Song of the Sea

Home was a mountain
That reached to the sky;
Softly I left you,
Not hearing your cries.

In rolled the ocean
So wide and so deep
I let it cleanse me
And rock me to sleep.

And dawn, like a flower
Now blooms through the lies
And beckons me homeward
To see through your eyes.
--

My new friend Kellie and I wrote this, line by line, on the beach. Not just at the beach, but on the beach; in the sand. It was really cool.

Something

Hello people.

I'm at college now, in case you didn't know that already. I really love it here. It's a beautiful place, in more ways than one. I love my roommates. I love my classmates. I love my professors. I love the campus.

I've been craving something, though. Some level of worship that I can't reach through the mini rock concerts at chapel and vespers. Not that there's anything wrong with the worship here; it's youthful, it's enthusiastic, it's diverse. But it's loud. I want something quieter. 

Sometimes I listen to Gregorian chant. I don't usually tell people because I feel like it's a nerdy thing to do, as in, it's either really really old school or it's somehow obnoxiously new-agey. But the truth is, I love Gregorian chant. I was once driving home late at night listening to the classical music station on the radio, and there were monks from a monastery in Germany chanting in strong, pure voices. It changed me.

We freshmen are encouraged to choose and attend a church in the area. I've visited a couple but they haven't stuck. Maybe it's wrong to dislike a church because I don't like its music; I don't know. All I can say is that I'm not satisfied yet. I want something quieter. 


There are these beautiful flowers on campus. I don't know what they're called but I think they're the most arresting color in existence. It's not sufficient to look at them and say, "those are pretty." In fact, description is useless. What I can tell you is that looking at them is like listening to Gregorian chant. The morning frames them as richly as any cathedral space, draping awe across your shoulders, new sunlight fresh as silence. It's inexplicably fulfilling, undeniably moving-- deeply, deeply worshipful. They take your breath away and offer it up to God.

Is there a church that worships like that?

More Music!

Here's another thing I've been working on. It's a cover of Skyway Flyer's "I'll See Her There." This was a somewhat larger project than the last video I posted, even though I didn't write this song.

To make it, I simultaneously recorded each take in GarageBand (audio) and PhotoBooth (video). After I mixed all the tracks in GarageBand, I put it into iMovie and edited the PhotoBooth footage so it would match the audio. And voila!

This is really quite elementary compared to what some of the pros are doing on YouTube (if you've never heard of Jack Conte, look him up RIGHT NOW), but I think it's a pretty good start. I'd like to know if there's special software (or particularly good software) for making "VideoSongs." Still, I'm pretty proud of this. And Jason Munday and Mike Lombardo both commented on it!

Kyrie (and Moonsong)

So, I got a MacBook Pro. It's awesome. I've set up a little recording studio in my room, which currently consists of my computer and my keyboard, which I've hooked up to the computer. Music projects are significantly easier when you don't have to use the iMac in the middle of the house where people are constantly talking or cooking or whatever when you're trying to record. Of course, I have to keep the door and windows closed with no fans going, so it gets hot. But it's the price you pay!

Anyway, this is the first project I've recorded with the computer. Although I'm still using a built-in computer microphone to record, this laptop has the best microphone of any computer I've ever owned, and it sounds, to my ear, pretty good. Also, the fact that I'm able to input MIDI directly from my keyboard into GarageBand has upped the sound quality significantly. I can now experiment with synthetic sounds much more easily than before.

So, I have attempted to explore my desire to write choral music with the tools I have on hand, and this is what I came up with. Tell me what you think!

Just for contrast, here is another project I created in GarageBand. Remember that sonnet I wrote about the moon? Well, before I figured out how to hook up my Yamaha keyboard to the computer, I decided to create a sort of ambient soundtrack for that poem. I created all the music using musical typing, and recorded the vocals in the occasional moments I was home alone. For me, the biggest difference is in what I'm now able to do musically; musical typing is... restrictive, to say the least. (Also, I like the fact that I didn't have to come up with actual lyrics for the Kyrie. That was nice. It makes it significantly less melodramatic.)

Thoughts and comments are very appreciated. Thanks for reading and listening.

The next challenge: Figuring out how to make beats!

Overgrown

Your hands are temples,

Elegant architecture,

Alabaster; let your

Foundation fall, swallow

The empty, earthen hollow

In me, deep.

For when you leave,

The walls grow luminous,

Ruinous, gone to us:

A forgotten room. And

Soon, these seeds sown

Seek light, tight, choking,

In me, overgrown.

$3 a face

I've decided that I'd like a lot more of my poetry available to be read here on my blog, so I'm going to be going through some of my older stuff and posting it periodically. Here's one I wrote about two years ago.

$3 a face

I saw a man
On the streets of San Francisco
With an easel
And a table
And a sign that said: “Portraits: $3 a face”

He sat,
Ready, for three whole dollars,
To poorly recreate, in marks of colored dirt
Any one of a hundred thousand perfect little masterpieces
That God sculpted for
Absolutely
Nothing.

Perhaps,
Like some sort of psychic,
He could read the lines on your face
As a palm reader reads those
On your hand,
And silently explain, with brushes on paper
The truth about yourself
That you knew all along
And didn’t want to admit.

Perhaps, I thought
Those $3 are not for the portrait itself
But for his insight;
You could know, just from those hasty brushstrokes
Whether you were truly happy
Or sad
Or hated
Or loved.

I paused, hands in pockets
In front of him,
Surveying the fluttering faces hung before me,
Sketches of souls on display for all to see;
Some beautiful,
Some not.

His strange, dark eyes found mine;
I smiled, fingering my wallet
And turned,
And walked away.
--


I'd love to hear what you think of this poem. When I first wrote it, my church choir director asked if I would read it for the choir and use it as a springboard for a small devotional. The funny thing is, he had interpreted it to mean the exact opposite of what I'd intended. Which brings up an interesting question, I suppose: should the poet and the reader agree on the meaning of a poem? Personally, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had seen what I'd written from a different angle. It was good for me to have someone point out that things like this are open to interpretation (and/or maybe I should just learn how to write more clearly). Reading it now, this seems a significantly less awesome poem that I'd originally thought...

Anyway, I still read the poem for the choir, albeit so nervously that I was asked to read it twice. I think they liked it. And it worked well for the devotional. So, happy ending. The end.

Morning

This morning,

I woke to find my

Bedroom full of gold.

Someone must have

Come in the night, and while I slept

Draped it over my bed

In rippling swaths;

It clings to the corners like

Cobwebs, like

Just-remembered joy.