it’s not a complex piece of music. it’s a line out of my heart at the moment in time i was recording it. it’s the mystery that surrounds waiting. it’s the depth of biding one’s time. it’s the expression of sitting tight and holding on, of not-knowing. it’s the tentative simplicity of before…before the time of getting to the end of waiting. it’s the time of anticipation, of advent – the time of emergence, of arrival, of birth.
it’s not complicated. it’s just waiting.
download JOY – A CHRISTMAS ALBUM on iTUNES or CDBaby
right at 2:08 in this recording is an ambient sound. it is a sound that my producer and i deliberately decided to leave in the recording, an audible sound of divine, a tiny punctuation in our project from across the barriers of physical being-ness.
we were recording remotely on one of the northwestern university stages, ken (my amazing “it’s fine” producer) having built a small studio off in the green room, separate from the stage space where the piano was. everything was moved or padded so as to avoid interruptions or rattling or vibrations or overtones, anything we didn’t want included in this solo piano album. it was a tedious process and we recorded straight through a twenty-three hour stretch. with me were items – totems of a sort – to keep me company as i recorded this first album. one was a stuffed animal i had given my beloved big brother during his chemo treatments, three short missing-him-years prior.
divine intervention was the last piece up. the last piece of the very first album i was recording, released 23 years ago november 11 on my sisu music productions label. teetering on that balance point, no idea of where i was to go next or what would become of this album, i was emotional and exhausted, determined and vulnerable. i spoke words of prayer and began the next take of this piece.
at 2:08 i heard a sound. it sounded like an old wooden screen door closing, but i didn’t really know what it was. i was sure, however, it would be on the recording since i could hear it on-stage. i kept going anyway, thinking we’d go back and re-record the piece. when i finished playing, tired tears in my eyes, i walked into the green room to find ken standing in astonishment. there was an empty can of pepsi in that little studio, one i had put in there and secured by towels deep onto a shelf. at 2:08, the can somehow moved out of the spot it was nestled in and clattered onto the floor. the sound. even without listening to the cd i can hear this sound in my head every time i play this piece.
we listened back to the raw recording. sure enough, it was there. and so was something else. a feeling that somehow, some way, the divine interrupted. intervened with a small nod. perhaps it was my big brother, in jest, stopping by in the middle of the last take of the very last piece of my very first album, to make a little noise. perhaps it was something else. either way, we knew. and we left it in.
i still have the can.
15. divine intervention (3:16): the feeling i have about this whole project. there really isn’t any such thing as chance. those who are just on the other side sometimes help us to sort and place the clues of our life’s story. (words from released from the heart jacket)
“4. silent days (4:33) the sad side of silence, the incredible loneliness of not connecting, the urgency of it all.”
i wrote these words for the jacket of this album in 1996. they are no less valid today. we are in an inexorable time of too-much-silence-too-much-noise. we stand perilously close to saying too much. we stand precariously near the abyss of not saying enough. a balancing act, it’s a lonely place, a place of silence. in our home, in our families, in our friendships, in our communities, in our world, silent days are devouring and saving relationships. both.
this is a time that has beckoned the meek to become strong, the quiet to speak the truth, the lonely to be heartened by having a voice, the invisible to become visible. we deliberate over our words, we speak, we boisterously challenge, we thoughtfully listen. we consider the consequences of not connecting. we steer away from noise just for the sake of noise.
and yes…there is urgency. for “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.” (martin luther king, jr.) and there is this line – a fine line indeed – but one which all who are human may straddle: “wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” (plato)
to be quiet is one thing. unassuming. proactive in soft tones. to be silent is another.
speak your mind even though your voice shakes. (eleanor roosevelt)
download SILENT DAYS track 4 BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
in all the chicken-scratch-notes i have about this piece of music, i have written in the presence of a heartbeat. the pulse that spans the entire 6 minutes 14 seconds, this heartbeat starts the piece. it is throughout the piece. it ends the piece. it is no accident that this composition seems interminable, ever returning to the theme; figuring “it” out often seems that way, a curse of perseverating analysis paralysis, depending on what “it” is.
i just erased what i had next written about this. i couldn’t help but talk about my repeated use of a rising leading tone gesture in the theme, f# to g, f# to g, off the beaten major root path, but instead the path of starting on my ever-loved ninth in the e minor key, a key that resonates so often with people. then i thought, “blahblahblah!!” geeeesh. that’s way too much information. so i erased it. (yes…there were even more details before i erased it!)
