Speaker cone, moon

poem + instrumental

Sound in Motion 

Why would you believe 
so deeply in wind, a string, 
or skin set to vibrating
so fast that you can’t see it? 
The air around you pulses. 
You express yourself in waves
of varying amplitude, always
the same shape: some rise, 
the fall. All directions at once.
Reflected off of glass, wood.
Absorbed by softnesses.   

There is nothing here we can
hold onto and every note 
has already happened
by the time we hear it.  
We obsess over the past, 
that one time it was perfect, 
not your life, but the resonance 
and hum of amplified brass, 
steel, wood, horse hair across
gut strings, a human voice. 

The magic of a microphone 
converts air to electricity
to carry it through a signal path
where it is warmed, equalized, 
compressed, and then released 
through a speaker cone
that resembles the moon 
as it projects sound back 
into the room full of waves. 
Again as before, transformed. 

This week I’m including both a poem and an instrumental musical sketch. The poem was one that I wrote in a moment when I felt acutely aware of and inspired by how my work mixing audio stands at a crossroads where the physicality of sound waves are moving through a process of transformation as they are electrified by microphones, processed in whatever ways, and then reemerge through speakers. Metaphor runs deep. Not sure I’ve captured it yet.

The instrumental sketch above is a rarity for me in that it started from guitar, an instrument that I have a complicated and mostly frustrated relationship with. I created this piece around the repetitive guitar part and then played the other instruments to expand on its mood. I never further developed, mixed, or released this piece but something about the poem brought it back to focus so I wanted to share both. Thanks for reading/listening.