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As pride month comes to a close, LU students participating in Lehigh Creative Inquiry's summer mountain top experience are finishing up digitizing pride related materials as a part of The LGBT Community Archive: A Project of Bradbury-Sullivan Community Center and Muhlenberg College’s Trexler Memorial Library. Over the summer students will continue to create an accessible digital archive for the LGBTQIA community.
Advanced Scholastic Communication for High Schoolers
The Cambridge Creation Lab curriculum integrates interdisciplinary teaching and learning, enabling students to acquire the skills to address cross-disciplinary challenges, operate at the convergence of disciplines, and pursue research paths that challenge the limitations of specific fields. The fundamental aspect of the creative process is not just the final creative outcome but also a cohesive cognitive process that encompasses the formulation, exploration, and conceptualization of the creative inquiry. Through extensive project-based research at Cambridge Creation Lab, we have learned that in interdisciplinarity, similar to design, it is essential to adopt the concept of generating even superior solutions to the obstacles encountered in our fields of study or expertise. We offer intellectually stimulating academic opportunities and interactive learning communities that encourage analytical thinking, facilitate personal development, and promote continuous learning beyond traditional classroom settings. The online courses will include a comprehensive student-life component to enhance the program's academic curriculum.
The Making of - ‘Disney’s Hyperfantasia’ - Sal Viejo
How do you (or I) write a cathartic song? The more I look at this question the more it becomes increasingly simple and complicated in my mind. On one hand, I know how to do it. I’ve done it for three years as Sal Viejo, listened to cathartic music from other bands and watched performances that sent waves of catharsis through the room. You just do it. On the other hand, saying “you (or I) just do it” is an answer that is unsatisfying, and I know that there have been times where I have been unable to write a cathartic song where the advice “just do it” would have sent me into a rage. So, I decided to write a cathartic song, as I have done before but this time, using autoethnographic research methods, explore my process not only documenting what I was doing but reflecting on the parts of my real life that went into the song.
Catharsis as a feeling is difficult to define, especially from an academic perspective. An interesting note from some of my reading into music therapy is that the music we listen to shapes our lives and experience. (Barnes, 2013) Continuing from this idea, Barnes points out a case where a neuropsychologist was struggling down the side of a mountain with a broken leg and eleviated some of the mental strain and pain by focusing on a song. (ibid.) Looking specifically for references to catharsis I found an explanation of the phenomenon in a film text, “Catharsis is Aristotle’s term for the experience of audiences at the end of tragedy – overwhelming feelings of sorrow, pity, or some other strong emotions caused by the representation of tragic and piteous events… Aristotle and most of his commentators agree that catharsis, whatever it is, occurs to the beneficial effect of the audience.” (Plantinga, 2009) I feel that mainstream media has changed the meaning of the cathartic experience, in that rather than leaving stories on tragic endings, the trend is to send the crowd home happy. There has been a trend in media to end stories on more tragic notes recently, in my view closer to how things end in real life, Breaking Bad is a great recent example. Tying the two ideas together now, when looking for information on catharsis through music, there proved to be some gaps in the literature. There are discussions of how works have been performed in contexts that have made them cathartic, (Ansari, 2013) how communities use musicking to cope with their economic and social stresses (Stamatis, 2015) and even how music is being used in physiotherapy sessions, showing the role of psychology in pain treatment and management. (le Roux, 1998) My approach to this question hinges on creating a song that provides some level of catharsis, either for me or the listener. Despite my reading, coming to a clear and understood definition of catharsis seems difficult and thus, I think it makes sense to g to the original, Aristotelian definition as provided by Plantinga, overwhelming feelings at the end of a tragedy.
