THE DIARY OF HOW I MADE THIS
July 26
Over the break I wrote out lyrics, which, for the most part, I’m happy with. The one thing I couldn’t get was the ska song. I mean, first, what topics do you write about when you have the ska genre in mind? Love? Fishing? Being white, but still race-aware? The result I came up with was not wanting to be in Perth, but that feels ingenuine, y’know? Unlike a couple people I know, I like it here, mainly because I have been able to foster a community/be fostered by a community, and that feels bitchy to turn around and be like “I WANNA GO TO MELBOURNE” so I deleted the lyrics, at least. For now, I’m replacing it with Hydrophile, a song I wrote the lyrics for at the beginning of the year, about being too addicted to water.
Also, I’ve written out the lyrics, but I haven’t written out most of the music, mainly because I don’t really know how to go about it? Like I want to explore different ways of scoring for each piece, but (1) I don’t know how many different things I can do, or how effective/economical that is, and (2) jumping between different scoring feels kind of pointless? I’ve devised for HUH WHAT that the whole point is that you can look at the score for 5 minutes, put it down and play it “correctly”, and thus my problem shouldn’t be “what’s a fun way to score”, but “what’s the BEST way to score something to achieve a specific outcome”, which is slightly horrifying.
Should I be worried about differentiating scores, or should I be more audience focused, I mean they won’t know what’s on the page? I guess what’s happening is a battle of priority, the audience (having sounds that are cool), the performers (the musicians have something interesting), or me (having some fun writing)? Obviously, I should do something interesting with the scores, but how? A question for future me to answer.
Currently the setlist is:
July 27
Today was unproductive for the most part. I spent the morning and afternoon wallowing about not doing anything, and I know it’s important to take breaks, but it’s annoying when you’ve set out time to work and instead do nothing.
I made some mock-ups of the poster. When I say mock-ups I mean probably what I’ll use because I put too much effort into the mock-ups.
Over the break I wrote out lyrics, which, for the most part, I’m happy with. The one thing I couldn’t get was the ska song. I mean, first, what topics do you write about when you have the ska genre in mind? Love? Fishing? Being white, but still race-aware? The result I came up with was not wanting to be in Perth, but that feels ingenuine, y’know? Unlike a couple people I know, I like it here, mainly because I have been able to foster a community/be fostered by a community, and that feels bitchy to turn around and be like “I WANNA GO TO MELBOURNE” so I deleted the lyrics, at least. For now, I’m replacing it with Hydrophile, a song I wrote the lyrics for at the beginning of the year, about being too addicted to water.
Also, I’ve written out the lyrics, but I haven’t written out most of the music, mainly because I don’t really know how to go about it? Like I want to explore different ways of scoring for each piece, but (1) I don’t know how many different things I can do, or how effective/economical that is, and (2) jumping between different scoring feels kind of pointless? I’ve devised for HUH WHAT that the whole point is that you can look at the score for 5 minutes, put it down and play it “correctly”, and thus my problem shouldn’t be “what’s a fun way to score”, but “what’s the BEST way to score something to achieve a specific outcome”, which is slightly horrifying.
Should I be worried about differentiating scores, or should I be more audience focused, I mean they won’t know what’s on the page? I guess what’s happening is a battle of priority, the audience (having sounds that are cool), the performers (the musicians have something interesting), or me (having some fun writing)? Obviously, I should do something interesting with the scores, but how? A question for future me to answer.
Currently the setlist is:
- HUH: a graphic score of a gradient
- THERE’S A MAN: text score, very directive
- HYDROPHILE: mix of graphic score/traditional score?
- WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE?: like hydrophile? maybe text score/trad?
- WHAT: trad score????? I don’t want to do it, whenever I open Sibelius I get a heart attack.
July 27
Today was unproductive for the most part. I spent the morning and afternoon wallowing about not doing anything, and I know it’s important to take breaks, but it’s annoying when you’ve set out time to work and instead do nothing.
I made some mock-ups of the poster. When I say mock-ups I mean probably what I’ll use because I put too much effort into the mock-ups.
