Tue 29th August

I began the morning by playing yesterday's recording a couple of times before we ran through the composition from the start.  We then began work on the third segment of the picture, working in a similar way to yesterday.  Today, however, there was the advantage that everyone now had a clearer idea of what we were trying to achieve and how we were going to achieve it, and so therefore we were able to work much more efficiently.  As well as this, Helene and Henrik now had a much better idea of the way that I worked and what I expected from the students, and so I was able to further develop their role as fellow facilitators as well as co-musicians.  Through a process of encouraging the students to initiate musical ideas and asking Helene or Henrik to watch over them and help them (if necessary) with their execution we were able to make faster progress through the composition.

By the end of the morning we had covered the first six and half segments of the picture.  This included some 'romantic' music for the figure of Christ gazing at the body of Venus, something 'celestial' for the angel of death transporting the young child over the golden city, some music for the man and the mountain, and yesterday's musical ideas for the rabbit.

 
When the session was over, and most of the students had gone, Kirsten (one of the teachers) pointed out that in fact Mads (a clarinettist) also played a second instrument: a washboard.  Mads demonstrated what he could do on the instrument and I accompanied him on the piano by playing the tune he had earlier invented for the music to represent the naked Venus.  His earlier music had been based on a melody stretched over 13 beats, but now he was playing in 4/4 and so I altered the tune to fit his timing, stretching it instead over 16 beats.

 
I was then called by the teachers to help solve various problems looming on the horizon, such as how to transport all of the instruments over to the theatre for Thursday's morning performance.  There was also the problem that the teacher had told the theatre that we needed their grand piano  unlocked so that it could be played inside (on the strings) as well as conventionally on the keys.  The result of this was that the theatre said we could not play the piano in this way because it would go out of tune.  I told the teachers that we would tell them what they wanted to hear, i.e., that we would change the music and not play inside the piano, and we would do this for the rehearsal but when it came to the performance we would do want we had originally planned.  To my surprise, everyone agreed that this seemed a good way of solving the problem!