Allston & Ann Arbor

Still piecing the tune (working title, Grasping Oppression) together--there's a rambling story in its origins which someday will come together:

If you've ever been to Allston, MA--parts of it can be a really heavy town depending on where you live. Even though it was a good experience, the place had a weighty, almost burdensome or oppressive quality to the environment.
e.g. 100% pavement-to-brick urban apartments, almost no space to breathe in hot humid summers, nearly zero trees for shade.

A friend living there and I jammed and I came up with the second quarter-whole note motif while there. My friend and I were both figuring out how to work our ways out of abusive situations at the time too.

Later, I came up with the opening motif while exploring an open stairwell in Ann Arbor and was recovering from various health challenges. During that time, I also started remembering and realizing things I was unable to recognize from the past that had a lot to do with how I saw and experienced the environments I grew up in.

For both places where the music came from and the travels in between, it was an endeavor in grasping oppression in a very domestic sense.

So perhaps the tune's a story about blind determination and the intention that goes behind stewarding one's recovery.