I don’t have a time yet, and Toby and I were thinking of moving back to the RGA, so who knows what’ll happen? Not me. Anyway that’s why there’s a massive space.
When I went into the shower, I realised what the problem was with creativity: I was spending too much time on the FIND OUT part of the process that I entirely forgot about the FUCK AROUND bit. And thus, I have been pointlessly critiquing when all I should be doing at this stage is creating without limits. After a shower and talking to people I haven’t met on Instagram, I finally found the words for WHAT, the final song. It may not be finished, but at least this adds more weight to the hypothesis that I should only work after 10, because that’s when my best stuff comes out. There’s a specific time frame. (It’s 11:33pm atm). Hydrophile’s a solid. I think I’ll use a full graphic score for that one.
August 10
Finally, after days of just thinking, I’ve started notating hydrophile by hand. It’s been hard to conceptualise the piece, so on the bus I wrote in pen a bigger-picture version of the… (unfinished)
August 18
I’ve finally finished the notated parts of hydrophile. I’ve left gaps for the graphics.
Originally the graphics were going to be a lot of abstract lines and shapes, similar in style to something of Keith Haring, one of my favourite artists, but it felt too distant to the theme of water, so instead I drew a bunch of shapes and overlayed images of the ocean on top.
When I went into the shower, I realised what the problem was with creativity: I was spending too much time on the FIND OUT part of the process that I entirely forgot about the FUCK AROUND bit. And thus, I have been pointlessly critiquing when all I should be doing at this stage is creating without limits. After a shower and talking to people I haven’t met on Instagram, I finally found the words for WHAT, the final song. It may not be finished, but at least this adds more weight to the hypothesis that I should only work after 10, because that’s when my best stuff comes out. There’s a specific time frame. (It’s 11:33pm atm). Hydrophile’s a solid. I think I’ll use a full graphic score for that one.
August 10
Finally, after days of just thinking, I’ve started notating hydrophile by hand. It’s been hard to conceptualise the piece, so on the bus I wrote in pen a bigger-picture version of the… (unfinished)
August 18
I’ve finally finished the notated parts of hydrophile. I’ve left gaps for the graphics.
Originally the graphics were going to be a lot of abstract lines and shapes, similar in style to something of Keith Haring, one of my favourite artists, but it felt too distant to the theme of water, so instead I drew a bunch of shapes and overlayed images of the ocean on top.
I might incorporate that style somewhere else; I really like it.
Decided to collect samples and just send them to Ethan, so they can fuck around with them in Ableton.
Partitia for 8 voices? - good vibes for full improv.
September 3
One thing that is apparent from this is that I'm horrible with updating this journal. I didn't really take notes on my last principal studies, mainly just pictures, as you can see.
I have however written another piece, finished, called pali wawa li moli la pali wawa li ali, or dare to die, dare to live. It utilises toki pona, a conlang which I semi-frequently get obsessed with, even though I don’t know how to speak it.
Anyway, I’ve written everything, the language in English, then in toki pona, and then in a toki pona-specific nonlinear logogramic language. It’s been a hectic couple of days, but I’m proud of myself for making something this fast and of this quality. Also finally I have more noisy music, which is something that I really do enjoy playing, even though it’s hard to tell what.
Here’s an example of the renderer to the design I landed on. I wanted something that felt hand-drawn, because that’s the idea, it’s supposed to resemble the west-coast comix scene like Jim Woodring.
Decided to collect samples and just send them to Ethan, so they can fuck around with them in Ableton.
Partitia for 8 voices? - good vibes for full improv.
September 3
One thing that is apparent from this is that I'm horrible with updating this journal. I didn't really take notes on my last principal studies, mainly just pictures, as you can see.
I have however written another piece, finished, called pali wawa li moli la pali wawa li ali, or dare to die, dare to live. It utilises toki pona, a conlang which I semi-frequently get obsessed with, even though I don’t know how to speak it.
Anyway, I’ve written everything, the language in English, then in toki pona, and then in a toki pona-specific nonlinear logogramic language. It’s been a hectic couple of days, but I’m proud of myself for making something this fast and of this quality. Also finally I have more noisy music, which is something that I really do enjoy playing, even though it’s hard to tell what.
Here’s an example of the renderer to the design I landed on. I wanted something that felt hand-drawn, because that’s the idea, it’s supposed to resemble the west-coast comix scene like Jim Woodring.
5 September
Gone over the lyrics again, finally consolidated huh.
Now time to rewrite bean man (I got the drums and clarinet)
15 September
I’ve thought a lot about the performance. A lot of small changes in the lyrics. Trying to fit a bass solo into bean man.
Adding additional notes on hydrophile.
Gone over the lyrics again, finally consolidated huh.
Now time to rewrite bean man (I got the drums and clarinet)
15 September
I’ve thought a lot about the performance. A lot of small changes in the lyrics. Trying to fit a bass solo into bean man.
Adding additional notes on hydrophile.
Finally have done Ethan’s part on hydrophile.
24 September
It’s been a while since I wrote here, but do not worry, for I have been working on this nonstop. I’ve finally gotten around to reformatting bean man, and I have made the possibly horrible-in-the-short-term-but-more-successful-in-the-long-term decision of the scores to be put entirely on mobile phones/iPads. This means reformatting… everything. Whoops! I’ve done huh in its entirety (I needed to change some things anyway), and now I’m onto bean man. Hopefully hydrophile isn’t a shit.
I also planned out what on paper. Should be easy to translate into scores.
30 September
It was not easy to translate the scores onto mobile, so I stopped trying. Good news though, the change in format was what my brain needed to finally re-write bean man, so now all I have left is “what”. I’ve semi-planned out the layout via talking to myself in the shower for hours on end. I’ve effectively done the bass part, but the thought of “this isn’t long enough” has passed through my mind, so I’m adding another verse to pad it out. Time to write lyrics I guess.
No need for a second verse: clarinet solo.
3 October
So no on the clarinet solo, there was a lot in there already, plus I added a lounge jazz thingy. Good news, ALL THE INSTRUMENTAL PARTS ARE DONE. It feels nice. Now time to rehearse and get the vocal part ready. Because I don’t intend for this music to be replicated, I’ll probably just write the lyrics as a word document instead of notes and pitches and what not, and I’ll add some light typography in the midst to make it look quirky, but then that’s all of the notations done! I’m tempted to write a “notes on interpretation” section to make it clear (or more accurately: purposely unclear) how to interpret the graphics.
7 October
Yesterday was a big day in the scope of this recital as it was the first proper rehearsal. It went well, and there were a bunch of problems within the score. Notating exactly what the cues are instead of just writing Q is obviously an important thing, making sure that the cues are visual/somatic instead of verbal because I’m bad at projecting, and having a full score so I don’t have to run around looking through everyone’s scores is probably for the best, so I’m going to get onto that.
In the principal study session with Lindsay, we mainly just chatted about the folio and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but he gave me a really good idea of having a bunch of interrupters: “background dancers” who get to do basically anything while the song proper goes on.
9 October
Just going through, making sure that the cues are all consistent. Also decided to do a full score, I think that I’ll notate it as wiggly lines. I’m not too fussed about actual notes, but much more about rhythms.
14 October
Throughout this week I’ve been making full scores and correcting a couple mistakes from the rehearsal, but today I had a mind-melting lesson with THE Simon Charles, and there were a lot of valuable insights. One which kind of shocked me but also something I needed to hear was that pieces need to not only be concise, but clear, and the absolute enemy of clarity is graphic scores. And that may be good in an external piece, but if you’re in an institution? Please. I have been dying to have my work critically beaten up.
Anyway I’m going to rewrite my scores, with the goal of making them AS clear as possible.
18 October
Once again, my ADHD has gotten the better of me, and I haven’t particularly worked on anything, and now that I look upon the scores, I cannot bring myself to work on them. They are not good enough and my brain wants to scrap them. So I have (I haven’t deleted the files like I usually do thankfully), and I’m doing them handwritten. The reason for handwriting is to 1) have a constant aesthetic, 2) do all the composing in one software, and 3) this is a recital about deconstructing language, which is easier done by hand then by text editors. I should note, this is digitally by hand, I’m using a drawing tablet. I’ve also started on a dictionary of all the new stuff I’m using.