My understanding of autoethnography as a research method comes from some time considering it in the course of my honours and masters study up to this point. One of the core elements that draws me to it is my understanding that at the core of the research is the individual and their creative work (in the context of creative autoethnographic projects). Adams, Jones and Elis describe autoethnography as practice that; uses a researchers personal experience in describing and critiquing culture, acknowledges and values the reasearchers relationships, uses reflexivity – reflecting on the way the individual interacts with the world, shows “people in the process of figuring out what to do, how to live, and the meaning of their struggles”, balances emotional and intellectual work and strives to make the world better. (2014)
I was inspired to write in this way by David Carless whose paper Throughness was the first autoethnographic study of song writing that I came across. In reviewing the literature there were many papers focused on performance or composition of art music pieces but when looking for contemporary song writing used as autoethnography the field was sparse. In this paper Carless asks many of the same questions I face myself,
“How do we write songs as qualitative research? What kinds of processes matter when writing a song? What can we do to support and nurture these processes? What might we draw upon when writing songs about our own or another’s life? And how is it that culture, politics and personal biography can become so powerfully entwined in a song?” (2018)
In answering these questions Carless submits a series of Diary entries that they call a story that details the specific moments where the creation of the song was happening as well as their personal reflection on their own song writing process. In a similar way, I have been drawing from a journal I use specifically to write thoughts I have when I am in a negative mental headspace for lyrics and ideas and building songs up around them. Unlike Carless’ work, I will be covering not only the song writing process but also the process of cutting together a demo version of the song for release on Bandcamp. In putting together my story I will be including transcriptions of events based on my personal notes and my memory, images from my journal and other writing and personal reflections, some of which will touch on themes of self-harm, depression, and suicide. Please read in a safe mental place and look after yourself. If you need help, please seek it:
Lifeline: 13 11 14 Beyond Blue: 1300224636 Suicide Call Bank Service 1300659467 Process: In late July of 2021 I found myself experimenting with chords in open D after having uploaded a cover of Hot Mulligan’s I Fell in Love with Princess Peach. Open D feels like such a powerful tuning, so easy to get big brash sounds. I have been avoiding writing in alternate tunings because the idea of tuning on stage stresses me out, but I have a show coming up and want to play that Hot Mulligan cover to impress someone I think might be there so to justify the tuning I figured I would try and write another song using it.
I always have way more chords or instrumental parts for songs before I have lyrics. I find that I will often even have a vague melody line that I can hum or make random syllables around while I play the parts on my guitar. I have been trying to just say the first thing that comes to mind, trusting the part of my brain that knows what good lyrics sound like to figure something out under pressure, but I have found this process works best with some stimulation.
My mental health is something I have struggled with, largely in silence for my life, since probably my mid to late teens. I was on medication for a while, it didn’t go so well (see twelve) and since then have been trying to come to terms with my mental health through mindfulness, mediation, and introspection. PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND DO NOT ADVISE THIS. GO AND SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP BEFORE UNDERTAKING ANY CHANGES TO MEDICATION OR TREATMENT. One way I have done this is by having a specific journal to write in on nights where I feel I am having particularly negative thoughts, the idea being that when I have these thoughts, I find they tend to circulate inside my head and writing them down is a way that I can get them out of my head. Additionally, it allows me to go back and reflect on the patterns of thinking and try and figure out where they come from. On one night, I’m going to guess late June, early July based on my memory I was having negative thoughts that led me to write down this across two pages
Transcription: Im sick of all my friends being worried.
No matter how hard I try I can’t see what comes next Static the cards the stars everything Static
I wish I could still dream, maybe I could if there was a future to see
Why do I keep seeing myself in a carcrash?
When I drive around at night I think about driving into the side of the road. Not really thinking about it but it just happening. I feel Like I’ve done it. I feel like I am doing it. It’s beautiful, its silent. I am calm. No more thinking.
I DON’T WANT TO DIE YET (the word “breathe” is written five times through the lines underneath the statement)
One day at a time -Next Page- (a crude single line drawing of a sunset over an ocean above the margin)
I clearly need to go talk to someone
Most of the time i feel like I look normal –
Everyone is suffering, its easier to pretend Its harder to tell the people you love youreinpainbecausetheycant… (I can’t read what I wrote) Head feels like static
Trying to fill the noise Beniah knows too
Amy asked if I was doing ok I said yes I don’t think she believes me anymore I hate the Look in their Eyes when they See me Everyone knows youre sick Can’t have them know… (I can’t read what I wrote) I think Im doing ok now
I feel like I am good at adjusting to how I feel. Didn’t go for a drive
Remembering parts of this night I know that I didn’t write all of this at once. The first page was written largely at the same time, the second page in bursts, idea by idea, sometimes writing new ideas in and around older ones, writing more frantically. I feel like there are two stories being told here, on the first page, an internal negative feeling, I have never told anyone about the car thing until releasing this song. The second page, the negative feelings growing and being self-aware about wanting to appear ok around my friends and housemates and feeling that pressure.
