Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

"The Awakening"

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • "The Awakening"

    This is a piece I composed some years ago called "The Awakening"....

    "Awakening" can mean many things... it can mean the fresh start to our day, it can be the every day miracle of the sunrise... it can mean a spiritual awareness we finally find within ourselves. All three of these ideas, each in their own way build and grow until they reach their crescendo...

    With this piece of music I tried to capture all of these things...

    THE AWAKENING

    All the "instruments" being played are a combination of classic keyboard analog synthesizers, digitally controlled analog synthesizers and early all digital synthesizers. Nothing was computer sequenced... the layers of sound and the individual parts were recorded in real time and layered on top of each other in the studio.

    What does this all mean? No actual acoustical instruments or musicians were harmed during the recording or composition of this piece...

    Thanks for listening...

    Music by David Michael Johnson, Copyright (p) by Where I Wanna Be Studios
    All Rights Reserved.
    Last edited by Johnson; 02-13-2009, 01:57 PM.

  • #2
    "Zow, vee meet a-gen !"

    OK, I have to tell this story (sorry David):

    David and I had a naturally-occurring "gimmick" that worked to our advantage (usually) when it came to endearing ourselves to our audience (we often performed live music on stage), and that was: "contrast."

    I can't speak for today, but back then, you couldn't have placed two contrasting styles, temperaments, etc. and ... hoped for anything but trouble. Somehow, and despite our "contrast" ... it worked. Again, it wasn't by design. That's the way it was. And, musically — and despite the fact we both had pretty much the same tastes — we couldn't have produced more diametrically-opposed styles.

    For example, and after we would finish a particular set of pieces, and we each delivered some solo work, imagine David with his stack of Synths versus yours truly with an acoustical guitar.

    Again... contrast. And with contrast, often came ... teasing one another about a myriad of things. Imagine David talking me into using a Metronome and my talking him into laying a blues bass line over one of his "Spiritual" pieces.

    And, I must admit, every piece David wrote, was an opportunity for me to ask myself ... "I wonder what sort of Bass line I can layer over this one"

    But, when David played this one — "The Awakening" — the first time, I was stumped. And, by the way, in the beginning, it wasn't called that. In fact, it was untitled. Well, not really, since I had christened it "The Boring Song."

    Now, why did I do that?

    OK, first, you have to remember that were were... 25 or 26 years old.
    And we acted accordingly. Especially — as I mentioned above — when it came to teasing one another. For example, I couldn't even play "Morning Prayer" (It's here somewhere) without David teasing me about how I pronounced "Gui' Taar" (let's face it... I had no business sounding as if I was from Nashville), and in turn, I would torture David by referring to this piece as "The Boring Song"

    For example, when we would be preparing for a performance, and he would say something to the effect of "and how about if we plug that piece with the oboes here " and I would say "Oh, you mean the 'Boring Song'?"

    The irony is that it took him a while to stop calling it that.

    Now, why did I actually call it that?

    See, something happens when you listen to a piece dozens of time... Over... and over... and over.

    See, for as much as (at the time) it wasn't the style of music I wanted to create, I couldn't help but select it for every Daheshist-Related presentation we ended up doing. And those of you old enough to remember what it took to synchronize sound to slide projections, know what I am talking about.

    The Awakening was the featured soundtrack during the first ever lecture on Daheshism at MIT.

    I must have listened to this beautiful piece countless times. I am glad David finally found an apt name for it. I am even happier that it found a home in Daheshville.

    By the way, "Yesterday" was initially called "Scrambled Eggs" ...
    __________________
    "Fail, to succeed."

    Comment


    • #3
      It is nice to share these memories... thanks for adding this in Mario.

      "The Boring Song"... ok well, I guess NOW I can laugh about that...

      Comment

      Working...
      X