Inspiration Thursday! Awakening Longings...

"’I don’t like things,’ he said, ‘which interfere with one’s heart strings.  

It doesn’t do to awaken longings that can’t be fulfilled.’” -Enoch Powell

I found this quote in an article today. Enoch Powell was a British politician. Apparently as a young man he'd been a gifted musician, but as his parents thought he should focus on more scholarly pursuits, he put away his clarinet and didn't touch it again for at least 50 years. Instead he devoted himself to words and writing - a full professor of Ancient Greek at 25 (according to Wikipedia). The quote above was his response when asked why - in his older years - he rarely listened to music.

How sad that he should abandon something that stirred his soul this way? How true this sentiment for many who share a love of music? 

I write. I have seen the power of words. I don't think my words have ever even begun to "awaken longings that can't be fulfilled." I do, however, understand this power of music. Take, for example, the third movement of Brahms' Symphony #3. That piece of music pulls me into it's longing - makes me yearn for something unknown. Albinoni's Adagio in G minor evokes the longing of separated lovers - especially in this arrangement where the violin calls to the organ and the organ answers. And if you've seen The King's Speech, you know how the director wove Beethoven's 7th Symphony into a speech, which together conveyed the longing of a nation for peace though they were on the brink of war - and the longing of a King to be worthy of his new reign.

I sang in a Chorale while in college. We would welcome new students by teaching them our alma mater - the theme was taken from the sextet in Lucia de Lammermor. We also had many occasions in which we were able to sing while accompanied by a pipe organ with over 4,000 pipes - and on several occasions we were lucky enough to sing with the WV Symphony. There's really nothing that lifts my heart like feeling the music - the deep notes of the pipe organ reverberating up through your feet to burst from the top of your head or being bathed in the sound of strings. Even now, it evokes a longing to just once more join in a chorus of song. 

Awakening Longings... thankfully my musical longings are fulfilled. I would never have the discipline to live without the joy of music.

New Music! Kate Havenevik

I'll get back to our normal Working Tuesday post later, but in the meantime there's some new music from a very interesting artist you might enjoy. Kate Havenevik is a Norwegian artist who has had a couple songs appear on Grey's Anatomy. You can hear more about the project by following this link and watching her video.

I first heard of her listening to Pandora - a website operated by the Music Genome Project that groups music by their structure and sound and creates a playlist based on your personal music preferences. (If you've not seen it, you should check it out!) She has also worked with Imogen Heap. I know. Shocking that I'd like someone who has worked with the Heap.

So if you want to be a part of bringing new music to life, here's your chance! It's not often we get the opportunity to be a part of the process and see the birth of new music!

Inspiration Thursday! Imogen Heap.

In my many, many years of schooling I found the best way to get myself to concentrate was to put on some music. Quite honestly, if I didn't have that music going in my head, I'd be distracted by the many other things I could be doing instead of say, writing a paper or reading that last 300 pages or whatever. I'd procrastinate like crazy. I'd even ~gasp~ clean the house to keep from sitting down to get the studying done. Music definitely provided the distraction that became the focus.

It seems the more complex the subject, the more complex the music needed to be. Just as most art has many layers, so does music. And the best music will inspire art. I suppose that's also true vice versa!

In recent years, the artist I tend to go to for inspiration is Imogen Heap. She layers her music like an watercolor artist layers color. Sometimes it's delicate, wispy even. Other times it's slapstick fun. Sometimes it has a biblical reference complete with samples of locusts. Other times it reminds us of a cause. And there are not many of her pieces I would not listen to every day of the week over and over again. She just doesn't get old for me.

Her newest CD starts with First Train Home, which she says is about being at a party but wanting to be home:

Temporal deadzone where clocks are barely breathing, Yet no one cares to notice for all the yelling, All night clamor to hold it together. I want to play - don't wait - forms in the hideaway. I want to get on with getting on with things. I want to run in fields, paint the kitchen, love someone. And I can't do any of that here, can I?

Her words paint pictures in my mind - what creativity to describe clocks as barely breathing! What about Hide and Seek's, the dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet? Glittering Cloud gives locusts who are about to obliterate more vegetation a voice of reason: Save me, oh save me, save me from myself, Before I hurt somebody else again. And The Walk comes to mind many times in my life (usually when shopping): I feel a weakness coming on.

In recent days, I've been thinking about the "Upcycled Movement" and how we use things others discard to create art. "Immi" has an interesting take on our treatment of this Earth - and it's from the point of view of a mother:

The cold shoulder, folded arms, the looking up. You've never listened and carry on, careless, regardless. This is not a fire drill and if we hold any hope, It's harmonic connection, in stereo symbiosis. These Legoland empires choking out mine, Now you're everywhere, everywhere multiplying around me child. A strain on my heart, This rock can't tolerate anymore. Stop this right away. Put that down and clean this mess up. End of conversation. Put your back in it and make it up to me now.

This really does remind me we've got to be stewards of the resources we've been given and need to be careful to clean up our messes - and I mean that in a purely NON-political way. I love seeing artists who are taking that concept and making art with that in mind. The other day I saw an Anthropologie store window decorated with cut up, spray painted 2-liter bottles that had been shaped into flowers and strung together with old bicycle wheels. From far away, it looked like flowers. Up close, you could see the bottles. How clever!

For me, it's taking buttons that have been pulled off of clothing for generations and making them into wearable art. It's finding the textures and designs that will create a new whole. It's finding colors that are striking and appealing. And I love it. But I digress....


Inspiration can be found in many ways. Music is a wonderful way to find inspiration. Imogen Heap is an amazing artist who often inspires me. And let's face it, who doesn't love someone with the chutzpah to show up at the Grammys with a lily pad and Gary the Grammy Frog? Oh yeah, she's THAT girl!