Waiting for the wind to cease

It’s not so much that pride goeth before a fall as that a fall succeedeth pride.

Out on the Central Tablelands not much is supposed to happen. Certainly not weather. This should make it perfect for plein-air recording. After all, it’s perfect for radio-telescopy. The Dish was set not far from here. Weeds grow. Cockies moan. The wheat is short and the tractors are large. Events are few. Not even the wildlife has high expectations.

I have been waiting weeks for storms and high winds to pass so that I could start laying down a demo. At last, at midnight a few days ago, there was no wind and no cloud, only a distant farmer late with his harvest, and I was able to set up in a grove of cypress on a high saddle between two prehistoric islands. This was once the bed of a lake, and strange fossil fish have been found in road cuttings. The stones I kick aside may contain in them creatures that have emerged after millions of years into forms they would not recognise. There is a faint sense of their spirits stirring underground. 

I have rehearsed well and consistently, and can give a flawless read when I am fresh and focussed. At midnight, after having lugged all the gear several hundred metres, set up all the equipment, run several sound tests, ironed out the bugs (which included an inability to tell one knob from another in the dark), redesigned the microphone array and prepared to perform I was not fresh and I was no longer focused.

I got no clean take. Every one (about 20 minutes each) had at least one significant mistake in it. The more takes, the more tired I became and the more evident this was in the deteriorating colour of my voice. By 2 am I was dispirited, drained and fallen far from the heights of pride.

In the event, the rhythm, the pace and the drive of every take - no matter how tired - is very good. The work I have done to shift a visual/aural performance into an aural performance alone has paid off. The sound-bed in which the performance is set - that is, the location noise - is good. The idea of plein-air recording is not just to capture the unique sonic qualities of a space in time, but also to give - as a colleague in Queensland has said - a story that goes on behind the story.

I have always enjoyed performances given in public spaces. The bustle that surrounds them can sometimes be exhausting for the performer, but is almost always exciting for the audience. It is this quality of ‘stuff going on where there is stuff going on’ that I want.

Now I am not so tired, but the winds have returned again and have brought rain with them. There will be no more recording for a while. But there is still plenty to do. So far, everything that I have written has been for the live stage. Now I must write for both the live and the electric stages.

This is still enough to flatten my head.