5 The relief of forgiveness
The relief of forgiveness theme was as a duo with the kantele player Noora, under the topic of healing. All our improvisation sessions started with meditation, as it is a common practise for both of us. As we agreed, forgiveness was the main intention in meditation and the music, and matched within a healing context. Tears came to me when I pronounced out loud the word forgive in my language. From this aroused the final name of the theme, The relief of forgiveness. Another topic we discussed was on how we could transmit forgiveness in the music. We agreed that if we set this intention then the message will be sent.
Regarding the structure, we decided to have a first part of improvisation and a second part with a musical mantra. I was so inspired and released when talking about the possibility to accept whatever comes in the present moment as a right thing. It felt coherent to accept everything you do despite the accomplishment of your expectations.The improvisation that would happen at the final concert had a high degree of unpredictability, remarking the mutual trust we had within our improvisation skills and connection. From the first improvisation I remember perfectly the first note I played in the accordion. I really didn’t think which note to play and when, I just felt it was that moment, and the result of the note felt so right.
The second part was created by myself going back to my experience at the ritual in Nepal introduced in the subsection 2.2. There was a rhythm that knocked in my interest. My motivation reacted by listening more carefully and transcribing it. Interestingly it stayed present throughout the creation of all of HumanTree as it is present too in the Seeds. As I wrote in my diary during the field trip,
That mantra was sounding for long while that old woman with whom I couldn’t communicate more than only gestures and smiles, took me and guided me to the ritual ceremony where lamas were blessing everybody and attaching a necklace for clear long life. I felt so strongly the power of communication and the power of connecting with others without a word. There was totally an energy that connected us.’ (Personal diary entry, 15th May 2019)
We were aiming to bring a silence moment on stage as a kind of break and reflective moment for all. A memory from a concert in which the artist included the process of writing a word as part of the performance, reminded me about various ways on how to share words with the audience. From that memory, I realized that the process of writing itself could be helpful for bringing this silent and meditative moment. The word had to appear slowly and so the people would be curious about what is coming. This is an example on how creativity worked. Coming from an inspiring example and followed by an aspiration to merge those different seeds. After a while of active thinking I could visualise the way how it could be done. The visual projection could represent it. And so with the visual artists and during our trip to the forest we found the way. Linda prepared a set of different elements of nature that created the word Forgive, as you can see in the following video (Figure 3.7).
During the last practise before the concert, the visual artist Daniel joined as well and it was very interesting to see how the visual projection was acting as one instrument more of the band. First of all, at the beginning of this theme, the word of Forgive was appearing on the visual while nothing else happened on stage. The word was staying stable on the projection until the end of the song, where the visual artist had to banish the word, (see ending of the video). For the visual artist it was challenging how to know exactly the moment to vanish the word, as it included improvisation, and so we had to find a solution for it. We finally got a sign with the hand that Noora could make for everybody and specially for Daniel, to know when to interact (See ending of the video).