What do you know about blooming? I’m guessing you know a lot, at least in a metaphorical sense. In my experience, there’s the seasonal blooming where, much like a flower, I am activated by lengthening days and warming temperatures to begin opening myself to the world around me. And then there’s the wide-view blooming that happens across a lifetime or across seasons of life. How do we know when we are in full bloom? I guess we don’t really. It’s a feeling or, perhaps more powerfully, a choice.
There are many more metaphors to be garnered from this concept of blooming: pruning, dead-heading, wintering, pollination, fertilization, seed dispersal, sunlight and rain… I find it comforting to remember that I, too, am subject to cycles and influenced by light and warmth and nutrients. There is so much to be woefully and intensely concerned about right now. But I hope, after calling your senators or before checking in on your neighbors, you still pause to appreciate the blossoms that might be blooming much too early and recognize not only their beauty but how inextricably linked you are to that flower and to everything that exists and has existed and will one day exist.
I realize that, while this may be poetic and profound, it is not all that novel of a thought. But (hammering on with the metaphor) I also know that each blossom, being unique and fleeting, is no less spectacular than the one beside it. In my artistic endeavors, I often ask myself and others whether I am saying anything new. And the answer is often, probably not—but maybe I am saying something in a new way. Then I question that, too. Ultimately, I come to the conclusion that, if I am saying anything at all, perhaps I am saying it in such a way that one person will hear it and it will shift their thinking for one moment and maybe that is important. Maybe that one person is me. If I trust in the universality of the specific and the interconnectedness of all things, it is enough.
[Did I say I would publish one to two of these a week? I did. Clearly it was wishful thinking. I’m happy to be getting this work to you anyway. Thanks for following along.]
Assignment 2: Drone piece
Full Bloom is a drone-based piece arranged around the contours of a time-stretched sample taken from the intro to a reel called Saturday Behind the Bar that I wrote and arranged with my band, The Wandering Seas. I then layered in melodic vocal elements sampled from a live recording of Edlyn Clevenger performing her piece I Know I Am a Rose at the Neighborhood Songwriters showcase in Bellingham, WA in August of 2025. Finally, I added generated tones and samples from a recording I made of two rocks being rolled against each other. The low rumbles and high plinks help expand the aural landscape, taking what was an intimate solo performance and placing it inside a vast and spacious world.
[Speaking of The Wandering Seas, if you missed our “going away” concert, here is a link to the full performance on YouTube.]
Assignment 2.2: Chart a Song
This exercise is what created the seed that became Full Bloom. We charted a song together in class and then were asked to quickly create something in a DAW (digital audio workspace) that followed the chart we had made. I managed to do an important thing in this moment: not let my sheer panic paralyze me and prevent me from asking for help. I got my profs attention and, on the verge of tears, admitted that I had no idea where to start. He asked me to find an audio file, any audio file, and Saturday Behind the Bar was the first thing that appeared. We plopped it into Audacity and he showed me how to time-stretch it. I couldn’t believe how amazing it sounded. I did cry my eyes out in the bathroom after class but it was partly out of relief. I had exposed my ineptitude and ignorance and nothing terrible had happened. I still had questions about my readiness for the program but I reminded myself that I am here to be challenged and grow and that is rarely a comfortable experience.
I’m also adding this one to encourage you to go listen to Juana Molina. And maybe do a charting exercise of your own. You can learn a lot about song construction. What draws you in? What keeps you there?
Listen to siestas ahí here. Might as well listen to the whole album while you’re there.
Invitations
Be a Beginner
Being a beginner at something is hard. But it can also be really freeing. It helps to not have too many expectations and try to enjoy the clumsiness that often accompanies newness. Write a poem, make a song, sculpt clay, call your senator, organize a gathering, sign up for a course, shuck an oyster, go fishing, read a book in a different language, work towards mastering a handstand. Only you know what you’ve never tried before. If you’re short on ideas, ask your friends what skills they have that they might be willing to share with you.
Chart a Song
Choose a song you love and could happily listen to on repeat. It is probably best to choose a shorter song, around 3-5 mins, otherwise this exercise might take longer than you’d like. Identify as many sound sources as you can and list them on the y axis of your graph (see my classmate Andrea’s gorgeous example below). On the x axis, list out a few important time stamps. Use lines or colors or shading to map out where the sound sources enter and exit the composition. Step back and admire your chart. For extra credit, identify at least one relationship between sounds that you found especially impactful and create a piece of music that employs that relationship.
Create a Drone Piece
Drones are wonderful. I mostly find them very relaxing, even the dissonant ones (did you know that the perception of consonance and dissonance in music is largely cultural?). The piece could be about building a drone, like La Monte Young’s Trio for Strings, or it could be about creating a drone-based song or soundscape.
As always, if you choose to accept any of these invitations, I would love to hear how it went, however briefly. What did you try? How did you feel?
Until next time…stay curious, connected, and nutrified.
I’ve been taking pictures of the sky recently. I don’t know what, if anything, I will do with them but I find it helpful to document the moments when I can see beyond the clouds.