Portfolio - The Lost

Program Notes:

This song was written immediately after the Coronavirus shut everything down in March of 2020. The beginning starts in E minor and moves to an A major chord, signifying a sad and scared feeling contrasted with a desire to feel hopeful and to have a positive outlook when things feel overwhelming and the future is intimidating. The music speeds up with “the pace is too fast” and then falls from A major to A minor in the line “the madness it lasts,” using text painting to show a fall to madness, as myself and many other who struggle with various mental health problems deal with an exasperation of feelings of isolation and hopelessness. The last few verses deal with how we can encourage each other, as I beg the listener to keep pushing through the pain and stay alive with me with the line “I’ll stay alive if only you’ll try as well.” For what is music for if not to encourage ourselves and each other to continue to see our common humanity and help each other survive the madness of this world?

Petrified (March 2020)

Lyrics:

The world feels like it’s ending,

So how do I keep on living?

The pace is too fast, the madness it lasts, it lasts.

So what can I do?

How can I push through?

Fears and doubts are suffocating me.

I work so hard, but what does it all mean?

I’m petrified, this world has got me terrified.

So how do I cope,

With little to no hope?

How do I sing, when all of this just brings me down, down.

All I can do is let the light shine through.

All I can I say, I’ll make it one more day for you, for you.

Life isn’t over just quite yet,

I’ll keep fighting the voices in my head.

I’ll stay alive if only you’ll try as well, as well.

I’m petrified,

This world has got me numb and terrified.

DreamLand - Written with Cat Terrell

(April 2019)

Lyrics:

I’m going to sleep, won’t you leave me alone?

I don’t need your schemes, I’m going home.

I’m going to sleep, why are you still here ?

I need my dreams, you can’t be in them, my dear.

I need my rest so now you must go…

Time has been so nice, but I’m losing hope.

I need my rest, I need to escape,

This world you have created, is not the one I ache for.

I’ve ought to lay down, would you give me some time ?

My head’s in the clouds and it’s way past nine.

Je vais dormir, il n’y a rien on peut dire,

Et quand je me réveille, il y aura a brand New Day.

(I’m going to sleep, there is nothing anyone can say,

And when I awake, there will be a brand new day.)

Balance is slipping more and more,

The fate of the world is tied up in my core.

Le balance m’échappe, le destin du monde

Est lié à mon esprit et connecté à mon corps.

(The balance escapes me, the destiny of the world

Is linked to my mind and connected to my body.)

While I know, it’s difficult to let go,

I haven’t slept in weeks and I’ve lost all hope.

I need my rest, je dois s’en sortir…

L’Univers que tu sais n’est pas le monde j’ai crée.

(I need to escape myself…

The Universe that you know is not the world I created.)

Program Notes:

This song was written with my dear sister, Cat Terrell. For many years, really since being a young child, I never allowed myself to rest, I kept myself going at a hundred miles an hour so that I did not have to be alone, so that I did not have to face my own mind. It wasn’t until I learned how to meditate and committed my days to forgiving and healing that I realized how necessary silence and rest is in order to calm the inner chaos and work through past trauma. This song expresses my deep desire to escape the reality that man has created, to enter into a DreamLand where I can process all that has happened and awake again with more hope and passion, where I can have the strength to help create the world that we may all dream of, one that is liveable for all beings. The song is in G minor, though some unconventional chords are used, such as D minor, C major, F major, and F# major over F. This modal mixture creates an unpredictable and unusual harmonic structure, reflective of my feelings of estrangement and dissatisfaction in today’s world.

Program Notes:

This piece is a reflection of my personal experience growing up in a world where I always felt like a stranger, not understanding why life was the way that it was. The chromatic descending line that returns throughout the piece resembles that of a flowing river, as the song is representative of feeling more at peace and at home surrounded by nature than surrounded by people. The song has many chords that I felt were expressive and conveyed a certain feeling, from a major C chord painted with lyrics of hope to dissonant diminished chords that accentuate pain and struggle. The song ends hopefully, saying that nature shows us how interconnected and intertwined we all innately are by existing on earth.

Intertwined (September 2020)

Lyrics:

As a child, I danced among the trees,

With other humans I was told who to be.

But in the forest was where I was free,

Nature was the one who taught me how to see.

The man made world never made sense,

Unnatural structures, land riddled with cement.

Everyone trapped in houses surrounded by a fence,

Had more than they could ever need,

But still were discontent.

In their sea of delusions, they nearly drown me,

They tried to make me sink.

Submerged in distractions, constant motions,

For myself I could no longer think.

They eradicated my roots,

Disconnected me from my past, my trust, my core.

Set my body, mind, and soul off-balance

So I couldn’t soar.

But just like the birds, I am meant to be free.

The shangles you put me in only empowered me to succeed.

Next to a river is always where I find,

A sense of strength, hope, and peace of mind.

The constant flow of water, unconfined,

A force too sacred for us to bind.

Impossible for man to consign,

Serves to remind us that we are all intertwined.

Waves (April / August 2020)

Lyrics:

Choking in the haze of our cities,

Unconscious motions, blind following.

Broken memories, loss of connection.

Manufactured reality.

Trembling pain, melancholy and confusion.

Suffocated by man’s delusions.

Silenced and fatigued, most give up hope.

While some will continue

To search and express the song within their soul.

Overwhelming chaos, numbed emotions.

Entertainment desensitized and meaningless.

Bound by language, trapped by institutions

Erasing creativity, encouraging conformity.

Little do they know, the ones who escape

Shift the whole of humanity.

Echoing tones and rippling colors,

Collide to form unstoppable waves of change.

Program Notes:

This song was mostly inspired by an excerpt of Rilke’s Worpswede. In the excerpt, he delves into the forces of Nature and the attempt of man to control her. The following is one of my favorite quotes:

“It is not the least and is, perhaps, the peculiar value of art, that it is the medium in which man and landscape, form and world, meet and find one another. In actuality they live beside one another, scarcely knowing aught of one another, and in the picture, the piece of architecture, the symphony, in a word, in art, they seem to come together in a higher, prophetic truth, to rely upon one another and it is as if, by completing one another, they become that perfect unity, which is the very essence of art… from this point of view the theme and purpose of all art would seem to lie in the reconciliation of the individual and the all…”

As I read through this work, I wrote down specific quotes and phrases in my journal, and simultaneously wrote down words and phrases that were inspired in my mind, and that is how the lyrics to Waves came to life. The composition contains chromatic sets of notes mainly belonging to F minor, such as A flat (add 9), B flat (add 9), and C minor, but it ends on a triumphant F major. These mixed modal chords contrasted with F major express a push and pull between society and those longing to break away from it.