One thing I learned from working with dancers this last year is the beauty of "in process" showings. From my experience, this concept is completely lost on musicians. In conservatory, us composers were required to share parts of our -in process compositions- in class to receive feedback from other composition students, but never, would we ever share this material in front of a general public. The "in the works" messiness of a work in progress is often just opening yourself to pointless criticism from people who don't have the composing/making experience to hear what is good raw material-where it is going, what it's potential is and what to say that would be helpful feedback for a composer.
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For the past two weeks I have been in residency at Ragdale (the late, great Howard Shaw's compound) composing songs for a new album (tentatively entitled HUSK) and working on my first musical (I got three songs into an adaptation of Monica Byrne's "What Every Girl Should Know" only to realize there wasn't nearly enough action to build a musical - now looking at Jose Rivera's "Marisol"- stay tuned.)
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