3.04b Feelin OK?

+ On the Process

“While making music in response to ‘A Series of Treatments,’ I chose to open by literally interpreting the introduction of the piece of writing with what I imagined as the sound and feeling of receiving a laser hair removal treatment. My best interpretation came by manipulating an ASMR voice recording through tape looping, pitch bending, distortion, and overdriven tape delay and feedback.

The emotionality in the experience of the narrator’s navigation through their transition was one I chose to interpret more abstractly through an improvised piano performance recorded on an erase-headless tape recorder. Using the muted acoustic quality of dead keys and close micing the playing mechanism of the piano to capture the percussive quality of the hammer settling back against the key frame of the piano was a method I found valuable in an attempt at interpreting the narrator’s expression of ‘…quickly moving between languages, bridging the gaps in their understanding.’

In its entirety, the ‘song’ attempts to capture the writer’s expression, personalize it, and shift it into a musical expression. In a metaphorical sense, I began to relate the progression of this assignment to the writer’s reference to the symbolism involved in the history of various types of blooms in a rose garden.”

+ On the Whole

"For me, the most fascinating part of having a look at the final issue is zooming in slightly on how the music I made bridged between 2 incredibly different pieces of writing. Of course, every creative writer has their own unique style, but I cannot help but scratch my head an wonder 'what have I done?' Perhaps the natural tumult of a worrier's mind. A metaphorical musical bridge with islands of words on either side. I reassure myself that I have perhaps not altered the direction too, too much while looking at the titles; 'A Series of Treatments' and 'Under the Knife'.

Meeting the other artists in this issue and seeing who I had translated/who translated me felt bizarrely like meeting up with an old friend you haven't seen in ages, nerve-racking, mysterious, somehow comforting and nostalgic. I felt intertwined with the group while still somehow feeling far apart, in my own little world. The solitary act of making [becoming] all of a sudden shared and on display in a large group piece of work was a new experience for me and I am grateful to be able to reflect and feed my brain with the seemingly endless possibilities of ways to collaborate."