"To Drive the Dark Away"

Driving home from an outdoor evening gig with Gaelic Muses last night, on the night after the longest night of the year, I was musing about the effect of these long winter nights on mood. Before the gig, I was concerned that we’d be cold (yes we were, but they brought out heaters and it was not so teeth-chatteringly unbearable…) and I was concerned we’d be playing to a lot of empty tables (we weren’t, there were a number of tables full of smiling people singing along on our sillier songs) and I was also concerned that we’d have a hard time seeing each other and our instruments and our audience.

We got set up with the sun still up between 3:30 and 5, (sunset was expected at 4:54 pm) and then played our first tune. Lynda exclaimed, “Look at that sunset!” It was hidden behind the building from my position, so I went over to where she and Alison were oohing and ahing and was blown away by the beautiful display framed by buildings on either side.

We continued with our performance as the sky darkened, and I was delighted to find that the pole I was set up next to transformed into a bright street lamp so my side of the “stage” (which was in a parking area next to the outdoor patio) was well lit. Lynda also supplied us all with fully charged twinkly fairy light strings to lay around our instruments, so the effect was lovely and magical. With our music stand lights and the lights on my carbon fiber harp, we were in pretty good shape as far as the lighting went.

The heaters placed near us and all around the patio for the audience provided both warmth and light to “drive the dark away.” And our performance turned out to be fun, and a good time was had by all…

Driving home after the performance, once I turned off the freeway and got into my neighborhood, I noticed all the over-the-top Christmas yard decorations that lit up several streets. My more cynical side thought “what a waste of electricity” although I’m guessing many of these are solar-powered. And “how commercial can you get!” I didn’t even know what some of the characters were representing. I must be out of the loop, but what are Disney characters doing standing next to Santa and a creche? But I also thought “How pretty” and felt somewhat uplifted by all the twinkling lights…

Then this morning, I saw a post by my friend Deb on FB:

This started my neurons firing in several directions:

Dark vrs light – using major chords in a minor tune, and minor chords in a major tune – balancing? or leaning one way or the other? Hmmm…

Long nights and short days – long notes followed by short ones, dotted quarter notes with their eighth note partners, rubato (which is Italian for “robbed”) stretching some measures and shortening others. As one jazz instructor said “you can rob Peter to pay Paul.” And I have noticed when I’ve recorded multiple takes of a rubato tune that even though I am not playing any one phrase exactly the same way, the overall length still comes out the same… So there’s a balance there too.

But then there are all those fun Celtic tunes we played last night that started slow, and then sped up with each repeat to a dizzying tempo. Like how the long nights will gradually get shorter and shorter until we’re celebrating another solstice in mid-summer on the shortest night/longest day. It all comes into balance…

And like how this very long post is balanced by the shorter ones…

Here is a song that is not a “holiday” song, but celebrates the balancing act of the seasons. It’s the title track of my Persephone’s Art CD:

https://open.spotify.com/track/1ImosS2cy2MMZPxCgGw3cS?si=3f83ec3095c14666

And if you’d like to own the CD, here’s where you can order your copy! https://verlene.com/persephone.html

Wishing you all the joy and twinkling lights of the season!

Verlene