Sentia
single
Sentia
The structure here is the whole argument: four movements, each opening in its own key, all pulled home to F# minor for a coda that lands on “you are when / beginnings / begin.” The intro does something quietly ingenious, laying out each movement’s melody in advance so that when they return with variations you feel the recognition before you register it, the way a good sermon plants its ending in its opening line. The odd meter gives the whole thing a slow rocking gait, and the single repeated word “Sentia” works as a hinge, that intervallic rising vocal line lifting a little higher each time it comes around. Movement 2, with its “bow leans into the string” tension and the synth solo that follows, is the most focused stretch; movement 3 leans harder on Latin abstraction (“solutus, unfastened, unbound, wet clay”) and asks more patience of you before the distorted guitar arrives to break the spell. The last minute is the payoff worth waiting for: the heavy instrumentation falls away entirely, leaving an acoustic figure and layered harmonies to close the circle. Not a track you play in the background, and not every movement carries equal weight, but the craft in how it’s assembled rewards the room and the volume. A grower that opens up on the third listen.
Lyrics
[Instructions: this is long form composition. A long form tone poem in four movements using the chorus to connect the individual sections. Take your time, let the song breathe. [Intro] [acoustic guitar plays the melody of the first movement in the key of E] Sentia [lite drums join while synth plays the melody of the second movement in the key of A] Sentia [bass playing fifths joins while a cello plays the melody of the third movement in the key of G] Sentia [the quartet plays the melody of the coda in the key of F# minor] Sentia [movement 1] [based on the movement 1 melody introduced in the intro with variations] Be as the field after harvest not barren, but vacuus. The husks are gone, the noise is gone; what remains is fertile waiting. Do not fear this clearing. The vessel serves what it holds open; a sky is vast because it is clear. Emptiness is not absence it is readiness. [Chorus] [an intervallic rising vocal line, slow and deliberate] Sentia Sentia [Solo | Clean Electric guitar] [Give the listener time to ponder] [movement 2] [based on the movement 2 melody introduced in the intro with variations] Now feel the moment tighten. Lean into the now as the bow leans into the string. Your awareness is not a wandering eye, but attentus a single, humming line of light. You are the hunter and the mountain, perfectly poised, stretched toward the roiling chasm. And at the peak of presence, let the knot undo itself. [Chorus] [an intervallic rising vocal line, slow and deliberate] Sentia Sentia [Solo | synth] [Give the listener time to ponder] [Movement 3] [based on the movement 3 melody introduced in the intro with variations] You are not the archer; you are not the arrow. You are not the story; they are spaces you move through. Be solutus unfastened, unbound, wet clay. Like a liminal strand at the water’s edge, leave names behind. You do not disappear; you simply stop ending where your skin begins. Empty. Attentive. Free. [Chorus] [an intervallic rising vocal line, slow and deliberate] Sentia Sentia [Solo | Distorted Electric guitar] [Give the listener time to ponder] [Coda] [based on the coda melody introduced in the intro with variations] Sentia you are not less; you are when beginnings begin [Solo | Synth] [Weaving lines of guitar and synth fade out]
Credits
Songwriter: Michael Anthony Rose