Story of the Wind and the Water

A major force has hit me.....

Real events I witnessed and experienced and still do, often become part of my journey which I narrate in Music.

It was my initial fascination of a tsunami – masses of water moving and the air it sucks and pushes – airborne ripples that run across the globe, which became my first awareness that this immense power is fully part of Grand Physics in the greater picture of our planet.

Wind was born when the first waters began moving. This idea became my cue without my knowing it and was resting as a very steady base for what was yet to become another knowledge to me.

During late October 2014 while in my homeland South Africa, I saw a bird flying west against a backdrop of blue with clouds painted by the setting sun. This bird had a rather unusual way of flying which I have never seen before. It kept me busy for many days over the past nearly two years to get a logical rhythm for this flight pattern but with no prevail. Man’s physics does not allow this rhythm in any logics.

My conclusion eventually is just: well, whatever. My perceptions brought into music is as free as the whole Creation and when I want to tell it, I’ll tell it in all its colours, moves, songs, talking, shapes, sizes – anything I see, hear, taste, smell, feel. Endless list. That bird proved it to me in an amazing way which I was yet to learn.

So in between then, seeing all the horrors happening to our planet by the hands of careless people, seeing the very big picture sometimes within seconds, I became immensely moved. Anger and sadness tore at me sometimes so bad, causing some sky high levels of agitation which I didn’t know could exist within me. Normally I wouldn’t be moved by people, knowing that each make their own bed. But this time it was another force to reckon with.

Agitation was building up during the earlier part of this year and as late fall began making way before winter in the south, whilst an immense drought prevailed in South Africa - dams drying up, rivers running empty - I began attacking with common sense, those who are too stupid to realize the true cause. I heard the most ridiculous arguments of water maintenance from folks who cannot imagine that when it doesn’t rain, things will dry up. Dams go empty first, due to evaporation – there were terrible hot winds blowing quite often and rates of rainfall vs evaporation is just too obvious…. And Earth, without her veins properly flowing, cannot keep cool.

My tears began flowing as if it wanted to fill rivers, anytime and anywhere. Often during early hours I’d wake up to meditate during the small quiet hours of the morning. At least everybody in my time zone would be sleeping, even the few that are doing so much harm. I prayed, cried to the Creator, begged for the sake of my lesser siblings that are suffering. I cried about all the fish in the last puddles of a dam that suffered a terrible death.

Many more things were revealed to me during such hours.

I decided to research more - if I know about these as a ‘common sense’, surely there are others as myself. It became a matter of escape in a variety of areas. I found so much and so many.

That was when I decided to take the big escape. Music. The fog was already peaking over the horizon. I remembered the flight of that bird I saw and suddenly flight patterns, bird song, waves, water dwellers and their swim patterns whether pods or solo, saw me grabbing a piece of A4 paper onto which I jotted the various ‘rhythms’ they all move with.

This piece of paper remained among other work papers, ‘disappearing’. But it appeared again and then had caused my first smile in a long while. Some fondness. I kept it at the top of my working papers. Then one day, I noticed the wavy thingy with which I sketched the birdie with its strange flight. As I stared at it, the fog closed in on me.

I couldn’t understand a thing of the jumble of measures I ended up with as my first “Story of the Wind and the Water.” Thought it would just become part of the ‘forgotten files’ of unfinished music. But it did not.

I was called to face my music…. I was agitated again, but with a difference, not time enough for this luxury and got totally worn out. I decided to escape. Have solitude, listen, answer.

The week it took me in solitude ended up in a bit of a disaster. I got a severe cold, blocked ears, a friend had a terrible crisis at her work caused by an employee, and I ended up not able to hear all my sounds as I want to, nor having the emotions for this piece of music.

But 4 August 2016, early morning saw me back on it. I began unjumbling the measures, and the ‘tsunami’ hit me. I knew I began the story somewhere halfway, mixed up measures that had to be moved to the beginning. I moved three sessions of measures and found the beginning, adjusting the tempo and more sounds that were totally hidden under the whole batch.

It is also the first time something like this happens – usually when I begin composing, I’d be stuck on the first few measures, up to seven of them to get into tune with my story and then run on with it at good speed. But this one just tumbled down on me, a bit slower tempo than it should have been, maybe because it didn’t exist as a music which I could recognize. It was strange, yet I knew it because the initial session came in one very big blow and fast on the composing side.

I had to add the first movements of water which lured the wind. Grand Physics. This was hidden. I found them, bit by bit.

On the next morning, I listened to it again and I could see the line of my story. I am not too sure yet if it sounds 100% since my ears still have some pressure and I’ll listen to it when ears are back to normal again. It’s done, but probably still needs some fine tuning.

It was hectic. I remember this morning of 4^th August, how I began shaking terribly when the big picture became clear. This is the first time in my life that I was shaking because of my music, the first time ever that I was shaking so much!

Music is another kind of science with its own mind…

In the meanwhile, the picture in the fog became clear, a bit flimsy so far but I’ll know better once I have my ears back to normal ♫

Where to listen to a section of this composition