Washerwoman (audio clip)

This piece also falls under my Music for the Movie of your Mind genre of compositions. Unlike Love Birds, however, it also has vocals (spoken word). I have not featured the full song below - just the first minute and a half ...
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Interestingly, the first time I used it in performance as a Music for the Movie of your Mind meditation, everyone who came to me after and told me what they saw, described a similar thing: basically a woman with her head wrapped in a turban (different people saw different colours for her turban). One girl said she felt much lighter after: she experienced the washerwoman unbuttoning her shirt and pulling the pain from her heart in the form of a long ribbon from her chest. One young man saw a beautiful woman in a white dress, with a white turban, walking down a dirt track to meet him by the river. Another woman felt that she was underwater and the washerwoman was cleansing her and removing seaweed from around her so that she was free to move.

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listen to washerwoman

Music, backing vocals, spoken word lyrics by Elspeth Duncan

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Here comes the Washerwoman, walking down the road

She sees you sitting by the river with your load

She runs to meet you like the river meets the sea

She comes to wash you, to set your spirit free

Feel her run her gentle water fingers through your mind

Let her show you how to leave your heavy load behind ...

(additional lyrics/music continue with the rest of the song on the CD)

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The Washerwoman CD is currently available as a single.

The album is a work in progress.

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TOMORROW: VIDEO MANTRA

- Happy Hippy -

simple

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6 Questions

your answers are in this music

Music (for the Movie of your Mind) by Elspeth Duncan

From the "Waiting for Elaine" CD

Copyright 2004

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1. What colour is this piece of music?

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2. What does it smell like?

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3. Where does it take you?

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4. What images does it conjure up?

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5. What name would you give it?

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6. If the notes were words, what would they be saying to you?

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- Happy Hippy -

Silent Movie

Angel in Silence,

Moving from stillness ...

angel

The Angel: Nicola Cross
The Eye: Elspeth Duncan

The Location: Shores near the Temple in the Sea, Waterloo, Carapichaima,Trinidad, W.I.

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This is a very short clip of the angel footage I shot last month. I'm just uploading it today as a test to see how video will work here and if people can access it. Keep in mind that when saved for the net, video generally loses some quality, so you may find it a bit blurry or fuzzy in parts - unlike the clarity of the original.

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I won't be putting up fully edited video pieces with sound, etc., yet.

I will do so when I can save it closer to the quality of the original without being too massive a file. It takes long for some viewers to download large files. Does anyone have problems opening this one?
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- Happy Hippy -

Stream of Consciousness (audio)

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What is it saying?

What is it praying?

river prayer

(1.02 minute clip of longer dictaphone recording I did of the water in Lopinot River)

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- Happy Hippy -

For those in Trinidad & Tobago ...

Tune in to Gayelle TV this Sunday (29th May, 2005) at 8:30 p.m. for a special edition of "Stay Home". They will be featuring the two short films (10 minutes each) that were done by the students who were involved in the project I worked on with Rose McCausland and the British Council. The students did everything on their films (except edit). They acted in them, produced them, conceptualised/created them, shot them, etc.

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The films:

1. D BLOCK (created by the students of Tranquility Government Secondary and Queen's Royal College: 5 students from each school)

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2. BOXES OF LIFE (created by the students of Holy Faith Convent Penal and Fyzabad Composite: 5 students from each school)

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There will also be interviews with four of the students (one from each school) about the process and their experience of it.

Enjoy!

- Happy Hippy -

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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday:

From some point there were technical issues in the air at the Blogger site, so some of the blogs could not be accessed ... mine being one of them. Now all is back on stream.

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Today:

Unseen until seen

Unfelt until felt

Unheard until heard

Unknown until known

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Tomorrow:

Clouds lift

Perspectives shift

Open yourself like a Gift ...

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- Happy Hippy -

Love Birds (with audio)

N.B. Now that I've discovered how to upload audio and video, I'm just going to start off with short clips of things ... and now and then (as in today) a full piece of my music. Do not despair if download time ever seems long on your end. Good things come to those who wait.

