Sonic Prayer | XLVIII

Dearest Creative Ones—

It’s a newer thing for me to feel comfortable walking through the world as myself—having realtime conversations; not feeling trapped behind glass or stuck in obsessive self-conscious loops about what I should or shouldn’t have said in a past social interaction. Even though I didn’t identify as a writer until forcefully calling myself one throughout this past year [thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Beth Pickens + Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs + Parakeet + my writing group babes + all of you who have reached out to tell me how my writing is connecting dots in your life/self], I’d long felt I communicated best in written form. It’s funny how well we can know ourselves without really seeing ourselves sometimes.

I’ve talked about this a bit here already, but lyrics are a newer thing for me, too. I’ve yet to start with them as my in-road to writing (perhaps this will never be my process) and they’re one of the last things I notice when listening to other people’s music. For me, it’s all about the sonic sculpting—the rhythms and melodies and harmonies that push and pull my body, sting or slap or soothe a wound, bring an emotion to the surface, or awaken something deep within me and set it to churning.

In this way, music feels magical and somehow both temporal yet, outside of time: like a communing or conversation with something unnamable, ineffable, intangible; a way of communicating through a language which can be shared and understood but is outside of or beyond any language which takes the form of words. I still compose music this way—plenty of what I write will never have lyrics—but a shift is occurring. What once felt like utterances which could only be embodied as wordless sounds are morphing into melodies begging me to find their words.

I will continue valuing both—expressing what could never be captured within the limits of language and naming something so astutely, it becomes a blade slicing straight into your heart—but I do wonder if, for me, becoming more legible and an increasing willingness to be visible has something to do with this shift. The third OBJECT AS SUBJECT record is starting to make itself known and I’m excited to explore this question here.

This lunation’s sonic prayer falls into the newer category of a melody waiting for its words.