Hi-i!

Have you ever collaborated with a writer?

If you think about it, the answer has to be yes. After all, when you see the words, "Princess Dawn gathered the pleats of her miniskirt and climbed onto the horse," you're filling in a lot of details. After all, I didn't say what color horse, and I didn't describe Princess Dawn, herself. Did I?

And that's a big part of what makes writing fun, for me - that collaborative aspect to it!

And it's not just with the reader. Even this blog post owes so much to so many people doing so many awesome things! Think of all the programmers who created the basis for social networking and those who combined the code into Ning sites, and those who promoted Ning enough for us to be able to find it, and Ben-Arion, who took on the responsibility of giving this site its identity, and all the bloggers who make it worth people's while to visit often enough so there's a pool of interest by the time I got here!

Wow!

THANK YOU, all of you! :D

And, I also write songs of various types: especially sacred melodic chant and sacred song in the longer pop song format. These are a wonderful opportunity for me to play with musicians and singers (I especially enjoy female voices, though much of my work is gender-neutral).

(cc) Joint Base Lewis McChord on Flickr

And, let's face it, even what some think are forms I originated are throwbacks to forms from earlier civilizations and other cultures - with innovations, for sure. But I'm basically collaborating with people from centuries back! How awesome is that??? Collaborating with the ancients! Maybe a thousand years from now, someone will take one of my innovations a step forward. It's thrilling to think I could be doing a duet of sorts with someone living a thousand years in the future! Wow!

Hahaha! :D

Some of my melodic chant involves a combination of call-and-response and counter-melody. So, I can see - for example - two women singing one of them together. The chant is repeated and repeated and repeated. I can see percussion figuring wonderfully in many of these chants, because I marry them onto original pop tunes - usually to something like a disco beat. Due to the simplicity of it all, I can see the singers naturally embellishing the syllables and having a lot of fun as the chanting gets wilder and wilder and more and more earnest, as the meaning settles more soundly into their hearts (and the audience's).

There are hints of melodic chant in contemporary English-speaking cultures, of course. But I'm more of a purist about this than most. But think of the "Let the sunshine in" portion of the song AGE OF AQUARIUS, from the musical, HAIR! THAT'S what I'm talking about when I say melodic chant. And, of course, it would be interesting to devise such for other living languages. French (since it's my mother tongue) and Japanese ('cause I loooove the sounds of the language) are at the top of my list.

*MELT! ♥*

And, of course, there's the collaborative help of editors, directors, conductors, producers, and engineers!

My PUSH-BUTTON BLISS recording was engineered by Paul Ruest (Argot Network), who is a true artist at the control board! The bamboo wind chimes at the start and end of the recording sound naturally chaotic, but were - in fact - carefully coordinated and remixed for maximum effect. And I did everything I could to speak the specially timed script in one take, but I slipped MANY times. You couldn't tell from the recording. I was amazed by this, because the rhythm is very special, but he knew exactly what I was after! Awesome!

And the producer, Sarah Sims Erwin, first heard it during an artist's circle. I played it off of a really ratty little cassette tape that I recorded under truly lousy conditions. But she could see the potential and took my hand and led me to her awesome friend, Paul, and kept me calm and serene, which made all the difference in the world! And THAT'S what I mean by collaboration! No way I could have done all that without her guidance and serenity.

I know I'll get to enjoy more experiences like that one. I just love this kind of thing! It would be nice if it could happen, right now! Hahaha!

But, as Abraham-Hicks likes to put it, it's all right if it doesn't happen "this red hot minute." Or this week, month, year. Hey! Even if it never happens, I've got such precious memories and artifacts to love and enjoy. I love this process, and the memory and joy of creating hand-in-hand with others will always be with me! So, no matter what happens, it's all good.

Maybe you, too, have had an enjoyable collaborative experience. Why not share, if that's so, in the comments? Actually, any comment you make will be another meaningful collaborative experience for me. So, I definitely encourage it! ;O)

Sunshine & Blessings,
Giovani