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26.) Pinus rigida : Endurance

Hello Dearest Listeners/Readers,

The 26th song of the Plant Songs project is entitled Pinus rigida : Endurance.

If you’re able, willing, interested, and you’d like to give me a gift, I’d like you to clear your schedule for 12 minutes and listen to this piece without doing anything else. Ideally you’d have good speakers, or better-yet good headphones. Listen without doing other things. Lay down. Close your eyes if you’d like. Wait until the piece is done, and take a moment of pause, before you read the essay that follows. Thanks.








Ok. You made it through. I’d love to know your reaction to it.





Now I’ll tell you what I was going for with this piece, starting with some history. I think it was November or December of 2007. I was browsing through CDs at the Downtown Music Gallery, which was then located on the Bowery in New York City. It was one of just a few remaining record stores. It’s still going actually, now located in a basement in Chinatown. It’s a store that specializes in avant-garde jazz and experimental music, and its narrow specialty is probably why it’s still open. Bruce Lee Gallanter, the owner, is a hero of the scene - speaking of endurance. Bruce’s love of music of many kinds is very inspiring.

I was in the store browsing, when I noticed the track they had playing in the store. It consisted of slow-repeating piano chords that were changing very subtly. After a few minutes, I kept thinking that it was going to change or develop into something different. It didn’t. It kept on with the same idea the entire time I was in the store - probably about 20-30 minutes. Whoa. What is happening! Bruce said it was drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey’s new album That / Not and this track was his tribute to Morton Feldman. I didn’t buy the record that day I’m embarrassed to say, but I did a few weeks later. My experience hearing Tyshawn’s piece that day certainly aroused my curiosity about Morton Feldman, whom I didn’t know much about.

A few days later I hit up the NY Public Library at Lincoln Center which had a vast library of CDs that you could borrow. I borrowed all the Morton Feldman records I could find. Later that week I was riding the bus back to NYC from Park Ridge NJ, where I taught piano lessons once a week back in those days. I had some beefy sound-isolating headphones, made for drummers to use while they practiced along with records. As we rolled through New Jersey, I listened to the record of Morton Feldman’s piece For Bunita Marcus recorded by pianist Markus Hinterhäuser. I remember it was December because people had Christmas lights up. This was a completely life-changing experience. The combination of hearing Tyshawn’s record, getting curious about Morton Feldman, and then listening to this piece on that bus ride, absolutely changed the way that I heard the piano. It opened up a world of piano overtones by which I became completely obsessed. Much of my work afterward for years was exploring the piano’s overtones and ability to blend sustained sounds.

My favorite Feldman pieces became For Bunita Marcus, Triadic Memories (both for solo piano), and String Quartet No. 2, which is a single-movement piece that last for over six hours! Again, speaking of endurance. You’ve gotta train for performing that. Concentration aside, I’d have to learn how to be hydrated and yet not need to urinate for more than 6 hours! The piano pieces have a lot to do with overtones and blended sustained sounds as I was writing about above, and the quartet has a lot to do with repeats, and scale (6 hours of it is much different than 20 minutes of it), and rhythmic augmentation. I wrote about back in 2013 in a blog post called Recordings and Memory Satisfaction. I became deeply interested in these things and used them a lot in my compositions. You can hear it on my 2010 trio record Magnolia, particularly on the track Time Canvas (which is titled after a section of Feldman’s book of writings Give Me Regards to Eighth Street), and you can hear it in many of the Bagatelles for Trio (2012).



Last Friday I hiked to the Pinus rigida / Pitch Pine grove up on the mountain. I’m drawn to these pines. I’ve been visiting them weekly this year. I have a feeling that there is something about them that is very important for me. They’ve been “calling” me. It’s now been a year since I started my hiking routine of going up the Pocket Rd. trail three times a week. From the beginning, I headed for the Pitch Pines. On most days, when I limit myself to a twenty minute ascent, I don’t make it all the way to them, but it’s interesting that I naturally went that way over and over again. I have a video of the first time I made it to the Pitch Pine Grove. It was March 11, 2024. I believe I had been doing the hiking routine for a week or two at that point, and on that particular day I took a little more time to continue up to the peak, which doesn’t officially have a name. I’m naming it Pitch Peak. There is a nice rock scramble that you have to climb before you reach Pitch Peak and some great views. You can look across and see the reservoir, and you get sprawling views of the Hudson Valley, all the way up to the Catskill Mountains.

Perhaps the feeling that came up about 16th months ago, that I needed to exercise my heart, was the Pitch Pines calling me. Maybe they called me to Beacon ten years ago. Maybe they called me to NYC in 2002. Maybe they called me into being born. Ha! Maybe, maybe not.

I don’t know the age of the Pinus rigida trees up there. All the trees, the Pitch Pines, and the many Quercus ilicifolia / Bear Oak trees up there are all very small, but I don’t think they’re young. Most are 15 feet or under, I assume because of the harsh growing conditions: rocky soil high on the hilltops where rain water runs off quickly, high winds, cold temperatures. There are many winter days when the trees at the top of the mountain are sparkling white with a thick layer of frost. Assuming the trees have always been on the small size because of the harsh growing conditions, I question if there was any logging done on the peaks in the Hudson Highlands. Would it have been worth the trouble to harvest such small trees? There is a lot of multi-trunk red oaks on the hillsides, and according to Tom Wessels, that’s good evidence of logging. When a tree is cut, often sprouts will regrow from the stump, and usually two or three win out, resulting in a tree with two or three main trunks. I’ve located two Pinus rigida in my neighborhood, down here around 220 feet in elevation and richer bottomland soil, and they’re both much taller than those up on Pitch Peak - around 40 feet.

So last Friday I went to Pitch Peak. Near the white trial and red trail junction, there’s a nice flat boulder right under one of the larger Pitch Pines. I laid on my back on this boulder for 15 minutes. It was cold and I was sweaty from the rapid ascent, and I had to get home to teach a lesson, so I couldn’t stay longer on this day. There were some gusty winds, although they were really mild considering what it must be like often times. The trees swayed and they whistled in the wind. Even on very calm days, these trees make a breathy whistling sound, which is very noticeable. As my Pitch Pine “dream time” was ending, I had a thought of how much these trees endure in these harsh growing conditions.

When I returned home, before teaching my lesson, I improvised what you hear in the first three measures of Pinus rigida : Endurance. Right away I had the idea that it could become a Feldman-inspired piece, something sustained, slow, repetitive, and ringing over-tone-based. After some experimentation, the piece took shape to what it is. There is some fairly rigid (rigida!) architecture to the piece, which you may enjoying trying to figure out, either by listening, or analyzing the score, or both. I thought the piece worked perfectly for a song about endurance and trees. For me the texture matches a the time scale of a slow-growing tree, and depending on how you felt about the piece, you might have needed some real endurance to listen through it once.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for reading this long post.

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25.) Merging

Greetings Thawing Beings!

The 25th song in the Plant Songs Project is titled Merging. 

I was improvising on Saturday and found the idea of what is heard in the introduction.  Very quickly the melody came to me - kind of a minimalist theme with lots of space.  I liked it. 

As I found the rest of the song a form emerged that I could describe as a Rondo form and/or a modified blues form.  The form of this song actually brought to mind a comparison of the two that had never occurred to me before.  

