Dark Sky Music

Rising Moon
Dark Sky Week is April 20-26

Playing flute around the middle of the night is a habit for me. One reason is I’m a night owl and this is a convenient time to get some practicing done. But the music that wells up at this time is often different than during the daylight. Pieces have life in them even when I am still learning their twists and turns. Improvisations speak more deeply and enchant me for longer. Even the technique exercises become freer and more fluid at this time of night. This is when I can imagine that only the owls and the trees can hear me. This is when self-consciousness fades away into nothing and anything is possible. On especially nice nights, I sometimes go outside and play on the patio where only starlight reflects off the flute.
Of course, I can be heard just as clearly at this time as during the sunny hours. Many, if not all, of my neighbors have commented on the “mysterious” flute player in the woods out here. Some have even told me that they love sitting out on their porches and waiting to hear the flute music roll down the hill. If anything, the darkness creates a more noticeable spotlight for the music than the brightest stage-light. But only for the sound. Most of my neighbors never guess who the musician is. Even those who know I play flute usually don’t realize it’s me until someone tells them. Why, I’m not quite sure. Unless that element of nighttime mystery crept into the music and hid my identity. This may be why I like playing in the dark. My own sense of self is less noticeable and the music can simply be another nightly creature in the woods. Raccoons and possums have wandered by as the notes tumbled round the patio. The crickets and tree-frogs keep time with the exploring rhythms. The trees dance with both the wind and the motivic melodies. Stage-lights create the illusion of being surrounded by darkness but this is the real thing. There is nothing to hide from and no reason to try.
Turn off the lights, even the spotlight, and see where the music goes.

Moon in Clouds

April Improvisations, May Compositions?

April is here at long last but the trees are still barely budded. I've been waiting and waiting for the spring storms to roll their way across the roof and inspire new notes with each thunderclap. But instead I find myself hearing gentle rains pattering lightly on the ground. Light little taps of a watery baton. The new tunes aren't flashing into my mind this season but they are slowly building up. Each note slithers its way onto the staff like seeds sliding into the ground.
My garden doesn't grow in rows since I'm much too impatient to make the plants behave. Instead the sprouts scatter over wide areas and pop up in places I'm sure I didn't plant them. But the patterns they make are all the more lovely for that. I've taken to writing several versions of a new melody idea for similar reasons. There isn't just one pattern for the notes to follow when I play and for the life of me, I can't decide on one to commit to the still paper version. But when three different versions twist round each other on the page, I am happy and content. I don't have to set these songs in stone; they can leap about into new and unexpected designs. The improvisation and the composition can exist side by side after all.

I was late ordering seeds this spring which has worked out well for once. The cold kept returning, making me grateful there wasn't much in the garden to get nipped by the frost. I feel the same about how long I took before learning to compose. I didn't study the subject in school; I didn't take the classes that my composing friends complained about so bitterly. The rules and restrictions in those classes would have driven me mad. I understand the point of using structure to develop a creative skill (and use the idea in many ways) but the rules about which intervals could be used and the patterns of melodies that were allowed were not the structure I needed. I needed to follow the notes down into the dark depths of the musical forest, where even the deer trails disappear and learn to find my way about by listening to the notes alone. I needed to have the freedom explore the different ways the harmonies worked from year to year, within their wild home. It took a great deal of time and in many ways I am still lost in the woods but I feel at home there and I have found new and unexpected skills within my musical creations. Little sprigs of ideas appear like mushroom caps and early wild flowers after a rain. And when I let them grow at their own pace, without hurrying them, they often surprise me with their beauty.
I do grow salad greens inside as well and this year was no exception. The broccoli raab I planted back in January has been a great and unending delight all this long winter. The window box of green florets sits beside my music stand in my practice room where I can look out the window as I work on scales and memorizing. My breath makes the leaves toss and turn at times and I can imagine the plants are dancing to the music. I've watched the winter season through that window with each practice session and gloried in the tiny changes I was seeing. And hearing.
It may have taken a long time but there is no doubt. It is the budding season, the time of new growth and new ideas. The bird-calls fill the days and the coyote-howls fill the nights. Soon, I will take myself outside to practice, to give the note-seeds room to grow and to delight in the spring.