So now I had a couple of pages of personal emotional outpourings, some chords that I like the sound of and a quest to make a song cathartic. More important to me than how cathartic the song is, as with all my song writing, is that it was honest so in sorting through my scribblings I wanted to put together an accurate representation of my mind at the time. I first jotted down what felt like the most unique imagery to me, the false memories of being in a car crash and coming to terms with that. I am not sure what it means, but it is scary at times. I thought that because it is such a unique experience that detailing might be an interesting part of the song and thus the pre-chorus and chorus were put together. I had the melody of the chorus on a voice memo on my phone when working on the guitar part and I remember thinking to myself, for such happy chords the melody was lending itself to something almost being howled out, it felt like a question almost. After I had written the pre-chorus and chorus the next thing that felt natural to do was to frame the response to that statement which is the second verse. Reflecting on the pages, a lot of my worries on the second page seemed focused on how my friends and the ones I care about perceive me. I think this is a common feeling for people who struggle with their mental health and something that I am less concerned with when I am not in a negative mental space. The lyricism in the second verse is intentionally a little frantic, I wanted it to mimic in a small way how my mind can jump from idea to idea. I always find opening songs difficult; I think it’s important as a songwriter to have an impactful first few lines, especially in a song that is being made with the intent of an emotional experience in listening to it. I decided to borrow the writing style from some of my favourite US mid-western emo bands who often frame difficult to swallow truths in upbeat melodic phrasing and whimsical turns of phrase. A quite extreme example can be heard on The Front Bottoms’ “Father” which opens with some quite graphic imagery and is about the lead singers strained and complex relationship with his father, but I have seen people cheer and sing and dance along when the song is played live. And so, I decided to be very honest about the background of the feelings, maintaining some semblance of the narrative that I am ok while showing really that I am not, heading into the pre-chorus. The bridge was the last section to come together, both musically and lyrically. The rest of the piece was pretty much put together and being fine polished as far as vocal phrase lengths and how I would play the guitar part. The lyrics for the bridge started as what could have been a verse, describing the images but I decided that the pre-chorus was a more functional way of doing that, introducing the idea in a semi-palatable way. I knew I would close the song with the bridge (potentially put a chorus at the end) and decided to add some weight to the end of the work, almost like a Shakespearian tragedy, everyone dies at the end. I don’t think I make it feel like there is death at the end of the piece but the way I stack the layers of the pre-chorus and bridge sections before cutting right at the end to the first line of the pre-chorus was designed to add to the emotional impact at the end. Initially the guitar part for the bridge was more complex, I wanted to try and show that I was a good guitar player and had been practicing. This led me to retuning the guitar to Open D to come up with a pretty and impressive riff. I had a few ideas but in the context of playing solo and recording a demo I want the core guitar part, the part I play, to be something that I can do while I sing and give an overall engaged performance, which I’m not quite good enough to do with impressive guitar bits yet.
Lyrics: I feel well adjusted, sometimes I feel fine, or I lie which I know I shouldn’t do to my friends But we all pretend, because it’s easier than admitting how scared we are Have I told you about the weird thing that happened the other night in my car?
I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion And the strangest thing about it to me always is
I don’t scream I don’t scream
I know I worry you, I’m worried too don’t think I want to die yet Look at the sunset, take a deep breath, hold on for one more day I’m ok, that’s what I say but I don’t think you believe me Static on the TV, looks like my tea leaves, Don’t worry about me
I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head Of me losing control, on the free way And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is
I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream I don’t scream
As I watch bumper meet divider, Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I wonder how it feels to…
As I watch bumper meet divider, I’ve been seeing pictures, Sparks and metal fly up almost like memories in my head Into the night sky of me losing control I wonder how it would feel on the freeway I wonder how it feels to… And it plays in slow motion But the strangest thing about it to me always is
As I watch bumper meet divider, I don’t Scream Sparks and metal fly up Into the night sky I wonder how it would feel I don’t scream I wonder how it feels to…
I’ve been seeing pictures, almost like memories in my head
Once the song was structured, I began practicing it, getting ready to cut a demo to put out into the world. In practicing it, I found the song easier to engage with on some days rather than other. I make recordings of me playing new songs so I can remember how they go at later dates but also to watch back and think about melodic choices and I found on one particular day while I could technically perform the song ok, I know I had played it better in the past. I have this relationship with most of the Sal Viejo songs that are about hard things from my life. I can perform most of them at the drop of a hat, but I know the performance is better when I am in the right mental place. I find it is a fine balance between being where you were during those hard times, but still able to perform. I feel like ‘Sal Viejo’ almost acts like a mediator sometimes, an outside observer who can sing about these things because they didn’t live through them, they saw them happen.
