I’m calling my First Wednesday concert for May 6 “Harmony,” because we need it. Maybe a song of gratitude can help heal our current political, cultural and emotional angst. Everywhere I’m going lately, I’m saying we can’t be divided. But first: I’m going to tell you the end of this right in the beginning, taking a cue from Caity Weaver, a wonderful writer who I discover is a staff writer for Atlantic Magazine. Atlantic Magazine helps me cope, you should subscribe too, they can use it. Also, Harper’s Magazine, and The Nation, and Mother Jones – and NPR and Pacifica Radio for that matter - then we’ll all be on the same page. (I don’t do TV.) Ms Weaver wrote a long article about the best bread you can get served for free in any restaurant. This is an article that qualifies to be a cover story? She tells you right up front that she will eventually tell you the answer, and it’s not at the end where you might jump to. She made me read the whole thing twice. In there, her assessment of a man who looks like he could have existed in any era of human history still has me laughing, and thinking. The art of making something interesting is something to which I aspire. At the end of this, I’m leading up to pasting in the recording of my song “Harmony.” And, in the process of describing its roots, evolution and etymology, I will also digress. Both the poem and the harmonic structure in the song “Harmony” was a challenge, and I like challenges. I like to learn and I like to be creative, that’s why I haven’t paid much attention to AI. Computers might win in chess, but I think an inveterate storyteller still beats AI. I’m confident Harpers and Atlantic articles will not be written by AI. I write a lot of words about nature and science, which can be interesting, but there can also be a fine line between a poem/song and a lecture. So, I do try not to do that, though I’ve been accused. As introduction, I hope to say something about the value of life, and how the oligarchs are accomplishing their objective of getting us all back to being illiterate, ignorant, barefoot, pregnant and desperately broke is something I could write a treatise on. But I won’t for now. Just know they are working hard and spending a lot of money on it. Ages of enlightenment throughout history seem to be followed by reactionary eras of ignorance. I hadn’t put together that these eras are directed, planned, and executed from the ruling class. They don’t want an informed, healthy public demanding rights, those kind of people cost too much to employ. Slavery and indentured servitude will be more profitable. Women’s rights are not good for product sales. Spirituality also seems to swing back to simplicity, ignorance and superstition rather than an introspection informed by science and art. Science will show us how things work, and Art will give us someone else’s perspective. This is valuable stuff, leads us to empathy. An informed sense of wonder wouldn’t hurt either. My friend Michael Dowd, who left us too soon, wrote the book “Thank God for Evolution.” He was a Congregational minister, so he had the desire to keep a deity involved. He and his wife/partner, scientist Connie Barlow, eventually let go of that priority and focused on Ecology and Climate Change, powerful presentations. I try not take time with my writing to vent about the corrupt government, though I complain with friends. You can find that anywhere these days. My biggest artistic motivation is to not let it all divide us (because that’s the goal for corrupt leaders). What could I do to not have it all be “us and them”? So – the song. I do frequent many churches. I’m tired of churches with a lot of magic and superstition. I primarily lurk in Unitarian Universalist churches, though I’ll play for anyone who will have me. In the UU world deities are optional and maybe more often poetry. I have used the term “God” in places, and “Holy Spirit” (informed by science) is even in one of my songs. I do associate with a lot of ministers, and I can enjoy discussions of spirituality. It was after one of those conversations I decided to write about the great mystery/great whatever, and find some paraphrases to explain it to myself, if not others. I don’t write a diary, or journal for my own good, my self-serving motivation is there will be some audience for this. I got a commission to write a song for the new UU Hymnbook that was coming out back in the 90s, several people did. So I wrote this song, and then was told “Oh, we can’t use that, it modulates too much, the time signature is weird and that double sharp will scare everybody.” So as Pete Seeger once said to me, “I wrote this song for a song contest. I didn’t win, but I got a good song out of it.” Celebrating a mystery was what I was after. Taking on the subject, I decided at the time that deity should not be included, but to