Woodland

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

 

·  With Nature, Be Free  ·

Nature has no need of thought, no avarice, nor claim.

 

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As with nature, you are free to hear this music in anyway you please. With or without words.

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Music without words allows the mind to wander through the discovery of its silence and sound.

Listening to music without words, either my own or of others, is as walking through woodland for the first time.

As I walk I experience without the interruption of meaning. In woodland I am open to its shapes, colour, scent, and sound. I touch the ground, a tree, a leaf to know it more. With music, although my focus is its sound, I also listen to its shape, its colour, its texture, and its tone.

The tone of music is like the quality of light I know in a wood. At times it is clear, and at others, because of mist or the dense canopy above, less certain. Perhaps because of the many sounds I hear at once, less settled. With music I also touch. It is the touch of moving air. I know this touch not only through my ears, but more widely as my body is moved. I am consciously aware of only some of this movement. All the time I am in the wood I hear its music, and I am enchanted by its play of stillness and motion.

Woodland is a magical place. A place that encourages me to listen to the many living things below, on, and above its rich and earthy fleece.

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With the music 'Woodland' I imagine a poetic narrative. A story of sorts that has the shape I hear this music with. Your story may be different and that is well and good. Here is mine so you can set it beside your own:

I find myself deep in unfamiliar woodland during the early morning speckled light.

As the music begins I imagine a flurry of small birds chattering through the leaves, darting this way then that, energized, full with life after their long migrational flight.

I sense the shallow whisper of woodland, its captivating, repeating patterns of sounds that rise then fall, over and over.

Gentle, microscopic droplets, light as mist, drifts with the scent of creatures, calm.

The sound of strings, the tune of undisturbed, quiet foraging.

I stay a while, quiet, unnoticed.

More living things go about their business, seemingly separately, but in harmony with complex rhythmical relationships. I sense this wood, vital and vibrant.

The cello joins full with heart as if the land itself begins to breathe...

The sound of distant pheasant call,
My hand against the husk of bark,
The rain of pine and needle fall,
The bee in search of near and far,
The scent of deer,
The taste of sun,
The chirp and song of nightingale,
I think of all when day is done,
As wondered woodland walk, become.

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A full size extract from the artwork 'Woodland' follows....