29/9/24 - Shifts

There’s been a shift over the last couple of months. Mainly a good one. I think the shift is still occurring in some ways. I’ve mentioned here that the first half of the year was very busy for me, and I felt distant from my PhD work and the mental space I need to be in to be able to get deep into it. It takes time to get your mind back into a place where ideas and things you’ve learned are accessible and understood, and able to be linked together to form new ideas, or looked at critically. So I feel like I’m closer to that place right now. 2 weeks ago I was right in the thick of it, spending anywhere from 3-7 hours a day reading and writing, for about a week straight. Then I went away for 6 days and experienced another mental shift, and right now I’m hoping that this week I can get back to the deeper thinking and understanding and subsequent writing place.

I went away to Kandos, in Dabee Country, for 6 days, largely because of the Cementa art festival, but also because it was a good opportunity to go visit Dabee Country and some of my spots there. I also volunteered at the festival. When I was planning to go to the festival I saw the callout for volunteers and thought why not? Free shirt! But also, creating a relationship with Dabee Country also means creating a relationship with the people who live there. It kind of bonds me to the area and the community a tiny bit more, which might lead to other connections, more reasons to go back. I hadn’t been to the festival before and I wanted to check it out because I’d heard good things, but also I’m hoping to be part of it in the future. I had a few ideas for a project start to hatch. It’s not like music festivals where existing bands come to play their music - it’s a festival where artists create works specifically for the event, often for specific sites, and they start planning well in advance. So, I want to try and concoct an idea to put to them for the next Cementa. I experienced some really amazing artworks, not just of the visual kind. Some were very moving and inspiring and enlightening. There was a great sense of community. I also had a lovely time meeting new people and re-connecting with people already known to me. Several remembered me from when Underwards played at the Kandos Museum last year.

Of course, I also went and visited Country in a few special spots. After the festival was over I made an afternoon trip out to Ganguddy. Not a long stay, and I didn’t walk far. I currently have a knee issue which has sadly prevented me from going on more adventurous, longer walks, but it’s hopefully on the mend. I went to Platypus Point, the spot where Cormorant’s Dive is about, and where Country and I came up with the first little ideas for that piece, in January. I sat there for about half an hour, having a nice moment with Country. Watched the wind making ripples on the water, causing changing textures, heard water sloshing under rocks over the other side of the river, saw a couple of cormorants and swamp hens and several dragonflies. It was more of a ‘thankyou’ visit than a ‘let’s come up with more music’ visit.

On my last full day in Dabee Country I went out to Capertee Valley. My first destination was Brymair Creek, which is where the horrific Dabee Massacre happened, and the place I had written The Cliffs Beheld about, and with, back in early 2022. I saw this as another thankyou visit, a sort of keeping up of the relationship since I hadn’t been to that particular spot since I wrote the piece. Of course, it being the Capertee Valley, there’s a lot of spectacular scenery and so I stopped a few times on the way to admire. I’ve been thinking a lot about my methods lately, as I’ve been attempting to write my methods chapter. There’s a method in my solo adventures. Aloneness is, in the vast majority of cases, a key ingredient. So when I came to Brymair Creek and another car was parked beside the road, I kept driving. Oh well, I’ll find another spot for a time and come back later. Not far further, up a hill and around a bend, was a big open space where I couldn’t see any buildings or cars. Just paddocks, and further off up towards the cliffs and higher places, or across paddocks, stands of trees. Another thing I sometimes do, which is a bit naughty, is climb fences or gates and go for a walk on someone else’s farmland property. I think the fact that I think this is ok has a lot to do with both my upbringing - parents who aren’t hard-line rule-followers, especially if they see no harm in breaking rules, and having been a kid in the country where things are usually more relaxed. I also realise that it’s highly likely my white privilege has meant I’ve gotten away with things people of colour may not, and this contributes to the fact that I don’t feel fear doing these things, just perhaps a bit of exhilaration.

So anyway, after jumping a gate I wandered down into a very large paddock which was at that time devoid of cattle. I said hello to some beautiful big trees and came across a lovely rocky gully. Really a creek bed, the dam further up in the paddock being the reason for its lack of water. Still very far from any buildings - the only one I could see from a rocky spot above the gully was probably about 500 metres away. I stayed there a while, and after lunch and a quiet sit I got out my trumpet for a play, and videoed it on my iphone. I had a great view from where I sat, and there was a nice bit of reverberance across the space, some bouncing of sound off the shapes in Country. Just after I took out my trumpet a crow landed in the tall dead tree below me, about 100 metres away. I began by playing to it. Soon afterwards a magpie made itself known through a course of warbles and that turned into a conversation between us. At one point I saw a fox looking at me curiously before walking into a hollow log. A kookaburra cackled and I chortled back, trumpetingly. Other times I played longer sounds with the wind, sometimes a bit fluttery. I finished with a simple melody.

Finally I went back to Brymair Creek, to say hello, pay my respects and thank Country for the piece of music we’d made. I sat with a big old tree which must surely been alive when the massacre happened, and seen it all. Again, not a visit to generate music with Country. If music had arrived in my head I wouldn’t have ignored it, but I didn’t actively try like I often do. I also saw the land differently, thinking of things I’d learned and finding myself wondering again where exactly in this space did the massacre happen. Where were they and what were they doing when the soldiers came upon them? Which would’ve been the best spot to make a fire and cook here? Where would the trees have been? Are those recesses in the sandstone there possibly grinding grooves? Maybe it didn’t unfold as I had originally pictured it.

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Well, this post got lengthy. Not surprising. In other news, I’m trying something new in a week. It’s a shorter, duo set with cellist Mary Rapp, and I’ve adapted some of my existing pieces for it. Some Underwards pieces, my 2 solo trumpet etudes, and a new one, called Butterfly and Vale. It’s a Bulgamatta piece, but about a different spot to the places I usually go, on the lower end closer to Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury). I will probably expand it for Underwards. I’ve been thinking about which direction to take Underwards in future. Although I have a lot of faith in the music, and the musicians are fantastic, unfortunately it’s been difficult to pull decent audiences in Sydney. I won’t go into theories about why this might be; this isn’t really the place. But it’s making me think of how to reach different audiences and maybe lean more heavily into the story aspect of the music. These days I always introduce the pieces by saying which Country they were written in collaboration with, and giving a brief telling of their stories. Sometimes not so brief. So maybe that can be a greater focus. I also need to have a clearer vision of what the end-point for my PhD works will be. I’d like to create a zine, or series of zines, to go with the music so that people have extra information and context, and a nice arty little item to take home. Maybe there will be a zine for each of the Countries/areas I’m working with. And coming up I’m also part of the Building Song project which will be a collaboration between the Bondi Pavillion and grounds, and a multi-disciplinary group of artists, including Uncle Peter Swain. I think I’ll learn a lot from it, and maybe what I learn will influence more things to come.