Heading into the day of recording I was a little stressed. Not only was I recording something still pretty fresh with the intention of sharing it to the world, but I also had just moved, had just gotten out of quarantine due to a secondary covid contact, was working a new job and had lots of uni work to do. I started the day by going and getting a coffee, thinking about the song as I went on my morning walk. My thoughts were mostly about the melody, the chords, the rhythm but also, I was beginning to make some mental adjustments to get me to the place I felt like I needed to be. When I got home, I had the intention of going slowly, setting up at my own pace and warming up but I felt the compulsion to just get it done. I started with guitar tracking, taking a signal from a mic set up near the body of the guitar and a line from the guitar, through an acoustic reverb pedal. It was during the guitar tracking process that I realised I had to simplify the line in the bridge. To get the timing right, I was playing to a metronome and singing to myself to figure out where the chord hits were and realised that I couldn’t actually play the part and sing, making it useless for live shows. After I finished the guitar did a quick mix and took lunch. I decided that I would try some vocals, but I didn’t know how they would go. I started singing and quickly realised that the phrasing would prove difficult and so I would have to punch in some of the sections. I found this really challenging because a part of the emotional engagement with the song comes from singing whole phrases, not just particular lines. What I decided to do was do multiple, full length takes, each one hitting the entrance of a section and cut it together. This meant that I could stay in the right emotional place while performing for recording and worry about the engineering side later. I wanted the mix to be fairly transparent for the demo, wanting people to hear the emotion and the story without too much distraction. I cut the vocals together and did a mix that I felt like let the vocals pierce through enough while still feeling tied to the guitar. There is a charm in the small amounts of string buzz and mic popping in the demo for me, in the mixing process I tried to get rid of some of it but decided that macro level edits would take away some of the human delivery. One decision I did make at this point was editing the lryics. The original lyric in the bridge was, “I wonder how it would feel, I wonder how it feels to die” I thought that the impact of that phrase would be increased if that word was censored, as subtly as possible but in a way that leaves listeners hanging on what the end of the phrase is. There are clues in the rhyming structure and content around it and you can figure it out if you listen to it, also I don’t know that I necessarily want a song in the world where I am explicitly asking what death feels like, I don’t know that I am at that level of openness as a songwriter yet.
In the rush of creative energy, I also cut a DIY, proof of concept music video which I attached the master of the song to which can be watched and heard here.
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Reflections: Digging into my song writing process has proved an interesting and at times challenging experience. In many ways I think I was fortunate to already have the bones of the song together before I started approaching the writing and making of the song as research as I don’t know that I could have been as honest in my lyricism knowing that I might have to explain where it came from. One observation I made is, through digging through the emotional distress that lies at the heart of this song, I found myself having cathartic emotional responses, forcing myself to consider where my songs come from. Also, as I practiced I found that having the research idea and the goal of catharsis beneficial as I made performance choices. I am unsure whether or not I have definitively answered the question, ‘how does one write a cathartic song?’ But in conducting this autoethnographic study of my process of writing a song with catharsis in mind I think I have answered, here is one way that I can do it.
References:
Adams, T. E., Holman, J. S., & Ellis, C. (2014). Autoethnography. ProQuest Ebook Central
Ansari, E., A. (2013) “Vindication, cleansing, catharsis, hope”: interracial reconciliation and the dilemmas of multiculturalism in Kay and Dorr’s Jubilee (1976). American Music, 31 (4), https://go-gale-com.saeezproxy.idm.oclc.org/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA401094780&docType=Critical+essay&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA401094780&searchId=R1&userGroupName=saeinstitute&inPS=true
Barnes, H. (Ed.). (2013). Arts activism, education, and therapies : Transforming communities across africa. ProQuest Ebook Central
Carless, D. (2018). “Throughness”: A Story About Songwriting as Auto/Ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(3), 227–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417704465
le Roux, F. (1998). Music: A new intergrated model in physiotherapy. South African Journal of Physiotherapy, 54(2), 10-11. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/sajp.v54i2.593
Plantinga, C. (2009). Moving viewers : American film and the spectator's experience. ProQuest Ebook Central
Tech(no)logy?
