Synth Harmony

We take off in G Ominous Minor, knowing only that five minutes later at the end of our journey we will be landing in E Soothing Major.  Between is improvised musical flyover country.  Leaving Newark's EWR and heading west the G tonality changes to E major as NJ concrete flows into the woods of Pennsylvania. At 1:42 for reasons unknown we start dancing an F major Scottish jig.  Underneath it all is the pervasive hum of the engines.  At 2:20 I feel like I'm flying over Chicago, the "Windy City".  At 3:30 I'm soaring over the Rocky Mountains seeing the sun glints off the mountain tops.  At 4:00 we reach over to slow down the Korg Trident's arpeggiation as we fly over the great burning hot desert.  I can feel the heat as we slow down.  At 4:30 the captain has lowered the flaps on our approach vector to LAX. At 4:45 the music rises to celestial heights as we touch down in LaLa Land, Los Angeles, cushioned by the foreshadowed E Soothing Major.    

Liquid harmonic waters stream by in a wake of descending 6ths as I stand on the platform waiting to catch the next rhythmic train.  Underneath everything is the sound of the wheels on the tracks.  A passing minor, a shuffle of meters and happy thoughts of home.  At 1:37 an unexpected hush. Sad lyrical vibrato echoing resonant thoughts of what I'm leaving behind me.  The home station presents a D minor 9th close and a hiss of arrival steam.  

We start by hopping and skipping along, up and down scales in scholarly scalar flippant fashion. Cosmic marimbas join the echoed underwater pianos only to display some ascending octaves in time for the chase. Marimbas solo for an A minor dance that ends up in E major.  Funny how that can happen.  Cue the dramatic piano with strings, one of Debussy's harmonies artfully cribbed with shades of polytonal pianistic impressionism.  Apply the F Maj 4-3 suspension soothing balm. repeat every two measures.  A good place to end, but no.  Enter the sparkling echoed underwater piano with the old dominant 5-7 to one.  Who's keeping score?  The xylophone dances in thirds.  Some Italians vocalize an aria in the next practice room.  Movie music, with a D minor close at 3:21.  3:45 gets all frilly, trilly, and rather courtishly silly.  Dissonance at 4:11 deserves a mutated repeat.  Where could this lead?  It could lead to a trill on a high C!  Gradually we float to earth, only to rise at last in a classical Japanese Hirajoshi-feeling D minor close. 

I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning;

Continuing from the previous "Grasshopper" episode, a phalanx of Grasshoppers parade and precision march to project their strident orchestral calls and beat some big orchestral drums.  Ponderous, these little creatures they are.   Down the dark echoing harmonic ladder.  A serious look. Bang the drum.  This descent abruptly cuts to the pretty bells.  "Up so many floating bells down" said e.e. cummings the great unpunctuated poet.   Fade the arpeggiations as the cadence resolves with a whoosh of dribbling liquid frostings onto an A major 6th close.  Clearly time for bed.

"We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright."  --Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Musically thinking about my day.  The morning started off with a bang in F major.  I went out for a walk in the afternoon.  Things got rather contrapuntal but that's just me thinking too much.  Took a deep breath and looked at the birds.  Calmed right down, floated for a moment, and then settled into a soft A major close.

Things are going fine and then I have a surprise visitor!  My housemate wants a ride down to the garage.  Life intervenes.  My life, like your life, is interrupted by other priorities.  Art will just have to wait.

It's morning and everyone in the house is fast asleep.  On with the headphones, on with the lights, on with the bathrobe, and catch the fleeting inspirations.