February 8, 2016

Chinese New Year

8.30 am. The buffeting of the wind and rain, like the sound of shale, against the windows, stirred me often throughout the night:

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I completed some further tutorial arrangements for the weeks ahead before returning to the sound studio. Too long away. There’s always a measure of discomfort on returning — as when one leaves off either playing an instrument or drawing for too long. The first part of the morning had been set aside for tidying the room, and ensuring that all the equipment was operational; this was in readiness for the lunchtime meeting of a sub-division of the Institute’s new sound group, which was established before Christmas.

10.45 am. Off to School for an examination board meeting. The amaryllis is in full bloom now:

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12.40 pm. The ‘gang’ arrive for lunch at my home. The objective, at present (as far as I’m concerned), is to understand how each other thinks, what we each really want to do (as opposed to what we think ought to do), and how we might go about doing it, in principle. To begin:

  • Work with a few committed people only.
  • Determine the objective precisely.
  • Communicate the same clearly.
  • Keep the process simple.
  • Assess the outcome often.
  • Rethink the process always.

3.15 pm. The university had issued an edict cancelling all classes after 5.00 pm today, due to the weather — which took out my final appointment for the day. I came home to catch up on admin and return to the sound studio.

3.45 pm. Very often, my immediate response to a review of my sound pieces is to compress the composition further. Having not heard section 6 for over a week, I identified a certain excess of duration — not great, but significant. The temporal compression gave the first stage of this section a greater punch. 4.00 pm. Conversely, the initial trumpet blast needed to be sustained for much longer.

5.30 pm. A celebratory Chinese takeaway for New Year. The fortune cookie said:

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I recalled the fortune cookie motto that I’d received in San Francisco (the home of the biscuit) in 2013:

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6.30 pm. Practise session 1. 7.30 pm. I continued to construct the sound of the trumpet that blew long and louder, and introduced a variant of the descent motif (one octave lower) to suggest God coming down upon the mountain top (Exod. 19.18-19). Thereafter, I worked on an extended version of the ‘voice of God’.

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