say it some other way, for the audience who has little patience for that stuff. I’ve heard the phrases “God is love” or “God is peace,” so what about my metaphor/figure of speech describing it all as musical harmony? The Harmony of Nature, “Mother Nature,” we’ve all heard that. All these descriptive terms were in my first gathering of words, but they seemed easily trite or overdone – so, don’t include that stuff. I started with “Peace is…” and tried to answer that, flesh out some words with imagery. That’s often the way I do it, start with an outline or phrases that state my goal, even though none of that might end up in the poem or story. Sometimes the original is lost as the words write themselves and go in a different direction, a different topic, and that’s good for another song. I feel as though I watched it unfold, “Peace” (anthropomorphized – a being?) “is a rolling sea - a work of art - a field of grain...” I remembered a song, a hymn in the old UU Hymnbook, that said “Peace is the streetlights in a country town” (I think that’s it). What, a hymn to rural electrification? The opening line that was rhymed with was, “Peace is the (mind’s?) own wilderness cut down.” Holy Sh--!!! A hymn to the destruction of the wilderness? Apparently cutting down your wilderness was desirable. Were we into that at the time? Sometimes imagery can be so shallow we don’t realize what we’re conforming with. Like “civilizing” another culture by forcing on them our religion, or colonizing under the guise of “democracy.” It may have been a response to that hymn that motivated me, I’m vague on that. Anyway, I was excited when the poem came together as a communication, a conversation: “Harmony of Harmony” (is that the being - deity?) “I hear you sing to me…” And as I’m implying it’s a metaphor for Peace, it came to me to include “I am your instrument, let peace begin with me,” borrowing from the Prayer of St. Francis, “Let me be an instrument of thy peace.” I sometimes like making use of some anachronistic language to give things a timeless maybe old fashioned hymnlike character, if not lending some poetic elevation. I had an idea of melody, as I pretty much do when I write words, though it’s always flexible. For harmonic progression I had the idea of the verses over a descending bass line, and it settled itself into a slow 3 beats per measure, like a Saraband, a baroque dance that has an emphasis on the second beat. Try counting 1-2-3 and putting an emphasis on 2. You’ll see. The bass line goes down in the verse, modulates (changes key) and then in the chorus, the bass line creeps up, and changes keys some more. I like doing things like that, typical folk and pop songs don’t change keys that much. Broadway musical songs by the great composers do though, it’s not that unusual. I love how Brahms goes through modulations always with reference to the original key, not changing the key signature as is done more today. He will take you all over the place with double sharps and double flats, like continuing to write in the key of Bb (B-flat) when you have a Db, and Fb and Bbb (B double flat) and you’re actually in the key of A. Don’t let your eyes glaze over, even if you don’t know music notation, the point is it takes us on a journey, tells a story that wanders but never loses track of where we came from. And the magic of music is, once you hear it, you hear it again and you know just where you are. But songs of mine that delve into this have gotten criticized, or I’m told, scared people off when they look at the written music. Some pretty accomplished musicians have stumbled playing it with me for the first time if they don’t know it. I more than once have had someone tell me “If it’s called ‘Harmony’ you should stay in one key so I can sing harmony with it.” OK, it may be challenging to sing harmony on a song with that name. I thought the harmony of nature would be a little mysterious. I’m not bragging (maybe) but I’m just saying this pushes the envelope a little. What I’d like to think is I accomplished this thing I try to do as a composer, put some complexity in there and still have it sound easy and accessible. That performance takes practice, I’ll admit. Some people do notice. I’m then fulfilled by the outcome. I think it tells a story, unwinds and progresses down, then rises up. I love playing it and I’ve made various arrangements, choral, with a string quartet, etc. If someone would ask me what kind of music I make (to know if the guy’s any good) this is a song I would pick to represent what I’m about. Harmony © 1990 Jim Scott Peace is a rolling sea, So full of mystery; I feel its harmony in ebb and crest. Peace is a work of art That moves the open heart, Peace is a place to start and final rest. Harmony of Harmony, I hear you sing to me. Let it wash over me - let it begin. Harmony of Harmony, unf
