des pas sur la neige

R.I.P. Isao Tomita



this track, an analogue synth re-work of Claude Debussy's piano prélude "Footprints in the Snow," is, to me, a very fitting choice to show a first-time listener of Tomita's work. the original piece is a collection of notes to be played at certain volumes and at certain speeds - mostly up to the performer - but this rendition is the atmospheric expression of a multitude of characters, voices, and images that could only lie so still as notes on a page, as keys pressed on a piano... here we have the electronic married to the impressionist, that which lies inside both Debussy and Tomita, and nothing could be more divine.

he worked with the music of Maurice Ravel, too ~



it is almost too perfect to be true. as a kaleidoscope of different mesmerizing sounds i think Tomita did more than pay homage to Ravel, who was a musical genius in his own right; he expressed an intense and absolute adoration of the composer's music and through this love he created an even further explosion of the original composition's majesty. a humbling thing to witness. nothing like this could have been created without love.

-

i don't think people realize how much of an impact they may have had on you, willingly or not, and why should they? they were simply existing, just like you, plodding around thoughtlessly or thoughtfully. when you interact with others you rub your essences off on each other (no, not like that! but sometimes like that), and those ephemeral invisible energies can stay with you. forever. and ever. the smallest things like their smell after running, or something they said at a time when you were completely receptive and eager to learn from them - these and more you can confidently recall exactly, word for word, years down the road. you could write an entire essay about how they made you feel at that certain point in time, and they had no idea how much of them you would take with you.

it kind of makes me sad...

there is someone in particular who affected me exactly like this. completely separate from their experience of the world and of me was a deluge of information that i was storing because it truly mattered to me, and was important to me. it helped me in such a way that i am still reeling from it. it is true that they had no idea. i was a mere passerby in their life, perhaps i made a mark on them too, deep in their memory, but it appears that... my memory of them is solidified into a monument that i've resurrected in this large field in my mind, a place where statues and gravestones representing people and places and things dot the grassy land, eternal remnants. they will never know the mark on me. i don't know why it isn't any other way, but really nothing is any other way than how it is, unless you forcefully try to create change.