Travis Laplante - The Golden Lock (2024) [Hi-Res]

The compositional process of The Golden lock began during October of 2021 at a nine-day artist residency in Maine at the School of 3 Lights; a school devoted to the training of artists’ inner muse. There were approximately 20 artists participating; choreographers, painters, poets, etc. all working in our own spaces but also coming together on a regular basis for conversation and performances.
I was fortunate enough to be able to work in a small cottage and be in close proximity to my teacher during this time. I believe it was because of the energetic container of the residency that I was able to begin composing from a place of innocence and oneness, without my self-critical mind interfering as much as if I was at home. I felt vulnerable enough to compose simple melodies and harmonies without feeling the need to demonstrate technical skill to prove myself as a musician or to feel self-worth.

Part of my practice for this piece has been to play the harmonic/chordal parts over and over, and then when I’m too tired, I play a recording of them on repeat so I am living inside of the harmony for many hours at a time. As I am living inside of the various harmonic motions, I wait for the melody to arrive. Sometimes this arrival literally happens in a moment with seemingly no effort, and at other times I have to wait many months, just listening to the harmony, trusting that there is a melody in the air somewhere. I have lived inside the harmonic currents of The Golden Lock for more hours than I care to admit, but I am happy that the melodies for the piece did all finally arrive, even though some waited until much closer to the first performance than my nervous system would have preferred.

The piece began as seven distinct movements but as time progressed the movements began to communicate with each other, as if the composition itself was teaching me how to write it. The seven individual movement ended up marrying into one, while still maintaining some semblance of the initial structure.

This process is congruent with the title of the piece which comes from a 12th century Taoist Ode/esoteric acupuncture protocol (medical protocols, odes, and songs used to not be considered separate from each other) written by Ma Danyang. In the ode, entitled The 12 Points Shining Bright as the Starry Sky and Able to Heal All the Many Diseases, it states that “the golden lock teaches us to snap it open.”. This accurately describes my experience of how the composition has taught me about itself from the inside out. – Travis Laplante

Travis Laplante: composition, tenor saxophone
Erika Dohi: piano
Charles Overton: harp
Lizzie Burns: double bass
Eduardo Leandro: percussion