[GUITAR MUSIC] POPS WALKER: When the sun comes up
It lights a fire on those red and orange and yellow trees.
We call it fire on the mountain.
There are different types of beauty.
But the Blue Ridge… Well.
How many songs have been written about it, how many people have written books about it and stories about it.
It’s a place to go and get in touch with your muse.
[NATURAL SOUNDS]
[GUITAR AND HUMMING]
KIPYN MARTIN: Communicating a message in a song
for me personally, comes really from the deepest place I know how to express from.
And I can access that when I listen to what nature has to say.
KIPYN SINGING: Held the heaaaaaaart of a night bird.
KIPYN SINGING: Swore she sang my song.
KIPYN MARTIN: When I come away from having gone out and written in the Wilderness,
and have the best song I have ever written, each time it just keeps getting better.
[WHISTLING]
POPS WALKER: Music is out there in the ether.
You just have to get yourself into a state of mind where you welcome those ideas, those musical ideas.
[GUITAR]
POPS WALKER: See the sky and the mountains. See the light ridge over there of clouds.
It is so vast and it made me aware of how small I am.
And so some lyrics started popping into my head.
Let me sing a song of the Blue Ridge sky.
She waters up—No excuse me.
She warms up my heart and waters up my eyes. She’s a thing of her own. She makes me feel all alone and so small.
POPS SINGING: Let me sing a song of the Blue Ridge sky.
She steals away my heart, waters up my eyes.
She’s a thing of her own. She makes me feel all alone, so small.
[NATURAL SOUND: WIND & BIRDS]
KIPYN MARTIN: To me, half of being a good musician is being a listener.
And to just keep listening.
[NATURAL FOREST SOUNDS]
[GUITAR MUSIC]
KIPYN MARTIN: There is a crispness to the wind.
Literally, there is a lot more treble in the sound.
Every so often a leaf will fall and of course create its own little percussion.
POPS SINGING: She blows that way.
POPS SINGING: The wind’s shifting. [GUITAR]
KIPYN MARTIN: Sometimes lots of leaves are falling.
Creates a natural little crescendo on the ground.
POPS SINGING: Now the wind’s almost gone.
KIPYN MARTIN: Because it’s so vast and because it’s so serene, the Wilderness is just such an anchor for creativity.
POPS WALKER: Sometimes just out of the blue a melody will reach in and somehow find your brain.
[RUSHING WATER]
KIPYN MARTIN: There’s a message in the water.
[LOUDER RUSHING WATER]
KIPYN MARTIN: That’s water that’s falling. I can hear the
turbulence where the rocks catch the falling water and so
I may compose a melody that falls and does something interesting at the bottom.
[GUITAR]
KIPYN MARTIN: Ahh. This is more interesting. So…
KIPYN MARTIN: So it kind of…
KIPYN MARTIN: So do you get the imagery of the falling and then the action.
This is, this is all kind of just evolving here.
KIPYN SINGING: Let me faaaa-aaaa-aaaa-all.
Let me faaaa-aaaa-aaaa-all.
Something like that.
KIPYN SINGING: Let me faaaa-aaaa-aaaa-all.
Like water to the rocks below.
I don’t know. That’s about as far as I feel like I can go right now
but we’re totally writing a song write now. Like this is so cool!
[GUITAR MUSIC]
KIPYN MARTIN: The purest music is in the air and in nature.
My name’s Kipyn Martin and I’m a Shenandoah Valley musician.
POPS WALKER: Life is moving fast out there.
But when you come out to the woods, you get freed up from that.
I’m Pop’s Walker.
I’m a husband. A retired soldier.
A musician.
[GUITAR PLUCKING]
[WIND & NIGHT SOUNDS]