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The LOVE BIRDS Experience

When performing in some shows, I have used one of my pieces of music, Love Birds, to create an interactive "Music for the Movie of your Mind" experience (see below explanation of Music for the Movie of your Mind). The experience is a visual, meditational one.
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Before playing the track, I ask the audience to close their eyes and for each person to place their hands over his/her heart and envision the heart as an egg. As the music progresses, the 'egg' will become warm and start to open, releasing many birds. These birds (Love Birds) will fly to touch anyone you want to send love to - no matter how far away (or how close) they are. Sometimes I don't tell people what to envision and I just let them have their own visualisation experience. Amazingly, a few people have seen a similar scene upon hearing this piece of music - i.e. a boat on a river with Amerindian people in it.
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Usually at the end of the song, people are quiet and seemingly in a daze for a while (i.e. those who have taken part. Some people are cautious about closing their eyes and experiencing it).
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Some people are cautious about closing their eyes and having the experience, but there have been a range of reactions to Love Birds - mostly people come to me after and say it was relaxing.
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But ... the most touching thing that I have personally experienced with this piece of music was when I was invited to put on a concert for the girls at my former high school (to help them raise money to buy a camera for their school newspaper). I talked a bit and sang some of the songs from my INFINITE cd, then I closed with the Love Birds experience. The auditorium of students fell quiet (except for some restless ones who were whispering) ... But afterwards, one of the teachers came up to me and hugged me. She was crying and said "Thank you ..." Just weeks earlier, her only child (daughter in early 20's) had been killed in a car accident and she had been having a hard time dealing with it - understandably so. She said that when Love Birds was in process and her eyes were closed, she sent out love birds towards her daughter and she felt her daughter come and touch her as if acknowledging receipt of the love and sending love birds back to her mother. She said it was a very healing experience and the first thing since her daughter's death that made her realise that her daughter was in a good place.

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Close your eyes and have your experience ...

love birds

Music by Elspeth Duncan created on Roland XP-50 keyboard workstation.

(Now featured as track #6 on the Waiting for Elaine CD, available from Happy Hippy)

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Why I call my music "Music for the Movie of your Mind"
Rather than slotting my music into existing genres, I prefer to make up my own. The music I create on my keyboard - either instrumental only or with vocals - I refer to as 'Music for the Movie of your Mind'. This term came to mind because of what I see and feel when I am doing the music. Most of the time, I don't think about the music as it comes out ... or plan what will come next. To me it is a multi-sensory experience, including the visual. An instrument or particular musical phrasing conjures up images, feelings and moods, maybe even a story. No two people will see the exact images and feel the exact moods or get the exact story from the piece of music. When you listen to my music you may not see what I saw or feel what I felt at the time of creating it ... but you will see/feel your own "movie" (hence the genre).

- Happy Hippy -

Uploading in progress

The OurMedia site had some glitches over the past few days so many users were unable to upload material successfully. Today they say that has been fixed. I am currrently uploading some material and will be able to make it available to you once the OurMedia system makes it available to me.

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In the mean time:

Patience is a leaf

that waits on the wind ...

- Happy Hippy -

More

I recently found a site (OurMedia: The Global Home for Grassroots Media) that enables uploading & storing of unlimited video and audio files, etc. for free.

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Now I can bring more than simply words and still images to this blog.
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In these initial stages I'll just be testing out random things, so bear with me. (And meanwhile ... the OurMedia people seem to be having some glitches in their operations, so I have to bear with them!)
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Today I'll test the audio process with a short clip of some of my music (from a piece called PANORAMA)

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test clip
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Let me know whether or not you can access it.
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Thanks.

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- Happy Hippy -

Metamorphosis

Oh

Sitting

Cloud,

still in the sky ...

as

winds

of

change

go

wishing by ...

You

shift

your

shape

in the blink of an eye ...

And I?

- Happy Hippy -

?

Is Silence empty?
Or is it full?

And

what

can

be

pulled

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from its depths?

- Happy Hippy -

From silence it comes ...

D.O.S. 3

Day of Silence 2

Day of Silence

Inspiration's Clues

Yesterday Inspiration sent me clues along these lines:

Dreams, blindness, angels and the stages of birth/development.

Me: What am I to do with them?

Inspiration: What are they to do with you?

- Happy Hippy -

Conversation with Inspiration

Inspiration: Can you feel me unfolding?

