One Creative Thing

Saturday, 6 March 2010

Went to the Van Doesburg exhibition at Tate Modern

Some awesome stuff in there, but unfortunately they had major fail when it came to providing seating for the crippled – enormous exhibition, only 2 benches in the whole thing, as far as I could see. I didn’t quite get halfway through it so will have to go back again. At least once. Possibly twice in order to get through the whole of George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique. Why oh why include the whole of a 16-minute film, with only two sets of headphones and nowhere to sit down???

Tagged with: art, artist date, design, exhibition, mentalhealth | Add a comment

Wednesday, 3 March 2010

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…

Tagged with: dayjob, learning, reading, research, study, tools, web | Add a comment

Monday, 1 March 2010

More work on the Poe piece

The choral piece is galloping along. I feel like I’ll probably come back around and thicken up the textures at the start a little. But it’s taking shape and I’m three lines in (out of 11) so I’m quite pleased really. Reusing the initial idea I think works well, rather than having it all stream of consciousness. A certain amount of repetition works for the subject matter – the closest thing in sound to silence, I think, is repetition. Or possibly a drone, but the drone is just repetition stuck together, really, innit?

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Sunday, 28 February 2010

Made a start on the new choral piece

And yes, the Poe is the winner, with a few cuts and quite a few repeated phrases. A nice solid start, at least, with some ideas for continuing.

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Saturday, 27 February 2010

Posted the first of the promised longer articles

A little while back I promised I would write some longer articles on general creativity topics. Today I posted the first of these, entitled For the tweetless masses which is me (of course) talking about how supportive and encouraging I’ve found the music community on Twitter. Hope it’s helpful or interesting to someone. I’ll work out where I’m going to list these articles on this site sometime soon…

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Friday, 26 February 2010

Got back to my photos

Only posted a couple, but I’m pleased with those (and especially the one here), and it’s good to be clearing them again after so many months of them sitting about.

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Thursday, 25 February 2010

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.

Tagged with: learning, music, reading, study | Add a comment

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Listened to Bach violin partitas

while baking a 7-apple crumble to salvage the near-extinction apples I bought a couple of weeks back. Peaceful times.

Tagged with: baking, cooking, listening, mentalhealth, music | Add a comment

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

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? )