The first half of 2019 has been a rollercoaster of ups, downs and turn arounds. Starting out in a new course and feeling like I've just gotten over the hill of getting to know most of the classical students (or at least names and faces). My band, Charlie & The Keepers of The Groove (which I am currently managing) released our first single at the start of this year called "Saving Face" (link here). I had the great honour of participating at the Global Student Strike for Climate Action in Perth on the 15th March - performing our song with a crowd of over 2000 people. I've achieved great personal goals during this time, including music theory tutoring for high school kids. And somehow - amongst all of this - I've managed to keep close ties with my family and the friends I made in the music artist course last year.
Most poignantly - I've written many compositions; too many, probably. All of this has been a little overwhelming. It still boggles my mind to think that I was on the news this year (for the climate strike). I've faced some disappointments along the way. The delays and miscommunications with some collaborations have been dicey at times and I was let down by the 2019 WAM Song of The Year Award. However, plans for the future are in motion and there are many more things I've got to look forward to! GIGS & UPCOMING PERFORMANCES: My band and my solo act Call Me Charlie have got some pretty exciting gigs for the next few weeks / months. These include:
RECORDING & WAAPA WORKS: I am booked in again to work with the sound production students - for a band recording this time! It's always exciting getting to record with lots of people as it makes the process much more bearable and fun. I'll also get to have some fun asking around for collaborations with other students (which I am trying to get a head start on) for next semester's assignments. It would be awesome to work with a visual artist next semester as I am a very visual composer. I see scenes and colours and action when I write music, especially when it's very expressive music so I'd love to work with a visual medium and create something for it. MICELLANEOUS PROJECTS: At the moment, I am waiting for a response from Nanga Music Festival as to whether I was successful with my scholarship entry. I met with the coordinators several times over the course of this year as they were talent scouting when I was busking or performing around. From the sounds of it, they were extremely keen to get me engaged with the scholarship and sent me an email to remind me of the due date. Other projects I have waiting in the wings includes the "Saving Face" music video. The massive delays of the release for this music video has been both a blessing and a curse. I underestimated the stress of uni combined with managing my other music platforms, posting many promises of the music video but failing to upload it anywhere. However, because I postponed the release, I now have more footage from the student strikes I can to add to it. Some composing exercises and habits I try to keep up include writing and recording a minute's worth of music in an hour. This comes in the form of a deal I have with my brother. He is an avid fan of Dungeons and Dragons and has a long running campaign he plays with his friends. I'm not a big fan of role playing (as it's way too stressful to me), however, I do love the stories and scenes that arise from the game. So my brother has given me a list of scenes from his campaign which I can write a minutes worth of music for. I consider this little exercise as practice scoring for film / television, as that's always been a pretty big and consistent goal for me. You can have a listen to some of these tracks on this Soundcloud playlist here.
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Artist SummaryI'm a WA Fremantle based singer-songwriter / composer. Here, you can have a gawk at my studies, compositions and performances. Archives
August 2022
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