this is a song i made several months ago by recording guitar and then adding drum loops and other ambient instruments using a program called garageband on my friend’s macbook. i wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when i recorded the song, i was just focusing on making what i though was an aesthetically-pleasing piece of music. after listening to it several times after i was done, i decided that it told the story of an underwater excursion to the lost city of Atlantis. so, i called it Picnic in Atlantis.
the first part of the song is the descent and journey down through level after level of water depth. there are several exciting events taking place during this descent. also, the pace of the music represents the motion and rapidity of the descent. i can imagine several interesting adventures taking place on this initial journey. the next part slows down into a really ambient zone where i can picture the arrival finally to the fabled lost city. and the city is surrounded by a sheath of brilliant white light and it is a very heavenly aura. it is arrived upon almost by surprise, and a moment of silence is taken to fully take the beautiful view in. then the city is entered and an extraordinary and enlightening picnic is hosted. it is an out-of-this-world kind of experience and both the journey down and the picnic were memorable, but each in a different way.
that’s what it sounded like to my mind’s ear anyway…and perhaps someday i will expand upon this short little song and add either a video clip or some kind of a short film with an extended version of the song which will fully express the film that rolls through my imagination whenever i listen to it. today has really been a music day for me, reconnecting to my core LOVE for music. actually it is more intense than love. it is more primordial, almost like an existential thirst, a kind of elemental hunger for the beauty of expression through sounds. music has the power to communicate truths far more powerfully than any combination of words or ideas can do. music deals with feelings, with subtle emotions and subconscious ambiances. it taps into the very heart and soul of human experience.
“Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.”
– Ludwig van Beethoven
“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”
– Ludwig van Beethoven
“Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.”
– Franz Liszt
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would’ve been straightened out.”
– Jimi Hendrix