Critters & Creatures: Layers of Life Back Story

Next comes Layers of Life! This one's concept definitely mulled and marinated in my mind for days, if not weeks. I knew that I wanted the caterpillar theme to be a series of steps and skips (how a caterpillar inches along), and the butterfly's would be more steps and a few larger leaps (also similar to the movement of a butterfly flitting about).

The moment it came together was when I realized two things:

1) The caterpillar and butterfly themes would merge after the first "cocoon/transformation" to show how even after our first awakening to our lives and ourselves, we are still caterpillars in other ways and there is always more to learn and more ways to grow and change.

2) I wanted to try focusing on simple writing, with sometimes just one single line playing, other times a very simple single-line accompaniment.

The first cocoon/transformation occurs with the use of an epic bVI-bVII-I chord progression.

Then, after the first butterfly theme, the two themes merge, and are played at the same time. And the next parts are a bit more transitional, playing around with the conceptual idea of the butterfly and caterpillar themes, the steps and skips there but not exactly memorable.

And toward the end, I played around with some more juicy, jazzy, long-lasting chords. It gives off a vibe of unease, like another cocoon, "Whoa, where am I now...?" And it goes into that Cb/B chord again, but the bass is a Bb and it really clashes. It's a metaphor for how sometimes we need to evolve our methods for evolution—we can't always make changes in the same ways that worked in the past.

And then you do finally break open, another beautiful butterfly, but then the piece ends on F (not the usual final-sounding Eb or G), making the listener wonder, "Wait... Is it done?" And no, we are never done growing and changing! But the piece is done! ;)