reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: minor key


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transience. [k.s. friday]

TRANSIENCE songbox copy

“…dawn turns to daylight. to dusk. to full darkness. always to dawn again…” (liner notes)

brad's snowman

brad built a snowman in the woods while we were snowshoeing.  with a nod to our wit and creative pet-names, he cleverly named it “snowman-snowman”.  he was a charming snowman and we lingered by him for a bit, all chatting in the quiet woods.  because he is, well, a snowman, we left him behind as we continued on the trails.

yesterday we went back to the woods.  there was still snow, even more in some places.  but when we got to the spot where the trails split off, i, sadly, saw that snowman-snowman was no longer there.  i didn’t talk about it.  the magic of snowman-snowman was still in the air despite his absence on the trail.

we hiked a bit farther into the woods and when we stopped for a moment, i started packing together some snow.  it was that really-good-packing-snow, so “valentino” came together easily.  we searched for his eyes and the perfect nose, tucked a feather-leaf in his ‘cap’ and fell in love with our little snowman.  his magic was instant.

our snowman

transient.  all daylight.  all snowmen.  all of us.  life.  it’s a minor key.  all-consumingly-beautiful.  gut-wrenchingly-fleeting.  every reason to revel in every ray of sun, build a snowman, embrace those you love, bravely live every moment.  even if our footprints aren’t still visible, our magic stays in the air.

footprints in the snow at bristol woods website box

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TRANSIENCE from RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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watershed. [k.s. friday]

WATERSHED SONG BOX copy.jpg

watershed definition

i can feel it.  it’s not something i can put words to.  it’s mysterious and undefinable.  but it’s coming.  there is a turning point.  right around the corner.

i walk into this new year and there’s something different…there is an underlying vibration i can feel – viscerally – a pulse, a quivering – that is present.

when it was time to pick a piece of my music for this week’s studio melange, i was drawn to this one….full of angst and wonder and sedimentary layers and mica and minor…..full of questions.

2019.  it has been nine years since i recorded a full-length album of any sort and seventeen years since a full-length vocal.  is it time?  to record?  to let it go?

i can feel it.  it’s not something i can put words to.  it’s mysterious and undefinable.  but it’s coming.  there is a turning point.  right around the corner.

a watershed.

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read DAVID’S thoughts on WATERSHED

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WATERSHED from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood


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figure it out. [k.s. friday]

figure it out songbox.jpg

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.

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FIGURE IT OUT from RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

 

 


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in transition. [k.s. friday]

in transition song box.jpg

in pondering what to write about this piece,  i took out the jacket for the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART.  my first full-length album, released in 1995, an hour of my original solo piano compositions, i dedicated it to my big brother wayne who i had lost a few years prior, but whose presence i could feel as i worked on this project.

in the jacket notes, next to this piece IN TRANSITION, i wrote “many changes for many around me.  changes give us time and impetus to sort through (and feel) the stuff of our lives – the transitional time.”  that would explain the minor, a key that invokes going inside.

i guess i will have to defer back to that.  it’s no different now than it was then.  there are still “many changes for many around me”.  i would have thought that things would feather out on the change seesaw, maybe leveling out a bit.  but now, 23 years later from those moments of recording remotely on stage in an auditorium at northwestern university, i see that life continues to be fluid, change continues to happen, we still have to sort and feel and go with the flow, we are still learning, growing, changing, we are ever on that seesaw.  still in transition.

 

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IN TRANSITION from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood


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the path forward. [chicken marsala monday]

thepathforward WITH EYES jpeg

often on sunday mornings, when we get to the offertory slot,  jim, the guitar player in the band, and i will look at each other and one of us will make a letter shape with our hands to denote a key…the key of a piece we will improvise on as we go.  and then we are off and running.  although it is often me (with the piano as my music-making-instrument) either one of us drives the piece.  jim loves minor keys – they are so emotional –  so he is in his glory if we pick something minor.  no matter what, we don’t know where it’s going before we start.  but there’s a moment we both feel that it is jelling and we take turns leading and yielding, surprised by the direction and the story, so to speak.

the path forward is like that, i suppose.  you don’t quite know until you start. and sometimes, it takes you by surprise.  just when you think you have it figured out, the key changes.  you lead, you yield, you take a chance not knowing.  and sometimes, it comes out alright.  especially if it’s in a minor key.

read DAVID’S thoughts on this CHICKEN NUGGET

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY – ON OUR SITE

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sometimes the path forward announces itself ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood