9.) Music For Trimming Trees

The ninth song in the Plant Songs series is called Music for Trimming Trees. This song is a bit of a throwback, being in 7/4 time signature. When I was a student at Manhattan School of Music, there was so much 7 as well as other odd meters. It was to the point where playing in 4/4 was getting unfamiliar and almost difficult. I enjoyed how the odd meters steered my improvisation. I wonder if odd meters are still a thing at MSM. I think it was trendy - just a few years after Brad Mehldau’s Art of the Trio series of records came out, on which most standards were played in 7 - but also a thing that musicians in their 20s are often into. I kind of grew out of the odd meter thing over time, although there has continued to be plenty of mixed meters throughout my composing history.

When I sat down to look for an idea for this week, I just started improvising in 7 with something like the introduction of Music For Trimming Trees, and gosh it was fun. So I thought it would bring me some joy if I just followed the fun and wrote a damn song in 7. As many of these songs have gone, the idea was found, and it was just a matter of flushing it out into a song - finding the nuances of progression and melody notes. I debated trying a more through composed form, but after some experimenting, AABA form seemed to be suggesting itself. I think it’s a pretty fun song. I hope you enjoy Music for Trimming Trees.

On a side note, for those of you who have subscribed to the blog with the follow.it subscription field, I’m not too happy with how that’s working. First of all, the videos never show up in the email. You have to click “Read More” which takes you to the blog post on my website where you can access the video. And the at the end of the follow.it notification email you get a bunch of ads and “click bait-y” junk. I didn’t know that either of these things would be part of follow.it, and I’d like to apologize for the inconvenience. I think it’s too late to change to something else at this time and ask you all to re-subsribe or whatever. If you like YouTube, you can subcribe to my channel there. I put a link to the blog post in the description of each video. Thanks!

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8.) Know It All

The eighth song of the Plant Songs project is called Know It All. Creating art is so interesting. Last week’s song, Sky Salmon, was kind of a struggle to get out. The melody took a long time to compose. I had to really force it out. There’s a feeling of relief when I publish a song, and I usually relax for a day afterward and not think about the project much. However last Thursday, after I had published Sky Salmon, I went to the piano and what became Know It All came flying out of me. This one just composed itself. I finished flushing it out and made some edits on Friday morning. I’ll take it! Especially because of all the gardening that’s pressing right now - lots of harvests and still some hope to get some fall crops farther along despite a serious lack of rain. So I’ll gladly accept the extra time.

To me, Know It All, is like a Dave Brubeck song (not Take 5, but maybe In Your Own Sweet Way, or The Duke) or maybe a George Shearing performance put in a blender. The chord changes are rather standard, but with odd harmonic rhythm, with many of them being shortened compared to how they might normally be structured. And within this short form we are in C major, then to B major, then back to C, then Db, then back to C again. It may be a little disorienting, but I think with enough listens it will settle for you. I think the form is really entertaining to play over; quite fun, although it would’ve been really nice to have a rhythm section helping me out on this one.

After the piece was done, I found its goofy chord progression and melodic phrasing to reflect a feeling that I’d been having lately. It has to do with all of the information that’s available to us so easily now. For a curious person who loves learning, it is both exciting and overwhelming. I’m a pretty avid consumer of YouTube, podcasts, records, audio books, and physical books. I have a feeling often that there’s so much I want to learn and that I must be consuming media 24-7. And that’s without social media, which I happily avoid these days. I’m happy that my weekly routine has plenty of media gaps, such as when I do my mountain hikes three times a week.

I’m not thrilled with the title Know It All because it’s kind of loaded - people think of a person who explains everything to everyone. In this case it describes my experience of learning and wanting to learn in the modern age, as I wrote about above. I couldn’t really find a title that described that better than Know It All. If you think of one, let me know.

I’ll close with some thoughts on the titling of songs. I’ve written a lot about the titles during the Plant Songs project thus far. They’re fun to think about and write about, and they help me connect personal feelings to my songs. But as far as (you) listeners are concerned, I think they’re really unimportant. They may even get in the way of you connecting your own emotions to the songs. It’s personal. Feel free to feel any feelings that come up when listening to these songs. Take the titles with a grain of salt. One wonderful thing about art, especially instrument music, is that the feelings are often “in the cracks”, often not clearly defined, and evolving. I enjoy that.

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7.) Sky Salmon

It is said that not long after their creation, the Salmon lost their way. They swam in the rivers and waters of Alaska, but in their wanderings they found neither home nor rest. Overcome with fear and despair they began to fight among themselves, but their fighting only deepened their fears.

Then one day a legendary being appeared to them; a beast of unspeakable wisdom and healing, the White Bear. The Bear came to the edge of the waters and called to the Salmon. “Look to the light of the North Star,” said the Bear. “Look to the light and swim to the top of the Great Mountain. There you will swim in the eternal river of the sky.” The Salmon wondered at such a thing. “Could it be true? If they followed the North Star, would they be able to swim in an eternal river?”

Some of the Salmon ignored the White Bear, while others fled in terror. The smallest of the Salmon peeked out of the water and spoke to the Bear. “How can we swim upstream? It’s against our nature. We do not have the strength.” “If you look upward and fight onward,” replied the Bear, “you can conquer the Great Mountain.” And so it was that those who chose to follow the North Star began the long journey to the summit of the Great Mountain.

Swimming upstream was tiring, difficult, and painful. Some of the Salmon turned back. Those who remained began to feel discouraged. “Look to the Heavens.” reminded one of the Salmon. The other Salmon looked up. High above them was the night sky filled with numberless glittering stars. Despite the darkness of the hour, the light from these stars reminded the Salmon of the Bear’s promise. With renewed energy the Salmon fought to swim upstream, growing in strength and desire with every passing moment. As they moved forward, the Salmon discovered that they were being filled with a beautiful new light. Their bodies underwent a transformation, changing colors from silvers and grays to magnificent greens and reds.

After a long time of difficult swimming the Salmon made it to the very top of the Great Mountain. And as they peeked out from the water to look upon the stars, they found to their astonishment and joy that they could touch the night sky. It was not an endless expanse of air as they had assumed, but an endless expanse of water. The night sky was as the White Bear had spoken, it was an eternal river.

These former wanderers wanted more than anything to swim in that water, to live among the stars. But something inside of them held them back. They looked down the mountain to the valley below and distantly saw the other Salmon lost in the darkness below. “What about them?” they wondered aloud, “we want to share this joy and happiness with them as well.” As they said these things, the White Bear once again appeared before them. He told them that in order for the Salmon to help those who were struggling below, they must swim in the eternal river and become a light for those who were wandering in darkness. But in order to swim in the eternal river, they would have to give up their lives. Knowing what they truly wanted, the Salmon let go of all their doubts and fears and dove into the night sky. Then they who had become so full life and light themselves became the Northern Lights - a river of light to guide the way for others who wander in darkness. And from their death sprang a new generation of Salmon who swam down the mountainside to show the others the way home.

-Transcribed from videoTHE LEGEND OF THE NORTHER LIGHTS || The Salmon of Alaska by the Anasazi Foundation.

Photos of the Northern Lights as seem through the iTelephone on October 10, 2024 at 10pm, just outside our door. Three second exposure vivifies the colors, but they were still visible and beautiful with the naked eye:

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6.) Laevis

That sort of idea of the artist as an architect belongs to architecture. Architects do that I realize, but I don’t think musicians generally do. I think that we are much more like gardeners. We’re planting seeds and then how they come up is different every time and constantly surprising. So I moved away from the idea of the artist as architect, meaning as somebody in possession of a completely clear vision of the final work. I moved away from that to the artist as gardener. Somebody who plants a few seeds and watches them grow, just as you the audience watches them grow. - Brian Eno

This quote is from a Brian Eno interview by The Institute of Art and Ideas that I recently saw on YouTube. How perfect for this project! Perhaps all the gardening I’ve done in the last 9 years isn’t so different from the music making. I’ve often thought about how our garden has been a large evolving work of art. During lapses in my musical output, the garden has served as my artistic output, although it’s more than that as well.

After reflecting on Eno’s quote, I’ve come to think for myself that music making is akin to both gardening and architecture. The act of finding an idea and then flushing it out into a song and getting it on paper seems similar to finding inspiration for a building and then drafting the plans on paper. When the song is performed, the interpretation of the performer, as well as the way it’s received by the listener, both reflect the variability of a garden. And when the song includes improvisation, such as in the jazz tradition, and like most of my songs, the analogy is really perfect. In that case the melody, chords, form, etc, are just the seed and then the growth, flowering, and fruiting comes in the performance, which is different each time. Similarly, in architecture I could argue that the actual construction of the building by tradespeople, and even more so how people interact with the building, has the variability of a garden. It’s fun to contemplate.

