Published 2025-08-05. Last modified 2025-08-28.
songs collection.
© An original composition by Mike Slinn. All rights reserved.
These songs were recorded in the key of G.
About This Song
This recording was made in a beautiful old church down the street from where I live in Montréal, Québec, Canada. I played the pan flute. The church has great acoustics, and the caretakers who asked me to play inside were most gracious.
I do not follow any religious tradition; I merely seek out venues with good acoustics.
Music Videos
Part 1: I started the recording session by playing an extemporaneous morning meditation. The video begins with me walking towards the church, down the same alley that Shari Blaukopf painted the church from in her painting, shown below.
Part 2 contains two songs, back to back: "Papel de plata" (a traditional Quechua song), and "Soy Un Zampoñista" (which I wrote.) The Quechua are an indigenous group native to the Andes mountains. Aldo Arreya, the Quechua who taught me how to play pan flute, also taught me this song. Zampoña is the Spanish word for the Andean pan flute, and a zampoñista is someone who plays that instrument. The Quechua name for the instrument is antara, while the indiginous Aymara people call the instrument a siku.
Part 3 is very quiet and peaceful. The video ends with me sitting on a bench in the churchyard, then walking away while playing pan flute. Pan flute is an instrument meant to be played while walking.
Audio Recordings
2025-08-21
These audio recordings were used in the music videos above. Some background noise reduction was applied, then the audio recordings were mastered.
Part 1 — extemporaneous morning meditation:
st-vincent-ferrier_part-1_2025-08-23.mp3Part 2: "Papel de Plata" and "Soy Un Zampoñista".
st-vincent-ferrier_part-2_2025-08-23.mp3We added a second audio track to the first song in the above recording, "Papel de Plata". For this track, Raven recorded me in the studio just breathing as if I was playing a pan flute. When the recording was mastered, the breath sounds were mixed at a low level so they were subliminal.
st-vincent-ferrier_part-2_breathing-noise_2025-08-23.mp3Part 3: This recording is very quiet and peaceful:
st-vincent-ferrier_part-3_2025-08-23.mp32025-08-05
This is an older experimental recording, taken with my cell phone. The experience of recording this suggested to me that this project was worth doing better.
st-vincent-ferrier_2025-08-05.mp3Dedication
This music is dedicated to the parishioners of the church.
Thanks to two other members of the World Peace Musical Collective:
- Raven Nostra for live sound engineering, recording, and post-production.
- Chaim Yoel for video recording and editing.
Painting
The following painting of St. Vincent Ferrier Church was created by Shari Blaukopf.
