12/4/26 - Between

I haven’t written a blog post in quite a while. I think a large part of that is that I have been doing so much writing for my PhD exegesis that to do extra writing for this blog has lately felt like a bit much, possibly a waste of writing energy. But now I am in a sort of between-state, and think maybe it’ll be a useful check-in for me.

I am between chapters. Right now I have 3 second drafts of exegesis chapters, that I’m currently pretty happy with. Hopefully there’s not much left to do with these. Hopefully. I have 4 more to go, and I don’t even have a full first draft for any of them. But I’m hoping that, now that I have 3 solid chapters, I have a solid basis for what I’m aiming for, for the rest of them. Plus the 3 I’ve done are pretty long and I am aiming for the others to be shorter – some much shorter.

The above paragraph is very boring. I’m sorry. I’m daunted by the coming chapters to be honest. The 3 I’m currently finished with all feel pretty good, and strong. My methods chapter is about how I’ve approached creative research in the Indigenous knowledges space. There was a lot that was necessary to say, about big things like relationality, Country’s animacy, decolonisation; about how I had to approach the types of learning I’ve been doing; about field-based research, Dadirri, yarning, heuristic inquiry, transformative learning, co-becoming, embodied knowledge, eco-literacy… And then examples of other folks (mostly Indigenous, often creative) talking about and using those methods, and then about how Country is co-creator of my music, why I ended up choosing the Countries-in-focus I chose, and how storying plays a part in my words and music.

After the methods chapter comes the Wangal Country chapter. A big theme in this is my shift from basically thinking ‘ew, get me out of the city, I don’t want to compose music about suburban places’ to ‘this is Country I live on, and I’ve come to know Country and think about its pre-1788 history but also its aliveness now, and there’s lots to say with music.’ I also talk about how my composition ideas often come from improvisation in response to a prompt (such as an experience with Country) or through auralisation (‘imagining’ sounds), and research around these things, including Indigenous perspectives on where creative ideas come from. Then come the pieces; Go Mangrove, Wangal View from The Canopy, and Guman and Human. Go Mangrove and Wangal View I have talked about here, but not Guman and Human. Basically, it’s a piece for Spectra Jazz Orchestra about an imbalance – in a nutshell, humans using Gumura (aka Iron Cove) for recreation benefit from Country, but Country does not benefit from our presence. The word Guman is Dharug for casuarina. I spent a lot of time sitting under casuarinas contemplating these things, and casuarinas themselves, I’ve learnt, are safety-givers of a kind, too.

The next chapter is about the Grose Valley in the Blue Mountains, and the pieces of music that I composed with Country in that area. It’s also about everywhen, and wondering. Everywhen is… incredibly fascinating, and hard to say in a few words. Everywhen is a time-space in which past, present and future are connected, and able to be accessed through story, song, art, dance, memory and in other ways. Beings and stories in what we would call ancient history in our culture are able to be connected with, and reinvigorated, or ‘sung up’ through everywhen. Things that happen now are also connected to, influential on, the future, and time is cyclic, recurrent. There’s much more to it though, which I might not ever understand. And that’s ok! Another thing about Indigenous knowledges is that knowledge is spread around – nobody knows everything, nor should they, because knowledge is power, and damage can be done when we think we know stuff, but don’t really. And so not knowing some things is good. Instead, you can wonder about what you don’t know in a way that acknowledges how much is beyond human comprehension. And this wonder, and wondering, is beautiful fuel for creativity. So the 2 pieces I created with the Grose Valley are encapsulations of wondering, and thinking about everywhen, and the relationship of me and my short life to Country and everything Country is, was and will be. It’s a dreamy sort of chapter, which is fitting, because the Blue Mountains are dreamy.

So, I found that the 2 chapters about Countries have sort of distinctive flavours, overarching big themes. And I’m a bit daunted because I’m not sure if I will find such clarity about the next chapter, the Wiradyuri Dabee Country chapter. And I also don’t even have a first draft of this chapter. I have plenty to say, but… it just feels like a lot right now. I know that there will probably need to be 2 distinct sections in this chapter. I have 5 Dabee pieces – 2 for Underwards, written in the first year of my PhD, and 3 for Alloy, written in the past year. The Underwards ones are very different to the Alloy ones. The Underwards ones are about Ganguddy – one about a short visit in which I found it very hard to leave, and another during a longer visit, pondering the pre-colonial landscape of the place, because the river’s waterlevel is much higher than it would’ve been before the Kandos weir was built. The 3 Alloy ones form a short suite, and they’re about mountains, but also about my story of getting to know Dabee Country. They’re also all non-conventional scores, including mostly text and graphics, with only 1 bit of 1 piece actually using western notation. Also, and I sort of hate to say this, but of the 3, I think I’m only happy with one of them as it is. I feel like the other 2 still need some development.

I probably need to at least write a little bit about my most recent trip to Dabee Country here, since it was pretty important. It probably deserves its own blog post actually. In January I took Alloy out to Kandos, in Dabee Country, to meet Country first and foremost so they could actually experience the places our pieces are about, but also to meet Uncle Peter Swain and play with him. We had an amazing time driving around with Peter and hearing him talk about his Country, and also performed with him, and recorded some videos of us playing the pieces with Country. My only regret about this trip is that it was short, and everything felt a bit rushed and stressful to me. Well, most things. On the day we drove around with Peter I knew it was important to take the time for yarning and listening and generally letting things happen. It was a really wonderful experience. But part of my dissatisfaction about the 2-out-of-3 pieces was the limited time we had to workshop them, and since the trip I’ve had some ideas about some different approaches, and I’m not sure if or when we’ll be able to try them. This also makes me wonder whether I’ll ever quite be satisfied about them though, as they’ve already changed a fair bit from their first versions.

So, this is where I’m at. The less interesting end of the PhD. Although I’ve had some interesting epiphanies lately, as I’ve been writing and re-thinking and connecting thoughts. There’s also probably fodder for another blog post, perhaps a more interesting one, reflecting on how I’m currently releasing some of my PhD works once per month in a sort of private ‘opt-in’ format. Maybe another time soon. In the meantime, stuff I recommend is ‘Hungry Listening’ by Dylan Robinson, ‘Everywhen; Australia and the language of deep history’ by Troy, Rademaker and McGrath, and ‘A Sense of Wonder’ by Haydn Washington.