Rising Tide

Solo Violin, Strings, Woodwind, Brass, and Piano.

 

·  The Ebb of Shore, of Land and Sea  ·

I ponder on the beauty of the rise and fall of water, our contact with the force of moon, the spin of earth, and pull of sun.

I think of how love can be as endless in its movement dependent on another, of how I feel as creature of the shore, by nature washed between the land and sea.

 

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Tide: the rise and fall of sea; a change of state, physical or emotional; a period of time.

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I enjoy the shore where the land and sea meet in a constant state of unhurried but certain change.

No two tides on the earth are ever the same as they are shaped by a unique period in time when the weather, the shifting silt-layered sand, mud, and rock beneath the waves, the earth's rotation and its relationship with the sun and moon, all intermingle to act upon the watery surface that spreads and seeps into the enduring embrace of shoreline.

I think of the tide as the ever breathing earth.

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I find something that takes its time to happen difficult to accept. I am impatient. I often deny things that are not immediately apparent to me.

As the world grows warmer, tides reach further into low lying lands. Water that was previously locked in the polar regions and high ice-capped mountains and glaciers of the world, finds its way into the oceans that will rise by as much as two meters (well over six feet) within a single human lifespan.

It is hardly surprising people find it difficult to consider change on a scale not of hours, weeks, or months, but of decades. It is easy to turn the other way and pretend all will be fine, especially if today I appear unaffected.

It is our species and many other forms of life that are at risk with the rising tide of climate change, not the world. The world will not end. Life in some form will likely continue.

The earth will survive, but our species may not unless we act today.

To slow the rising tide, make a difference. Even modest actions matter as humans are so abundant on the earth. I can save a little more energy today, recycle, eat and consume in thought of the young who will come to live and know the future.

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Sound cannot be expressed without the flow of moments that we call time. Life exists within this experience of duration we know as time. Music only occurs in time. Tides take time.

The music on this page is a little under four minutes to hear from beginning to end. As I listen to the compressed tides of sound I am reminded of the ebb and flow of far longer, otherwise forgotten periods when water slowly rises and falls. I think of the tides of my feelings and thoughts, of season to season, of love.

Each tide brings something new, sometimes from a different place or person, and this is reflected in the music's style and choice of instrumentation. There are sounds that repeat in strict time, and others that move freely of beat. A Moorish character inhabits the centre of this work where you will also hear a Chinese Erhu, a beautiful two stringed instrument, as well as the radiant sound of a Stradivarius violin first heard over three hundred years ago, and that transforms the air throughout the piece. Time is everywhere.

'Rising Tide' is for me a reminder of the beauty of the world's breath, its reach and affect on life, of love, and a celebration of the change it brings.

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A full size extract from the artwork 'Rising Tide' follows....