perfect, even though he had married very young, he had created through hard work and great dedication a perfect situation and there was no doubt what so ever, he loved his family and loved providing for them and still had the energy to pursue his love of music, it was an admirable accomplishment by a wonderful guy. 

BULLDOG & HONKY TONK

For my brother Henry who brought the music back to us

My brother Henry is 6 years older and when he went to college he came home with a guitar. He had a roommate Tucker Smith who is now a famous artist but Tucker was also a terrific guitar player and my brother got interested in playing again. Folk music was in full swing with the Kingston Trio, Limelighters and Peter, Paul & Mary. My brother had also been concerned because I wasn’t interested in anything, didn’t want to be seen, I was withdrawing, I had always had my dog to hang out with but when I was 14, his time came and he died.  So my brother started gathering up our loaned out instruments and came up with even more, including “Electric Guitars”. Even my Dad got interested again, and my Mom started trying to help me pursue this interest. As I had always loved music, I guess it was natural enough that it finally took hold, maybe too much, most days I played at least five hours and often it stretched to ten, simply because I wanted to try doing it this way or that, or smooth this part and fix that part, polish this, find something new, I didn’t know much, but I knew those little bits inside and out.

The songs that were the technical monsters of the day were Bulldog by the Fireballs and Honky Tonk.   Honky Tonk was way beyond my brother or me but we could just squeak out a version of Bulldog that was acceptable.  My brother would go off to college and I would stay home and practice so pretty soon we switched around whom got to play the leads.  He kept after me to start a band and so finally I did.  Vic Lindeburg was my friend so he became the drummer, but I needed a rhythm guitarist so my brother’s plan turned around on him and he had to also stand up in front of everybody and try to play these songs whenever he was in town, scared all three of us to death but everybody seemed to really like our songs.

My brother is famous for being the first to run the Snake River Canyon and first to commercially float it; Kahuna, Champagne and Lunch Counter belong to Henry and bear the names he gave them. But more important to me, my brother is famous for bringing music back into our family.

The photo is the “Teton Rocks” 40 years later: Henry, Vic & Byron

SWEET GEORGIA BROWN

Dedicated to Stippy Wolff

In the 1940’s, when my Dad and Mom were first married, riding a blue Indian motorcycle with a slick sidecar and raising my two older brothers, they lived and worked at the Elk Ranch near the upper entrance to Grand Teton National Park.  One of their neighbors and close friends was Stippy Wolff, guitarist & fiddle player.

photo of Stippy courtesy of Greg Keckler, Cowboy singer/guitarist

When I was born, my parents moved into the town of Jackson, in fact I was born on the very spot where this concert is being held, June 28th at 6:30 pm.  The magnificent 3 story log building that was the old St. John’s Hospital used to stand on this same piece of property so it is a great privilege to be able to give a concert here and open the many musical presents that have been given to me by wonderful people who had passion for music and were kind enough to share it with me.

I remember many times when Stippy would come to town and bring his guitar, huge grin and boundless enthusiasm.  I think he is the only person that loved “making” music and teasing with it as much as I do.  He would pull out his guitar, look at me and say “Are ya Red-Eye?” (“ready”, he teased with both words and music) and then we would tear into Sweet Georgia Brown.  I really struggled trying to keep up on all those chords as he would fly through this difficult song.  I would like to think that the fun in my music was greatly influenced by wonderful Stippy Wolff

MALAGUENA

Dedicated to Dick Barker,

This is one of the most impressive compositions ever placed on a guitar.  Like Greensleeves, it was crafted by many gifted hands.  One of the best versions was by the great Flamenco master Sabicas; you can find a video of him playing this on the Internet.  His version is considered the definitive standard for guitar.  Many other people have played and recorded this song but it’s hard to best Sabicas, usually it’s greatly simplified by comparison, elements are left out that were too difficult or obscure, however the song is so strong that it still stirs people into a frenzy even in its simplest form. 

When I was growing up in the small 1000 person town of Jackson Wyoming, there were a few good guitarists around like Karle Johnson and Ray Weeks, however they usually played Country and Western; I being in my early teens was into Rock ‘n’ Roll and Chet Atkins style of guitar playing.  There was one fellow though who played something different, lots of finger picking and on an acoustic guitar, not a F hole archtop cowboy guitar like everyone else played (including me).  I recall that the rhythm guitarist in my Rock band heard him accompany a girl singer with his fancy finger picking and said it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.  My mom signed me up for some “finger-picking” banjo lessons at his music shop but he was about to change professions and become one of the most successful river trip operators in Jackson so we bartered for some new strings instead.  However, this “finger picking” guitarist also did a version of Malaguena and stirred the hearts and imaginations of all who heard him play it as he now does today with his story songs at the Hootenanny.  His son told me one the things that he most admired his Dad for was Malaguena.  So, I’m doing this song as one of the musical presents I, and many other people in Jackson, got from Dick Barker.

