We are given the scores to the music to read during the performance. I am unable to do this. It’s a skill I’ve never learned, but I am able to listen attentively. The things I rate are: 

• the aliveness of a performance
• the interactions between performers
• the things the performance does to me – what does it evoke?
• those things that take me by surprise
• those things that don’t
• the before’s and after’s of the performance
• the self-responsibility and consideration of stage management-or lack-there-of
  and
• does the performance match the text/hype of the program 

I realise my years of gigging and touring have taught me a great lot of skills that may not be so obvious from the academic tradition. Things that I realise are not so considered here.  And I am sure there will be many things I am missing precisely because I have one set of experiential skills instead of an other, more formal, set. The other judges all look at the quality of the script, how the performance adheres to the composition, and how the composition follows certain musical conventions that I am 100% ignorant of.

After hearing the 14, we three have a rapid and robust deliberation deciding on where the awards will go.  Happily, a diverse range of performances are selected, acknowledging technical ability, compositional quality, consideration of stage and space, performance bravery, and adventurousness of the composer. But all the performers and composers are deserving of acknowledging and commendation. My final encouragement would be to keep pushing the boat out!!

There is additional newness for me this week. I have a rehearsal space available now every Tuesday, at Toi Pōneke. These are now my main recording days. They also come with a specific focus on collaboration. I invite Chrissie’s project DSLB in, I am safe in her tolerance as I may need to troubleshoot unexpected technical hiccups.  The main challenge is to ensure that the right technical equipment is on hand to enable the best recording … it seems to be sufficient. To support this, I have access to some nice microphones from the NZSM. It all works perfectly and after a full day of intense playing, we collect two and a half hours of recorded material. 

Near the end of the day, we are both become aware of the fatigue from exertion and concentration. I encourage ‘one more piece’. A lot of sound-ground has been covered. The instruments have been put through the routine of the first familiar and then unfamiliar explorations into sound territories. We both feel a bit spent. But we do it, one more lap around the racetrack. Finishing up, and listening back, what we have hauled in is a lush, atmospheric, angular piece of wonderfulness. it’s going to be exciting to share this work soon.

One of the proposed outcomes of this residency is the making of a V.M.A album. I’ve already done a fair bit of loose, improvised, and searching noodling playing to settle in.  This week a framework has started to appear, a framework from which I can hang ideas for the next 9 weeks and beyond.

Almost all of the albums I have been part of in the past have been made during tight times squeezed in and around the rest of ongoing-life. Having slow time to mull on ideas, to consider structure and dynamics, and to explore with dedicated intention is a new and unfamiliar space; luxurious and wonderful.

This time also presents a confronting opportunity. It says  ‘here is the time, what do you want to say?’. Brevity and seriousness can flatten playfulness and curiosity. Playfulness and curiosity can distract from the serious act of completion. Somewhere in between there is a middle ground, a place that teeters, a foot-in-both-camps space, and a pivot point that never settles into complacent stillness. It is a sweet spot of creative precariousness and I feel confident that for a time on Tuesday, we were visiting that place.

May this shifting ground hold me up.

SOUNDBITES:

1. The melody is guiding my eyes. I become aware, during the performance, that with each change in the music, so too my gaze alters. I’m look upward as the saxophone goes into the higher register. The higher the note, the higher the view. My vision takes in the floor as the lower notes are blown. It’s as if my eyes alone are dancing. The observation of observing my eyes from the inside.
2. We wake before the shake. It’s a gut sound, a frequency outside, the house, and our hearing. It is registered in the third-ear of the diaphragm. Guitars bounce on the walls, and the resonance of strings wakes as Richter waves roll through the house. We’re waiting for the next one, with deep and attentive listening in impending silence.
3. A cafe house-stereo is playing a grandiose metronome. The three on my right are talking, and I’m inadvertently listening in. I think the words are familiar, but doubt suggests that it’s not my tongue they are speaking in. A dialectical similarity, maybe? Maybe from somewhere else? Is it my hearing loss at fault? Or the terrible acoustics?[but excellent for privacy] Maybe it just their enunciation? Maybe it’s none of my business.
4. As the crow flies, we are as close as 9100kms apart, but you ask, ‘Can you hear the busy street?’ You say next to the alleyway of your home is one of the cities main transport arteries. Also, you say, beneath the path in front of your home, is one of the old cities canals. ‘Can we hear it?’ I can hear my belly rumble for dinner, while, perhaps, yours is sleeping just after lunch. This time next year, we will be Here. Then we shall hear.
5. The flue of the fireplace is becoming a home for a bird. Claws, like a record players’ stylus, resonating on the circular stainless steel. Each morning, during coffee, we hear its movement. When we move, it stops. Perhaps the chimney acts as a two-way telephone, like old tin cans and string. Or an early-warning stethoscope into our room, alerting the blackbird of downstairs-action. It’s a precarious position to bring kin into the world. We will now be avoiding fires while DJ Blackbird scratches around up top.