Me: Yesterday I felt you unfolding in a series of events that occurred one after the other, like a trail of clues leading me to ...

Inspiration: Refrain from being limited by thoughts of a destination.

Me: I feel as though you are knocking ... trying to tell me something ... and I don't know if I'm grasping any of it.

Inspiration: I cannot be grasped by mind or by hand.

In going with my flow you will understand.

- Happy Hippy -

?

!

- Happy Hippy -

Passport

What did I dream?

Where did I go?

Today I am awake in a new place.

- Happy Hippy -

Patience

The length of time is negligeable in light of eons.

- Happy Hippy -

Now

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Wow.

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- Happy Hippy -

Astral Postcard of the night 08-05-05

- Happy Hippy -

Clearing

Some of the roads will be cleared for you

Some you have to clear yourself

Know which are which

And move accordingly

- Happy Hippy -

Today ...

Early bird

Early start

Long day

Short message.

- Happy Hippy -

A Postcard from my Astral Travels 06-05-05

Last night/early this morning I dreamt I was taken on a tour (tourism) of a certain area of Trinidad that I never knew about. It was actually an easily accessible area, just off the Eastern Main Road in Laventille, but somehow in the dream there were aspects of it that no-one had ever seen. Now that I'm awake I can't exactly remember what these "aspects" were, who was giving the tour or who were the other people with me, but we were being taken on foot through some old shells of buildings. Despite their seeming 'nothingness', whatever it was about these buildings was fascinating ... perhaps even uplifting, because I remember thinking that this would be a great place to bring people. Towards the end of the tour we were taken to something like a bus shelter where a submarine took us on a ride along the bus route. The bus route was a long, wide waterway with large ten foot waves, etc. Not scary, because the water was clean - blue with white wave crests - not brown like flood water. The 'submarine' didn't go down, but rode on the water for a while, easily moving with the huge waves. It moved so effortlessly and professionally that I wondered if a human was driving it so well or if it was automated. It was a comfortable ride - a joy ride - and I remember observing how things had changed: the bus route being a waterway and the sea being visible right next to it. It was as though the sea had consumed the land in the area by Food Giant, the highway, Beetham, etc. and the water was now almost up to the bus route. It was only at the end of the ride that the submarine went underwater and returned to the shelter where it was kept. This shelter was like the terminals at City Gate where the buses park. When we (the people on the tour) got out, a strange little Indian man like a gnome came up to us and gave us postcards with multiple choice questions and photographs to fill out (some kind of tourism quiz). The questions were 'strange' - not about the country, but rather using the country to illustrate things about ourselves/people. For example one question I remember was a series of about 6 photos - some were of waterfalls, beaches, etc. in T'dad and some were of smiling people of different races (the typical Trini 'we are a rainbow country' slant). One of the faces was of a man who looked like he was deformed. The 'question' said "Tick off the beauty spots". I remember looking at the image of the deformed man and ticking it and thinking that 'beauty spot' is also inner ... then realising that it was the man who was driving the submarine.

(... Realising as I write this that in the dream the submarine was like a bus on the bus route ... and the first syllable of submarine backwards is bus = busmarine)

- Happy Hippy -

What is today?

A well-oiled machine

moving effortlessly.

A leaf

floating on wind currents.

- Happy Hippy -

Simple Widsom

BE AND IT IS

... the name of a shop (or could have been a bar ... wasn't quite sure)

spotted on the way to Penal yesterday.

- Happy Hippy -

PEACE

Light feather

resting on a

jagged

rock.

- Happy Hippy -

Multiple Choice Monday

This Monday ... the start of a great week ...

A week of ...


(a) Interesting surprises
(b) Release
(c) Things coming together in unexpected ways
(d) Movement in areas where things felt "stuck" before
(e) Silence
(f) Meaningful connection
(g) Settlements
(h) Drinking lots of water to flush out toxins
(i) Connection with Nature
(j) Ideas and action
(k) Receiving
(l) Magic
(m) Awareness of possibilities
(n) Being open to change
(o) Letting go
(p) Fun
(q) Questions ... with or without answers
(s) Thinking
(t) Giving of gifts
(u) *
(v) *
(w) *
(x) *
(y) *
(z) All of the above

* = 5 wishes

- Happy Hippy -