Now in most songs, the trebles normally get all the good solo’s and glory; the basses are usually confined to support the melody rather than getting to play with it.  But, in my version of this song, the basses are fed up with the arrogant trebles and won’t play second fiddle anymore. 

The trebles demonstrate their ability first in the most recognizable part of the song, suddenly the basses jump in and do a version, the trebles then rise to the challenge and add more tricky elements, a two finger tremolo, into the theme.  The basses in their turn match the addition and show how effective they can play it an octave lower.  The trebles start to tremble and move the competition up another knotch by adding a three finger tremolo to the solo plus a few “hammer/pull off” slurs finishing with harmonics.  The basses however respond with a duple arpeggio and flourish with harmonics to end this round of the competition.  We then turn to the other major theme of the song, at the end of which, the trebles come up with a new rendering of the theme in the high registers.  The basses seem to stall around, are they defeated or maybe it’s just a tease before the grand slam….. dare I say - “stay tuned”….. ouch.

Interestingly, at least to me, I never really learned this song, there’s a couple of these compositions like the Spanish Romance, or Greensleeves that I never spent any time on in the normal sense of learning them but somehow through their popularity and familiarity I seem to be able to assemble all the bits and pieces that make them up.  For this concert however, I have experimented with the work and found a couple of new ideas that I hope you will enjoy.  The Malaguena is from Malaga Spain and is one of the dances from that region; this version is loosely based on the composition by Alexander Lecuona.  If you ever hear a Piano version of this work, you might notice a high emotional similarity with Franz Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody #2 or the Paganini Variations. 

That's Dick & Barbara Barker on the far left......

YouTube Video of Dick

WALK DON'T RUN

For all of my Band Pals; Henry Tomingas, Vic Lindeburg, Jim Moran, Bob Steen, Dennis Green, Pat Woodward, Riley Wise, Bob Weber, Ding, Art Thayer and many more that popped in and out....

My generation was a tween, we were between the Everly Brothers and the Beatles.  The Ventures played instrumental, electric, Rock and Roll and that’s what my band was modeled after.  The song I most admired at the time was “Walk Don’t Run” the Johnny Smith Jazz tune but as played by the Ventures, Rock style. 

The music came from 78 & 45 RPM records, I would put the phonograph needle on, listen for the first note or the next note and then take the needle off and start looking for it on my guitar while holding that note in my head, I spent enormous amounts of time doing this and by doing so, learned many Chet Atkins arrangements, all the parts, bass, drums, rhythm leads, to all of the Rock songs my band played.  Small tape recorders, walkmans, cell phones, computers, effect boxes, none of that existed then, we didn’t even have black and white television in this valley until I was in High School.  And yet, in the time honored tradition of generations, we were the new kids on the block, and rapidly pushing the older generation aside and then it was our turn.

Every night I would take my portable radio downstairs to bed, it was the beginning of the high tech marvels of our generation, it had the newly invented transistors and ran on small batteries rather than having to be plugged in, and that was a revelation.  And, it picked up the only Rock station we could get in mountainous Jackson Hole, small town of 1000 people, KOMA in Oklahoma City, but only after they boosted their signal to 50,000 watts between 8pm and midnight. Wipe Out, Apache, Sleep Walk, my generation, my songs. The Roaring Reddogs band always advertised where they were playing, I thought, “Boy, that’s cool, it would be the tops to be on KOMA”.   My transistor radio can still bring in KOMA today, that’s quite a lifespan. 

My pal Vic Lindeburg offered to learn drums, I had joined the High School Band as a percussionist to learn to read music and how to play drums.  Kind hearted Dave Yeary who had been famous twice as a singer had an old snare drum he donated to our cause, Clay Taylor brought over two copper colored sparkle flake true electric guitars and a huge Silvertone Piggy Back amplifier, but for all of its impressive size, it had almost no volume as the tubes were all worn out and needed replacing.  I found a bass drum foot pedal & broken cymbal in the school band junk pile and then arranged to borrow the drums I didn’t have, Louie Dopyera of Dobro Resonator fame summered in Jackson and heard of my interest and gave me a guitar pickup and some other parts and finally, there was enough for the first band.

