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Writing can be such a wild experience. I don't know how it happens but sometimes, something comes over me and I just vomit up words out of nowhere. It's like waking up from a dream so vibrant and affecting that you're shook for the entire day afterwards, feeling like you met an archangel or something. Except with writing, the effects never leave. To this day if I hear One for Sorrow, It's like the story it triggered starts crawling out of my skin again.
Discover a new free game !
Sound Memory !
Play the sound memory game. We play 5 tones, you recreate them from memory. Challenge friends or compete in the daily challenge. Free at dia
There's also the color memory mode, but I'm... I'm terrible ;p
Mention me your score ! Of either one, no judgment of course :)
And maybe I will share you a run of color mode... Maybe !
Btw ! My highscore of this one under :)
BEGINNINGS
Beginnings. Is there ever such a thing for us? I feel as though we continue. Each step, each iteration, each experience is continuance. New to us, perhaps… and so the beginning. A new perspective a new chosen path on the journey but each decision with a past, a catalyst. This is another “beginning”— a new way for me to work through my grief and wrestle with my memories, good and bad. Journaling became very important for my wife and I after our son, Perrin, passed. We would sit for hours some evenings just writing. It was a need. It was a place to write God’s promises to us and for us to reconstruct the narrative of our time with Perrin. It was a place to emote when body could not sustain external manifestation. It helped me clear my mind by getting it out. Words I could not utter, but could write. Even now having difficulty with words that tell us of loss. Venting frustration with norms. Expectations of rebound. Faces telling me it’s time to let go. A best friend telling me that someday I have to move on… But I won’t. This experience has forever changed me. My identity. My spirit. It will continue to inform my living until I die. So, if it is to be my companion, death, then, must be used.
I face the world with new eyes, seeing things from a new perspective. Comments, sounds, colors prick at memory and soul unlike before. It’s been two years time and more since confusion rocked our lives. The following is a beginning… to remember, to share, to love.
SOUND & MEMORY
I am just beginning to explore sound through music and “noise.” While I have training as a vocal and instrumental musician, I have very little knowledge of composing and feel I’m trampling through an exquisite field of flowers. But, I need to try, even if that means squashing a daffodil in the process. Inspiration for this exploration come from two distinct wings—formal/traditional and artistic/theatrical. For more formal influences, I think of Eric Whitacre in particular as well as Bob Chilcott and John Rutter. These are composers I have enjoyed for years and inhabit an “acceptable” space in traditional music bending towards folk tradition. Whitacre working with such poets as Robert Frost and e.e. cummings provides a great example for moving forward. But more recently, I have been inspired by John Cage, Philip Glass, Michel Van der AA, and Meredith Monk. Van der AA’s work in particular, perhaps influence by Monk, is highly emotive in expressing sound. As I work, I will start by laying out melodies (Whitacre) and then disrupt them through emotive sound (Van der AA), again as exploration.
As I have thought about the sound elements, I have been struggling with a clear direction. It’s important to me that these connect to memory, so I decided to place some parameters on myself as I work. There are songs and sounds that I still cannot hear without arresting my heart. I plan to use these songs and sounds (some from my son’s favorite shoes, toys, lullabies) as fencing, meaning that I will only choose notes (for the melody) that exist in the remembered songs (like “Forever and Ever” exhibited below). For instance, if a song is written in 4/4 only using one octave and never uses g# or e-flat, I will stay within those parameters for writing.
I plan to have five movements. Each one based on a different sound trigger memory or a combination. I may also pull from rhythm or tempo at times. The resulting piece will be unique, unlike the existing piece.
Evident in my journaling process, The Bible, God’s word, has undergirded my being. Allowed me to live, to think, to breathe, to accept… As I continue to develop the pieces, I plan to incorporate verses that were the most meaningful to me. I would like these to act as underpinnings for the music, foundational structure.
Example:
King James Version
Lamentations 3: 21-23 - This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Latin Vulgate:
ZAI hoc recolens in corde meo ideo sperabo. HETH misericordiae Domini quia non sumus consumpti quia non defecerunt miserationes eius. HETH novae diluculo multa est fides tua
Hebrew:
zath ashib al - lb·i ol-kn auchil : s
chsdi ieue ki la – thmnu ki la – klu rchmi·u
chdshim l·bqrim rbe amunth·k
BIG PICTURE
The nugget for the implementation of this idea came fairly soon after my son passed. Thinking of Rothko Chapel, I want to inhabit 5 different feelings, emotions, experiences of my grief in space. At the center of the room you experience the entire set and as you approach each sonically and visually the others fade. The writings and music become one with visuals, large wall painting/prints each set with a different sound/poem/music. I know the visuals need to come to me and right now only the text is starting to reveal itself, in part due to recent readings and visual memory triggers.
What follows are my experiments with word and sound. These are first looks at how to reach a bigger goal. But the process, the journey of discoveries is as important if not more important that the final work the idea described above is not pressing. It may or may not come to fruition. What is important is what you read here—my discoveries as I attempt to organically research through memory and experience as I live with my son.
Just finished transcribing the melody for Forever and Ever... nothing technically special, but it’s my first time using Sibelius.
Working through this song... I notated by memory. It may not be perfect, but it’s what I remember. This is the first time I have been able to “listen” to it without crying. Therapeutic transcription... who knew...
sound... such a powerful element. Memory trigger, heighten sensation, recession. There are moments when I am caught off guard by sound. In another room, walking through a store, on the radio, by choice... I hear music or sounds that are inextricably tied to memories of my son. I will be using some of these pieces to instruct my writing.
I was unable to find a copy of the sheet music for “Forever and Ever” from Pooh’s Grand Adventure, so I am currently transcribing it into Sibelius (It will most likely replace Rondo A Capriccio). The notation of the existing melodies will construct the parameters for my pieces—5 songs, 5 melodies, 5 movements.
Baby Mine from Dumbo
He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands
Turkish March
Forever and Ever from Pooh’s Grand Adventure
Thomas the Tank Engine
Listening to a game OST and you suddenly get irrationally angry
and you're like
Oh yes. I remember this level.
