House Songs (2022)
for solo performer (clarsach, acoustic guitar, 2x electric guitars, resonator guitar, 2x classical guitars) and laptop performer
First Words
Dinner Table 2011
Letters: prescriptions, surgery dates, diagnoses, get yer affairs in order
endless strumming, deny everything, my bedroom circa. 2015
Nurses, extended family, uncles of uncles visit
Shooting An Elephant, Last Words, Living Room November or October 2017
Dinner Table 2017 - present
(till am at the doctors too)
With thanks to David Fennessy and Joe Strike.
Written for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s PLUG Festival and premiered by the composer and Joe Strike (laptop performer) on the 28th of April 2022.
Duration: 45mins
Program Note
After Doug McLean (1965 - 2017)
I’ve had these instruments most my life. That second guitar over there is my Aunt Angie’s that she gave me when I was 8 or something. That one over there my Dad bought me off eBay for 90 quid for my birthday one year. They’re not what they were. They’ve broken over the years (strings falling, frets weathering) - not in one single beautiful event but just a slow reposed unlearning of what they are to me. But when a strum that one ma Dad’s singing Get Back in the living room. That riff over there he’s in hospital for and clarsach becomes table for prescriptions. The further away from him I get, the foggier the memories become, the more flat that E string becomes, I cling to these instruments more and more. They tell a story themselves, so I don’t need to worry about it.
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