Blog 7 - Shamanic Water Song

Creative sound response to The Water Song, The Environment and Water. Please access the link below to listen:

https://on.soundcloud.com/tcjkj

Or with a video:

https://youtu.be/hffe1LWGq3A?si=FfRT7HzfxKJMquwP

Below are the lyrics for 'The Water Song':

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(Sing the Water Song, 2018)

To celebrate water with traditional ritual.

The voice within me felt it important and natural to honour, carry and share ‘The Water Song’ gifted to us (Jerome, Sing The Water Song, 2018). In the compositional response, I have repeated the words four times so that listeners may join in with each of the four directions as requested by the Algonquin elders. The ask we do so in the following order: East, South, West, North  (Sing the Water Song, 2018).

Musical Incorporations:

I recorded three different drum rhythms correlated with the I-Ching representing the following:

1.         Spirit/Heaven (net ref) – frame drum.

2.         Earth – diagram (net ref) – frame drum.

3.         Water – on regeneration drum (net ref) – rejuvenation drum.

The blend of drums created a rhythmic effect, like the fluidity of water flowing.

During my training as a sound practitioner, I was taught by the British Academy of Sound Therapy (2011-2013) how to 'drum' the I-Ching. The lines represent long and short drum beats.

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The Trigram on the left represents Spirit and the one of the right represents Earth.

Image, (Collins, 1993)

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This Trigram represents water.

Image, (Collins, 1993)

Dried Seaweed creates the shaker effect. I was attempting to dry kelp to make a horn as suggested by someone, but the fire seemed to shrivel it up. It did however, morph into a wonderful shamanic-sea-shaker! The shaker sound you hear in the piece is this piece of kelp collected from Siccar Point 13 October 2023.

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Kelp at Siccar Point 31 October 2023

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b4c9ec_402ca81020ed4ee69f1a857cc0eb07db/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Kelp after being dried by the fire.

I used an echo sound effect for the voice to reflect Emoto’s experiments of water having memory (GOYSTube, 2013). This demonstrates that what we offer to the water creates a ripple effect (Rigoli, 2019). The sound of the water in the piece was recorded by a burn which created a ‘blobbing’ sound due the pipes it was flowing through. This reminded me of The World Organ in the way tubes in nature can create really amazing sound enhancements of our natural environment (World Organ, 2023). The following sound clip captures this:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/b4c9ec_bca77b16b0314c7b8680232ceada1f32/360p/mp4/file.mp4

Picture taken at Siccar Point 31 October 2023.

References:

Wen, B. (2019) Reference Tables & Diagrams. Available at: https://benebellwen.com/i-ching-the-oracle/reference-tables-diagrams/ (Accessed: 11 November 2023).

Collins, R. (1993) THE FU HIS I CHING – The Early Heaven Sequence. London: University Press of America.

GOYSTube (2013) Messages from Water. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P78VZzaHDVA (Accessed: 11 November 2023).

Ryan Rigoli. (2019) Available at: https://www.ryanrigoli.com/post/life-reflects-our-self-love (Accessed 3.12.23).

Out of Stress (2023) Flower of Life Meaning. Available at: https://www.outofstress.com/flower-of-life-meaning/ (Accessed: 3 12 23).

Sing the Water Song. (2018) Algonquin Water Song Phonetic Lyrics. Available at: https://www.singthewatersong.com/songlyrics (Accessed: 2 November 2023).

Sing the Water Song (2018) History of the Water Song. Available at: https://www.singthewatersong.com/history-of-the-water-song/ (Accessed: 2 November 2023).

Sing the Water Song. (2018) Sing the Water Song. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC2FHciQ0sU (Accessed: 2.11.23)

Tat,W. (1977) The Exposition of The I-Ching. Hong Kong: Dai Nippon Printing Co Ltd.

World Organ (2023) World Organ. Available at: https://worldorgan.com/wp/listen-again/  (Accessed 18 November 2023).