I’ll perform some historical musical oddities, drawn from my upcoming book Music from Elsewhere, at the symposium at Lily Dale, NY, July 27-29. The conference is organized by Shannon Taggart, and includes presentations on art, the paranormal, and the history of Spiritualism by Phil Ford, J. F. Martel, Amy Hale, Emily Hanger, Charles and Penelope Emmons, Allison C. Meier, Michele Takei, Michael W. Home, Steven Intermill, Maria Molteni, Gillian Matini, and Vivienne Roberts. Shannon will also talk about her book of photographs of Lily Dale, Séance, which I urge you to buy and admire.
I’ll be appearing on the 28th; the official description is:
Music from Elsewhere (Strange Attractor Press 2024) collects music attributed to non-human inspiration—tunes from fairies, trolls, trows, angels, spirits, and aliens—as well as examples of musical ciphers, imaginary music, and speculative music: categories that often combine and overlap in unpredictable ways. In this presentation, composer/performer Doug Skinner plays some of the pieces from his archive and tells the stories behind them, including channeled music by the Shaker community, the Fox sisters, and the “musical medium” Rosemary Brown.
And you can find more info on Shannon’s website.
POSTSCRIPT: For the curious, these are the pieces I performed:
“The Lullaby of the Fairy-Woman” (a fairy lullaby from the MacLeod clan on the Isle of Skye)
“Regina Cæli Lætare” (Gregorian chant attributed to angels)
“L’Ange et l’enfant” (a song by Chrétien Urhan, dictated by a discarnate voice, 1835)
“Anya Ray” (a song in the alien language Solexmar, channeled by Bernard Byron, 1962)
“Port na bPucai” (an Irish tune attributed to spirits, thought now to be whale song)
Music from An Adventure (a scrap of music heard in a time slip by Eleanor Jourdain, 1902)
“Mother Ann’s Song” (a Shaker song channeled by “O. W.,” 1844)
“From the Moon” (a Shaker song channeled by “one of the sisters in Groveland,” 1838)
“Disappointment” (a piano piece by Rosemary Brown, channeling Robert Schumann, 1980)
“The Haunted Ground” (a song by the Fox sisters, received by table rapping, 1851)
ANOTHER POSTSCRIPT: And here we are…
2 responses so far ↓
1 Marsh // Aug 15, 2023 at 11:37 am
Just yesterday my wife asked me, “How do people write songs?” Having had some humble experience at songcrafting myself, the method seems just as mysterious to the writer at times, especially when the song just comes pouring out. A form of mediumship, perhaps, or channeling. Tapping into the Muse, as they say. I’d like to have been at Lily Dale for your presentation. Maybe next year if you’re there again.
2 Doug // Aug 16, 2023 at 2:33 pm
There are many ways of writing music! Channeled music interests me because it was supposedly not written by the pesky human ego. Of course, inevitably some seems to come from lies, hoaxes, animal sounds, and other sources. If you’ve never visited Lily Dale, you should: it’s a strange little piece of American history.
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