By the Shining Water

2021 . . . . sound sculpture . . . . duration: 7:30

I have often gazed at beautiful bodies of water, especially Lake Michigan and, more recently, the river Vltava in Prague. This sonic sketch combines musical metaphors for several features common to these majestic waters: waves and currents; sun sparkling on the surface; deep hues of the colder water below; twinkling stars above.

Longfellow’s famous poem, The Song of Hiawatha, though it is about Lake Superior, in the first two stanzas vividly verbalizes some of these images:

“By the shining Big-Sea-Water”

“Bright above him shone the heavens, Level spread the lake before him”

“Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine”

“Motionless beneath the water.”