behind the notes: How are you? from 'Morals + Interludes'
As part of the release of the Young Composer Scheme, Vol. 2 album on NMC Recordings Digital label, I am going ‘behind the notes’ of Morals + Interludes, and sharing its starting point and who or what inspired me.
There are were several parts at play in creating this series of short choral works featured on this album - Morals + Interludes - and I think it’s important to shine a light on the people who inspired each of the five choral works that make up this series.
Back in April 2020 (penny drops), like many, I was finding it difficult to find purpose, let alone create. After the crazed binge of social media in the hope that I would fall on something that would make me say “wow, I know EXACTLY what to do now”, I turned my back on it. The overwhelming sense that a million opinions, thoughts, feelings, concerns, experiences were just sitting behind my blank screen was too much. And this silent noise was even more present in this time of isolation and digitising our entire lives in light of social distancing; from the work we do to the socialising we need, to quite literally the only way many can communicate with one another – in this ‘chaos’ of the virtual. People, understandably, wanted to be heard.
However, I began to discover, as many did, that these enforced periods of isolation is also an important time for reflection. Self-reflection. Perhaps this is an essential moment of our lives for repose, as we quite literally live with our own thoughts and deal with not only the mundane but even the existential.
I thought, how about I take these two elements we are embracing/tackling at the moment - this reflection on the past/future and this concept that we have immortalised our lives digitally/virtually - and try and create something from it?
This was timed to perfection. I was in need of a starting point for my new work with the lovely and insanely talented singers of the 2019-20 National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Fellowship, and this realisation could be just that starting point to create something new. Something meaningful. I tasked the singers to send over any ‘virtual memories’ they felt would reflect a part of their lives that have meaning to them in any way. I suggested that it could be: “an old teenage confessional you once posted on YouTube; a home-video of you with family when you were young; a recorded conversation you may have had with a friend recently; or even a blooper/random vid you may have on your phone from a night out (I am sure there are way too many on Facebook of me in some club in Cardiff when I was at university).”
I waited…
i. How are you?
The first ‘virtual memory’ landed in my DMs and it was from the inspiringly-lovely Ella Rainbird-Earley, alto for the 2019-20 National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Fellowship.
“And what was it?”, I hear you holler. A 60-second video montage of her time on a choir trip to Sweden.
“What can you get from a 60-second video?”, I hear you scream. Well, probably too much I found out.
I could have probably created a whole series of works based on what the video contained. It bizarrely incorporated everything I thought I would see in all of the submissions. From the ridiculous (saying goodbye to some leftover churros) to the sublime (moments of beauty in a church to heartfelt moments between friends). However, the starting point had to be to get these onto paper. Like a collage of moments. And carve the lines that are most appealing. Cut out the moments that have the greatest impact, have the most mystery or that speak directly to your own experiences. Sounds OTT, but that’s the beauty (and importance) of setting music to words. You can enhance the words. You can support the words. You can undermine or contradict the words. You can wrap your arms around them. You can kick them to the curb. Well, musically speaking.
And all of these lived moments, moments special to Ella and her experiences in Sweden, now pencilled into my diary are ripped out of their context. Given a new one. Like news headlines we often see online. Out of context or (in an age of Fake News) given a new context. And that’s what music does. It gives these lived experiences a new home.
Many of the lines in Ella’s video were conversational. Everyday lines we may hear or be asked. But in this new context, they felt more poignant, more profound, than in their original form. They found a new context. One in a moment that feels so desperate, so isolated. Almost pleading. They found a new purpose.
“How are you? How are you feeling?
It was the worst thing in my life.
The lights are flashing.
My nose is so cold.”
need more?
Please feel free to head over to the dedicated page for Morals +Interludes to find out more or listen to the whole album release.