“The Retreat” through poem and music
May 2nd, 2008 by JungHee
After recording and mixing all the parts to somewhat satisfactory level, I listened to the completed song for several times. Each time I listened to it, it somehow gave me nostalgic feeling. It didn’t just remind me of a specific period of my life; it rather took me on a “retreat” to my overall past. With a hope of giving a similar effect to other listeners, I decided to name it “Those Days,” so that anyone can think about his or her own “those days.”
Then I was surprised to see that the clock had gone past 11 p.m.
And so I took out my AP Literature homework for the day, which was to write an essay on Henry Vaughan’s poem, “The Retreat.” A part of the instruction goes as such: “In the following poem by Henry Vaughan, the speaker looks back on his earliest days.”
Oh isn’t this a coincidence. So here I was, composing a song that took me back into a memory “retreat,” and reading a poem titled “The Retreat”. Serendipity, should I call it?
Well, as these fortunes rarely occur, I took some time making a video that consists of a bunch of old pictures.
I also decided to paste the poem here as well.
I hope the song would somehow take you to a short “Retreat” as well. (The sound quality was altered during video converting process. I apologize for low sound quality.)
The Retreat
by Henry Vaughan
HAPPY those early days, when I
Shin’d in my Angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought:
When yet I had not walk’d above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back–at that short space–
Could see a glimpse of His bright face:
When on some gilded cloud, or flow’r,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity:
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My Conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to ev’ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th’ enlightned spirit sees
That shady City of Palm-trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.
————————–
and here is the song:
Technorati Tags: kisaplit07, aplit07, junghee, music, acoustic, retreat, henry, vaughan, apliterature, ap, literature, poem, memory, nostalgia
Korean parents say that their children went to great colleges because of hagwon. Sounds great at first, but at the same time, this is merely pathetic. Korean kids are now too dependent on hagwons. They need hagwons for even the smallest things. So what would happen when these kids face the society, where there is no “hagwon for businessmen,” or “hagwon for cook”? Some may fall down helplessly like a paper pulled by the gravity.
River and the Mountain
So what happened after this highly experimental recording? Well, simply said, the recording failed. This recording method requires extreme precision; even if the track on the left or right is off by one half of a second, it ruins the entire piece. So, out of 2 minutes that I recorded, I cut out the beginning and end, which sounded the worst. Even the parts you can hear has horrible quality. To complete recording this song, I think it would require more than 6 hours of recording alone (meaning, ignoring the editing process.).