There is something so fresh about a new year. New ideas, inspiration and time to reflect. I tend to go through musical transformations during the winter months. I feel the most alive during these months. Although I was born in a tropical climate this cold is in my bones and soul.
While the rest of the space around me is warming and hunkering down, my mind is active and trying to stretch for every shred of creativity. I throw the fear and indecision out the window and let my mind wander. The afternoon that I recorded Hiraeth something was different.
I remembered a moment of utter loss, desperation and anger. I sat at a piano with the hope and intention of releasing my emotion in search of peace. The music that followed became my first recorded improvisation, Hiraeth. Part of the experience reminded me of my first serious interaction with the piano and contains the primary message from this post.
I would not consider myself a pianist at any level although I have enough facility to record parts for my own musical compositions. I spent a few days once in college preparing a few short but advanced etudes on piano for a theory course. Up until that point I hadn’t much experience on the piano but I desperately wanted to perform the short pieces properly and beautifully. My attempt was an utter failure but I learned so much about that moment- I learned that it was okay. I had been so strung out and stressed! In wanting to perform perfectly I missed the point of the assignment. It was just an exercise. An excercise to hear and to “feel” the harmonic motion. When I sat down at the piano to record the Hiraeth improvisation, I told myself that it was “okay.” Just play and follow the path that presents itself.
The experience I had recording Hiraeth is a perfect representation of experiences in my own life; the desperation to do the best with what was in front of me; an undeniably feeling that the thinnest string was holding it all together; and the desire to break it all apart.
Nothing is so important that it has to be perfect. Perfection is absolutely impossible. Perfection negates the necessity of the human factor. Hiraeth reminded me of the feelings I used to feel and those feelings remind me that my experiences were very real and still carry weight. But the weight is worth shedding. I try to experience life, contribute to it and follow the path that presents itself to me these days.
So what can my musical meditation teach you?
Do the best you can with what you have and don’t get caught up in the failures and mistakes.
What you are and will become is something truly unique and beautiful, and no one can take that away from you.
Do what you love, work hard and ensure that what you contribute too resonates within your soul.
Don’t take people for granted but also don’t put them on a pedestal- they didn’t want to be there in the first place.
Remember that memories are just memories and nothing more.
Nothing in this world has a higher value that yourself.
Remember who you’ve loved and why you loved them in the first place.
We’re all just human after all.
-M