Perhaps my attention span is limited, but I've found that I could not keep up with a blog. At least, not pertaining to film production. And who am I to pretend I am a master filmmaker?
So, I've decided to change directions. Back to something I knew long before how to pull focus: words. After all, before I was a filmmaker, I was a writer... it's something I've been meaning to spend more time with for a while.
One of the most difficult questions I've ever been asked is what sort of music I am into. I don't believe my musical taste can really be defined. I have a collection of music that I can truly get lost in. I fall into the texture, the movement of a piece. The emotion behind the notes sometimes become overwhelming to me, manifesting itself in a physical fashion. I very rarely listen. I lay on my bed, or sometimes the floor, and experience music. I allow it to move my limbs and body in somewhat of a dance-like way. The sensations of this music have physical, mental, and emotional waves that roll throughout my body. This is all something I experience simply by losing myself to sound.
Today, I am experiencing "Svanire" - a contemporary classical piece by Ludovico Einaudi.
An advantage I have, here, is that I do not speak Italian, and so do not know (at least to start) what "Svanire" means. This allows the music to live through me with complete freedom and no preconceived notions.
From the very first notes, Svanire gives me solitude. A deep green surrounded by pale blue. Humidity. My eyes roll back in my head, and I slowly exhale a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. From there, it's about liquidity. If you've ever experienced a warm, but heavy, rain shower you will know the temperature I'm talking about. Become drenched in it, let it even permeate your skin soak right into your essence. The freedom of this surrender is intoxicating. The water surrounds you, becomes you. Float.
Picture it. Dew drops on sprigs of greenery. The humidity is thick, nearly suffocating. Let it slide along your arms, as if wrapping you in the safe embrace of a lover: hands entangled in your hair and at the back of your neck, keeping you in such away that you could not possibly fall into harm.
In water tendrils of hair flair out. They individualize. A single hair can reach out, curl, dance on its own away from the body. In such away, you are surrounded entirely by a ballet of life. Stretch, shudder, shiver. A breath fills the lungs with the lightness of clouds. Rise up. Let your body curl as hair does in water. Surrender.
Now, having experienced the music, my curiosity will get the better of me. "Svanire," in Italian, has six meanings: to fade, to disappear, to deaden, to vanish, to wither, to evanescence. This contrasts entirely with my experience with the song.
Does the song truly reflect the intent of the writer, or does it breathe its own life? Perhaps my interpretation is wrong. The video listed on Einaudi's lastfm page shows images of a fetus. I stopped watching midway through it because it, as the word Svanire means, killed my experience.
Or perhaps my vision, too, was about an ending. I felt a sense of surrender and acceptance. While I felt a warm sense of safety, there is no way to say if that is a beginning or an ending of some other emotions. Regardless, the exploration of the piece leaves me with a sensation of exhaustion, as the climax of an emotional and physical experience often does. I hope that you, too, can experience something similar by listening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naiu-of7J80
After reading I followed the link.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I feel is close to that of waking up on a morning I did not expect to be beautiful, with light peaking over clouds that had hung over my head the night before.
I cannot help but noticing the sounds of breath as if I am listening to the cellist embrace the emotion of the music with me.
The notes leak out from a place in me that longs for a return to the days when I played such songs as this. Days before I discovered what notes and phrases could really hold and what places they could take me to.
As I wake to the beautiful and raw nature of a morning unaware of what tragedies I might have experienced I get the feeling that life, time, simply keeps moving. The song ends for me in quiet embrace, I to surrender, but possibly to another muse.
I think that music comes from a place in us that cannot be truly controlled or understood. It’s a driving force that is as much instinctual as the need for love; at least that’s how I see it. So I cannot say that your interpretation is wrong, no more than I can say mine is right. My question is what is it inside us that connects so freely to hair catching on a tight line of metal, releasing it, and catching again.