Into the Realm: About the Songs
Each of the songs on this album has its own story.
1. A Chance of Rain
2. Uncaged
3. Out of the Smoke
4. The Web
5. Ode to a Favorite Pair of Boots
6. Illuminating & Ultimate Gray
7. The Veil is Thin
8. Periwinkle Blue
9. Moonrise
10. Sangria
11. Midnight Garden
12. Into the Realm
A Chance of Rain
I wrote A Chance of Rain after the extremely hot and dry summer of 2021 (with temps as high as 114F – rare for the Seattle area). Whenever the forecast suggested "a chance of rain", we all eagerly hoped that water might actually fall from the sky, the way it used to. And, each time, we’d be disappointed – and still dry.
But early one morning, I awoke to a strange sound: a sort of a tapping… pattering… dripping sound. Rain! Real, wet, rainy rain!! I actually ran outside in my nightgown to stand in it, with outstretched arms and upturned face and puddle-eager toes. (I might even admit to dancing a bit… though that's a completely different song.) It was glorious -- and far too brief!
This piece, A Chance of Rain, was originally going to be a very spare piece, mainly pizzicato and descant guitar, with just a breath of low cello here and there -- more like the light sprinkles we usually get. However, the cello got away from me, so now there's a glorious downpour in the middle. So, get out your umbrellas, kick off your shoes, and enjoy!
Cello & guitar: Betsy Tinney
Track image by Rachen Buosa; licensed via Dreamstime.com
Uncaged
When creating this piece, I inadvertently built myself a beautiful gilded musical cage, using a seemingly benign chord sequence and a catchy rhythm. And then, still unaware of my peril, I blithely settled down inside, closed the door, and unwittingly locked it with a lovely lyrical melody. I spent several hundred pleasant measures inside that cage, chirping and cheeping cheerfully away.
Eventually, I tired of the cage and its chord structure and rhythm, and even with the pretty melody, and told them that I would like to come out now, please.
And they said Nope.
For several days, I tried to change that musical cage into something less confining -- after all, it's easy enough to change a chord sequence and a rhythm, right?
Wrong. Once established -- and they were FULLY established -- those gilded musical bars were practically set in stone, and any changes I made just sounded weird or downright wrong. And, that lovely lyrical melody utterly refused to unlock, and wouldn't let me change either the chords or the rhythm. Hmm…
Once I realized that the lyrical melody was the crux of the problem, I went to work with a pair of musical wirecutters, carefully snipping and trimming until I'd pruned it down to a 4-bar motif -- still recognizable, still lyrical, and much less controlling. And then, finally, I was able to change the rest of the piece, open the cage door, and blessedly stretch my wings.
And so, I give you this piece: Uncaged.
Snip, snip… Flap flap flap.
Cello, cello, and more cello: Betsy Tinney
Wall of cello: Betsy Tinney
Drum: Logic Pro's inimitable virtual drummer Darcy
Drum programming: Betsy Tinney
Cover image: © Photoschmidt; licensed via Dreamstime.com.
Graphic design: Betsy Tinney
Out of the Smoke
(This piece was originally created for Betsy’s October 2022 Patreon.)
In 2022, we had a very smoky fall here in the Pacific Northwest. Due to the many wildfires burning in our (unusually dry) forests, the entire area was blanketed in heavy smoke from early September until late October. The air quality got progressively worse, eventually exceeding 400 (300 is “hazardous”). Our desperately-needed seasonal rains were nearly a month late; the weather remained stubbornly dry for most of October. Thankfully, on October 20, the rains finally came, and blessedly, the terrible smoke quickly cleared. (The wildfires, although still burning, were dampened to a lurking, smoldering state, though it took a lot more rain before they were actually out.)
I started on this piece the day after the rains came. I began by playing the smoke: a thick, dissonant, drifting miasma with acrid notes and deeper smudges floating past. I had thought the rain would come in early on, but (as in real life) it arrives later than expected. Instead, the drifting smoke carries with it the ghostly voices of trees from the torched forests. (Hmm, I hadn't realized it until just now, but I seem to have written a spooky ghost song just in time for Halloween!) Finally, the rain arrives, bringing us out of the smoke.
The cover photo is of our very smoky meadow, taken when our local AQI was 380; the rains arrived the next day. I have always loved rain, but I love it even more now, both for restoring our clean air (which I will never again take for granted!) and for giving our poor forests a fighting chance.
Music & cello by Betsy Tinney
Cover photo by Betsy
The Web
Halloween being the season for spooky and creepy things, I had planned for my October Patreon piece to be about spiders. My favorite spiders are Orb spiders, which build large, lovely, and intricate outdoor webs. The cover image is an Orb web, covered in dewdrops and glittering in the morning sun; the artist herself crouches in the center of her masterpiece, patiently waiting for her breakfast to join her. I chose this image because I thought it was gorgeous; I didn't consider whether it would sound spooky enough. (It was a spider on a spiderweb… and all the Halloween marketing says spiders are totally creepy. What could go wrong??)
Well, as I often do, I put the image on my music stand and began to play what I saw, improvising based on the colors and the lines in the image. However, I quickly realized that this was not going to be a spooky, creepy, dark Halloween piece. Instead, it's a glorious, colorful celebration of the beauty of an Orb spider's creation: The Web.
In this (not at all spooky) piece, the guitar catches the glittering dewdrops and the intricate lines of the spiderweb. And, instead of evoking the darkness of a Halloween night, the cellos sing of the deep dark greens and teals of the evergreen branches and the brilliant blue, gold, and russet of the morning light. The (not at all creepy) Orb spider, a red-black dot in the center of her web, is barely noticeable in the image, although she is at the focal point. She's in the music too, albeit subtly: her color makes her a "B" to my synesthesia, so she appears throughout all the verses as the quietly dissonant B (sus2) in all the Asus2 chords, as well as the 5th in the E major chords. The choruses express the blues and greens of the evergreen and the sky, but we always return to that subtle, patient Asus2; and that little B, that small and patient spider, is always there, right at the center of her web.
Dear Patrons, I really wanted to give you a nice dark spooky song for Halloween, I really did. Instead… well… at least it has a spider in the middle?
Cello: Betsy Tinney
Cover image by Darius Strazdas; licensed via Dreamstime.com.