SCP #13: Clocks, Coffee

I'm writing this post a day late, although I did stick to my project rules and write and record this piece yesterday.  I got it done right before I drove out to the beautiful Yarra Valley to play at a Bright Young Music wedding, and it definitely challenged my time management.  I decided that the gig preparation took precedence, and that I would get all of that done first and use whatever remaining time I had left on this song, which was about half an hour.  If I didn't have this self-imposed daily deadline I wouldn't have completed it, as the day of a large gig always comes with heightened stress levels.  Of course the deadline is self-imposed, so I'd only be letting myself down if I took the day off, yet the public nature of this project means that I am also accountable to an audience.  

This brings me to one of the more uncomfortable parts of this project, which is managing the tension between public and private.  Sharing these works creates a desire to be accepted for them, and to be judged favourably because of them.  This in turn amplifies the voices of self-judgement that creep into the creative process.  While being able to critique yourself constructively is important to creative development, attaching your self-worth to your success or failure to create something "good" can be incredibly detrimental.  First ideas or attempts are rarely perfect, and often quite "bad" thanks to the experimentation involved.  If your inner judge is switched on too early in the process all your ideas could end up on the cutting room floor, unable to grow into something interesting or unexpected.

For this piece I built on the idea of a drone that features in In This Room, but I decided to make the melody the drone while the harmony shifted underneath.  For the text I took three words that have been constantly cropping up in my free writing exercises over the past week.  They are themes that have clearly been on my mind.  Clocks for the hyper-awareness of time I'm experiencing at the moment, coffee for the early starts after late nights, and hair because mine is in desperate need of a cut at the moment and is everywhere around my apartment.  Despite not being in any kind of mental space to create when I conceived and recorded this, there are definitely ideas in here that can be taken and expanded upon.