Hello Hive-minds, my band Misty Eyed played a live show on Rock 98.9 (Jacksonville, Florida) Thursday night! I regret not posting a link to the livestream, but I will get better at that in the future; luckily, we have the recorded video on Facebook for you all to see! Check it out here:
Acoustic Performance:
Mourning walks:
I have always been fascinated with bird calls and the sounds of nature. As a child I lived in the plentiful and lively trails of Georgia (by lived I mean that I spent a lot of time at the trails, just in case). I spent that time with my brother and father, usually in silence; maybe we were just going on “sound-walks.” The sweet air colored by the pines that stand for miles, the careful rustling of the fauna, the random dad joke accompanied by son laughter; it was really heaven for me. I learned a lot about sound and more importantly, silence, as my ears became conditioned to listen on these trails. I will always cherish these memories, while making similar ones.
Are you fascinated by the sounds of nature as well? Have you ever heard a mourning dove call? I hope you have, because it’s an enchanting experience; so enchanting to me that I couldn’t avoid using the call in a new work of mine titled ‘WANDER.’ Take a listen here, and tell me if you recognize anything, about the song or about yourself.
Soundcloud link:
https://soundcloud.com/user-296514887/wander
Composing Wander:
I felt a story, as the streets of Cambridge showed me the way. I was desperate for a story,—or a sound, a formless sound with a specific shape. I clung to this idea like a monkey clings to its own mother as I floated towards nearby parks. I found myself perfectly perching underneath a singular, grandfatherly tree, I laid in his shadow, watching the limbs meditate as the wind tested his posture. I found images; a woman and her infant shimmering in the grass, spasms of birdsong, the invisible encouragement of the wind in the branches; be literal. Submitting to my first intuition, I drew crude shapes of the wind and vague rhythms of the birds, then waited; waited for the hieroglyphs to take meaning, waited for the story to emerge; nothing. As I walked back toward Longy, a mourning dove motive called out to me, daring me to add to the conversation. A force illuminated my nervous system; why did I feel such a connection to this one? Was it sheer saving grace? Or did those frequencies vibrate my very essence? What was clear, was that I had my piece. The work illustrated my experience, but did not evoke the sensation of the experience written this way; too carefully controlled and predictable. I decided to allow the performers to perform onomatopoeic motives using an alietoric sense of time and space, in order to fully realize the space that my mind occupied while laying under the tree. This meant that no single moment could be predicted, but all were intentional, personal; the performers and listeners wandered through space, as ears were reminded of silence. The lessons that can be read from nature deeply guide one’s mind in mysterious ways; profound and obvious mantras reflect the leaves, as we wander.