Dark Night Sky

This music for the piece was written in response to Aster solenne’s beautiful poem Under the Dark Night Sky.Having read Aster’s work for sometime I was very happy when they submitted this as it’s been one of my favourites so far. Go check it out if you haven’t already :)

I interpreted the poem as being simultaneously lost in the expanse of the universe and the eyes of another, those fragments where time stands still and we see the reflection of the infinite within the atoms of a moment.

Those tiny moments where we are swept into the wonder and mighty grandeur of our minuscule existence.

Viewing yourself through the cosmic eye of the stars, and seeing how small, but deeply connected we are to shifting fabric of reality. Spinning under the gravity of our own beating hearts.

Composition Notes

When developing the music for the piece I had been speed writing songs from earlier submissions and this was number five or six.

Having received so many rapid submissions I entered a sort of terror driven flow state and rode the wave.

The process for that was reading the lyrics, playing my guitar and improvising.

I don’t know how ideas had been coming so quickly to me but, I know better than to fight it when it’s happening.

So my few thought before starting to strum and read the poetry were:

“I’m pretty sure the last few songs were all in C major because you were thinking about functional harmony.”

”You made that joke to Celia about C major being bland. Now you’re being a hypocrite.”

”Ok this can’t be C major.. what about D minor?”

”Yeah perfect! Aster loves romantic stuff.”

…..

“It’s fairly debatable whether that’s in D minor or just C again.”

”I’ll make sure to play a Bb somewhere.”

The main idea musical idea I tried to reinforce throughout (after I developed the concept a bit more) was the dissonance between two notes that are close together.

The sound has a kind of shimmer as the two frequencies beat against each other. It can often sound unpleasant but given are wider context it makes something rich and beautiful.

I’ve done my best to illustrate that idea here:

This sound was intended to reflect the shimmer of the night sky as well as the two people in the poem. The way two souls can find harmony within a moment that, only adds to the wondrous and dumbfounding complexity of existence.

Production Notes

Once I had the basic idea laid out I sent a voice recording to Aster for approval and they gave me the go ahead for production.

Given the theme of the poetry I tried to create a gentle and expansive space for the music and focussed on creating soundscape within the music.

Letting phrases breathe and repeat, allowing for a more atmospheric type of listening is something I often struggle with in. This was an excellent opportunity to explore the idea of creating depth within simplicity and the comfort of slow repetition.

That’s something that I think a lot of people could practice in their art. The idea that you don’t have to be flashy and attracting attention to every moment or brush stroke but gently guiding the experience as whole.

This also seems to tie nicely with the theme of the poem as the character grapples with the surreal nature of personal connection and perspective.

….

The spacey high pitched sound was made by my guitar with a handful of effects.

Any chance to avoid practicing and just make spacey sounds is a good one. It was just convenient that the wolf picture was on hand so I can claim they are howls..