Chor der Astronauten

Having put in all this thought and ear while creating the sound, the Oberheim once again made it very easy to forget all the technical aspects, as well as all conscious thought about music theory and intended outcomes and pulled me straight into “the zone” – a state of flow and pure, open consciousness, where the fingers just execute what’s flowing through the mind.

When you’re not in that state, as an improvising musician you will likely ride a stream of thought like: “Let’s start with a-minor to make it sound kind of sad, now go to to e-minor, lets throuw in this dominant to go to another key, the melody is targetting the third… now lets go very soft and build up from there…” etc.
And it may produce great results, nothing wrong with it.

But if you enter “the zone”, there is no thought at all.
You watch your fingers as if they are someone elses. It’s like watching a movie, focused on listening to the soundtrack. You are genuinely surprised by unexpected ways it is going, voicings and resolutions you’d never have made up consciously.

I can’t remember the pictures and scenes I witnessed inside while playing this, as it just went through me. But when listening to it mow – which feels in no way as if I had played this, as at the time of playing there was no “I” – I always have scenes from a Hollywood space movie on my mental screen – like “Interstellar” or “The Martian” – hence the title suggesting it to be the score for a non-existing sci-fi space movie with a group of astronauts tragically being left in space with their return-path cut, slowly losing contact to their beloved ones. Facing the future of being left with themselves, singing their song to keep their strength and combat the temptation to give in to despair.

Will they succeed and turn it all into a happy end?

Due to a camera fail (a.k.a. my stupidity), there is unfortunately no video footage of the Chor der Astronauten performance. But that might actually be a good thing and everything happens for a reason.

Knowing about the hypertrophy of the visual senses, I tried to make sure to capture as much as possible on camera. But really I believe that while watching someone play is interesting and satisfying, it deprives us from either focusing on the sound entirely or from all the possible images and imaginations that could emerge inside, when we would instead close our eyes and just let the music work. And this could be different each time we listen.

So I would take this unplanned opportunity to invite you to just do so: Lean back, fully relax your body, close your eyes while listening and just let happen what wants to surface.

If you experience something cool, please let us in and share with us in the comments!