Write, record, release

Happy birthday to the album I unintentionally made!

Let me take you on a journey back in time.

It’s December. Christmas preparations are underway, the tree is up, tinsel adorns picture frames. But it’s Christmas with a difference. Something is missing. There’ll be no large family dinners this year. Work parties, friend gatherings, all cancelled.

I’m sure you’ve guessed which year it is.

It’s 2020.

And while we hang the fairy lights, hoping to brighten our indoor worlds, many of us are feeling the effects of physical separation, of being apart from our loved ones.

December 2020 saw the culmination of a personal journey. On the 18th December 2020, I released my debut album. My first ever large body of intimate work was being set free, released into the wild! While I was excited about completing this project, which was a huge personal achievement, I was also feeling quite anxious and apprehensive about putting a part of myself “out there,” into the world, worried about the reception it would get. I was at the early stages of pursuing a composing career and held a lot of self doubt (I still do to be honest, but I’ve got better at ignoring it).

My album is called Isolation and it is 5 years old this month. Half a decade. It feels as though the time has flown by, yet it also feels like a lifetime has passed.

With 5 years distance, I thought I’d re-examine this project with fresh eyes.

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Conception

I didn’t start the project with the intention of releasing an album. I didn’t even intend to write a collection of piano pieces. It was born out of three different needs:

1. As a writing exercise

2. As a way of processing and communicating what I was unable to do so verbally

3. As a task to learn to use a new piece of notation software (moving from Sibelius to Dorico)

Having the pandemic hit and our way of life drastically changed overnight was something which I found difficult to adapt to, as did many others. At the time, I was trying to write an upbeat collection of jazzy piano pieces for the educational market. In 2019 I won a young composers competition and had a piece published in an international piano exam syllabus, so I was trying to capitalise on that. But it was impossible for me to write a jolly jazzy tune at the start of the pandemic. Like writers block but worse.

It was also impossible for me to verbalise how I was feeling. So I sat at the piano and I played. I played how I felt. I expressed my emotion through the music. Something compelled me to write it down. I don’t know what. So I wrote a few bars and let it be.

Later that day, I decided that it would be a good idea to turn this sketch into a piece of music. After all, I was suffering with writers block, so better grab any hint of inspiration and write. I went back to the piano, set my emotions aside, and worked from an analytical perspective, developing the theme and building structure. I titled it, dated it, and added a couple of words which sort if expressed something close to my feelings. Once I had finished, I felt a little better.

So I set myself the task of writing a piano miniature once or twice a week, keep the pencil sharp. The rule was that I had to complete each miniature on the same day that I started it. A proper writers exercise. And then I would engrave them using Dorico, so that would give me the impetus to learn to use Dorico.

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Development

After a month it became apparent that I wasn’t just doing weekly composing exercises, I was actually keeping a musical diary. Each piece had been inspired by something I had seen, done, or felt on that day. Although this journalling had been unintentional, I thought it might be interesting to look back on in a few years time (it’s not often that you live through a global pandemic), so I decided to continue with my musical diary. I always dated each piece and jotted down a few words about life that day.

Looking back now, I can see that the first half of the tracks are quite introspective, while the second half offer more of a commentary on national and international events. I think this shows my personal journey of adapting to “lockdown life.” The more I grew used to lockdown, the less I needed to write from a place of pure emotion.

I wrote the last miniature on the 13th June, as restrictions relaxed and non-essential retail services were allowed to reopen.

I wrote 15 miniatures in total.

As I’m sure you remember, a lot of musicians were streaming home concerts or uploading daily videos to YouTube, trying to give us something to look forward to each week. I discovered two wonderful pianist, Késia Decoté and Francesca Hurst (whom I can now call my friends - Twitter was a good place before X!), who were looking for contemporary pieces, and to whom I sent some of my early miniatures.

I didn’t expect anything from this. Sending my work was more of a personal exercise in becoming resilient and getting over the fear of rejection. But to my surprise, all the pieces I sent were performed! You can still watch them on their respective YouTube channels.

This acceptance from strangers gave me more confidence to “put myself out there.”

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Recording

So I had finished my musical diary. What now?

I told my friend Stefano Tore, who is also a composer, about what I had been writing and he asked me if I wanted to record the pieces and release them under his collective - Lis de la Mer.

Yes and no.

Yes I absolutely did, this would be fun! But I’d never done anything like this before. I didn’t know how to go about making an album. And who would listen to it anyway? It all seemed a bit overwhelming and scary, which would be a good reason to shy away from it.

But, as this was the year of getting out of my own way, I said yes.

I had some self employed Covid grant money from the government so I thought fuck it, let’s get some artists together, support each other, and make something beautiful from this shitty year.

So I got in contact with Késia to see if she wanted to be the recording pianist, to which she agreed. I commissioned my sister to create the album artwork, and Stefano guided me through the technical side of digital distribution.

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Release

Isolation went live on Bandcamp and streaming services on the 18th December 2020. In addition, we decided to make a limited edition CD release, which included a set of art prints, also designed by my sister.

This project became an international production: music and art created in the UK, recorded in Brazil, and mastered in Sardinia. It was a wonderful way to stay connected with the world in a time of such restriction and division.

And to hear people from all walks of life saying that the music spoke to them was reassuring, both musically and personally. A lot of my closest friends were more than happy to stay at home, playing computer games and watching TV, whereas I was climbing the walls. In a way, it was comforting to know that others, world wide, were experiencing the pandemic in a similar way to me. It was like finding out that you’re not alone, finding a support network.

This album is one of my most important projects to date. It helped my personal growth. It saw me getting out of my own way, pushing for things I wanted, and not caring about what others may say (or at least, trying not to care). I’m very grateful to everyone who was part of the process, supporting and encouraging me.

From one tiny moment of despair grew a beautiful piece of art. This wasn’t just an album release for me. It was an emotional release and a release of my own inhibitions.

Happy 5th birthday Isolation!

Sheet music for Isolation is available at my sheet music shop