Thoughts on this process so far

From Milo:

1. Be ready for blessings in disguise. This affirmation keeps arriving. Its message: “Remain open to the shape of your work evolving throughout your process.” It reminds me of an idea I was introduced to while I was struggling to direct this large, unwieldy, community production while in school. “Human beings are the bridge between heaven and earth,” my teacher told me. She went on to explain that our ideas exist, our visions and our intent, our thoughts, inspirations and dreams, they exist already, outside and above our selves in the “heavenly” realm. The earth is the reality we encounter every day. The ground we walk on, the food we eat, the rooms we stand in, the light of the daytime and the sound of the fan in the studio where I type. Humans are the intersection between these two dimensions. We bring about the physical form of our ideas and visions, our heaven, in the time and space we occupy. Their realities however, are never born just the way we see. They compromise with space and time, with breath and flesh and bone. Our visions must stand and face reality, whatever that may mean from one moment to the next, from one day or month to the next. And we can be sure that it will mean something different each month, each day and each moment. We always have a vision for how something will take place but which is more challenging, to make something exactly like we see it, or to yield and remain open to the natural occurrences that shape art (and life), within specific moments in the studio, and over the course of time? I’m not sure of the answer really, but I suspect that the only sane option is the second. And it lands in our laps. My hope is to struggle less and allow more. To watch and witness how many once conflicts are redeemed over time to each eventually be called blessings. Can I put my money where my mouth is? It’s not an easy order in my belly, for certain.

How does this apply to Brechtian Brechtisism? Anyone? Anyone?

2. I confess. To this day I don’t know why I was asked to write music for this piece. I didn’t know anyone from dog and pony dc to have ever heard any of my work. In addition, when I agreed to join forces, I no idea how far my own style of songwriting was from what I would be putting together. And that means they certainly couldn’t have known, either! I can write a basic song in basic song form. Verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, maybe a bridge, maybe not. Perhaps that is why I am here. The best part about it however, has been what I have learned from taking on work that has asked me to part with my own aesthetic. I have never written music like this before, and now these songs are me, too. So finding ways (and reasons) to step outside what you create normally, I recommend it. The solitude (and doubt) that accompanies such an endeavor, although engaging, has not been so romantic. There were these long periods of solitude in between one and the next conceptual meeting where our ideas about the production and the music were exchanged. I would come up with song fragments, and send recordings away to dpdc for review. And then there was solitude. It must be said now that solitude does not equate with silence. My mind was not at all silent. The time challenged me to face how fragile and needy my ego is. To need approval for your work and encounter solitude… is awakening. I sat, with my thoughts racing. It’s like going over to Granville Moore’s, hungry, to find a two and a half hour wait. You go and have a seat at the bar, watch everyone eat mussels and blue cheese burgers while you sip on a beer. For two and a half hours!! What is it to create something, then to sit with your thoughts, to watch and see them for long enough that they become naked, and exposed for what they are – your own desire to have groupies. Or, more accurately, to feel like others approve of your work. I thought I was past that, at least in part. Well, hopefully after the solitude, some of the extra is burning off to help in the reach to a deeper level…

3. Last thing for here and now is to address this faint, yet nagging call to try something I’ve never tried before as a musician, as a leader of musicians. The opportunity is here. To try something new within the rehearsal process is, I remind myself, the intent of the workshop production to begin with. “To find our pathway” so to speak. Though these songs are written, I think there remains room to find more music together, more sound to explore while together. My hope then is to find time when we can become musical and artistic geniuses together. My responsibility toward that end I believe is to temper that powerful desire to have our act polished and presentable, which so often leads us into tightly held, outcome driven rehearsals, with space for what I forget often in production – play. Actual, genuine play. Not He-Man, Transformers or G.I. Joe, but grown-up play. An intense, playful interest in group sound making is the wish of the day. I think it will require us to work efficiently through the song learning, but for me to be able to sit with my thoughts while it isn’t polished and create space for some carefully planned improvisation.