Making Music is a Tiring Game! Wednesday 23rd July

Day 3 - and we're all extraordinarily tired already! That's pretty much the news today - what happens when you bring 10 composers from all around the world together to write a concert-length piece...well we all work hard and play even harder and get really, REALLY tired!

Partly self-inflicted, yes...admitedly! Oh and don't ask about the thing at the top - that's just how I feel at the moment! (plus - found a BRILLIANT website where you can get these things - so be warned - the blog's going animated!! ah hahahahaaaa!)

Something which is becoming clear though - is that part of my brain is telling me it has a niggling feeling I may have taken on too much...! Just thinking about writing AH! is well, quite appropriately AHHHHHH! It's so exciting, and everyone's already really got their teeth stuck into various stories, and already the music is evolving beautifully kaleidoscopically out of the words on the page and the combination of 10 brilliant, effervescent and catalystic minds...

But for me right now - I'm also thinking about exactly how I'm going to make my MA documenary out of it...2 BIG projects - only one little me - can't quite work out which is the rock and which is the hard place - but I am definitely slap bang in the middle of them!

It's not that either project is going badly, or is not working properly - instead it's like having too many choices of ice-cream - and I've been indecisive and bought all of them, eaten them and now feel cataclysmically sick...

I've recorded loads of music already - which is a small alca-seltza (ooop spelling - no idea!!) moment, as at least I already have something in the can! (phew me thinks!)

AND - what's really great is that every morning when we get to the work space to start another day of musical musings, the first thing we do, after setting up, is improvise together.

That's really bringing us, as a group, even closer together - we're witnessing real communication through music - it's quite incredible!

So although we have (relatively) a little of the opera emerging, I'm not short of music as I have a growing library of the fantastic, and sometimes wierd and wonderful spontaneous improvisations.

This is good - as I was a little concerned that in a project all about the genesis of an exciting and innovative piece of music, as a lot of what we're doing is computer based...there may not be any music to speak of to record...

That hasn't happened - I already have loads!

BUT - I haven't recorded any interviews yet and I'm worried that initial spark when we got here; i.e. the spark of excitement, unfamiliarity, nervousness, wonder etc. might go out. I don't think the excitment is going to do that - but we are gradually learning more and more about it - and so the first part of my documentary, which is all about before we all got here, ideally done as a retrospective but still fervent reflection of people's thoughts upon our arrival, is going to be dampened as every day goes by and we get more used to being here...slightly concerning!

There just hasn't been the time, or we're all still exhausted from our journeys and feeling more tired as we get our heads down every day to work on AH!

Simple sollution though - pull my finger out and just do it! There we go Nat - there's your kick up the bum in writing - DO IT!

Right - I go - interviews a-go-go!