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 #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 #82: Interruption

On Friday afternoon I had just started recording the day's song when I heard a dripping sound from the hallway. My upstairs neighbours' flat was rapidly flooding, and as a consequence flooding down into my flat too. This is not the first time this has happened, so I knew exactly which areas of my apartment needed to be evacuated of stuff. I hauled everything out of the wardrobes and used every towel in the house to try and hold back the leaking water.

SCP #57: Hummingbird

When I started this project back in January I was still sailing along on the time-rich bliss of summer school holidays. I had a great routine of waking up, practicing mandolin or guitar with coffee, doing some exercise while listening to a podcast, showering, practicing some more before and after lunch, then working on my daily song in the evening. But then the school term and private teaching started up again and my routine got thrown into turbulence and I haven't been able to steady it since.

SCP #27: Orange Peels

This piece continues on with yesterday's citrus theme, but used oranges instead of lemons as a prompt. I took the melody from yesterday's improvisation and turned it into a chord, and then transposed it into a nicer key for mandolin.

SCP #13: Clocks, Coffee

I'm writing this post a day late, although I did stick to my project rules and write and record this piece yesterday. I got it done right before I drove out to the beautiful Yarra Valley to play at a Bright Young Music wedding, and it definitely challenged my time management. I decided that the gig preparation took precedence, and that I would get all of that done first and use whatever remaining time I had left on this song, which was about half an hour. If I didn't have this self-imposed daily deadline I wouldn't have completed it, as the day of a large gig always comes with heightened stress levels. Of course the deadline is self-imposed, so I'd only be letting myself down if I took the day off, yet the public nature of this project means that I am also accountable to an audience.

Song-Chain Project, Clocks & Time, CoffeeErica Bramham21 January 2017mandolin, voice, critique, judgement, lyrical

SCP #12: In This Room

Today is the first day I really didn't want to sit down and work. Really, really didn't want to. My schedule has been fairly light the past few weeks as most of my music teaching doesn't resume until the school term starts back again, but I am playing at a wedding tomorrow and spent most of today preparing for that. I had considered building rest days into this project - one day a month perhaps - but momentum is an easy thing to lose. One day off the wagon and you start to want another, and another and another. I have no idea when I'll fit tomorrow's song in, but that's a challenge for the morning.

SCP #7: The Sun Makes It Grow From Your Feet

Today marks the end of the very first week of this project, and perhaps the end of the honeymoon period, as it's getting difficult now. It's a little surreal to realise I've churned out seven new musical ideas in as many days, and terrifying to realise I still have to find another 358 to make it to the end of the year.

SCP #4: Hard Heart, Soft Hands

I felt like playing some mandolin today. From yesterday I took the idea of a square, which has four sides, and played around with intervals of a fourth to find the simple accompaniment pattern. Phrasing that same melody in groups of five over the top creates a nice bit of tension that eventually resolves. It's quite refreshing where such a small idea can lead, and although the result is very simple I can hear all kinds of possibilities for expanding it and arranging it for an ensemble.

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