Someone told me once that Herbie Hancock said that all songs could be boiled down to either the blues form or the Rhythm changes form.  For those that are unfamiliar, Rhythm Changes refers to the harmonic structure of George Gershwin’s song I Got Rhythm.  There are hundreds of melodies in the jazz canon written over the I Got Rhythm chord progression, which we refer to as“Rhythm Changes”. It’s an AABA form.  So all the AABA songs out there might be compared to Rhythm Changes.

When you look at the basic harmonic structure of the 12-bar blues form, you have the following: I - IV - I - V - I. If you call the I chord “A”, the IV chord “B”, and the V chord “C”, then we have ABACA form, which is like a mini Rondo form. Rondo form is essentially ABACADA…on and on as long as you want. Basically you’re returning to an original theme over and over again with sections of different material between that theme.

This is the form of Merging; rondo form, but also a stretched out blues form. Measures 1 to 16 represent I and A, measures 17-21 represent IV and B, 22-29 I (A), 30-43 V (C), and 44-51 I (A). All together it’s ABACA.

I agree with Herbie. It’s fun to look a song and see how it resembles a blues or a rhythm changes. Sonata form is ABA and traditionally that first A is repeated, so AABA. A traditional performance of a jazz song is melody, solos, melody. The melody could represent A, the solos B (the development), and the return to the melody is A again, so ABA, not to far off. The only exception I can easily think of are the great American songbook tunes that are in two large sections, like Just Friends, or There Will Never Be Another You. Maybe these came out of Binary form, which was commonly used in the Baroque period of classical music..

I remember hearing a solo piano concert by Matthew Shipp in which he played a rendition of My Funny Valentine. He played 8 bars of the theme, then improvised freely, then the next 8 bars of the theme, then improvised, on and on. It occurred to me that he was doing a Rondo form, which was kind of rare in jazz. The friend I was with found it annoying, but I found it intriguing. It got me thinking, and a couple years later I would compose and record Bagatelles For Trio, which was largely about taking classical forms and applying them to jazz. The fourth Bagatelle is in Rondo form.

Back to Merging. I had recently been thinking about how life involves a lot of “merging”. Ten years ago we “merged” with life in Beacon, NY. Other friends were also merging with Beacon life right at the same time. Others had merged with it a few years earlier. They allowed us in, and we became part of the community. Some have exited Beacon life now and moved away, and many more have merged with it in more recent years. I’ve recently merged strongly with the Mount Beacon ecosystem, establishing my hiking habit and getting to know that ecosystem while it gets to know me. My wife Akiko and I merged together back in 2004 and we really merged hard, so much that we’ve remained side by side on the road of life for 21 years now. And our daughter Miya rapidly merged with our lives in 2019 and is right now in the stage of being very close and dependent. Later she will become more independent and go farther away, but will still be merged with us in some way. My piano students merge with me, some for ten or twelve years before they exit and merge into the next stage of their lives. Different communities such as my music major friends at UW-Eau Claire, my Manhattan School of Music friends, the sub scene of the NYC jazz scene that I was a part of, and the eco/gardening scene of Beacon, and many more, can all be viewed as mergings. Some last longer than others, but they all have left a mark. I am who I am today because of all of these periods of merging into different communities for a time. I merged into conscious life on Earth, and I will exit eventually. It’s nice being here on Earth at this time - pretty cool to be on this planet at the same time as pianos, for example. I could go on and on with this, and I will as I go about my days, until something merges into my life that needs some immediate attention for a time.

I hope you enjoy Merging. Thanks for being with me.

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24.) Johnny Joe Mockingbird

Hi Folks,

The 24th song in the Plant Songs project is called Johnny Joe Mockingbird.

I was away for the long weekend, spending time with my parents down in the Rio Grande Valley. It was a great time. But it meant that I got a late start in beginning this piece. Happily, I was able to catch the idea and get it worked out entirely on Tuesday. It’s got an AABA form plus a coda, nothing too unusual, and in my ear it’s got a pretty positive sound.

The title of this one has some fun stuff about it. I am currently reading Evan T. Pritchard’s book Bird Medicine. Pritchard is a Native American scholar and a descendant of the Mi’kmaq people. The book is full of stories about birds, many of them involving death; often a bird will appear to someone at the moment of a loved one’s death, or sometimes before or after. After reading many of these encounters in the book, I remembered one instance that happened to me:

We moved to Beacon in late July 2015. The first 6 weeks or so were an intense, but fun, period of renovating the house and unpacking. After finally settling in and getting into our routine, I noticed some strange behavior from a Northern Mockingbird. This bird was around for something like three weeks, sitting in the neighbor’s hedge across the street, staring at me through our kitchen window. Possibly aside from the piano, the kitchen is where I spend most of my waking hours. In addition to home cooking I do a lot of homesteader activities like fermentation, bread baking, and food processing. I like having a hand in my food as much as I reasonably can. My wife Akiko probably thinks I tip into the unreasonable in this area, and I can’t blame her for thinking that. These activities get me in front of the kitchen window doing dishes often. Over this three-week period I observed this Mockingbird staring at me as I did the dishes. When a car approached the bird would duck down into the hedge, then pop up after the car had passed and resume staring at me. After a day or two if this, I had the notion that this bird was Mr. Joseph, the previous owner of the house checking in to see what we were up to in his old house .

Our house was built in the sometime in the late 1870s or early 1880s. My curiosity led me to research our property on the internet and at the Beacon Historical Society. I learned that we were just the third owners of the house; pretty remarkable for a house this old. I took it as a very good sign; that we had moved into a place that had good energy. I’m happy to say that we’ve put down some hard roots here in the last ten years, figuratively and literally! The Tallmadge’s had built the house, then the Joseph’s moved in the 1950s if my memory serves me correctly. One of the Joseph’s told me that our house was originally a chicken coop. The beams of our house go different directions in different rooms, which supports such a claim. It’s a gnarly hodgepodge construction that has been added onto at least three times, possibly more.

John Joseph worked for the US Postal Service (so did I, back in college), had an excavating business, which continues to be operated today by his kids. His wife Jeanne was an avid gardener (as am I). I heard one of my neighbors refer to Mr. Joseph as “John Joe”. With all this on my mind from reading Evan Pritchard’s book, I thought Johnny Joe Mockingbird was a fun, albeit a little corny, title.

After I came up with this title, I realized that the rhythm of the melody was similar to the 20th song in this project, Dark-Eyed Junco, another song about birds. I thought maybe there was something inherently “bird” about this rhythm. For a moment I even considered scrapping the song or changing it radically as to avoid repeating myself, but then I thought that no, it’s okay for me to borrow from myself. I was explaining this small predicament to Vincent, a student of my mine at SUNY New Paltz, and he said, “Well it’s a mockingbird, right? So that’s not a problem. It’s imitating the other song.” Perfect! I hadn’t made that connection. Thanks, Vincent!

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23.) Love For Lovebug

Hello Good People,

The 23rd song of the Plant Songs Project is called Love For Lovebug.

This song is one I’ve been waiting for. I was waiting for one of them to be about our daughter Miya. One might think, “What’s the waiting for? Just write one for Miya already.” Well, I don’t feel like I’m very much in control of it you see. I think of myself as more of a means for what’s there in the ether to be birthed into a piece of music. The ideas are floating around and if I happen to be in the right place at the right time and I’m open, then I can catch the idea and go from there. So I’d been thinking for awhile that I want to express my love for Miya through a song, but I had to wait for the right idea to come.

