posted on Tuesday 13 December 2011
Tonight was the last performance of my CEP. I have enjoyed the experience but I feel ready to stop. I have until 4th January to collect my thoughts together and put them into a presentable form for my tutors. I have loved the independence of this project and having the power to decide what activities I think are worthwhile engaging in. I'm looking forward to life after university.I think tonight's concert went well and the choir sounded good. I think it was a bit more polished than on Saturday night and I was more familiar with my pieces.
I went round to Liz's house to practice my solo for this evening. I wanted to play the Debussy piece but it was six minutes long so I took a shorter piece by Tartini along as a back up. We decided that the Tartini was more appropriate for tonight but she was keen to play the Debussy piece with me at a later date and has asked me to play at the 75th Anniversary Concert on 21st April. she said that I'm welcome to go over and play music with her when I'm in the area in future and this is something that I would love to do. I feel like there is still a lot that I could learn from her and it would be really good to start playing my clarinet seriously again. We also talked about how much I have grown in confidence as a person and this is another affirmation of how far I have come because she has known me since I was eleven years old. She has been an inspiration to me for many years, and without her belief in me when I was at my lowest point, I don't believe I would still be making music today.
The clarinet sounded really nice with the acoustics in the church. The piece was the First Movement of Tartini's 'Concertino'.
In a way, I have ended my CEP back where I started all those years ago, but I have moved on a lot since then and being back in familiar situations has helped me to realise how much improvement there has been. I didn't feel any panic today when I got up to play. I enjoyed it.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
Last night's performance was a combination of concert and Christmas party. There was a mixture of solos, cameo, choral pieces and carols with audience participation and a visit from santa. It is the most informal event of the choir's calendar and the intent is for everyone to enjoy themselves.There is more room for error in an environment such as this and I wasn't the only one was looking at music and trying to remember words.
I was down on the program to do a solo but there had been a breakdown in communication and I was under the impression that the piece I had chosen wasn't wanted for this concert because it was too long for such an informal occasion. I'm going to meet up with Liz tomorrow for a rehearsal so that I can prepare a clarinet piece to play at tomorrow's concert.
A few members of the choir asked me why I didn't play and said that they had been looking forward to it, so it will be nice if I do get chance to play tomorrow. I think it will be nice to end two months of performance with a formal concert surrounded by so many familiar faces.
I've often wondered how I feel about singing Christmas carols as a non-religious person but I think it's fine. After all, it's through hymn practice at Primary School that I developed a love of singing, and I think there is something very healthy and powerful about singing as part of a group of people. My experience of Christmas has always been about family and seeing people that you don't see very often, and that's becoming more important as I'm growing older and becoming increasingly independent. As much as I dislike the commercialisation of this time of year, there is something about the atmosphere that I quite enjoy.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
There is a pub in Bexley that goes by the classy name of 'OMG'.It holds an open mic night on the first Thursday of every month and it had been my intention to play there.
It was pouring with rain and we had to set off twice as I forgot my violin. When we arrived, the pub was completely empty and I was reluctant to walk in with a violin in case the open mic wasn't on. It was at this point that I thought to check the date and realised that time had moved on rather more quickly than I had realised. Although in my mind December had only started a few days ago, it was actually the 8th so of course the open mic had been on the previous Thursday.
The most ridiculous part of this story is that we actually walked past OMG on the 1st and saw a guy playing acoustic guitar and I said, “It can't be the open mic because that isn't on until next week.”
Sometimes I wonder how I ever manage to end up at the right place at remotely the right time.
What I'm not ashamed of is my joy at the thought of never having to play at another open mic night again.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
I returned to have another go at the poetry open mic. This time we arrived in plenty of time and ate some lovely red lentil dahl soup before the evening began.It started early because there were so many people wanting to read. Everyone had a five minute slot and and there were thirty one poets to get through that evening.
Five minutes seems like hardly any time if I have to do a music performance, but it seemed like quite a long time to fill with speaking.
I have never read my poetry aloud before and I felt more nervous than I have about a performance in a long time. I went into the early stages of a panic attack and was very close to tears by the time I got to the stage. This, combined with the subject matter of the first poem, meant that it was difficult not to break down, but I managed to hold it together and get through the poem. I relaxed into the next poem and received a very positive response from the audience. I managed to bring some of them close to tears, and then to laughter within the space of two minutes.
The vast majority of the audience was made up of poets who had come to read and it was probably the most friendly and appreciative audience I have ever experienced. I'm generalising here, but I think it requires a certain frame of mind to want to write poetry, and on the whole, I think that poets tend to be particularly nice people.
I started to panic after the second poem, because I realised I probably wouldn't have enough time to read everything, so I think I lost a bit of energy from there onwards, but I was very pleased to have got through the five minutes successfully.
It felt good to present my poetry to a room full of human beings rather than via the internet, but I don't think that they were more powerful for being spoken aloud rather than written down. This might just be because I'm not very good at performing spoken word.
I wondered if it would have been ok to sing an a capella song and whether they would have distinguished this as different from poetry reading. Acoustic guitars were specifically banned, and I can understand why, because so much of that goes on at open mic nights and poetry nights are definitely in the minority, but it would have been interesting to hear how my songs went down to a group of poets. I think that they would have been received better than at a general open mic night. One woman did sing and wasn't asked to stop but her song had a political edge and it seemed like she knew the organisers quite well.
A couple of people came up to me afterwards and said that they liked my poetry and I kind of wished I had mentioned my blog whilst I was on the stage because I think a few people would have been interested to read more of my writing and there were quite a few people there who were self-promoting but it wasn't on my mind when I was performing and I was quite relieved to get off the stage.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
In my final performance at the end of Second Year I explored moving through the audience whilst playing music, and this was something that I wanted to try out in a more informal setting in the street, where passers by are not expecting to be part of my audience.I found it surprisingly difficult to get going. Without the safety of a studio at college, and an audience that was universally familiar with contemporary music, I felt very exposed and I started to worry about how people might react.
I started off playing whilst sitting on a bench because I felt less exposed there, and gradually started to move as I grew in confidence. Throughout the performance I became increasingly bolder and moved around more confidently and was able to move closer to people in the street.
I was pleased to note that a security guard walked past and didn't ask me to stop playing or ask what I was doing.
I was largely ignored by passers by but some turned to look and there was a couple who were walking around the square for a while and seemed interested. One guy stopped to watch me and said, “Awesome.” It's nice when someone appreciates what you're doing when you are in an environment where most people don't seem to care what you are doing.
As I prepared myself to stop performing, I started to move back toward the bench where I had started and a woman who was sitting there seemed a bit worried and got up and left in a bit of a hurry. I suppose I probably would have acted in the same way if the roles had been reversed.
I wondered if, by being filmed, the event became more of a spectacle, but I think that Joe was fairly unnoticeable.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
During the months Sabina has spent in Iceland she wasn't aware of there being any open mic nights in pubs in Reykjavik and I had assumed that it must not exist in Icelandic culture. However, the week before I went there, a sign appeared outside an Irish-themed pub saying, “Microphone open to anyone.” The sign was still there when I arrived and remained there every day for the whole week. We had a look through the window one night to check if it was actually on and there was someone playing an acoustic guitar so we made a mental note to come back later in the week.I decided to go along on my last night, but on this occasion the pub was very empty and there was no microphone set up. It seemed a bit ridiculous to ask them to set one up just for me when there were only four other people in the bar, so I decided just to do my own impromptu performance in the corner. I don't think that the other people in the pub took much notice of me.
We were sat at a very romantic, candle-lit table, tucked away behind recycled stained glass windows, and I sang '2-1=1', the song I had written in Cambridge. There was pop music playing in the background, which, bizarrely, was neither Irish nor Icelandic, so it was almost like a vocal montage.
I asked Sabrina what she thought and she gave me some feedback. She liked the way that I used my voice, particularly the break in my voice and how it became more intense as the song went on. She felt that the lyrics were easy to relate to, but also that she would have to listen again to get a clearer impression of them. This shows how lyrics often aren't that audible, even in an a capella song. I'm always really conscious of my lyrics and often embarrassed of people hearing them, but actually, the individual words and phrases aren't nearly as exposed as I feel that they are when I sing them. I also asked her if she considered it a 'song', as this is an issue that has come up before, and she said that she had always thought of my pieces as songs and it had never occurred to her to think of them as anything else. I think this reinforces my belief that people interpret things differently and that it doesn't really matter what anyone wants to call things.
A bit later on, after we had finished our drinks, Sabrina received a call from a friend informing her that the Northern Lights were visible so we hurried to the lake for a clear biew of the sky. They were only faint and looked a bit like a green cloud across the sky but it was amazing to see them. This was one of the things that I had most wanted to do, and it was also the thing that was furthest from my control.
Earlier that day I went with Sabrina to her choir was rehearsal. It was nice to be part of an Icleandic choir for a couple of hours and I felt much more conscious of my poor pronunciation than I usually do when singing foreign songs because I was surrounded by people who were native speakers of the language.
The rehearsal took a very familiar format and it was easy to follow instructions even though I didn't understand the language because the exercises used were ones that I was familiar with and there was enough information in body gesture in order for me to understand what was going on. It was interesting to see how there is an established ritual format across different cultures for this style of singing.
I was singing the alto part with Sabrina (I usually sing soprano), and although the parts were within my range, it was much more difficult to pitch than a soprano line. I wonder how much you get used to this if you are used to singing a middle harmony.
There was one song that was sung in English and the whole choir seemed to get really excited about it. Maybe it is more of a novelty for the Icelandic members to sing in English, even though almost everyone there speaks English fluently. I did enjoy singing in a language that is used by such a tiny proportion of the world's population (about 350 000). It reminded me of native Welsh speakers. It seems as if it is more important as a cultural thing in small communities to keep their language alive, rather than for any practical reason.
posted on Sunday 11 December 2011
We did our vocal improvisation surrounded by snow-covered mountains, in a hot spring with steam coming off the water. It was amazing to experience nature in this way because it was so differernt from anything I had experienced before and the landscape is totally unlike England. In places, it felt like a different planet.The improvisation was very loose and I suggested that we should sing for as long as we felt inspired by the mountains. It felt good to use my voice in such close proximity to nature and it felt more appropriate than playing an instrument. I think an instrument would have felt more artificial; a further degree of separation from nature. There is something powerful about making sound with your own body.
Initially I was a bit reluctant to let go and start singing, but as I got into it, my body relaxed and it felt as if the sound I was making became increasingly effortless and pure and it felt like the sound was coming from deeper within my core because I wasn't over-thinking it and tensing up. We came to a natural stop as the sun was setting and it began to snow.
I made a video of my experience of Iceland and used the improvisation as the audio. It isn't a finely crafted piece of music and it doesn't really go anywhere but I think it is nice to have as a record of my time in Iceland. Someone commented on the video that we sounded like 'beautiful water nymphs' and I couldn't really hope for a better compliment than that.
posted on Saturday 10 December 2011
I've never been on an aeroplane before and I only left the UK for the first time earlier this year, and I've never dared to negotiate the London Underground on my own before, so simply travelling to Reykjavik was my first challenge.I was quite scared that something would go wrong and I would end up panicking or getting lost and missing my flight but the journey was surprisingly simple. I'm really proud of myself for doing something that genuinely scared me and I hope that this will leave me feeling more confident about travelling in future. There are so many places I would like to go to.
I think anxiety must have got to me a little though, as I was unable to sleep the night before I left and ended up being awake for about 34 hours.
I can't really put into words how amazing my week in Iceland was. I have absolutely loved travelling for my CEP and having new experiences and these aspects were just as important to my development as the performances themselves.
Whilst I was in Iceland I saw orca and white beaked dolphins, rode an Icelandic horse, saw the Northern Lights, visited the Phallological Museum, bathed and sang in a hot spring and saw some stunning landscape.
Sabrina's flat mates were lovely and it was a nice environment in which to stay. It was lovely to see Sabrina and we talked about each others CEPs and it was really good to hear another perspective. I had been a bit downhearted and felt as if I wasn't making much progress socially and it was quite encouraging to hear from Sabrina that she'd never seen me so confident around strangers as I had been with her flat mate the night I arrived. I find it easy to pick up on my negative aspects and I often don't realise when progress has been made because it is usually a gradual process and I forget how much I have changed.
On my second night we went along to the bar where one of Sabrina's flat mates worked. She worked on her own, without supervision, because it was a small bar and I thought the concept was great. It doesn't seem like something that would happen in England because everyone is so obsessed with rules and managers and supervisors and they would probably be worried that things would go missing.
The atmosphere in Iceland seems much more relaxed and trusting.
Toward the end of the night, the pub started to empty and Sabrina's flat mate asked us to choose the music. We listened to Regina Spektor and Laura Marling and me and Sabrina sang along. When 'Samson' came on (a song that me and Sabrina performed together in first year), we sang together in harmony and it was a lovely, relaxed evening. I hope me and Sabrina will work together on some original material at some point in the future.
posted on Tuesday 6 December 2011
I was a member of Sonara (formerly Alfreton Ladies Choir) between the ages of sixteen and nineteen and I arranged to meet up with them again during my CEP.Rehearsals are on Monday nights and I have attended as many as possible since September but I have unavoidably been away for many of them due to travelling.
Being back with choir was like stepping back in time. It has been two years since I left to study at Dartington, and although the choir has a lot of new members, there are also a lot of familiar faces. Many of the people in the choir remembered me and were shocked that it had been two years since I had left.
Sonara is one of the leading amateur choirs in the area. Any female over the age of sixteen can join and there is no audition and the results achieved by the choir are impressive. This is a significant difference between amateur and professional choirs and I think that within Sonara there is a very healthy balance between commitment to achieving a high standard of performance and having an enjoyable, social, singing experience. It is vital for members of an amateur choir to enjoy themselves and have a strong sense of community otherwise it would be very difficult to maintain numbers; you need the choir members to want to come together and rehearse.
Being back with the choir made me aware of how my voice has changed since being at Dartington and it has made me more conscious of the things that I learned from the choir, and also the things that were holding me back.
It is easy for me to forget that before I went to Dartington I had only ever studied Classical voice. This is something that I wasn't particularly good at, but enjoyed, and persevered with, until I had achieved Grade 7 by the time I had finished College.
At Dartington I was given the freedom to study any kind of music that I liked, and also to write my own music. I had the desire to declassify my voice because singing in this style didn't feel like me and I wanted to find my own individual voice. I feel that I have achieved that (although it's an ongoing process) and it feels so natural to me now that I often forget that three years ago I had only ever sung in a Classical style and I had never sung alone in public. Just the thought of doing so when I was in school would bring on a panic attack.
Singing with the choir was an invaluable means of getting used to being on a stage and using my voice; it is much less terrifying to sing with a group than on your own, and the choir are one of the loveliest groups of people that I have ever met. The atmosphere is welcoming, friendly, and supportive and it was the ideal environment in which to gain confidence in using my voice in front of a crowd. For this, I can't thank the choir enough, and I would probably still suffer with stage fright a great deal more than I do now if it wasn't for this experience over a number of years.
During my time with the choir I improved my intonation, cultivated an increased awareness of other performers around me and how to blend with them, improved my breath control and eventually gained enough confidence to sing solos.
While I was at Dartington I discovered that these things are not always desirable in every performance. I was exposed to a lot of music that I hadn't heard before and I discovered that sometimes I don't want to sing in a tempered scale and sometimes I don't want to blend my voice with others around me. During my time with the choir I learnt to sing in accordance with the established conventions that go along with a certain style of music and at Dartington, as I began to write my own songs, I experienced complete freedom from conventions and lived in a bubble where literally anything goes.
I don't mean to say that I have since come to disregard the skills required to sing in a conventional choir, and nor do I mean to diminish the achievements of the choir. They are very good at what they do and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to learn and grow with them, and I am thankful now to be given the opportunity to have this experience of revisiting an old environment from a new perspective.
Readjusting to sing in a way that fits in with the choir was a challenge. I find it much more difficult to sing at the top of a soprano range now and my accent comes across quite strongly and I have to consciously try to sing without it, whereas before Dartington I found it hard not to sing in a Classical style. To my surprise, I can actually sing without vibrato much more easily than I could before, even on higher notes and I think my voice has a purer sound to it which is what was wanted from me when I was in the choir before. Previously I felt as if I had two separate voices; one classical and one unclassical and I could only switch abruptly between the two. I think that now I have more control over my voice, stylistically, and can blend different influences into one cohesive sound that is still me. I think that experiencing contrasting singing styles at both ends of the spectrum, and revisiting my intital style has made me a more versatile performer. Learning to change my voice to create a certain sound for a particular piece of music, rather than having two distinctly separate voices, is a wothwhile achievement. I think that it would take a longer period of time before I was blending successfully with the choir again and there are moments when I stand out as not fitting in, but I definitely feel as if my voice is maturing and I feel more confident to decide when I like or dislike a particular sound that I am making. I have also become aware that there is a great deal of variety within Classical singer's voices and I don't always dislike the sound. When singing in a Classical style, I have a preference for a very pure sound, with little vibrato.
Singing as part of a large choir is a unique and fulfilling experience and I think that it is a wonderful thing for people to do. However, I do feel as if making only this kind of music would not fulfill my desire for self expression. When singing as part of a choir, you have to conform to the musical director's interpretation of the piece in order to express a cohesive message as a whole. Sonara's musical director is brilliant and does a wonderful job with the choir, but for me as an individual, a choir simply doesn't allow the amount of self expression that I desire and I think I would always feel the need to write my own music as well as being part of a community like this.
Having been unable to attend the final rehearsal before this concert, due to being in London, I was somewhat unprepared for the performance. I got away with most of it because I remembered several of the songs from when I used to be part of the choir, and some songs I had heard before and was able to slot in by instinctively following the harmonic rhythm of the piece and from my prior knowledge of cadences and the way that the soprano voice is often used within pieces of certain styles, but I am fully aware that I was only 'getting away with it' and if everyone in the choir had been as unprepared as I was then it would have been a complete mess. There was one song that I had never heard before in my life and they had choreographed actions and at this point I had to just smile because I had no idea what was going on.
I may possibly play a solo at one of the future concerts but I haven't had much opportunity to rehearse with an accompanist yet so this might not happen.
posted on Saturday 3 December 2011
I went back the next day (at an earlier time) for another attempt at busking. I set up next to the exit from the station and started playing my guitar. I wanted it to be quite informal and I didn't want anyone to feel as if I was asking them for money.I wasn't using amplification and my voice was easily lost in the background noise of the street so I had to sing really loudly (and crudely) which hurt my throat. I don't think I could have kept it up for very long.
Most of the passers by didn't pay much attention to me. I think this was partly because I wasn't amplified but also because someone busking with a guitar in London is a common sight. There were a couple of guys who were watching and they came over almost as soon as I'd put my guitar down and asked if they could play it. I didn't really know what to do so I said yes.
They were drinking and just seemed to want to do something to pass the time and I guess they weren't thinking too clearly. One of the guys came out with some inappropriate comments but they were entirely harmless and it was interesting to meet them. I think music often has a way of bringing people together.
I moved on to playing my clarinet and one of the guys said, “I figured that you were still, like, learning a tune,” but he didn't seem to know very much about music so I didn't bother telling him that I'd been playing since I was nine years old. The expression on the other guy's face when he said this was quite amusing, especially when we discovered that the two guys didn't actually know each other. He seemed to be trying to keep the peace by saying, “It sounded good though.”
This encounter was an interesting experience for me because I have rarely encountered strangers who stuck around for such a long time and were willing to talk quite openly to me. One of the guys told me that he had played guitar for eleven years but had broken his finger and could now only play a limited range of chords.
A Russian man came over to us and asked if his dad could play my guitar. I was unsure how trusting I should be of handing my instruments over to strangers in the middle of London but I went along with it and the guy turned out to be a really talented singer and he was touched that I had let him use my guitar. He said, “Thank you very much. This is a special day for me.” I was very glad that I had let him play. One of the guys commented how you never know if by saying no to someone, you might be missing out on something incredible and this is a good example of how being open and trusting toward people can have positive results.
The two guys expressed an interest in the painting on my guitar and one of them offered to buy it from me for a packet of cigarettes and a beer...
There seemed to be more interest in what I was doing when I played clarinet, possibly because it is a more unusual instrument to be used for busking. A man gave us 50p and we were really happy that anyone had wanted to give us anything, but the man was really apologetic and said, “It isn't very much.”
Some tourists asked for a photo with me and Joe. I wonder if busking is unusual or forbidden in some countries. A Canadian man spoke to one of the guys for a while and I was surprised at how friendly everyone was despite the attitude and language of one of the guys.
I joined in briefly with a rendition of 'Losing My Religion' but it didn't feel like an environment in which there was much potential for us to jam.
It seemed to turn into a social gathering of strangers rather than a performance which was unexpected. I'm glad I had this experience but I think it would have been a bit unnerving if I was on my own and it has actually put me off the idea of busking alone in future.
posted on Monday 21 November 2011
Yet again I set out much later than intended, with a clarinet and a guitar to go busking in Camden. By the time we got there it was almost dark and I wasn't really feeling up to it. I wasn't even sure how safe it would be busking in the dark in a big city.We went looking for a suitable spot and walked around the market. I felt really claustrophobic because the stalls were all packed so close together and I felt like everyone was watching me even though they weren't. When stall holders started talking to me I freaked out and I was walking around in a mild panic, repeatedly asking to leave.
We went to get food and I just flipped. I was suddenly intensely angry with myself and starting hitting myself and clawing at my face and started to walk off, leaving my money and everything on a table, with no idea in my head other than to get away (ignoring the fact that I didn't know which direction 'away' was).
Joe came after me and got me to sit down and I curled up progressively into a ball with my face hidden from view, in a futile attempt to believe that, “If I can't see you, you can't see me”, with my head digging into the metal of the seat.
I don't know how long it was before I moved (it must have been somewhere between twenty and forty minutes), then I slowly unfurled and was able to present myself to the world again. It was interesting (and something of a relief) that not one person in that busy market came over to see if I was ok.
By this time I had no intention of busking but we got the guitar out and played a few tunes. I'm sure the stall holders nearby turned up their sound systems to compensate.
posted on Monday 21 November 2011
I made this recording for Richard Abbott, a composer on my course. It is a part of his composition that will be performed at College with a combination of live performers and pre-recorded video.In order for the videos to snyc up, we had to play to a metronome and be very rigid and precise with the timing. This is something that I haven't been focussing on recently so it was a challenge learning to play in time with the metronome.
It was a good exercise in learning a piece from a score. This method of learning is the one that I am most used to but it has been quite a while since I have learnt music in this way and some of the rhythms were quite difficult for me to grasp. It felt good to be challenged because the music I have been making recently is generally very free, and is more about the emotion and the concept than anything technical. I think that as my song writing matures I will start to fuse those two different approaches together. I don't want to lose the freedom in what I'm doing but I don't think I am currently making the most of my musical ability in my pieces.
I didn't play the piece perfectly; but I think it was adequate. I focused my attention on the rhythms and the timing and this meant that it was a little lacking in terms of dynamics and expression, but I felt that in this instance, accuracy was the most important aspect because the video needed to sync up with other people.
Richard said that it fitted perfectly with the other video that he's been sent so I think it was a success. It was strange playing a part in a piece without any idea of what it sounds like as a whole.
posted on Saturday 19 November 2011
This was another day that didn't go to plan. I was intending to go and play at the open mic at the Half Moon Pub at Herne Hill. It was about a half hour drive away from Joe's house but I didn't realise how long it takes to get anywhere in London on public transport. It would have taken an hour and forty minutes and four different buses to get there, with no guarantee that I would actually be able to play once we arrived.We somehow managed to get up at about 5pm, which didn't really give us enough time to get to the venue, and although this seemed like it would have been a lovely pub, I'm starting to feel as I've done a lot of open mic nights now and I'm not sure how much more I will get out of doing them.
Following the previous evening's turn of events, I still haven't done any poetry reading and there was also an open mic night at The Poetry Cafe on the same evening so I decided it would be better to try and get along to that. It would also be easier to get to as it is in central London.
Unfortunately, after our late start we didn't manage to get there in time to put my name down to perform, but I think it would be interesting to go along anyway and see what people were doing, and I thought it would make me a bit less nervous about going along next time, because I would have already got a taste of the atmosphere in the place.
When we arrived we were both scared to go in and I ended up walking away, although I do fully intend to go back next time I'm in London. I was furious with myself and it took me about half an hour to walk away because I didn't want to admit that I was giving up. I worked myself up into a state and then plummeted into one of my moods.
We wandered around London for about an hour with me refusing to speak and staring at the ground. When we went into a supermarket I started to freak out about all the people in there and had to get out. Joe was pretty amazing throughout it all and didn't get frustrated with me. I'm sure he handled it much better than I would have done if the roles had been reversed. My behaviour was so pointless and I was so frustrated with myself for being that way, but this only worsened my mood and made it more difficult to see logic.
I was eventually fine but it took me a while to pull myself out of it and I spent the rest of the evening in a state of catharsis, listening to Sinead O'Connor on repeat, in tears as I thought about the amount of corruption, selfishness and lack of compassion in the world, unable to move until I got it out of my system, and wanting to do something about all of it; knowing that I probably can't but that I definitely want to try. I think my future work may have a more political edge. I want to get out and see much more of the world, but I know that it's impossible to experience the world as another person does, and I'm also conscious of not wanting to project my own opinions onto other people, but there are some things that are so fundamentally wrong that we have to do something about them. We have the ability to end poverty and we choose not to do it. I think the world needs a lot more compassion in it.
I've been doing a lot of thinking and feeling a bit fragile for a while and I think it all started to manifest itself during my time in London. My CEP advisor warned me that I might 'burn out' if I tried to do too many performances. I don't think that is what happened; I think it's more a result of the amount of critical reflection I have been doing on the performances, which has resulted in a great deal of reflection on myself, as a performer and as a human being and I've been coming to terms with some difficult conclusions.
I've been improving so dramatically in my confidence for the last couple of years and I assumed that I would keep on improving until I was able to deal with everyday tasks without having to think about them. I've been coming to the slow realisation that this probably isn't the case. Although I'm able to control and hide my anxiety fairly well nowadays, and almost never have a panic attack, it hasn't gone away completely and it probably never will. I guess I've been having some trouble accepting that this is who I am. I'm unsure of how much to embrace it and accept it as a part of me, and not worry about trying to conform to behaving in a certain way that is deemed acceptable, and how much I should be trying to fight it so that I can function properly without having to rely on other people.
It's been an important realisation for me to acknowledge that the act of performing doesn't actually scare me any more. By far the hardest part of this project has been the moment when I arrive at a pub and I have to go inside and assert myself and tell them that I'd like to play. I seem to get disproportionately anxious about the possible embarrassment of being turned away. A manifestation of a fear of rejection maybe?
posted on Saturday 19 November 2011
I've been doing a lot of writing over the past year but the only way I have exposed it to anyone is on deviantartI always felt that the visual element was very important to my poetry, but I'm not sure if this was partially an excuse for not reading them aloud because I was really very scared of sharing my poetry with anyone.
My first experience of sharing my poetry in a live performance was for a sonic arts project that I did last year.
I've never tried out a traditional poetry reading so I'm quite excited to give it a go and see how it compares to music performance. I imagine that me doing poetry readings wouldn't be so different to me performing an a capella song. I don't think there's any point in defining this difference, and it is a subtle one, but I do believe that it exists.
I found out about this poetry night on the internet and I felt that my current artistic practice identified with their slogan, “It's not how good you are, it's how real you are.”
Unfortunately, when we turned up, the poetry open mic night had just been discontinued and replaced with stand up comedy.
It's interesting that these are both forms of spoken word, yet they feel like polar opposites. I wonder what would have happened if I'd got up and recited depressing poetry to an audience expecting comedy. All of the acts had been booked in advance so I wasn't able to find out.
posted on Friday 18 November 2011
I made this video just so I could listen back to the audio and see how it sounded. I didn't pay attention to where I was pointing the camera because I didn't have any intention of using the video for anything, but afterwards I decided it was as much a performance as anything else I had done. I kind of liked how it ended up being a film of my ear...It's not finished. It's essentially an improvisation based on the words I wrote over the previous two days. Since making the recording I have refined it a little; removed some of the words and rearranged others. The end needed/needs the most work. I wrote this because I'm interested in what the role of an accompaniment is in a song, and whether it's necessary. I think a lot of the time it isn't, but maybe that's because I'm interested in a raw voice and a lot of the meaning in a song, for me, comes from the lyrics. I think that's the writer in me.
I'm very conscious of not wanting to write conventional love songs. I'm a hopeless romantic, but that doesn't mean I have to admit it in song.
I've been thinking about how people perceive my performance; as speaking or singing, poetry or song. I showed this video to John and asked his opinion on the subject. This was his response:
“I think you don't fit into either category, but shift between and beyond spoken word, which lends an element of personal emotivity to your work. Such categorizations are unnecessary.”
I agree, but I find it difficult when someone asks me what I 'do'. I wish I could describe where I'm coming from but I find it very difficult, and maybe there's nothing wrong with my usual answer of, “I don't know.”
posted on Friday 18 November 2011
I didn't end up performing on this evening but I think it's worth documenting anyway.This is quite a prestigious venue and I had a feeling that I wouldn't end up playing. I spent the whole day getting worked up about it and not wanting to go, but I was prepared to go ahead with it. I finished preparing the a capella song I had started writing in the pub the previous night, with a view to possibly performing it that evening. I was also planning to play solo improvised clarinet which I thought would have gone down well at a folk venue.
As it happens, I never made it to the pub. I set out walking and somehow managed to end up three miles away on a dual carriageway. My sense of direction is astonishing.
My uncle was going to meet me at the pub to take photos, and I felt really bad for not getting there but he was really nice about it. Apparently I wouldn't have been able to play anyway unless I had turned up REALLY early, and the pub was packed full of people with guitars. I think it might have been refreshing for them to hear something a bit different, but it wasn't to be.
I was pretty relieved in the end when I just got to go home because my confidence had evaporated and I didn't feel like facing the world or engaging in conversation with anyone.
posted on Thursday 17 November 2011
I've noticed strangers treating me differently since I dyed my hair blonde. It's quite bizarre and I don't like it. It's strange that out of all my hair colours, the one that gets me the most attention, and seems the most outrageous (to me) is blonde, because of the stereotypes surrounding it. I wonder how different my CEP would have been if I'd done it with blue hair.When I entered the pub they were already doing a sound check for the open mic and I think they already had enough acts for the night. I went up to the bar and asked if it would be possible for me to play. I was escorted to the guy running the evening and I was introduced with something along the lines of, “This little sugar plum would like to play.”
He said he could squeeze me in if I was prepared to start straight away, and I was relieved that I was allowed to play but a little disorientated by the warm but patronising welcome I received.
I found the way I was introduced once I was on the stage very interesting:
“So here we have one of these random people who walk in off the street and want to play, and it's quite an intriguing little set up she's got going on here. She's got an electric violin, [turning to me] and you're also going to be using a guitar, and you've got a loop pedal? Fantastic stuff. [Turning back to the audience] That's what we like; a bit of variety in an act... Her name's Emma Frances. I don't know what she does but it's gonna be wonderful. Even if it's rubbish it's gonna be interesting cos she's got an electric violin and stuff cos, like, you know, not many people do at open mic nights. Give it up to her, just for bringing an electric violin...”
I found all of this pretty amusing because he didn't realise how spot on he was. My set at the moment is limited and far from polished. It's almost conceptual at the moment; representative of what I'm trying to do with my album rather than a finished product taken from it.
I'm well aware that my playing on these songs sound very amateurish (or beginner-ish, even) and my vocals aren't “good” or “in tune” by conventional standards. I'm not demonstrating much of my musical ability with these pieces but I am catching some people's attention and I am being original, and I feel that that is more important at this stage. My solo act is very much a work in progress.
Part of me wants to show off more of my talent but part of me is uninterested in doing that. I am starting to tire of performing these pieces in their current format because I feel like I've got about as much as I can from performing them and I feel as if I need to go away and work on some new material that I'm proud of musically and lyrically, on a very personal level. Once I've achieved this I believe I will have something that I'm proud to show, and will still be proud of even if it is received badly. At the moment, I have enough doubt in what I'm doing that it doesn't allow me to perform it without a degree of embarrassment.
My mind went blank on stage and I forgot the notes for the violin song, and didn't press the loop pedal enough times so the redub didn't play back, so I continued to play live over the first recording but the notes I played were a bit random. This makes me wonder if the redub is necessary, although it does leave me more free to stop the loop at the end of the song.
This experience shook me up a bit and I messed up the finger picking at the start of the guitar song, and I always worry in case I'm going to cause offence when I use a borrowed guitar percussively, but my guitar doesn't have a pick up.
I seemed to be forgiven these mistakes and the audience was fairly attentive and enthusiastic in their applause, although I wasn't asked to do any more songs, as some of the other acts were.
The overall standard of the other performers was very high and I think the place must have a good reputation. I wonder if I would have been more reluctant to play if I had been aware of this beforehand.
My brother came along with me, which I was rather touched by because he doesn't like being in pubs. Afterwards he commented how brave I was and that he wouldn't have been able to do something like that, which meant quite a lot, and also that he didn't think I was singing. This is something I've wondered about. I've always assumed that I am singing in my songs. I'm aware that I use a very limited range, and I understand why it might be described as talking, but I do use specific pitches that are consistent each time I play the songs, even if they're not from any particular 'scale'. For this reason, I feel that I am doing something other than just talking because in speech I'm not conscious of any specific pitches.
The sound guy came over afterwards and said that he really liked my songs, and that I should keep going with them because they're really interesting. This kind of encouragement is always welcome and shows that some people connect with what I'm doing.
One of the other performers was a guy who 'sang', but not well in a conventional sense, and played guitar. I found him really inspiring and by the time we left, I was writing a song in my head.
He really knew how to work an audience, but not in an annoying way. He was aware of his assets and made effective use of them. He drew people in with his personality, both with his lyrics and with the way he spoke between songs. At one point he announced that he was going to do a 'poem' and I found it interesting that he referred to it in this way because it was performed with percussive guitar taps and I probably would have referred to it as a song, but either label probably works just as well.
He arrived late and didn't see my set, which is a shame, because I would have been interested to hear what he thought of it.
This has made me think about what my strengths are and how I can use them. I think that my main assets are originality, an intriguing stage presence, diversity within what I can do/play and my writing skills. I think that by combining these things, I will be able to come up with something truly unique.
posted on Wednesday 16 November 2011
Today felt like what I imagine my CEP would have been like if I had forced myself to perform every day.I had decided that I was going to go and busk with my guitar in town today but I really didn't feel like it, so I spent all day putting it off. (I even caught up with my blog, my procrastination knows no bounds).
Once the light started to fade (at about twenty to four, stupid time changes) I found one last excuse to stall and decided to rehearse all of my songs. Luckily I can't actually play guitar so my repertoire on the instrument is very small (and only includes one original song).
Once I could put it off no longer, I reluctantly left the the house with my guitar in hand. I went around the corner, sat on the wall near an entrance to St John's College, got my guitar out, and stared at the floor as I struggled through the shortest busking set ever, (five songs) with my voice feeling very rough, choking intermittently on phlegm (I'm still feeling quite poorly).
I think I underestimated the guts it takes to sit in a busy street singing your heart out to a bunch of strangers who are studiously ignoring you.
At least it got me out of the house for twenty minutes.
posted on Wednesday 16 November 2011
I think that the line between busking and unsolicited public performance is pretty blurred so I'm not sure exactly where this one fits. I think in my interpretation of busking, there is usually a desire to earn some money, and that wasn't my intention. I just set up on the Green with a camera and played. I was a bit worried about the possibility of the camera getting stolen but I think I was pretty safe in an environment like that. I wouldn't have risked it in a busy street.More or less everyone who passed by was ignoring me, I guess because they were using the Green as a means of getting somewhere and were probably quite busy, whereas on the river there were a lot of tourists and people wanting to do something to pass the time.
I think this was the first performance of the project that I've done alone, without having someone there to film me so in that sense it was a bit more independent, but it was so informal that I felt more like I was just chilling out on the grass and making some music, rather than performing to anyone.
I still haven't come up with a definition of what performance is. I'm not sure I want to.
posted on Tuesday 15 November 2011
The idea behind this performance was to do something in a place where it might come across as if I was doing something official, and I was interested to find out whether anyone would mind if they realised that it wasn't. I travelled along the river in a punt with my family, playing Mozart's 'Clarinet Concerto' and Debussy's 'La Plus Que Lente'.I think I was quite naïve in my assumption of the level of tolerance toward art projects in the 'outside world'. I suppose I was expecting someone to ask me to stop, but looking back, I can see why they didn't, and I think it's great that a lot of people seemed really appreciative of what I was doing.
Firstly, because we were moving along the river, I didn't stay in one place for any significant length of time, so I wasn't causing a nuisance or disturbing anyone. It's like when someone drives past you with their speakers turned right up; even if it does annoy you, you can only hear the music for a few seconds and then it's gone, so it doesn't really matter.
Secondly, the style of music that I was playing was 'appropriate' to the setting. I believe that there are a lot of fans of classical music in Cambridge, because of the rich classical music heritage that has built up around the university and the chapels. However, this did make me feel a certain amount of pressure, because I felt it was likely that musicians might hear me playing, and judge my ability.
I started off playing hesitantly because I was worried about how people were going to react, but as I went on I grew in confidence and my playing improved. I think I played much better than I did on Trevose Head, and, interestingly, I think I have improved quite a bit since leaving school, even though I have hardly played my clarinet since then. I think this is a combination of me having bought a new, professional instrument and me having developed as a musician, and this awareness of what I'm doing is a transferable skill that is helpful across all of my music, regardless of what instrument I am playing. It seems remarkable that something as instrument-specific as my tone and breath control seem to have developed simply through self-awareness, without physical practice and repetition. My tuning is much more accurate than it used to be but this is probably more to do with the quality of the instrument than my development as a musician. It is clear from my singing that my pitching hasn't improved but I have become less interested in conforming to a standardised set of pitches, particularly with my voice. I'm aware that there are still a lot of imperfections in my playing and I don't sound anything close to professional, but that isn't something that I'm particularly interested in aiming for.
There was a lot of interest in my playing; people in the punts passing by were taking notice and some people were stopping on the bridges and taking photographs or listening. My dad heard one man on a punt say to his daughter, “Why aren't you doing something musical?” which I found quite amusing. It was as if what I was doing was so appropriate to the situation that it was odd that other people weren't doing something similar. A tour guide on one of the punts said, “Ahh, I like it,” as his boat went past and I suppose I added an extra bit of interest to his tour.
At one point in the video you can see two swans swimming alongside the punt for a while and their movements almost appear choreographed as they move in unison. It is easy to anthropomorphise animals on occasions such as this, but I wonder if they were listening to the music because they came up to the boat and did seem to be interested in what was going on. Why should only humans have the desire to dance? Isn't it one of our most primal instincts?
posted on Thursday 3 November 2011
This was a spontaneous performance. I didn't expect karaoke to be on, I'd just gone to the pub with some friends for Halloween. This made it a very relaxed performance because it wasn't filmed, so there is no record of it, and I didn't feel the pressure of having to make a performance happen. If I didn't do it, it didn't matter, and that's why it wasn't stressful. I've realised that I'm not really scared of performing any more, I'm scared of the social experience of arranging a performance, which is ridiculous, but it's also easy to forget how far I've come, and the fact that I'm able to attempt this project at all is a major personal achievement.I sang Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' as a duet with a friend who has a nice singing voice. I love Leonard Cohen and I'm very fond of this song, but I wouldn't cover it because it's become such a cliché, which is a shame because it's such a beautiful piece of poetry.
Karaoke is interesting compared to open mic because there are such strong parallels between them but they are perceived completely differently.
They are both open to anyone who puts their name down, so the level of talent is completely unknown before the person starts to sing, but it seems as if people at karaoke are expected to be bad, and if they're not, then that's a bonus. At open mic nights, I think the expectation is higher but people are also kinder because they feel more endeared to someone who is 'putting themselves out there' rather than a karaoke singer, who is more likely to be singing in a pub on a whim, quite likely under the influence of alcohol. It seems to be the case that if someone is playing a guitar then they're considered to have more skill and musical integrity, but the majority of open mic performances are covers, just like karaoke, and you can play an incredibly simple guitar accompaniment that sounds passable to an untrained ear. (I am a testament to this.) Some karaoke songs are incredibly difficult to sing well, and singers in bands who don't play instruments (even cover bands) don't seem to be subject to this same level of judgement. I guess context is very important.
posted on Thursday 3 November 2011
For some reason, I think I expected people in Falmouth to be more open to contemporary music, because of the proximity to a contemporary arts institution, but I'm realising that once you've left the supportive atmosphere of the college and your peers, you are completely at the mercy of the public. There is no particular reason why they should feel the need to support you, or worry about causing offence, and I somehow forgot about the anti-student vibe which exists in Falmouth, which is irrelevant around here.I'm also realising that, preconceptions of any kind, about how you will be received, can be detrimental to the performance.
I suppose I've turned up expecting people to hate my music at every open mic I've done, (whether it's as a result of low self esteem or arrogance, I'm unsure) and I have been extremely apologetic at all of the open mic nights I've played at so far. It's not unusual for my body language to be apologetic on stage; it's part of my (natural) performance persona, but I've taken it to new heights recently and I have been verbally apologising to the people organising the events for being a nuisance with my set up.
As it happens, my negative attitude toward this particular performance was probably unnecessary.
When we arrived, the pub was almost empty, and there was only one person other than me who had put their name down to play. (It later turned out that he was friends with the organiser.) The guy running the evening looked about seventeen and was quite nervous. He didn't seem confident with how to use the sound system, and I didn't have a clue how to do it, so I was very glad that Joe was there.
He said that the usual system was for everyone to play three songs, and then if there was time, to go around again. I had three original songs that I wanted to play so I decided to do those first, and if I got asked to go up again then I would play covers, rather than mixing the two things up.
The audience seemed to be made up of families with young children who were running around the pub, and friends of the guy who was running the open mic night. It's always difficult to be appreciated in that kind of environment, where most of the audience has come along specifically to support one of the other acts, and you're often just a minor annoyance to them.
The room went quiet when I started to play, so I must have caught their attention, and a low level of conversation built up again through the first two songs, but it was fairly quiet. The only song that really seemed to become background music was the guitar one again, which leads me closer to the belief that it's not the content of what I'm playing, or the sound of my voice, that is catching people's attention. It seems to simply be the instrumentation, and if I start playing something which is anything other than the expected voice and guitar, even if it's just a capella voice, then it seems to draw people in, but once I start playing a guitar, even if the song isn't particularly conventional, most people don't listen long enough to even become aware of what I'm singing about.
We hung around and finished our drinks afterwards, in case I was asked to play again, but the evening seemed to have turned into a jam session for the guy and his friends so we left, and I think it's for the best that I didn't follow that performance up with a bunch of covers.
posted on Thursday 3 November 2011
Joe came to stay with me in Derbyshire for a few days, and, due to my astonishing powers of organisation, I got the day of the open mic in Matlock Bath mixed up, and only realised at about four o'clock that it was, in fact, on Wednesday, not Tuesday.This meant that we only had a couple of hours daylight left, and the other activity I had planned for the week involved a forty five minute drive, a climb to the top of some cliffs, and the ability to see.
For some reason I decided that it would be a good idea to go anyway, and to hope that there would still be some daylight remaining by the time we got there.
Following on with my interest in free improvisation, I decided to take a bag full of small, lightweight instruments that we could pick and choose from once we were up there. This included a maraca/tiny drum with beater, a recorder, a kalimba, a penny whistle and a harmonica.
The drive there went smoothly, but once we got close I realised that although I had a vivid and beautiful memory of the Edge itself, I had no memory of how to get there from the car. We circled it aimlessly for a while before deciding to park up somewhere and head for the highest point. When I was coming up with this plan, I forgot to consider the fact that we were looking for a set of cliffs, and of course, when we found them, we were at the bottom and we had to traverse our way up to the top, with a bag of instruments.
As we were making our way up the rocks, it began to rain and dusk started to turn into night. We reached the top in near blackness, to sheet lightning overhead.
At this point I was ready to accept that getting back to the car sometime in the near future would be a good idea, but not before we had at least made some music.
We sheltered under an overhang from a rock and improvised using the kalimba and penny whistle for a few minutes, before getting our torch out and heading back to the car. I really enjoyed playing the penny whistle, it seems like a much simpler version of a standard flute, with a very similar sound. I think I might make use of it somewhere on my album. I will also have another go at my (orchestral) flute at some point.
There was something quite freeing about being up there in the dark, in a storm, with nothing but the wildlife to hear us.
We went back the 'safe' way, along the path (which came out right where we had originally parked, before deciding to move) and back along the main road with no pavement.
I assured Joe that the view from up there is amazing and we will be going back someday in daylight.
posted on Thursday 3 November 2011
Me and Joe have been meaning to meet up with our friend Josh for a camping trip on Dartmoor for some time. We finally got around to it and it seemed like a good opportunity to perform in a wild place.
We were dropped off on the moor late afternoon and walked a few miles before setting up camp. We managed to get the tents up and build a fire just before darkness set in. Lighting the fire, however, was less successful.
Once we'd set up camp, we made baked bean sandwiches that were slightly warmer than the air temperature, and then decided to go for a night walk with torches along the river. After searching for, (and finding) a lost mitten, we realised that it was very dark and also much too early to go to bed.
Playing music seemed like the perfect way to kill some time, so the three of us had an improv session in the tent, by torchlight. The acoustics are so strange in a tent, that for several minutes, I was convinced that my clarinet was broken.
Josh was on flute, I was on clarinet, and Joe had a hand carved Peruvian flute. As our instruments use different pitches, we decided that there was no point attempting to play in any particular key. This approach seemed to encourage less traditional playing techniques and I think some parts sounded pretty cool.
I'm really interested in free improvisation at the moment. Before I went to Dartington, I'd never even attempted to improvise and I always said that I couldn't do it, but I've come to realise what a bizarre statement that is.
I thought that improvisation was supposed to be about feeling free and expressing yourself, but I've always seen it as a very exclusive thing because you have to have so much technical knowledge (of Western keys, in particular) in order to be able to join in. I want to just play without rules.
After we'd done the group improvisation I went outside to play a bit on my own, to see if it felt any different playing out on the moor. I expected to feel some epic connection with nature or something, but it actually felt very mundane. Maybe it was because the pitch blackness meant that I could have been absolutely anywhere.
The next day we walked about eight miles and finished at The Warren, a lovely pub in the middle of nowhere, and then I finally got to experience one of Chudleigh Knighton's two pubs, in which I lost at both pool and darts.
I was supposed to pack that evening ready to go back to Derbyshire the next morning, but we were so exhausted that we fell fast asleep and were extremely late leaving (the following afternoon).
posted on Wednesday 2 November 2011
This performance was made in collaboration with John Valencia de Valence, a third year Theatre student who is also working on his CEP. This recording was made as one of three recordings which will be put together to make an installation, but in this blog I will be evaluating the live performance that I did for the recording, rather than the project as a whole, which is not yet completed.I don't want to go too far into personal details, but John and myself have a history, and the piece is exploring unresolved emotions between the two of us.
My part was to play two songs, sat opposite him. I played a cover of Tori Amos' 'Silent All These Years', with a massively simplified arrangement of the piano part, and a song that I wrote myself, about John.
I was told that it didn't matter if it went wrong, it was the relationship between the two of us that was important. John thought that it would be a very intense piece, and, if anything, I left feeling a bit callous, but I suppose it shows I'm in a place of closure about the whole thing. I also had a distinct feeling of guilt, because I hate to see anyone suffering, and to feel in any way responsible for it is very uncomfortable, even if no guilt is owed.
It's interesting that all of my movements, particularly between the two songs, suddenly seemed more important and part of the piece, just because I was working with a Theatre student, even though those movements would have been there, and been the same, even if it was a normal music performance. So much is in the interpretation.
The real emotion came after the cameras were switched off.
posted on Monday 31 October 2011
This was quite an ambitious day. It would have been fine if we'd set off in the morning as planned but we're not too good at that...The plan for the day was to go to a vaguely remote spot off Trevose Head where I have regularly seen seals in the past, hope that they were around and then see if they would react to music at all, then make it back to Falmouth for a gig in the evening. I thought that the seals might react because when I've seen them previously they've been as fascinated by us as we were by them. Earlier this autumn they watched us really intently from a fair way down and my brother managed to get really close to them. They backed off initially and gradually came closer until one of them came a bit too close, lost it's nerve and then disappeared with a dramatic splash, not to be seen again.
Typically, this time there were no seals, but I was fully aware that there was a distinct possibility of this happening and I was interested in playing to the sea. Singing to the sea and letting my voice drift off on the wind is something that I've done since childhood, and more recently, in some of my bleaker moments at Falmouth.
I find it quite liberating, and it's about the only way I know of calming myself down and letting go of anger and frustration, other than just waiting it out, and I'm sure that this is a more healthy solution. It gives a sense of closure and letting go rather than letting things build up or linger.
One of the most important factors in this experience is being alone, and I wasn't alone on this occasion because I was being filmed, so I had both a camera and a cameraman as my audience.
I played remarkably badly because I decided to put my music on a rock rather than use a music stand and I couldn't see it very well and I'm not well practised enough recently to know any large parts of these pieces by memory any more. It felt more like a practice session than a performance, but I wonder if this was because of the quality of my playing, rather than the location.
The page turns disrupted the pieces quite a lot but by the end of it I wasn't bothered about sounding good any more, and I think it was at this point that my playing started to improve. I came away from the experience believing that I was a much worse clarinettist than I actually am, when actually the set up just hadn't been thought through very carefully and I couldn't see what I was meant to be playing. You can see at the end of the first piece how hard I was being on myself, when I criticize my pitching and my tone. It's interesting that I've let go of a lot of these things when I sing or play my own music but it seems to matter when I play somebody else's compositions. And maybe it should matter, I suppose it depends on whether I want to be a diverse musician or not. I think the answer is that I would like to be, but if I had to choose between being good and being interesting, I would rather be interesting.
Whilst we were at Stinking Cove, Joe noticed that the sound was being reflected off the rocks and was interested in the effect this created so he asked me to play my clarinet and listen to the reflections. I'm not sure how well the camera picked this up, it might just be the speakers on my laptop not being very good.Here is the video of the whole session (it's very long).
As I've already mentioned, we set out a lot later than intended (and we got a little bit lost) and I was meant to be back in Falmouth by 6ish for a Rainbows and Unicorns rehearsal, in preparation for a twenty minute set which we'd been booked to do at The Underground that evening around ten o'clock.
I was pretty excited about this. It was the debut gig for Rainbows and Uncicorns, a duo made up of myself and Steven Wright. You can see us on youtube:
I really enjoy working with someone because I've been doing so much solo work recently, and it's much nicer to have someone else involved, both creatively and socially. Even this far into my CEP I'm getting a bit weary of turning up to places and playing music alone. If someone doesn't like your group, you can easily laugh about it, but it's difficult not to take it personally when it's just you on the stage.
So, we had planned to leave Trevose Head at about five o'clock, but we only around at about twenty to five and we spent about an hour there so we were already behind schedule for making the rehearsal. Because there are just the two of us, our rehearsals are pretty informal so I figured that as long as I made it back in time for us to have a run though and still make it to the pub in plenty of time for our set, (I'd already been told we weren't required for the sound check) then it shouldn't be a major problem.
Unfortunately my phone still wasn't working so I had no way of contacting the organiser to let her know that we were going to be late, but as soon as I got to Steve's, (about 8:00) he called someone who was at the pub to pass on the message that we were still coming but that we were going to be late. We then ran through the songs and wrote out a set list before setting out for the pub.
We arrived a good hour/hour and a half before we were due to be on (after informing them that we were going to be late) and were greeted with, “Oh, guys, did you not get my message?” My phone wasn't working so the answer to this question was “no” and we were then informed that she was really sorry, but things were running a bit late and because we hadn't been there for the sound check, we had been cut. We were a bit gutted, but I didn't feel that we could argue too much because we had turned up late, but Steve argued our case pretty well and we were told that she might be able to “squeeze us in” to a ten minute gap where the pub quiz was supposed to be.
At this point I was starting to wonder whether she was actually annoyed at me for some reason about my performance at the King's Head the previous night but told myself that this was paranoia and they probably were just running late.
We jumped at the opportunity and agreed to play with the lowest tech set up possible because it seemed much better than not getting to play at all.
We were hurried onto the stage at the end of the next song and given a microphone for Steve's ukulele and one for my clarinet, and we somehow had to manage to sing into them as well.
We were just about managing with the set up, but what was disconcerting was the way that we were being spoken to. We were told that we could play for ten minutes but she'd really like it if it was less than that, and that she was giving us part of her set and that it was really nice of her and that she'd really like it if we could get off the stage as quickly as possible.
The room, which had been quite full, became mysteriously empty during the couple of minutes it took us to set up, so we were playing to a handful of people, although the room did seem to fill up a bit as we played. Our songs are based on really short poems I've written which I call 'Bits of Nothing' and the album we're working towards will be called 'Little Tiny Songs', and some of them are as short as thirty seconds long. After we'd played two of these and been told not to talk between the songs and to get off the stage as quickly as possible, we were told we were allowed to play one more song. Just as we finished, the guy doing the sound came over with another mic for us (you can see this in the video), but it was too late and we'd been told to get off. Our twenty minute set had been reduced to less than three minutes. What you can see in the recording is literally all that we played.
What was odd at this point was that none of the other people involved in the organization seemed to know anything about us having been cut, or, once we had been given permission to play, that our set was going to be so short. The compere walked back into the room after we had finished, thinking that we hadn't started yet, and when he found out that he'd missed us he was was disappointed that he hadn't got chance to hear us play and said that he'd been looking forward to it.
By now we were feeling pretty rejected but we decided to have a drink and enjoy the rest of the night. The girl played her set after us, and then the stage was empty.
After about ten minutes we were feeling a bit annoyed because we could have played most of our set in that time, but then it started to drag on to twenty and then forty minutes, and still no-one was on the stage. It seemed pretty obvious by this stage that there would have been plenty of time for us to play our set (twice!) but she had decided that she didn't want us to. The only reason I can think of for why this might be is because of the solo material I had played at the open mic the previous night. I can only think that I somehow managed to offend her, either by being too contemporary, or too controversial or simply too rubbish. Whatever the reason, it seemed as if she had assumed that I would be playing more of the same for this set. The irony, of course, is that Rainbows and Unicorns is very different to my solo work and I think she would have actually liked it.
Initially I think we were a bit upset but by the end of the night we were enjoying feeling like artistic rejects, and I find it fascinating that my music could have had that much of an impact on somebody because frankly, my songs aren't that 'out there'.
The whole night was bizarre and I was actually pretty angry at the time, but if I did interpret any events incorrectly, then I'm genuinely sorry, but I did feel completely discriminated against. It was like being back at school.
On the plus side, I had a lovely evening drinking wine with Steve, and he got his face painted like an unconventional rainbow.
posted on Monday 31 October 2011
This was quite a weird night. Following on from my previous open mic experience I decided just to go for it and do a set that was completely my own material and see how it was taken.The King's Head was full of students that night, and not anyone that I knew.
I wanted to use the piano because not many pubs have them and my piano song is my favourite one at the moment, so I wanted to make the most of having one available. I was aware that this would cause a small amount of inconvenience to the people running the open mic night, so I asked if I would be able to use it and made it clear that if the answer was no then that was fine. The girl said that it was absolutely fine and was really enthusiastic about it, but as soon as we started to mic up the piano, the mood in the room completely changed.
The first event that made the atmosphere a bit uncomfortable was when I went over to the group of students who were sat in front of the piano and asked if they would mind moving whilst I played my song. The girls who were sat there were really nice and had no issue whatsoever with moving. One of the guys, however, refused to move and this prompted the other (6?) guys with him to also stay where they were. This meant that when I came to play I was literally sitting back to back with some guy I didn't know and they were all talking over me. I was sure that they were making derogatory comments but I was so focused on performing that I wasn't paying attention to them and I could just as well have imagined their animosity.
Just before I started to play, one of the girls started talking to me and she was really nice. She was saying how great it was that I play piano and telling me about the instruments that she played and I was smiling and saying thank you but I felt a bit like I was deceiving her because I don't really play piano (or violin, or drum, or guitar) but it didn't seem like the right moment to try and explain to her that I'm currently interested in approaching instruments as objects that make noises rather than in trying to 'learn' them and play them as if I'd had formal training. Frankly, I think I play enough instruments already and I've lost interest in trying to 'master' any new ones as I think there are already so many people in the world that can (or have in the past) been able to play technically brilliantly, and I think they're fantastically talented, but I don't feel as if I would personally gain a whole lot out of doing something that's already been done so many times before, and probably at a higher standard than I would ever achieve.
Despite the seemingly hostile response from some members of the audience, I was determined to finish my set and just get on with it, but what was most unnerving was the attitude shift towards me from the people running the evening. Somewhere between telling me that it was fine for me to use the piano and me actually playing it, they seemed to have decided that it was a stupid idea and kept telling me to hurry up and not waste any time, which is fair enough, but at one point the girl said to me, “It's actually ridiculous that we're doing this,” which I don't feel should have been directed at me when she'd made the decision to mic up the piano. Throughout the whole set it seemed like she was being quite short with me and I just felt wholly unwanted on stage for the entire set (which lasted about 20 minutes).
It felt like the whole room had a very negative vibe and I felt like the audience hated me, but looking back I think that this was probably mostly due to paranoia. There is more applause on the recording than I remember hearing at the time, so maybe after the initial negative response from the people in the corner I just blanked everything out and it wasn't actually as bad as I thought.
There was a guy with a mandola who was waiting to play and he was sat on the sofa right in front of the stage. He was very appreciative throughout the set, which I found hugely reassuring at the time, considering the unfriendly atmosphere in the room. I don't know whether he was particularly enjoying my music or whether he was just being supportive of a fellow musician, but either way, it was appreciated and I made a point of sitting and watching his set when I had finished and I spoke to him afterwards.
At the end I ran out of original material and they wanted me to carry on playing so I played a Laura Marling cover and, interestingly, (and I suppose this goes against my belief that everyone in the room hated what I was doing) it seemed to upset the audience a bit that I was no longer doing my own material and someone shouted out, “So you're doing covers now?” Perhaps, even if people don't like what you're playing, they still appreciate that you went to the trouble of writing your own material.
The girl who was running the evening (who I do know, but I'm choosing not to use her name in order to avoid making anything personal; I'm just trying to document my experiences during this project as accurately as I can) came over and spoke to me afterwards and said that she really liked what I'd played and apologised for being stressed whilst we were setting up and that it was just due to the pressure of having to organize everything, so no hard feelings I suppose.
posted on Wednesday 19 October 2011
I went into the studio today to record another two songs for my album which will be self-published whenever it is finished. I currently have five songs recorded.I wanted to compare performing for a recording to performing to a live audience and I thought it might be scarier because the recording will exist forever, whereas live performance is ephemeral and temporal. In terms of the recording, it was actually less scary because we were making a studio recording, for which we could do as many takes as we wanted, it can be edited afterward to make it sound better, and if I don't like it then we can record it another day, or scrap it and then no-one ever has to hear it.
What was actually scary was performing in front of the person who was doing the recording. I actually felt really uncomfortable about this, partly because my voice felt quite rough and I thought I was singing badly, and also because one of the songs is about the person that was doing the recording, and the other one is largely improvised which is out of my comfort zone, and I always get embarrassed when performing my own material (particularly lyrics) to people that I know. I'm not quite sure why this is. I felt pretty insecure during the whole thing, but I think the recordings actually came out ok.
I thought it was kind of cool that this video is a recording of a recording of me being recorded...
posted on Wednesday 19 October 2011
This was an amazing contrast to the previous night's performance. I played basically the same set, although a couple of the covers were different, but the vibe couldn't have been more different.In contrast to QBar, the open mic night here is fairly well established, so most of the people there had turned up knowing that it was open mic night and expecting to hear live music. Most of the people there seemed to have come along to support a friend who was intending to play. I went along with John, a third year Theatre student and it was interesting to discuss the event from a theatrical perspective. I recorded an interview of his thoughts on the performance. The sound quality isn't great but you can hear our conversation drifting in and out of the music.
As on the previous night, everyone else who performed that evening sang and played guitar and some of them were very good, particularly the man running the evening, and a lady who sang a duet with him nearer the end of the night.
I was on about halfway into the evening, so there had been plenty of time for the atmosphere to settle down into an established state. The room felt very relaxed; people were listening but they were also continuing their conversations. At the start of the video, you can hear the general noise level which was fairly consistent throughout most of the night, then when I started to play, something unexpected happened.
I didn't introduce myself as the other performers had, for no reason other than shyness, but went straight into my first song, which starts with a capella vocals, and within a few seconds of starting to sing, all conversation stopped and the room went silent, and stayed silent for the duration of the song. There was a gap of about 9 seconds after me finishing the song during which people were unsure whether to clap or not; then there is applause.
Then I changed over from violin to guitar, and a low murmur of conversation started up but the room seemed to be waiting to see what would happen next. The guy running the open mic came over to help me set up the guitar and he said, "I've never seen the room go quiet like that." Then, within seconds of me starting to play the next song, as soon as it became clear that it was going to be just another song on guitar, everyone resumed their conversations and the room returned to the way it had been before. Listening to the applause at the end of that next song is also interesting because, unlike my first song, the song is predictable enough that the audience was able to accurately predict when it was about to come to an end and started clapping before I had finished, as I played the last chord. It was almost as if they were showing collective relief that I had returned to the expected format so that they were no longer in a state of confusion.
In contrast to this (perceived) reaction of the room in general, there was a group of students in there, one of which was a second year music student who I know by sight but had never spoken to before. He was so interested in what had just happened that he came over to talk to me, which was really appreciated because any feedback is useful for this project and what he had to say will actually have quite an impact on my open mic performances from now on.
He commented that my first song was very contemporary and he was really glad to hear something different being played at an open mic event, then I suddenly reverted back to the usual 'singer with a guitar' format and he wanted to know why.
The reasons I came up with for this were:
I have only recently started writing my own songs, so I currently have a very limited repertoire, and playing a few covers on guitar is an easy way to 'pad out' my set and fill up some time.
I'm quite a nervous performer and performing my own songs, particularly ones which deviate from the norm and draw more attention to me, is quite scary so knowing a few covers on guitar gives me something to fall back on if I panic.
These don't seem like very good reasons so it doesn't seem like there's much point in doing lots more open mic nights where I just play covers on guitar. In future I will aim to give a more challenging performance to unsuspecting audiences. I suspect that this kind of thing will be perceived very differently when I'm in my home town, compared to here, where there is a contemporary arts institution.
He's going to write down some thoughts about the performance for me and send it to me in the next couple of days which will be really helpful and I'll be able to reflect on it further. We exchanged numbers but I've since managed to lose the battery out of my phone and I'm waiting for a new one to arrive in the post, but hopefully we will manage to get in touch.
Here is the video of the performance:
and the interview with John.
posted on Monday 17 October 2011
So my CEP has begun. The first night turned out to be really interesting for me and provoked a lot of discussion between Joe (who was filming the performance) and myself. I wish we'd recorded what we were saying because I won't be able to remember most of it now, due to my feeble human memory.I didn't actually intend to play at QBar last night. The intention was to play at 'Songwriters Sundae' at Jacob's Ladder, which is an open mic night dedicated purely to songwriters. ('Songwriter' is a very interesting/odd word but I'll be going off topic if I discuss it too much here... I just find the distinction between 'composers' and 'songwriters' a strange one, but there are problems with all words that are used to define artistic practices, and the problem essentially seems to be that no-one actually knows what 'art' is, so accurately defining individual branches of it is ultimately doomed to failure, and there's so much crossover anyway that it seems a bit unnecessary to try.)
So, after emailing Jacob's Ladder a couple of weeks ago and inquiring whether it was necessary to book a place, and explaining why it was important, I was told that booking was unnecessary and that I should just turn up on the night. I turned up at the advertised time and typically they were already 'full'. The guy said I could come along next week, but I'm not sure how compatible that is with my schedule. (Also, I'm a little bit embarrassed about going back because I think I somehow managed to intimidate the man running the evening slightly by arguing my case a little too strongly, but we parted on good terms, with a handshake...)
I was well aware that things like this would happen; it's one of the inevitabilities of playing at open mic nights rather than having an organised gig, but open mic also provides its own unique opportunities.
Firstly, you don't have to be 'good'. If I was playing a paid gig and the people paying me didn't like what I did, felt that it was unrehearsed or unacceptable in some way, then they would be annoyed. Open mic doesn't have any such expectations so you can actually be quite self indulgent. The worst that can happen, really, is that you might get booed or insulted but people tend to be quite polite and appreciate the fact that you're putting yourself out there, and even if they don't think much of what you're doing, most people do seem to appreciate that you made the effort.
Than there's the fact that a lot of the time, (although this does depend on the venue) most of the 'audience' aren't even listening to you. I'm making assumptions here, but most of them probably went to the pub for a couple of pints and to chat with their friends, and may not even be aware that an open mic night is going on, and if there's someone who wants to stand in the corner and make a bit of noise then that's fair enough, but there may as well just be a cd playing, because in this context you are just background noise. Some people might go as far as thinking it's nice that live music is happening, but it doesn't mean that they're going to listen intently to you. This isn't a criticism of the audience; it's an observation and I think that becoming aware of performance contexts like this will be very informative for my practice.
One of the issues that came up in our discussion was that of 'convention' and how most people at open mic nights sing and play guitar. Recently I've found myself thinking that the guitar doesn't add a lot to many of these songs, because of the generic chords and strumming patterns that are so often used, it seems like a formulaic base over which to apply a melody and words, and as a poet I tend to be more interested in the lyrics of conventional songs because the music itself often doesn't interest me that much. There are loads of songs written on guitar that I absolutely love, I'm not saying there's no point to any of them, but it seems weird that as a 'songwriter' you almost feel obliged to have a guitar in your hands, and for someone like me with very basic guitar skills and little interest in learning the instrument other than in order to accompany myself, it seems a bit pointless to do so. I personally find it refreshing when someone gets up at an open mic night and plays something other than a guitar. I've been worrying that my songs won't be received well because they're not the kind of typical song you would normally expect, but after realising how little attention is paid to the performer, I don't think I need to worry so much. I don't know why I'm so worried about a bad reception anyway; self esteem issues coming out I guess.
So after finishing our drinks at Jacob's Ladder, we went along to QBar where our friend runs the jam night. In contrast to Jacob's Ladder, they were delighted to see us because no-one else had turned up all night to play, although there were quite a few people drinking in the pub. The relationship with Emily who was running the event was much nicer because she's really laid back and is a friend of ours but the vibe in the pub was quite weird. I had been planning to put some pieces together with Joe that had improvised sections in them to play at QBar next Sunday, and we may still do this, so I felt a bit as if I wasn't keeping to the spirit of 'jsm night' by playing my songs but the event is very open, it's basically a mixture of open mic and open jam. The atmosphere in that way is very relaxed, but there was so much noise in there that I was barely audible.
There was one guy who was listening intently, at least to start with, and it felt like I was just playing to him, Joe and the camera. When I did 'After The Tone' I completely messed it up and a tacky drumbeat started up from the loop pedal but absolutely nobody noticed about from Joe and that one guy and I realised I could have been doing anything into that microphone and, apart from those two people, it wouldn't have mattered. I could have been whispering death threats into the microphone and the people in there wouldn't have noticed. This removed any anxiety about further mistakes because it wasn't just that people wouldn't notice if I messed up, they were almost oblivious to me being there at all. I think there was applause after the first song, maybe because Emily initiated it.
Applause has interested me for a long time. I find it fascinating how it's been conditioned so firmly in people's brains from a very young age that as soon as you hear applause, you join in, often even if you don't know what's going on. The psychology of when to clap, how long for, how enthusiastically, and when you should stop fascinates me. I tend to avoid clapping as much as I can, but I do still sometimes find myself moving my hands together without making any noise, which is purely done out of politeness and a desire to conform to others around me.
Here are the videos of the performance; you can hear how noisy it was in there. There isn't much to see as my camera doesn't work well in low light:
posted on Monday 17 October 2011
My performances will be taking place from mid-October to mid-December. The remaining time until January will be spent on evaluating the experience and preparing my presentation. I will be documenting each performance with video, photos and a daily blog.I will be performing in a variety of different locations and environments during the course of the project eg. open mic nights, organised gigs, busking, street performance, choral and solo performances etc. I will be exploring how context affects performance as well as considering broader issues such as what 'performance' is. I will research into artists who have made enquiries of this nature in their work. This may mean branching out into fields such as fine art and performance art rather than just 'music'.
I was originally intending to perform every day in order to make it part of my daily routine and therefore normalize performance and remove the anxiety surrounding it, but I've decided that forcing myself to do one performance every day is placing unnecessary constraints on when and how often I perform. I will be performing frequently but I will do it when I have a reason to do it, not every day just for the sake of it. This means that some parts of my schedule will be very full and I may perform more than once a day if I feel that this is appropriate, and other parts of my schedule will be more focused on research. I believe that this openness will allow more freedom which will result in a more creative and thoughtful exploration of the nature of performance, rather than following a monotonous schedule which may end up tiring me out and exhausting my creativity.
I will be based in each of the following locations for one or two weeks in order to explore several different geographical locations:
Penryn, Cornwall
Ripley, Derbyshire
Sidcup, London
Reykjavik, Iceland
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
If, during the course of the project, I find that I would like to increase the number of locations in which I will be performing, I have Glasgow, Scotland and Guildford, Surrey as possible means of extending my travelling. I might also decide to go to spend a few days in a town that I've never been to before.
I feel that this project will be an empowering experience that will help me to develop my interpersonal skills and self-confidence and I hope that by the end of the project I will have conquered my remaining performance anxiety issues. If this is not the case then maybe I will learn that performance isn't really for me, and if that did turn out to be the case, it would be a valuable thing to learn. Just having a reason to leave the house on a regular basis will be empowering because I find it very easy to isolate myself and then I find it difficult to cope with social situations and this is problematic in all areas of my life, not just in performance.
My compositions have had very little public exposure so it will be interesting to discover how my songs are received by lots of different people. I will gain experience of booking gigs and arranging performances and this will be very valuable for any future performance-related career that I wish to pursue. I'm also interested in whether or not I am actually interested in making money from my art or whether I'd rather keep it as a hobby and retain complete artistic freedom.
I have been writing songs for a self-published album over the last few months and this project will be an excellent opportunity to get some feedback on the material so far and to promote myself as an artist.
posted on Saturday 8 October 2011
For anyone who doesn't know, 'CEP' stands for 'Contextual Enquiry Project'. It is a module undertaken by students from Dartington College of Arts during their third year of study. (I believe the CEP is continuing in some form under a different name at University College Falmouth.)The brief is very open; each student decides what they would like to explore in their project. It is an opportunity to take your artistic practice away from the college setting and explore it in the wider world.
There are as many different CEPs as there are students.
My course is BA Music (Performance) and I will be immersing myself in as much performance as I can, in as many different contexts as possible, and seeing how the context changes the performance. I'm also interested in the effect that performing on such a regular basis will have on me personally. The purpose of this blog is to document my thought processes during the project, particularly after each performance.
My next blog entry will contain my CEP proposal, which describes what I will be doing in more detail.