Have we built our own downfall?
I feel like more than ever technology is a key talking point in our society. We are often told that video games make children violent, social media is giving our teenagers self-esteem issues and the internet is full of people who just want to steal all you have and break your computer. While these statements may contain some truth, is it the technology that is truly to blame? Does Technological innovation improve or corrupt morality?
In approaching this question, I first looked at what ‘technology’ means. In their introductory video, Media Ecology; a Brief Overview Andrew Eusebio pools viewpoints from Ong, McLuhan and Postman when they draw a distinction between technology and the medium. (2014) Technology is a physical apparatus, and the medium is the use to which technology is put. In this way Postman asserts that technology is merely a machine, where a medium is a social creation. (1985, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) Looking at technology in this light makes the question of technology’s impact on morality almost seem unnecessary, no one asked if a hammer was moral. The question now refocuses, what is the hammer being used for?
8-Bit Philosophy offers a more nuanced perspective on what technology is in their video Is Technology Dangerous? (Star Wars + Heidegger) by introducing ideas from German philosopher Heidegger who claims to understand the value of technology we need to understand what it is. (2015) For Heidegger, technology is not a simple tool or physical object but rather a way of thinking and he didn’t like the driving thoughts behind technology in his time. Where the Greeks viewed technology as a way of revealing the world, finding the beautiful in the things around us and bringing them to light. In the modern era, Heidegger felt that all technology was focused on utility, manipulating its environment for the greatest potential output, where everything is only valued as a resource.
Many of the 20th century philosophers viewed the developing technology of their time as an ill to society. For Postman the idea was that as technology becomes a medium by given a place in social settings and attaches itself to economic and political contexts. (1985, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) McLuhan famously said that the medium is the message, suggesting that the actual content of media was no longer the focal point, that the way we consume media affects us so much that the things that deliver it to us must also be scrutinised and understood. (1964, as cited in Eusebio, 2014) Heidegger too, who viewed the shift in thinking behind the driving of technology to a more utilitarian view as dangerous. (8-Bit Philosophy, 2015)
While these writers’ apprehension toward technology was warranted and in lots of cases is still valid. Technology is used and developed with the focus of utility, especially utility within a capitalist society, our technology allows us to connect to other technology where we absorb adds we don’t think about, watch the world from inside our rooms and present fake versions of our self to the world to be viewed as better than everyone else. As technology becomes more readily available, it is my belief that the thinking that Heidegger was worried about, the strictly utilitarian, anti-aesthetic creed of technology, may still be present at a macro level, those manufacturing and marketing the tech still view it in this way. However, once it enters our homes I believe that individuals are capable of using technology in a way that is positive for society.
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This is a little track I put together recently highlighting that while many people only post wins on social media, constructing an image of themselves that they deem presentable to the world, there is a trend and move to being more open on social media, especially for content creators, encouraging the de-stigmatisation of mental-health issues and not being ok. While technology may have allowed for the construction of fake social media personae, I don’t think it is the technologies fault, I think that technology is used as a tool by corporations to influence users in their use of the technology and if users can separate it from that it can be used to bring us closer together.
References:
Eusibo, A. [Andrew Euisbo]. (2014 October 17). Media Ecology: A Brief Overview [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilHHAAcSJz4
8-bit Philosophy. (2015, May 31). Is Technology Dangerous? (Star Wars + Heidegger) – 8-bit Philosophy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_JOM-sVbKI
Video:
Salviejo, T. (2021, August 17). Untitled [Video]. Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/p/CSq7l8BhvGb/
‘A Self-Portrait of an inspired and reflective practitioner” (Me?!?)
This week as a part of trying to reflect on my practice and who I am as a creative I was set to task to create a self-portrait. I was given no limits as far as media, method and message which left me with a seemingly endless pool of options. My initial reaction was to create a playlist, what better way to describe myself than with the medium I love. However, as I started putting it together, I found that while I can fill a playlist with songs from my childhood, what I was influenced by and what I am trying to emulate, it felt like there were gaps in the story.
