Seven years later
... unannounced concerts for nobody and everybody.
Psssst. I’m going to include a bunch of never before seen Musical Mountaineers videos as the imagery in this post — these videos haven’t been edited … they are just videos that I’ve filmed on my cell phone over the years, and I hope you enjoy them!
Dear Kula Diaries,
Seven years ago — on September 1st, 2017 — The Musical Mountaineers were born. We weren’t actually calling ourselves The Musical Mountaineers at that point — we were ‘just’ Rose and Anastasia… two women, with a dream of carrying our music into the mountains.
That first musical mountaineering trip felt like the perfect combination of exciting, ridiculous and daring — would we be able to haul our instruments up a mountain? Would anybody hear us? What would it feel like?
As we perched ourselves on a granite outcropping high in the Cascades, I looked at Rose wearing her maroon-colored gown… the dress she had worn for her senior college piano recital, as she looked back at me in my black, gown — one that I had purchased to wear as the violinist at a wedding many years before. “Are you ready?” I asked. “So ready,” she replied back.
An ‘A’ a was the very first note that I ever played in the wilderness. It is the first note of Jay Unger’s Ashokan Farewell. My violin’s D-string was slightly out of tune in the cool mountain air, but that moment wasn’t about perfect intonation. It was about something much more — something that, at the time, neither of us could possibly fathom.
The first Musical Mountaineers video that ever existed:
When Rose and I first shared our Musical Mountaineers videos, I don’t think that we were prepared for what happened next. Very quickly the internet seized the clips, and a few weeks later, we found ourselves hiking into the wilderness with a journalist named Diane Torre from King 5 who ended up receiving an Emmy that included the piece she did about The Musical Mountaineers.
On our YouTube channel, we have 162 individual videos that we’ve filmed in places from the North Cascades… to the Lost Coast with Backpacker Magazine and Merrell … to Benaroya Hall with the Washington’s National Parks Fund and the Washington Trails Association… to the lake in my own front yard. I cannot possibly begin to tally the amount of songs that we’ve played together outside — because these videos represent merely a fraction of the music we’ve created.
Over the past few years, we’ve heard stories from trauma nurses who have played our videos for their patients during painful procedures… and assisted living facilities that have shared the videos with their residents. We’ve performed for schools…at piano recitals… and we’ve hiked into the backcountry to record videos to dedicate to people who are important in our lives. We’ve even performed at two wilderness proposals and at several weddings… and we’ve schemed with friends to surprise unsuspecting hikers on their birthday.
One of our windy concerts — being filmed by Jordan Steele for King 5 news.
On September 1st of this past month, Rose and I decided to celebrate our 7 year anniversary by hiking to the spot where it all began — a secluded nook in the North Cascades… a gem of a place that exists as much in the imagination and heart as it does in the mountains.
I woke up at 2:15 am, and groggily waited for the ritual to begin. The ritual, of course, being the exchange of cat-inspired gifs via text message. This is the official Musical Mountaineers code that says, the adventure has begun.
The magic of The Musical Mountaineers is in the music — but it’s also in the spaces between the music. This is one of the things that I’ve learned in the last 7 years. The videos that we share — sometimes months apart from each other — are like punctuation marks in the ever rolling current of time. A reminder that we can continue to come back to our hearts, amidst all of life’s changes. When we first started Musical Mountaineering, I hadn’t even started Kula Cloth — I had left my job as a railroad police officer and told everybody that I was going to do something in, ‘the outdoor industry’, but I had no idea what that was actually going to be. As I floundered around — holding precariously to a dream of trying to make ‘something’ from ‘nothing’ — the Musical Mountaineers always seemed to remind me to keep my boots on the ground. To be here — right now. To remember that I didn’t need to become anything other than who I was. To trust that the universe, in some way, would show me the trail.
On our adventure a few weeks ago, Rose and I both laughed about the changes we’ve seen in our respective lives in the last 7 years. We are decidedly not the same people that we were 7 years ago… but, also, there is this unchanging, timeless essence that still exists — and I can hear that in our music. It is the formless beingness that lives within each of us — a voice that sings its love and gratitude to the entirety of life. It is a voice that says thank you, thank you for this day that includes all of us.
Every single time we go into the mountains there is the moment before we start playing — and then, there is music. Music that fills a space that is surrounded not by acoustic padding and theater seating — but by granite, and sky and larch trees and an occasional chirping pika. The wilderness absorbs the music — it drifts into the air, until it returns to the stillness from which it rose. And then, there is the moment after we play — no applause, just the quiet. It is a letting go — a shedding of who we think we should be … and a deep acceptance of who we are — it is a moment that includes everything.
