Song 70, and the completion of week 10 of this project. I am desperately in need of a quiet evening, so I was kind to myself and kept this one as quick as possible. A 90 second writing exercise and a free improvisation while the sun slipped down on this hot, Autumn evening. Now I'm going to make spaghetti carbonara with some "Bulgarian pancetta, the best kind!" from the gruff Eastern European deli-man, and try to finish knitting the collar of a jumper that has been languishing on my table for several weeks now.
So goodbye from week 10, see you all tomorrow for week 11.
This project is as much about practicing performing as it is practicing composing. I was really struggling to get through a successful take of this one last night. I kept making small mistakes, and then rather than letting them go they were growing in my mind, forming distractions, and leading to larger mistakes and abandoned takes. The clock was edging toward midnight when I finally had a take I was happy with. I'm still learning ways to manage all the mental stuff that goes along with performing, particularly performing for recording, which I find more difficult than performing live. This project is definitely helping, although it's slightly stressful putting these raw recordings out into the public space where they can potentially exist forever.
For this piece I took the theme coffee from the previous day and in some internet wanderings came across Van Gogh's Café Terrace At Night, which I used to inspire this piece. I focussed on the bright and dark areas of the painting and did a three-minute writing exercise inspired by each. I then wove the result of the two exercises into this piece using minimal additional text. I really enjoyed this process, as the painting provided a wonderful source of inspiration. There was so much to tease out of it, and I think I might have to start a series of these pieces inspired by impressionist art.
Yesterday I had to go into one of those huge city office towers to drop off some documents. It was the kind with a concierge in the lobby to direct you to the correct floor, and a stream of suits, motorcycle couriers and cycling lycra coming and going through the glass lifts. I spent a large chunk of my twenties quite unhappy in office buildings like this, and whenever I end up back inside one I feel very uncomfortable as the negative memories come flooding back in.
Yesterday's song. I took the word spine from the previous day's piece and used that as the starting point for some writing exercises. I did some image searching of X-Rays for inspiration, which are strangely beautiful to look at. I took the notes from my favourite chord from the previous day's piece and used them as a basis for the harmony of this improvisation.
Yesterday I was going through my videos of the past few weeks, putting them onto a USB to give to my partner's parents, and it forced me to sit back and evaluate just how productive I've been. There are a few songs I've written that have stuck in my consciousness for days or weeks after I'm done recording them, however most get forgotten as I turn my mind to the next day's work. Going back through them made me proud of not only the sheer quantity of my output, but also the quality of many of the ideas. It is not helpful to dwell on either the successes or failures of this project, however a look back through my work has given me a boost of confidence that will hopefully help me push through the dark and difficult patches that are becoming more and more frequent.
If it weren't for the very public nature of this project I think I would have pulled the plug on it by now. Or at least taken a break. But I know from experience that if I take a break at something challenging it can be really difficult to start up again. Especially now, when the rest of my life seems to be getting in the way, if I stopped now I'd probably never find the "right time" to start back up again.
Sunday's song, continuing with the moon theme. The rhythm and harmony were pulled from serial composition using the word moon, and the unusual 9/8 ostinato took a lot of practice to sing over. I'm not going to write any more about this one, as I need to take some time to relax before starting today's song, and it's supposed to be a public holiday today in Melbourne.
Last week was challenging, as I never felt like I caught up from the previous weekend. I was generally exhausted all week, and by Saturday I knew I'd make myself sick if I didn't get a decent night's sleep. So although I wrote this one on Saturday, I decided to put off the recording until Sunday morning and make the most of an early night. Unfortunately that was interrupted by an incident that woke my whole apartment building at 4am, and I didn't manage to get back to sleep after that. I spent the rest of Sunday feeling pretty horrendous, trying to get through both recording Saturday's song and writing and recording Sunday's.
I live in Melbourne's southern suburbs, and for those unfamiliar with our city there is a strange North vs South divide that sees people hating on residents on the other side of the river to themselves. I have lived on both sides, and while I was a North-sider I spent a lot of time thinking the South was inferior. But then I moved across town and realised that I much preferred the South, and I barely think about the North at all, except when I have to travel over there to play a gig (which I'm doing tomorrow). Because while I prefer to live South of the river Melbourne's live music scene is concentrated in the North.
Two months of songs down, and it took me all this time to do something on ukulele. I have never really enjoyed playing uke, as I find it uncomfortable to hold, and just use it for teaching. But yesterday I finally went and got a strap button installed, and it made such a difference. While I was studying at the VCA Jo Lawry gave a master class, and spoke about the advantages of writing songs on an unfamiliar instrument. For her it was guitar, and she enjoyed just putting her fingers onto the instrument and letting sounds guide her. The ukulele plays a similar role for me, as I find its tuning very foreign. This song came about from simply putting my fingers in random places on the instrument and letting my ear be my guide.
One of the difficulties with this project is that each day's work is brand new. Starting from a seed, a new piece of music must be realised in whatever time I have available that day. This means that more complicated ideas that need some time to workshop are not really compatible with the way I'm working right now. There is the possibility of writing a song in sections, adding or revising sections with each new day's work, and this would be within the rules I've set myself. So far, however, I haven't worked like this, as I'm finding myself excited by the possibility of doing something new each day. I'm only 16% of my way through the project, so perhaps that will change as I find myself running out of ideas that can be executed in a day.
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.
When I started this project back in January I was still sailing along on the time-rich bliss of summer school holidays. I had a great routine of waking up, practicing mandolin or guitar with coffee, doing some exercise while listening to a podcast, showering, practicing some more before and after lunch, then working on my daily song in the evening. But then the school term and private teaching started up again and my routine got thrown into turbulence and I haven't been able to steady it since.
This is Sunday's, and another very quick improvised piece. I followed on from the previous day by taking the fingers theme, and rather than improvising everything I did do a quick writing exercise, inspired by the sounds outside my lounge room window.
Keeping with The Getting Of Wisdom theme from the previous day, this piece is named for the protagonist Laura's sister, Pin. Pin is nicknamed Res'vor by their housemaid "on account of her perpetual wateriness", and so I worked with the idea of tears welling up for this improvisation. I had about a ten minute window to get this done, so I improvised it completely, without doing any thinking or writing exercises first.
This is Friday's piece, but I'm writing this on Monday morning as I had a weekend jam packed with students and gigs. While I did (just) manage to squeeze in a new piece each day, I didn't find time to download them off my camera and upload them. I really feel like I'm lagging behind having to upload three at once, so I'm just going to write a short post for each to try and catch up. After all, I still have to write and record today's piece.
I hadn't realised it, but somewhere along this project I stopped judging my work and just got down to the business of doing it. For some reason my judgement was turned back on for this piece, which is why I realised it hadn't been there for the past few weeks. Despite recent complaints about the heat and lack of emotional and physical energy, all those songs felt like a breeze to work on compared to this one.
My first song of March. I'm writing this post from the library in air-conditioned comfort, taking a break from my hot and stuffy apartment. It might be autumn here in Melbourne now, but summer is still holding on. I uploaded this video from the library too, and was prepared with my songwriting notebook, water bottle and knitting to keep me occupied while I waited for it to upload. Except it took less than a minute to complete, so I lugged all that stuff down here for nothing. It seems slightly ridiculous, as a video of this length takes approximately two hours to upload on my home internet connection. I definitely think I'll be spending a lot more time in the library this year.
One of the challenges to staying creatively productive is fitting the creative work in with the rest of your life. Before I went off to study music I worked a series of 9 - 5 jobs, however I only ever worked four days a week for most of that time. I tried my best to use my day off for creative projects, and I did accomplish a whole lot of creative things during those years. Ultimately, however, I found the constant shift between corporate and creatively mindsets exhausting. I think I'd be better at it now that I have some robust processes in place, but I do find it much easier when my work and creative practice are more closely related. My mind is never far away from music or art now, and my social circle is full of people who understand and support my lifestyle.