Over the weeks I’ve thought a lot about what Simon told me in his lesson, and have been thinking a lot about my own compositional practice in tandem, and we disagree on graphic scores and their worth. Something I didn’t mention in the last entry is that Simon is against graphic scores from a personal standpoint, not just in a clarity way, if that makes sense. And I do believe that graphic scores aren’t as clear as a typical score or text score, but I’m not looking for clarity. In fact, my compositional practice is against clarity, in a sense. I want people to ponder my music for hours, I want people to stare at my scores trying to decode them, what they exactly mean, what each thing would sound like, because that’s what I’ve done. That’s my compositional process. I try to think of a way to teeter out an interesting sound from a musician in abstract terms.
31 October
It’s been a while since I’ve written here, but that’s because I’ve been using the time to write the scores again, but during this time I think it’s important to note a change in philosophy. Originally, the scores were only supposed to be guides on how to play the music, appropriating rock culture, but now, with a clearer direction of what I want out of HUH WHAT and it’s stronger correlation with the question of interpretation, they definitely need to be reading off scores. The interpretation is the point; the scores are an analogy for the written word, so to be read is their function.
3 November
I got the scores “done” yesterday, just in time for the second rehearsal. I need to go through and fix them up. I only need to redo the lyrics part and fix some formatting errors. Also I might make a list of problem areas in the scores, so people know what to practise. I saw Liam Downey’s and Ethan French’s (no relation) recitals last night, the standard has been met. Also I’ve been listening to a lot of Black Country Old Road again, and the temptation to make the lyrics emotional is back.
6 November
This show is eating away at me, my relationship with this project is becoming unhealthy, but it has to be. I can’t not do the show now, I’m immensely proud of what I’ve done, but the stress is real. The closer the day grows, the more horrified I am. But hey, at least I’ve been spending the days doing this, notating everything, making sure everything goes to plan, or at least appears to. We had another rehearsal. We really got in depth with tracks like Hydrophile and Pali Wawa Tawa Moli (a piece that I only just realised that I was spelling wrong). I also added in a ska section in What because my notation was just ska but I didn’t write it that way (what is a fast boogie beat but ska), and decided to sing Happy Birthday for my little brother in the middle of the show. Two days to go!
24 September
It’s been a while since I wrote here, but do not worry, for I have been working on this nonstop. I’ve finally gotten around to reformatting bean man, and I have made the possibly horrible-in-the-short-term-but-more-successful-in-the-long-term decision of the scores to be put entirely on mobile phones/iPads. This means reformatting… everything. Whoops! I’ve done huh in its entirety (I needed to change some things anyway), and now I’m onto bean man. Hopefully hydrophile isn’t a shit.
I also planned out what on paper. Should be easy to translate into scores.
30 September
It was not easy to translate the scores onto mobile, so I stopped trying. Good news though, the change in format was what my brain needed to finally re-write bean man, so now all I have left is “what”. I’ve semi-planned out the layout via talking to myself in the shower for hours on end. I’ve effectively done the bass part, but the thought of “this isn’t long enough” has passed through my mind, so I’m adding another verse to pad it out. Time to write lyrics I guess.
No need for a second verse: clarinet solo.
3 October
So no on the clarinet solo, there was a lot in there already, plus I added a lounge jazz thingy. Good news, ALL THE INSTRUMENTAL PARTS ARE DONE. It feels nice. Now time to rehearse and get the vocal part ready. Because I don’t intend for this music to be replicated, I’ll probably just write the lyrics as a word document instead of notes and pitches and what not, and I’ll add some light typography in the midst to make it look quirky, but then that’s all of the notations done! I’m tempted to write a “notes on interpretation” section to make it clear (or more accurately: purposely unclear) how to interpret the graphics.
