This post is about my performance, which took a place in 3rd of May in Chapter arts centre theatre. This performance was very important, because it was being marked and also because it was my first serious solo performance of my compositions.
As soon as I came into the venue for the soundcheck, on the day before the show, I was very happy, because it had that vibe, which works very well with my music. I felt very good in sort of dark venue with dark walls and curtains. It is the opposite I used to perform in classical music competitions, bright and nothing about it is personal or intimate. You are completely exposed. Either way, with spot light on me I was exposed this time as well, but it was nice and warm yellow light, it only helped me to actually see what I am doing and I couldn’t see anyone in the audience, which was great! (Not that there was any big audience…about that I’ll talk later).
I did not know what the instrument is going to be until the day of soundcheck. The piano was very old and fragile. It was tuned the day before and every time I played, it got worse and worse again. But, still, it is acoustic, wooden instrument. I didn’t mind some strings being weird or anything. It played out quite charming in the end as we processed the sound with reverb and EQ. Talking about processed piano, my original idea was to process it using contact mics and running it through Ableton with some plug-ins and special effects. It was a technical challenge, which I wasn’t able to solve out myself, so I relied on the sound engineers skills and abilities to process it live.
When it comes to performance itself, I was very worried and stressed the moments before, but as it started I kind of tried to enjoy the process and it went unexpectedly well. And I know why. Because I rehearsed everyday for the week before the show. I made sure I knew what comes next, I worked on the flow of the performance so there wouldn’t be awkward silences and clumsy transitions from one piece to other. I used the benefits of Ableton and sound recordings to fill the pauses between the pieces, just because I did want it to be one big composition with many sub-compositions in it. Of course, there was some small failures, which only I knew that they were failures.
I was a bit worried and actually disappointed in my visuals. I made them in such a hurry. I also tried to blend each composition with certain footage, so they would complement each other atmospherically. But, as some of compositions were based on improvisation, you never know how much time would it take for the composition, so as video footage. I tried to look from time to time if I am not rushing or being way back from the footage. After the soundcheck on the day before show, I did a bit editing in video timing.
Here you can see my performance in two parts. This is another failure, taking footage of performance. I booked out a proper camera, but it has some settings on, which didn’t allow to film longer than 20 seconds. So in the last moment I took my little digital camera. In the middle of performance its battery died, so the second part was filmed on the phone.
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