During my Project Space, someone mentioned the fact that the violin has the closest sound to the voice. I have now taken this idea and put it in my practice. This is particularly relevant to me before I have played the violin since I was 7 years old – a year before I started having the “trans feelings”. I have now made a sound work using my voice and my violin, using the concept of my voice as a trans person and my past experience in music. There is something quite special about this sample because it represents where I am in my life now – I am not changing, I am aligning and getting my “old self” back. I let one of my friends, who is a musician and a sound artist, listen to it and they said it reminded them of Alvin Lucier’s “I am Sitting in a Room”.

In my latest sound sample, I have used the piece “Marie’s Wedding”, which is a Scottish song and piece I used to play with the fiddle group when I was at school. It ‘s kind of an homage to the jokes we used to have in fiddle group about how the only piece we knew how to play was “Marie’s Wedding” and we would literally play it at every single school concert.
It’s also an homage to the jokes I have with the people I am friends with from going to violin lessons. For example, my friend, Zee, and I have known each other since we were 9 years old – well before we started transitioning. We first met because we went to the same violin teacher. Now we have this joke that everyone who went to that violin teacher has now come out as somewhat queer. I like the connection I’m making between my transness and music. I think this is the beginning something quite different and special, relating the voice, the violin, and the trans body.