Ghost Boats - Day 67

For those interested -

I am currently traveling by sailboat (Singlehanding 33' Gaff rigged cutter) from NY harbor to Melbourne, FL.

I am currently close to the SC-GA border.

I am blogging the trip and creating musical sketches as I go along. I seldom have enough Internet access to post to Contrebombarde, but since this evening I do, I will upload some of the pieces. In general, they are quasi-improvisatory, for HW organ, synthesizers and found audio.

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They are all over the ICW - boats of all configurations - abandoned and slowly returning to the elements. Most are the victims of neglect or abandonment rather than some catastrophe. They are almost all beyond practical repair.

Ghost Boats.

I suppose there are a lot of object lessons to be drawn but at least at the moment the sight is particularly poignant for me because Artful Dodger might have potentially become a ghost boat had it not been for the patience of her former master. I was going to write, had I not come along at the right time, but that is presumptuous - had it not been me, there would have been someone else. But there had to be someone. So Artful lives on for more adventures while the time for the ghost boats has ended.

The piece is intentionally active and its onset - rolling chords evocative of a roiling sea and found audio (surf, thunderstorm) blend with clarion call (organ tuba marabalis actually) to evoke the adventures of the past these now sad vessels must have had or might have had. The almost amorphous second section evokes the current moribund state. I conclude with what I suppose may be described as a bombastic section for full organ and (synthetic) strings - although most ghost boats will never sail again, they live on in the imagination of those who see and remember them.