i composed this at a time that was laden with things to sort, to figure out, to resolve. it is one of the longest pieces i have recorded. there are moments you can hear the almost-there-ness of it, but, like life, it reverts back to the initial themes, the initial questions. and then, punctuating it, from time to time, a firm melodic gesture (f#-g-f#-e) where you can hear the lyrics in your head, “figure it out.” much easier said than done, eh? but our hearts keep beating.
i shudder when i hear the words “…and never the twain shall meet…”(rudyard kipling) in my head when i read this. but sue aikens’ words (on life below zero, she is a strong alaska-proof woman living in the arctic) were not a viewpoint on the polarization of our country. they were merely the way she was describing the ropes she sets outside her buildings so that in the middle of fierce snowstorms she will be able to find her way, despite not being able to see in the swirling snow.
in life – intellectual, emotional, political life – however, there is a middle ground. but it has become difficult in our current climate to sort to the middle, to not stand firmly on one side or the other of the great divide, a place that grows larger by the day, with an ever-brewing moat of hatred and vitriol, terrifyingly divisive to families, relationships, communities. there is danger on the far sides, danger in stubbornly and feverishly clinging to the left or the right, without considering ramifications, without any compassion, with an unbending dedication to absolutism, with no room or moment for thoughtful consideration, with breakneck righteous reactivity.
in sue aikens’ world, it will save her life to unconditionally sort left or sort right. in ours, it may destroy us.
missing comes in many shapes and sizes. colors too. i’m now at that age that i hear this song in the context of too many people i know who have lost loved ones. whether their beloved has moved on to a different dimension or a different life, it leaves behind someone grieving. “you’re so here though you’re not here.”
i occasionally browse through facebook and i am struck by the number of acquaintances or friends or family members who are remembering a loved one, this group of people unknown maybe to each other but bonded invisibly by a mutual intense emotion. my heart responds to their pain, their determination to keep going, their day-by-day stepping back into the world. it’s indeed a “crazy maze” that they are navigating, that i have navigated as well, that we each navigate at some point in time.
although moving on to a different life presents other extraordinary challenges to live through, losing someone to dying often leaves so many unspoken words, so much un-lived living-together. “i hear you whisper, hear you cry, hear you call my name at night, over many miles and many distant skies. i hear you whisper, hear you cry, hear you call my name at night, and i believe it’s not goodbye.” like many of you, i, too, have listened intently to the universe, to the night, waiting to hear, believing that just-on-the-other-side is a whisper, on the wind, wafting its way to me.
it’s circuitous…the way i would define where i’m from. you have to be prepared to listen a spell if you ask me this question.
just like anyone, i have taken pieces – absorbed – every place i’ve been, every community i have shared in, every experience i’ve had, everyone i’ve met or been influenced by; indeed, those have become where i’m from. in jeans and boots on stage i talk about where “home” is and try to differentiate by referring to wisconsin as “home”, florida as “home-home” and long island as “home-home-home” which sounds semi-ridiculous, not to mention annoying for people who cringe at redundancy. plus it doesn’t include time living on a sheep farm in new hampshire nor profound moments i’ve had visiting places that have sought space in my soul. but it might give you a place to listen from; with your eyes closed you may hear your own story.
when i wrote this piece, 21 years ago or so, i knew it needed to swirl around the theme, travel from one key to another, return to its theme…have continuity yet have places where it started again. in celebrating my sweet momma and dad this week with the introduction of my song YOU’RE THE WIND it brought me back to my deepest roots, transplanted time and again though they may be. no matter what, i will always be a northeast girl. new york is in my blood and long island is ever a part of my heart.
where i’m from…it’s time ago…it’s now…it’s what’s to come.
if you listen you can hear the tide. in and out…like day, like experiences, like finding home. it changes. it’s the same.
i visit this place everyday. the place of contemplation. of pondering. of remembering. of dreaming. of silent conversational prayer. this morsel of david’s painting CONTEMPLATION speaks to me and my need to sometimes go inside…to sort, to be grateful, to relinquish a hold on something negative, to wonder.
SOFTLY SHE PRAYS
there is a similar painting, based on a similar image…called SOFTLY SHE PRAYS and i adore this for its monochromatic approach, its gentle existence. conversely, this piece CONTEMPLATION is filled with color – the colors of life and vibrance, saturated with the palette we live in every day, the colors we don’t always notice as we walk by, missed in our efforts to move into the next moment. ahh. yet another reason to sit and rest and contemplate.
it would be 75 today. 75 years since the day my sweet momma and poppo married. and so, i am sharing two videos here today – the first is a dedication and the other is my song YOU’RE THE WIND. because i know you are. the wind. to each other and to each of us here on earth who miss and love you. always.
reverse threading 