Vision & Mission & DNA

A back to basics course on marketing was surprisingly relevant to most areas of my work. I'll try and relay the good bits! 1. What is your VISION? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Where are we headed? What is your core purpose and your core values? A vision is bigger than you can contain, forces you to grow, longterm direction, how you want the world to be. It's longterm 5-10 years. It touches the heart as well as the head. It's bold and audacious. EXAMPLE: " A just world without poverty' OXFAM KlangHaus : Boundless joy-inducing sound and art pioneers 2. What is your MISSION? The mission is why you exist, the difference you make, how you make the vision happen, what you do and why, your cause. EXAMPLE: " Everything we do... supports our mission: to promote understanding and enjoyment of British, modern and contemporary art." Tate Modern KlangHaus is part architecture, part art installation, part live gig. We take over buildings, respond to the history, the acoustic, the architecture and do live promenade, close-up shows for small audiences of around 30 people. Our intention is to refresh the live gig environment: music is innovative, why have a conservative format. KlangHaus: Bold adventures in sound, light and space. 3. Where might you use your vision? Make it public, share it with all co-workers, headed note paper, email sign-off, invoices, receipts. Use it before a decision is made? Programmes, tickets, translate into different languages. Where might you use your mission.... more internal business, less public...though I think the KlangHaus mission is equal to the vision. 4. BRAND horrible word, but really it means what is your DNA, your essence, what makes KlangHaus KlangHaus, what describes you at your best? For this we use our manifesto: WE ARE bold , innovative, risk-takers, fun and generous. WE WONDER when does a show start and when does a show finish. WE FEEL, we aim to make you feel, we are warm. WE DO take care of the experience people have. All core people you work with must understand your brand. things that are off-brand will be jarring. i.e. if the music you create builds tension, if someone is constantly resolving the tension because it makes them feel more comfortable, that is a problem. Brand - How are you different? A commitment to harmony, melody and meaning. A simple desire to connect with the audience by sharing a narrative. What impact do you have on people? we are known to inspire people, 'A joy-inducing original' The Times What is it that you believe? What are you like? How do you treat people? What do they get? How do you attract people? KH; pioneers, mystery, bring buildings alive, immersive experience, bespoke, experimental, one-off, surprise. What impact do you have on people? Inspire, give permission to others to be theatrical, alternative, innovative, odd. How do you engage people? You can spend time in the installation, participants are up close, so they feel involved, part of it. That's enough of a chunk for now....

James Turrell exhibition

It's a long drive and it's £20 to get in, but this exhibition hit the centre of my world. To spend time with the work of a person who dedicates their life to learning, experimenting, contemplating, making.... for James Turrell his medium is light. "Like music or sound, light is not material" Turrell says in an interview with Lord Cholmondeley (pronounced chumly). The Lord of the manor who has collected great art works by sculptors and installation artists and has his home, Houghton Hall, open to the public. You walk amongst colonial wealth in the former home of the first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, taking in the artworks and simultaneously being in awe of the artwork and lapped by luxury and privilege, enjoying the luxury and being lefty angry about it in equal measures. It was a KlangHaus day-out, we walked first to the Water Tower to see a piece called St. Elmo's Breath. From bright sunlight to pitch black. A dark room where you allow your eyes to be played with by Turrell. For 10 minutes it's an eyeball massage, trickery and play... you see white halos in your peripheral vision, shadows, wavy lines, pulsing colours...you don't see what I see, your eye ball is your eye ball! Brilliantly disorientating even when your eyes adjust and you go for an explore on how it was done...you can put your hands into light where you imagine a screen should be. Turrell speaks of how our eyes are made for twilight, which happens twice a day. At midday if the sun is bright, we squint or wear sun glasses. At twilight our pupils are open, you can almost feel the light. He also says, we use light as food, we absorb it through our skin to get vitamin D. He speaks of the soft maritime light we have in the UK, his main working studio is Arizona, in a volcano crater. We walked to Skyspace, an impressive wooden structure with a square hole for the ceiling.....you look at the sky. We returned at dusk and watched the sky turn a deep navy blue, the lights in the room a soft yellow. When we left we were surprised to see how different the sky was outside, much paler and realised that Turrell had again been playing with our eyes, affecting what colours we saw. The series of aquatint prints of cubes of projected light was strangely emotive. The hovering triangle of red light, menacing. Sitting with this man's art was one of my favourite things. Thank you Mr.Turrell.

Learning how to learn

I'm reading a book called Finding Your Voice by Barbara Houseman. It's for actors, but as a singer it is completely relevant, as a learner of anything from art to medicine..it seems pretty relevant.

Lyric learning - I'm there

Aguas De Marco... all 89 lines, I'm there. Not because I don't fluff a syllable here and there, but because it's now very enjoyable. The images tumble forward and the kinetic triggers pop into action moments before the deadline. I still have the enormous leap of singing accompanied by a guitar. Bring it on!

Lyric learning ...

Stumbling over one or two syllables only in the 89 line song Aguas De Marco. Also a new thought has arisen of how to cope with wrong words during the song performance and being able to carry on in a calm and 'that doesn't matter' way. The rhymes push the song along and a wrong word can have a jenga effect. I'm going to try some drawing exercises and pull the song apart to put it together again. Also I'm thinking about longevity....learnt lyrics quite often fall away...is the only way of keeping it there to do it daily? I'm thinking yes. Note to self, research longterm memorising techniques. I do find writing out lyrics helps me and I am a bit of a kinetic learner..a hand movement or head turn attached to a phrase helps lock words in place.

seemingly stuck

Firstly why am I doing this? I don't have to... I have now sung Aguas De Marco maybe 50 times and I still haven't sung it through without stumbling over a word or three.....and there is the great question of what is the point of art/creating stuff/gaining skills/climbing the mountain. With this lyric learning, I'm trying to work a way around myself, I DO know what the words are but other thoughts pop into my head or I just believe I am going to mess up. I am trying lots of different ways to nail this song... in a gentle way, ha ha. I've slowed the metronome to 111bpm. I do feel stuck, but I reckon I will get it, singing with the music should help...keep going...keep climbing the mountain, make the rubber meet the road, humph.grrrrrrr. This picture makes me laugh because it's me in a rage....determination!Just read a good quote from Peter Gabriel, 'creativity comes from the freedom to fail'.

Learning Lyrics ...nearly done it!

I started to relearn the lyrics of Aguas De Marco on August 9th, today is September 9th and I'm pretty much there. I still have to sing it through without a stumble, I have not managed that yet...though I am soooo nearly there. I have used several different methods. One from the great Alexander Technique teacher Suzanne Duncanson..holding a pencil between your teeth whilst you sing, gives renewed focus, for fairly obvious reasons of it being hard to sing! I keep trying to tell my brain that the lyrics are easy and enjoyable, that allows the words to flow, but then I sabotage it by thinking, I'm gonna muck up soon...and I do. Running out of breath plays another part in not flowing with the lyrics. I have been using a metronome at 107bpm...really slow for this song... it's painfully slow but I'm trying to summon the lyrics ahead whilst singing the current line. Trying to do that in an easy story of images and not panicing... doubt and panic and it all goes to crap!I'm speeding up the metronome and aiming for a complete unfluffed version later tonight! Now there's a challenge!