Dear Heaven Maker:
I’ve made a new friend who’s rap name is TheWynd.
A mutual friend introduced us and TheWynd really loved the idea of Heaven on Earth. I knew he was a musician so I asked him if he would create a music video about Heaven on Earth. I also asked him to write a guest blog about how he came up with the idea of the song and the process he went through to create it.
This is his video and his write up.
Thanks so much The Wynd.
Martin
A Letter on Creative Inspiration
Some people say music is a way to escape life. For me, music is a way to engage my inner council.
I create music to step into my True Self.
There is a polished stage that emerges beneath my fingers when I play the piano. I hear the crowd around me, feel their eyes. It is the most wonderful feeling on earth, and it is my own truth. When I play one of my songs, or when I create a new one, the air around me becomes vivid and eerily present. I become one with the moment I am living in.
I felt this innate energy when I created the song, “Heaven on Earth Freestyle.”
My friend Reginah WaterSpirit told me about Project Heaven on Earth, and asked me if I could deliver some music on the topic. I told her I would. I sat down at my piano and began to compose, but my pen was still. Nothing came up. I grew frustrated and decided it was a lost cause.
The reason I wasn’t making progress is that I had no inspiration. Sure I wanted to help my friend, but I didn’t really know what I was supposed to be creating, I had no direction and when I asked for guidance my muse simply shrugged.
Whenever I need to clear my head, whenever I need to write something, I like to drive up to my grandfather’s ranch in central Texas and let the quiet song of nature calm my eyes.
In my world, my eyes are often blurry because I see sound. As a musician, my senses melt together. I visualize the music around me, and when that music becomes too loud, like it was then, I like to step into nature.
So I drove away from the city and into the wild of central Texas.
I sat on my grandfather’s porch, atop a cliff looking over the hill country, and pondered the drooping clouds which traveled from east to west across the horizon. They seemed to drift in and out of existence, changing shape and dancing between colors: red, yellow, purple, and blue. They hovered above the scent of fresh Juniper trees as they crawled across the darkening sky. The vast canyon below fell into a shadow sea of green and yellow, and I began to breathe. Night was approaching.
A hawk flew by, gliding just above the juniper trees, it dipped over the canyon looking for food. I contemplated it’s flight pattern, and thought to myself: “What is Heaven on Earth?”
I then had to ask myself? “What do you I wish to accomplish?”
The hawk disappeared beyond the clouds. I closed my eyes, and disappeared into myself.
I acknowledged my Native American blood, my inner Shawnee soul, and began to listen. After a few breaths, that particular side of my inner council began to whisper.
First came the melody, then the rhythm, followed closely by my own outward humming. It could’ve been five minutes, it could’ve been thirty, all that mattered is that my inner-self found some inspiration from that deep canyon.
It was a new experience creating a song based on an idea I’d never contemplated before, but it was exhilarating and challenging. As I hummed the tune, words emerged. I felt vehement desire to drive home and start creating.
I recorded the melody that night on my keyboard. I channeled Martin Luther King’s “Urgency of Now,” for the chorus of the song, and once the ground work of the arrangement was complete, all that was left to administer was the verses. For these, I leaned into my skills as a rapper. For years and years I had competed as a freestyle rapper, and on this day, I felt the urge to demonstrate this on the track. I rapped the verses from the top of my head, polished them up, and the song was complete. Of course I had to precisely mix and master the song, but in a general sense, the composition emerged that night in an organic fashion. The only thing next was to send it to Reginah and her team.
The day I created this song, I had to step away from my day to day routine, and look at my world from the outside in. I had to breathe in the wind of nature.
So what’s next for me? What do I hope to accomplish with this song? On one hand I just want that polished stage beneath my fingertips to become reality, so that I may tell my story in the most artistic and genuine way possible. I wish to reach out to the younger generations, and those which came before me, and work together to find the path towards a healthy Earth. When I step away from my own ambitions, I begin to seek a true Heaven on Earth. When I step toward you, I seek a conscious connection to the heart and soul of this wonderful planet.
When you step into your own version of calmness, what does your Heaven on Earth look like?
With love,
-TheWynd
Martin Rutte
