Processing our Recent Times with Music

As much as we may wish to leave 2020 behind, there is still much to process, and music provides a gentle approach. Lamentations is a new album of ambient music by Thomas Peters, who performs a one-man-orchestra using cutting edge computer electronics and synchronized electronic soundscapes performing on bowed NS Design EU-6 bowed 6-string electric double bass and a laptop with Ableton Live. 

This new album embraces the healing that comes from the outpouring of emotion, with a collection of musical expressions. Music for coping helps us help others, no matter how great our distress or sorrow. To succeed at healing we must be honest. Trying to ignore pain or keep it from surfacing will only make it worse in the long run. For genuine healing, it is necessary to face grief and actively deal with it. 

The primary instrument is an electronic bass, bowed and occasionally plucked, sometimes joined by chimes, sometimes by an ethereal choral presence, and sometimes by a simple ukulele. The intention of this album is to accomplish universal healing goals for 2021 and beyond, to provide emotional uplifting, and to create a space to process difficult emotions. The task of processing emotion and despair is important for finding healing and peace, but such efforts are sometimes difficult. Music can heal people and act as a preventive medicine, it also offers a simple way to improve troubled sleep, improving our ability to fall asleep and feel more rested. This music is uplifting and respectful of these emotions, which makes the listening experience rewarding. 

A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in poetry or music. The Book of Lamentations is traditionally ascribed to Jeremiah, and tells of the desolation of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The patterns in music and all the arts can contain the keys to improve mood through emotional expression and release. A healthy brain tries to make sense of the world around, and the constant information it receives, including sound and music. Empathizing with grief provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words. If you can use music to navigate past the pain and gather insight into the workings of your own mind, you can begin to fix a problem.

Depression is a highly prevalent mood disorder that is characterized by persistent low mood, diminished interest, and loss of pleasure. We must remember that mercy never ends, and is renewed every morning. Music may be helpful in modulating moods and emotions, creating room for a positive transformation and adaptation, our abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of our lives.

What you will hear is an intricate cello-style, performed on the bowed bass, intermingled with transformative concepts, sometimes with metallic percussion or choral accompaniment. The first song is an exception, it is a solo tone poem entirely formed by the sound of struck metal and connects directly to the last song in tone and feeling, forming a complete cyclic expression.

Thomas Peters is a composer and GRAMMY®-nominated performer who creates multimedia works featuring classic silent films. He performs as a one-man-orchestra that uses cutting edge computer electronics and synchronized electronic soundscapes. His performance tools include a bowed NS Design EU-6 bowed 6-string electric double bass designed by the legendary Ned Steinberger, and a laptop equipped with Ableton Live. He creates computer-synchronized soundscapes that may include anything from voices to drums to ukuleles. He performs the live portion of the score on the EU6 with composed and improvisational elements to create a truly unique sight and sound experience.

In 2010, Thomas was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, now defined as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The nature of this disability underlines the concept for Lamentations. He has been very open about his disability, and has authored an Amazon Bestselling book, Our Socially Awkward Marriage, with his wife, Linda Peters. They have spoken professionally about living life on the autism spectrum. 

ASD is called a "spectrum" disorder because people with this condition can have a range of symptoms. People with ASD often have major problems talking with others, or simply not look someone in the eye when talking to them. They may also have restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. They may spend a lot of time putting things in order, or they may say the same sentence again and again. They may often seem to be in their "own world." As many as one in ten children with autism can have outstanding skills in music, art, and mathematics.

"The only difference between someone on the spectrum and somebody not on the spectrum is that the threshold is lower. Right now everyone's threshold is blown off the charts. People are going towards 'feel good' music, and that is not a bad way to do things, but it is limited. At some point those feelings are going to have to be processed, and feel good music is an escape, not a way to face the necessary healing," Thomas says, adding that he wanted to create music that one can listen to once through and enjoy, yet when they return to it they can either hear it the same way, or begin taking it apart a little bit to hear how it evolves and changes.

"As a person with ASD, I have frequently had to use coping strategies to keep myself from getting emotionally overwhelmed—a skill that most people who are not on the ASD spectrum never have to develop. For me, understanding social norms is difficult even under the best of circumstances, but in the era of COVID-19, social norms have been completely upended for everyone."

