SCP #112: Envy

Written & performed 30th April 2017. 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

For the next small set of pieces I worked with the theme vista. To help the difficulties I've been having motivating myself to write I decided to implement some rigour to my process.  I adopted the pomodoro technique, and chunked my work into 25 minute blocks, both songwriting and all the other tasks I have on my plate at the moment.  I have literally been carrying a kitchen timer around the house with me so that I can set it when I get started on something.  This has made the last few days fairly manageable, and I have been able to maintain my focus for the short blocks of time.

I made my songwriting even more manageable by breaking each 25 minute block down into shorter exercises.  In my first 25 minute block I managed several five minute sessions of research, plus two three minute writing exercises   The etymological dictionary was particularly helpful for research, as the word vista has lots of interesting linguistic connections.  One of these was envy, which I used for one of my three minute writing exercises and condensed into this short improvisation.  I have been thinking a lot about this emotion recently, and how we are increasingly taunted by it through social media.  As a self-managed artist I rely on social media heavily for career development, so I can't just switch it off, but I can work on switching off the emotions it stirs up and just getting on with my work.