Elements
And so it was that maybe a fortnight later, after Ronald had returned to Angola, that I sat down at my piano one evening and turned on a newly-acquired Sony Discman recorder.
I started with a simple piece by Arvo Pärt, ‘Für Alina – so simple so slow that I could read the music!
(Audio: Marilyn Für Alina, Arvo Pärt)
It ended on a deep disappearing bass B, allowing my piano to vibrate – and then I picked up on that note, playing it again which then flowed into something coming from me, coming through me. I got lost then. But later in the silence which followed this musical transmission, when I examined the recorded evidence on the Sony recorder, the results were very interesting.
There were seven distinct little ‘pieces’. The first was my interpretation of Arvo Part’s ‘Für Alina’ and then six pieces followed. My improvisation started from that deep B resounding under my left hand and then suddenly there was a phrase emerging in the right hand: F#, G, D repeated twice then D to B, echoing the left hand which was still ringing six octaves below. The theme was set, and that little piece which became known as Chamonix was captured, held forever in a little Sony recorder.
The entire recording session lasted 33 minutes. The six ‘pieces’ or themes following Für Alina were each very different, reflecting the scope of my musical language at that stage. This rather ‘artisanal’ recording, done in a one-take session with the microphone placed in a far from optimum position, was later tuned into a little CD called Elements. It stands as a record of the music which flowed soon after and perhaps during my weekend Harmonic Chant retreat at Pommereau in October 2005. The first of several retreats over the subsequent few years.