This idea came last Friday night, after I had finished teaching lessons, after having chaperoned Miya’s kindergarten class on a trip to the aquarium in Norwalk, CT that day; not a time when I would expect to be in an open state to catch an idea. That’s the thing, you never know when they’ll show up - all one can do is be ready and be open, and then be willing to work when it shows up. I started improvising, and the idea of the this little three-note trill motif which is heard through out the piece just caught a hold of me. And I knew I was onto something because it wouldn’t let go. Little by little the form of the song began to take shape. Then after maybe 20 minutes of working, I suddenly realized this was the song for Miya, and I just burst into tears at that moment. It was a beautiful moment. I was full of gratitude that this song had finally come. I had a little cry, and continued on working, and pretty much finished it in that sitting. Afterward I went into the house and went about my usual evening stuff, cleaning up the kitchen and preparing food for the next day. Normally during those activities I like to listen to music, or watch some YouTube. But that night I did it all in silence, my heart filled by the experience I had had a little earlier out in the studio. I held back more tears as I told my wife Akiko that a song for Miya had come and that I had been waiting for it for so long.

For me, music has the ability to express emotions that are too big for words. Saying “I love you”, giving hugs, and looking after her isn’t enough to express my love for Miya. I’m so thankful to know that love. And the interesting thing is that I think the experience of this song is primarily for me. It’s for you too and obviously it’s for Miya. But I can’t say if it will be effective in communicating anything to anyone. I would like if you felt something when you heard this song, but it might not do anything for you. If it doesn’t, I’m okay with that because birthing this song was a huge moment for me, one I will not forget, and that’s enough. That alone was worth it. The deepest emotions around the love of my daughter were expressed as this song was written. Perhaps I will listen to it after some time and feel those emotions again as poignant as I did last Friday evening, but maybe not. And again, I’m just thankful to have experienced this. What a gift.

Experiences like this have come about over the years. They are variable in strength; big waves, small waves, and medium waves. Sometimes these great moments happen in concert in front of an audience, and that’s a wonderful feeling. But the most memorable of these moments for me are when I’ve been alone at the piano. All of the songs in the Plant Songs project have been special moments, some stronger than others. Love For Lovebug feels like the strongest one to come about in a while. I teach a lot of piano lessons. If just one of my students is able to someday have an experience like this - an experience of say a washing of the soul via music-making, then it will all have been worth it. I’m positive that experiences like this can be had via different art forms, but probably only after years of careful devoted practice in a particular medium. Did I know about such moments when I practiced piano for endless hours for years and years? I must have known deep down, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

I hope you enjoy Love For Lovebug. Thanks for being here.

Lovebug and I on the school bus on the way to the Aquarium, on the same day that Love for Lovebug was composed.


22.) Tracks

Hello Friends,

The 22nd song in the Plant Songs series is entitled Tracks.

This one is a melody and bassline / countermelody written over the 12-bar blues form. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a 12-bar blues. If you’re unfamiliar with it, the 12-bar blues is a ubiquitous form that’s used in jazz, blues, rock, and more. There are probably more 12-bar blues compositions than any other form in the jazz canon. It’s kind of a fun familiar form that musicians know and understand well. Remember in Back To The Future when Marty sat in with Marvin Berry’s band at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance in 1955? Before they started playing Johnny B Goode he said to the band, “Alright, this is the blues riff in B. Watch me for the changes, and try to keep up.” He was talking about the 12-bar blues form. It was actually in B-flat. I wonder if it was written as “B-flat” in the script and he messed up.

I digress. Since the 12-bar blues is so common, my instinct is to mess with it a little. We don’t need another plain old blues, so I was thinking “be a little weird” when I wrote this melody. I would site the music of Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz, and Warne Marsh as an influence. Their songs had such odd phrasing and odd note choices, and are so fun. The weirdness of my melody carried into the improvisation section, at least that was my intention. I didn’t want to go into a “normal” version of the blues after my weird melody. Part of the problem of the 12-bar blues in jazz circles is that many musicians play the same bebop or post-bop lines over any 12-bar blues, disregarding the themes that the melody contained. In my opinion it’s a missed opportunity when someone plays Thelonious Monk’s Misterioso and then plays a solo that doesn’t take that amazing thematic melody into account.

The snowfalls we’ve had this winter have provided me with some interesting animal track viewing. There have been several times that I’ve been breaking the trail on Mount Beacon and have been able to see lots of animal tracks. I’ve seen tracks of deer, squirrel, mouse, vole, and either fox or coyote. Possibly bobcat too. And after the snow last Sunday evening, our yard was full of all kinds of tracks on Monday morning. I think there were kitty-cat, squirrel, raccoon, fox, and skunk tracks. We get a lot of animal activity in our yard because of our chicken operation. I dump all our kitchen scraps, and the scraps of several neighbors in our chicken yard. During a cold winter the ground freezes, the scraps freeze and it tends to pile up a little and it can attract critters. During the warm season if the scraps accumulate, I can pile them all up into compost piles and that keeps it from turning into a critter party.

Animal tracks really have nothing to do with this song. But the active nature of the melody might reflect wild animal activity enough so that when I was scratching my head trying to think of a title, my recent sightings of animal tracks came to mind. I hope you enjoy Tracks.

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21.) Slow Down

Hello Peaceful People,

The 21st song of the Plant Songs project is called Slow Down.

So I’ve kept a little secret from you. Song number 19, Shine (For Roswell Rudd) has lyrics. They’re personal and mantra-like and I wrote them to help me in a certain situation in my life. I’m still going to keep those lyrics to myself. I like to share a lot, but I also want to keep some things a little mysterious too - to keep you wondering. It turns out through, that those lyrics and that song have been a tremendous help in that particualar situation, and I think I may have discovered a new therapeutic use for my music. Creating and consuming music has always been therapeutic for me, but this might be next level. This could become a habit.

With that success, I thought it would be fun to do another song with lyrics, to help with another issue. This time, the lyrics are less mantra-like and more like an ordinary song. But they’re a message to myself to slow down, not rush, and notice things. Of course, there’s no avoiding being in a rush from time to time. But I often find myself rushing from activity to activity for no good reason. So here’s a song for me to sing to myself when I catch myself in a hurry.

Before you get too excited, no, I didn’t sing for my recording. I’m not too confident in my singing, although someday I’d like to be. I need more voice lessons. However you can click on PDF SCORE below to view the sheet music which has the lyrics on it. I don’t have a lot of practice writing lyrics, and they’re probably not great. But that’s okay. They’re really just to help me slow down in my life.

Interestingly, the lyrics did have a pretty profound effect on the composition process. First, I wrote about half of the lyrics before I wrote any music. I’ve never done that before and it was interesting. I found myself composing variations in the theme to accommodate the lyrics. I think it actually has a nice effect on the phrasing, just listening instrumentally. I heard an interview with Bruce Hornsby in which he said he always starts with lyrics, and composes the music afterward. Interesting! I’m sure others do that too, but as a lyrics-last kind of person, it seemed pretty strange to me. It’s nice to try something new.

After I had some lyrics, I heard them constructed into a melody. Then I got a little stuck figuring out what harmony I wanted to go with that melody. Finally I found something I liked, what you hear during the first four measures. Then the next four measures came pretty quickly. Then I was really stuck on where to go next. I didn’t really know what key I was in. I still don’t know what key this song is in. I know where it ends up, but it ends up in many places along the way. So there’s some nice mystery there. We don’t always need to know everything.

