Travel and music - how are they related?
I bring to your attention a guest post from our close friends, a reflection on the topic of whether music and travel are somehow related. The theme was taken for a reason, since Denis is the soloist of the musical group, of which Daria and I are ardent fans, and Denis's solo work impresses us, both in meaning and in «vibrations». I also invite everyone to a concert that will take place in Moscow on October 25.
There is someone who writes music, there is someone who loves to look at life in distant countries, it would seem, how these two are connected?
Travel benefits everyone. The office worker I used to be was very fond of distant countries. The impressions that I got while traveling are like wood for the stove, harvested for the winter. In difficult moments of a harsh winter or off-season slush under a gray sky, it is the impressions that save. Beautiful pictures come to mind and help to survive a difficult, joyless time. They warm us like the fire of a cozy fireplace.
There is a significant difference between impressions and firewood: collecting impressions is more enjoyable than harvesting firewood. A person engaged in creative affairs - an artist or a musician -, in principle, cannot but travel. After all, it is very important to shift your focus of attention, to look at the circumstances from a different angle, in order to understand the essence of phenomena a little in a new way. Subsequently, this will surely result in any ideas for songs, sensations that you want to transform into sounds, colors, words.
Someone will say that there are people who live in one place and have found a way to themselves, lying under a tree. There are also those who have traveled the whole world and have not found harmony..
But I stick to the middle.
Even my group is called that - «Middle».
And many of the songs played in the Middle were born after visiting distant beautiful places.
Song «Above Alexandrovaya Mountain», which will be presented at the next concert, was born from one phrase after visiting the mountain of the same name and Pleshcheyevo Lake (near Pereslavl-Zalessky) in the summer of 2012 with the legendary blue stone, a symbol of the pagan past, which became a real stumbling block for the spreading Orthodoxy. According to legends, he was thrown off the cliff, and drowned in the lake, and he got out on the shore. And people came to him and continue to come to this day..
«Carved clouds float over Alexandrovaya Mountain ...»
Pleshcheyevo lake
Blue stone
Group «Middle» descends to the lake
Rainbow over Mount Alexandrovka
Song «Good morning» was brought in 2007 from the mountains of the North Caucasus from near Gelendzhik, where once we sat in a gazebo with complete strangers and met the morning. From the phrase «Good morning», thrown to someone at dawn, a kind welcome song has already grown at home, with which we traditionally begin concerts.
«Good morning to those walking along the river bed ...»
«Good morning to those walking along the river bed ...»
Good morning!
After a mountain hike to the Crimea, we lived for three days in a tent on the shore and looked at the permanently changing sea. This became the source of the song «His song». The song is about realizing oneself in the outside world, life as a song. And about Him who created it all.
Crimea. Sunset at sea
Sunset over the sea
Stars over the sea
Sea waves
I would like to talk about the opposite effects, not always songs are written after travel.
Sometimes travel happens after songwriting. I once wrote words to music. This in itself rarely happens, more often the opposite..
I quote:
«There is a bizarre shadow on the hot asphalt
From freedom flying in the wind ...
My thoughts and feelings will remember that day -
The bad weather passed by ...
I haven't seen such a high sky for a long time ...
Summer is leaving the horizons ...
Wine of happiness pours into my life so unexpectedly,
I drink your hair in awe ...
Ahead is the ocean ...
I have never been there ...
Behind my back
Hold on ....»
So, in 2011, we (now my wife) Nastya went to Thailand. And there was, and hot asphalt, and a motorbike, and the wind blowing his hair, and the big wave we saw for the first time. That is - the thought-form worked!
«Hold on to my back ...»
Ahead is the ocean ...
Ahead is the ocean ...
Ocean sunset
In 2012, on the island of Phangan, where Nastya and I went on our own, without a tour and a guide, we nevertheless managed to find several Russian musicians and make an apartment concert with the participation of all of them!
Denis Ustyuzhanin - home on Koh Phangan
Denis Ustyuzhanin - home on Koh Phangan
People met in a surprising way and found mutual acquaintances).
On a sandy beach I met a salesman from a Moscow music store. It was strange at that moment. But in general, we are already accustomed to the fact that the world is round and we often meet.
And dating is great, but doing it while sitting at home is very difficult..
Travel - and you will be happy!
You can hear songs born in travels at our upcoming concert on October 25 at the Bilingua club.
More details on the group website «Middle»: www.gruppa-seredina.ru
Group «Middle» at the Bilingua club on October 25