A double meaning occurred to me a couple weeks ago. Plant songs could mean “songs about plants”. But “plant” could also be a verb. I’m planting these songs. Some of them will flourish and others will not. The life they will live is not completely in my control. I can do things to encourage them to grow - to reach ears and hearts perhaps. But ultimately there’s not much I can do about how they’ll be received by listeners, or even by myself over time. All I can do is try my best to be true to myself with the songs I make, share them in appropriate ways, and then allow them to be free and try not to be attached to any of the results.

Laevis gets it title from Hibiscus laevis, the Halberd Leafed Rose Mallow, which is in the Malvaceae family. Most of the native flowers around here have tiny flowers. Usually we’re looking at an inflorescence - a group of tiny flowers that might appear like one big flower to us. Sunflowers and Coneflowers come to mind - what looks like one flower is actually many. But Hibiscus leavis has a really big, single showy flower. When I look at a flower like this I think it gives an idea of how a bee might see all the little flowers. Recently I observed the seed pods on our Hibiscus laevis starting to open. They look so cool - like an alien. Actually they remind me of one of the monsters in Stranger Things.

Musically Laevis is constructed of some somewhat bluesy phrases and all major triads - some commonly used in the key of F (the home key of this song), and some not. There’s a lot of third relationships between the triads. I kept waiting for some other chord qualities to suggest themselves as I was flushing out the song, but the major triads always sounded best to me. It came out of an improvisation again, and I think the song takes some inspiration from Keith Jarrett’s compositions from the 70s. I’ve been drawn to triads a lot over the recent years. Yet I remember being really thrown by them in the past, after having spent so much time with seventh chords, which are much more common in jazz repertoire. One reason that I might enjoy improvising over triads these days is that they have less baggage. Musicians often have improvisational concepts associated with certain chords or chord progressions, sometimes transplanting them into songs without much regard to the melody or the vibe of the song. For example, musicians might quickly think of a dorian scale when they see a minor seventh chord on the page, even if that thinking might be limiting. Triads are a little more open as to what you might play over them, at least for me.

I hope you enjoy this one!

Hibiscus laevis flower July 26, 2024.

Hibiscus laevis seed pod / Stranger Things monster mouth, just add strobe light and sound effects. October 6, 2024.

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5.) The Elder

The 5th song in the Plant Songs project is called The Elder. I thought it would be fun to work with the Aeolian mode, which is the natural minor scale. Most of the minor pieces in the world use borrowed chords, particularly borrowing the V (five) chord from the parallel major key. This makes the V chord major instead of minor, and supplies the leading tone, which gives that V chord more of a pull back to the i (one) chord - a little more dramatic tension and release perhaps. If one sticks to the Aeolian mode - the natural minor scale - the v chords remain minor. I was remembering a recent demonstration of the borrowed V chord to a student, comparing it to the minor v, and gosh that minor v sounded cool. And I was recently playing Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers and realized it uses minor v chords and is in fact in the Aeolian mode.

I began by working out a chord progression, and the melody started to come in a little later. It was really fun to improvise over the progression of the A section, and I almost decided to just have the melody be improvised. But eventually I started finding some ideas that I wanted to keep. After I had most of the A section composed, I was improvising off of it, looking for some B section ideas, when I had a quite inspired moment of finding my way to some loud C major chords. It was an energizing moment for sure. It made me think that perhaps I should be doing an improvisation project, elaborating on the thoughts about working quickly to maintain optimum emotional connection that I wrote about in the Agastache post. It’s too late to change that now, and I don’t think I would anyway. But it’s interesting to think about that for the future. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a considerable amount of free improvisation and it would be fun to see what might come out nowadays.

