Law of Gravity (song) with David Downes

Written in 1987 with David Downes, this song was one of five created during my Honors year at Victoria University Wellington. I experience a combination of admiration and embarrassment for my younger self in the creation of these songs. At the time it was simply thrilling to be in the studio at 44 Kelburn Parade (Douglas Lillburn's studio!) with David (who was , and is, an extraordinary artists and musician) and hear these songs manifesting. Something I could never have managed on my own.

...by the end of 1986 I had completed a Bachelor of Music with a double major in piano performance and composition at Victoria University of Wellington.

My piano teacher had been Judith Clark, and my composition teachers had been Ross Harris, Jack Body, and David Farquhar. Other teachers during my undergraduate years were Margaret Nielsen, Peter Walls, Elizabeth Kerr, Greer Garden, Gavin Saunders, and Alan Thomas.

Although the weakest player in my piano cohort (there were three of us), through a a bizarre sequence of events I, astonishingly to all, ended up top of my year in piano performance (with a B-minus !). It was decided that it would be a great idea for me to continue into postgraduate study....as a composer. It was clear to all I didn't have the necessary relationship to practicing the piano to ever be more than barely mediocre on the instrument.

In my Honors composition year (1987) I asked to for one of the papers to allow for the writing of pop songs (an area in which I had a vast, almost total, lack of experience). I suspect Ross went to bat for me and I was allowed to do it. I was then faced with the problem of having no idea what to actually do, or how to write a song.

The studio was legendary in New Zealand. It no longer exists, but I think it might have been the first of its kind in New Zealand (possibly the Southern hemisphere). It was established by Douglas Lilburn when he made his radical shift from orchestral and chamber composition to the newly emerging medium of electronic music. Douglas was one of the early pioneers of this new creative terrain in New Zealand music.

Working with David always felt like privileged time. He brought so much ingenuity, musicality, originality, focus, and humour to our collaborations. In the following years we also created (either just the two of us, or with others):

Full of Sympathy

Silent Partner

Law of Gravity

We Lie Here

This Rhythm

Insight

And two dance shows (with Delia Shanly), created by Michael Parmenter: Go and Venture

Quite some years later we co-created a soundtrack to The High Ride - a high-intensity motion ride at Te Papa's "OurSpace" installation.

Our last major collaboration was in 2010, Faustroll with Joe Bleakely.

Here we are at the entrance to the back of the Electronic Music Studio on Kelburn Parade, Wellington in 1987.

And here's me in the studio kitchen cooking one of my legendary (often near-lethal) fry-ups.....

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