Another poorly day

Feeling quite a bit better than yesterday, but still a little woozy and wobbly, which has meant that I’ve not got to the Composer Workshop at TVU. Which is annoying. Because term’s been running for a month now – I only found out where and when last week, when I couldn’t go because I had to be in town at the time it ended, and now this week the world’s been too spinny for me to tackle it. Not to mention that I STILL haven’t got my student card. First real composition lesson is tomorrow though, so really looking forward to that and really hoping that I’ll be able to get some momentum going again very soon.

So today’s been another stay-at-home day. More productive than yesterday though, although not in directly creative ways, but it’s been good. I discovered how to get Google Analytics to ignore my own visits to my sites without needing to keep track of my IP address (I’m beginning to suspect, because we have 2 networks sort of chained together that my IP address may change depending on which end of the house I’m at, so that wasn’t working very well). And I downloaded and installed GIMP, which has done a far, far better job of my caitlinrowley.com favicon that the conglomeration of tools I used before. The conglomeration resulted in a 25Kb file – GIMP has given me one which looks better but only weighs something like 800bytes. Add that to the optimising and compressing work I did yesterday, and my whole homepage now weighs in at just over 40K, as it should do. Still got a bit more work to do, but overall I’m pretty pleased with the speed of it now, and really quite ecstatic at getting it to compress anything at all – something I couldn’t manage to get working at all while I was doing the W3C mobile web best practice course.

I’ve been thinking about my homepage too and thinking I need to make some changes to that – the work I did last week which saw it jump to second position for a search on my name (where it should be), has apparently been negated with the complete change in homepage content which occurs every week when I update the blog. So I’m thinking that instead I may need to drop in a brief para about me at the top of the page and just include a teaser paragraph for the article. Might also give a truer view of who’s reading what on the site if they need to click through to read the whole thing.

Music stuff? Not so much. Diabolus (the violin piece) is still near completion but I haven’t done anything on it in a couple of days. I was hoping to go inspiration-hunting at the Tate Modern after Wednesday’s lesson, but as I had to cancel the lesson, that didn’t happen, so I’m still no closer to knowing what I want to work on next.

But the continuing rest and recuperation with tiny bits of interspersed laundry and tidying are, I think, doing me good. Time for another episode of Buffy…

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Gathering thoughts

Didn’t get so much done today – sister-in-common-law and her small son arrived to stay for a couple of days, which is lovely and I’m really looking forward to spending some time with them tomorrow at the British Museum. Today though was mostly taken up with pondering the notes I took in my first composition-teaching lesson yesterday. I’ve been through them and made some extra notes and had a really good think about how to approach the whole thing and I think I’ve come up with a vague sort of plan that might work. It’s going to be a bit random but hopefully fill in some holes. Got to run it past my student now. Hope he likes it!

Did a bit more work on the violin piece too. It’s getting tighter and tighter. I’ve sped it up a tiny bit, which pulls the duration in and gives it a bit more sparkle. Still having a little trouble with the opening 2 bars though. The rest of it I’m pretty happy with, but the opening’s a bit dirge-like and isn’t really gelling with the rest of the piece. Thinking about maybe removing most of the chordal stuff to keep the rhythm cleaner, and possibly whacking it up an octave too.

Made a little Greek feast for dinner which went down very well – chicken souvlaki with garlicky bulgur wheat (loving that recipe), salad and tzatziki.

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Rollercoaster day

Gosh. What a day! The whole dead-disk issue from yesterday isn’t really resolved – it’s looking like I’m going to have to take it to Essex tomorrow and pay a little technical chappie a whole lot of cash to retrieve the data, but he says I was right to not try tinkering with it myself and that I’ve given the data the best possible chance of survival, which is the main thing. So tonight I have to clean off my other disk, back that up somehow and then take both those disks plus the other one that died about a year ago to Essex in the morning.

Today though I am basking in the wonder that is Google Analytics. I started to implement this ages back but something went a little pear shaped and I never got around to putting the code in half the pages of my site. Now I’ve implemented it everywhere – here, caitlinrowley.com, minim-media.com and the Satie site at minim-media.com/satie and my golly gosh what a useful thing! Seeing some fascinating stats and it’s really giving me a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t. What really isn’t is minim-media, which doesn’t hugely surprise me – it’s always been a bit of a mish-mash of a site, and now that the other sites are working it’s kind of lacking in purpose, not to mention updates.  At some point when raspberryblue.com is up and running, I’ll clear all the data off it and point users to RB for web and publishing stuff and CR for music stuff and be done with it. Looking forward to that day, but there’s a ton of other work to do first.

