I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a few days. I’ve had lots of creative highs and lows since last Thursday. On Thursday I had a eureka moment for the end of the piece just before I left to pick up the kids from school. I quickly pasted the idea into Sibelius and sauntered off with a spring in my step to school. Alas this was short lived as I got started again later on and it was crap. It sounded dull and I couldn’t get it out of my head.
I then had another eureka moment when I woke up and stopped repeating the parts so the end was shorter but more focussed. I quickly came up with some ideas (as is want to happen), ignored my family and wrote them down. I finished the piece that night. Or so I thought.
I had a niggle about the end so I recorded to MP3 and listened to it as I drove down the road to Hands Up for Trad board meeting. Something wasn’t right. Maybe it was tooooo short? I let the oracle that is my mum hear it and she said the same thing. So I sat down and started again on Sunday.
Again I tried a few ideas but none of them were any good. Eventually I rejoiced in Dropbox’s versions of files and reset it all back to Thursday’s version. And then yesterday morning just before we went to school a line came to me. I quickly wrote it down. When I got back from my meetings later on I mucked around with it, changed it a few times and eventually finished it at midnight last night.
I’m now just adding dynamics, text explanations etc and hope to send the score off tomorrow! Phew. You do ask yourself the question – why do we do this to ourselves but ultimately it is why we do it. There is nothing better than feeling creative and even having no ideas in a creative process is better than doing nothing! On to the next composition!
Why not come along and hear all the Distil compositions at our Showcase on 8th April in Stirling Tolbooth – 8pm. It is always a great night.