Day Four

I was extremely nervous this morning as we have one day left to get all 3 performances ready. Not only ready, they have to entertain audiences in London pubs, who haven't necessarily bought into our performance.

We started the day with warm up games for quick reactions before ensuring the pub piece was fast paced and interesting.

We spent an hour on Wasted. I had previously been experimenting with basing melodies on modal harmony as I thought it would emphasise the single melodic line nature of the piece. The unusual modal colour would also contrast with the modern topic and style. We still kept the music simple, the saxophone emerged after the piece begun, I took over on the flute and we came together for the stronger ending. A violin provided either a bass or melodic line as needed.
The most challenging aspect was staying involved and moving while playing, especially when playing with others. I plan to use this communicative skill in my day to day playing. We worked on creating an interesting shape as a group and being braver with our movements.

We discussed what we want to say in the 50 Shades piece and why. These are important questions in every type of performance, not just Colab and theatre. We want to show real people and their views on culture, rather than making jokes about a film. This led to a hectic 10 minutes interviewing people around the King Charles Court building. 

We decided we were being too obvious and giving too much too soon. Instead we used the interviews; we exaggerated characters and had views ranging from 'It's disgusting' to 'I don't care' and 'love it all'. We tried to use the affectations and words of the real people. I used a glass to create a percussive tone and keep the fast pace. 

We also used ordinary words in the soundscape of grey objects to a heavy beat. We used the books for another sound quality. The entire piece ends with a sung chord on '50 shades of' but we still don't use the word 'grey', we just go into reading our books. There is a lot to be said for toning down a piece. It is so much more effective and funny for being based on recognisable characters and leaving somethings unsaid.

The group on our way to the
performance spaces (the pubs!)

After a long and busy morning we decided to look at the spaces for this evening's performance. The first pub, the Cutty Sark is where we will be performing Wasted, and is extremely limited in space. We know we will have to adapt the pieces for the spaces. The final pub, the Admiral Hardy, is ideal for the two lighter pieces.