Let me say right up front so there's no mistake...I'm a Rock 'N' Roller. I grew up during the 60's listening to artists like The Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix. I played lead guitar in a couple of garage bands during High School and made a little money at it though not a lot. When I got my first car I went through all the gyrations to make the AM radio sound good, installing speakers in the rear deck of my 1964 LeMans along with a reverb device. I was astounded and obsessed when 8 track tapes came around and later followed them to cassettes and finally cd's in all my vehicles and at home.
I've listened to lots of different kinds of music but I always come back to Rock. Guitar rock...the cd currently in my car stereo is a compilation cd that I burned with lots of hot guitar licks. My musical tastes are more esoteric as I grow older but given a choice I'm still going for the hot screaming guitars. I've never been a devote' of Classical music other than to notice that most of the cartoons I watched as a sprout were set to Classical music, a fact that was lost on me until I was in my 30's and watched some cartoons with my kids. The exception (for obvious reasons) being Ravel's Bolero. If you younger people don't understand the reference, don't e-mail me, I'm not sharing.
But tonight, watching the Winter Olympics, I heard a piece of music that moved me. Not because the couple skating to it were fantastic. I despise pairs figure skating. But for another reason entirely.
The music was "Sunrise" from The Grand Canyon Suite by Grofe. I don't know why it caught my attention, possibly because I enjoy the Grand Canyon. But as I listened, I was mesmerized and transported to another place and another time. Back to early 2008, standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon watching the clouds break and seeing the sun light up the Canyon. I'd arrived around 4pm Thursday, having driven in from Las Vegas, and once checked into my hotel room I headed out to the Canyon to get some shooting time. Before I could get there, though, it started to snow, lightly at first then heavier and heavier until I could barely see 100 feet. No problem I thought, it will stop during the night and I'll get in some good shooting tomorrow. That was Thursday night....24 hours later when I finished supper it was still snowing hard and I had to leave by 11 the next morning to make my flight in Vegas so I was beginning to worry.
Saturday morning at 5 it was still snowing but I decided to head out to the Canyon and sit in the car until the weather broke or I had to leave, whichever came first. at 6am it stopped snowing and at 6:30 the clouds in the east began to break and let the sun shine through. It was one of the most magical sunrises I've seen anywhere and led to the most productive 2 hours of shooting I've had in many years. But back to the story.....
Listening to the music tonight I closed my eyes and was back on the rim of the Canyon that morning. I could see the clouds breaking, the first hint of light in the East. Then more light, lighting up small sections of the Canyon. And finally the sun fully lighting up the morning and the clouds melting away. It was a magical morning and the music put me right back there.
I can't promise I'll listen to it regularly, but I'll tell you this. Before too awfully long I'll have the full cd set of The Grand Canyon Suite. It will be in the car and burned onto the hard drives of all my computers and who knows...I may treat myself to an Ipod one of these days. But for now, I'm content with the images from that trip. How bout you?
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