~OCTAVIA IN MOTION~

~Music In Motion~ 

2011 has been my most abundant year for composing !
I have been exploring all sorts of musical expression and really allowing my 'Classical' heart to unfold as it pours out of me.
I never really know how or why this happens, as I have hardly been exposed to true Classical music and great composers, and yet my very early pieces from around the age of 8 or 9 were very 'Classical' sounding and feeling. I suppose my greatest influence at that tender age was the records of Carl Orff - Music For Children Vol 1 & 2, of which my father gave me on cassette and I played every single night as I went to sleep for many many years and into my teens. I still have these very old cassettes and the original LPs.

European Folk, like German (my mother gives me) and Irish and Scottish tunes and melody, I have always been attracted to also, although not so easy for me to express left to my own musings, it doesn't 'flow' out of me like Classical does, but I so relish and ignite when I hear it all, like a genetic memory and I feel so natural playing it.

My music was once described as - "tapping into traditional Folk ancestry, and then bringing it to a whole new level" by the Laird of Lunga Estate, Scotland

and another "
"At times I feel hints of Arvo Part's minimalism and then feel Kate Bush peeking through.Very Beautiful" - Daniel Cullen- Entropik

I suspect those 'Carl Orff' nursery/folk/speach melodies and rhythms were why? and of course I loved Kate Bush.

Once I was into my teens, film music really grabbed my attention and the Australian Film composer Bruce Rowland was a great inspiration and I still today, notice how his piano style has influenced the way I approach my own improvisations.
More recently of coarse, Hans Zimmer, Lisa Gerrard and many more modern composers for film/media greatly inspire me.
I will never forget being part of the production team for the Australian Debut of Richard Harvey & Ralph Stedman's 'The Plague and The Moonflower' 2003 tour. 

I am thirstier now for exploring more of the classical realm and learn more of the 'mind', pattern and structure of what makes for a dynamic and intricate 'Symphonic' musical journey. All those colours and the landscapes it conjures. I can 'feel' it all and I so want to be able to convey that. Harmony being my most favorite thing, I have sung in many choral performances and adore harmonic parts and how they make us feel.

There is no escaping the music that comes through me, it is never really planned, the joy for me is the surrender to its unfolding. 
I struggle then, to put it into a specific genre/style, it is simply born out of 'Octavia's Dreams' where it belongs?... I do not know?


Sometimes all the beautiful music around me is so overwhelming that I  hardly feel worthy to be attempting to make any kind of sound myself in comparison? .... But the muse is so strong in me and my life would be so, so empty and worthless without any effort for me to create music each day. whether any other soul witnesses it or not, to me it's value is just as significant.
I love to express a sense of 'inspiration', 'hope' and comfort in my music, I feel this is of great value, even if just one person feels this when listening to my music. One soul is as important as 7 billion.

I adore the presence, beauty and soothing of the piano as a solo instrument, but it opens up so many possibilities, I hear more than just the notes I am playing, it is always so difficult for me to resist exploring and adding other instruments to it. I am enormously grateful to be born in this era of technology, so as a solo musician, I can do exactly that.

So 2012 will be full of music from me, as I share all the music that has come to my hands and heart this 2011.

I have almost 3 albums ready to release right now, I don't know exactly HOW I will do it, but I will do my best to get it 'out there' as best I possibly can, with every effort to retain it's integrity!..... After all, I have no choice in the matter, I create for the music's sake, not for money, so you will never really miss out.

I look forward to the sharing and hope one day it can inspire you in some way. In the way so much music has inspired me.

I believe more and more with every day, that 'Music' is 'Living'

Lissa

Octavia's Dream Piano's !

The Piano, a wonderfully crafted instrument, it resonates all our mortal emotions, it expresses every conceivable dream we dare to dream..!


My faithful old Circ 1920's Australian Beale piano, bold and upright.

My fingers were about 2 years of age when I first touched it's keys.  Ahhhhhhh that vibration, that colourful sound, that bell-like ringing, calling me 'home' and I had only just arrived on this planet!...  I had definitely made a friend for life.


Lost in the melodies and patterns that unfolded in my small hands for hours, I listened and listened and listened and then expressing all my dreams on these worn out keys, this old Beale gave more back to me than I could ever be promised. I played every morning, every evening, there wasn't a day I did not spend time with my faithful friend. Indulging in all those worlds it opened up to me.