The Satie site is particularly interesting – very high bounce rate (that’s where someone comes on your site, just looks at the page they’re on then goes away again) BUT often combined with a long average visit time – e.g. my essay Satie and Minimalism: Parallels and Points of Contact has had the most hits, has a whopping bounce rate of 87.5% but the average visit time is nearly 5 1/2 minutes – quite enough for people to read the full article. What seems to be happening is that people are finding the article via Google, reading the whole of it then going away again. Hopefully contented. And that’s interesting in terms of the (incredibly ancient – I think I redesigned this for MiniMax Festival in 2002) site design – when you get to the bottom there’s no links to anywhere – you have to scroll back up to the top for suggestions of other destinations – in particular, but it’s also making me think what I can do with this site to make it more useful to visitors. From a usability point of view, it’s pretty sucky – dense text, bibliography isn’t split into data types, that sort of thing – and there’s also limited ways of obtaining data – you come, you read an essay (or two, if you’re a masochist), you go away again. But I think the information there must be useful because I regularly get emails asking about it or asking for an elaboration on something, usually from students. It was also at one point linked from a joint website of Ivy League colleges in the States as a key resource on Satie, so it must have something going for it – why not push the boundaries? So I’m thinking, once all the other website projects are done, that I might totally revamp it. Put the whole thing in Drupal, start up a forum for discussion of Satie’s work, a blog section for intermittent updates on my research (which is always, always ongoing) and random Satie snippets that come my way so it looks a little alive – I’m sure that latest news dated 2006 on the homepage isn’t doing anyone any favours!

Ideas, ideas, ideas – but it’s really wonderful to see how people are using my sites. I put another new blog post up on caitlinrowley.com today on the process I’ve used to construct my new unaccompanied violin piece, which has had some great responses – as did the last post, which people really seemed to identify with.

Which ties in to an ebook I read yesterday – one on networking which I downloaded from the ‘Library’ at thelaunchcoach.com (you have to sign up to get it but you also get another 3 interesting ebooks). I’m really liking this new breed of online-business sites – there’s a real freshness and a respect for ethics out there at the moment, which is just fantastic – it’s all about giving value and being helpful and building your business through actually being nice to people. That’s just awesome. Anyway, I was reading this ebook and today I found myself, while going about things the way I do normally, being hyper-aware of the connections I was making – I was running several conversations at once with a bunch of people I really respect and they weren’t just twitter-fluff conversations either. I was bold and when people said they liked my blog I asked them to let me know if there was anything they want me to write about. One friend has even asked me for composition lessons as a result of it! We’ll see what happens there

I’ve sent off a ton of emails – a couple of them reminders, some signing up for stuff, others on project work, and it all feels like stuff is gradually pulling together to make things work. I can’t believe how many opportunities are turning up right now. And I just want to grab hold of every one of them!

And I started the day by writing another 2 blog posts for raspberryblue.com. I now have 3 posts and I want to launch with 4 or 5 in place, so I’m pretty happy with that. Yay!

I’ve also finally got my act together and exported MIDI files (transposed down a perfect fourth – that’s what I get for trying to sing soprano songs) for the Remembrances of Half-Forgotten Dead People – I want to have a recording of this up on SoundCloud before the end of the week to go with the one-week-to-go announcement of the concert – I want to have both the sound file and the score available to download as a package on BandCamp so that people can check it out and go “hey, that girl’s got a weird basso profundo voice but I kinda like the song – maybe I’ll go to the concert and see what it’s like with a real singer”, so exporting the MIDI is phase one. Hopefully I can get the sounds for that sorted out tomorrow and try to record it when I get back from Essex. It’s really bugging me not having a proper microphone – it’s annoying for these sorts of things, and it’s a bit annoying because I’m thinking of trying out maybe some podcasty stuff as a way of exposing a bit of my composition process to the world. Maybe it should go on my birthday list

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A first step

Today I made a pretty momentous decision: I’m not going to apply for the job at the Tate. Instead, I’m going to carry on focusing on my music and really put some effort into exploring alternative revenue ideas, audience-building for my music, that sort of thing. To that end, today I was a bit daring and bought two e-book packages from Chris Guillebeau who writes the Art of Non-conformity blog – Working for Yourself and Art + Money. Obviously I know a fair bit about business on the internet, but my knowledge is a bit scattered, picked up from here and there and not learned in a straightforward way, so there are bound to be gaps. Mr Guillebeau has been making his living from mostly small-scale internet projects for the past 10 years, so I figured I could learn something from him, and Art + Money contains sections on things like audience-building which, I must confess, is something that’s kind of eluded me a bit. Had a couple of small problems with downloading the packages, but these are mostly resolved and as Chris answers all his email himself, I have no doubt that any lingering issues will be quickly sorted.

