Today’s been rather frustrating! Cold is slowly improving, but today I’ve just felt stuffy, unmotivated and unmusical. Also VERY unfocused. And I bought a book on willpower, which I think says something!

At any rate, progress has been made on Fear of Falling, although so far from being finished today, it’s actually shorter than yesterday – now 4’29″. But that last bit that I was concerned I’d have to delete has been compacted and thickened up so it’s more continuing-towards-a-grand-finale rather than development-got-lost. I tried moving it earlier in the piece, but that didn’t work, but this approach seems much better.

It feels quite strange to be working on something which is so texturally thick (for me, anyway) but it’s kind of what this piece wants, I think. And a good thing too as I’ve got an entire orchestra to play around with. Now I have to think up an ending but my brain just won’t co-operate today and I don’t want to push myself too far and find I’ve burnt myself out for the start of a new term. So rather than making myself push on and work on Ansel Adams, I am now going to pack up and go out and see either Seven Psychopaths or Life of Pi with Djeli (can’t remember which one we decided on!). Happy evening, all!

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Another quietish day today. After the party last night I again slept in extravagantly and being a little headachey ended up mostly thinking today. I spent some time thinking about what sort of form the Fourth Plinth piece’s score might take. The tricky thing with that one is that ideally it would be entirely performed from memory, but as there are so many pieces being done that night and the performers will have other things to do as well, actually asking them to memorise it would just be downright cruel, so somehow I need to come up with something simple and easily workable. Definitely requires more thought.

As I had to go into London this afternoon (all out of Monmouth coffee! DISASTER!) I figured that was a good chance to do some research for my Personal Project. I think I’ve pretty much settled on basing it around Cy Twombly’s Natural History mushroom series (or at least, I haven’t yet come up with a better plan) but I think I need to get back to some proper research to solidify my ideas and how to explain them in the proposal I need to hand in in January. This will probably entail a trip or two to the Tate Library next week to do some reading up on Twombly and Abstract Expressionism in general.

And I have my carol stuck in my head. It’s getting a bit annoying. Need to get back to work on the other pieces to banish it for a bit!

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Playing catch-up a little, but I am triumphantly declaring that on the 7th I did nothing useful at all. Woohoo! This was, I hasten to say, by design: As I’m going to have to work solidly through the “holidays” I figured I deserved at least 1 day of rest, so I slept in extravagantly, then trotted out to the shops to buy cream and ingredients for Spanish soup, then made pikelets and coffee. Then headed back to bed to watch episodes of Black Books and sleep some more.

In the evening we went to a fabulous party with my fabulous college friends. I’m so lucky to have found such superlatively awesome people. They are all wonderful. I drank 3 glasses of wine and bopped about briefly to some very cool music at the Amersham Arms. I also dosey-doed with a complete stranger who then kissed me on the lips and had to be tapped on the arm to release me.

Alas, living in the country has its disadvantages – our last train left at 12.30 (although, conveniently, from directly outside the club!) although we both could have stayed much later, so we had to either head off or plan to be out till 6, which seemed a bit ambitious. Maybe another night!

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Well, that’s what I’m hoping. I’m quite pleased with this year’s list. I think that pretty much everything on it actually is attainable over the course of the year, unlike last year’s which was much too ambitious. A lot of what’s on it is stuff that is already in progress, about to be in progress or has a firmish deadline at least, so much of it doesn’t have to be started from scratch but is more about tying up loose ends left over from 2011.

September looms large this year – I am determined to be healthier and more organised before I start my Masters to give me the best possible chance to do well at it – this involves getting a healthy balance between freelance work, composition and rest time really working so I can clear old projects, bring in some money but keep my mental & physical health intact. I am most emphatically planning to not injure myself in any way more serious than perhaps a papercut.

2012 is, most significantly, all about new beginnings and new directions. There’s a lot of change going to be happening – going back to uni, (hopefully) buying our first house & moving out of London, developing my freelance business to be (again, hopefully) able to at least cover my basic expenses.

So without further ado, here is The 2012 List.

Music

• 3 performances in 2012 – one more than I set myself for 2011, getting ambitious here 1. Three Whitman songs performed in Limerick in April Alas, the brass quintet concert in which Knots and Mirrors was to be premiered had to be cancelled and while Carrion Comfort was shortlisted for LCCO’s end of year concert, it didn’t make it to the final selection, so there’s only been 1 performance this year. However, unlike previous years, I’ve also had 1 whole album of works performed live, and created a major work which was also recorded by live performers along with MIDI parts, so I’m calling this one a win.
  
• Complete all piece requests from 2011 before start of uni term in September – alto flute piece for Carla Rees (due spring), flute piece for Nicole Camacho, recorder quartet for Pink Noise, Pieces of Eight arrangement for Shana Norton. Uh. No. I did try. But no.
  
• New score downloads implemented for caitlinrowley.com. Nope.
• Blog at least once a month on caitlinrowley.com January – check, February – check… I’m pretty pleased with my blogging rate overall, even if it didn’t end up being an orderly schedule.
  
