I have placed my piano on a couple of different beaches as well as a rainforest, and I've played my violin on a pirate ship, as well as lit a piano on fire in the middle of a desert. Of all these strange and surreal experiences, my favorite has definitely been the rainforest in my "Carol of the Bells" music video. There was a moment after our crew pushed that beastly heavy piano through mud and unloaded it onto the forest floor where I had some time to myself to play on it without anyone around. It was simply magical. Imagine stumbling across a beautiful instrument like that in the woods. I mean, it would never happen, but imagine it. You just don't hear the sounds of the piano naturally echoing in the middle of a forest like that, and I wondered what the trees thought, what the animals felt, how the sound was being absorbed. It was also very quiet in the forest, and the sound of the piano was simply magnificent. I can't even describe it. It was just magical.
With "The Fire Within," I had a very specific topic that I wanted to write about, and so I actually took the approach to this album very differently than my previous albums - in that I spent a great deal of time writing my thoughts out, recalling experiences and writing about those, writing poetry, coming up with appropriate song titles, and creating and ebb & flow to the album with it's topics and themes. And because I was this specific with the planning of this album, it felt much more like film scoring to me in that the scenes were already created and I just needed to score music to them. I suppose you could say the imagery came first, and the music followed.
I don't always write this way though. Many times the music just comes to me, and it's only after the fact that I name it, or associate a topic with that particular song. But for The Fire Within, it all was definitely very planned out and crafted much akin to scoring a film.
I have had several experiences when I have been driving late at night and it is quiet, and my mind will compose music in my head. I've had an entire symphony come to me this way from start to finish. As odd as this may sound, sometimes composing in my head is easier than composing at the piano - as I feel as though I can pause the process, go back, re-do, try new things, add instruments and different colors and timbres; whereas at the piano I am limited to just that instrument and figuring out more of the technicalities of how to translate what is in my head to the piano. In my mind, it is more free and natural. I suppose this is how many of us feel about life in general - we have these ideas and dreams, but executing them in physical form is always more involved and not quite as easy.
I think that all children should and need to be exposed to music education in some form. It awakens their minds in ways that other things cannot. I was brought up by a mother who was incredibly talented and dedicated to teaching my siblings and I music. We were required to wake up very early before school to practice, and then we went to early morning orchestra rehearsal before school, and then we were also required to practice our instruments after school. I participated in competitions, recitals and adjudications. But passion can't be forced or taught. I found my passion in music when I was 12 years old after watching an old classic movie that really inspired me and propelled me forward in my own music practice. This didn't happen for my siblings, even though we all watched the same film. I think it's deeply personal and affects no two people the same. We all had the same education and training, but the "spark" wasn't there for them as it was in me - hence why I had more drive and ambition to excel at music, whereas they had ambitions to excel elsewhere.
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