My brother now says “be careful of what you want, because you might get it.”  He got that from pushing me, saying that I ought to go play at the Church dances, it backfired on him. After I set an event up he realized, he had to play rhythm guitar in front of all those people. 

Although he felt better about it when Vic and I collided together as I remembered I needed an extension chord and whipped around and he was following right behind at a run.

We played Wipe Out, Sleep Walk and Bulldog.  We had to repeat because our audience of teens had never heard a live Rock band before and they actually liked it!  My brother went off to college and a new guy from Montana joined, Jim Moran, then he left, we had some other people along the way but then Bob Steen and Dennis Green stayed, but then Vic got called to duty in Vietnam, so Bob Weber joined us.  This group was together the longest and played everywhere, including Pinedale, Dubois, and quite often here at the Episcopal Church, they had modern buildings on this site at that time. Then Weber got the military service call and I located someone we called Ding from Rock River, WY, then Art Thayer from Riverton joined and we became the Fabulous Fugitives.  One of the essential people that should have been a member was Karl Linquist, he owned the electronics shop and every Friday afternoon as we setup to play a dance, some capacitor or something would blow out and I would cut out the blackest parts and run down there and he would try to figure a replacement part that would work, I would go back and solder it in.  That amplifier still works perfectly today!

*We would call a Police department in some town to find out who had a hall where we could hold a dance. We always tried to talk Bob Steen into handling that part as he was a businessman even when he was sophomore in High School, looked the part, talked the part, that was what he was going to do and indeed did!  He would start off with something like “Well, I’ve got these boys that put on a good show….” We would put up a damage bond, hire a policeman or two, put up ads on the local radio stations and try to find someone to put up posters.  And even with that hodgepodge method, we never failed to have capacity crowds. Big Dave Edmiston was a favorite ticket taker/bouncer, he was good guy that we could trust and nobody in their right mind would ever tackle him. 

We went to Denver to make our fame and fortune and through a significantly hilarious series of disasters we managed to nearly starve to death, barely stave off a gang rumble, police arrests, epileptic fits of our new drummer, we looked and acted too conservative and while our music was thrilling, we were in a state of total embarrassment as we had junk equipment that I mostly built from old Jukeboxes and light shows with old switches and tape, the bands we were competing with were using the biggest and best equipment, we looked like hicks from the sticks and we knew it.  So after a month we limped home. 

However, we played all over Wyoming and it was always capacity crowds and they seemed to love us and wondered why we weren’t in California making our fame and fortune.  The band was tight and could do new songs on the spot, we had choreography organized so we could choose different cool dance step combinations with each song; we started at 8 sharp and played steady with only one fifteen minute break until midnight and did not repeat a song.  We didn’t know it when our last dance came; it was a huge crowd in a huge auditorium, we sounded great, girls were taking our autographs, and to top it all, while driving to play the event, we even heard the ad I placed on KOMA radio at 50,000 watts “the Fabulous Fugitives are playing in Riverton, WY” and at the end of the night, we all went our separate ways and on to our lives that were to be.

MIZRAHI COMPOSITE by Tomingas

For MORRIS MIZRAHI, a Passionate Guitarist

My degree is from California Institute of the Arts, an interesting concept as a college.  A creative personage no less than Walt Disney envisioned a campus that embraced all the arts, where they could mingle and share creative treasures.  So he built a new college which was on an exciting, uncharted adventure, they hired the top performers as teachers and it attracted an odd collection of students with extreme personality spikes in several directions such as brilliantly talented in creative arts and socially inept.  But the mix of so much new adventure and brilliant minds created a heady atmosphere for those of us making leaps and bound in knowledge and ability.  There was one that certainly stood out from the crowd, he showed up with a Ramirez Flamenco guitar and had lived in the caves of Spain with the Gypsies for five years learning how to play it.  He was now fully engaged in being a great classical guitar performer, the infectious passion and enthusiasm he had for his instrument was magnetic.  The first thing I heard him play was Flamenco; I had never heard that style before with its wild dissonant tension and exuberance mixed with Oriental scales, and great passion.  This was a completely new sound for me.  Whenever we saw each other, the first words were “what are you working on?”  We didn’t even greet each other, it was so much fun to see and share the latest musical adventure.  We could be in a hallway, a staircase or a street corner or a restaurant, and Morrie would whip out his guitar and play as much he could of some new song, say Danza Pomposa, then I would play as much as I had of something like the Bourree in E minor by Bach, and in doing so we recharged our energies and would put even more passion into our playing.  I can still vividly see his stubby but very capable fingers playing Danza Pomposa and the sustained scale run in A minor which he shared and I use in several songs today. We also had great conversations about the String Quartets of Schuman, Brahms and Beethoven plus the latest Beatles tunes, the movie 2001, Jobim and in reverent tones about the holy grail of concert guitars, the Oribe. 

