Richard has written about five different chord progressions now. They have a style and sound that I would expect from a guitar player: bluesy chord progressions, one in a 12 bar progression. He has been experimenting with arpeggiating the chords in different ways.
Vashti tells me that Richard used to write music for shows. He also wrote for bands that he played in, though he mainly played covers. He has explained to her that he would rather add lyrics later, so this is the way that we are going to go forwards. He is excited that we have done so much so quickly.
Because I have done a similar project for ray, we have made progress in just three sessions that is equivalent to where I was with ray after a whole year. We are going to have Richard’s other carer at some future sessions so that he can help. It makes a huge difference having somebody there with a bit of IT knowledge. This was always a problem for ray as he often had to wait for up to 2 weeks until I came for my next session before we could resolve some really rudimentary problems.
Due to the speed that we have developed Richard’s grid I haven’t had as much time as I would have liked to communicate with Richard directly. Hopefully in upcoming sessions I will be able to witness more of his compositional processes. This is a very exciting project as we are already at a stage where Richard can write music in a style that suits his thought processes. Most of the work from now will involve tweaking his interface and teaching him how to get the best out of it. I am really keen to hear what he has written when I return in a fortnight.