There were many other instruments in the home, Xylophones, recorders, a pump organ and even button and piano accordions, and Guitars a plenty and all my older siblings would strum away proficiently with 'House of the Rising Sun' and Bob Dylan and Neil Young hits. I learned too, but, the Beale would call me back again and again.
When I was about 10, my father gave us small tape cassette recorders, so I would record myself playing my own tunes on my beloved Beale, the thing was, I was painfully shy and couldn't conceive playing them in front of anyone, I knew people throughout the house could hear me, but I never thought they really listened (but secretly hoped). So, knowing a recording might be heard by other people, I introduced each song as  "a girl is going to play a song for us and this girl's name is 'Octavia'" Then no one would ever know it was really me.
I still have some of those old cassette tapes, with 'Octavia' written in texta on them. and I still play many of those tunes now, some are now fully fledged songs and pieces of work, they themselves also my faithful friends.


I have played many piano's in my life, but although my old Beale has been carted around the countryside, rolled end on end through narrow doorways, frozen in sheds in Armidale winters, traveled on bumpy trailers, had broken strings, has many ivories chipped, split, re-glued, replaced and now has key straps holding together by a moths breath, it is still like being home when I play it. I would never want it to be 'done up', I would never want it to change.


Now, 40 years later I go to write this blog about 'Octavia's Dream Piano's' I plan to turn to Google to get some actual information about the Beale piano in Australia so I can  sound all knowledgable, after all, I have never really bothered, all I knew was it was the only piano manufactured in Australia and that it was made of Australian timber and had an iron frame and steel tuning pegs, which was best for the extreme Australian climate. So at this point I open another browser and Google 'Beale Piano'


Well I got an incredible shock!! because the first line stated that -
The Beale piano factory was established by Octavius Beale.
That took my breath away!!! and made my heart jump! I had never known that a man named Octavius had established it.!! I was just assuming it came from a factory somewhere near Sydney? I never thought it was named after anyone? I never thought for a minute about it's origins really.  I was just a dreamy child that loved playing it and dreaming of it being alive and the name Octavia was just invented by my imagination. after all I am an eighth child. I still can not believe it! That's just too amazing!


Here is what I found-
-The Beale piano factory was established by Octavius Beale, an Irish born (1850) multi faceted personality. He married in 1875 to produce thirteen children. He was an accomplished linguist, a great traveller and a fellow of the London Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. He was also president of the New South Wales Chamber of Commerce and a trustee of the Australian Museum and the Bank of New South Wales (Westpac). In 1906 he conducted a Royal Commission into Patent and Proprietory Medicines (at his own expense). At eighty years of age, he died in a motoring accident.
Beale started his business career as an importer of German upright pianos. A few of these imported instruments survive, and are named 'Hapsburg Beale'. The Beale piano factory was established at 47 Trafalgar St Annandale, and grew to become the largest piano factory in the southern hemisphere in the early 1900's.-
 How serendipitous is that????


Well, this was definitely an accidental discovery I am pleased to share here. Now I will show you some of my favorite photo's of piano's Octavia dreams of. and maybe, just maybe one day when I am back with my beloved Beale piano, I will not get it 'done up' but I may just give it some much needed love and give it a new coat HA!

And finally my beloved Beale again with all my other friends for making music

Here is a video diary I made of meeting different piano's 
Lissa-Käthe-Piano Diary 2008


Here I share with you my piece SOARING IMAGINATION 
because it took my soaring Imagination to have imagined 'I' when with my piano, was always 'Octavia'
My beautiful friend Maricet wrote these words on hearing it.
Oh My Lissa ~ How lovely these imaginings do stream ~ and softer now they seem, so gentle they lie upon the heart strings. Yet the elation of the heart rises to sing where it fills the sky with blanketing clouds, adrift atop mountains so tall and proud. Then finally whispering in echoings, there in that place, where imaginations are freed to soar. With you, in this beautiful music tonight and there also in; The Land of Evermore. Maricet

Carved By Light

  CARVED BY LIGHT

"A sailor lost at sea can be guided home by a single candle. A person lost in a wood can be led to safety by a flickering flame. It is not an issue of quality or intensity or purity. It is simply an issue of the presence of light." Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of Saint Francis by Kent Nerburn

 I absolutely love these words, my very beautiful friend Marg, reminded me of St Francis' prayer a couple of years ago and then my precious friend Joss gave me this book to read just recently! serendipity:  It made me remember a few years ago when my life was so completely tangled and sad and stressful, I truly felt lost, letting go of the past was such a frightening prospect. I don't quite know how it came to me, I think it was a news coverage of the devastating bush fires in Victoria, near Melbourne 2009, I was so heartbroken for all the people who were affected, who lost lives, loved ones, homes, their whole world! how could I be feeling sorry for myself? it certainly made my problems minuscule in comparison. As it unfolded, the news also covered the stories of courage, hope, and community compassion, strangers helping one another, in fact the whole country of Australia, were giving whatever they could to help! It made me proud.
It also made me think for a minute, 'one tiny flame the size of a single candle, can ignite thousands of acres of powerful bushfires'... and in response, the compassion spread the same way really. It only takes one single act of kindness, no matter how small, even if all you have to give someone who is in a state of despair having lost loved ones, is a hug? then that is more powerful than a giving them a bar of gold.


