{"id":13970,"date":"2024-06-28T11:53:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-28T18:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/gaitensp\/?page_id=13970"},"modified":"2024-06-28T11:53:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T18:53:57","slug":"joni-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/gaitensp\/mindset\/joni-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"Joni Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another of our guides this year will be the Goddess of All Things, AKA singer\/songwriter\/painter superstar Canadian Joni Mitchell<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Your indoctrination into worship<\/del>\u00a0gentle guidance towards an appreciation of her talents begins here.<\/p>\n

One of the many many many (many) ways in which Joni Mitchell changed the frequency of music and culture is her use of what are called “open tunings” for her guitar.<\/p>\n

Standard tuning for the strings on a six-string guitar works like this: “EADGBE<\/b>\u2014three intervals of a fourth (low E to A, A to D and D to G), followed by a major third (G to B), followed by one more fourth (B to the high E)” [I’ve never played a guitar in my life and have only a vague sense of what that last quote means – but enough to get a rough idea of it and so move on, so thank you, Jeff Owens on fender.com<\/a><\/strong>].<\/p>\n

Joni Mitchell threw that idea out the window<\/a><\/strong> and created a whole new soundscape of alternative tunings.\u00a0 Take a slow read of this (from “The Guitar Tuning Odyssey of Joni Mitchell<\/a><\/strong>,” by Jeffrey Pepper Rogers) (how’s that for a name?) and consider how what she has to say might serve as a metaphor for your life in class and your life in general:<\/p>\n

So how does Mitchell discover the tunings and fingerings that create these expansive harmonies? Here\u2019s how she described the process: \u201cYou\u2019re twiddling and you find the tuning. Now the left hand has to learn where the chords are, because it\u2019s a whole new ballpark, right? So you\u2019re groping around, looking for where the chords are, using very simple shapes. Put it in a tuning and you\u2019ve got four chords immediately\u2014open, barre five, barre seven, and your higher octave, like half fingering on the 12th. Then you\u2019ve got to find where the interesting colors are\u2014that\u2019s the exciting part.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I\u2019ll tune to some piece of music and find [an open tuning] that way, sometimes I just find one going from one to another, and sometimes I\u2019ll tune to the environment. Like \u2018The Magdalene Laundries\u2019 [from\u00a0Turbulent Indigo<\/em>; the tuning is B F# B E A E]: I tuned to the day in a certain place, taking the pitch of birdsongs and the general frequency sitting on a rock in that landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell likens her use of continually changing tunings to sitting down at a typewriter on which the letters are rearranged each day. It\u2019s inevitable that you get lost and type some gibberish, and those mistakes are actually the main reason to use this system in the first place. \u201cIf you\u2019re only working off what you know, then you can\u2019t grow,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s only through error that discovery is made, and in order to discover you have to set up some sort of situation with a random element\u2014a strange attractor, using contemporary physics terms. The more I can surprise myself, the more I\u2019ll stay in this business, and the twiddling of the notes is one way to keep the pilgrimage going. You\u2019re constantly pulling the rug out from under yourself, so you don\u2019t get a chance to settle into any kind of formula.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joni Mitchell’s use of open tuning arose partially as compensation for a childhood bout of polio, which left the left side of her body (including her left hand, which forms the chords on a guitar) weakened, and partially, it seems to me, as a result of an innate deep restlessness and a natural tendency to question standards and norms and move toward the new.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Joni Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm<\/a><\/strong> that took away her ability to speak and walk.\u00a0 She had to teach her brain how to do these things again<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 And then she did something not even her doctors expected her to be able to do: she relearned how to play the guitar (by watching old videos of herself to see where her fingers went).\u00a0 Her doctors attributed her ability to do this to her natural will and grit<\/a><\/strong>, which are two words that it might be a good idea for us to investigate this year and find where they live within each of us.<\/p>\n

On July 24, Joni made a surprise appearance<\/a><\/strong> at the Newport Folk Music Festival, and, among other wonders and delights, treated the audience to a guitar solo, the first time she had played guitar in front of an audience in 8660 days.<\/p>\n