The Jungle Orchestra
In a clearing in a forest, around two stones representing the seat of social order from a time long bygone, stand 12 people in a circle, doused in latent, ancient wisdom and energy. Their intent – to draw a creative expression and attempt to describe through music, what being here feels like! Each may have come perhaps from a different world, but brought that world with them this day, to share. With it, pain and sorrow, laughter and joy, stories long and short. Extraordinary hopes and dreams. Heartbreaks. Memory! Memory of shorter lifetimes to combine with memory written in stone.
Through it all, they bring the excitement of discovery through creation.
Perhaps it is with reverence to what is ancient, that after some minutes of complete silence, unsurprisingly, it starts just with breath. A cadence as old as life itself – leading to tapping a synchronous rhythm with hands on the body by one person. A voice starts to hum out a melody, delicately at first, but suggesting the melodic tapestry. Some moments in, another voice, deeper, joins in, stating its understanding and acceptance, and offering additional melodic thoughts. And so is formed the bedrock of this orchestra. Soon to join in is a third voice. Sympathetic hand drums come in, supporting the taps on the body and a shaker adds vibrance and syncopation to this mix. Other voices join this cacophony. At first, it sounds like an orchestra that is tuning up together, or waking up, discovering a sense of itself. A sudden epiphany is recognized when all the voices realize that they are parts participating in a whole, and are aligning themselves on rhythm and melody. From then on, it is a beautiful, haunting, self-aware orchestra, merging with the spirit of what it observes, and states how it feels!
After the peak of all voices enthusiastically adding to this unique, once-in-a-lifetime, dissonant consonance of the jungle orchestra, there is a gradual fading away. They all feel they participated, added value, were heard, were understood, and helped each other understand. When it is all silent, and the orchestra becomes individuals again, there is a jubilant excitement of what special experience this was, that led to the creation of something completely unique.
None of them know yet, that henceforth, they are bound to each other in an ageless, limitless, timeless and shapeless bond that will persist as a universal force long after each of them is no more.
Also what none of them realize is, that though the clearing and the stones have carried memories, stories and wisdom from thousands of years ago, till today, tomorrow onwards to forever, they will also carry the memory, the story and the joint creativity of this jungle orchestra.
Kermajärvi
I had heard about the proverbial bridges that have the potential to cover the chasms in humanity. To become a humble and small part of an amazing team, building some of such bridges, then, became a gift and blessing for my life. I can safely say that nothing could have prepared me for the magic and spirit of being a part of the Echoes of the Ancient project.
My introduction with Mikko Keinonen, project lead, happened in the most unusual of places – on the chat board of a pretty stupid phone game that you wouldn’t expect either of us to play.
Best guess – the universe had to find some excuse for the introduction to be made.
Lesson learned – the universe has a twisted sense of humor!
When the discussion soon turned to music, Mikko and I discovered common love for the works of some lesser-known, but iconic gems of musicians and their work. Mike Keneally, held in the highest regard by us both, being the first one of them. Interestingly, since the introduction, neither of us has played said stupid game, to which said introduction is owed.
Long story short, from Mikko, I learned about the project and was really intrigued about it. I was honored to be invited to be a part of it, from all the way across the world – Pakistan. In the next year or so, slowly arrangements were made and things gradually came together to see to my making a trip to Finland, and joining up with participants from different parts of Europe for Muinaisviikko 2025, or the ancient week of 2025. I started my trip filled with excitement at the prospect of meeting amazing musicians and creating and playing some music together. But nothing could have prepared me, for how unique, emotional, uniting, unifying of an experience this was going to be. Unifying with people, places and geography, to be specific. It all happened with its nucleus residing in a homely compound by the bank of the iconic 10,000 to 11,000 year old Kermajärvi – the Lake of Cream.
Through the week, the days would be spent visiting the ancient sites, learning about how the caves, the perched rocks, the stone walls and offering stones have been, and to this day, are significant. The evenings were spent with participants gelling together in conversations, exchanging life stories and helping each other do chores as a camp group. Basically becoming family. ‘Chosen family’, as a friend aptly puts it. On many evenings, there were concerts that we would play at and watch each other play. And with this, the days passed.
There are many things that spoke to me about all this time.
There is an incredible amount of memory and history written in the ancient places of the world. The magnificent spirit behind this history has tremendous staying power and to those curious and open, it still has driving force to influence individual and group actions millennia later. These places are bastions of community, traditions and ancient culture, that transcend time. To my mind, if you regard them truly for what they stand for, they are iconic of building social fabric, based on a code, such that there is balance, harmony and interconnection of people with each other, with their surroundings, with the seen and unseen. What you take with you after visiting these places is the need to see the same in our world today – balance, harmony and interconnection.
When at these places, truly nature’s studio, there is a different sort of creativity, based on one’s reception of many more natural inputs, at play. This is fundamentally different from a usual indoor studio environment, where whether you want to express screaming in anger or enchantment by a beautiful place, the sound treatment is uniform. So are the visuals of the environment! Of course, while this has its definitive place, the opportunity of shaping your expression based on the environment, what you see, the unique acoustic character of each of these places, how each of them sounds unique, and then responding to that in real-time, is too important to miss. When a group of people, from different parts of the world, get together here and open their hearts to express what comes from within them, what is coming from their peers and what is felt in response to the sound in the place itself, an amalgam of something unique in time is created. This, one-of-a-kind creation, made with camaraderie and chemistry between the participants is worth cherishing, preserving and certainly worth sharing with the rest of the world. This effort is dearly worth expanding upon.
Being that it is the same blueprint on which humans all over the world are made, you have similar stories of happiness, of sorrow, joy and pleasure, pain and suffering to share with each other. We have always known this, but this becomes real when people actually meet and bond. My takeaway from this is, as just shared above, this is worth expanding upon!
Coming Together
I realized, when I was visiting for the project, that I would be one person performing my music. I am the first person to be not so interested in not playing with others. So I designed my set in two ways – one, to play guitar alongside recorded accompaniment from my computer, and two, to do the same with other dear fellow musicians, whoever present and willing, also accompanying. This would be expressed as an open jam, but with some structure. Back home, in my otherwise work-addled life, the quick working title I gave to this music track was ‘Coming Together’. Not to get ahead of myself, I didn’t realize the significance of what this would come to mean later.
Through the Ancient Week, there were a total of six performances where friends ‘came together’ and joined me on stage to jam on this track. This was at four different venues. But six performances, because at two of the venues, the idea struck such a chord that we played back-to-back twice with different players joining in. The instruments joining my guitar were piano, violin, other guitars, saxophone, singing and oratorial spoken voices, hand drums and shakers. Each time it was a unique experience, because each time it was openly improvised over some basic structure. This brought so many of us together in such a unique way, that it would have been a shame if just the beautiful memories of it were the only outcome.
When I came back to Pakistan, I missed the ‘chosen’ part of my family so much that the idea came to send this track to everyone who played with me on it for them to record their parts on it to make it an immortal testimony of our camaraderie on the stages of Heinävesi. Much to my delight, as friends enthusiastically took precious time and shared their contributions with me, an expansion of the idea came from Mikko, to involve other musicians from different parts of the world, who I had not met, but who had been a part of the Echoes project, to also chime in. What it is becoming as a project closest to my heart, cements not just people, but where they are from, together in a precious asset, that Mikko and I hope, would be the first, hopefully of many to come. This will have been the echoes of the ancient places of Finland, beckoning human beings from different parts of the world to tell each other, and to the world at large, that we all belong together, to heal and to hope, together!