Melatonin
CD #01: [Monotonine Meditasjoner - Monotonine Meditations]
CD #02: Private Imperfections
Maria Jardardottir - voice
Melatonin is my solo project where the predominant aim is to explore the immense variety of possibilities when using the voice as the only sound source. I started investigating the introductory ideas for this particular solo concept through my music studies in 2002 after playing with the thought for some time. And, during the last couple of years I have through consistent development managed to mould and form it into an audible product.
The musical product quite fluently speaks its own selfsufficient language; however, I have made the decision to share some of my ideas behind it and add some of my interpretations of the tracks in retrospect. You will find my thoughts added to each individual track's page.
I would nevertheless recommend you to listen through the tracks and create your own opinion before reading my interpretations on them.
The solo format in itself offers a tremendous challenge, but to me the security in being out there totally on your own is in a curious way balancing the risk of it. What I particularly enjoy within this solo concept is the fully absorbing freedom I find when I through the improvisation glide into a spiritual and almost unconscious state of mind. The title of this initial section of the project, [Monotonine Meditasjoner – Monotonine Meditations], is meant to reflect the experience of this meditative and mesmerizing condition. When I enter this emotion is when I feel the true magic of improvisation. And after experiencing one of those moments my inner batteries are recharged and I am anew ready to rejoin the buzzing everyday life.
To me music is rooted in my being. It is part of the process of digesting life and canalising emotions. And, it is just as much working as a component of my intellectual approach to life. It is operating within both fields of comprehension in an overlapping way: the verbal and the non verbal, the concrete and the abstract - the "rational" reason and the "irrational" emotion. (I am using scare marks here, for: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have finally started acknowledging and seeing emotion crucial to the process of reasoning - a notion that flies in the face of traditional ideas of emotion as "irrational". And a notion that I by all means would submit to.)
I am continuously trying to capture the characteristics of these contrasting and intertwining elements in my music.
All these pieces that were picked out for the collection named [Monotonine Meditasjoner – Monotonine Meditations] were recorded through the first six months of the year 2004 and they are all based around different appearances of improvisation. Some are more structured and anticipated than others and can thus perhaps even be categorized as compositions or maybe rather, loosely guided compositions. Yet, because the elements of freedom and impulse are so strongly ruling the process of creating this music I personally view the pieces under the umbrella of improvisation.
An allegory I find suiting my idea of improvisation is the conversation: you can never fully predict what the person you are talking to will say, even though you might have known her/him all your life – meaning you will have to generate answers to questions you yet not know: instant response, being present and conscious. During a conversation there is a tension that drives it forwards and brings up new choices of direction. You bounce, reflect, contradict and confirm the opponent conversation partner. It is a real time process of creating something unique which carries some level of meaning, being it founded in the concrete reason or in the abstract emotion, or in the intertwinement of them both. Or, in other occurrences, there is solely a lack of tension which eventually kills the conversation and separates the people involved, but the remains of it, the unbalanced energy concealed by the inner emotions, still exist within the humans that were occupied in it. The force is still there, transformed into another shape, colour, temper or element. And, however strange it may sound; even in a solo project as this is, the depending on conversation and communication is inevitable. You always need to be chasing that tension in order to create interweaving or contrasting lines and to transform your source into a new set of frames (or sentences if you like), and furthermore, to do so at the appropriate time.
To listen to Melatonin go to tracks. To have a look at Melatonin’s line-up go to agenda.
All rights reserved. Maria Jardardottir 2004 ©.