I have been severely procrastinating this project, as this and the next few videos will show. From a series of Yesterday to a series of Today.
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Here's my bathroom. I only have to film one in the toilet and I will have all rooms in my flat covered.
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Beatles included.
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This one was recorded at about 4:30am, after waking up to a lot of very noisy thoughts.
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A chord taken from The Cause Of Your Calluses, and my clock as a metronome. I only recorded one take: the lyrics and melody were improvised, and I treated the performance like a meditation.
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I did my best to perform to the rhythm of my knitting. It's a lace pattern, and slightly fiddly, which makes this piece nicely wonky.
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A little video to mark my break. I didn't include today, which I guess means I'd better get writing.
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Here's a proper song, rather than me making light fun of my irritation at this project. I started with nothing as a theme, and used the word to generate some melodic ideas. The lyrics come from the word "thing", and the themes of "stretch of time" and "thingamajig" suggested by the etymological dictionary. My clock theme of early in this project makes a reappearance.
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This piece follows on from the previous day's Whisper mind map, and the word ear lobe that appeared on it. I did a three minute writing exercise using that prompt, and then took the nouns, verbs and adjectives from the result and paired them. Morning stirs and shake off the lamp light were the two pairs that prompted this piece. I tried to set the text to music without much success, so instead of getting frustrated I let myself record it as a spoken word piece.
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The calendar says autumn but the weather says summer, summer, summer. Indeed. It was over 30 degrees and humid yesterday in Melbourne, so I wrote about that. I feel like a broken record complaining about the weather, but I've never really had to really push through creative work in uncomfortable environments before. In the past I would have just taken a break for the day and gone to find somewhere cool to hang out, but there are songs to be written, so I might as well mine the discomfort for ideas.
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Yesterday I was going through my videos of the past few weeks, putting them onto a USB to give to my partner's parents, and it forced me to sit back and evaluate just how productive I've been. There are a few songs I've written that have stuck in my consciousness for days or weeks after I'm done recording them, however most get forgotten as I turn my mind to the next day's work. Going back through them made me proud of not only the sheer quantity of my output, but also the quality of many of the ideas. It is not helpful to dwell on either the successes or failures of this project, however a look back through my work has given me a boost of confidence that will hopefully help me push through the dark and difficult patches that are becoming more and more frequent.
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If it weren't for the very public nature of this project I think I would have pulled the plug on it by now. Or at least taken a break. But I know from experience that if I take a break at something challenging it can be really difficult to start up again. Especially now, when the rest of my life seems to be getting in the way, if I stopped now I'd probably never find the "right time" to start back up again.
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I concluded yesterday's blog post by saying that I would let interest and enjoyment be my guide, and I think that's something that deserves a little exploration. It's not quite as simple as just doing what you are enjoying, especially if you want to develop your skills at something. What is good for you may not necessarily be enjoyable, and it is easy to become bored or to feel like your practice is stagnating if you don't work outside of your comfort zone every now and then.
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Today marks the end of week two, and I'm feeling awfully burnt out already. I'm mentally, physically and vocally exhausted from a six hour gig yesterday, and all I wanted today was to have a day off. I have to be kind to myself though. This project was never going to be easy, and will ebb and flow with my mental and physical energy levels, and it's something I have to learn to work with.
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