Winter Solstice 2006

Yogi Tea Cafe


curtousy of Karta Kaur, from the engineers perspective


So here is the first in my Winter Solstice series of audio posts. One of my favorite things about the Solstice experiance is Yogi Tea Cafe (thank you Guru Ganesha). Every Solstice, winter or summer, there is live music in the food/hospitality area. It's always very organic, Guru Ganesha makes a loose schedule which is always subject to how late Tantric goes, and often people just jump on stage and sit in with each other. Spiritual jam sessions.

The first night was was mostly Guru Ganesha with Sat Jot (Gabrielle) on Keys and back up vocals, Siri Om Singh on percusion and back up vocals, and Karta Kaur on back up vocals. This particular track is just a portion of of a 50 minute jam based on Ma from the album Pure Ganesh. Ma Medley
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Here's a sample out of the second night. Siri Om Singh. He played his drum and sang back up with most of the music at Winter Solstice. An awesome musician and great guy. We Got Work to Do
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These three tracks are all from the last day of of the Yogi Tea Cafe at Winter Solstice. The first one is Hari Bhajan Kaur playing her classic birthday song "On This Day." The second track is me and Siri Vias or Doug playing some good ol' Tantic blues. And the last track is the etremely talented, first time Solsticer, Whitney. She's a profesional musician from Denver, Colorado who blessed the Solstice sound crew, and Winter Solstice in general with her amazing presence and music On This Day
Download Tantric Blues
Download Black Zero
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I am going to continue posting some of my favorite recordings from Winter Solstice. I'm thinking of doing a Sadhana themed post, a Gurduara themed post, a Rensabai themed post, and maybe a misc. one. I'd like to put a cool picture with each one, but I don't have a camera and I've already used all the pics I was able to get my hands one. If you were at Winter Solstice and have some good pictures that I could use, send them my way. sdskhalsa@gmail.com.

Enjoy the music and peace to all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Winter Solstice!

Sat Nam and Seasons greetings everyone. I appologize for not posting for so long. I'm now in the airport on my way home from Winter Solstice. I was on the sound crew as usual and I was able to record most of the Sadhana's and Yogi Tea Cafe performances as well as many Gurduara's. Also between me and Dharam we were able to record the whole rensabai. Over the next week or so I will post all of my favorite selections.

It really was an amazing solstice. I'll talk more about it in detail in futere posts.

For now here's a picture of my rocking sound posse. I miss you guys already!

Sat Purkh Kaur

Sat Purkh kaur was the 2nd place winner of Spirit voyage idol by only a few votes. Even though she didn't win the contest, she's still well on the way to getting her beutiful and uplifting music produced. This video if from her second performance at Spirit Voyage Idol. If you want to hear more of her, she has almost half a dozen of her own tracks posted on her blog. satpurkh.blogspot.com
Enjoy!


© Copyright Gina Salá 2001 www.ginasala.com

My Musical Journey

I decided some time ago that I Want my career path to involve music. I know that making a living as a musician alone can be hard, but my goal is more of an all inclusive one. I'm just as interested in helping people who have uplifting and inspirational talent get their music out as I am getting my own stuff published. I'm also almost stubbornly independent. I'd much rather learn how do something, understand how it works and get exactly what I'm looking for, rather than pay someone else to do it for me. So natural I fell into a path of production. I've studied the art and science of audio for almost 2 and a half years now. That coupled with 10 years of playing piano and other music experience, and some of the connections I've been able to make within the 3HO community (one I thing I can't say enough about how much I value), I think I'm well on my way.

My biggest regret in my musical journey is not taking more advantage of the Raag vocal training I received while I was in India. I started studying not long after the members of the Chardikala Jatha started, and If I had kept a steady discipline this whole time, I could have taken if very far by now. For me there's nothing quite like a Shabd of the Guru which is slowly developed in the Raag in which it was written by someone who has devoted hours a day for years to be able to give praise to god it this way. As Sikhs, we value Naad Yoga, or the union with a divine and perfect sound current as one of the highest and quickest way attain god consciousness, and Raag Kirtan is the highest of the high. I had the blessing and very unique opportunity to study this technology, I took it for for granted. I should count my blessings though. When I started studying, I already had a somewhat developed musical sense and some raw vocal talent, so I was able get al lot out of the short couple years I took it semi-seriously. Enough so that if I were to renew my practice, with enough discipline and patience, I may be able regain some of what I lost or could've had.
To help renew my inspiration and devotion, here s a picture of our Raag Ustad and members of the Chardikala jetha playing at the Gurduara at Miri Piri Academy (where I went to highschool and was able to study Raag) a good four years ago or so.

He's a teacher in it's a highest form.
The picture was taken by Gurumustuk's brother Dharam Singh who's a natural photographer and is lucky enough to be in India studying right now.

And to continue the spirit and purpose of this blog, here's a recording of the Chardikala Jatha from about a year ago in the Espanola Gurduara.
Ik Ardaas Bhaat Keerat Kee

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My Space

I finally got some studio monitors a week or so ago. Now my little production space is finally usable. It's not the most ideal setup, but for listening to music and editing things to post on the blog, it's perfect. Now I need to work on making my whole room a creatively condusive space. It's kind of plain and I still have trouble keeping it clean. One of these days I'm going to open up my own studio and do it right.



