Posts in Song-Chain Project
SCP #121: A Cool Ring Beneath My Eyebrow
SCP #121: A Cool Ring Beneath My Eyebrow

I am not top of this project at the moment.  I am chasing it, and, like a Will-'O-The-Wisp, when I run for it it retreats and I can never catch it up.  This was meant to be Tuesday's piece, but I didn't manage to get anything done that day and ended up a song behind.  I caught up on Wednesday, but then I spent Thursday editing this podcast episode in preparation for my gig with Lucy Roleff on Monday night, missed Thursday's song, and had to catch up again on Friday.  There's a fine line between allowing myself to take a day off and catch up the next day when I really need to, and taking the day off and catching up the next day just because I can.  I need to find the balance between the two.

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Song-Chain Project, Free Improvisations, AnatomyErica Bramhamvoice, improvisation, free improvisation, loop pedal
SCP #118: Your Shape Like Coloured Glass
SCP #118: Your Shape Like Coloured Glass

About a week before I started my music degree I met someone at a party who had studied a similar degree overseas.  He told me to just do the first year, learn the essentials, and then quit.  This is what he and his friends had done, and he said they were more successful and making "better" music than the people who stuck it out until the end.  In his opinion everyone who finished the degree was brainwashed by the jazz education, and the music they were making was either boring, complicated or weird.

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Song-Chain Project, Light & Shadow, The Warm Side Of Love, Both Sides Of LoveErica Bramhamvoice, guitar, folk song, music study, self-criticism, confidence
SCP #113: In The Dark
SCP #113: In The Dark

Most of the linguistic connections to vista focus on light, and this piece explores the opposite, continuing the same camera angle as the previous day.  A quick improvisation taking advantage of the background noise in my apartment.  I have a new mysterious British neighbour, and ever evening he speaks on the phone in our building's stairwell.  Yet I've never managed to actually see him, only heard his voice amplified by the shape of the stairwell.  Perhaps he is a phantom?

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Song-Chain Project, Free Improvisations, Domestic Songs, Night Songs, Light & Shadow, Abstractions & ExperimentErica Bramhamvoice, improvisation, spoken word
SCP #112: Envy
SCP #112: Envy

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.

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Song-Chain Project, Abstractions & Experiment, Wishing & Wondering, Free ImprovisationsErica Bramhamvoice, spoken word, improvisation, poetry, emotions
SCP #111: The Autumn Scuffle
SCP #111: The Autumn Scuffle

I had a little songwriting energy back, so I took the original Scuffle text and used that as the starting point for this piece.  I kept the spirit of the previous video's randomness by improvising the melody and piano part. And by improvising on piano I mean randomly hitting white keys without much consideration for what I was playing. Perhaps I shouldn't have admitted that...

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Song-Chain Project, Free Improvisations, City Songs, Flora, Anatomy, Coffee, Autumn SongsErica Bramhamvoice, piano, improvisation, free improvisation
SCP #107: Little White Embroidered Eyebrows
SCP #107: Little White Embroidered Eyebrows

My theme from the previous song was swell.  I did some word fishing from the book I'm reading at the moment (The Master and Margarita in case you're interested), picking the first word on random pages starting with each letter of the word swell.  I did this a couple of times and then mixed up the results, and the phrase little white embroidered eyebrows was the one that resonated.  I turned that line into this song about a childhood doll.

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Song-Chain Project, Light & Shadow, Domestic SongsErica Bramhamword games, writing exercises, lyric writing, toys, childhood
SCP #106: The Bite Of Your Love
SCP #106: The Bite Of Your Love

A proper update on this project is well overdue.  I think I have quite seriously contemplated giving up every day for the past couple of weeks.  I've been trying to put my finger on what the real issue is, and it seems to be a number of things compounding.  The most perplexing problem seems to be a loss of confidence in myself.  I have managed to make over 100 pieces of music in as many days, and many of them I'm really proud of, yet I have lost faith in my ability to continue.  What if I've exhausted all I had in me?  What if I've just proved my mediocrity 100 times over?  What if I just repeat the same ideas for the next 100 and become a broken record?  These fears are ridiculous, but I'm finding it hard to switch them off.

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Song-Chain Project, Both Sides Of Love, The Warm Side Of LoveErica Bramhamvoice, guitar, insects, freelance, Song-Chain Project, challenges, self-criticism, negativity
SCP #103: Spider (II)
SCP #103: Spider (II)

The second in my series of spider-themed improvisations.  I have been working on a series of performance pieces for this opera, which is debuting on Thursday, so most of my music and lyrical creative energy over the past week has gone into that project.  I have been indulging my cinematographic creativity as part of this project instead.

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Song-Chain Project, Abstractions & Experiment, Fauna, Free ImprovisationsErica Bramhamvoice, spoken word, improvisation, fauna, insects