Hello Dear Readers / Listeners!
The 29th and FINAL song of the Plant Songs project is called I Wonder.
I really fell in love with my previous song child, Notitia. I kept playing it for days after I made my recording. It actually made it hard to catch a new idea. I was unsure if I was going to find something. Happily once I did, the song unfolded pretty quickly, and here I am with time in the week to spare. Phew!
For I Wonder I returned to language more in line with the Great American Songbook, although this may be more chromatic than anything Jerome Kern or Richard Rodgers wrote. There are some strange harmonic shifts in this song, although I’ve gotten used to them and they no longer sound strange to me. I’ll be curious if anything stands out to you listeners.
These are more complicated chords than the many of my triad-based songs, yet they feel so liberating, like I can go anywhere and play anything over them during the improvisation. As I wrote the tune and started practicing it, I was hearing all sorts of counterlines. It was quite enjoyable. I ended up jotting some of them down on my score for fear that I would either miss some opportunities, or play too much of the same kind over and over again if I left them to improvisation. Even so, one could argue that I added too much. Maybe after some time goes by, I’ll listen and feel that I did. But it’s okay and it was fun.
I think this melody has a child-like sound to it and I was looking for a title that expressed simple curious wondering, like kids do - like we used to do. I still do a good amount of daydreaming. I don’t know if all artists do that, but it seems like it might be important, maybe necessary. What you do is go to a natural place and look around and contemplate and wonder about anything and everything, and you leave your stupid smart telephone off and get reacquainted with your imagination. I’m reminded of a George Carlin bit about children:
I think everyday all children should have three hours of daydreaming. Just daydreaming. You could use a little of it yourself, by the way. Just sit at the window, stare at the clouds. It’s good for you. If you wanna know how to help your children, leave them…alone!
This song concludes the music of the Plant Songs project. Wow, what a journey it has been. I’m looking forward to wrapping up the project with a final reflections post which should drop next week. Thanks for reading and listening and looking out the window from time to time.