Joshua Graham Creates

I'm Joshua Graham, and I make stuff sometimes. Check it out!

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Happy pride month, friends! I couldn’t think of what to write, so I wrote some music based on an old progression I’ve had sitting around forever and hadn’t done anything with. It’s not especially long or complex, or even particularly engaging, but I think of it more like an underscore piece than as a focal work, which isn’t something I’ve ever really played with. 

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It’s been a while since I posted the first part, and today seemed like a good day to share part two!

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I woke up this morning with a fragment of a dream still rattling around in my head, and I couldn’t risk waiting and losing any of it. This is probably part of the climax of the full piece, but I’m not sure; haven’t written the whole thing yet. Instrumentation is weird and the actualization isn’t great, but it’s functional, which is really the most important thing for me.

© Joshua Graham 2018

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In Memoriam

Something I wrote, thinking about the people who were once part of my life who no longer are. “In memoriam” seems to be a phrase we reserve for the dead, but memory isn’t reserved for the dead, nor is the dearness of departure so reserved. But, I’m getting rambly. Text under the cut!

It’s funny, the marks that people leave. It’s not quite like fingerprints, so easily detected and identified. But it’s not quite a cloud, either, hazy and undefined. Or maybe it is. You hear that song, the one that makes you think of them, or of the version of them that you hold in your heart. Maybe you don’t even recognize it, at first. It’s just a series of noises heard in the background at a bar, a few familiar blips that come on the radio while you’re at the grocery store. Then you recognize those noises, those blips, that tune, and before you know it, you can’t stop your heart from singing along even as you fight to hold back the flood of emotions suddenly churning inside.

It’s funny, the things that people leave marks on. It’s not quite sensible, the way memory ties objects and people. But it’s also not random, haphazard, or clumsy. Or maybe it is. Just walking down the street, you kick a rock by accident, and it reminds you of another rock that got kicked, another version of you who kicked it. And maybe that brings up a whole scene, the last few words of a half-remembered joke, the laughter that ensued. And you get wrapped into the completeness of that scene, that memory, and the you that is you now almost starts to laugh. Then the scene is gone, and you’re still walking on the street, the rock you kicked still clattering down the sidewalk, not isolated but alone nonetheless.

It’s funny, the depth of the marks people leave. It’s not quite like a cave, whose depth is invisible. But it’s not like a canyon, either, revealing layers and layers of material eroded away over the course of years. Or maybe it is. You’re wandering through a crowd, passing by masses and throngs, and in the corner of your eye you see them, and for a moment you forget that they’re gone. You forget about whatever curtain separates you, and in spite of yourself you cry out their name. And then you turn to them, only to see the same kind of shirt, the same hairstyle, maybe just the same body type. For a moment you forgot about the curtain, and for the next several a new one falls again around your eyes, blurring the world, hot and wet.

It’s funny, the marks that people leave. Distinct but hard to define, clumsy but sensible, infinitely deep, ultimately invisible, and unique. These marks shape the world, how we interact with the world, the words we use and the words we avoid, the songs we play and the feelings we feel about them. And it’s funny, how accidentally we make these marks, not knowing how they’ll impact anyone else. How we assume we won’t leave these marks that everyone leaves, that we all experience in some small way or another every single day, how we fail to account for the marks we leave because we can’t see them.

© Joshua Graham 2018

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One summer, I was inspired by a little jingle in a video game to write a piece of music. At the time, I was particularly infatuated with bassoon quartets, but being an oboist at the time, I wanted at least some part of my work to involve my fellow students I’d grown so close with. Thus, On the Wind, a double reed sextet, was born, and it’s a piece I’m genuinely pretty proud of. Pardon the mediocre-at-best actualization, it’s a limitation of the software I was working with at the time.

© Joshua Graham, 2016

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My first real audio recording undertaking since college! I forgot how much fun it is to read things aloud, and how much fun it can be to manipulate my own voice. No manipulation in this recording, just a little editing to cut out some noise. Part 2 soon!

