
Blog.
SCP #143: Forest Running
This one is connected to the previous piece through light-play. The text came from some exercises I did with one of my students, we were doing some timed writing exercises around the theme forest.
SCP #128: The Flat Of Your Hand On My Shoulder Blade
After my three improvised experiments using the glove mind map I used it for a little sung piece too.
SCP #100: A Hair Drawn Through
I reached 100, though only just. This was some rejected text from number 99, what I lacked in creative songwriting energy I made up for in creative visuals.
SCP #96: A Whiter, Milkier Layer
Hailstones was my starting prompt, but this was just a small snippet of text from some writing exercises that went on to inform the next day's song.
SCP #85: Walnuts And Chestnuts
I spent yesterday afternoon trying to sort out a pedal/instrument setup for my gig this Thursday night with Joyce Prescher and Kerryn Fields. While everything was plugged in I recorded this short little vocal piece, continuing with the autumnal theme of the previous piece. I love to cook, and I love the change in produce each new season brings. Autumn is probably my favourite time of year, and as the song says, I have been waiting for walnuts and chestnuts.
SCP #84: Chasing The Leaves
Here's last night's piece, just a little acapella improvisation. My starting prompt for this one was gumboots and the text is the result of a 90 second writing exercise. As an aside, it's finally jumper weather in Melbourne, which makes me really happy. I love this time of year.
SCP #81: Morning Stirs
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.
SCP #79: What Hides In A Whisper
Tuesday's piece, with a whisper following on from the hush of a lullaby.
SCP #76: Colours Under Your Skin
Saturday's piece, a very quick improvisation before I took the night off. Just one take with both the text and melody improvised in the moment.
SCP #73: Inkstain
This one is Wednesday's, my starting point was ink from the previous day's piece. I had very little time to spare, so it's just a quick improvisation on a small lyrical idea. I borrowed a little bit of descending whole tone melody from the previous day's piece too.
SCP #58: It, That Once Was Sweet For Him
This piece is not what I was originally working on yesterday. I had planned out a whole story-song and done lots of timed writing exercises to generate material to work with, but by the time I got that far it was after 11pm and I was exhausted. I looked up from my piano and into the mirror and my eyes were red and watery, so instead of pushing through I changed tact and did something much simpler.