Show Day

Just to capture show day thoughts... feeling quite calm. There never seems to be a point were all prep is done. I have spent many evenings this week, cleaning candle holders,folding merchandise, learning lyrics, loading sounds onto CDs, planning, making lists is it just one of those things that expands to fill the amount of time you have? The most enjoyable thing in the whole process has been the singing. Just doing it loads, being in the whole world of sound. That's what we want to share with people tonight. Sound. Listening. Listening without distraction. cut the umbilical cord to your mobile phone, look up from your electronic devise and listen...

black photos.

A package arrived in the post. My slide film I took in Edinburgh last trip. I ripped the cardboard open, there is the film strip, all folded neatly. I can remember some of the shots but I'm looking forward to re-remembering all the shots I have no memory of taking. The many hued green corridors, the white operating theatre.I took lots of double shots 20cm apart on a horizontal plain to make stereoscopic images. Okay, need to be prepared for some of them to be rubbish, blurred, too dark. No, I unfold the film to reveal... nothing... black film, nothing to be seen but black film. All those photos I took, don't exist, they are a mere memory, a possibility, but only in my mind's eye. Photos that were dead before they hit the light or was it too much light? film fault? camera fault? lens fault? my fault. I finished the film off with lots of photos of my sun filled house in early March. Black film. black photos. I had less emotion than a film full of half good photos, I suppose because that would have deemed me a bad photographer. I put the film in the bin and said, "oh well," did a small calculation on how much I had spent and walked away.

2 x 40 mins

So, we are gonna be doing two 40 minute shows everyday in Edinburgh expect Mondays. To mirror this and feel a tiny bit of what that might feel like, I am going to sing twice daily for a solid 40 mins. It would be really good if I could build to the point whereby I was doing that at 4pm and 6pm. It would be like conditioning, setting the body clock. It would also be useful if I could think about bringing anxiety levels down prior to these sessions. I wont be anxious here, but knowing my tendency to get stressy, I want to help my brain find ways of not knee-jerking into old habits of panic. I also turn into a bastard just before a gig... my personal step into diva-ism...it aint pretty! It's induced by panic of, 'is everything in place'... it's not about, self doubt, I can't do it, it's just about having everything in good working order. I don't mind mistakes, but equipment failure rattles me... but a good healthy reminder of it doesn't actually matter, we will communicate and do the best we can, even if all instruments and lights fail, we can still sing and tell stories. I'll report back on how I'm doing.

Singing

I'm learning 12 newly commissioned Benjamin Britten inspired songs for kids, for recordings. I'm learning new songs for a choir I'm in and I'm starting to write new songs for our Edinburgh show. Singing is my favourite thing. I like the place I travel to whilst singing. I like the imagination of it. The emotion, the humour, the intangible wealth of wonder, the release.... I salute the noise, the listening, the moving of air on ear drum.

Motor Cortex

The motor cortex of the brain, receiving new learnt behavior. Music practice. Small practice Let it go in slow, but permanently. Slow practice. Feel fingers on string, one chord 40 times. Again 40 times later that day. Next day a different chord. Learn a song. A tiny bit. Next day a different bit. Daily slow practice. Metronome. Slow. Notice everything. Increase by one beat per minute. Slow practice, make it stay.

Got it!

Another leap lept. We have some funding. Half way there. We will go to Edinburgh!

No microphone for the listeners

The Words and Women gig was a bit of a personal triumph for me. A hurdle jumped. The room was packed but I managed to be heard... Whilst waiting to sing I was trying to assess whether I would be audible. 80 people? Everyone in swathes of fabric, absorbing the sound. A plan, sing one song and ask if I can be heard... easy! Then my heart races. I demand it to stop..... nope. Heart races, breathing gets shallow... grrr, stop it! The great advantage of no microphone to hold, is that no one can see the mic shaking in my shaking hand. I sing very quietly as well as belting it out briefly. I have time to think. Shaking with nerves on the first song, creates a lovely tremolo effect. Hmm, always struggled with a tremolo in the past! By the second song , I was calmer..time to think. It was playful. Trying not to move around to much, it's a distraction. By the third song, I lose focus slightly, fluff some words, I still had time to think, corrected myself, recovered. Not quite as dynamic in the last song, but wow to be heard by a room-full of listeners, with no mic, it's possible and a delight! Thank you Words and Women.