My subject matter came about pretty quickly this time. Elder or Elderberry, is a shrub in the Adoxaceae family. Of Black Elder, there is a North American species that’s native in our area called Sambucus canadensis, and a European species called Sambucus nigra. There’s also Sambucus racemosa / Red-berried Elder around here, and there are other species out west. We planted two Sambucus nigra in 2017. It was one of the first shrubs we planted here. Sometimes I wish we had the native species, but perhaps the reason the birds largely leave our berries alone is because they’re the European species. They are epic plants, now ten or twelve feet tall, and almost as wide. The world of herbalism is abundant with stories of the spirit of the Elder and how the plant can cause problems for people if the ultimate respect is not given. I think the Aeolian vibe of The Elder reflects this nicely. Also, the phrasing of this progression and melody are intentionally a little vague and cyclical, which in my mind reflects the long standing relationship that Sambucus has had with humans and other beings. I want it to sound like this piece has been playing forever and will continue forever and we’re just tuning in for a while.

I love the few weeks in June when the Elders are flowering. Once you know them, you start seeing them everywhere along the roadside. Every year I make Elderflower champagne, Elderberry Jam, Elderberry tincture, and I dry berries to make Elderberry syrup when we need it in the winter. I also regularly use the dried berries for making kombucha. A couple times I’ve made traditional Elderberry wine too. Elder discourages colds and flus very effectively in my experience. Elder is big, powerful, ongoing, and magnificent. This may sound grandiose, but when I interact with Elder I feel as though I’m somehow interacting with the entire history of the Universe.

Our Sambucus nigra June 2020

Berries after after rain.

Berry harvest.

Sambucus racemosa growing wild on Mount Beacon. April 2024

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4.) Goodbye Minn

The fourth song of the Plant Songs project is called “Goodbye Minn. “ I recently listened to some of the 24 Standards recordings, and I thought it might be nice to write in the language of the Great American Songbook. I have not written a lot in that style in the past, although I meticulously arranged 24 Standards, so in that process I learned a lot about it. The harmonic language of those songs lends itself to a lot of chromatic embellishments. I’m not sure if it’s because of the nature of the harmony itself, or if it’s that the songs have been around awhile and have been worked over so much by jazz musicians that we’re used that kind of harmonic treatment - probably a little of both. So in “Goodbye Minn” I enjoyed playing around with that language, adding things like countermelodies and altered chords. I improvised the opening part of the song at a sound check at a wedding gig on Saturday, and again I used the voice memos application to document it in case it eluded me later on. Then I built the song around that opening idea. It was enjoyable to write - at times there were chords that took me awhile to find. Sometimes the right choice revealed itself a day later.

The melody of this song has a bit of repeated phrases in it. Often when I think about melody construction, I want to avoid too many exact repeats of phrases - that’s boring. However, in this case the harmony under the repeated phrases changes, which adds interest I think - maybe it’s even nice. Actually, one of my favorite Duke Ellington songs is “Sunset and the Mockingbird” which does this quite extensively, and it’s gosh darn gorgeous. So I’m going to take encouragement from that and enjoy the repeated phrases that came out in “Goodbye Minn”.

This time around it took awhile before I had a subject and title. I knew it was a sentimental sounding song, but there wasn’t anything jumping out to me for the first few days. Then I happened to watch a video of Robin Greenfield that got me focused on something. Robin is a real inspiring guy. Over the last 10 years, he’s systematically removed nearly all the things in his life that cause harm to life on earth, and done some really inspiring activism too, such as spending an entire year growing and foraging 100 percent of his food. Check him out. He’s currently walking from Canada to Los Angeles on the Pacific coast highway, and he’s been making some impromptu videos along the way. In the one I’m referring to, he found and owl that was killed by a car, and he decided to move it from the road to the forest so it could properly decompose and return to earth. It got me thinking a little about death and nutrient cycling. And I thought of our dog Minnie, who was with us from 2008 until 2022 and I decided to make this song about her. We used to call her ‘Minn’ for short. She was so special. And using “Minn” in the title allows a double meaning, since Minn is the old abbreviation for my state of origin, Minnesota. In four years from now, I will have lived half of my life in New York state, and if you count my time in college at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, I’ve now lived out of MN longer than I’ve lived in it, by quite a lot. I still go back there once or twice a year to visit family and it’s always sad to leave. I really loved growing up there and miss it a lot. So between saying goodbye to Minnie a couple years ago, and saying goodbye to Minnesota a couple times a year, I’ve got plenty of sentimental feelings to attach to this song. I hope you enjoy listening to “Goodbye Minn”.

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Minnie and I visiting a swim hole in the Catskills in 2018.