Thanks for listening. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this song can also help you slow down when you need to.

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20.) Dark-Eyed Junco

Greetings Embracers of the Cold!

The 20th song in the Plant Songs series is called Dark-Eyed Junco.

July 2025 marks ten years since we’ve lived on our property here in Beacon. The first thing I planted was red raspberries in August of that year, then a few native perennials right around the same time. I remember planting Echinacea purpurea, and some Monarda. Since then I’ve continued to plant a combination of food plants, medicinal plants, and native plants to feed wildlife. Ten years in, many plants and many hours (mostly joyous) later, the benefits of all this work are really starting to shine.

This winter I’m noticing a lot of birds feeding on the seeds of last season’s plants. I’m in the habit of leaving the dried stalks of the herbaceous perennials, as well as any seeds or fruit on our native shrubs, standing over the winter. It’s said that insects can over winter in the hollow stems of many of these plants, and also birds can eat the seeds and fruit.

We constantly have a flock of sparrows, house finches, and starlings living off of our chicken system, gleaning anything they can from the chicken yard. This is a little annoying, but I mostly welcome their contributions. As Karl Hammer of Vermont Compost Company says of his operation, we too are “multi-manurial”.

Other wild birds that I’ve observed a lot this winter are Tufted Titmouse / Baeolophus bicolor, mostly eating the seeds of our Vernonia novaborecensis / New York Ironweed, Carolina Wren / Thryothorus ludovicianus, and Dark-Eyed Junco / Junco hyemelis. I see the Juncos almost everyday. Today I saw one hanging out on the Physocarpus opulifolius / Ninebark, just outside the window of the studio. It came by as I was teaching a lesson, just after I had recorded this song.

Of all the birds I’ve observed this winter, I think Dark-Eyed Junco has the most entertaining common name. It sounds like something my younger brother Jake would’ve called me in attempt to insult me when we were kids. “You old dark-eyed junco!” he would’ve said with one eye partially closed.

Musicially, Dark-Eyed Junco is a not too complicated. It uses the B-flat natural minor scale almost exclusively. I came up with a vague idea of what you hear at the beginning - a groove with some repetitive notes - almost more like a guitar part. I refined it a little, and figured out the order of the bass notes that I wanted. Then came the task of writing a melody over it. As I worked on the melody, the choice came up of how repetitive to be, both rhythmically and pitch-wise. I opted for more repetition this time, wondering if it might end up being a little catchier that way. I don’t think I have a way of knowing if that’s the case or not, unless I were to forget about it for a couple years, and then listen again. I tend to lose some objectivity during the composing process. I especially remember this happening while arranging for the 24 Standards project; working out all the chord voicings and countermelodies, using a lot of chromaticism, it was really easy to get caught up going down a path into weirdness, losing objectivity. And then I’d have to take a day or two off and come back to it to really hear it for what it was.

Anyway, Dark-Eyed Junco was a fun song to practice. I think more time with it would inspire some different choices in the pitches I use in my improvisation. First I was content to stick with a B-flat natural minor scale, which is almost exclusively what you hear on this recording. But I was starting to get tired of it and feeling ready to explore some other choices.

Hope you’re staying warm during the coldest cold snap we’ve had here since we’ve lived in Beacon. Remember, it’s good for us to feel the cold sometimes. Thanks for listening and reading!

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19.) Shine (For Roswell Rudd)

Greetings!

The 19th song of the Plant Songs Series is called Shine (For Roswell Rudd). This is a very simple song - a diatonic melody with pretty common chords. It’s amazing how much can be done with those commonly-used elements.

Last week when I was nearing the end of my hike on the mountain, I felt a “nudge”. Something caused me to look sharply to my left as I was walking at a pretty brisk pace. I stopped and looked and there before me was a large Liriondendron tulipifera / Tulip Tree. It was a nice one, with a perfectly straight trunk reaching for the sky - like some that I described in the Liriodendron Lift post. These trees have become a favorite winter tree of mine.

This one was surrounding by other trees and I noticed on this windy day how the canopy of all these trees fit together like a puzzle as it blew in the wind. Forest trees do this a lot. Each tree goes toward the light looking for any sunlight it can find. It occurred to me then that it was both cooperation and competition at the same time. After smiling at this Liriodendron for a moment, I continued on down the trail and found myself thinking about Elders. Not necessarily Elderberry (but maybe), but Elders, as in old and wise beings.

Stephen Harrod Buhner, whose book Becoming Vegetalista is currently rocking my world, said, “ I began to wonder if there was a such thing as Old Growth humans. I decided there was and that I wanted to become one.” How great is that?

I began to think about Elders in my life. I don’t think any of Mount Beacon can be considered Old Growth forest, but certainly some of the Liriodendrons up there seem pretty old and wise to me. That one that nudged me was. So what is the definition of an Elder? For me an Elder would be a being with a lot of life experience and wisdom. I think you can be with an Elder human and learn things through conversation, but also without words being shared. I think someone might be an Elder for some people, but not others. I don’t think your relationship with your parents allows for them to become Elders for you, at least not for me. But I think your grandparents could be Elders for you. For me, an Elder is someone who’s done plenty of observing, reflecting, and probably hasn’t moved (as in moved to a new city) much in their life. I supposed there’s much more to it than that also. But it seems that there is much getting in the way of humans reaching Elderhood these days- disease, facebook, and cable news come to mind.

I thought about Elder humans that I have known in my life. And the one person that stands out as an Elder for me is the late Roswell Rudd. Roswell was a trombonist. He came to Manhattan School of Music and did a master class when I was there as a masters student. Roswell had a huge aperture; too big for most conservatory students I reckon. I don’t think most of us totally “got” him. But I remember he had us playing a hand-written Herbie Nichols piece - it was difficult to read and I was completely botching the notes. As we were playing, with a kind heart he said, “Yes, yes, beautiful wrong notes!” Years later I was doing a trio gig of my music at the Cornelia Street Cafe. I had set three of Basho’s haiku poems to music, and I had guest vocalist Sunny Kim sit in on this gig and sing the text. Sunny and Roswell were tight had collaborated and he showed up in the audience that night to listen. That was pretty cool!

Years later after having moved to Beacon, we were invited to a potluck. It was over in Kerhonkson. Roswell was there with his partner Verna, and we got to talking. I recited the above stories to him and Verna and we had a few laughs. I’m smiling, basking in this memory as I write this now. Verna started setting up some meetings with Roswell and me. I went out to their place in Kerhonkson and we played duo every 3-4 weeks. Later we had bassist Jennifer Maidman join us for a few sessions. I can’t tell you how special that time was, and I don’t think I fully realized the wisdom he was passing onto me at the time. When we talked he would do a lot of reflecting back what he heard me say, similar to what members of a congregation might do listening to a preacher. Roswell was an Old Growth person. You heard the whole history of music in each note he played, and definitely the whole history of his life. His talking was similarly filled with meaning, slow, to the point, but also light-hearted. We played together for about a year and a half before he passed away in December of 2017. What a gift it was to know him and spend this time with him, especially during that time, which was a time of musical uncertainty for me.

Playing with Roswell in 2017, wisdom emanating toward me from the bell of his horn.