I started reading Working for Yourself on the train to Surrey for tonight’s percussion workshop and it’s looking pretty good and sparking some ideas, so I’ll see where I go with it. Percussion workshop was, as always, good (although I’m beginning to wonder whether I’m developing an allergy to Surrey – I always seem to come away feeling coldy. It’s cleared itself up within a day each of the previous times, so hopefully this one will too). Tonight we did drumkit! So we each got to have a play on a proper drumkit. Lots of fun but gee-whiz you have to be co-ordinated. When it comes right though, it’s grand. Next week’s the last one, which is a shame, but I think it’s been worthwhile to do, even if the travel has cost me a fortune (£14 each time!). Note to self, though: Do not miss the 6 o’clock train because the 6.30 is packed and makes you late as well.

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Arrangement, CMS and striking things off the to-do list

Always a good feeling, that. I still didn’t get everything done I wanted to do, but I sure made a hefty start, most noticeably spending most of the day test-driving Drupal modules in preparation for a quote I need to send out tomorrow for a rather complex site for a non-profit organisation. I’m really rather impressed with Drupal, I must say. Today I’ve played with user permissions, an email-list module, search, adding images to user profiles, installing a security upgrade, implemented rich text editing (rather than plain-vanilla HTML) and a bunch of other stuff – and I haven’t once had to touch any code to do it. Obviously theme-creation is a completely different kettle of fish and I haven’t even looked at that yet – saving that for tomorrow. But so far, very impressed with what it can do pretty much straight out of the box.

And in the lulls while I waited for files to upload and delete as I performed the security upgrade? Well, I arranged the first four movements of Pieces of Eight for string quartet, which I’m thinking will be my submission to Sequenza 21′s current call for scores (I’ve abandoned the cello tango I was writing for this as too complex for the time I have – I still want to write it, but it will probably take several goes to get to a point where I’ll be happy with it). I was tossing up between arranging it for string quartet or piano and percussion but the quartet won out in the end – limited time and I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted the percussion to do but I didn’t want it to be just a bong or bang here and there.

I also sent off a bunch of emails that have been lingering and sorted out a survey for the composers from Durham – we’re setting up a Facebook group and wanted to give ourselves some semblance of authority, so we’re voting on a name… results by the end of the weekend, I hope.

Oh! And my next round of Amazon-junkie-goodies arrived! Alex Ross’s new book, Listen to This, and the next book in my pre-opera reading round, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. I’ve rethought that idea about keeping the subject of the opera under my hat – in the light of it probably taking me several years to actually produce any part of it, it seems a bit lame, so here’s the announcement: It’s to be (loosely) based on Tey’s novel (yes, I’ve read it before) which focuses on the revisionist history of Richard III (the one that says he wasn’t a deformed tyrant who murdered the princes in the Tower). As an opera plot, I think it’s up there with the best of them: murder, slander, rumour, illegitimacy, deceit, pretenders to the throne – it’s got the lot!

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Fun with non-standard notation

Contrary to my expectations I’m really enjoying this non-standard notation composition challenge – it’s fascinating to see what everyone (principally standard-notation users who are a bit freaked by the letting go aspect of the challenge) is coming up with – the sounds they’re using, which elements they’re letting go and which they’re retaining control of. It’s really inspiring me to be a bit more daring. I think I’ve done pretty well with the start of the piece but I think I want to let go a little more at the end, to really push myself to see how far I can stretch out of my comfort zone. And there’s not much time in which to do it – scores have to be finished for rehearsal tomorrow, for performance tomorrow night!

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A sick-day of productivity

Still no better – probably overdid it over the weekend and woke up feeling absolutely ghastly. I was home alone, so ended up spending the afternoon on the couch, alternating between watching episodes of Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers and working on the quintet.

The quintet’s in a frustrating place at the moment. I think I’ve solved a few problems today – pulled the end off and added a new chunk in before it. Had a significant amount of trouble reattaching the end, but I think it works. I’m not sure I’ll be able to go back to the opening material though – not literally at any rate – the slower tempo of the opening just doesn’t really work, I think, coming back at the end but I’ll review it tomorrow. At any rate, it feels very much like it’s wanting to move to the end now – which is a HUGE relief. It spent so long being stalled it’s just wonderful to know that it’s found where it wants to go. I think the new section I added today has helped a lot, so YAY!