When Rose and I first started Musical Mountaineering, we had great hopes of performing Beethoven Sonatas and Mozart Violin Concertos on our glorious backcountry stages, but we quickly discovered that there were certain factors in the wilderness that prevented this. Namely: wind, bugs, and cold fingers. As our time together evolved, we started to experiment with improvisation — simply allowing the moment to shape a new creation… a true symphony with the cosmos itself. We often start our Musical Mountaineers concerts this way — Rose begins with some chord progressions, and then — I close my eyes, place my fingers on the strings, and I see what happens.
While our musical chemistry is undeniable, Rose and I have very different musical skills. Rose, a professional piano teacher, is extremely knowledgeable about music theory and how and why certain chords work together. She works at length on chord progressions that will keep our improvisation new and interesting. I, on the other hand, learned to play the violin by ear — and I can’t quite articulate how I play what I play. The best way that I can describe it is that I hear the notes that I’m going to play in my mind… before I play them… and then I know where to put my fingers to get the sound that I’m searching for. I listen to Rose for different patterns and rhythms… and then, I try to create a sound that can weave itself into the experience. I’ve never met anybody else that could play music with me like I can with Rose — it’s like the musical version of being able to finish your best friend’s sentences. Without saying anything at all — we just know what comes next.
A very memorable moment on a frozen tarn:
Over the past few years, we’ve had the incredible opportunity to play for much larger live audiences, and our concerts tend to include a little bit of storytelling — because most people don’t believe us when we say that we carry the instruments into the backcountry. Even after they watch our videos, the most common question is, “How did you get up there? A helicopter?” And so, we usually say something like this:
We are Rose and Anastasia and we are The Musical Mountaineers. We hike with our instruments into the wilderness to play unannounced sunrise concerts for nobody.
The last bit — about playing concerts for nobody — always elicits a laugh, because … well… it is funny to imagine two women hauling instruments and formal gowns in the middle of the night for a concert with an audience of zero (or maybe just a few friends). And yet, the more I think about it — the more that I have realized that this sentence is only partially true. Yes, we are playing concerts for nobody … but we are also playing concerts for everybody. In the last 7 years of Musical Mountaineering, I cannot possibly comprehend the number of people who have listened to our music — either on YouTube or on our social media page or on podcasts. I can’t count the number of people who have attended our in person concerts. I don’t know how many people have listened to our Spotify album, Sunrise Serenades.
Rose and I have said this many times before, but it remains true: music and nature connect people. And, when you combine music and nature, it touches that formless place that connects all of us. Some people have different names for this place or feeling — but it doesn’t need to be named, because it is simply a thing that can be felt and known by each of us. There is a thread that you can pull in your heart and it will also tug on the threads of other hearts — and when we play our music in the wilderness, this is the thread that we pull on. It is the reason why I still — 7 years later — sit down to write about The Musical Mountaineers, and I find myself weeping with tears of intense and profound gratitude. It is the reason why, when I watch our videos, that tears stream down my face endlessly and I feel like I’m a part of something that exists far beyond the music.
As Rose and I have hiked and performed together over the past 7 years, we’ve had our share of Musical Mountaineering mishaps — like the time Rose accidentally forgot her gown … or the time that I almost ended up climbing Hidden Lake Peak wearing a pair of Crocs. Over time, I’ve noticed that each excursion feels more and more special — a cherished gem that is not carved out of the universe for the purpose of social media likes, but rather, for the purpose of becoming a true expression of gratitude for life itself. As time has passed, our lives have shifted and changed … and our concerts are not about those singular moments in time — but rather, a celebration of the time that has passed and the life experiences that we have lived between those moments. Some of these segments have been very difficult and challenging — but there is also so much joy and life and love and acceptance. As we step foot onto the granite and ready our hands and hearts to bring music into the world — we acknowledge and bow to the fullness of life itself. Each concert releases notes into the wilderness, but we also release something else — the secret fear that we are not loved… the secret fear that we have been forgotten. As we play in concert with the world around us, we remember what we have always known: we are loved and we are not alone.
Friends — thank you all so much for being here this week, and I hope that you will enjoy listening to the music and reading my words as much as I have enjoyed putting all of this together for you. The Musical Mountaineers are very special to me — and I will continue to share our story as life ebbs and flows. There is a music that lives within each and every one of us, and those stories are — of course — the most important to share.
Sending you all a lot of love today!
I have not heard the lovely ladies play on a mountaintop. Yet my admiration is complete for the music, the gowns and the determination to carry all of that gear to the heights.
However, I have heard them play in Benaroya Hall, in Seattle. The acoustics there are almost perfect, I think, although I am but a simple sea captain who can barely read or write, not an acoustics engineer. The sound is glorious, and the intensity of the evening can bring even the most hardened Master Chief Boatswains Mate to reluctant tears.
If the opportunity comes your way to hear the two of them, I urge you in the most seamanlike way to take it. If you are in a place in your life where you need a Strengthening Message, this could well be it.
Captain Joe
How marvelous that you have touched so many of us in such a meaningful way. And that tarn concert!