Before I was interrupted with Migraine+Hives I had been working with the theme between, which I think came from piece #136.  I never managed to work my research/writing up into a song, so I used that text for a series of improvisations.  This is the first.

Where do I start?  It has only been three weeks since I posted my last song, but it feels like months.  I have been putting this update off, and like any good procrastination the longer you keep it up it the harder it becomes to start again...

Part III.

Part II.

So far in this project I haven't really been sick, but last week I crossed that hurdle.  Since just before Easter I have been experiencing a mysterious case of hives every time I exercise.  I have been pretty sedentary since they started, which is an easy habit to fall into when you're locked in a practice / teaching room all day with your instruments.  In a burst of inspiration to get active I went out for a jog, and came home an allergic mess.  As well as hives covering my entire body, my lips and tongue had swelled up, so I went to the emergency room in case of anaphylactic shock.  

This is yesterday's song.  I didn't spend ages on it, but I did engage myself fully in the research, writing and recording process, which I must admit I haven't been doing recently.  I'm perhaps regaining control over the project, and the other parts of my life too, and it feels very nice.

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.

A continuation from the previous day's wish. What would happen if I didn't write a song? Nothing, nothing at all.  And nothing would happen if I wrote a bad one either, as this proves.  I randomly bashed at the piano, and still lived to see another day.

This one is something of a merrythought, and definitely a wish I would have made if I'd cooked a roast chicken and won the wish-end of the wishbone.

From the previous day's gelatin to wishbone, dug out of a hot roast chicken.  In my bone-related research I discovered that the wishbone used to be called a "merrythought", which is kind of nice.

Another spoken piece inspired by bones, and office drudgery.

A little spoken word piece based, using bones as a starting prompt.  I've just realised now that "Funny Bones" might have been a catchier title, but that's OK, I can always change it later on.

Moving on from my glove mind map, this piece came out of a songwriting exercise I did with one of my young students in her lesson.  I had her make a mind map starting with the theme "forest", and then make pairs of words from the map.  We each chose a different word pair to use as a prompt for a three-minute writing exercise, and mine was "singing night".  Here's the result of my own three-minute exercise, which became the chorussy part of this rollicking drinking song.

After my three improvised experiments using the glove mind map I used it for a little sung piece too.

The third of my glove mind map improvisation experiments.

The second of my glove mind map improvisation experiments.

This is the first in a series of three experiments with a mind map for the theme glove.  The mind map became a kind of graphic score, with a random starting point chosen and then the lyrics improvised in performance using parts of the mind map as prompts.  This is similar to the way my brain works when I sit down to do a timed writing exercise, but I find it much easier to translate my thoughts to pen and paper rather than speech.  This exercise was an interesting way to bypass the pen and go straight to my voice.  I found it quite challenging, but resisted the urge to record second takes of any of the improvisations.

In my chat with Lucy Roleff for Mind Over Myth we talked about being addicted to newness. When I was young my favourite Barbie doll was always the newest one I'd acquired.  I adored that newest doll, dressed it in all the best outfits, devoted hours to creating stories and scenes for it to play in, and then discarded it on the next birthday or Christmas when a new one arrived to take its place.  

In my attempt to catch up I allowed myself to just play around with the previous day's video for this one.

Another spontaneous improvisation, taking the theme ring from the previous piece.