Finding the Sound...Crafting the Words
In the quiet spaces between keystrokes and piano notes, I've discovered something magical: stories can have soundtracks, and music can paint tales without words.
For years, these two loves of mine - writing and music composition - lived in separate rooms of my creative house. Writing filled my pages with tales of adventure and emotion, while my musical experiments in FL Studio gave voice to feelings I couldn't quite name.
But something unexpected happened. As I revisited compositions I'd created years ago, giving them new life with improved production skills, I found they weren't just melodies anymore - they were narratives waiting to be told. Each piece carried its own story, like a ship bearing precious cargo across an ocean of sound.
There was the Viking funeral dirge that spoke of love transcending death, its chorus echoing with hints of Irish folk music and Nordic rhythms. Then came the storm-laden piece that captured the essence of walking through rain-soaked streets, emotions building like thunder. A Chinese-inspired melody brought tales of floating mountains and celestial musicians.
What started as separate artistic pursuits has become an intertwined journey of discovery. Each piece of music now births its own tale, and each story seems to carry its own soundtrack in my mind. This blog series is my attempt to share these dual creations - the music that inspired the stories, and the stories that grew from the music.
Join me as we explore these narrative soundscapes together. Below, you'll find each piece paired with its tale, like old friends who finally found each other across the creative divide...
Eternal Tide
In the fjords of the North, where mountains kiss the sea and the aurora dances across star-filled skies, lived Astrid and Erik. Their love was spoken of in whispers across the village - not for its passion alone, but for its gentle permanence, like the steady flow of time itself. When illness finally claimed Astrid, it was as if the light had been drawn from Erik's world.
They laid her upon a bed of wildflowers - mountain avens, arctic poppies, and blue harebells that matched the eyes Erik had fallen in love with decades ago. As they carried her through the village, even the wind held its breath. Children scattered petals in her path, while women sang ancient dirges that echoed across the fjord.
Erik walked beside her, his weathered hand never leaving hers. When they reached the great hall for the viewing, he simply lay beside her, as natural as breathing. By nightfall, both hearts had ceased their beating, joined even in death as they had been in life.
The village elders spoke of it as fate itself - a love so true that even Odin's ravens could not bear to part it. They placed the lovers together on their final ship, surrounded by treasures and flowers, their hands still intertwined.
As the burning ship drifted into the mist, the smoke began to dance. At first, it rose in familiar grey tendrils, but then - like ink dropped in clear water - it bloomed into colours no mortal had names for. Violet deeper than twilight swirled with azure brighter than summer skies. Gold like liquid sunlight wove through crimson that put rubies to shame, all dancing together like Freya's own tapestry being woven before their eyes.
The villagers fell to their knees as the colours took shape. There, in the heart of the ethereal light, two figures emerged from the smoke like stars appearing at dusk. Erik and Astrid rose hand in hand, transformed - she in her maiden's glory, her golden hair flowing free in an invisible wind, he strong and proud as in his warrior days. Their forms shimmered with an inner light that made them appear both solid and ethereal, as if they existed between two worlds.
Above them, the clouds parted like a great door opening in the heavens. The gates of Valhalla materialized their ancient wood and gold gleaming with a light that outshone the setting sun. Warriors of legend could be seen feasting in the great hall beyond, and the sound of distant horns carried on the wind. Valkyries circled overhead, their wings cutting brilliant arcs through the aurora that now crowned the sky.
But before stepping through, the lovers paused. They turned as one, their faces radiant with joy and peace, to look upon their people one last time. Erik's smile held all the warmth of the summer days he had spent teaching the village children to fish. Astrid's gaze carried the gentleness she had shown when healing the sick. In that moment, all who watched knew with certainty that love like theirs never truly ended - it merely transformed, like the seasons, like the tides, like life itself.
Then, together as always, hands clasped and hearts bound, they stepped into eternity. The gates dissolved into starlight, the colours slowly fading back to the gentle greys of twilight. But forevermore, on nights when the aurora dances across the northern sky, the villagers would swear they could see two figures walking hand in hand among the lights, their love a beacon guiding others home.
Storm in Me
Through streets slick with midnight rain, she walks alone. Each step echoes like piano keys against stone, measuring the rhythm of her sorrow. The storm inside her chest matches the one above - both building, growing, threatening to overwhelm.
Higher she climbs, up the ancient cathedral steps, each footfall drawing her closer to the sky. The wind whips harder now, singing with violin fury, pulling at her clothes like desperate hands trying to hold her back. But still she rises.
Lightning illuminates the gargoyles, their stone faces twisted in eternal warning. Thunder answers like deep cellos in the night. She reaches the bell tower's peak, where rain and clouds swirl together in a maelstrom of memory and regret.
Here, at the edge of everything, she spreads her arms. The storm rages around her, through her, becoming her. In this moment, she is both infinite and infinitesimal - a single note in the universe's symphony, yet containing entire worlds within her chest.
Like Icarus before her, she yearns for the sun hidden behind these fury-dark clouds. Higher and higher her spirit soars, defying the very gravity of grief itself. The crescendo builds - wind and rain and thunder and heartbeat all pounding together, faster, harder, higher, until—
A single, deep piano chord rings out across the night.
Silence follows.
The storm, both within and without, has passed.
The Keeper of Mountain Songs
In the time when mountains still danced with clouds, there lived a young musician named Ming Wei. Her fingers could coax melodies from her pipa that made birds pause their flight to listen. Yet she played only for the wind and stones, believing her music too humble for human ears.
High above her village floated the sacred peaks - great islands of rock suspended in the eternal mist, where it was said the celestial musicians gathered to play songs that kept the mountains aloft. Their ancient melodies, carried down by wind, were the only music grander than the silence Ming Wei cherished.
One dawn, she heard a strange discord in the wind - one of the floating mountains had begun to sink, its anchoring melody fading after centuries of harmony. The celestial musicians had grown so accustomed to perfection that none could hear the single failing note in their eternal symphony.
Ming Wei climbed the nearest peak, her pipa strapped to her back. When she reached the crown of clouds, she found she could step from cloud to floating peak as if walking stairs of moonlight. Higher she climbed, until she stood upon the sinking mountain itself.
There, among gardens of stone flowers and pavilions of mist, she began to play. Her music was not the perfect harmony of heaven, but something new - a song that spoke of earth and sky together, of birds learning to fly, of stones that dreamed of dancing.
The mountain trembled, then steadied. The celestial musicians, drawn by this novel melody, gathered around her. In their perfect faces, she saw something like wonder. Where they had played prosperity, she played growth. Where they had played perfection, she played possibility.
"Our music keeps the mountains floating," they said, "but yours makes them dance."
Now Ming Wei plays among them, her earthly songs weaving with their heavenly harmonies. And travelers say that on quiet mornings, when sunlight first touches the peaks, you can see the mountains sway ever so slightly, as if keeping time with a melody only they can hear.
Some note that the highest peak now floats a little closer to earth - just close enough that aspiring musicians might find their way up, if their hearts are light enough and their songs true enough to build stairs of moonlight.
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