And here's fun track that I put together about a year ago just for the hell of it. The drums were recorded almost 2 years ago when a friend and I were just messing around. Then last year I replayed the piano part, and my audio teacher Jason Goodyear (Santa Fe Sound and Milo De Venus) played a little guitar over it. It's not a great production, but it was fun to make and I still think it's fun to listen to. Praise You
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Happy Halloween

No audio to post tonight, and I didn't do anything fun or exciting for Halloween either, but I did spend way to long carving this pumpkin out. A week ago I bought the Pumpkin Masters tiny knife carving kit, and I waited untill tonight to do anything with it. I did have a pretty bad case of carpultunel which just started feeling better recently.

Anyways, hope you all had a ghoulish good time this halloween.

In a Gospel state of mind

Yogi Tea Cafe Summer '05
Snatam Kaur Khalsa and Friends

A few days ago I stumbled on this old recording that I never did anything with. This track really demonstrates the potential and magic that the Yogi Tea Cafe is capable of. It's really awesome to see a whole group of musicians and vocalists do something together totally impromptu and unrehearsed. This is a recording of Snatam at YTC in 2005 accompanied by Guru Ganesha Singh, a bunch of other singers, and some drummers that you can't hear to well because they weren't miked. I've been thinking about initiating some kind of Gospel project and this track is a great inspiration. It does a small jump at the beginning because I recorded this with my old laptop that had issues with Pro-Tools. It caused me to miss a few seconds of the song. I creatively tried to cover it up, but it still sounds weird.

If you have any other ideas or inspiration for a Gospel fusion concept, let me know. Amazing Grace

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Spirit Voyage Idol

Tej Kaur

If any of you check MrSikhnet.com reguarly, you'll know that he posted clips of Dileep Kaur from the Spirit Voyage contest at Summer Solstice. You may wonder why he didn't post more of the performances from the competetion, since so many of them were so uplifting. If you know anything about video though, you know how long it can take to proccess hours of DV tape, especially for the web, and Gurumustuk already puts so much time into this stuff, he can't do everyting. I agree with many of you though, that these recordings should be shared and available, so I took it upon myself to borrow the original tapes from Gurumustuk and do what need to be done to put them on the web. The quality of these recordings doesn't really do the singers justice, mostly because the audio's a little distorted. Their ability to express their devotion to the Shabd Guru through music still shines through though.

I'm going to post Tej Kaur's first, because she was one of my favorites and, in my opinion, one of the most humble as well as powerfull contestants. I beleive she deserved to win just as much as anyone there.


I Am

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Guru Ram Das Guru

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New Mexico Ballon Fiesta

Hello all. This post has nothing to do with audio, but I was talking to my friend Hari Singh today, and I've thought this before: I'm just as much of a visual person as I am a sound person. I just relate to have put more energy into my passion for audio. I can't deny my love of that which is aesthetically pleasing to the eye though.
A blog that has nothing cool to look at is boring

And so, here's a picture


Saturday morning a big group of us, having spent the night at a friend's in Albuquerque, got up at 4 AM to beat traffic and went to The Ballon Fiesta. I don't own a camera, so I stole this picture from my friend Gurumustuk; photographer and webmaster extrodanare. He has plenty pictures posted here MrSikhnet and here flickr I could tell you how awesome it was, but Gurumustuk and his pictures do a better job than I could.
Let me just say it was quite an experience.

A Master Visits Española

Towards the end of August, we had the privilege to have master tabla player Murli (Hari Mander Jot's and all the tabla students at MPA's teacher) visit our community, teach, and play in Gurduara. He accompanied Chardikala Jatha members Hari Mander Jot and Sada Sat Simran, both singing.
I hope you enjoy.
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Sunia Haraare Sajan

Music Nights

I've decided to start at the beginning (double meaning) and work my way to the present with my first few posts, and show some of the significant audio as well as compositional things I've done. This post is reflecting from March until the Summer Solstice of this year. You may wonder what happened in the year and half between "In The Beginning" and this. All that stuff can be found either on my Website or my Myspace Music account (links to the right). Those were more formal recording and multitracking projects, while I see the purpose of this blog as a chronicle of some of the more spontaneous things I've been able to participate in or even just witness and record.

And in that spirit, this post is dedicated to Music Night.
Earlier this year between February and May, a group of us here in Espanola would get together almost every Tuesday evening in the Gurduara and just Jam. It was open to anyone who wished to come, and we never came with anything prepared. We would just play things we knew and also come up with stuff on the spot. This sometimes didn't go anywhere, but often it would lead to some great evolutionary composition. The first track below is a Wahe Guru chant where the tune evolved from the Raag of the Shabd we had just played (a Raag is a set of melodic guidelines, and a Shabd is like a devotional poem put to music). The second track is the same chant and tune played months later for Sadhana at Summer Solstice. It's really awesome to be able to record this organic creative process. I hope you enjoy. Download
Wahe Guru - Summer Solstice Sadhana

The first thing I ever recorded

I've been messing with recording audio for more than 2 years know, and this recording dates back almost exactly 2 years ago. I was taking the basic Audio Production class at SFCC at the time (Audio Production I) and a guitarist from the class Micheal Herman, my tabla playing Siri Chand and I all got together to just record ourselves jamming and see if it lead anywhere. Take a listen to the end result.

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In The Beginning

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And then there were two

First Post

Hello all. I'm new to blogging, so bear with me. I decided to do this as a way to give people a chance to listen to some of the uplifting and cool things that I get the opportunity to record. I don't expect to write a whole lot, except regarding the audio I post, but who knows.