Finished Chapter 2

and gosh what a meaty chapter that was! But I’m beginning to feel like I’ve grasped the basics at least – this chapter was on text (as opposed to forms or multimedia or the various APIs that go with HTML 5) which will be probably the most important aspect if the site. I feel I could start coding very soon and make a reasonable stab at it, which is comforting.

Thinking I might try to do a bit of design-sketching this weekend. That and persuade Djeli to open up my Macbook Pro to try to extract the DVD that can’t eject from the drive since the case got dented…

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A proper start

More reading today (I suspect there’ll be a lot of this!) – finished Chapter 1 of the HTML 5 book and now powering through Chapter 2. Very interesting to read about the outline model – that’s going to have interesting implications in the future. Plus it appeals to my cataloguer’s heart

Also made a rough list of content I want to include in the site and started thinking about how to display it, esp on the homepage. Currently thinking along infographic lines. Possibly not hugely original, but I’ve got to start somewhere. Most of the designs I’ve made for this site in the past have never got past the scribble stage simply because I lack the illustration skills to make them work. At least flowcharts don’t require much in the way of drawing!

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Day 1

Started reading Bruce Lawson & Remy Sharp’s Introducing HTML 5 – interesting and engagingly written. This is going to be fun! I didn’t get a huge way into the book yet, but far enough to discover that while most browsers will just treat HTML 5 tags as unknown tags and allow them to be styled with CSS however you wish, A Certain Browser which really doesn’t need to be named, spits the dummy and apparently won’t style them at all without a little JavaScript jiggery-pokery. Which of course means in A Certain Browser, stuff’s going to break. I’m going to have to do some research, I think, into stats on my current site to see if I can find out about anything about what my current users are doing. Really DON’T want to have to make a separate version for IE…

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Finished Art & Fear

For the second time. That’s one powerful book. It totally captures the wonder and massive insecurities of being an artist. I think this should be required reading for anyone who lives with an artist and isn’t one themselves. And even if they are, then I’d probably recommend it. I’m hoping to do a proper book review of it soon, but first need to sort out this house business first – putting in a lease application in the morning, then signing the lease probably on Thursday. Moving in about a month, it seems, so regular posting should hopefully resume after that.

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Started to learn (properly) about Subversion

Maybe not hugely creative but necessary knowledge anyway. And with the immininent departure of our resident command-line guru, it’s sort of a self-preservation measure too. Should know it anyway though…

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Worked through compound time

Yup, Chapter 5 done & dusted. Quite straightforward really, especially considering the minor scales chapter. Also settled on a text for the choral piece – Edgar Allen Poe’s sonnet on Silence. Yes, I get the irony of writing a piece for multiple voices on ’silence’ but nevertheless, I think it’s the best poem for the task in hand.

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Learnt all about minor scales

Understanding a LOT more than ever before, thanks to new book’s approach focusing on pentachord/tetrachord combinations rather than just lonely scale degrees. Trying to hammer in basic info about modes too (Ionian – Dorian – Phrygian – Lydian – Mixolydian – Aeolian – Locrian. ‘Major’ modes are Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian; ‘Minor’ modes are Aeolian, Dorian Phrygian. See how I didn’t look any of that up? I bet you’re impressed, huh? )

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Started hunting for a song text

for the choral piece that’s to be my project to begin this weekend. I’m thinking a psalm, but using both Latin and English versions, mixed up together.

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Finished reading ‘The Creative Habit’

Wow! What a book. That’s just totally shaken me up. And I just totally devoured it. I did kind of feel that I should be taking an Artist’s Way approach to it and only doing one chapter a week, to really let it sink in, but I couldn’t let it alone – I couldn’t wait to see what she’d say next, so I made myself keep at least to just one chapter a day so the ideas didn’t get too muddled. I’ll write a review of it sometime soon and post it here.

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Too many to fit in a title!

A productive day! I’ve started reading and making notes on Walt Whitman’s essays, via my iPod Touch. I typed up and did a rough edit of an article I’m working on. Spent 25 minutes on the 2nd Whitman song in which I managed to iron out all its rhythmic niggles. Balanced my petty cash. And right now I’m installing the Pro Tools Snow Leopard upgrade so the MBox will be installed so I can set up Hyperscribe to allow me to improvise directly from the piano into Finale. Not bad!

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