The Sound of It: Further Musical Deliberations (Patreon)

“What about Danse Macabre?” I suggested. In the midst of going back and forth with the two separate costuming teams, I was still trying to pin down the music for the act with Roberto.

“It’s good, but …. I don’t know,” Roberto said. I could just picture him chewing the skin next to his nail beds raw, the way he always does when he’s pondering a thorny artistic question. “Tell me why you want to use it.”

“It’s got such wonderful dynamic range,” I continued. “The sections in the piece definitely offer us a lot of structure in terms of the different costume elements and sequencing them, you know?”

“That’s true, but …” he sighed.

“It’s got those beautiful lilting waltz sections with the thinner instrumentation, it’s got a big bang at the start and the end…”

“Mm…”

“Not quite right?”

“No – I think – I think it’s that, if this were a group aerial act or something, then it would make sense to me. But it’s epic, you know? The full orchestra? The pace, the volume?”

“Oh, you think it’s too big?”

“Yeah, I’m worried that it just being you on stage, doing contortion – I think a piece like this would just smush you.”

“Ahhh, okay,” I said, catching on.

I paused, allowing myself a moment to mentally let go of this fragile thread of almost-certainty I thought I’d managed to pin down. “Back to the drawing board, then!” I said, finally.

“What about the Scheherezade violin solo?” Roberto asked. “That’s what Barbette used, right?”

“It is! We could go with that – I like the idea of using a piece of music that we know she used – but it’s kind of slow, kind of romantic. I’m worried it’ll be too boring over the course of the whole act.”

“We should ask Greg to make us a little sample.”

Greg – a Toronto composer and percussionist who had come up with the original music Troy and I performed to in Paris and China, as well as the delightful and disturbing soundscape for VACUUM – had actually just messaged me two short months prior, expressing his interest to work together again on whatever weirdness was up next in my life.

I wasn’t working with grant money support on this one, though, and pride myself on being able to offer my collaborators fair compensation off the top, no matter what.

... Argh, I thought, mentally adding hundreds of dollars to the budget I have floating in my brain for this project. Why couldn’t Danse Macabre have just been perfect magically all on its own?

Roberto was right, though. Greg could blend classical with new, electronic sounds in ways that fit the world that Roberto and I were building perfectly. It was the right card to pull. And with the way this piece was shaping up – there was little point in cutting corners. It would be worth it.

“Okay,” I said, making up my mind. It'll all work out. Just trust the process. “Let me try to rope Greg into this.”

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That's it for this week's writings, dear Patrons! Next week your instalments start off again sharply at 09:00am EST, this time with a focus on ~*~*adventures in costuming*~*~

[to be continued]