By Happy River
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Music and the WE Space. And the Tao.
To make music, I choose to surrender. I open and pray. I only want to let the grandeur of everythingness speak!
So I listen. I want each song I create to be birthed whole, only colored perhaps by slight interpretations. If I can listen well, the perfect coherence of the eternal fabric shines like the sun in my being.
Preparation.
The real effort is to prepare my capacity to translate what I hear, in real-time, before I forget the idea. I spend 2 – 3 hours a day practicing the language of bebop, invented by Charlie Parker. It is my favorite way of understanding the interrelation of notes and intent. This way, when I make music, I can forget everything I’ve practiced and just be free.
Conception.
Yesterday, Miku asked if I could make a song for the Ostara video we’re releasing today. So I sat down and listened to what Ostara wanted to say, on the inner. A melody came to me, then the words, and finally, the full chord progression. The percussion sounds were sitting in the void and all I needed to do was create them.
“The percussion sounds were sitting in the void and all I needed to do was create them.”
I took larger waveforms than I needed and chiseled out the sounds that I would use. I tuned the sounds to an Ab Major 7th chord and used the EQ to carve away any intrusive formants. Miku jumped into our closet recording booth and read her poem. I laid down the chord progression on piano and then went to work discovering the right instruments to dance with Miku’s voice in a call and response pattern. I ended up with a vibraphone, a guitar, and the piano in Miku’s study. Once I had carved out the correct EQ spaces for each instrument in the mix, I threw a sub-bass under it all, gave it a filter, and then began the mixing process by zooming in and zooming out.
Mixing.
Zooming in and zooming out is my preferred way to mix. I squint my eyes, listen to the lyric being passed off by the instruments like a hot potato, and allow my inner knowingness to move my mouse finger up and down until each phrase is inhabiting it’s optimal volume level.
Flow.
(No words needed)
Celebration.
Robyn had offered to dance in the Ostara video this season, and so with great joy I sent her the rough mix last night, for pacing. This morning I received the video of her dance and marveled as it all came together with the song and the poem read by Miku (Inspired by the 2021 We’Moon Spring Greeting and Poem Excerpt by Patricia Telesco 2019).
I was joyous to see it all come together and it felt like perfection, through and through.
The Tao knows no writer’s block! So now we can just dance and celebrate.
Here is the song & poetry reading!
(Inspired by the 2021 We’Moon Spring Greeting and Poem Excerpt by Patricia Telesco 2019).
Poetry Reading by Miku Lenentine
Music by: Happy River