Music to me, is like a light, it draws us to it, like a moth to a flame and like the mice in the story of the 'Pied Piper'. Then it ignites an enormous amount of emotion and joy, hope and warmth in our hearts. The doors of memories are flung wide open and even opens our hearts to the people around us, bonds us to them, even strangers. we feel our 'common-ness'. It spreads; like wildfire.

So as Kent Nerburn says in the opening of his beautiful book.

"We are not saints, we are not heroes. Our lives are lived in the quiet corners of the ordinary. We build tiny hearth fires, sometimes barely strong enough to give off warmth. But to the person lost in the darkness, our tiny flame may be the road to safety, the path to salvation."

When  Octavia dreams, she dreams of a light that shines in everyone, no matter what their journey or where they are... and that light is always enough to guide someone home. Whether they realise it or not, because I believe we are all, each of us Carved By Light



Here from the wells of  Octavia's Dream, is CARVED BY LIGHT

and please watch - Light in action 

All the pretty horses

Octavia again has encouraged me to reminisce about  all my pretty horses, of which I have had many.
First there was a little chestnut mare called 'Wirraway' a pony lent to me when I was 12, she was naughty, but she taught me to ride, well at least to stay on, otherwise if she was successful in unbalancing my seat, she would run off home and I would have to trudge a long way back to fetch her!
Oh then my dear bold and even naughtier, King Eboneeza!, Oh what a handful he was, but all the better, because without his infinite bravery he wouldn't have taught me to be brave myself. he was Black as,  well, ebony and had the biggest heart and courage. He was ready every early frosty morning for adventure!!

'Octavia and Copernicus' Photo: Heather Grigg

There was Summer Dew, a bay palouse pony, then the gentle appaloosa, 'Majestic Opal'. Then Mr Tom, the retired racehorse who couldn't race a tortoise, then Gunya, a black Palouse, so sweet. All the while my faithful 'Ebony' and I were exploring hills losing ourselves in the bush and the magic of the Australian landscape.

Love is forgiving

So many more came into my life, well it broke my heart (and still does) when I had to sell King Eboneeza, we had been together 11 years. My life was changing and responsibility was important. It wasn't right I guessed, to be gallivanting around on a fiery horse when my two babes needed me to be safe and sensible.

So, my precious Cisco's Soxy, a black Tobero Paint (Quarter Horse) came into my life. Sweet and obedient, she gave me a lot of joy. 4 foals, her first being 'Jethrow's Timbre' I later bought the gentle young Black Tabiano Pinto/ASH Stallion and all was adventure again! 

Timbre, Poco, Echo and Eclipse were born to be part of the foal frolicking!

Well, I have to say, Octavia always tugs at my heart, walking me along those memory paths, drawing the rawness of those moments in life when we are truly alive... truly truly living!

The music is the key, the path and the soothing yet melancholy way that the harmonies are alchemized into our being, like food, like sustenance.

Timbre, Soxy and I, three mature ladies now

So now a new piece of music has been born out of Octavia's Dream Studio this week, 'Equuleus'. (foal brother of Pegasus constalation) It dances, and gallops along, taking me every time to those moments of bliss when all my world was a free gallop on my bold black horse, wind, rain, sleet or sun, embracing my smiling face...., ahhhhhhhhhhh that is being alive! 

Soxy and I

You can hear this piece here
EQUULEUS

Music, in Octavia's dreams

About~Octavia... -KätheLissa-Käthe
Octavia is the eighth child and born on a Thursday

Octavia composers and orchestrates all the music, it comes from her and in a very capable way, she has determination and is definitive on how the music must go, no compromise. But she guides, nurtures, and is full of strength and grace.
She is the teacher, but not always conventional, her attire feminine and striking. Buttons frills flowers and bows, satin and velvet. She is neither ancient nor modern, but every era resides in her imagination.

Octavia’s favorite colours are reds and autumn is her season. 

The black Bosendorfer grand piano, her stage.

Nature is her passion, her courageous black Friesian horse 'Copernicus ' and 'Freya' her faithful white bull terrier are her companions when exploring the wilderness of the world.

Octavia is very clever and adaptable, loving and caring, playful and cheeky. Her childlike qualities are infectious, her strength and grace so comforting.

She likes to express the stories of life through the music

Octavia is the one with the wisdom, with arms wide open.

She is positive and inspires us.

She was a grown up as a child and remains a child as a grown up

These are the adventures of  Octavia, the music she creates and her journey to inspire and comfort this little blue world 

Fergalnally octavia


Listen here to Octavia OCTAVIA