An exhausting day. Hardly any sleep with persistent ear ache, then a morning of monthly backups, and preparing the printing for the Neorenaissance exhibition. Just finished this before 12:30, a quick gulp of lunch and then working on the script for the Selection Box event on Monday.
There are 17 tracks/poems/songs to perform and this time I decided to use two smaller synths and electric guitar, partly due to the weight and the required delicacy when moving the piano, and partly to create a new experimental sound, but this means that all of the songs apart from one have new arrangements and new instruments. In some cases these had to be designed, but often meant finding existing ones that sounded good.
Deb arrived at 13:30 to a run through and we started with Friday's Celeste performance, then setting up the equipment for the other rehearsal. Everything was worked out, though not much was in a finished state, all light instrument tests, one or two runs-through of each piece. We have 8 premiere pieces hastily assembled and miraculously written by Deb in the past 4 days. So many moods, many are fun, but even then each must extoll some sort of skill or originality, and we've found some really unusual combinations such as adding bass-funk rap-like patterns to an old lady's reminiscences of Christmas.
This second rehearsal, our first full one, took about 3 hours. We're in the Macc Art Lounge all day tomorrow, then performing on Friday, which gives us one day (and me two) to practice the rest.
Some artists, rock stars, seem to love performing. For me, it's simply hard physical work, albeit good practice. With a technician or roadie, things might be more endurable but for me performance is an alternative type of art, less enjoyable than writing or recording. Each should be innovative. Most bands evolve to become their own tribute band, playing their hits of yesteryear. I prefer the idea of new material, but of course, everyone likes something familiar - all new material would be bamboozling because everything good must be different and therefore new, and everything new takes time to appreciate, so all good art will necessarily receive, at first, bemusement, confusion, or outright criticism; that is no reflection on the art itself, and is, counterintuitively, a sign of success.
I'm certainly physically and mentally run-down by the weeks of constant toil, but things are on target.