I decided to put together a collage of images both gathered from the internet as well as some from my social media, with the idea that not only is it a collection of images that sums up who I am but also works to tell a chronological level. On the bottom level are the things that shaped me as a young person, before I ever had formal music training. I was raised in a very musical family, the three artists across the bottom, Prince, Kenny Rodgers, and Meatloaf represent listening to albums and songs in cars on the way to and from school with my family and watching Purple Rain when I was younger, seeing Prince and wanting nothing more than to be him. The fourth image is from Christmas 2014 and represents a common occurrence when I was younger that is at family events all my uncles would bring guitars and sing Latin American songs out of time and out of key. Looking at these formative images I am struck with two things that felt missing in a playlist and that is the experience of living through experiencing this media. I was drawn to songs that told a story like The Gambler by Kenny Rodgers or the Bat out of Hell Album by Meatloaf, the life of The Kid in Purple Rain and the family tradition of singing together.
Moving up we enter my high school years, which was when music shifted from something I liked to something I was obsessed with. I have included mostly photos from live shows as this was the period where I was going to as many shows as I could afford and trying to sneak into the ones I couldn’t. I was a typical teenager in that I was drawn to “angsty” music but was already developing a passion for Australian music, loving bands like Tonight Alive and Vices. The mecca of live music for me at this time was a venue in Wollongong called RAD Bar. It was a tiny venue with average sound on a good night, but it was a safe haven for the music community for many years and was where I made many friends that turned into industry contacts and where I would play some of my first ever shows. The non-Australian bands included here are Modern Baseball and Being as An Ocean. Different bands when considering sound but I was drawn to them for the same reason, the same reason I was drawn to the music I liked when I was younger, there were stories there, stories I related to. On the right side, lower portion you might notice the cover of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and be somewhat confused. When I started playing bass I ended up getting lessons at the local conservatorium through high school. I was already in love with music at this point and was super eager to start playing. Initially, I thought the jazz stuff was cool, appreciated why I should learn the theory but wanted to play in the pop-punk band me and my friends had formed. It wasn’t until I was introduced to modal Jazz, through Kind of Blue that I fell in love with the genre. Why? I heard stories, through Miles’s trumpet playing and the harmony I felt emotion and communication, just as much as I did when listening to a song with lyrics. While it is a seemingly tangential story I view my experience of learning Jazz theory and coming to understand harmony and how that can play into composition on an emotional level as core to some of the work I’m doing now.
Moving up into my uni, through to now life I found I was looking for less photos of other people and looking for experiences I had. My time at uni was when I started playing in bands more regularly, went on tour, was involved with recording, all of which I have continued as I have been able to this day. I have included photos of the two bands I played in primarily, Jack R. Reilly from Sydney and Indie Kid Callum from Wollongong, both projects were built on groups of friends wanting to create together as opposed to getting the best players in town together. I have also included two photos of me doing the solo work that takes up most of my current creative time. Even though Sal Viejo and found_sound.mp3 are solo projects, in that I am the only one with their name to the whole of the projects, I am still influenced by my community, I write songs about my life, experiences, friends and our stories. I remix work from other artists. I listen to and love my friends work; we share mixes and ideas with each other. The final image is the logo for the website/booking agency that I started with my best friend in 2020. We are dedicated to listening to, writing about, and promoting local music and have been working on shows and write ups for artists from Canberra and beyond. This part of my practice in my mind is informed and built on all the things that have come before. The way I play is influenced by the songs I grew up listening to, my performance is based on shows that I saw and was a part of, the way I enjoy collaborating can be traced back to my experiences with my family. At the centre is a photo I took today (on day of writing) in a mirror just outside of my room. Looking at the image, I find it interesting the little stories and memories that some of the images conjure. Alongside each of these is a song or performance or idea for a song or performance waiting to happen. I feel like I am the most creative when I am at the centre of all these things. Sometimes I find that I ignore some of the experiences I have, deeming jazz theory as inappropriate for an emo song or thinking that a standard four chord progression is too simple. But just looking at the breadth of my taste and experience, you’d think I know that it’s not always what you do it is often tied up with how you do it.
This exercise has proved a valuable tool for reflecting on who I am as a creative. I have concluded that as an individual I am drawn to art that has a story and is a part of community. So, it seems only fitting that in my journey as a creative practitioner when I work I am influenced by all of the things I have absorbed and had experiences with. I mix them all together and try to make something that tells a story and has a place in my community.
