JANE AUBOURG
composer violinist maker
Musician's Log
Updates sporadically & spontaneously. Chronicles the tinkerings of a musician.
Musician's log #1
There is no auspicious day to begin, beginning makes the day auspicious.
12 Dec 2020
Transcript
There is no auspicious day to begin, beginning makes the day auspicious. Received The Instrument from The Artist yesterday. Unwrapped it like a gift. There was space for it on the wall, as if I knew it was coming. As if it was always meant to be here. Had tea with The Artist in her home. We talked ... about gestures and drank liquorice tea. She suggested adding chilli. I made new discoveries on the instrument. Every time I hold it in my hands, something unexpected happens. This time the tuning. It’s ... not as isolated as I had thought. I’m feeling optimist even though tired. Stopping to rest is good, but stop for too long and I think I’ll sink into the ground.
Musician's log #2
Not the calm after the storm,
but the birdsong after the rain.
22 Dec 2020
Musician's log #3
A playful red and a deep, clear blue
18 Jan 2021
Transcript
The 🔴🔺🟥❌🎈 came by.
We made mess together
We made sounds together
We made thoughts together
There were questions about notebooks and colours that we only began to ask and answer.
We had a long conversation that moved between 4 different rooms.
She left with The Radio, leaving a trail of tiny confetti and a feeling of dusk in exchange.
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Musician's log #4
Even failures sound interesting
29 Jun 2021
Musician's log #5
Embrace the messiness of a work in progress
15 July 2021
Musing on a yarn with The Poet, of tea sets with stories and flowers twice stolen.
Cutting and keeping those things that spark joy - press them in books, display them in bowers, keep them in boxes.
This compulsion to collect and collate and curate and collude.
Put them in water and see what grows roots.
Something strikes a chord. Something resonates.
Makes sounds, makes music in my teeming brain.
Creating is joy, creating is personal, creating is cathartic.
So the yarn must be too.
I am hungry for the details and now I’m hungry for the journey.
Finding the form, finding the place. We take things out until it fits, step back and say
“well … I made you some content.”
How many things can you take out before something is lost?
Trying, trialing, testing, tangenting.
How do I share this thing I’ve made?
Imperfect is ok. Messiness is ok. It’s always a work in progress and it’s never meant to be finished.
Musician's log #6
a small sketch
20 August 2021
*this means "this line will reveal itself when it's played" and that this is exactly what happened.
the sketch process
1. I daydream of string quartets - of a gesture that the four play together, but with the parts being distinct and not necessarily completely synced. At this point its more like a kind of feeling. I can sort of hear it, but can mostly just feel what it it would be like to play.
2. I scribble down ideas of what those distinct parts could be. It's not specific at this stage, just the general idea. I will find the precise notes when I have an instrument in my hands.
3. I play around with parts to find the notes that spark joy, recording as I go. I did them in the same order that I wrote them. I changed the second line to just a gliss. The gesture naturally expanded out into repetitions, which lead the 4th line to have some movement and the 3rd line to gradually build up.
