SCP #49: The Café And The Fly

Written & performed 26th February 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. Composed by Erica Bramham as part of the Song-Chain Project. The Song-Chain Project is a year-long creative mission that commences January 9 2017 and will run until January 9 2018. Each day for 365 days a new piece of music will be written, recorded and posted online, and the process documented. For more information visit ericabramham.com/songchain-project

This piece marks the end of week seven.  At some point I stopped actively counting the days as they click past, so realising I've been at this for seven weeks is a bit of a shock.  By the end of next week I'll have finished my third month, and one whole season of songs.  These daily videos are not just a record of my creative output, but also a record of a year in my life going by, which is quite nice.  We are coming to the end of Melbourne summer, so as the days become shorter and cooler I am sure my songs will adapt to the new season just as much as my wardrobe will.  Despite fluctuations in energy and enthusiasm for the project my body and mind show no signs of quitting, so I really hope I can make through all four seasons of songs.

This piece started with the word café from the previous day's song, and I took the notes that appeared in the main melodic hook of that piece, transposed them into a new key and rearranged their order.  These notes form a kind of scaffolding around which the improvised performance of the text can be built.  Sonically I tried to represent the droning of a fly and a fluorescent light in the accompaniment.

For the text, I conducted three 90 second writing exercises around the café theme, with each new exercise following on from where the previous one ended.  A kind of mini song-chain within the larger song-chain that led me to imagine watching someone swallow a fly while they were breaking up with you.