... The Zen and the Art of Microcarving.
Yes, folks: sometimes I feel me like those "lunatics" - i.e. wise ultra-skilled and specialized visionary who give - literally - their lives to a single act - rice carving, for example.
Many masterpieces were carved on the humble rice grains in the centuries and, also if this activity seems so uneseful and weird, I find it among the most innocent and peaceful human behaviours.
In the last few weeks I discovered that I'm able - after looong months of macro system tuning (cables, ground, platters and mats and the like) - to go further and further in my discerning and tuning skill of my analog rig, the mighty Garrardzilla I already annoyed you about;-)
While breaking-in the Allnic Puritas and the Decca SC4E on the Schick arm I found that, quite differently from my previous reference, the Lumiere DST cartridge, the two a.m. carts are very sensitive to VTA... my bronze armbase using a B-60 Fidelity Research's VTA-on-the-fly proved to be VERY useful in finding the best setting while playing a disc and less than a mm +/- was - musically speaking - giving shivers or not!
Yesterday evening I was playing some Eugen Muller-Dombois' disc on RCA Seon, S.L. Weiss' solo lute recorded in Germany in a natural acoustic space.
I know this musician and music intimately and when I (still) find some hidden detail in the grooves... well, my heart is singing!
Fingers slurs on the gut strings, ambient and a far away whispering voice... a bird outside... a soft door slamming noise... everything does and will do... I suspect I will dig and dig and dig these superb recordings 'til my last day.
When I say to fellow and friends... I'll never change anything in my system... well, KAPOOOW... it happens: also cheap, apparently silly fine tuning changes the resolution power of my system and my ears are splitting hair in four, six, eight... like a micro-carver I'm able to further and further improve my listening skill in a relaxed mode, quietly breathing and listening... becoming a Breathing Ear;-)
... not only details, of course... music reaches my soul so intensely that only one disc side is enough, sometimes... I get such a full load of music which makes me really lighthearted and happy... yesterday evening, after a very satisfying listening session, I took the long way back home, walking in the silent town streets, in the snow... nobody around... my ears were also glad to hear the different snow crackling under my boots and the snow woooshing falling from the trees!
I feel... I'm an humble hearing-microcarver, folks...
When I reached home, I prepared a bread breakfast for sparrows and pigeons, in the thick snow mantle, where I know they go.
Satori.
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