Musicians, maybe all musicians, but definitely jazz musicians, have special practice with their feeling sense. There’s a lot of non-thinking in the midst of deep listening - FEELING - going on during a performance, at least I believe that’s what’s going on in the best moments. I’m realizing now that this feeling practice in music is helping me find that sense in many areas of my life. It’s one reason why I feel a natural connection to musicians. Another reason is that most of us have gone through years (at least 4 to 6 years?) of intense practice in solitude, working on our craft, for hours upon hours each day with little concern for anything else, which I believe is required for most jazz musicians to reach competency. These shared experiences are felt among musicians and provide us with a special connection.

I’m reminded of my pal and extraordinary guitarist composer Jesse Lewis. Around a year ago he was playing at Quinn’s here in Beacon and I went to listen. It had been a few years since we’d been in touch at that time. During the break we sat together and mostly just smiled in silence together. Jesse and I have shared lots of feeling together over the years and there wasn’t much need for words that night. The smiling said it all.

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18.) In The Eye

Greetings and Happy 2025!

The 18th song in the series is called In The Eye.

Throughout the Plant Songs project, my subject matter has largely been celebratory and positive. I think that’s mostly because the lifestyle habits that I’ve cultivated, as well as good fortune, have provided me with much to celebrate and much I want to share with you. The current relationship I have with music and the music-making process is also in a good place right now, which also contributes to this positivity. But mostly it just feels better to share the positives in today’s world.

But over the years piano playing and composing has often been a cathartic activity for me; wonderfully so, especially when I need to work through something upsetting. It’s one nice thing about being a musician. I can channel unpleasant feelings through the piano, releasing them from myself, and at least without lyrics, there’s very little chance of my expression hurting someone else’s feelings.

Composing, practicing, recording, sharing, and listening back to In The Eye, were all cathartic for me. The process went about as follows: As I was at the piano improvising, searching for a germ of an idea around which I would compose a piece, I came upon a four-chord progression that I liked. It was slow and had kind of a sad sound in my opinion. I worked with it for a while, and eventually came up with another progression that could compliment it, also four chords, also sad. I immediately thought of something I observed on December 21st at a Christmas Party gig that I had been thinking about occasionally since. I won’t tell you exactly what it was because I don’t want to complain here, and it’s probably beside the point anyway. But it was something that bothered me and made me a little depressed. When I attached this emotion to my two progressions, playing them felt good. I had a “yesssss” feeling.

Next it was time to compose a melody and solidify the form. I was in no rush, so I let the progressions stew for a day or two. When I returned to the work, I realized one of the progressions was very similar to a Sufjan Stevens song. My progression was in a different meter than Sufjan’s, and I debated continuing with it. It’s not against the law to copy chord progressions, so I wouldn’t have been breaking the rules by continuing with it. But ultimately I decided it was too similar for my own satisfaction, so I abandoned it. Then I was looking for something to precede the remaining progression, but eventually came to accept it as the beginning of the song, as I began to compose the melody.

Eventually I had twelve bars of this progressions with melody added when I felt that a new progression wanted to come next. Eventually I found four new chords and they let me to a place where I could repeat the chords of the opening progression, except they were transposed up a fourth, and had a slight modification that could lead nicely back to the original progression in the original key. I liked it, and I composed more melody, and retrofit some of the previously written melody to fit the transposition and return to the original progression. After that I played through the form a couple times to be sure it was how it wanted to be; it was. Next I slapped a title onto it; a title that references the depressing observation I spoke about earlier, and there you have it.

As I mentioned, the whole process was cathartic. Interestingly, during the recording process of many of the Plant Songs, including this one, I’ve noticed that too much emoting with my face and body movements can cause me to make technical mistakes. This song was slow and easy enough that it didn’t happen too much. But some of the others, especially the more difficult-to-play ones, improved a lot when I decided to cultivate some stillness; and I don’t hear those performances as sounding less emotional when I listen back to them, so I might be on to something. I’ll continue to observe and experiment with that going forward.

I recorded this yesterday (Tuesday), and this morning (Wednesday) I had another difficult thing happen that caused me some strife. But on my hike up Mount Beacon just after said difficulty, I was hearing In The Eye in my head and once again it helped to make me feel better. I’m thankful for music.

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17.) Prelude (To Many Things)

Greetings Anticipators of Light!

The seventeenth piece in the Plant Songs project is entitled Prelude (To Many Things). This is a bit of a bonus song, as I wasn’t expecting to publish this week. But once again was able to get it done in the spare time I found.

The song started as an improvisation, as many of them do. I improvised the first measure, then the progression pretty much wrote itself afterward. It immediately started sounding like a prelude to me; let’s say a terribly anemic imitation of a Bach Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, but with a little modernized rhythm. First I just had the eighth note line. I thought of trying to sing a long-note melody over it, but then I found I could play said melody instead; I think that worked out better for me and you.

The quintuplets were a lot of fun to work on. I don’t think of myself as one of the heavy rhythm cats who eats stuff like quintuplets for breakfast, and I’m not sure all of mine in this recording were totally precise. But I really enjoyed trying and I’m definitely not worse at them now.

I used the title “Prelude” because the piece reminded me of a classical prelude, as I mentioned above. Then I got to thinking about it a little more and added the subtitle. “Prelude” means a “lude” before something, and I think many people are thinking of things to come as we wrap up 2024 and move to 2025. For me it’s many things, including the anticipation of the next growing season. In some ways this is my favorite time of year for gardening, when I’m ordering seeds, planning beds, and imagining the abundance without any pests, disease, or drought. I’m hopeful for some nice wintery weather. Then I’m greatly looking forward to the return of longer days, and the unfolding of Spring, especially as I will observe it on Mount Beacon during my hiking routine. Of course I’m looking forward to the continued growth of our daughter, which has been so fun to witness. And I’m looking forward to continuing with the Plant Songs project. Who knows what songs are to come yet.

Thanks for reading and listening. Wishing you continued happiness and joy!

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16.) Solisinframons

Hello Solstice Superheroes!

The sixteenth song in the Plant Songs Project is entitled Solisinframons. What the heck is that word you ask? I’ll explain later.

First a little about the song: This is what could be called a minimalist composition. Not necessarily minimalist like the style that was popularized in the second half of the 20th century. But simply just that there’s not much to it. It’s a simple chord progression in G-flat major; all diatonic (no borrowed chords), and all of my improvisation stays within the G-flat major scale as well. It’s very slow. I’ve written a hand full of songs like this over the years. Sometimes it’s nice to just set the stage and let the improvisation be the bulk of the performance.

2025 will mark ten years since we’ve lived in Beacon, NY. Many of you know that I’m an avid gardener and have studied Permaculture and have tried to implement the ethics and principles of Permaculture on our little property. It’s been great fun and fulfilling. One of the most important of the Permaculture principle is “Observe and Interact”. It’s recommended that you spend an entire year observing a property before implementing any major design choices, so you have an understanding of things like sun, shade, wind, and water patterns and are more likely to put design elements in the appropriate places.

Ten years in, I’m still observing, and noticing new patterns and learning new things about the property. How wonderful. Over the years I’ve noticed that, being located northwest of Mount Beacon, we have a period of time in the Fall and Winter during which the sun rises behind Mount Beacon and is only visible after it eclipses the North Peak. That means at this time of year, we only get direct sunlight on the property from about 9:40am. At other times, it follows above the contour of the North Peak, rising between it and Lambs Hill, and provides direct sun much earlier. In the height of summer, the early sun rise happens much further north on the horizon, and might miss the Hudson Highlands mountain range all together.

