R&D day 13 SomersetHaus

My day began with a vocal lesson from the very high powered vocal tutor Mark Maylan. Scary leading up to it but brilliant. Lots and lots of work to do. My top and mid range are very under-par, breathing too full of effort, top notes thin and wobbly, core strength pretty lame. All good stuff and I look forward to making my singing experience of making noise feel much more effortless and easy. Today we have arranged for lots of visitors to come and share in our thoughts and findings at SomersetHaus. We set up the space in our routine way. We walked through a possible route. Jeron arrived and unofficially was our first guest. Sal and I collected people at 6pm. Wanting to engage with 7 different people all at once is a tricky skill, like holding jelly. It works for moments then slips away, then works. again. If we had to do it again, we should have a welcoming party of all of us if it needs to be personable. We took them into the dark room. Most people settled , thou one friend got very anxious and claustrophobic. It was fine, we just opened the door and we all went back into the light. We explored the upstairs, which was a reminder of how an 'audience' can run away into parts of the building which are dangerous, two friends disappeared into an unboarded attic, I held my breath... I think that's how you keep people safe isn't it.... then down into the space...Jon had set up some sound design and Sal's lights were purring. No one wanted to leave. Even though we had the most basic set-up, no one wanted to leave. They loved exploring, they felt calm, almost nothing was happening, but it was a world they wanted to live in.