Image Descriptions and References (Starting Top Left)
1: Photo from Show with Jack R Reilly Band. (2019). Taken from Personal Facebook Page
2:HomeGrown Sounds Logo, designed by Beniah Coulburn. Taken from Personal Facebook Page
3: Sign from Rad Bar in Wollongong. (2018). Taken from Personal Facebook Page
4: Photo of me working as found_sound.mp3. (2021). Unpublished.
5: Photo of me performing at The Front as Sal Viejo. (2019). Taken from personal Facebook page.
6: Photo of recording set up for gang vocals for Canberra Band Plastic Plants. (2020). Taken from Personal Facebook Page
7: Photo of Tonight Alive Performing Live on the ‘The Other Side’ tour (2018). https://wallpapersafari.com/w/nvfjuN
8: Photo from the last ever Vices show at Rad Bar (2018). https://robfrench.com.au/2018/04/23/vices-last-ever-show/
9: Photo of me taken this morning (29/07/21). Unpublished
10:Photo taken at a band practice for Indie Kid Callum. (2017). Taken from Personal Facebook Page
11: Photo of Modern Baseball Playing live in Glasgow. (2014). https://louderthanwar.com/modern-baseball-audio-glasgow-24092014-live-review/
12: Photo of me playing bass at an Indie Kid Callum Show. (2017). Taken from Personal Facebook Page
13: Cover of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. (n.d.) https://www.vinyldestination.com.au/miles-davis-kind-of-blue-mono-limited
14: Promotional Image of Prince for Purple Rain. (2019). https://ultimateprince.com/purple-rain-moments/
15: Album Cover of Kenny Rodgers’ The Gambler. (n.d.) https://genius.com/Kenny-rogers-the-gambler-lyrics
16: Photo of family Christmas eve gathering. (2014) Taken from Personal Facebook Page
17: Album Cover of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell (2021). https://tommygirard.wordpress.com/2021/03/16/meat-loaf-bat-out-of-hell/
Opening New (Old) Doors
An exercise in curiosity
In thinking about curiosity and how I as a creative am curious, I have come to understand myself as curious within some bounds. That is, I think that a lot of my curiosity and exploration roots itself in something I already have some understanding of. Looking at my practice, even in the areas where I am experimenting or researching, I always have a jumping off point or a genesis of an idea.
Door activity: - Select a door (masked link to a website) - Explore where it takes you for 10 mins - Focus on an area more specifically for 10 mins - Reflect on your choices for 10 mins I chose the police box door. Through the door I found the ‘wellcome collection’ website, “A free museum and library exploring health and human experience.” (wellcome collection, n.d.)
First 10 mins on the site: Initially I was a little disappointed with my choice, I love the idea of the gallery but didn’t think I would find much aside from artist statements and photos. I found some interesting works and the curation of the gallery was interesting and exciting to see. I like the structure of exhibitions structured as questions. Many of the works seem focused on mixed media or experiential art. I also found the section of the site where articles were published. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not just writing about the art and artists on display but took concepts from exhibitions and explored them. Part of me wonders if a space like this could create a never-ending cycle where writing is inspired by art which inspires art and so on. I think I do that in my practice. I learn about something, I make a thing with what I’ve learned, I write or think about that thing, I change the thing I made or make a new thing. Or conversely, I make something, research the field and then apply that research to my making.
10 min deep dive: Series of articles called “The Happiness Quest” by Wilkinson. Happiness is such a broad topic and can mean so many things for so many different people. Looking at the titles of the articles (at time of writing only the first three are published) it seems that Wilkinson is taking a very contemporary look at the topic. The first article, ‘Happiness in time’ goes into how defining happiness is hard, often something we are striving for or remembering, framed on personal experience and marketing research. (Wilkinson, 2021) The second article, ‘Happy endings’ is a look at happy endings in quest fiction, about how it is written to perpetuate the ‘live your dream’ narrative popularised in children’s media. (Wilkinson, 2021) The article goes on to explain the issues with this idea, again framing it in personal experience. The third article, ‘This is a MOOD’ is a piece on the perceptions of teenagers, interviewing teens on topics like stereotypes, puberty experiences and emotions. (Wilkinson, 2021) This was a really refreshing look at the adolescent experience, so often written by people with little to no frame of reference of the real and current teenaged experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style and content of all these articles, I felt that the writer had a really unique perspective on the subject matter but made the content engaging and relevant as well as accessible.
