Thank you for being here for the twelfth installment of the Fog Chaser newsletter, sending you a new original instrumental song every month.1
🎵 This month’s piece is in G-sharp minor.2 This is another piano-based piece featuring some field recordings from a recent outing to the woods: you’ll hear some of the fire’s crackle, a little birdsong, and the collar of my dog Sam here and there.3
📷 I took this month’s photo with a DSLR in the Swiss Alps.4 This one was taken from a footpath perched high above the idyllic Lauterbrunnen Valley, just outside the alpine village of Gimmelwald.5
I invite you to sit with this song, photo, and poem and make them a small part of your day, whether that’s your morning ritual, afternoon break, or your evening wind-down.
As always, if you feel like it, let me know what you think in the comments, or share how/where/when you like to sit with these meditations. I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you again for being here.
A Poem
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats6
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
🔈 Click below to listen to me read this poem:
Currently
Listening to
Mohabbat by Arooj Aftab (Listen)
Reminder: I’m putting all the songs shared in the newsletter into this Spotify playlist
Reading
No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin (Powells)
Sharing
My recent appearance on the “Trail Talk” podcast with Cole of Cole’s Climb. We had a great conversation about music, nature, and sound — you can give it a listen here:
The music video I made for “At Smith Creek” is now up on YouTube:
This marks the final issue of Volume I. Volume II — and the second year of this project — kicks off next month.
Alpine in G-sharp minor / Recorded in Logic Pro / Written and recorded by Fog Chaser
If you’re wondering whether or not there is any rationale to the order of these songs, I assure you there is. I’m following the well-traveled path of musicians before me who have written pieces in all 24 musical keys, making my way around “the circle of fifths” in music.
Alpine / DSLR (ISO: 400 / Focal length: 18 mm / f/10 / Exposure time: 1/250s). Geotag: Grosser Aletschgletscher, Gimmelwald, Bern, Switzerland. Edited with Lightroom. Order a print.
The rumored inspiration for Tolkien’s Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings.