out into the world …
Today was Thurs … on Tuesday I posted my request for stories. Starting almost immediately, I’ve been inundated with responses. Only about 9 responses on the blog as of now, but literally dozens coming to me by email. Now, of course, I need to digest them. And there are a number of things which look like they’ll take a while to actually take shape and get to me. All very interesting to me.
Also interesting is the process of figuring out what it all will mean in terms of the piece. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time over the last couple of days trying to imagine the first segment of the piece, which I’ll need to have for concerts here and in China in October. It’s the first time in a long time I’ve had the task of writing for a computer alone. That part is almost more daunting than the task of making the piece make sense in terms of being about hearing loss, or about other sensory changes. Virtually all of my writing for computers over the last 7 years or so has been about the interaction between instruments or voices and computers. So I need to decide whether I’m continuing to work that way with myself as the performer, or if there’s a new direction for me to follow. Am I going back to playing samples from the keyboard, as I did in the 80s? Or recording and processing myself live playing percussion or speaking?
Also, as I’ve been writing more and more instrumental and vocal things, I’ve developed a very personal process of working out and exploring my musical materials … not sure how I’ll do that working with samples … and not at all sure I want to be working with synthetic sounds, or at least not totally with synth sounds.
And then there are all the story responses I’m getting. While I’m thinking of them mostly in terms of long term structure for the larger piece, maybe I need to start right in with one of the stories, using the words, or some paraphrase … ?
Short ear note: today, for the first time in a while, I forgot to put in the hearing aid. Because I was mostly in the studio, it didn’t make a lot of difference (since I turn it off when I make music, anyway). But when I went out in the street a few times to run some errands, I was shocked at the sound, or lack of sound. Where I normally have very loud distorted sound on my left side, particularly on city streets, I now had silence on the left. Chatted with people on the street, and had to turn my head to hear them with the right ear. On the one hand, it’s a void I can feel, physically. On the other hand, the noise I hear through the hearing aid is so harsh and loud, that it’s kind of peaceful to just hear left-eared silence.
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