Messages
From Medicine River
Ambient nature and piano journey created to enhance relaxation, meditation, and healing, featuring original compositions played to the wild birds and sounds recorded on the BWCA's Perent river the morning of May 4th, 2010.
Messages From Medicine River was born of my love of listening to and recording nature's symphonies, and my affinity for ethereal and relaxing music. Alternative health practitioners often play music and soothing sounds to create a healing ambience. Knowing how healing it is just to be in untrammeled wilderness, I thought these uninterrupted bird and nature symphonies from wilderness areas might "transport" patients to the natural environment in which those sounds occurred. Letting the nature track take the lead and responding to it with a human instrument might strengthen transport of the human listener to that place.
There is an area in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Minnesota that embodies the feeling of home to me - it feels more like home than any other place I've ever lived. I call it "Medicine River". I yearn to be there whenever I think of it. It includes the Perent, Isabella, and Kawishiwi Rivers, and the lakes that flow into them. These rivers all flow together eventually. The nature track herein was recorded on the Perent River at dawn May 4th, 2010. Largely it is a real time sample of the sounds one morning on that special river. Wind distortion, microphone bumps, and a few moments where bird calls were minimal were edited out. It was a chilly morning, and you can hear the crackling of my campfire as well as river rapids.
Some of the piano melodies I literally copied from the birds; they are the writers and I was merely a listener. Others were directly inspired by the feeling of the bird songs. Most were composed the summer of 2011. As I sat at the piano in and listened to the nature track, I played to it, letting it inspire me. One day that summer, as I was composing several of the songs on the piano in my studio in Hovland, I stepped outside and accidentally scared a fawn which had curled up five feet from my open window. So I decided to use Mark Tessier's photo of a fawn for the cover of this package; he related to me that it had come and lay down right outside his window. Two songs, "Birdman of Medicine River" and "Behold the Royal Blue Jay", come from my childhood. They were written around 1974 when I was in 6th grade, not long after my band instructor showed me some chords on the piano.
In the fall of 2011, while in the process of recording this album, a vast forest fire burned much of the Medicine River area of the Boundary Waters. I have been back there many times since, witnessing the ongoing transformation of this vast area, recording audio/video symphonies. Navigate to the Baseline Symphony page to see them!
Piano parts written and performed by Joe Paulik
photography, graphics, and CD package layout by Mark Tessier
Many thanks to Tom Brown Jr. Several of the songs titles and concepts are quotes, teachings or from the name of a class that he has run. Also, he has guided me to use more fully the part of myself from which this music arises.
01. Daybreak
02. Medicine River Sentinel
03. Winter Wren report
04. Raven's Note
05. Sacred Choice
06. You Are What You Believe
07. The Keeper of Medicine River
08. Behold the Royal Blue Jay
09. Stolen From the Song Sparrow
10. Nature Pause: Yellow Rumped Arrival
11. The Birdman of Medicine River
12. Nature Pause: Whitethroat Interruption
13. Swamp Sparrow Serenade
14. Dressing the Bride
15. Grackle Shmackle
16. Brides waltz
17. Nature Pause: Secret Nibbler
18. Temple of the Soul
19. Song Sparrow Bride
20. All You Need’s a Little Faith
running time 70:18