© Joshua Graham, 2018

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The Bellwood Forest

Woo first post! This is a piece of writing I did not too long ago, based on a mental image/daydream I've had for quite some time but didn't get around to putting on paper (ink? screen? whatever) for whatever reason. Actual text under the cut; next post might be a full reading, we'll see.

A gentle wind blows, rustling the leaves of the trees. The sun sits low in the sky, setting the forest ablaze in golden light, the foliage no longer green on this mid-autumn evening. The path, barely present from disuse but still visible in the dying sun's light, sees no use save for the occasional scuttling leaf fallen from its home branch but still very much alive in the soft breeze's caress. The branches overhead do not weave into a thick canopy, but each tree keeps largely to itself, its limbs and its leaves shaping into what one might call a bell—a forest of bells. As the sun sets lower, following its trajectory further into the oblivion that calls itself night, the trees stand silent but almost impatient, the now-red hues of the day's closing casting the forest into a brilliant bronze. The grove stands dazzlingly bright, seeming almost to glow as though the trunks themselves were casting light unto and through the dense leaves, shimmering now as the wind whips into a brief gust, brief but insistent.

As the sun finally sets, dusk gives in to night, and the golden sky gives way to reds and purples before surrendering to black, the trees are kissed instead by the moon's gentle rays. The resplendent bells of the forest, no longer blazing gold, shine with silvery light as the earth beneath them stays dark. A moment of nighttime stillness passes after a final gust, and the bells sit motionless only briefly before they bloom. The blooming happens almost instantly, almost as though it is how the trees want to be seen, no longer only shaped like bells but now almost singing. Glowing, silver-white streaked fruits are born from gold, bell-shaped flowers, hollow and not quite spherical. Each fruit has only this one night to perform, for its song to be heard, for the sound of its seeds to echo through the valley. The lake at the center of the forest glows gray in the light and sits beneath the largest of the bells, no longer blossoming but standing as a silent sentinel over its many offspring.

The night wears on, gusts of wind shaking the silver-white fruits on the branches and knocking a few to the forest's carpet of long, soft grass glowing white in the moonlight and the treelight. One fruit rolls downhill, bouncing through the thick grass with gentle thumps before landing with a gentle splash into the lake, its glow disappearing beneath the dark water now alive with ripples and lending no hint to its depth. Another gust of wind blows through the trees, setting every branch swaying and every fruit singing, calling out to anything that would listen. The forest, once a symphony of color, is now a true serenade, each sound only adding to the din but all in perfect harmony, not one sound out of place from the rest.

Night fades as the moon falls low in the sky, the stars above slowly winking out of view as the sky itself lightens, first from black to gray. Slowly, imperceptibly, the fruits first stop singing, then glowing, and eventually drop from the branches to which they held so tightly through the night as they shrivel and wither. The gray sky fades to a deep purple, and another strong wind blows through the forest and the fruits, now withering on the branches, fall limp from their limbs into the soft grass with a single thump. The trees, with no more silver moonlight to reflect, sit cold like tin, glistening with morning dew but without living color. The deep purple sky gives way to a pale yellow, painting the trees flat and dead. The last of the singing has long since ceased, but the fruits still lay dying on their branches, rotting as the sun rises, outlines of the seeds visible through the wrinkled flesh of the once-pearlescent fruits. The bottom of the sun finally reaches over the horizon, hoisting itself into its celestial place. The trees, vibrant and alive only the day before in the light of the sun, are now drooping, leaves less brilliant, branches less firm. In time, the light of day would reveal only gray, cold leaves, sparsely scattered on drooping branches, the largest standing tall over all of them, still the cold sentinel over its children; but for now, although the sun no longer dances through the leaves and the trees no longer sing with its light, there is still light, there is still warmth, and the fruits now decomposing within the forest's carpet will continue to expand the forest ever-outward, and the bellwood trees will stand silent for another year.

© Joshua Graham, 2018