Morrie and I played a lot of solo concerts individually at Cal-Arts but only once played a guitar quartet together.  It was a very odd piece, very modern, made up of rules as the four of us looked it over, I noticed that the composer had made a set of rules to say you can do whatever you want, well I said it was an odd piece and very modern.  It was called “On the Bus”, so Morrie, who by then had sold his Ramirez and bought a concert Oribe guitar, decided to be the driver of the bus and with his tongue firmly in his cheek, he simply held his guitar and never played a note.  I chose to randomly hammer away at the fret board with both hands like a piano, as I said previously about odd….

In any case, Morrie and I had a good time “playing” in front of audiences but that was the only one we got to do something together.  Most of the time when we were doing ensemble concerts, we were paired with players who struggled in front of an audience, Morrie and I were terrible sight readers but we could always be relied on to get the notes out when it counted.  While we were completely different personalities, we both still ran equally wide of accepted standards of background (I was a Rocker and he a Flamenco player) and acceptance of musical rules except when it came to putting on a solid classical concert, and there we both excelled. Then Morrie and I graduated and the door closed on that era.  I moved to Monterey CA and Morrie to Malibu CA and we both started pursuing our career.  A few years later, he played a concert in Santa Cruz which was nearby, so I went and saw that, and just as we knew he could, the audience found his emotion and passion for the music and rose to a wonderful standing ovation with shouts of Bravo, we had a good time reminiscing.  Then nothing, years past and I didn’t hear of him and started wondering what happened.  Last year I went to see my guitar maker Jose Oribe and happened to ask about Morrie as Morrie was every bit as enthusiastic about Oribe guitars as I.  Oribe told me that Morrie didn’t exist anymore, while it was sad for me, I felt even worse for all those people who would have loved to hear Morrie play with panache and enthusiasm, all of us lost a great musical treasure when Morrie died. 

So, I wrote this song or rather composite for my friend.  I called it a composite because it has cameo appearances of some of the compositions Morrie and I worked on at college and other influences of the time.  They pop in every now and then wrapped in the style of what I heard Morrie play first, Flamenco.  Now, I don’t play true Flamenco, (never lived in the caves of Spain) but my hands know some of the techniques and I’m familiar with the rhythms so the effect is similar as it provides the base around which the little excerpts of other songs and studies appear.  It has an ad lib nature and is therefore different every time it’s played which makes it a little dangerous to perform, Morrie would like that.

People should know about this special person that lived life with gusto and passion, the music world is certainly not as vibrant as it could be if Morrie was still playing his Oribe.  My playing shows influences of my friend Morris Mizrahi, an extraordinary guitarist.

Canarios by Gaspar Sanz

Arranged for the modern guitar by Tomingas

Canarios refers to the Canary Islands off of Spain. Gaspar Sanz wrote this in about the mid 1600's for the much smaller instrument of the day, the Vihuella.

(See a picture of a Vihuella by Stradivari)

I dedicated this to the Schulers who were kind enough to take this kid to my first symphonic concert at Jackson Lake Lodge. I remember George getting so excited and bouncing around at one magnificent moment in the concert, he leaned over and whispered "I just love that part". For me it was such a huge torent of sound that it flooded my senses and I couldn't grasp anything. I remember thinking "I hope I can someday catch the flow of this music like George"

‘

Twas a dark and stormy day, February in Jackson Hole, the height of winter was upon us with hazardous weather advisories, closed roads and airports, low visibility, cold weather and a blizzard blowing.  And yet, they came, the lovely Concert Hall filled up with enthusiasts who tolerated a half hour delay, a long concert of over an hour and a half and still they cheered, applauded, whistled with shouts of bravo while standing and calling for an ovation.  This turns out to be my debut return to the concert stage after a decade and a half as well as the debut of my new Grand Concert Oribe.  The event was in a perfect concert hall with wonderful people who loved music making this the most satisfying and enjoyable concerts of my entire career.

Museum Concert Program Notes.

