8.30 am: Emails away, I set my mind to consider this week’s tasks in the light of last week’s accomplishments. On Friday afternoon and Saturday, I completed the reconfiguration of Pedalboards I & IV. They’re now each as qualitative and efficient a system as one could hope for. Inevitably, the improvements inspired ideas about upgrades to the other pedalboards, in the near future:

9.00 am: An idea (that came to me as I moved from awakening to slumber — and, once more, in a dream — last night): Could one loop the loop? That’s to say: Was it possible to feed one sampler/looper effector into another in order to effect a continuous circle of iterations?:

Here was an example where the conceptual clarity of the intention was confuted by the material reality of the electronics. The two loopers overloaded one another when connected in the following manner: input > output > input > output. The signal level was increased on each iteration, which pushed the aggregated output into distortion, alarmingly. The amp hummed too. Some things aren’t possible by all means. I held onto the idea (the ambition), and thought about how it might be implemented it by some other means. (Something for the future.) Nothing is ever wasted … not even failure. Especially not failure.

1.40 pm: After lunch, I returned to Friday morning’s analogue word search of The Talking Bible LPs. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 14 has four ‘blind’s. No other verse in the Bible has so many: ‘Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch’.

2.45 pm: Resume: ‘But what I attached a different pair of identical effectors together, in the manner of the looper/samplers?’:

While no guitar signal could penetrate this closed self-referential system, the effectors’ combined sounds were sufficiently varied and controllable to have justified the effort. But this is not a realisation of my original intent. At best, its a side-line; and not one that interests me, particularly.

3.30 pm: Off to the Hugh Owen Library to participate in an e-viva voce conducted between Aberystwyth University and University of British Columbia (Vancouver). One of my PhD Fine Art tutees was coming to the end of their journey. The Vancouver conference suite looked like a police interrogation room. Edgy. Nice. I was captivated by figures moving back and for behind the frosted glass door at the rear of the room:

Once the proceedings had begun, I and the candidate left our respective rooms so that the examiners could discuss their interrogation tactics. Like a father-to-be outside the delivery room, I sat in anticipation of a call to return, when the ‘labour’ would commence:

A successful outcome all round!

6.30 pm: Practise session 1. 7.30 pm: There were emails to compose either congratulating or thanking participants for their contribution to the afternoon’s event, before I could return my attention to matters related to the morning’s work.