Composing in Aldeburgh/Britten Pears | Next Computer Game Music

January 2019 - Game Jam

I couldn’t resist hopping into this year’s Game Jam last-minute. With last-minute being the spirit of things, no sooner had I got there, I was asked to do a piece to camera for the Game video. Scan to 2.40ish to hear me talking at hyperspeed about why I love Game Jam so much:

There was a lot of sound and music to generate this time, and I amused myself and hopefully the team by writing some multiple-metre dance music for our character to ride through hyperspace at hyperspeed. Here’s a video of a little gameplay as it stood at the time. We’ll cut a better version of it later.

February 2019 - Aldeburgh

I had the good fortune to be hosted by the Britten Pears Foundation while I finally finished off the last of a suite of compositions. Having that time and space proved to be invaluable, not only because it allowed me to finish the work interrupted, but also because I learned a few things about my work: I saw that procrastination serves a purpose, in that it allows me to find an ‘inner balance’ from which the work I have to do flows joyfully and effortlessly (and who doesn’t want to work like that…?); that The Muse really does visit in the morning; and that I am still developing new processes.

Surprisingly, this time away focusing on composing also improved my teaching; I think I must have been so involved with it that I brought more of my writer self with me and had more to share, more insights, more systems; because I had gone deeper with my own creative practice I was finding it easier to enable others to do so with theirs. For the first time I also reached a point of ‘comfort’ with my work; don’t get me wrong, I’m never completely happy with anything - always a this or that I’d do differently, and there’s no exception here - but there’s something in the way the music is sitting in under the hand, inside the mouth, in my head, that is very comfortable and visceral now, we feel close.

Here’s a small video diary I kept while I was there. There’ll (at long last) be some recording happening in the not-too-distant future. To say I am relieved is an understatement.