Sunset perched,
I dreamed of waking
on the moon.
Simple
like a flower in the
Sea of Tranquility.
Simple
like the farmer’s
rain dance.
Simple
like a song without
harmony.
Simple
like diamonds.
I consider it a perk anytime I get to use my creativity at work. And, in the case of the most recent example, I found some inspiration I can use on my own projects.
A few weeks ago I produced a video for Long Island Business News about the abandoned Pilgrim State campus in Brentwood on Long Island. It was once the largest mental institutions in New York state. It had its own railroad station, its own power plant.
It was also the mental hospital where poet Alan Ginsberg committed his mother, and she was lobotomized there.
However, today many of the building are demolished or abandoned, and it’s a spooky place that many believe to be haunted with the ghosts of the deceased insane.
Our photographer, Bob Gigione, took some amazing photos which I used to create the video, and Ambrose Clancy, who wrote a wonderful story about the hospital for the paper, crafted a poetic script which he read behind the video.
All the movie needed was some creepy music.
I wanted the music to sound like it came from outside of one of the crumbling buildings, with the listener on the outside, wondering which tormented soul was pounding away at a dusty, aged piano in the institution’s rec room.
So rather than hook up a nice microphone above my own piano, I used the tiny, built-in microphone on my MacBook Pro, which I placed on the floor.
As for the improv, I thought about the hospital of old, the cacophony of the herded insane, versus the eerie silence of the campus today. I’d often return to a C blues scale to keep the mood sorrowful, but not cliché, like a lot of diminished chords would have come across.
For the video, I put an echo effect on the track to add a bit of spookiness and make it sound more in the distance.
In the end, the video came out great, and it’s been very popular.
But here’s the piano track on its own, without the echo effect I used on the video. Rather, this track just has a live music filter on it. The best part, around 30 seconds into the track my dog Charley walked by the MacBook, and his little nails tapping on the wood floor adds a very creepy element to the track.
Click to play: Pilgrim State 1
While I was improvising this I really felt like I could have stretched out beyond 3 minutes. I’m going to record a series of Pilgrim State improvisations in the near future. But this time I’ll hook up the nice microphones.
I’ll be sharing those later.
Lastly, here’s the finished movie.
If you know me at all, if you’re connected to me on Facebook, or if you follow me on Twitter, you know I turn into a major whiner around October when the cold air sets in for good. Because I hate the cold.
And even though I enjoy a clean, fresh snowfall, a good stew, a Rhone Valley red wine and many other wintertime consumables while I’m wrapped up in thermal undershirts and itchy sweaters, I countdown to the warm weather.
So, when the spring finally arrives for good after the usual warm-cold-warm-cold teeter-totter of the in-between weeks of March and often early April, I’m beyond glad.
Then I crave light salads, and smile as I dig out the short-sleeved shirts from my closet. I fall completely into that feeling of rebirth, often read Leaves of Grass to put me in a celebratory mood, ditch the hot coffee for my warm-weather favorite, black iced coffee with a lemon wedge, and loosen up.
Thank goodness, because the past winter was harsh.
My spring basking led me yesterday to walk around my yard and take photos of every wildflower, leaf-bud and blossom that caught my eye, testing out the digital macro setting on my utilitarian Canon digital camera. The shots came out great.
I even snapped a few photos of a small ant colony, incredibly close photos. The rain had earlier washed the holed entrances to the colony closed, so they were digging out when I arrived with my camera.
Enjoy the shots. Download them if you’d like. My spring gift to you.