In other words, people who are not on the autism spectrum are now facing coping struggles that are strikingly similar to what people who are on the autism spectrum have to deal with on a daily basis. Music can help.

Thomas’ new album is a way for him to share one of his key coping strategies with those who are not on the spectrum, but who are suffering with similar feelings of sensory overload and feeling overwhelmed during the pandemic. Thomas says, first and foremost, he finds it tremendously helpful to listen to music that is quiet and still, yet aligns with the emotions he is trying to process. 

Lamentations is music that serves a specific purpose. Thomas explores the idea of music not just for music's sake, or for escapism or entertainment, but music that actually does something. The album is both listenable and useful, making room for personal listening choices.

The album was consciously created to aid us in expressing our feelings of grief and confusion. In 1969, with her book On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced what became known as the “five stages of grief.” Americans are terrible at grieving. We really don't know how to do it. 

"I find ambient music to be an effective tool for helping to process overwhelming emotions. I believe that there is an immediate need for this type of musical experience," explains Thomas. The project was further inspired by his recent exploration of the German composer Paul Hindemith’s concept of Gebrauchsmusik, or “needed music,” which abandons art for art’s sake in favor of making musical expressions that serve a purpose. 

“To that end, I find myself increasingly drawn to ambient music. In July 2020, I released my first ambient album, Sleep Music: Rain that is designed to help calm the mind and help people fall asleep." Sleep is vital for human health and wellbeing, and sleep disturbances complicate many mental and physiological disorders.

While being marketed in the ambient genre, Lamentations is grounded in experimental classical music. It uses “process music” techniques such as phasing and aleatoric strategies to create slow, constantly shifting sonic tapestries. For example, one track, "Drifting," uses three strata of looped musical phrases of unequal length, played at the same time. The result creates 30 different chord combinations. The bowed electric double bass provides the foreground that carries the musical narrative forward. 

Such innovations are no surprise to Thomas’s expansive fan base. Most of Thomas's compositions so far have been written to accompany classic silent films. He asserts that silent movies were never intended to be silent. From the origins of motion pictures in the late 19th Century, music has always played a crucial role in helping the audience sink into the narrative and moods created by the visual images on the screen. Larger movie houses employed symphony orchestras, while matinees and smaller theaters used organ or piano accompaniment, often improvised. 

"Following this tradition I create new music for silent movies, connecting well-known masterpieces and lesser-known cinematic gems with modern audiences through cutting edge music," says Thomas. This means that the music one hears live is current, always serves the film, and outlines the director’s vision and the actors’ performances in a way that is complementary to the action on screen.

Since 2008, Thomas has created 18 new scores for some well-known silent classics, including Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, The Cat and the Canary, Pandora’s Box, Borderline, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Alfred Hitchcock’s first big success), Der Golem and Chicago, among others. His score for The Passion of Joan of Arc premiered at the 2013 Toronto Silent Film Festival with acclaimed viola da gambist, Joelle Morton. The Iron Horse premiered at The Autry in 2015, and The Man with the Movie Camera premiered at the Portland Art Museum in 2016. 

This is a new project and new direction for Peters, who is a composer and GRAMMY® nominated performer known for creating multimedia works featuring classic silent films. He contributed to the 2014 GRAMMY Nomination for Best Small Ensemble Performance for John Cage: The 10,000 Things, on MicroFest Records; he also participated on 2015 GRAMMY winning album for Best Small Ensemble Performance for PARTCH: Plectrum and Percussion Dances, on Bridge Records; and participated on 2016 GRAMMY nominated album for Best Instrumental Album for flutist Wouter Kellerman’s Love Language. 

With live performances on hold, the pandemic created the need to explore a new musical direction, and a growing interest in experimental classical music. He uses “process music” techniques such as phasing and aleatoric techniques to create slow, constantly shifting sonic tapestries.

"From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord," Psalm 130, is a plea for divine mercy and the expression of confident trust in a universal goodness concealed in the chaos of our experiences. "Out of the Depths" (2:00), metallic tones, picking a melody in a stark setting, a prologue creating the mood for the album's journey.