Arranged by B. P. Tomingas

Dedicated to Grandmother Emma Kinna~Tomingas & my Mom, Hailie Morrison~Tomingas

Key of A minor         

During the reign of the last Tsar, Emma Matilda Kinna was a very young girl growing up in Saint Petersburg Russia; she lived near the Hermitage Museum in some degree of elegance for she was well educated and wore many beautiful dresses. In the winters, Emma and her mother Tiina would often ice skate on the frozen Neva River. Emma spoke many languages and could write in several as well, she was a budding horticulturist and loved to play the organ. There is a mystery about this bit of history for Emma, her mother and father were Estonian, Russia at that time despised Estonians and worked very hard to subjugate the little country and created many Russian laws to restrict Estonian rights and attempted to make them second class citizens. A few years earlier, Ukrainian poet Yevhen Hrebinka (1812-1848) composed the poem Oche Chyërnia in St. Petersburg, Russia after falling in love with some un-named dark-eyed beauty, The poem was later set to music by an unknown composer, or perhaps it was just new words for an ancient Russian folk song.

However, the Russian Revolution was on the verge of exploding, so Tiina’s brothers boldly kidnapped Tiina and Emma from Russia and took them to Canada.  There, life changed drastically, they lived on a farm with all the hardship that farming in the cold north can bring.  Emma met another displaced Estonian, a handsome man that she had read about in underground Estonian newspapers, a leader of Esti freedom fighters with a Russian price on his head who was nearly captured, wounded in his escape and hid out in the forest through one entire winter with his cousin.  They too, then made their way to Canada and Jaan met Emma and they married.  They built a home for themselves in Gillette Wyoming and farmed while raising their eight wonderfully gifted children.  The one luxury that Emma managed to save was an organ that was played by pumping air into it with pedals.  There was a flood one spring and the entire house floated away, however the organ was again saved.  The organ is still in the family line.

Emma, on quiet nights, when chores were done, way out in lonely plains of Wyoming, would sit down at her organ and play songs of her childhood.  Her children became musical as well, but they went their own way playing modern barn dance music with fiddles, mandolins, guitars and banjos. When Emma’s children married, one of her sons’ spouses, Hallie could sing beautifully so in about 1939, Emma taught Hallie the words to several songs in Russian, the favorite was the Russian ballad, “Oche Chyërnia”. This has become one of those beloved songs like Greensleeves that rather than being crafted by a single person, “evolved” through many loving hands. 

When I was a very small child there were two songs that touched me deeply and continue to do so to this day, one was Oche Chyërnia and the other the Brahms Hungarian Dance number 5.  Beyond their elegance and energy, they have a common ground in accelerating rhythm structures that have always excited me beyond words, add glorious melodies and simple harmonies, the result is, I am passionate about these songs and so it has been one of my greatest pleasures to render this instrumental arrangement of Oche Chyërnia that embodies so much of who I am, it offers all of the emotions, sensitivity, excitement and lets me take extreme risks in the hopes of breathing emotion into this moment of time we all share.

Dark Eyes Video by Tomingas

I would very much like to think that my grandmother Emma Matilda Kinna/Tomingas would enjoy my arrangement and fortunately I already know that my Mother Hallie loves this rendering and she still remembers the words in Russian.  So, I now offer it to you in the hopes you too can be swept into the magical flow of “Oche Chyërnia” which means of course, “Dark Eyes”.

Composition by B. P. Tomingas

In the Key of E minor composed mostly during 1995 assembling earlier musical fragments from 1968-71 and recent “renovations” in 2007

This composition speaks to the journey of life and loss.  Its first percussive notes are not about the notes struck but the sympathetic ones that resonate afterward.  This life story starts as a small flicker of light that grows to dazzle and charm, comfort and warm then the exhilarating passage of time with overflowing joy followed by the inexorable decline and steadfast march towards the end.  An E minor with a suspended 2nd sounds the toll.  The heart shatters and plays its melody of ache.  The melody loses its way but somehow wandering lost and alone, the melody emerges at the highest point of the fret board, indeed, right back where after the long sinuous stream of time had passed, life had begun.

Boo’s Requiem was composed specifically for my son, a large German Shepherd dog, bi-color named Khyber (Boo), my friend, the ever watchful, the ever diligent. Khyber (Boo) was a 125 pound giant, mostly black with yellow eyes, tan forelegs, very capable, very confident, very dedicated and yet very calm. And when he stood on his back legs he was taller than me!  Khyber was a huge part of raising my daughter, he was her guardian, her friend, and he taught decency, honesty, humor, dignity and dedication.  When we would go for walks and meet people, Boo was perfect, friendly yet reserved and inevitably without being obtrusive, almost by magic, he was always standing between my daughter and whomever we had met as if it were a completely casual occurrence. 

