Great Barrier Reef - Return to Shore: The personal music video

OK, as many of you know, I have indulged in making music videos, mostly of skiing expeditions set to progressive rock, over the past several years. It's a blast to do this and to share the 'art form'.

But in the past year or 2, I've discovered...invented?...not yet perfected, but I'm getting there...a new very personal art form I'm calling the personal music video - a one time performance that nevertheless lingers in the mind way beyond the time it occurs. To be really effective, it has to be planned in advance, kind of like a more formal music video, except you are the only one that experiences it, AND, it is a live interactive performance. So, what do I mean?

Both examples I'll give emerged from my repeated listening to the latest Pendragon album - Pure. Last spring break, one of the songs "The Freak Show' struck a cord with me in two ways. First, I thought about how at times we all step back from our brains and think what a 'freak show' we have going on in there, and how we really don't want people to know about it. That song captures this sentiment perfectly. Second, the rhythm of it struck me as perfect for huge swooping high speed GS turns. Where could I listen to that song and ski a really long, fast set of arcing curves? No better place than Elk Park Ridge at Big Sky Montana. Now, for the personal music video: Cue up the song at the top of the slope, press play, and take off! What happens next depends on how well you've chosen your music and your activity...in this case the conditions of the slope (perfect), the weather (bluebird day), and the state of your mind (freaky). By the middle of the song I had this ear-to-ear grin that I could not wipe off when I reached the bottom! There may have been tears of joy too, I don't recall. And I was skiing by myself. Now, every time I hear that song, my mind veers back to that experience.

So why am I harping on personal music videos? Well, living here in 'almost heaven' I've been thinking about the heaven on earth concept, and realized that perhaps these personal music videos are capturing a piece of that. I'm also mentioning it here because I had planned in my mind a personal music video moment for the boat trip return from the reef! Thus I pulled out my personal assistant (read iphone) and my noise cancelling headphones, sat on the front deck of the boat, and turned up 'Indigo', the first song on Pure, to relatively high volume. Now the first half of the song is about a rather sad boy growing up in a decrepit town where misfortune and misfitting were the main themes...but in the middle of this song it transitions into soaring major chords with visions of the boy escaping his prison and diving into a deep blue lagoon...to swim away from here...it becomes a song of liberation. And I thought the moment of returning from diving in the deep blue lagoon would be a perfect time to play this song due to the vision it conjured. Now of course it would have been better to play it underwater, but I haven't purchased the underwater ipod case yet, so this may have been second best. At any rate, once again, I probably looked like a freak as I swayed to the music, watched the ocean spray up from the bow, and contemplated the numerous dives into the deep blue sea we had just experienced. Personal music videos are very personal. I was curious whether it was transferable, so I plopped the earphones on Sara's head, but I don't think it had the same effect. She didn't know the song, why it was being played, hadn't anticipated the experience as I had. Ah well. That's why your perfect personal music video will be personal