Having dismantled Pedalboard III on Sunday, today I began to ‘remantle’ only those pedals that are crucial to the production of a modulated glissando and an extended delay effect. Economy = efficiency = efficacy. During the first hour of the working week (which often sets the tone for the remainder), emails were dispatched, plans considered, and further sound files for the Matt. 20.14 track processed in the background:

Thereafter, I began the next Art/Sound lecture. How does one sum up art and music in the USA during the 1960s and 70s in less than 300 words? Inadequately, at best. Late morning, I went to the School to tutor a student who’s completing their MA Fine Art degree. In negotiating the end of a scheme of study, a student is presented with a very different set of challenges to those encountered at the beginning. They must, now, act with the understanding that while the conclusion is always provisional it must, nevertheless, be sufficiently decisive to realise the intent that they’d declared at the outset of the final module. Ideally, this finale should be the apogee of their achievement too. However, it’s not always possible ‘to go out on a high’. Some students peak too soon. And none of us has any control over when we peak. After all, this is art and not a conjugal climax:

The feathers of my colleagues were ruffled by an email from the ‘Management’ requesting that tweets relevant to either the department or the institute should be forwarded to the latter, bi-lingually (!). This means that a good-for-nothing monoglot such as me would need to forward tweets to the translation unit (which is already straining under a heavy workload) before publication. (I suspect that they’d be able to rush the job through in about three months.) So, bang goes spontaneity. In this scenario, a tweet would consist of no more than 70 characters of English and 70 characters of Welsh … which rather frustrates the construction of communicable sense.

After practise session 1, I continued to tease, plug, and reorder the latest incarnation of Pedalboard III in readiness for tomorrow’s trials:

The Art/Sound lecture and sound processing demanded my attention in the evening session. Practice session 2, then a ‘night watch’ dedicated to mixing down the Matt. 20.14 track and marking undergraduate resit submissions:

To bed.