FFFS

When my brothers and I were growing up, we often wondered what the letters FFFS stood for. Our Mom would tease us when we tried to guess – “I can never tell you what it means” she would say using ASL – “it’s a secret club only for deaf women” she would add. If we pressed her with guesses, she would always reply “Fresh Fish For Sale”, that’s what it means”. But her smile let us know what we already knew inside - that wasn’t it at all – especially since all the crafts that were made as part of the gatherings – placemats, knittings, toaster covers…and all the symbols used in cards and mailings for the group were the images of frogs.

I don’t think it was related to the FFFS, but somehow growing up I had always been intrigued by frogs – I remember as a young boy my friends and I would walk to the nearby golf course which had a few ponds – and in the spring we would catch tadpoles in those ponds and bring them home, put them in water and build cages that had water and rocks – and watch the amazing transformation from tadpole to frog – we would then take the frogs back to the pond and release them. Young budding naturalists we were in the making.

Earlier this year in March we met some friends at a local food co-op and then we visited a nearby nature center - which had a sign pointing to a path which led to a vernal pond. When we got to the pond it was teeming with frogs – and the sounds that they made were amazing. I recorded them on my phone and then started playing with the sounds in my home recording studio – and I started to imagine what a musical composition called Frog “Symphony” would sound like.

However, when I started thinking about that title, I began to feel the imposter syndrome sneaking in – who was I, an “untrained” composer, to think that I could write a “symphony”, especially when I realized that I didn’t even really know what a symphonic composition was. But at the same time my earliest memories of music were classical – the day in kindergarten when our teacher handed out paper and art supplies and asked us to listen to some classical music and create whatever came to mind. It’s the only kindergarten day that I remember. And then in the third grade I joined the elementary school orchestra playing trumpet – why trumpet - I don’t exactly remember but probably because my friend Howard’s Dad had an old trumpet that I could borrow for a while. Howard was playing clarinet in the orchestra so sure, why not. And I did study with a classical composition teacher during my later musical journeys – but don’t really remember much.

So I did some research and began to dissect the terms “symphony” and “orchestra”… But in the end, for me, it’s all really about sound exploration– layering sounds against each other from various sources to create auditory images and feelings - having fun with it.