a moment of indulgence

Sometimes, music can be very simple and yet so alluring. Just like a piece of fallen foliage on a wooden bench. The composition is so simple and yet you just can not move your eyes away from it.

Today, I ran across this little piece of music in an online music library. It is for saxophone and electric keyboard, composed by John Adams. It is called " I was looking at the Ceiling and Then I saw the Sky". It could originally set for voice and keyboard. The first movement is called " alone... Again or at last". But the saxophone rendition is extremely romantic and touching. The gentle sound of saxophone and the dreamy background of the keyboard is twisted in such a romantic way. The music is not complicated. It is mostly toney and has no complicated harmonies. The lingering long melody is played out almost carelessly by the saxophone and enhanced by simple chords on the keyboard. It is just one of those naive beautiful minimal and yet extremely poetic pieces of work. It could be simple-minded but it sucks you into this dreamy mood without drain you deep down. The music is like a portrait photograph of someone 's transient emotion. It is a moment of indulgence. You really care less about the stories behind it. The moment itself carries on.

Maybe sometimes we just have to let our emotions flow, expressing them in whatever form we come across and worry less about the style. At these moments, the very mood is a style of itself. The other night, I was sitting before my piano and I just let my fingers play out my heart.


"I was Looking at The Ceiling and Then I saw the Sky" is originally an opera based on the 1994 major earthquake in California. "Alone... Again or at last " is one aria from the opera.