I also inadvertently ended up cooking dinner tonight. Parents brought home chicken but then couldn’t decide what to do with it so I took over, and it turned out rather well: I boiled a bunch of Brussels sprouts, till they were only barely done, cut the chicken into small pieces and tossed it in plain flour seasoned with paprika, salt, pepper and a smidgen of saffron, then fried it off in olive oil and a little butter with some little bits of bacon. Once the chicken was cooked, I dropped in the double cream left over from the other night’s trifle, then the sprouts to warm them through, then folded through the cooked pasta. I think everyone went back for seconds, so I think I’d consider doing it again. The sprouts made a nice change

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More doodling around with the quintet

But with unfortunate, although at least conclusive results – the doodles I have don’t want to be a string quintet – I think they have aspirations of being a piano piece. So it’s back to the drawing board again.

I finished reading John Adams’ autobiography on Sunday so started in on Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise. Great stuff so far. It’s actually making me want to listen to Strauss… not Mahler though

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Accepted!!!!

I’ve been accepted into CoMA’s Midwinter Composers Masterclass!!!! This is both deeply awesome and rather scary. Not having really received any feedback from other composers in about 15 years, it’s a wee bit daunting. As is having to write a string quintet from scratch by the middle of December, but I really feel like this is a big step towards whatever’s next on the agenda for my music. Scared but elated. The Masterclass is organised by CoMA, who are an organisation who promote contemporary (classical) music for amateur musicians, and the composer in charge of us composer-participants is Tansy Davies… who is the same age as me, which could be a little weird, although I’m hoping not. I really liked what I heard of her music on her website and, reading about her approach, she seems to use architecture as a launching-point in a similar way to how I’ve been using modern art, so it could be interesting. There’ll also be a composer ensemble, made up of whatever we selected composers can play. Not sure if/when we’re advised of what that is – the notes sent through recommend flexible instrumentation – who knows, maybe Deconstruct:Point, line, plane could get another outing? SO EXCITED!

Anyway, that was at the end of the day. Haven’t achieved a vast amount otherwise, but I was feeling I needed to get back to composing, but I’ve been finding the prospect a little daunting with so many people in the house, even if it is a large space and we’re not all on top of each other like we used to be in the old place – it’s just not the same as being on your own. Anyway, so I figured I needed to start doing something about it so I pulled out the music for Egg the Tenth, which I wrote earlier this year (it was the original interlude for the Whitman songs, but didn’t really mesh well there, so I put it to one side to be an egg, but never got around to putting the detail in the score) and dropped in appropriate accidentals, hunted out fonts and did a little layout on it, so it’s basically ready to go now. I also did a MIDI export because I was planning on reworking it in ProTools to sound a bit more like a proper performance than Finale can do… and then discovered that I don’t remember how to wire my tracks in ProTools to get it to use proper sounds, at which point I lost heart and had a nap.

And there was a baking experiment too. When I was seeing my nutritionist, she encouraged me to get hold of this natural sugar substitute called xylitol so I could avoid using sugar when I baked (if you’re new here, I have an insulin resistance – it’s not diabetes [yet] but basically the insulin my body produces forgets what it’s supposed to do with sugar it encounters – unless I exercise regularly, but having been crippled for coming up on a year now, this hasn’t really been happening, hence decision to experiment…). I was in the organic shop today picking up some bits and pieces, and thought that maybe I should give it a go, so I decided to make a crumble with the tasty-but-dry remaining nectarine and some lingering apples – I figured that at least if it was only in the crumble topping, then that could be abandoned if it was too awful. Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘awful’. I guess the flavour was kinda OK, but the texture was All Wrong. The crumble didn’t crisp and it certainly didn’t go chewy. But it wasn’t particularly sweet either (that could have been my fault). So basically it ended up like one of those worthy but tedious baked bars they fill with jam. But without the jam. Sort of bland and like eating a high-fibre pillow. There’s a bit left from the rather small packet, so I might have a go at using it up in a cake (possibly cut with some real sugar) and see if that fares any better.

And finally I started work on getting IE6 sorted out with the website layout while I watched Alice in Wonderland – turned out the problem with the fonts wasn’t anything to do with either fonts or code, it was to do with IE6 not applying styles to the new HTML 5 elements which were referenced in the cascade. So that’s sorted out now, which is a bit yay

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WordPress overload

Got an absolute truckload of work done on the site today and now the blog is pretty much ready to go – very nearly entirely. I think the only thing left to do with it is to work out the custom template so I can import the latest blog post into the homepage. Worked out some cool features too – selecting subnav items depending on whether the post is in the news or article category (or if it’s a category list page of either) and setting the posting date within the <time> tag automatically.

Also accidentally watched The Omen. I’ve avoided this one for years, but it came on and nobody turned it off… and by the time it got halfway through then I was stuck and had to watch it right through to the end. Really good film – very suspenseful, and much more effective than a lot of more modern movies that have to rely on effects to be creepy.

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