10 min reflection: In working through the door activity and retroactively looking at my decisions, I can see my tendency to go with the familiar. I chose the police box door, or as I immediately saw it the TARDIS from Doctor Who, a show that was very important for me in my teenage years and a character/object from the show that I have art from about a meter away from where I was when I was working through the exercise. Once I got to the site my initial reaction was disappointment, I like visiting a gallery and learning about visual art, but I find that I get more from the works being there in person. While the exhibitions looked very interesting, and the descriptions made me want to visit I found the most engaging part of the site was the articles. In looking through the articles the first one that caught my attention was the Wilkinson article on the perception of teenagers. I have been thinking about my teen years and was interested in what the writer had to say on the topic. I found not having any direction or idea of where I would end up intimidating initially but once I found something that I felt I could engage with in a satisfying way (articles) on topics that I was interested in (happiness/teen experience) then I was able to invest in the exercise.
A Curiosity plan: In my experience I haven’t really tracked my curiosity. I come up with new ideas and I experiment, so I suppose by nature I am curious. The Harvard business review curiosity profile labelled me as an unconventional thinker and intellectually hungry, (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015) so that would indicate I have curious tendencies. However, by the same test, while I adapt to new situations, it was my lowest scoring result. This indicates to me that while my brain is willing and able to be curious and explore ideas, it can’t handle too many new things at once. Even in the door exercise I went with an option I was familiar with and focused on something I found it easier to engage with. In looking at various articles on how to be curious and habits of curious people, I have found that much of the language seems to be in the present or progressive tense, that is, at all points of a project there are questions being asked, actions being put into place to expand ideas. (Vozza, 2015, Kim, 2017) I find in my own practice that I often start with a question or an area to explore but once the idea starts to take shape, I finish based on the rails I have given myself, I plan a destination point and I get there as efficiently as possible. This probably comes from my desire to have my music be commercially and socially successful as well as being the easiest route, but I admit that I am losing the opportunity to try new things with the work I am doing. Much of the writing in the space supports this, Kim starts their curiosity process with removing what gets in the way of curiosity, including choosing to do new things over certainty and fear of the unknown. (2014)
I think that for a long time I have overlooked my curiosity and thirst for knowledge in the making stage of my creative process. Too often I default to the familiar, the ‘way it should be done’ or what I know. I collect a lot of information but find that the things I know only inform the general shaping of a work rather than being a constant force throughout. Looking at my practice moving forward, I see that being curious, while it may not always lead to gold, will lead to something new and in the pursuit of making new things, it should be something that I work with more, moving away from fear of what others think and toward a personalised practice.
References: Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, December 3). Assessment: What’s Your Curiosity Profile?. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2015/12/assessment-whats-your-curiosity-profile
Kim, K., H. (2017, 1 June). Curiosity: The Key to Creativity and Innovation. idea to value. https://www.ideatovalue.com/crea/khkim/2017/06/curiosity-key-creativity-innovation/
Vozza, S. (2015, 21 April). 8 Habits of Curious People. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3045148/8-habits-of-curious-people
wellcome collection, (n.d.). A free museum and library exploring health and human experience, https://wellcomecollection.org/
Wilkinson, K. (2021, 1 July). Happiness In Time. wellcomecollection. https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/YNGfvhIAACAAkSab Wilkinson, K. (2021, 8 July). Happy Endings. wellcomecollection. https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/YNGozhIAACIAkVNF Wilkinson, K. (2021, 15 July). This is a MOOD. wellcomecollection. https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/YNmVHBQAACIAftHi
Mushrooms at Mountaintop!
As part of their Creative Inquiry + Mountaintop Initiative project, Lehigh’s Mushroom Production Houses team has successfully grown oyster mushrooms in Bay C. The team, which is preparing to travel to Sierra Leone, used sterilized straw, barley fed mycelium, duct tape and plastic bag humidity houses to grow the mushrooms. This project will refine and proliferate mushroom production houses for Sierra Leonean farmers and be utilized as a source of income and a cash crop.
Cochlear Implant Simulation App Under Development