7 October
Yesterday was a big day in the scope of this recital as it was the first proper rehearsal. It went well, and there were a bunch of problems within the score. Notating exactly what the cues are instead of just writing Q is obviously an important thing, making sure that the cues are visual/somatic instead of verbal because I’m bad at projecting, and having a full score so I don’t have to run around looking through everyone’s scores is probably for the best, so I’m going to get onto that.
In the principal study session with Lindsay, we mainly just chatted about the folio and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but he gave me a really good idea of having a bunch of interrupters: “background dancers” who get to do basically anything while the song proper goes on.
9 October
Just going through, making sure that the cues are all consistent. Also decided to do a full score, I think that I’ll notate it as wiggly lines. I’m not too fussed about actual notes, but much more about rhythms.
14 October
Throughout this week I’ve been making full scores and correcting a couple mistakes from the rehearsal, but today I had a mind-melting lesson with THE Simon Charles, and there were a lot of valuable insights. One which kind of shocked me but also something I needed to hear was that pieces need to not only be concise, but clear, and the absolute enemy of clarity is graphic scores. And that may be good in an external piece, but if you’re in an institution? Please. I have been dying to have my work critically beaten up.
Anyway I’m going to rewrite my scores, with the goal of making them AS clear as possible.
18 October
Once again, my ADHD has gotten the better of me, and I haven’t particularly worked on anything, and now that I look upon the scores, I cannot bring myself to work on them. They are not good enough and my brain wants to scrap them. So I have (I haven’t deleted the files like I usually do thankfully), and I’m doing them handwritten. The reason for handwriting is to 1) have a constant aesthetic, 2) do all the composing in one software, and 3) this is a recital about deconstructing language, which is easier done by hand then by text editors. I should note, this is digitally by hand, I’m using a drawing tablet. I’ve also started on a dictionary of all the new stuff I’m using.
Over the weeks I’ve thought a lot about what Simon told me in his lesson, and have been thinking a lot about my own compositional practice in tandem, and we disagree on graphic scores and their worth. Something I didn’t mention in the last entry is that Simon is against graphic scores from a personal standpoint, not just in a clarity way, if that makes sense. And I do believe that graphic scores aren’t as clear as a typical score or text score, but I’m not looking for clarity. In fact, my compositional practice is against clarity, in a sense. I want people to ponder my music for hours, I want people to stare at my scores trying to decode them, what they exactly mean, what each thing would sound like, because that’s what I’ve done. That’s my compositional process. I try to think of a way to teeter out an interesting sound from a musician in abstract terms.
31 October
It’s been a while since I’ve written here, but that’s because I’ve been using the time to write the scores again, but during this time I think it’s important to note a change in philosophy. Originally, the scores were only supposed to be guides on how to play the music, appropriating rock culture, but now, with a clearer direction of what I want out of HUH WHAT and it’s stronger correlation with the question of interpretation, they definitely need to be reading off scores. The interpretation is the point; the scores are an analogy for the written word, so to be read is their function.
3 November
I got the scores “done” yesterday, just in time for the second rehearsal. I need to go through and fix them up. I only need to redo the lyrics part and fix some formatting errors. Also I might make a list of problem areas in the scores, so people know what to practise. I saw Liam Downey’s and Ethan French’s (no relation) recitals last night, the standard has been met. Also I’ve been listening to a lot of Black Country Old Road again, and the temptation to make the lyrics emotional is back.
6 November
This show is eating away at me, my relationship with this project is becoming unhealthy, but it has to be. I can’t not do the show now, I’m immensely proud of what I’ve done, but the stress is real. The closer the day grows, the more horrified I am. But hey, at least I’ve been spending the days doing this, notating everything, making sure everything goes to plan, or at least appears to. We had another rehearsal. We really got in depth with tracks like Hydrophile and Pali Wawa Tawa Moli (a piece that I only just realised that I was spelling wrong). I also added in a ska section in What because my notation was just ska but I didn’t write it that way (what is a fast boogie beat but ska), and decided to sing Happy Birthday for my little brother in the middle of the show. Two days to go!
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