He was my trainer, my confidence, my pride, keeping me on schedule, ensuring that we had our daily hour or two runs, sometimes twice a day often at night in the forest.  He was my eyes, my early alert, my right arm, my sensibility.  Together we were a very strong team.  His loss still hurt me very deeply, just like loosing a loved family member or a part of your body.  I still find it difficult to perform this work and rarely perform it in public

  My friend, my son, Khyber (Boo) and me,

he was asking to go kayaking with me….

Composed by B. P. Tomingas & Oribe68

Key of E, Composed in 2006 in honor of my cherished 1968 Oribe Flamenco guitar

The story of this composition has more to do with the story of my wonderful companion of so many years generating magical moments of soaring emotional journeys.  If we could just play for people what we play privately in the late hours of the evening when all is calm except the sounds of living, breathing music, ah that would be the ultimate concert.  When the connection between instrument and musician has been a rich one, with many years getting to know their joined personality, the touch is comfortable and confident without reservation, innate. Those personal moments intertwine the instrument and the musician as though they were a single complex life force.  Each nuance of sound permeates the entire body of both, firing synapses and resonating areas that have lain quiet seemingly for decades bringing an emotional richness that is on such a lofty plane as to be inexplicable with mere words.  

One glorious evening of musical entwinement I was struck by a horrible thought, when I die, my instrument will continue, but it will never again sing the same songs we sang together with our emotional phrasing flowing like a strong river, never ever again, never.  Doing what I do, where emotions are an aspect to be cultivated, I can be a extreme light weight, tears flowing, hugging my instrument, my dearest emotional friend knowing the loss is inevitable.  A panic ensues and you are compelled to reach for those rare moments of rapture again and again, letting the emotions of music have their so short moment of enchanted life.  Creating music is like making sparks in a very dark place.  

So one does what one can using the tools and techniques they are the most fluid with and can express themselves the best with; so my guitar and I began on a composition, for my guitar.

Composing is an interesting study, while it can be very academic, that should just be the filler, the way to get pass a blockage in the flow, a way to round out the edges; but for the real music, there is a far more elusive side to it that creates all the real beauty and originality. But to achieve that elusive goal, you might as well try to hop a ride on gentle breeze blowing by, the relationships are so delicate that our clumsy thoughts and bodies stumble over ourselves and lose sight and scent of the magical flow.  Any creative person knows that when you can rise to the lofty place and ride the flow, you must not under any circumstance break the moment by thinking or it could be lost forever, stress the word forever, it is an absolute law, unless you can spend enough time on this precious creative flow to remember how it fits together, the magic will simply disappear and never come back, it’s like remembering a difficult mountain path through remote areas. Even remembering that it exists somewhere in your brain can disappear. Thinking of the many eddies and currents of wind is a very close approximation to the creative process, many might collide or intrude but when you are flowing with one, you let loose of your body and float along following the paths of gentle influence.  Sometimes, you have two songs tangled together and you have to separate them out later, sometimes, fragments will appear and you carry them for years (as with Boo’s Requiem) before they connect to other fragments, glued together with a smattering of logic and an ear listing to the creative flow and does it really take this path or is it that one. 

In composing, practicing or performing should you dare to think, “is this compositional quality” or “Can I create something worthy”, then the answer is probably no, for those thoughts and expressive creativity are mutually exclusive.  After songs are completed you can make assessments and adjustments all you want, but if doubt creeps into your thoughts while composing or while playing, then it’s a disaster.  Doubt and Guilt live in a completely different dimension than creative flow, kind of an anti-matter relationship.

Oribe Fandango Video on YouTube:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj56jqSX-7E

Other Tomingas videos:

www.YouTube.com/user/MusicbyTomingas

www.OribeGuitars.com

After teaching literally thousands of guitar students, for many years, Tomingas does not offer private lessons anymore, only master classes. 

Refreshingly non-judgmental, non-ego oriented and respectful in approach, the Maestro custom tailors’ well balanced instruction, targeted specifically to personal musical goals. In addition, he does not lock into a rigid generalized formula, each session is custom tailored to ones interests, needs and rapid advancement through enthusiasm.