Here's a simple truth: Change isn't always easy and change isn't always something we want. And here's another simple truth: Change is unavoidable. Courtney Hartman sensed big changes were fast approaching in her life and, in order to try to be in the best space possible to accept them, she decided to do something a little different. She decided...to walk.

In order to embrace change and in order to embrace her own voice as a songwriter, Hartman knew she needed to get away from a lot of the noise in her life. And so she set off on a truly epic, hundreds-of-miles-long trek, accompanied only by the lightest guitar she could find.

It was over the course of that journey that she become very aware of the rhythm, the feel, and the sound of walking: "The rhythm of walking allows melodies to come in a very different way than sitting still," she says. Hartman shares more insights into her epic journey - which turned into a new album, Ready Reckoner - during an exclusive Folk Alley Session recorded at Beehive Productions studio in Saranac Lake, New York.