3.) Agastache

The third piece of the project is entitled “Agastache”. Agastache is a genus of plants in the Lamiaceae family - the mint family. We have three Agastache species growing in our yard. Agastache foeniculum / Anise Hyssop is probably the one most commonly planted around here. The leaves have a strong licorice scent. We also have Agastache scrophularifolia / Purple Giant Hyssop, and newly planted this year is Agastache nepetoides / Yellow Giant Hyssop. Scrophularifolia is a bit unruly and large. I had to move it a couple years ago to a spot where it could dominate a little more. It seeds itself all over, but I always say that I’d rather have to pull plants to keep them from taking over, rather than have to coddle them to grow. Nepetoides hasn’t the showiest flowers; they’re mostly green spires with just a handful of tiny yellow flowers on each. But the bumble bees are constantly feeding on it, and the form of the plant it very neat. I planted it because I heard the juiced plant is a poison ivy rash remedy. Jewelweed is commonly used for poison ivy rashes, but it needs more processing than A. nepetoides. Hopefully I’ll never need to use those plants for that purpose anyway.

I love our plants in the Agastache genus because they bloom for a long time, they’re fragrant, and most importantly they are buzzing like mad with all kinds of bees when they’re in bloom. It’s really fun to sit and watch, which is actually what I did to come up with this tune. I had had an idea for a melody, and had been thinking of our Agastaches lately. So on Monday I worked at little at the piano. But I wasn’t happy with what I was coming up with, so I took a break and went out and sat in a spot in the garden that was near the foeniculum and scrophularifolia. I took in and admired their scents, their looks, and the abundant nectar indicated by the impressive buzz of insects around them. Then I opened myself to any musical ideas that wanted to come forth. Pretty quickly the rhythmic pattern of this song came to me, along with some rough ideas of a melody. I sang it into my voice memos application on my telephone. Then I went back to the piano and starting improvising around the idea. I made another voice memo at the piano. The idea had been caught! This experience was very energizing, just as catching the ideas of the first two Plant Songs was. The next day I went to the piano to figure out the song, and I used the voice memo of the improv at the piano to get going. I had never used the voice memos application for composing like that, nor had I ever sat with a plant to get a musical idea. Here’s to new ways of working!

There are some interesting things happening in the process that I’ve been thinking about which have to do with time. That moment when the original idea is caught is usually the height of my emotional connection to the song - before it’s all flushed out. Then the goal becomes to get it all finished before that emotional connection wanes too much. Finishing the song involves figuring out all the musical parts - solidifying the melody, rhythm, chords, form, etc., then learning to play the piece, and then getting a decent recording of it. Sometimes figuring out some musical elements actually contributes positively to my emotional connection, such as when I found the countermelodies that my right hand plays under the melody at the end of the A and B sections of “Agastache”. But most often the process grates away at the emotional connection, which means that it’s best done as quickly and efficiently as possible (especially when tomatoes need harvesting to boot!). Nothing degrades the emotional connection more than recording multiple takes, so it’s also best to be most efficient in practicing only the spots that need it, and to not do too much improvisation practice before hitting record. It’s a delicate balance of knowing my way around the form without it getting stale. I can usually revive my emotional connection by taking some time away; sometimes that’s 15 minutes, sometimes a couple hours, or sometimes a day. It’s also easier to maintain an emotional connection with my own compositions since they’re a personal expression of something I feel. But getting from the moment of catching the idea, to the moment of a finished recording is usually best done quickly, at least in my experience. There are a couple of older songs of mine that have special moments for me in them - moments that really excited me when they revealed themselves; and I’ve since lost the feeling of those moments. But I trust that listeners might hear those moments now and experience what I felt when they were fresh to me.

I hope you enjoy “Agastache”. I look forward to playing this with a band someday. I could have used an Eastman drummer for this recording - like a Dave Tedeschi, or a Jared Schonig, or a Ted Poor. I was hearing them as I played it.

Agastache foeniculum / Anise Hyssop. Flowers are a little past their prime now, but still buzzing with bees.

Agastache nepetoides / Yellow Giant Hyssop

Agastache scrophularifolia / Purple Giant Hyssop

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2.) Pawpaw Papa

The 2nd piece of the Plant Songs project is entitled “Pawpaw Papa”. This melody surprised me as it came out. It happened quickly, and it was fun, and it’s pretty unique as far as what’s come out of me before. My state of mind in embarking on this project has been that of “get out of the way” and let the music come through. I think that’s what happened here. I more or less improvised it and quickly starting writing it down with some refinement as I went.

