2nd entry for December 15, 2009

These studies took 5 minutes each. They went fine as well.

Following the 5-minute poses, the radio station (Radio-Canada) switched from `easy' jazz to a concert of Prokofiev & Shostakovitch works. Good music, and lots of merit as music to listen to, but that was the problem.

For some reason that night, the music was like a jamming signal, and I just couldn't draw to it. The tempos were all wrong. It would be fast when I was trying to draw a long line, loud when I wanted soft, and the sonic textures just weren't working.

Sometimes I can shut that out as needed, but not that night. Every time I would get into a groove, the music would swell in some dramatic phrase that derailed my connection to the sketching.

It would have been interesting, I thought, to see what would have come out if I had run with that, rather than resist, but that wasn't the mood I was in that night. I wanted the familiar experience.

For me, I lean towards very un-challenging music to draw to. Give me an hour of baroque lute music and I'm happy. Dissonant music is much more hit and miss. Also stuff with big tempo or volume jumps are jarring. It would be different if the point was to sit and listen, and that is the trouble with some music - it uses means to grab one's attention that become an interruption.

For an hour onwards, the drawings were a write-off.