Between the Song and the Silence: An "AH-HA" Moment

I tend to be someone who takes comments in and likes to sit with them awhile. For example: the issue of bringing “myself” into the “Between the Song and the Silence “work. After meeting with Sandeep Bhagwati, after the last crit, and after I had posted my response, I had an epiphany.

I had wanted to incorporate my muses of the elderly men engaging in conversational birdcalls with each other into the piece. I had been struggling with that, and so had taken everyone’s comments and suggestions and made a list of things to consider. I thought about each comment in relation to what I had done so far, and allowed myself the freedom to consider it through other’s eyes. I re-read some of the materials which provided me with creative impetus, and found that there were other things that jumped out at me, and that sharpened my focus.
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Then I woke up at 4:30 one morning and discovered that if I was prepared to let go of certain operational parameters which I had been stubbornly clinging to, and allow for some shifts in focus, I was able to make decisions which would move the project forward again.

In earlier conversations with Sandeep, I had made note of comments and points for consideration.

• German audiences are considered to be musically sophisticated
• Must be careful not to create caricatures
• Professional vs amateur performers
• The duration of the performance
• Where would the performance would be staged
• What kind of notation would be used

I had considered doing a performance in real time; then I realized the strain that type of durational performance would put on my birders. While content to spend hours standing still in a blind or the bush looking for birds, they might not be so comfortable with all eyes on them. I had difficulty letting go of the durational aspect, as I was going to tie the time of day to the type of bird call in the score. That being said, once I allowed myself to get rid of that constraint, it allowed me to consider other things that I wanted to emphasize, such as the narrative. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I wanted was more narrative and less didactics. Hmmm…the plot thickens!

I realized the strain that type of durational performance would put on my birders. While content to spend hours standing still in a blind or the bush looking for birds, they might not be so comfortable with all eyes on them.