Creative Process

Turning to Autumn

Seven years ago, around this time, I recorded my first CD, “Seasons of the Soul.”

 

In writing the music for this CD, I used the system of Chinese Medicine – the seasons. Summer, Spring, and Winter came to me relatively easily.

 

Autumn was another matter entirely.

 

I wanted Autumn to be light and cheery. It is my favorite season after all – season of my birth, when the aspen trees of my home state of Colorado turn colors, the crisp dry crunch of leaves, even the season when I first arrived in my adopted home of Hawaii.

 

But in Chinese Medicine, it is the season of death and decay. I didn’t want to face that. I struggled and twisted. And eventually found my way into the Circle of Life. Death, it turns out, is just a step on the way to Winter, which turns again into New Beginnings.

 

 

Once I understood that, the music came easily. You can listen to my interpretation of Autumn here…>>>  https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/cymberlilyquinn

 

As you listen, think of things in your life that are ready to turn to crispy leaves, gently falling to the ground, eagerly awaiting the crunch of your feet. Make a big pile of them, and jump in!

 

 

Lili’uokalani: The Queen of Hawaiian Music

If you listen to modern Hawaiian music, you are listening to the Queen. The last monarch of Hawaii, Lili’uokalani was also one of the nation’s more prolific composers. Like all royal children, she was trained in music, and she wrote more than 300 songs, and about 150 are still in existence today.

 

Before her time, Hawaiian music was created from chanting and drumming. But with the arrival of the missionaries, so came the modern idea of melody and harmony. Liliu’okalani took these ideas and created beautiful poetry and melodies that reflect her deep love of nature, beauty, love, and devotion to Church and God.

 

When I first heard her music, it seemed so familiar in melody, so foreign in words. In my research, I found that we had church music in common and that her favorite instrument for composing was the autoharp.

 

It has been my great and humble honor to bring her music to life again through my own arrangements of her music and to play them with the talented flutist, Kathy Dorn. More recently, Kathy and I have joined together with the incomparable actress Jackie Pualani Johnson, who has a passion for Living History and bringing the monarchs of Hawaii’s past to life. It is with the blessing of the Lili’uokalani Trust that we are able to do this work.

 

 

 

 

I look forward to including more of the Queen’s Music in an upcoming dance production, called The Whale Hula, that is under construction. I’ll make more announcements about The Whale Hula in the near future.