Serenading the Mountains

As humans, we are intimately connected to the world around us. Similarly music intimately connects us individually. It makes perfect sense that there would be a field studying the connection between the two. Without knowing it, I began my journey to ecomusicology as a child. Growing up in Kalamazoo, Michigan is an inherently musical experience: as the long-time home of the Gibson Guitar factory, it's hard to avoid the heritage and influence that this mid-sized Great Lakes city thrusts upon the world. Those impacts are manifest in attic treasures found at garage and estate sales, a premiere blues festival and the persistence of live music in local culture. Around the time I began learning the violin in my school and youth symphonies, my summers started including daycamps at the local nature center. It was through these camps that I became familiar with the natural landscape where I lived. I developed an awareness of things such as animal tracks and leaf shapes, and I began to view the world through the lens of art and creativity. One of the most lasting and unknowingly profound experiences I had was a nature art camp which included a section on drawing negative space. Musically, this is the timeless idea of “It's what you don't play.” This concept was solidified in my mind by sketching a tree through the spaces created as its leaves and branches weave into the surrounding canopy, maps of the forest as outlines of meadows and tracing my path along a boardwalk through the cracks between boards and the spiderwebs beyond rather than the grain within. The 1,100 acres of hills, forests and rivers that is the Kalamazoo Nature Center would continue to feature in my development as a musician for years to come. In high school, a friend, who was a raptor volunteer at the Nature Center, encouraged me to take up electric bass. When the band I played in decided it was time to take photos for our press kit, we selected the Nature Center as the setting and spent a day posing with our instruments.

Despite all this, the connection between my musical expressions and nature hadn't really solidified yet. It was forming on the periphery of my consciousness and would take years and some special circumstances for me to become fully aware of it. The first inklings of its presence took the form of trips to the shores of Lake Michigan with band mates to sit on the dunes and play our guitars. Later, a writing partner and I would pack as much of our gear as we could into my Mazda Coupe and travel to a cottage on the shores of Lake Huron with a fourtrack cassette recorder. We sat outside next to a fire, writing and recording music as the Perseids showered through the night sky. I had become enamored with recorded music while involved with my high school radio station, so I made my way to Denver, Colorado, in the pursuit of educating myself about sound engineering. There, I developed an enhanced appreciation for nature coupled with a newly developed sense of adventure. I found joy and solace on the sides of cliffs, alpine lakes, and desert canyons. I continued the pursuit of educating myself on sound in Nashville. I can trace the genesis of my present musical practice incorporating music with nature to an event that took place during a music festival south of the city. I was walking through the woods to my campsite while Toots and the Maytals were soundchecking. For 15-20 minutes I stood, letting the forest wash me in the reverberation of a classic reggae rhythm section. I decided, “I want to do this on purpose!” I wanted to use natural acoustics in the recordings I made. To my freshly trained ear the sound of those drums echoing through the woods was magic, and I set about figuring out how to accomplish the task of recording a band in the woods. Of course, this requires electricity, but I came upon solar power as the optimal way to meet this need. It is virtually silent. It also has the benefit of being environmentally and economically sustainable.

With this understanding, I spent time recording music in Australia, learning more about sound and educating myself about solar energy. I lived in a small town on the easternmost point of the continent, Byron Bay. Most mornings involved the ocean. It was a five-minute bike ride to the nearest beach, and the conditions were consistently good for surfing somewhere on the peninsula. As I sat in the ocean, waiting for waves to come I would use the time to reflect on my day. It became a daily meditation in the waves, a sunrise review of day-to-day life.

I was exposed to Balkan music through two Bosnian bandmates. From there my musical explorations headed east. The similarities between American, Balkan, and Arabian folk music stood out dramatically to me, and many morning sessions were spent with the thought of Middle Eastern music for a bluegrass band. I was teaching myself slide guitar when I began investigating Indian music, and I recognized the impact of all that time thinking while in the ocean. I decided to make it a point to include nature in my music from then on. It was clear to me that being outside was just a better way of making music. I felt less stress, and I had more creative energy. I reflected on my experience in Tennessee and thought: “If all the world is a stage, why can't it be a studio too?”

In 2009, I began recording music in natural settings with a laptop powered by solar panels and a marine battery. As a conscious act of sustainability, I try to use as little electricity as possible and to incorporate environmentally friendly practices into my activities as much as I can, such as using mass transit and maintaining the idea of Leave No Trace. I perform under the title The Sunrise Review as a reference to my time with the waves in Australia. Through a project-based approach to my musical practice I develop narratives which relate to environmental conservation, and I aim to support ecological stewardship activities with music. My first recording project began in earnest as a 2010 Artist in Residence at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon Coast where I undertook recording the Middle Eastern bluegrass I had conceived in the Pacific Ocean.

In 2012, I set about my next project, American Heritage, writing and recording music in UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Through this project I have had a highlight of my career by participating in an amazing event in Yosemite National Park, the Yosemite FaceLift. Every year hundreds of people dedicate a week to picking up trash and assisting with major remediation projects throughout the Park. I spend the time wandering the Park serenading trail crews, rock climbers, hikers, and attendees to the evening events. It's a great honor to contribute in such a unique way to an effort which, over ten years, has removed over 1,000,000 pounds of trash from a place pivotal in the history of conservation and public lands. In November of 2013, I began a project titled Aquaphilia focused on water as an inspiration. I followed water as it made its way from a spring in West Virginia to the Potomac River and on to Washington D.C. Along the way I transported my recording equipment, guitar and tablas by bicycle through the watershed, recording improvisational performances exploring the intersection of Indian and American slide guitar. I intend to expand locations for this project to include the Great Lakes and the Colorado River, and to advocate for a Birthplace of Rivers National Monument in the Appalachian Mountains in 2014.

If you would like to learn more about what I do and how I do it feel free to contact me at graham {at} solarpoweredmusic.com or browse my website at www.solarpoweredmusic.com, which contains sound recordings, videos and more from my projects. I am always welcoming of any opportunities for collaboration, partnerships or performance opportunities. 

This essay originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of the Ecomusicology Newsletter.

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