It began with a post from a friend of mine. They posted that the years of water have worn away the stone, forever changed. It was a beautiful way to describe the difficult times they were dealing with. I went on to take and see from this that the wearing away of stone by water, while a traumatic event in itself, can result in a beautiful polished stone.Â
Everything changes when you can reframe your challenges as a polishing of your inner beauty. This beauty is a type that is often acquired through lived experience and challenges.Â
This was the start or the root of my album. This is where I began. The feeling of being worn down by life’s circumstances in a way that I no longer recognized myself and was beginning to see the necessity to finally allow my hard shell to soften. It was enabling a curiosity towards my inner world and an outer shedding of the skins that were not serving me. The bumps and bruises had changed my shape forever. The weather had worn me to the core. I needed change and change was demanding my attention.Â
This piece came to me very quickly and spontaneously. It taught me how the repetitive pounding can become a hypnotic mantra for life and that we can persevere through the challenges by allowing the process instead of trying to resist.Â
This piece begins with a strong intentional and forceful playing of the C above the middle C. This note is to symbolize the shock or crack of consciousness or awareness that is required to begin the process of transformation. From there the piece continues with a repetitive polyrhythm that slowly comes to speed like the beginning of a storm. Slow to build, but steady and consistent. An organic process. Â
The first episode or phrase has an ambiguous sound that is neither major nor minor to illicit a feeling of uneasiness or yearning. It ends with the same beginning note as if to say, it's not yet time to transform. We all do work along the path and at certain points, realize that we are not quite ready for change or that the timing isn't quite right.
From here, the piece takes a turn into unknown territory. It explores the parallel minor as an expression of examining one's shadow self to discover points or moments of change. This section explores this feeling bit by bit, note by note, change by change. Transformation is never an instant process. It requires processes determined by nature and enacted in a slow, morphic way. I attempted to create a feeling or sensation of change that was natural over time and did not seem abrupt so that by the end of the piece, the listener is not sure if the transformation even took place.
That is the magic of transformation. All things are in a continual process of change, but it is rare to notice that change taking place. It is only in moments of pause or reflection that one can observe the change in a place of understanding what happened. This is the beauty of the process.Â
The point at measure 63 of the piece is when the shift begins. I realized that the whole piece up to this point had a certain quality about it, a certain intensity, a certain air about it, but it was not right or ripe for the transformation that lay ahead. There was not enough power in the sound. In response, I took the whole piece and shifted the left hand down an octave to place it in a range that was deeper, more grounded; fitting for a root expression, and more suited for the beginning of transformation. In this lower octave, the resonance of the frequencies is significantly more pronounced, and the entire feel of the piece changes, creating a pause of expression to adjust one's perception of this new space in the seat of transformation. Â
You are not dissimilar to a stone that has been worn away by the storms of life. Â
However, what you can’t see at that moment is how all this wearing has polished you into something beautiful.Â
Something precious to be cherished, a weathered stone.Â
