Olive’s First Snow

Today was even more of a “my mind is blank” day than yesterday. After a couple of hours of false starts, I started wondering if maybe I’m out of steam. I don’t want to write about anything current or political because… well, I just don’t want to deal with the intolerance of people who disagree with me and I’ve found that a lot of the stuff I do in that direction isn’t as incisive or poetic as I’d like it to be. I’m not recharged enough for another ambient or cinematic piece.

Joy in the Snow

We’d had a decent amount of snow yesterday, but got another inch or two overnight, so Olive and I woke up to another hushed morning with a blank slate of fresh powder¹Ok, it was too wet to be powder, but I’m feeling too lazy to figure out le mot just. for our walk.

Now, technically, yesterday was Olive’s first experience with snow, but she really didn’t seem overly interested in any of it. That’s been one of the surprises with her – weather just isn’t really a thing. She’s wonderfully unafraid of thunder or fireworks. Wind (Laska’s nemesis) is something to be investigated, not feared. Rain was my greatest worry – a dog that hates the rain is a complete pain-in-the-ass to have in the Pacific Northwest. But unless it’s a downpour (or our neighbor is recreating the battle of Baghdad with his July 4^th extravaganza), she just doesn’t react that much to these things.

Well this morning the story was different. We walked outside and Olive discovered the joy of snow. She dug her nose into it and flipped it into the air. She’d then pounce on the pieces as they fell. She’d dig a little, run a little, and just generally acted like a happy puppy. These are the times where I’m not wondering if we made a terrible choice with her breed.²Berger Picard. See Me and Hank for some additional info. When she’s sweet or cute, she’s heart-meltingly sweet or cute.

Sadly, we had no additional precipitation in the forecast, other than some rain either that night or the next day and through the weekend. All of this will be gone in 48 hours at most. We took a longer-than-usual walk and she played in the snow, then I went inside to get to work.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. I’m not giving up, but I don’t see a way forward. I just cannot find inspiration, whether it’s an idea, a sound, a challenge… just nothing.

So it was kismet when I was going through various keyboard instruments and found the dulcitone – a celeste-like keyboard instrument – just as I noticed that there was a gentle snow shower starting. It moved quickly from flurries to full-on snow, with a mix of flake sizes. There was no wind, so it was falling straight down and looking about as picture-perfect as you can imagine.

With that, and remembering Olive’s joy that morning, I was off to the races. I finished the melody and most of the left-hand accompaniment before the snow stopped falling. I flirted with the idea of adding a string quartet to it for all of about 30 seconds before deciding that, no, this is finished. It’s lovely, it’s short and sweet, and it says what it needs to without overstaying its welcome.³It’s reminiscent of Snowglobe from 2018, which happened under very similar circumstances, but during a heavy Wisconsin snowfall instead of a light costal Pacific NW one. I should be so efficient with these posts!

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

Keyscape

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

Fabfilter, Gullfoss

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Notes

• 1
  Ok, it was too wet to be powder, but I’m feeling too lazy to figure out le mot just.
• 2
  Berger Picard. See Me and Hank for some additional info.
• 3
  It’s reminiscent of Snowglobe from 2018, which happened under very similar circumstances, but during a heavy Wisconsin snowfall instead of a light costal Pacific NW one.