So this is the dark time of year. If you go to a higher elevation spot in Beacon around 7:30 or 8am and look west over the Hudson River, you can see direct sunlight shining on Newburgh, and even the western part of Beacon while you yourself might be in the shadow of the Highlands. I had been thinking about this phenomenon recently, and first I thought that I’d like to find the day that we first get direct sunlight in the yard in the early morning - when the sun rising in the hollow between North Mount Beacon and Lamb’s Hill - and have a celebration that day. I brought this up to my brother Jake, and he said that actually we need some kind of celebration for the dark times, because that’s when we need to be uplifted. It would be similar to how we celebrate Christmas just after the Winter Solstice, and many religions have holidays around the same time.

After some contemplation, I agreed with my brother that we should do something to brighten our world during this period of time. So we decorated one of those candles that are in a glass jar. And I came up with a Latin name for this period of time: Solisinframons. Solis = sun, infra = below, and mons = mountain. Then the day, and the whole period of time, that the sun rises adjacent to the mountain instead of behind it we’ll call Solisupramons. “Supra” meaning “above”. My daughter and I decorated the candle with acrylic markers and we’ve been lighting it during breakfast. It’s really been enjoyable, and has certainly brightened our mornings.

Interestingly, we could all be celebrating Solisinframons in our neighborhood. But the dates are highly localized. Just a few doors down from us and up the hill on Robinson Street gets the direct morning sun a few minutes earlier than us. They’ll have a shorter period of Solisinframons, although I’m not sure by how much. In Spring of 2025 I’ll be documenting the day in which we get the early morning direct sun. I’m guessing it will be early February, but I’m really not sure. Then in Fall 2025, I’ll be looking for the date the Solisinframons begins, my guess in early to mid-November.

To me the song Solisinframons reflects a time of coziness, of huddling together, of contemplation, and of planning for the next years growing season. I hope you enjoy it.

On a side note, I’m planning on taking the next two weeks off from the project as I had planned at the onset. Who knows, if something comes about, maybe I’ll continue through the break. But I expect to not publish for next two weeks. Happy Holidays!

Our Solisinframons candle.

The sunrise behind Mount Beacon on December 18th at 8:20am. It will be almost an hour and a half before we’re out of the shadow.



15.) Albedo

Greetings Fellow Navigators of Small Day Length!

The Fifteenth song of the Plant Songs series is called Albedo. Albedo is a term for light reflecting off of a surface, often used in reference to sunlight reflecting off of snow-covered ground. Snow cover on a sunny day greatly amplifies the brightness. Scientists have measured it. The lack of albedo in a Hudson Valley Winter is quite challenging for this Minnesota boy, who was used to more or less constant snow cover from December through March. I think I might remember just one brown Christmas from those days. I miss Minnesota winter, which reliably offered regular sledding, skating, cross country skiing, ice fishing, etc. I took it for granted. Living in Beacon, I jump at any chance for those winter activities. When it snows in the evening I get my skis out and go around the block a few times before the plow comes through, if I can beat it. When Winter Park at Fahnestock State Park opens (every two or three years when the conditions warrant it), I’m sure to take advantage.

However, I’ve enjoyed some snow cover in recent weeks up on Mount Beacon. My hiking practice keeps surprising me with new joys. Last Friday I had a little extra time, and made my way up to the Fire Monument on the north peak of Mount Beacon at 1526 feet above sea level. There was still about 4 inches of snow up there, while there was none back at home, at a 230 or so feet above sea level. The sun was shining beautifully. And oh did I take it in. It was cold that morning. Lovely cold on my face, bright sun reflecting off of the snow, and views of Lamb Hill and the valley below. Yea for photons!

The view looking north from the north summit of Mount Beacon on December 6, 2024.

Mount Beacon Reservoir on December 6, 2024.



I’d like to discuss some theoretical elements of this song. The idea for the song was discovered through in improvisation that was similar to what became the introduction of Albedo. I began to write some melody phrases, and remembered an interesting concept that I had recently happened upon with one of my composition students at SUNY New Paltz. It’s the idea of adding a note or two to a common scale. I thought it would make for some interesting melodic shapes and sounds. Some music that has inspired this sound out of me recently includes Ginastera’s Danzas Creoles, as well as the music of Ravi Shankar and Tigran Hamasyan - music that has surprising melodic choices.

In Albedo I used a B-flat natural minor scale, but added the major seventh (A natural) and the augmented fourth (E natural). The result is a scale with the following pitches [Bb C Db Eb E F Gb Ab A]. Minor scales have traditionally been altered by composers to create harmonic and melodic tension and beauty. But it usually would involve moving one of the notes (e.g. moving the minor seventh up a half step to the major seventh to create a harmonic minor scale) rather than adding additional notes - at least that’s the way I’ve understood it. But when I ADD the E natural and A natural to the Bb minor scale and consider all the notes part of the scale together, it’s really fun to see what possibilities that creates melodically and especially harmonically. In that case, all the chords of this song are diatonic (naturally occurring in the scale) including all the chords of the B section. Some interesting chords emerge, particularly the Amajor7. That’s a fun sound to play around with in a B-flat minor song.

It’s interesting to me to think about simplicity vs. complexity in regard to melody. The pop music of today has such simple and repetitive melodies. It’s nice. It gets you hooked quickly. But often it’s a short love affair for me. I might fall in love with those songs, but it doesn't last long. Whereas something with a more complicated melody like Albedo, or maybe a Charlie Parker tune might take awhile for me to fall in love with, but then it’s a longer lasting affair. I think that’s the kind of melody I’ve been writing more of these days, certainly in Albedo. I hope you enjoy it and maybe even fall in love with it this melody after a few listenings.

One very enjoyable thing for me about the Plant Songs project is how I fall in love with each composition during the process of writing it and recording it. There’s been a period of infatuation with every one of these compositions. I hope I don’t jinx myself by writing that. The love affair usually lasts until I get into the next song. It sounds egotistical to say I love my own work. We’re used to artists saying that they don’t ever consume their own work. Many actors say they don’t watch their films. But if I’m being honest with my work and creating it from the Heart, shouldn’t it be some of my favorite music to listen to? It’s true that I hear shortcomings - phrases that didn’t come out exactly right, or little glitches, usually during the improvisation section. I hear limitations in technique and conception. But I try to be kind to myself and I do also hear growth, which makes me feel good. And the whole process is a mystery. The fact that next week I’ll be working on something different - something that doesn’t exist at all right now, but will in seven to ten days - is nicely bewildering.

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14.) Little Bear

Greetings Human Beings! The fourteenth song of the Plant Songs project is called Little Bear.

I was planning to write some words about the style of this song, but I changed my mind, thinking that those words might interfere with you experiencing it for what it is. All I’ll say is that I strive to embrace diversity - diversity of musical styles, and even more so diversity of life. Maintaining diversity is a key element in us surviving on this planet. We’re seeing massive insect decline and they are foundational in our ecosystems. You can help stop mass extiction by planting native plants, removing invasive plants, avoiding herbicides and pesticides, leaving your leaves on the ground, converting lawn to garden, just to name a few. And protect cultural diversity by turning off the television and social media, cooking from scratch, maintaining appropriate family traditions and creating new ones, and making original art, just to name a few of those. Okay, I’m done being bossy.

Diversity is a benefit of a project like this. Because there will be many songs, there’s not much pressure on any one of them to have longevity. Therefore I can experiment and explore many styles. It’s not important to me for them to stand as unified body of work as Plant Songs. In the future I can pick handfuls of them to present unified statements in the form of concerts or albums.

Now I’d like to tell you the story about this title, and hold on to your hats, it’s a good one!

This morning I set out for my hike up and down Mount Beacon as I do three times a week. It was in the low 20s Fahrenheit this morning, the coldest hiking weather yet since I started this practice. It was also quite still, very little wind, and very little leaf material in the canopy to make any breeze audible. I hiked speedily up the trail, thinking about tasks that I had to do today. But even on the way up the trail today, I sensed a lot of special energy. It was one of those days that seemed ripe for some kind of special encounter.

I noticed that the ice formations in the brook had grown since Monday. Somehow they seemed to change the timbre of the flowing water. The ice at Rainbow Falls was particulalry beautiful. I proceeded up Lambs Hill until my twenty minute timer went off, at which time I plopped down on a rock, took a rest, had a drink, and looked in the direction of the sun, which shines beautifully on Lamb’s Hill in the morning. After catching my breath I did four cycles of 4-7-8 breathing, which I do regularly to calm myself and create awareness. Patches of snow were visible on the north-facing slopes that are seen from Lambs Hill. I noticed the stillness again. I heard an animal rustling the leaves nearby and I assumed it was a squirrel, which I’ve observed burying nuts often this Fall. I greeted the squirrel even though I didn’t see it, and began my descent back down the trail.

The descent proceeded normally except that everytthing seemed to be even more vibrant than usual. Maybe the cold had to do with it, or perhaps all the beings on the mountain were anticipating some weather coming. I reached the falls again and I splashed some ice water on my face as I do every time I descend past them. Remember that special energy the water has that I wrote about in the Flowform post a couple weeks ago? I want to be in contact with that, so a few splashes on my face gets the job done. I proceeded downward past the largest living Hemlock tree on the trail, then through the Hemlock Graveyard, over Slippery Rock, past Columbine Conglomerate and Relief Flat, all spots along the trail that I’ve named over the last year. I passed a nice Liriodendron, which I greeted as I usually do with arms in the air and a “yesssss”.

I continued past a big rock that I think is a glacial erratic, and I came to a spot on the trail that often has a stong energy to it. Several times I’ve had to stop in this area and acknowledge some kind of special presence. Today it was particularly strong. And I noticed that there was an absence of songbirds in this spot today. It’s an eerie feeling when you notice that. Something was up today. I stopped in my tracks. I stood and stared into the woods upslope. Then I sat down on a rock and made myself as still and quiet as I could. I sensed something. Then I heard some rustling of leaves. Another squirrel I thought at first. But no, this was different. And I actually noticed a different scent. Cool!

I waited what seemed like five minutes. It was probably only about 30-45 seconds. And then I saw the most peculiar thing. There was an exposed rock outcropping covered in moss. And I could just barely make out two cute paws on top of the ledge, then the creature slowly lifted its head up over the ledge to take a peek at me. It was a little bear! First I was extremely excited. Then I remembered stories about bear cubs and protective mama bears. And there was something very weird about a cub being out this time of year. Shouldn’t you be hibernating little bear? Suddenly feeling quite nervous about mama bear, I quickly snapped a photo from a distance, and as calmly as I could I hurried down the trail. I never saw mama bear. The photo isn’t too great, but rather than embed it in the blog, I thought it was best to upload a hi-resolution photo so that you can zoom in to see little bear. Click here to see the photo!

I hope you enjoy Little Bear!

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13.) The Ascent

Good Day Earthlings. Happy Thanksgiving to you. The thirteenth song of the Plant Songs Series is called The Ascent. When I started this project I had said that I’d give myself this week of Thanksgiving off. However, I found myself with enough spare time to get one written. It turned out to be a bit of a beastly song to record! But it was plenty of fun.

The nervous system is fascinating. There’s a phenomenon known as “red light syndrome”. This refers to musicians getting “freaked out” when the tapes are rolling. I remember reading about the great jazz pianist Bill Evans’ issues with it. I actually bought a CD box set of live bootleg recordings called The Secret Sessions in which Bill did not know he was being recorded. I don’t know, Bill always sounded great, so I can’t say that his playing on that box set was better than his other recordings.

I think I’ve been more aware of my nervous system as I’ve gotten older. I can be practicing a song and be totally relaxed. But the moment I press the record button there’s a pretty remarkable shift. There must be different chemicals being released at that moment. For the most part, I’m able to deal with it. I think I’ve done enough recording that I can usually perform in that state. Sometime, hopefully it even helps my focus. But focus is interesting for a musician, especially for an improvisor, perhaps.

It seems to me that there’s a sweet spot state of conciousness for musicians - a state where you’re fully aware, listening on many levels, but also NOT thinking much. Thinking, especially analytically, can really hinder an improvised performance. Instead you want to be in a feeling state. In this song, I found that it was the same during the written part of the performance. I had to practice this song a lot and it got to the point where my body knew how to do it, expcept for one thing: the left hand ostinato in this song is interrupted by an ascending phrase in the right hand, several times. At the very end of the form the ascending phrase happens again, but this time it goes farther up the piano, and requires a different fingering. So I had to be in a feeling state, but be aware enough to remember that fingering change for the end, otherwise I’d mess that up. It was an enjoyable challenge.

The title, The Ascent, is in reference to my Mount Beacon hiking routine (again). I ascend fast to get my heart rate up. I find that during most of the ascent I’m working out problems of life in my mind, thinking the thoughts that need to be thought, while also making a few observations along the way. It’s a busy and active state of mind during the ascent. I usually set a timer for twenty minutes. When I get to that mark, I take a break, take a drink, have a few breaths, then head down. Now my concousness shifts. Endorphines have been released. I’m observing much more and feeling my way down the trail. It’s a fantastic state. I’m feeling energies, essences, and love from my surroundings.

I hope you enjoy The Ascent. I’m a little surprised that this came out of me. It’s not the first thing I’d expect out of me. And I’m surprised that there have been more medium and fast tempos coming out of me. When I started the Plant Songs project, I was gearing up to defend myself from myself about all the slow songs I would be writing. But as always, these projects go their own way and I’ve now released six songs in a row that are not ballads, at least in my mind. Go figure.

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12.) Flowform

Greetings Human Beings! The twelfth song of the Plant Songs project is called Flowform.

If you’ve been reading this blog, or if you’re a friend a mine, you might know that I’ve got a ritual of hiking the Pocket Road trail on Mount Beacon three times a week. I’ve been doing it since late February. It’s heart exercise, but much more than just cardio exercise, which was my original reason for starting the practice. It’s developed into Heart exercise, into Feeling exercise, much more of a spiritual practice.

Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) was the originator/propagator of Biodynamic agriculture, and Waldorf education, among other things. I don’t really know that much about him. But my understanding is that Biodynamics was developed to save us from losing the knowledge and traditions that were being forgotten due to chemical agriculture and reductionist science. It includes things like planting according to the moon cycles, special compost preparations; strange practices that science seems only recently to be catching up to in understanding. Steiner said “The Heart is not a pump.” Rather he thought it was an important organ of perception, of feeling sense. I think I’m beginning to understand!

