Call Me Honey

August 3, 2016 another song was created in the morning of my day. It was a typically odd circumstance which allowed these words and the subsequent music to come into being. Odd in that its initial spark came after adding a spoon of honey to my ritualistic morning cup of coffee. As I did the act of placing the honey into the cup and stirring it, these words spilled out in my mind, "I put some honey in my coffee." Then as I grabbed the cup, to take it back to my desk, an echo like phrase came, "I put some honey in my tea." Where these kind of phrases come from, while there is a lack of intention directed toward writing, remains mysterious to me. My intention was fully centered on gaining access to coffee, in order to again feel alertly awake in my morning. I admit I'm addicted to coffee regardless of any quality associated with this state of being. Sometimes I try to quit coffee and each time I find a rather equal result. I seem unable to awaken with any rapidity without it. So after several days of feeling half asleep, well past noon, and tiring of that situation, I go back to enjoying coffee in the mornings and waking up with some rapidity. I call it the elixir of life, although; I know that, in itself is a grand illusion.

Well after reaching my desk with the honey altered cup of coffee, and the lines in words becoming magnetic in my mind, I considered a question, can I actually bring these couple of lines into a document, to build upon them, or will the illusive potential fall short. In general making the decision can offer potential, where shutting this potential door will always disallow. I chose to reach for potential, opening the word processor.

I typed out the two lines sequentially, as they had originally come to mind. Then I thought I could alter the circumstance of the subject to create a fully different meaning. Rather than it being a narrative in a singular person I could create a second person, where I chose to insinuate a couple in their comparative actions, drinking hot beverages in the morning. It implies that these two individuals are sharing the same space. It also tends toward word play, by introducing a synonym in this introductory section of verse. The following line brings a context that places the two into a relationship situation, "I call you Honey in the morning," with it being a proper noun in this instance rather than the noun for that sweet substance created by our friends, the honey bee. The line following, addresses the insect and how they can be going about their lives as something that us alert humans have a capacity to observe. I followed these four lines of verse with a different kind of cadence, which offers a musical shift, to create distinct separation. The subject of this second part, demonstrates an observance of the changing nature of our civilization. Having made these two distinct sets of rhythmic cadence, I took these two as templates in their form, and wrote out three more sets of each of these patterns. I struggled in the process some, yet I was able to avoid the mental blocks that sometimes come while writing. There was no preconceived idea to reach for as to the subject. At one point I wrote a couple of lines that took the intended mood in a negative direction. I read through them, deciding that I really didn't want to go toward the doom and gloom in this piece, where as I deleted those ideas to replace them with something more positive.

When I got to a potential end point, I got out the guitar and developed a pattern of chords that seemed to fit the melodic ideas that had been creeping into my thoughts as I wrote the words. Even the key to which the melodic thoughts came to me fit. This is a rare circumstance for me as my musical thought patterns seldom reflect as "in pitch" and I have to deal with transposition from the ideas into workable playable music. Thus the music side of this creation was a very easy process to pass through. This song was near complete. I then successfully set out to record a rough draft to prevent my forgetfulness robbing from the essence of this new creation.

Having completed the saving of this new song in a very rough form, I set out to instill it into my mind through repeatedly playing and singing the words. It can sometimes take a lot of practice, using the printed lyric as a guide to actually be able to sing and play a new creation. There are some instances where how one expresses the syllables allowing them to fit with the rhythm and melody in the music, (I call this act "syllablization," even though this may not be a real word). In this process I recognized that some of the originally written words could be improved upon in order to facilitate a stronger cadence in expressible structure. There were several lines in the individual B parts that were clumsy, so I altered the original words to emphasize cadence. I am now much happier with how the lyrics flow, having practiced the song enough to find it can flow with an ease.

While practicing singing and playing this song the time came to look at its entrance and its exit. The entrance seemed to be whole, as is, by going through the melodic rhythm pattern of the A parts, to be followed by simply adding the vocal after its first time through. The ending at this point remained with a need of consideration. So during one of these early on practices when finishing the vocal section followed by an empty tag line, an odd idea formed. I actually don't quite know how to describe what it is with accurate specificity. What I chose to do is something like this: in single notes finger picked, I went up a couple of octaves, playing a descending pattern that descends the chord's notes, "1, 3, 5," though not necessarily in that order, then ascending it back up, all within the frame of one measure, followed by dropping a half step and repeating. This pattern repeats again another whole step down, descending down by half steps, it resembles a cascading sequence, dropping to the songs conclusion.

As time passes, I will work toward making a conclusive representation of this work in a well done recording and post it on my website http://thomasepeterson.com.