As the brain interprets these sounds, a cascade of physical effects are triggered within the body, facilitating a slow and gradual movement or change. There is something very special about the sound and range of color a bowed electric bass can manifest. "Drifting" (9:56), warm choral tones, joined by the bass, infinitely slow, barely ecstatic, bringing a glowing warmth in an aimless course, a general underlying design or tendency, a balloon drifting in the wind, vulnerable and heartbroken, carried by the flow or the velocity of the current of a river or ocean stream, trance-like and mesmerizing.

The listener is drawn into this study of suffering to find a poignant confession of faith and hope, and is allowed to recall all the precious things that were ours in days of old. "A Million Pieces" (8:45), ukulele strings finger-picked in a repeating pattern, which becomes joined by the bass, and eventually is met by the chorus. My heart shattered into a million pieces, soft-spoken and fluttering, bringing tears to the eyes while also being uplifting. The result is that this condition is both more poignant and more personal. 

Hope arises from a recollection of experiencing past goodness, an act of recalling to mind, something that serves to bring to mind or keep in mind some place. "Remembrance Canon" (6:36), a foundation of deep tones with bowed bass, repeating melodic cycles, the sound seems to emanate from a deep, russet realm, it can be appreciated on multiple levels, and will affect each listener in a deeply personal way. The painful beauty of the main theme, their presence together  within the canon reveals the unity of  this message.

The tragedy seems to go beyond comprehension and mourns alone, without friends, the music is restrained, wistful, seemingly never-ending, it makes the world stand still, and one almost has to stop breathing. "Without You" (11:16), bringing more textures, ringing percussive metal with atmospherics joined by the bowed bass. To heal we must be honest, we  must simply be willing to hear the subtle shades of nobility, reflection, sorrow that becomes the voice of conscience and delivering a musical recitative of remorse and tenderness.

The music of Lamentations helps to calm the mind and reduce "racing thoughts” which can in turn help ease the trauma of grieving, lessen depression and provide an outlet for people who are otherwise withdrawn. "Still" (10:08), provides a slow sustained stark meditative atmosphere, which suggests spiritual ecstasy, achieving transcendence through the dematerialization of music; it uses minimalist techniques and plenty of time. 

"Tenderness" (7:34), is a bowed duet with ukulele accompaniment, patterns emerge, layers build glowing richness and eerie calm like a delicate void with a drone-like bottom to the ethereal harmonics, a spellbinding sculpting of dynamics that is both musical and imaginative in its approach.

A common form of prayer is to directly appeal to a deity to grant one's requests, and can be sometimes described as the person praying having a dialogue or conversation with God, which can quiet the mind to allow an awareness of enlightened intention. Prayer might also be a spiritual method to prevent illness, cure disease, or improve health, while restoring the faithful to continue the conversation with God. "Prayer" (6:35), long slow notes that allow for our own prayers and ponderment, a repeated plucked theme and bowed paths that describe the way upwards.

Let us test and examine our ways, we must continue to express honestly our feelings in order to realize the goal of the use of music to restore, maintain, and improve mental and physical health. "De Profundis" (3:21), rich, warm and vibrant, with metal strings, chimes and a comforting chorus providing sustained atmospherics, a plea for divine mercy and the expression of confident trust in goodness, a heartfelt cry of appeal expressing deep feelings of sorrow or anguish. In Latin, De profundis is found in Psalm 129, which also became the title of a poem by Spanish author Federico García Lorca, as well as poems by Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Baudelaire, Christina Rossetti, C. S. Lewis, Georg Trakl, Dorothy Parker, José Cardoso Pires, and a letter by Oscar Wilde written towards the end of his life while he was in prison, bears the same title.

Music has been around since ancient times. At its heart Lamentations is about the relationship between music and realizing overall physical rehabilitation, and facilitating movement, increasing people's motivation to become engaged in creating their own treatment, providing emotional support for individuals and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings. Lamentations expresses the grief and disbelief of those who have lived through the  difficulties of 2020 and yet still looked to their purpose.  Not just an outpouring of emotion, however, Lamentations also  contains a profound theological reflection and response to the problem  of suffering. 

The album is available from: 

DistroKid: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/thomaspeters/lamentations

Bandcamp: https://thomaspeters.bandcamp.com/

Artist direct: https://silentmovietom.com/home

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0CmvCcz_wKKkSjzEk9xGhg

Originally published February 19, 2021

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