This one is special. This was the piece I used to ask my wife to marry me.
We were in Lisbon for a few weeks when decided to explore the coast. New to Portugal, we randomly picked a small, quaint, quiet seaside town called Zambujeira do Mar, about five hours south along the coast. We rented a car, threw on some road-trip music, and shot down towards the Algarve. Zambujeira is a painfully cute village that floats on rugged, geometric cliffs above the Atlantic. Being from California, it felt really close to the majesty of Big Sur or Monterey, yet still entirely its own. The ocean filled our lungs and we sighed a massive breath of relief after navigating the Portuguese highways and back roads for most of the day. It’s the kind of place that’s just remote enough to have you thinking you took a wrong, when – bam – you round a bend and see this breathtaking aquatic panorama surging against the jagged coastline.
Little did Anna know but I had been scheming, planning, and navigating for months to make this day happen. This was the day I would propose to her. I’d bought a ring in San Francisco months ago and had been carrying it in my bag ever since, riddled with anxiety that it would be lost or stolen, too paranoid to leave it at our apartment in Lisbon in case we were robbed. My hand would constantly wander to the pocket it was sealed in, obsessively reassuring myself: Still there, still there.
But having a ring isn’t enough, no. You have to have a plan. I once dated a girl who said, “What’s the point of dating a musician if he doesn’t even write a song for me?” She had a point. What she didn’t have was that special something to inspire me to write her even a single note. Sad but true, it just wasn’t in the cards. This has neeeeeever been the case with Anna. I’ve dedicated so many pieces to her that I had to stop; too many times and it can look like you’re just too lazy (or cheap) to do anything else. But this was different – I had to accompany a moment like this with music. It was the chance of a lifetime and I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t.
The music was based on an old melody my wife’s family would whistle when it was time to wake the kids (“Aufstehen, aufstehen!”). Having woken up to my Dad hand-bugling a faux-military call-to-arms too many times, I can’t stomach the morning whistle, so Anna and I just use it as a way to say “I’m over here” when we’re trying to find each other in public.
I’d been piecing the music together for ages, recording parts here and there during larger recording sessions, meeting up in secret with musician friends to track some parts, even calling in favors to have people record parts remotely when we were in different countries. I’d recorded myself and others in Chicago, Lisbon and even Munich. Chicago was with a chamber group of strings, vibes, harp and piano; Lisbon was found sounds and synths; and Munich was a 96-piece youth choir.
Most of these I fit in during bigger sessions or recorded with a field recorder in a random living room, but the choir came about because Regina Graf (she contributes flute/voice on previous Echolocation pieces) offered, out of the blue, to make a call and see if her school’s choir would record some of my music. Regina is Anna’s oldest friend and a great musician, so she was MORE than enthused to help make this proposal music happen. One call and it was set; the Oberstufenchor choir would record the next day in their auditorium. I was in Portugal so I couldn’t attend, but as you’ll see, they sounded amazing anyway.
Enjoy, and I hope you consider supporting this and future music of mine. Thanks for reading.
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GALLERY