Theoretically, this melody is in the mixolydian mode. That’s a major scale, but with a flatted seventh. It’s a scale that we talk a lot about in jazz education, as it fits over the ubiquitous dominant 7th chord. But I think this time I arrived at its use more from an Appalachian folk song influence. About a year after moving to Beacon I bought myself an open back banjo and have enjoyed learning the clawhammer style of banjo playing. There’s a lot of the flat seven chord in that music. I think I remember that being referred to as “the supertonic” in college theory classes. I think “Pawpaw Papa” has a good deal of Old Time Appalachia in it.

The title “Pawpaw Papa” fits with that theme also, as the Pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) is from Appalachia. It’s a deciduous tree native to the Eastern US. We’re right on the northern range. I planted two of them in the garden 2017, and this year we’re finally getting fruit from one of them. They grow slow at the beginning. They’re fun to grow for a number of reasons. First, they’re a native tree and have evolved with along with the local insects, animals, microbes, and fungi. Therefor, there’s not many problems growing them, especially compared to apples and stone fruits which are very difficult to grow organically in Eastern North America. Second, Pawpaw fruit doesn’t store or ship well, so it’s very difficult to find for sale anywhere - if you want it, you pretty much have to grow it. Third, the fruit is very tropical-like, unlike anything that grows around here. It’s got a unique flavor, but has hints of banana, mango, and pineapple. If you have a yard, I highly recommend you plant two or more pawpaw trees!

I grow pawpaws. I’m also a papa - a papa to a human, and a papa to some pawpaw trees!

Our pawpaw trees.  The one in the foreground has about a dozen fruits hiding in the foliage.  

A special moment: tasting our first pawpaw fruits!

On a technical side note, I’m providing sheet music to all the Plant Songs. Click the link below that says PDF SCORE and it should open in a new window. Play them and enjoy them!

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1.) Cradled

The first piece of this project is entitled “Cradled”. The experience of getting something new down on paper and into the air felt wonderful. I could direct you to several older pieces of mine that share similarities to “Cradled”, but that’s not too problematic to me. I don’t want to write the same tune over and over again, but some similarities might just be my style coming through. And the nature of a project such as this - publishing a new song every week - allows for that kind of thing in my opinion. Not all the songs that come out are going to be unique or great. But hopefully a handful of them will be.

The moment I got a couple melodic ideas down on the page felt great. After filling it out a bit, I had essentially a melody with a lot of repeated quarter note chords, mostly major triads. Then the idea of creating some moving voices in those chords came to mind. I think the moving voice adds a lot. Also, there were some chord qualities that I added that were not my first instinct. They felt a little forced and unclear in the process. But after returning to the piece the next day, I really liked them. One thing I’ve enjoyed recently is unusual phrase length, and the opportunity arose for some of that in this piece. The sections of the song are 8 bars (typical) 5 bars (less typical), and 8 bars again. The coda may be a familiar progression to you, except it’s a 3 bar version. I enjoy how some the odd phrase lengths might obscure the form a little upon first hearing the song.

The titling of instrumental pieces is a bit subjective. You might get a different feeling from the piece than I do. However, titles do help me in connecting to the piece myself. If I connect emotionally to the piece, I believe it will be easier for a listener to as well, despite the fact that we may get different feelings from it. This title came to me almost immediately as I got the first few measures down on paper, and from that moment on this piece became an expression of what this title refers to for me. I’ll enjoy sharing what this title means:

In January this year, I decided that my heart could use some exercise. I started with jumping rope. It was fun, but I didn’t like being inside. So I tried jogging, but that also wasn’t the right fit. It stressed my joints, and I didn’t like running next to traffic. My parents suggested I walk hills in Beacon, and the idea occurred to me to starting hiking a nearby trail that goes up Mount Beacon. In March I began a routine of briskly hiking this trail 3 times a week. It’s a good heart work out! I usually set a timer at the start of the trail for 20 minutes. I ascend as fast as I can. I’m usually climbing about 700 feet. I take a short break at the top, then descend down. It started as a workout routine. But quickly I started noticing things, naming places along the trial, identifying plants, and feeling a deep connection to the trail. I’ve now experienced the trail for about 6 months. I’m excited to continue observing for an entire year, although I’m sure snow and ice will interrupt me a little. We’re due for a snowy winter. Imagine what I’ll have learned by observing for a whole year. What if I continued for 10 years, or 20 years?!

