behind the notes: stay away from clocks 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…
iv. stay away from clocks
The fun one.
Every cycle of works has one, right?
However profound the new forms of isolation we experienced throughout 2020 (and even now), and how devastatingly important it was to keep ourselves behind closed doors (lives depended and still depend on this), there was also a true absurdist-reality (I appreciate the irony here) about what we were discovering about ourselves.
It was, and continues to be, exhausting. In pre-new-normal (gross), we had to deal with life on a macro scale. There was so much passing us by (quite literally) that our brains could not concieve a pinpoint focus on the world around us. We were often told to “stop, and take it all in”. Or uttered phrases like “I live life in the fast lane”. Although we know how unsustainable and unrealistic this lifestyle is, we were not expecting the totally absurd and quiet lives we were about to be forced into. We had to live life in the micro (not the -wave).
Life became so small. It became the four walls around us. It became the feel of the door handle into the kitchen. It became the feel of the ceramic mug as it hit your lip. It became that singular leaf that fell from the plant in your living room. It became the ticking of the clock. Our busy lives gained a new focus. But we still needed to find distractions to make us feel ‘normal’ or ‘grounded’. This level of close analysis of our surroundings has driven us nuts.
I mentioned in the second blog of this series (Behind the notes: norm) just how much material Milette Riis explores in her highly successful blog, Musings of a Milettennial. This new world (and even old, which it was written in reference to in 2019) we find ourselves in, is so succinctly summed up in her blog, How To Be A Master Procrastinator. A step-by-step guide on how to be ace at not really acing it.
It goes from a standard of twenty-first-century living: “Make sure to check your emails multiple times every hour. Be sure to avoid replying to the unread emails. Once you’ve checked your emails, move on to LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and any other source of communication. Again, it is vital you don’t reply to any messages as that would give you less to do later in the day.” And then to a personal favourite: “Plan your entire day around your meals. Spend hours preparing for each meal and researching what you’d like to cook, then further time organising your kitchen and cooking while watching your favourite TV show. Eat slowly while watching a film, and be sure to finish the film before you get up to do anything else.”
However, there was one that hit the nail-on-the-head. One that summed up my new living patterns and totally enabled an unhealthy amount of drinking wine:
Try to stay away from clocks, or other time measuring devices (like egg timers).
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.