My experience at Hambidge was very inspiring and had a greatly welcomed and somewhat unexpected influence on me as a musician. I allowed my visual, literary, mathematical and naturalist curiosities to deepen and flourish. My need to be connected with nature is so incredibly palpable!! I am so grateful for Mary Hambidge’s truly ahead of her time vision for this place. I found myself understanding the very nature of how my artistic process works as a musical creator by looking deeper into the concepts of dynamic symmetry. I am a sound collage artists in many senses, layering cello parts, vocals and other instruments through the use of loops and multi track recording. As I set up a full recording studio during my 2 weeks at Garden (The name of my studio in the woods), I found myself studying not only the musical materials I had brought with me to work on but also the Fibonacci sequence, Golden ratio and the principles of Symmetry found in nature and in Mary’s weavings. I began seeing patterns in the relationships of musical notes, harmonies, melodies, textures etc… I used 2 cellos, one electrified through loops, the other, my newest instrument, A Cison cello, played and recorded in its pure acoustic state. I also sang and played the Garden Studio Steinway, a Moog Sub Fatty Analogue synthesizer, 2 vintage Roland drum machines, bells, rocks and the sounds of water taken from the waterfalls and rapids in the creeks. I mapped out chord progressions using the Fibonacci series, finding myself crunching numbers as I watched the autumn leaves fall. The juxtaposition of mathematical principles and the fluid beauty and variety of the natural worlds worked as a wonderful pair in guiding me through a very fruitful musical recording process. I composed new ideas and ended up leaving with 14 new pieces to continue refining. What was so interesting about spending 2 weeks at Hambidge during a global pandemic was embracing a realism found in the scientific principles that inform art and music. Coming into a deeper awareness that beauty, variety and complexity exist and even flourish within the parameters of science was a deeply focusing experience as an artist. I am going to continue working on the 14 songs that came out of this fruitful time and take whatever time I need to fine tune them into a new album (s).
A whirling dervish of the cello