A gift on the Spirit Wind:
I’m pretty sure I’ve written about the songs I have found coming through me into the world that Andi wrote the words for that I was able to hear in my head and transcribe to capture her part of that music. We have written seven or eight songs together this way now and I hope more are yet to come.
I want to add a new chapter in the growth of this amazing journey and share some things that have been happening during the past year. I’m writing this on Andi’s Day, the five year anniversary of the day her spirit was set free of its earthly bounds.
As this blog rose out of the time of isolation that Covid brought into the world in 2020, towards the end of that year and through into 2021, a new creative sharing has been growing between us and it has opened up some things I never would have believed were possible.
As background, I want to share that Andi was a natural musician, she could sit at a piano or organ and play the music she heard in her soul for hours. It was always amazing to listen to her just letting that music pass through her, into her fingers and to my wondering ears. Unfortunately, we were never able to record any of her music then and all I had was a memory.
Recently, I have begun listening to meditative music, music that has been created for yoga and meditation practice and for finding calmness and aiding sleep. When I first heard it, I remember thinking “this is the music Andi was playing so many years ago”, she was hearing that spiritual and peaceful music and bringing it into the world.
As part of the things I have learned during the years of my bereavement, I have begun learning to do digital recording and have just recently started to explore creating MIDI music, the use of “software instruments” to create music in an entirely digital environment on the computer, mostly using a keyboard that generates digital notes that the computer translates into instrument sounds.
My biggest issue is that I don’t really play the keyboard! I don’t have much of a feel for it and certainly have no technique for making it sound like music.
But, one day I sat down and got everything hooked up and plugged into the keyboard. Before I began to try playing, I was thinking about Andi’s music, her chords and melodies and how they remained in my memory. I hit the record button and just started to let my fingers move over the keys and after a few notes I could feel Andi’s spirit take over my hands and the music changed from my stumbling notes to a series of chords and a calming and peaceful melody.
I sat there in awe and knew it was Andi’s music coming through. Tears started flowing and I just welled up with emotion at what was happening and the possibility that I could be the instrument through which her music could again enter into the material world, a sharing and a gift across the veil.
It was just a short recording that first time but it was the start of something that has kept me in awe of what has been happening for the past few months. This page is going to be a place to share that music. I am still learning the processes of mixing, editing and mastering the music but each time I do another recording, I seem to learn a little more.
There are some recordings here that are pure Andi and others, where somehow the music I hear has also become incorporated in what we have created. I’ve learned to create a background sound for her melodies to rest upon that supports the feeling of peace and calm they contain.
It is my hope that they are peaceful and calming to you as you listen and that they are something you can find peace and enjoyment in. They are definitely a gift across the veil that it is my blessing to be a part of, to be able to build a platform on which to bring Andi’s music here to share.
If you listen, please sit back, close your eyes, relax and enjoy the ride…
I am also hoping to record the songs we have written and share them here as well. They are songs of bereavement, they are places we have found words and music to express the emotions and feelings that have been part of my grief journey at different places along the way.
In Hope and Healing,
Howard and Andi, 4/25/21