The Nocturne Letters: a selection
In our reading period for Issue III: Nocturne, we received so many gorgeous notes along with your even more gorgeous submissions. These letters showcased your overflowing love for melody, and we found such joy in knowing that we had stumbled upon souls who adored song just as much as we do. Here, then, is a smattering of our favourite love notes from all of our Issue III submissions. Thank you for your kindness and support, dear songbirds.
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Music means everything to me, honestly. I cannot create without music. I cannot breathe without music. It's married to art in so many ways that it's impossible to separate.
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Music has played a vital part in my life since at least my days in kindergarten.
I teach in the Communications department at my local community college and one adage which is taught in each of our courses is "we live in communication," akin to how a fish lives in water.
Music is a form of communication, of course, so we all live in music...
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I firmly believe that all art is nothing more than fermented childhood.
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Nocturne sounds fascinating. Nighttime and its different melodies have always enticed me, and churning it into a poem was a lot of fun. Half Mystic, to me, is a careful blend of art and writing, a work that saves the fire of music, but also adds spins and experimental ideas along with it. I enjoy the works of the contributors - their words taste delightfully like velvet threads, lavender buds, and all things abstract.
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The other day my baby brother was laughing and laughing at something I don't even remember now. Just full out guffawing, hitting his little fists on the table, all his gums without teeth showing. My depression (the biggest nocturne in my life) was really bad that day, but when I heard him laughing I couldn't help but join in. If that's not music, I don't know what is.
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I found new things to love in the darkness, beautiful and strange things I'd never imagined I would see. My darkness stopped scaring me when I let it sing. It stopped trying to kill me when I stopped trying to kill it...
I think nocturne is about finding song through the act of moving through the night, about making melodies out of the darkest parts of your soul.
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Often, nighttime has been my most productive time. Perhaps its silence allows the words within me to surface more easily. Many of them have their own tune; some of them their own soundtrack. And some are music themselves, intertwined with streaks of colour...
Nocturne. Nighttime. A quietness. It makes me think of my favourite singer’s words, Marko Saaresto from the Finnish band Poets of the Fall: "without silence, there can be no music".
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The night fascinates me, especially at that moment just after after the music "fades to black", as your team puts it so beautifully. It's then when I think the most tender, and maybe even the most real, song emerges. I think of nocturne as the in-between time of night when I'm halfway between awake and asleep or shadow and light, and the song happens at the edge of my vision where I probably won't remember it in the morning. That doesn't mean it's not real, though. If there's one thing I'm learning from Half Mystic and from the darkness, it's that the music is always, always real.
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I believe music can be found in things other than sound: in a gesture, the color of the sky, a smile. But possibly I am confounding music with beauty.
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Half Mystic’s third issue, nocturne, is available for preorder now. Dropping on June 21st, the nocturne issue is a stunning compilation of art, lyrics, and writing in celebration of music in all of its forms. It showcases the the midnight drive – the shadow dance – the things leftover when the music fades to black… and is not to be missed.