to thank you
for everything you did
for me today, I made a little song
for you. in creating it
I had to contemplate
some very interesting
philosophical questions, like:
what does distance
sound like? (a laser
sound effect, reverberated and
run through a ringshifter.)
how does touch, both wanted and un-,
translate into music?
(a 1970’s arp, warped and pulsing,
afloat over a subsonic bass
like an airplane taking off
from very far away,
with some delicate bell
synths and a ghostly steel drum
plucking out a distinctly
creepy pattern.)
I fit my sounds
around your words
like stones in a mosaic,
polishing them like jewels, music
pouring over and around them
like water flowing over
rocks in a stream,
sometimes going around,
lapping up at the edges
without actually covering.
by any objective standards,
I have absolutely no idea
what I’m doing. somehow
that doesn’t bother me
too much. at least in this arena,
I much prefer the happy accident to a
controlled experiment.
it’s a new way of thinking
for me, like learning a new language.
I feel like I’m finding something
in the translation.
R. Brookes McKenzie 