Delicates

"Delicates" in Nature...

Mother Nature can be harsh and brutal (hurricanes, tornados, granite cliffs, etc.) but she can also be incredibly beautiful and fragile (orchids, dew on spider webs, etc.). This piece captures the soft and gentle side of nature...

About the Music

My Casio PX-S3000 digital piano has turned into of treasury chest of learning about a variety of lesser known instruments from around the world. The patch bank called "Other" has a huge assortment of ethnic instrument sounds from seemingly everywhere...

I started playing a lovely patch named "Gender" - which sounds a bit like a cross between a toy celeste and a vibraphone. I loved it's delicate sound and it turns out—when I looked it up—it plays a prominent role in Indonesian Gamelan music.

Another patch in the Other bank is called "Pandeiro". Being familiar with Brazilian music I knew that this was a percussion instrument. I built a rhythmic groove with the finger tapping sound and the resonant "boomy" sounds. No drum set, no kick drum not even a frame drum were used for this tune—its all just the pandeiro!

Also another cool thing about the Casio PX-S3000 is it is multi-timbral! This fantastic capability is not advertised but you can set a different MIDI channel for different patches and they will run simultaneously—Cool!

Lastly in keeping it somewhat in the Gamelan tradition, another track in the tune features a Roland D-50 patch called Gamelan Bells. I think it all ends up sounding very beautiful together—a new hybrid of Brazil, Indonesia and Native America!

About the Exotic Flower Photos

Most of the regions in Indonesia are covered by rain forests such as in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua. Some of these rain forests have unique exotic plants that only exist in Indonesia. Unique and Vulnerable Plants from Indonesia »

Details of the Slideshow's Exotic Flowers

Obviously not all of the flowers listed below are from Indonesia or even that delicate (!) but they are all amazing, don't you think?

Ghost Pipe a.k.a. Indian Pipe (Monotropa Uniflora)

Unlike most plants, the ghost pipe is white and does not contain chlorophyll. Instead of generating food using the energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, partnering with fungi to ultimately get its food from photosynthetic trees.
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Skeleton Flower (Diphylleia)

Its white petals turn translucent with rain.
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White egret flower (Habenaria Radiata / Pecteilis radiata)

Is an amazing orchid that looks like an egret taking flight. The plant is found in the wild in China, Japan, Korea, and Russia.
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Silver Dollars (Lunaria Annua)

Called honesty in English, the Lunaria Annua is a species of flowering plant in the cabbage and mustard family. It is native to the Balkans and south west Asia, and cultivated throughout the temperate world. Because its ripe pod membranes have the appearance of silvery coins in the United States, it is commonly known as "silver dollars".
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Monkey Orchid (Dracula Simia)

The monkey orchid's arrangement of column, petals and lip uncannily resembles a monkey's face.
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Slipper flower a.k.a pocketbook plant or lady's purse (Calceolaria)

This flower's distinctive blossoms resemble pocketbooks, purses or even slippers.
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Giant Padma (Rafflesia Arnoldii)

The Giant Padma is the largest individual flower on Earth. It has a strong and unpleasant odor of decaying flesh. It lacks any observable leaves, stems or even roots, and does not have chlorophyll. Similar to fungi, it lives as a parasite on vines of the tropical grape plant.
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Titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum)

Due to its odor, like that of a rotting corpse, the titan arum is known as the corpse plant.
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