'There's a Breaking in My Soul'

Sometimes you forget where you come from but then, there's a song.

On my Facebook page, I follow NPR Music as one of the ways I tap in to my constant craving to be in the know about new music. Last night, they posted a first listen from Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, the latter of which I had never heard until then.

The album they've posted is very sweet, a collaboration out of love, both musical and the loving coupling of husband and wife. As NPR says, the album is filled with an unexpected "understated, welcoming calm" that maybe is hard to come by in a world that expects anything with banjos to be active and maybe even raucous. The music here had some effect on me, yes.

But, it wasn't until later, after I had listened to the NPR First Listen, and after I had sought more music out by Abigail Washburn that a certain feeling hit me that hasn't in a long time. I found City of Refuge on Spotify, and again, it was so sweet. None of the songs really got me though, not until the last of them which was "Bright Morning Stars."

The song is called by some a lullaby. By others, a traditional folk song which has also been sung and recorded by Emmylou Harris and the Wailin' Jennys. For me, it took me back to a time when I was very young.

I started thinking about church, about my father making a commitment to be with the church when I was nine or ten and about how the music moved me there and how I wanted to sing it, to really be a part of it. That same ache was in me last night, as when I was in that church for the first time. It was like the music had found that yearning, a yearning which I didn't know was there or even quite what it pertained to.

There were soft tears, then. That yearning which I am still unable to explain. Maybe this song really captures that yearning. I think that for me, it does. Its simplicity and beauty. . .its references I don't even yet understand. . . . The bright morning stars, maybe all of us, rising as the daylight breaks. . . . And right now, literally, the day is breaking. I am listening to this song again and again. What a beautiful song.

A Cry for Moksha in "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free"

All day yesterday, I was internally singing this song. . . . At certain points of the day, I'd sing it aloud. While I walked up and down streets, say, or stood at bus stops, I'd sing "I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. . . ."

As with any earworm, I thought to find the cure and since Nina Simone is the singer who I first heard sing the song, I searched for one of her performances on YouTube.

I found what you are listening to above and realized that I had seen this Montreux performance from 1976 before and that this is probably one of my very favorite performances of the song that I have ever seen or heard.

One of the reasons I love this performance so much is because of the powerful statements that Nina Simone makes at the end of this tune: 

i already know
i found out
how it feels
not to be chained
to any thing
to any race
to any faith
to any body
to any creed
to any hopes
to any ...anything (!)
i know (!) how it feels to be free!

I know nothing of Nina Simone's spiritual background but her words reminded me of things I have read from the Vedic tradition about the freedom of freedoms, moksha and perhaps even the fleetingness of it in human form. She's tasted it, that freedom that I am pretty sure all of us crave, and wants to share it far and wide and of course, go back to that freedom, at last, unfettered.

Today, this is the interpretation that I am internalizing.

Whatever the case is, Nina Simone's interpretation of this song takes the meaning of it to a whole other level. It never hit me til yesterday and now this song means even more to me than it ever has.

Yes! Sometimes You Have to Chop Your Compositions Up With Razorblades and Stick 'em Back Together Again

Using vintage gear to create new sounds at Matt Channing's studio.

One of my favorite things about musical collaborations is the talks that happen in between recording sessions, jams, and rehearsals because I often get to learn a lot about craft, composition, recording, and music history.

Today, while editing in the studio with my friend (and collaborator in Transmit Regardless) Matt Channing, we discussed the band Yes as an influence to some of the work that we are currently putting together.

The influence is not necessarily the kind of influence that you might normally think of. We spoke more in terms of process, in this case. It turns out that Yes band members recorded their songs in bits as a way to compose. They'd record parts of songs and put ideas onto reel-to-reel 16-track tape and then later, with a razor blade, cut and arrange the chopped up bits and tape them together for the band to learn and perform live.

Another example of the tools we use in composing. Not
vintage, really, but how we create tracks like this:
http://transmitregardless.bandcamp.com/

Matt and I are doing something similar, although the gear we are using is a little more modern. We've been working this way for years now. We've essentially both gotten the same recording software to learn and create on and the same(ish) hardware. We record small bits, motifs, musical riffs, lyrics, tones, ideas and we arrange them in interesting ways. We also meet up and chat about song formatting, what tools might serve us on stage, and setting up the recordings for distribution, as well as building a band around the music that we are creating. We send little idea snippets to one another so we can fiddle around with them and then when we come back to the recording sessions, we tweak and add and subtract until we have compositions that we are happy with.  It's fun stuff and exciting, too. We use the tools we have and never really hold too tightly to what a composition should sound like until it's complete. The tracks just sort of create themselves by way of this process. It's a bit of an improvisation in order to create the form. 

Often as a result of these talks, I also have homework. It's part of the reason why I wanted to start this blog. Aside from writing about music that I have come across and subsequently have grown to love, I've wanted to keep track of some of this homework, as well as share and have conversations with others about the music that I'll be posting here and some of the ideas, too. The conversations help me. It's a part of my process. So here it is, assignment number one on this blog, a little documentary to watch called Classic Artist: The Yes Story. 

*photos by Tameca L Coleman.