The Old Path

An old path, yet strange....

I woke up one morning and knew that I have to begin indexing my musical work. Just a bit of an order I like to have when not living in my world of fantasy. I like things to have a proper place and easy to find – a major part of the control freak that I can be.

This brought me on the old path, right back to the origin of my first song…..

Composing real time means a new song, composing memories are songs that existed and which I only arrange since I found a notation software program to do so. (back in the real world I figured why I'd use these terms)

My voice was my first instrument and many other sounds in Nature as well as movement became the rest of my orchestra/choir.

While digging through old poems (songs), reading some, checking dates, some memories began moving from a far distant grey era nearer to the front, some are so strong, I can even remember the smell, feel the temperature and see these moments in full colour.

Birth of my first songs

My first song came when I was four years old, abandoned for many hours in a park. I was told to stay right where I am (which was in the sandpit). I remained there, quiet, playing.

When the tree shadows became long and the sandpit was feeling cold and damp under me, I began wondering if I have to stay there forever. My older brother who was already school-going had left, I cannot remember if he was also told to stay at the park.

My mind tried to fathom then if I have to stay in the sandpit forever, how will get food, how will I reach my warm, safe bed to sleep. How will I get to a toilet to pee? I didn’t want to pee in the sandpit because we play there. But eventually the sand became moister and warmer under me. I was comfortable, but very sad that I did such a terrible thing.

I looked at the tall trees, hoping to see someone fetching me coming from there but no one came. I kept looking again and again, then, suddenly, I saw how the trees bowed, sending some rays of sun to my eyes and a gentle, comforting song was gliding through all of these movements. Birds were also singing as they reached their nests after a day’s work and I knew I’ll never be alone.

I became part of another dimension, a world of so much beauty and I knew that I’ll be home in it forever. My first song was born…..

As I am now sorting all my finished work, I discovered that a piece I arranged earlier this year, “Child cries to God” contains mostly the fourth song that came during that period of 1960/1. It has always been as if Angels sang a lullaby to me, comforting me. This melody remained with me during later years. This memory was sparked earlier this year when I read something about a little child that was alone….it came very fast.

This specific track does not sound as nice as the music I hear, I used digital voices. This ‘lullaby’ came back when I worked on “Petals Vol.1” “Spirit of the Child” to comfort me and I used panflutes as the voices of the Angels which sounds far more celestial. I’ll analyze both these tracks more for there is a lot of memories contained in there and write about it eventually.

“Dominus” which I also did earlier this year, has some flash backs of the first song and those that followed and I am quite amped now to analyze and dissect more songs that give me a kind of déjà vu feeling. There are phrases that sometimes repeat in some of my work. Memories are coming back, some are still vague, but they are there – a treasure chest and also a guard are two pictures I ‘hear’ in the distance, those were the two last parts of that specific time in my life. For now, I think.

A later batch followed after this, “Child Running Free” was a song that came when I’d run on game- and footpaths into the bush, as fast as I could and for as long as possible. The wind grabbing my hair, the bushes and trees flying by, the smells and then the rhythm of my feet, all played this song over and over and I wouldn’t get tired. This rhythm were part of me and I even used it later years when I'd run cross country. I wouldn't get tired, just enjoyed running! What amazes me about my wild kiddie days though, is that the bushveld still had wild lion, leopard and cheetah. None of them were hungry for me....but after I heard a lion roar very near the house one night and the vicious bull replying from the kraal, I was filled with a reverence which remained for the rest of my life. Papa also told me that I was not allowed to sneak into the bush anymore until we were sure the lion has left. Somehow I knew that the lion was scared of the bull and I felt safe.

 Part the original score "Child running free", final measures  from my album "Chapters"
Not much of a clue yet how to 'write' music!! But I compose it!!!

This and others happened around 1964 to 1969 at grandpa's farm in the lowveld (Limpopo Province)of South Africa. Some of these songs I composed already, one of them is in fact two songs: “Teatime with Grandpa” (actual title) or “Tea and Oranges with Grandpa”. Its about taking a cup of tea for grandpa at the shed and having a trip with grandpa to Ofcolaco to deliver a load of harvested oranges. I loved those trips in his noisy old Thames lorry. I would also mark one orange and follow it all the way to the sorting tables. Taking tea for grandpa was another story. I tried my best not to spill a drop in the saucer and had to negotiate two logs over a ditch whilst imagining all kinds of 'things' that might live under the logs.....

"We Played, We Cried" - a song I wrote for my childhood friend Mmahidi in the hope we can find each other again one day, contains some of the playful rhythms and singing together those days at grandpa's, But a lot in this track is rather the sad part of apartheid that flooded me earlier this year when "Spirit of the Child"came to me. I was torn into pieces at the time - I could hardly cope with all the music that came as a tsunami, all the old voices wanted to be heard, and I flew feverishly over the little lines, clicking very many measures in all kinds of voices I heard.

A song I see more clear nowadays as well, is one I sang and danced at the Makhutswi River, bordering Grandpa’s farm. (district Trichardtsdal, South Africa) There was a small sand beach which was my stage in this natural amphitheater with the greatest audience one can imagine – fit for the little queen of the subtropical bushlands which I transferred into. My imagination had no limits and I could sing as loud as I wanted and as high as I wanted without anyone shouting at me. Surely Grandpa could hear me from the shed. He always liked to talk to me about opera and soprano voices and I liked listening to what he’d tell me. I hope that whole song will come back eventually.

Period 1970-1976 is almost totally quiet from anything happy, the first five years during this time was horrific and the last ones even more when I became a young adult, out in a world full of bad people. At least I had a year of piano lessons during 1970. My mother only used it as bait to make me happy to go to boarding school and from the next year she didn't allow me any further piano lessons. I found the score of "Tales of the Vienna Woods" and learned to play this piece on my own on the piano at boarding school. Tough, painful years, emotionally and physically. But I grew up.

The later arrangements, masses of them full of joy after my first and only child was born late 1976, are much easier to index, by then I wrote my poems down, sang lullabies to my little baby, played my guitar and sang more songs that would flood me at times.

There are many more then, which I hope to arrange in my lifetime, along with new songs that sometimes surge. At least I can move quite fast once I figured out the correct key and rhythm(s). It usually takes around the first seven measures to get right, sometimes I can battle with it and wished I still had my singing voice to help, but once I’ve got that beginning in order, then I fly. I already managed arranging over 120 measures containing complex Fugue styles, within four hours, and some are in different keys, even different rhythms. That's the way I hear and I have to compose it that way. I am humbled, thankful to my Creator for this gift.

I shall start another post later with my already finished works which I’ll regularly update as these songs return. There is a lot of cross references to sort out. If I have time I might even adapt some tracks to paint specific scenes as I had lived them. I am also adding a bit more information now at the tracks I have on YouTube and maybe SoundCloud.

Of course I cannot describe how excited I am on this very old path, regardless of some horrors, music had made me strong when I was a scared, lost child, and will keep me strong forever.