Symbioverse

Date: 24 August 2024
Time: 5pm
Obsidian Tags: #practicenote
Place: Chapel Lane Studios, Grasmere

Audio: An original composition, “Fell Plunderer”, featuring piano, orchestra and synthesisers.

Studio Notes:

An ongoing studio practice block, 12 – 26 August, situated in Hereford. Musical and visual experiments made in response to notes and observations from Grasmere stay in June and July 2024.

I work today on an original composition inspired by the lines below, from Book 1 of The Prelude, Childhood and School Time.

Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up
Foster’d alike by beauty and by fear;
Much favour’d in my birthplace, and no less
In that beloved Vale to which, erelong,
I was transplanted. Well I call to mind
(‘Twas at an early age, ere I had seen
Nine summers) when upon the mountain slope
The frost and breath of frosty wind had snapp’d
The last autumnal crocus, ’twas my joy
To wander half the night among the Cliffs
And the smooth Hollows, where the woodcocks ran
Along the open turf. In thought and wish
That time, my shoulder all with springes hung,
I was a fell destroyer. On the heights
Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied
My anxious visitation, hurrying on,
Still hurrying, hurrying onward; moon and stars
Were shining o’er my head; I was alone,
And seem’d to be a trouble to the peace
That was among them. Sometimes it befel
In these night-wanderings, that a strong desire
O’erpower’d my better reason, and the bird
Which was the captive of another’s toils
Became my prey; and, when the deed was done
I heard among the solitary hills
Low breathings coming after me, and sounds
Of undistinguishable motion, steps
Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

Critical Reflections

In studio today, I had this idea for breath scores. Music as breathing. I work still to produce songs and music as auras, as sonic surroundings. In retrospect…