Still drawing bras, still stamping and embroidering words on bits of muslin. Still playing pick ‘n’ mix with patches and pieces for the joint show with Bo.
I’ve now finished teaching for the year and can really focus on these things. I have decided, other than today when I have decided to draw bras all afternoon, I shall have to spend the six weeks ahead working with Bo, and the work for our event. A priority. I don’t usually like deadlines and setting priorities, but it has to be done.
Except… I have booked a day of songwriting next week. My friend Dan Whitehouse is leading a day for songwriters using the Immersion technique… I will do nothing but write songs all day… bang them out is apparently the thing to be done. Not worry about how they sound, quality, whether they are “right”, just get down as much as you can in the time available. Then look at it all at the end. This will do me good, as I spend a lot of time worrying about the words, and then worrying about whether it is a poem or a song, or whether it has a chorus, or if I can write a chorus or if it just looks stupid on paper. I worry that I can’t play an instrument. I shall do hideously self-aware noises into GarageBand and hope for the best. I shall suspend self-consciousness for the day hopefully, and by the end of it, even if I don’t end up with anything useful, I hope to have broken the bad habits and feel freer about the whole process.
I would quite like to have a sound element to my show with Bo, but I’m trying not to force the issue, just hoping that something appropriate lands on the page, and that I can make something of it.
I have shied away from doing anything musical since my MA final show… but feel if I’m going to keep myself challenged, this has to be done. I’ve gone back to listen again at what I did. Dan had so much input to both of the songs I wrote. I would quite like to get something further along the process on my own before I plead with him for help this time. It is far to easy to rely on someone that you know will do a great job, but I’d like to learn to rely on myself, to find out what I can do by myself first. To become more confident and comfortable with my own processes….
Time will tell.
I post here links to soundcloud as a reminder of what went before… so that if I manage to post up some new sounds, the comparison is easier to make.
https://soundcloud.com/elena-thomas/elena-lullabymp-05-10-11
https://soundcloud.com/elena-thomas/keep-calm-loop-elena-thomas
