This project included three improvisational sessions for musicians at all levels from absolute beginner to professional. The participants ranged in age from 3 years old to senior citizen. The sessions took place in PG County, Frederick, and Baltimore and were recorded. Additionally, volunteers submitted lyrical ideas in response to several prompts via social media. All inspirational, sampled, tempos, and lyrical material came from these participatory sources. Where additional samples were used, they were used in context of recurring themes in submitted lyrical ideas.

Charting the Chaotic Sea began with the idea that humans gathered together in a safe and inviting environment for the purpose of making sounds in communion would draw on our collective consciousness to sync rhythms, and to create distinct patterns as well as recurring themes resulting in recognizable, ritualistic order through sonic exploration. The invitation at the improvisational sessions was to practice active listening being mindful of space and silence as well as sound, to investigate methods of producing sound, to respond to what was happening in the room, to release the idea of perfection with the goal of exploration, and to practice shifting the focus between participants. The sessions produced results that were both spontaneous and rooted in mimicry of organic systems- for instance, all BPMs (beats per minute) fell into the natural healthy heartbeat range for humans either at rest or slightly elevated (such as when dancing). Listening to the raw unedited session tracks one hears distinct fluctuations between random and purposeful dissonance and sympathetic resonance with an eventual pull towards unison.

In addition to the conscious participation recorded at each session, musicians also collaborated remotely with session participants with whom they never met. Similarities in compatible tones, rhythms, themes and figures across sessions were remarkable and no one song is the result of one session only. Though filtered through one composer, the final work would have been impossible without this exact sequence of music making moments from these participants at the exact time that they were produced. Some of these results were intentional, in relation to other people in the room. But some were completely unpredictable and related to music being made in another place and time by completely different people. In the hands of another composer, the results would be different and if you are interested in using the same raw material to create a multiverse version of the piece I am happy to share the full tracks.

I hope that in listening to Charting the Chaotic Sea that you will recognize our connection to other people and to everything else in the world as complex and highly sensitive. Everything you do, no matter how quiet, repetitive or brief, has the potential to become a recurring loop, to be transposed, or to have its context transformed in relation to another event. These events shape and become the sequence that secures the fate of the outcome of everyone and everything.

Thank you to the Maryland State Arts Council's Creativity Grant program! To discover more about MSAC and how they impact Maryland, visit msac.org.