Away and Began

I chose these words from the passage as the title for the piece because I think it captures something incredibly powerful about the healing of Legion. We meet someone here who is an absolute outcast from society. However, it’s actually much worse than this. Delving deeper into the narrative and the language used we see that actually we meet someone who personifies death itself. He is as good as dead.

“This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.” Mark 5:3-5

This man is away from the town and other people, living in self destructive solitude among the tombs. The image of God in which he was created (Genesis 1:26-27) is clearly warped and distorted. But after he has been healed, what we see is that immediately, by the astonishing authority of Jesus and his word, he is “sitting there, dressed and in his right mind”. It is here we see a theme that is repeated throughout the Gospel of Mark right up to the cross. We see surprising reversals.

“Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.” Mark 5:17

Upon hearing of this the people were afraid of what they had seen Jesus do and they began to plead with him to leave. The demon possessed man now goes away and begins to tell of what Jesus has done for him, but consequently in healing the man Jesus himself becomes an outcast being told to leave the region.

The piece was written from the start with this theme in mind. I tried to portray this and many other details from the narrative through every aspect of both the compositional and audio production side of the piece.

It is written for the following instruments:

Canvas + Electronics

Electric Guitar

Drum Kit and Percussion

Prepared Electric Guitar + Electronics

Bass Guiar

Voice

Although I am a guitar player I was keen, first of all, to simply experiment with sounds away from my instrument to try and provoke a creativeness that was not restricted by the habits and technique of my guitar playing. Therefore, I quite literally started with a blank canvas, which I amplified. I attached two contact mics to it, one on the left and one on the right, making it stereo. I then ran each mic through various different guitar pedals and experimented with the sounds it created. I began just by recording the canvas, played with a variety of implements to create a wide range of sounds. I also experimented with prepared guitar wanting to capture something of Legions destructiveness through unconventional ways of playing and using the instrument. Some of the set ups involved were playing the guitar with a violin bow, a washing up sponge and weaving paperclips between the strings, whilst further manipulating the sound using electronics. An overwhelmingly number of ideas came from these initial experimentations and a small handful of these then went on to form a sort of scaffolding behind the main landscape of the whole piece on top of which I was then able to further compose. I added more colour and texture to this landscape through harmony and melody, exploring the altered scale and playing around with the dissonance and consonance from within that to try and reflect the theme of healing through the gradual movement form dissonance to consonance. Also, other instruments were added to help create a wider sound spectrum providing more depth or brightness when I felt it was needed both as the piece developed in its own right and how the narrative of Mark 5 was being outlined in the piece.

I was concerned about setting the scene. I want to take the listener on a journey and help them feel, be it only a reflection, something of the transformation that we see in Mark 5. I also want the listener to enjoy sound. Not just relationships between sounds, such as harmony and rhythm, but simply the sounds themselves and how they are all beautifully and complexly detailed in themselves, but then come together to paint a picture which I have tried my best to reflect the narrative we read in the Gospel of Mark.