If music be the food of love...

Third day with the musicians. Six of them: keyboard, guitar, violin, bass, percussion and drum. Cheerful and jovial as they were, it took some time to know each other musically. I would play them the songs then get them to write down the structure and the chords, and rehearse part by part. It is always a challenge to transpose a studio recording for the stage, and to make the musicians move from ‘doing a lot’ to ‘doing the necessary’ for the music. Musicians in general love to jam and get wild on their instrument. Rock, jazz, funk, latin… There’s something primal and orgasmic in being the musical alpha male. In that sense, I function more like a classical musician when I compose my songs. Once their frustration of doing too little is behind, they realise how each of the notes they play greatly contribute to the architecture of the music. We have reached that stage now. The keyboardist was very moved when I showed him the piano part of Star in the Sun and the way the chords were to be arranged. An outgoing man with a mane of grey curly locks, his fingers would itch and feel compelled to fill each bar with as many notes as possible. Little by little, the spirit of the song descended on him and the look in his eyes showed me that he understood. When right after, the musicians played the whole song, there was a beautiful atmosphere in the room. Finally, we were making music!