Occasionally I devote a little more time to my hike and visit the Mount Beacon Reservoir. The reservoir occupies a natural hollow near the top of the mountain. It was dammed in 1922 and I believe it’s the main municipal water source for the city of Beacon. There is a strange silence around the reservoir. There’s not much wind there on an average day and you can hear hikers approaching from far away - I think you can hear footsteps crunching the gravel road from about 100 meters away and voices from 200 meters or more. It’s a very peaceful and serene place. When I sit by the shore, or lay on the rocks I get the feeling of being cradled by two giant hands. Often when I’m falling asleep I put myself back in that place. I feel very nurtured there. It’s wonderful. I wanted to capture a photo of the spot for this post, so I went there today and found the reservoir shrouded in fog. I captured some nice photos as the fog was lifting.

What a special place. “Cradled” is my song of gratitude for this place and the support I feel from it. I hope you enjoy the song and get some feelings from it too.

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Introducing Plant Songs

Dear listeners.  I’d like to introduce to you my latest project which I’m calling Plant Songs.  It will be much like the Weekly Composition Project that I did from May 2012 to May 2013, but with a couple caveats.  

Essentially, I’ll be composing and recording one short composition each week and sharing the process on this blog and on YouTube.   

The original Weekly Composition Project was done at a simpler time in my life, and I successfully uploaded every week for an entire year; fifty-two pieces.  

My life is less simple now.  I am a father now, I work a little more now, and I’m a homesteader.   The homesteading lifestyle boils down to spending time providing some of the basic needs for myself and my family, rather than spending money to meet those needs.  In the last 9 years I’ve gotten really into growing fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants.  I keep chickens, build some furniture, bake bread, preserve the harvest in many ways, keep several active fermentations going, and do the regular homeowner upkeep tasks.  I’ve followed my passion for this kind of stuff and really learned a lot over the last decade.  I love it.  I’ve developed a deeper connection with the basics of being a human being on planet Earth.  I believe that many of the world’s problems are solved in the garden.  

The last project I completed was called 24 Standards which happened from 2016 to 2019.  Because I was getting deep into the homesteading at that time, I decided that rather than publish on a schedule, I'd just commit to completing 24 arrangments however long it took.  I thought maybe I’d average posting every two weeks or so and the project would last around one year.  Well, it ended up taking three years to complete. 

For Plant Songs I considered a similar format, committing to a certian number of compositions and publishing whenever I got them done.  However I ultimately decided that the weekly publishing requirement was a key piece of getting the writing flow happening.   Without that I thought perhaps this project would also drag on too long.   

The challenge is that many things in parenting and the homesteading arts are pressing.   If you’re trying to grow your year’s supply of tomatoes, you can’t put off picking them and preserving them when they’re ripe.  If you do, you miss the opportunity, and the time and energy you spent all year growing them is wasted.  

With my daughter in school now, I think I'll be able to pull off a piece each week while keeping up with everything else. This time around, I’m giving myself a vacation during the week of Thanksgiving, and the two weeks around the holidays.  If time seems available during those weeks, I may choose to publish, but I’m not requiring it of myself.   And rather than commit to a year, I’m committing to publishing through the end of March 2025.   When April comes around, there’s so much to be done in the garden.  I’ll give myself permission to stop then if I want.  Who knows, perhaps the flow will be so nice at that point that I’ll be able to continue.  Time will tell.  

I’m hoping you’ll join me on this journey.  Plant Songs will be another look at my process of composing.  I have other project ideas in mind also, but composing has been calling out to me.  I wrote somewhere around two hundred fifty pieces from 2002 to 2015.   Since 2015 I think I’ve written four.  I’ve changed since 2015.  I’m feeling much more open than I did years ago.  I’ve had a lot of time away from it. It’s time to get some new music out of me.  

If you’re interested in following along, I suggest you subscribe to get email notifications of posts in special subscription field at the very top of this page, and subscribe to my YouTube channel.  I avoid social media these days, so I’m not sure how consistent I'll be in sharing on those platforms, and I’ll only occaissionally send an email to my list about the project.  I don’t care about algorythms or making money from this project.  I care about making art.  It’s helpful for me to think that at least a few people are listening.  Thanks for being here with me at the end of this long introduction.  May the music and the rain flow abundantly!