Another interesting thing in biodynamics is the use of water flow forms; specially constructed forms that charge water with energy as it flows through them. It is said that such water is more nourishing and that it carries the memory of the flow form long after it has passed through it. It occured to me over time on my hike that the water from the Mount Beacon reservoir passes through perhaps a mile of beautiful natural amazing flow forms as it cascades down. It’s getting super charged and super oxygenated.

I recently learned that Beacon’s water supply comes from three reservoirs and two wells. I’m not sure about proportions, but I will conclude that perhaps a fifth of Beacon’s water supply comes from the Mount Beacon reservoir, and gets this special charge on the way down. And I enjoy believing that this portion of our water carries that energy through the treatment process and reaches our faucets with a special charge. This contributes to the specialness of Beacon. When I take a cold shower, I often think of the water flowing down the mountain, gettng super charged on its way to me.

Of course hiking by this water a few times a week has tremendous benefits. There’s something called negative ionization. It is experienced when you sit by a waterfall, or walk in a healthy natural ecosystem, etc. Negative ions are said to increase oxygen flow and contribute to one’s general well-being. One doesn’t need to be familiar with flow forms or negative ionization to experience the benefits of a hike in nature or a sit by flowing water. I’m amazed at how often my state is transformed by my hiking practice; headaches and body aches dissipate, negative thought patterns are disrupted, extraordinary feelings arise. One would think I’d be bored of the same trail three times a week for eight months, but the opposite is true. Each time I’m flooded with excitment and gratitude, and there always seems to be new things to perceive. Earth is such a magical place.

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11.) The Liriodendron Lift

The eleventh song of the Plant Songs Project is called The Liriodendron Lift. This is one that pretty much wrote itself in just one sitting on Saturday. There was some editing in the following days, but not much. It’s nice when it works that way. It’s an uplifting song for me. Composing it and practicing it elevated my mood significantly. I hope it can do that for some of you also.

The title is a reference to a tree that grows around here called Liriodendron tulipifera / Tulip Tree or Tulip Poplar. It is the largest hardwood tree in our forests, growing up to 150 feet tall. In an open-field or lawn they grow this way and that, but in the forest the trunks usually grow perfectly straight and round with side branches only forming high up in the canopy. Once you learn to identify them, you can’t miss them in any season because of this characteristic. You can even spot them from the highway.

On my regular Mount Beacon hikes I feel awe-inspired and energized when I pass a large tulipifera. They are teaching me to stand up straight, and humbling me with their stature. Posture is an ongoing challenge for me. Forward head posture and rounded shoulders run in my family. Being a pianist and a modern human (smart telephones and computers) has contributed also. Actually seeing myself in these videos is motivating me to work on it too. I would have loved to see a more upright posture in this video, especially because of the title and its meaning here. But it’s actually not something I should be thinking about when recording. I have exercises and awareness practices that I’m working with. The hope is that someday I’ll have corrected the issue with this work and will naturally sit with good alignment at the piano without thinking of it. Right now I need to be kind to myself and call it a work in progress.

The common name, Tulip Tree, references the flowers which look a lot like the tulip flowers you know. Unfortunately it’s rare to see the flowers up close because they’re usually 50 or more feet up in the air and hidden by the leaf canopy. Every once in awhile I’ll find a fallen flower, but that’s rare. Right now, in mid-November, the leaves have dropped and you can barely make out the dried remains of this seasons flowers way up there in the canopy. Liriodendrons are on the rise. The lack of fire (natural and human-made) among other things has allowed them a leg up over Oaks. Unfortunately, according to Doug Tallamy, as awesome as they are, Liriodendron tulipifera trees are not as ecologically valuable as Quercus / Oaks. According to Tallamy’s research, Quercus are know host over 550 specialist pollinators, while Liriodendrons only host 21. They’re still a great tree and important, but we need a focus on plants that host the most specialist pollinators to address the massive insect decline that’s taken place in recent years. I highly recommend you check out Doug Tallamy’s work. Start with this video and read his books!

The Liriodendron Lift gives me a little lift. I hope it does that for some of you too!

My favorite known Liriodendron tulipifera on Mount Beacon. Photographed July 22, 2024

That same Liriodendron tulipifera tree photographed November 11, 2024

A fallen leaf of a Liriodendron tulipifera. Photographed November 12, 2024

10.) Betula

Hello fellow Earthlings. The tenth song of the Plant Songs project is called Betula. If the previous song Music For Trimming Trees, was a throw back to my MSM days, Betula might be a throw back to say 2007-2015. I wrote some similar things back in those days. For Betula I was originally thinking of something a little more diatonic, something a little more major with perhaps a few detours. But as I began, this melody told me otherwise. It contains a lot of major triad arpeggios, but in discombobulated relationships. It may sound pretty random, but as I composed, there definitely became a correct direction to go in - it was almost like using Schoenberg’s 12-tone serial system, wherein the next triad arpeggio needed to contain all different pitches than the previous one. I haven’t analyzed it closely, but I bet I regularly used 9 or 10 pitches before repeating any. As each phrase was completed, I composed the left hand line shortly after. I think of it as a kind of discombobulated 12-bar blues. There’s a statement of about 4 bars, followed by another similar phrase of the same length, followed by a longer and more discombobulated phrase, kind of how a 12-bar blues can be statement, restatement with embellishment, and the resolution.

The title Betula is the taxonomical genus of Birches. I recently discovered a really cool stump sprout of a Betula lenta, common name Sweet Birch or Black Birch, up on Mount Beacon. Birches are known to germinate on old stumps or mossy rocks, and their roots grow over the stump or rock to reach the ground. In the case of a stump sprout, eventually the stump rots away and we’re left with a tree “on stilts” with the main trunk suspended above the ground by roots. I thought it was neat, and I thought the discombobulated melody of this song was neat too, so I decided Betula should be the title.

This morning on my hike I was particularly aware of the Birches along the trail, thinking it would be cool to find some more examples of interesting germination sites. Well, they did not disappoint! I found some examples of rock sprouts, and an example of multiple sprouts on a well-decomposed log. As fallen logs decompose, they become perfect sites for Birch germination, so one can observe a row of newly sprouted Birches. Who says there aren’t straight lines in Nature? The trees in the Betula genus are so fascinating. I recommend you look them up and learn about them for yourself.

Back to the music. There’s a lot of dissonance in Betula; more than in previous songs in the Plant Songs project anyway. If you’re unfamiliar with music with a lot of dissonance, Betula may confuse you. But that’s okay. Just go ahead and be confused. Be as confused as possible. I reckon a little light-hearted confusion can be enjoyable from time to time.

Betula lenta stump sprout on Mount Beacon. Photographed the morning of November 4, 2024.

Several Betula lenta log sprouts.  There happens to be a newer fallen tree right on top of the older log buried in the new leaf litter on which these lentas germinated.  Photographed November 8, 2024

Betula alleghaniensis / Yellow Birch rock sprout.  Photographed November 8, 2024

Interesting Betula alleghaniensis trees growing on rocks at the waterfall known as Rainbow Falls.  Photographed November 8, 2024.

A couple Betula alleghaniensis rock sprouts.  Photographed November 8, 2024.

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: