Hands was my starting point for this piece, and I found it quite meditative to both compose and perform. This is only the second piece I have performed on electric mandolin. The other attempt was interrupted by flooding, which was about the time this project really started to challenge me. I haven't even thought about what to do when it all ends, but I suppose I should watch everything back through from start to finish. Although each piece of music is not exactly a journal entry, they will certainly reflect my mind and life in that particular moment. If I can bear to sit through twelve months worth of videos I am curious to see how the music I have made has been shaped by the life I have lived alongside it.

SCP #141: Twilight Hearts

The second between improvisation.

SCP #135: Thingamajig

Here's a proper song, rather than me making light fun of my irritation at this project. I started with nothing as a theme, and used the word to generate some melodic ideas. The lyrics come from the word "thing", and the themes of "stretch of time" and "thingamajig" suggested by the etymological dictionary. My clock theme of early in this project makes a reappearance.

SCP #130: What Funny Things Bones Are

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

SCP #128: The Flat Of Your Hand On My Shoulder Blade

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

SCP #126: Love Is...

The second of my glove mind map improvisation experiments.

SCP #118: Your Shape Like Coloured Glass

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

SCP #114: My Thoughts Are A Wildness

My research into vista led me to the name Gwendolyn, which led me to Merlin, which led me to wildness. Merlin was also a seer, which connects nicely back to the word vista. Other vista-connections that found their way into this were kaleidoscope, clarity and vision.

SCP #106: The Bite Of Your Love

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

SCP #101: Snap And Rattle

This one came out easily, unlike most of my recent attempts. My starting prompt was venetian blinds.

SCP #97: Pull A Song From A Crack In The Clouds

A continuation on the hailstones theme, written and recorded while camping in Marlo, which is a ridiculously gorgeous part of Victoria. I'm blaming the distraction of bird calls for my terrible attempt at bossa nova guitar. This one needs a little more practice.

SCP #92: New Year's Eve Aquarium

I started with the word draught from the previous piece, and then opened the book The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (highly recommended by the way) to random pages and chose the first word on the pages starting with each letter of draught. The words led me here, and I let myself just hit random keys on the piano for part of the accompaniment as I'd run out of energy to nut out something more functional.

SCP #86: Apple Cider

It's school holidays and my teaching load has lightened up, so I spent a leisurely amount of time on this song. I have found through this project that I often run out of steam half way through a composition, particularly when it comes to writing second verses of lyrics. All my best ideas from writing exercises usually end up in the first verse or section of lyrics, and then there is pressure for the second part to equal the first in quality, and also move the song along somehow. I find a more traditional pop song structure much harder to write in a day, but these less traditionally structured songs come much easier. I treated this one a little like a painting, with both verses adding new layers to the picture.

SCP #83: A Torrent, A Flood

My first song of April, and I decided to take flood as my theme from the previous day. I did quite a lot of writing exercises but they were all ending up very serious and depressing, and I didn't really feel in the mood for a serious or depressing song. I gave myself happy flood as a new prompt and ended up writing about the moment someone tells you they love you. Perhaps it's the cheerful and simple diatonic harmony, or the swing feel, or the repetition of the phrase "I love you", but it absolutely lifted my mood after the emotional ups and downs of the past week and the chaos of Friday's flood.

SCP #78: Lullaby For Adam

I owe it to this project to be honest, and I am still struggling to find enjoyment in the writing process at the moment. What I really want is time to sit down and work on some of the music I've already written, arranging and practicing it ready for gigs on April 9 and 16. Instead my time and creative energy is going into writing new music, and I am procrastinating quite badly at the moment.

SCP #76: Colours Under Your Skin

Saturday's piece, a very quick improvisation before I took the night off. Just one take with both the text and melody improvised in the moment.

SCP #74: Needle And Skin

My last post was Thursday, which seems like an eternity ago as the last few days have been really difficult. This project was never meant to be easy, although up to now it has never felt impossible, and I've generally kept to my deadlines and retained my confidence in my ability to churn out new music when required. Over the weekend, however, I fell apart and spent a large part of it paralysed by anxiety. My rational brain knew that if I could just sit down and do the work I would end up with something, but when I tried I was unable to concentrate and found the anxiety expressing itself in physical symptoms, which is something I haven't really experienced before.

SCP #73: Inkstain

This one is Wednesday's, my starting point was ink from the previous day's piece. I had very little time to spare, so it's just a quick improvisation on a small lyrical idea. I borrowed a little bit of descending whole tone melody from the previous day's piece too.

SCP #69: I Am A Pane Of Glass

This project is as much about practicing performing as it is practicing composing. I was really struggling to get through a successful take of this one last night. I kept making small mistakes, and then rather than letting them go they were growing in my mind, forming distractions, and leading to larger mistakes and abandoned takes. The clock was edging toward midnight when I finally had a take I was happy with. I'm still learning ways to manage all the mental stuff that goes along with performing, particularly performing for recording, which I find more difficult than performing live. This project is definitely helping, although it's slightly stressful putting these raw recordings out into the public space where they can potentially exist forever.

SCP #68: Café Terrace At Night

For this piece I took the theme coffee from the previous day and in some internet wanderings came across Van Gogh's Café Terrace At Night, which I used to inspire this piece. I focussed on the bright and dark areas of the painting and did a three-minute writing exercise inspired by each. I then wove the result of the two exercises into this piece using minimal additional text. I really enjoyed this process, as the painting provided a wonderful source of inspiration. There was so much to tease out of it, and I think I might have to start a series of these pieces inspired by impressionist art.

Blog.

More instagram