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…

ii. norm

NYCGB Fellow alto and insanely talented human-being, Milette Riis, mentioned during a virtual summer workshop of the first ‘postcard’ - How are you? (more information can be found on the previous #BehindTheNotes blog) - that she has thrown herself into writing and curating a pretty successful blog on all the things she faces and thinks about on a daily basis. Both a personal blog and an informative expression on wellbeing and the lives of millennials, which lends to the blog’s name, Musings of a Milettennial. From the pressures of isolation to the constant gaze of social media, to the more tongue-in-cheek with analyses of 90s/noughties popular sitcom, Friends, to building your own indoor fort.

(This is in addition to her mentioning, “Oh, I am unsure whether I can make that date as I am currently finishing up the last draft of my PhD submission” as we discovered that Milette was currently completing her PhD in Mathematics at University of Leeds. What an amazing individual!)

Scrolling through the hordes of wonderful insights (and there are a whole load, so I would encourage you to take a look at https://milettegillow.com), I came across one that really impacted on some of the things I was feeling during lockdown. Feeling both connected yet disconnected from the world around me. Feeling like I had both everyone and no-one to turn to. This was a blog titled, The Stress of Being Constantly “Switched On”, and particularly explores the representation of women in the 2000s on sitcoms (another mention of Friends), constantly being connected to get ahead of their counterparts and continually playing catch-up. It struck a cord (not literally, in this case).

What was also reflected in this blog was the highly suspected fact that millennials are reported to be the most stressed-out and lonely generation, pulling together reports and research to back up something that I had been experiencing in just the months leading up to this. Milette writes, “Nowadays, of course, everyone is constantly connected. All the time. In fact, not only is everyone always online – we’re expected to always be online, because everyone else is. What was once reserved for an elite subset of the workaholic corporate sector is now expected of everyone, all the time.”

In reference to what this “constantly connected” stereotype looked like in the early 2000s and how it is reflected in ourselves now, she continues: “An entire generation is expected to be as “switched on” and available as the “most unhealthily work-obsessed people in the world” 20 years ago. What’s more, we don’t have the bonus of having the high salaries typically associated with these jobs. We don’t even get to see ourselves as “work-obsessed workaholics who love work and who represent the epitome of success”. It’s just the norm now – the ordinary level of basic communication that is expected of everyone. In fact, many people operate on this level on a daily basis, and yet because they don’t work in a traditional high-earning corporate field, they’re almost seen as lazy. They should get a real job; they should work harder. What do they even do all day? Can’t they grow up?” [quotes and references embedded in the original blog; link above]

This is so true. I felt seen. What struck me was that, surely, every generation are questioned by the one preceding them? I am sure that my grandparent’s generation said to my mother’s in the 80s, “What do you even do all day?”. A father to his son in the 60s, “Can’t you just grow up?” We all suffer this generational peer-pressure.

Although millennial gaslighting is felt through the lens of adjusting one’s life around our mobile phones, our social media platforms. And this is a learned trait, an adjusted characteristic. As millennials, a trait picked up during our childhood or teens. Now more recent generations have been bred with this scrutiny inbuilt into their every day, with the very young now exposed to this barrage. Even more destructive. We no longer are just evaluating one’s self-worth around the people around us. Comparing ourselves to our friends, our families. But we are now comparing our worth and purpose with millions of people. With celebrities. With the influencers. With the rich. With the super-rich. With the perfected. With the filtered. How can we see ourselves, hear ourselves?

They should get a real job;
They should work harder.
What do they even do all day?
Can’t they grow up?

we can’t see ourselves.

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.