Dashes Where Music Flows In: A Kural Conversation with Eric Lane Barnes

Letting Go and Listening to What Comes

With writer, composer, and music director extraordinaire Eric Lane Barnes I was delighted to explore the music of compassion and the quantum physics of creativity around three verses from THE KURAL.

Here are a few highlights and where in the video you can find them:

How Eric chose the three verses he set to music for the InkAloud event at Town Hall Seattle: 4:45
Melody for “Those who let go embody grace”: 8:52
Melody for “Giving to those with nothing is giving”: 10:08
Melody for “Those who stand firm in knowledge and possibility”: 12:10
The art of juxtaposition: 21:45
Dashes and the music of language: 30:55

Eric Lane Barnes is the author of the critically acclaimed Fairy Tales, which received several awards in Chicago and New York, with a run Off Broadway and in London’s West End. His show The Stops has played in cities across the US, winning “best musical” at the National Gay and Lesbian Theater Festival in 2006. His songs and larger works have been performed by choruses and theater groups all across the US and in Canada, Australia, the UK, France and Beijing. These days Eric has found great joy in providing music and directing choruses for numerous senior communities in the Seattle area, and is co-founder and ¼ of Seattle’s Most Fabulous Vocal Quartet, Princess Guy.

Here are the verses we talked about, in both English and Tamil:

30
Those who let go embody grace—they show
Compassion to all

அந்தணர் என்போர் அறவோர்மற் றெவ்வுயிர்க்கும்
செந்தண்மை பூண்டொழுக லான்

221
Giving to those with nothing is giving—all else
Expects a return

வறியார்க்கொன் றீவதே ஈகைமற் றெல்லாம்
குறியெதிர்ப்பை நீர துடைத்து

472
For those who stand firm in knowledge and possibility
No deed is undoable

ஒல்வ தறிவ தறிந்ததன் கண்தங்கிச்
செல்வார்க்குச் செல்லாத தில்

Translated from the Tamil by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma
THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural
Beacon Press, Boston