One Creative Thing » thinking

Finished Art & Fear

minim — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:07:23 +0000

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.

Wrote a list of everything I’m trying to do

minim — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:43:30 +0000

It filled a whole A4 page. Without really trying. Which is rather scary, I think. Conclusion: I’m expecting too much of myself, and because I’m too tired to be rational, I’m blaming others for not apparently putting in as much effort as I’d like them too (even though they have their own stuff going on). I think this has been useful. Unfortunately there’s very little I can ditch off the list right now, but at least now I have a better handle on why I’m falling apart so I can hopefully be a bit kinder to myself and a bit more forgiving of others. Or at least that’s the plan. Oh look – a plan. That’s another thing for the list. *sigh*

Played my flute for a little…

minim — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:58:57 +0000

and thought about my sheet-music shopping list: thinking Telemann solo Fantasias, Poulenc Sonata, Chaminade Concertino, the Roussel Jouers de flute – and maybe a little Bach? That ought to keep me occupied for a while

Oh and I cleared a hole in my to-do list too – no more overdues!!

Had an idea for a perpetual motion piece

minim — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:11:39 +0000

Thinking about writing something which uses the geolocation features of something like the iPhone to drive the playback and construction of a piece. Think it might work – need to do some more research though.

Worked out how to get Aptana to resolve conflicts

minim — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:14:51 +0000

OK, so maybe that doesn’t seem so very creative, but anything that helps me get the work I need to done is a good thing. And then I wrote about it (tried to blog it but Blogger crashed. What a surprise) which is both creative and helpful to others who may be struggling.

More Whitman progress

minim — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:15:54 +0000

I had a relevation last night – after 2 years of quietly fretting, in dribs and drabs (NOT continuously) about the wide range in the first Whitman song, I suddenly realised I was dead wrong – I’ve written it in the tenor clef, so while the low C I knew was at the end was indeed a low C, the high A-flats were in fact not high A-flats at all, but middle-of-the-treble-stave A-flats. Which meant I had about a 6th’s worth of space to move upwards. Which I have now done. The winning key is F minor (as opposed to C minor), and the whole thing sits much better, and especially with the tessitura of the second two pieces. Once that was done though, the second song still felt a bit off. I think it’s because it doesn’t have an accompaniment rather than anything inherently wonky with it, so I tried inventing one, but nothing wants to stick to this melody, so I’ve now moved on to the approach of inserting a tiny piano solo before it. Just to create a little padding between the moderately lush (for me) movement of the first song and the brittle sparseness of the second. A piano equivalent to the second song, really, that will bridge the gap between keys and balance the two instruments. And it’s half-written already! All in all, I think I probably put in about 2 or 3 hours’ composition today – a huge leap forward from what I was achieving even a few months ago when it felt like things were starting to be on a roll. Feeling really good about this. And even more so about the fact that I didn’t write on Wednesday (very big day at work – I was completely exhausted when I got home) but made myself get back to it on Thursday, and have had no trouble carrying on every day since.

Messed around with listening to some songs

minim — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:09:37 +0000

Peggy Glanville-Hicks’ 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, a disc of Poulenc & Britten songs, performed by the composers and some Reynaldo Hahn songs. Hunting for a clear way through the transposition mire for the Whitman set.

Expanding this blog!

minim — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:23:12 +0000

I decided on the way home this evening, after contemplating and discarding a number of approaches (including a new, anonymous blog, which then raised the question of how do you promote an anonymous blog?) that I’m going to start creating the occasional longer post for this blog, addressing various topics to do with creativity, productivity and related topics. I’m hopefully going to post the first one on the weekend, but for now, I’ve written a letter to explain what on Earth I’m thinking…

Solved the mystery of the IE8 bug…

minim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:56:12 +0000

… and wrote a blog post about it on the train.

Thoughts on a website

minim — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:43:16 +0000

Began to pull together some ideas (again) about how I want to tackle my new website. I’ve started this a couple of times but this feels meatier and more like it has a chance of making it to the coding phase.