Why can’t we enjoy Autumn in November anymore? The second Halloween has finished we move instantly to Christmas and I am left feeling cold (but not cold enough for it to feel like Winter obviously). I felt this rush to Christmas in the strongest possible terms (for a whinny, privileged white guy from Wilmslow in any case) at the start of the month when I was unable to buy a pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks as they had already moved onto Christmas drinks. I could have vomited all over the Wilmslow Starbies that I was in when I was told this, but I refrained and summoned all of my courage and decided to begin this months blog with a message for all two of you who read about my boring life. Minions and sycophants, we must rise up, spread the word and begin the revolt to save Autumn from the crazed Christmas crowd! Halloween is the last barricade, but soon they will have pushed back even further than that. We can already see some elements of Christmas creep into the year even before November, but if we don’t act soon we will lose October, September, the whole of Summer, Easter, St Patricks Day, Valentines Day and even New Years to Christmas. We must take drastic measures to ensure the whole year does not fall to Christmas. We must lobby our MP’s, riot in the streets, boycott M&S, and plant a flag in the ground and state that we can only celebrate Christmas in December (maybe the very end of November at a push), else we will be trapped in a never ending Christmas celebration! But yeah November was a pretty good month and here is what I did…
The month began in a very busy manner as I was racing to finish formatting my musical ahead of the workshop that was taking place on the 19th of November. I was up until almost 4am one the first nights of November getting this formatting done and I was so glad that I did as what I had done was a major improvement on what had previously been the score and the script for my musical. It was annoying noticing tons of errors I had made when I came back to look at what I had done, but it was good enough for the purposes of this workshop. In the weeks leading up to the workshop, I had some 1-1’s with people who were to be involved as actors and singers to make sure they knew what they were doing. I was also practicing lines and songs with some of them to make sure that they were somewhat prepared for the day. As usual, I was expecting the entire thing to be a gigantic catastrophe, but the workshop turned out great in the end! Everyone who came was extremely committed and enthusiastic about the project and I ended up learning a lot. I received some really good feedback, both about the score and the script from a range of people which included a dramaturg called Oonagh who attended the workshop and I met up with a few days after it. We discussed the whole script in depth for about four hours which was extremely useful and our chat has inspired me to radically change some aspects of the show. I also got some very good advice from my parter as well as some other people who attended the workshop about some other aspects of the show which I have been mulling over. I luckily also had a ton of good feedback about the score, particularly from the MD Tim (who I met over the summer on my work placement in Ipswich). He was a big reason why the workshop was such a success so I am very grateful that he came up to help. I gave him, and everyone else who came, an IOU which Tim has already claimed as I have been mixing some of the songs from his own musical (which is fantastic). After the workshop had finished, everyone stuck around for some drinks and it was great getting to chat with everyone. Charlotte (who played Cindi) suggested the idea of petitioning for the musical to be played at RNCM, which was a really great idea which I will be looking into going forward. I’m feeling very optimistic for the future of this show, and I hope those who took part in the workshop will be involved from this point on and that this workshop has generated a buzz around this show. Now is the time, the momentum is there, I’ve just got to keep moving forward with it.
The workshop for my musical dominated most of the month, but I managed to do some music related work outside of this. Probably the biggest thing I was involved with musically speaking was a performance of a piece that I had written for chamber choir back in October, which was performed in a concert at RNCM a few days after the workshop. The singers did a great job, especially as I had to change certain parts of my piece during rehearsals. On the whole I was very pleased with their performance and I uploaded a recording of it to YouTube.
I also had my second workshop at the start of the month with the Off-Beat Lab. This was really good but their performance was less there than it was for the choir. It would have been good to have one more workshop with them as they were about 70% there with what I had written. It also sounded better in the room as the recording that was taken had practically no bass being picked up which made it sound much weaker (this recording also on my YouTube channel). In any case, I was very lucky and fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved with the Off-Beat Lab and they did do a really good job overall.
Outside of live performances, I began working on my piece for orchestra (which will hopefully be performed in Spring next year). I had some serious writers block after the workshop (possibly from burnout), but after about a week following the workshop I felt back on form again and I have been rather creatively prolific since then (which I hope to keep up all through December). I also made some small sketches for the Berlin International Film Scoring Competition, but I need to make faster headway with it if I am to make the deadline in January before I go to India (all tickets now booked).
In my personal life, I’ve been busy with other things as well. I have organised a birthday party for myself that is taking place the day before my birthday. It will be an alien / cowboy themed party (idk y), which I am planning to get much less drunk at this year compared with last. I also helped my fiancee move from Didsbury to Chorlton and her new flat is a big improvement on the old one which was in a nice area but was very cold and mouldy. Chorlton is such a cool area, I could imagine living there eventually but I can’t imagine how wanky my kids would be if they grew up there. Unfortunately I have started having migraines again, they have been very painful and disruptive but I know for a fact that they will come and go like they always do. I don’t believe they are stress related, though I have had a lot going on and there has also been some family stuff going on in the background which I will not disclose. In any case, it has been a really good month. My flatmate and I did not do a podcast because we have both been busy, but I am sure we will pick it back up in December (possibly gonna do a podcast at my birthday party). I also went to see several concerts at RNCM, one for orchestra and another for Wind Ensemble. Both of which were incredible, particularly the first one which was honestly one of the greatest concerts I have seen in my entire life.
Anyways, think that’s enough for this month. See you at the next score.
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