Day 4. Connecting
Every morning I have watched sunlight trickle down two separate mountain peaks, to join at the crest as the day gathers momentum.
On Monday morning all resident musicians meet for a weekly checking-in session. It was great to see the whole group and feel more integrated after a few days of feeling like the new kid. I realised that I had let myself worry about that. The feeling may have come about through still struggling with jet lag; feeling unlike myself, hindered by that strange dislocation between the brain launching into present activity while the body dawdles somewhere behind. Fortunately it is subsiding. The copious amounts of buffet food I’ve eaten already are probably helping. Anyway, I felt more focused and able to orient myself for the week’s work today.
My initial idea for Solo Performance Piece seemed so simple that for a while I was questioning its interest to an audience. The piece in my head feels non-developmental and obvious. Is this because I am in on the jokes? Is the idea simplistic, or just simple and direct?
Start with what you know, then! I know that the piece will involve audience participation, moving and lots of vocal work. I am aiming for it to be humorous, even slapstick. It will wear some recent and long-time influences on its sleeve – ideas and techniques I knew I wanted to explore when I discovered them. More on those after the performance (I promise to be less elusive and more specific!).
I spent time improvising movement on one idea, for a while staggering about my studio clutching my clarinet case. In that state, the freedom of abstract actions presents its own logic within the exploration of a dynamic and movement quality. I need to work out whether I can keep any of those movements in the piece, which has a linear narrative at the moment. I was also wondering whether there needs to be identifiable connections between the movement vocabulary and the idea behind the piece. I answered that one by saying no: absurdity and slapstick don’t require justification. I will spend more time playing with the materials I have got already to understand what ideas they point towards.
Today I also began two collaborations with two fantastic singers. I am playing cello in a new song by Blake Whyte. Cari Burdett invited me to collaborate on an improvised voice and cello song, working with a Sufi poem:
It Felt Love
How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its
Beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too
Frightened.
Later on in the music building lounge, I spotted two familiar names on a board of dedications to philanthropists Tom & Isobel Rolston (Banff Centre’s recital hall is named after them). You may not be able to see them here unless you zoom in: they are composer Clive Wilkinson, and the late clarinettist, Alan Hacker.
Today’s Postcard Piece is to do with meaningful connection, and is for Sadie Harrison.