• Work out how, and apply for funding with Pink Noise to (hopefully) achieve first paid commission. Not yet. Still planning on doing this.
• Keep up flute practice Surprisingly, there’s been a fairly significant component of playing in the degree, so for the latter part of the year, this has definitely been met. I’ve even joined an improv group at college!
• Start a Masters degree!
• Finish Carrion Comfort for LCCO deadline YESSSSSSS!
• Write at least 1 piece for a call for scores & send it in Mini Opera!
• Take 2 pieces along to LCF WiP/WiT sessions for feedback. Nope
• Schedule in (and DO) one listening session a week. Take notes to make sure I’m getting the most out of it. Didn’t really succeed with this, but I did listen to a lot more new music this year (even before starting the degree) than I have been wont to, so I’m pleased with my progress on this.
• Get back to counterpoint/harmony study – schedule as part of weekly plan. NEED to make some progress on this before September. Fail.
• Put at least 2 pieces up on SoundCloud in MIDI versions. If I’m being specific, I failed at this – I don’t think I posted a single MIDI file to SoundCloud this year. However, as I’ve posted 11 live recordings over the course of Lucky Dip and the mini opera, I’m calling this a win.
• Finish laying out 2×4 & send to Christopher D. Lewis. Still on the to-do list

Home & Travel

• Move out of London
• Set up my own study before the summer
• Try at least 5 recipes from “I Know How to Cook”: 6-Jan-2012: Coq au vin. Have also done the Venison-roast lamb but I can’t remember the date.
• Try at least 3 recipes from new French baking cookbook: 6-Jan-2012: Galette des rois, incl. crème frangipane; 8-Jan-2012: Princesses (chocolate meringues) – not actually a success, but definitely tried. Will try again. 15-Jan-2012: Chaussons au pommes – YUM!
• Travel: EuroDisney, Spain, Australia, weekend trip somewhere?
• Work on creating a good, reliable multigrain loaf, in case of (suspected) bakery dearth in Gravesend: 13-Jan-2012: An excellent start – not fully multigrain because I was just using up leftover flour, but it worked really well. 19-Jan-2012: Tried the same recipe, this time with all wholemeal flour. Worked very well, in spite of forgetting about it a couple of times, leading to overly long rising times. Feeling quite confident about getting this recipe working well. 15-Feb-2012: I’m calling it – today’s bread was pretty darned spectacular and I’ve been eating only my own bread for a full month now and not had to throw a single loaf out. I’d say this one’s achieved!

Health

• Limit sugar & dairy intake.
• Keep up with vitamin supplements to help keep food & energy on track.
• Get back to the morning squirrel-walks once calf is better
• Semi-regular massages to keep stress and tension headaches under control – no more waiting till the pain’s so bad I can’t function
• Work my way up to being able to do a 4-mile walk without pain
• Develop regular schedule so can have relaxation time in the evenings and proper weekends and reduce stress of neglecting one or the other. Key components: Freelance work, composing, listening, training, writing
• Weight: *sigh* Shall we say 76kg by the start of the uni term? Surely that’s doable? *gives self a stern look and a threat to not injure any more parts* 15-Feb-2012: Made a start on this at least & joined Weight Watchers tonight after good reports from friends. Hoping it will give me the kick up the too-sizeable behind that I need to achieve this. 1-May-2012: Have actually gone backwards on this – need to pull myself together…

  All fails
  

Business

• Schedule training to keep my skills current & keep me employable by others – do some every week. Key areas: JavaScript, design, marketing Nope.
• Design business cards & get them made 8-Jan-2012: Order sent! And I just scraped in to get a 15% discount from MOO too!
• Write beginner social media guide to sell on raspberryblue.com Still in progress
• Start blogging on Raspberry Blue (not going to make this any set schedule – minimum 3 posts in the year though)
• Schedule talk at LCF Open House on some webby topic – social media as a tool for composition perhaps? Or maybe something on how to use the web to promote your composition? Nope – not yet. Maybe in 2014.

Other stuff

• New laptop. This year for sure. D to get old one. Fail. Still struggling along with the old one because the bank took 6 months to approve the mortgage and all possible new-computer funds went on rent
• Knit something that isn’t a scarf I started a glove!
• Send both parents’ birthday and Christmas presents ON TIME Did better than last year, but fell at the Christmas hurdle.
• Call parents once a month: January – done. February – done, March – done, April – done. Think I actually got through this, or very nearly. Calling it a win.
  

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So I know I need to pull myself together, but somehow it’s not happening. And I suspect things will stay kind of erratic for the next few weeks still – back pain + intense dentistry does not for regular happy blogging make. But rest assured I’m still doing stuff. Just being kind to myself and taking a break. The past week’s activities have included a bunch of listening (including Bax’s Symphony No. 3 and the BBC’s Hear and Now broadcast of the Unsuk Chin Total Immersion concert), knitting and sewing (I’m making a case for the new iPad and then diverged and made a cowl out of the leftover yarn) and yesterday I went to the Trinity Laban Open Day to find out about Masters degrees, which was inspiring and frustrating probably in equal measure (as well as painful – I don’t recommend trekking across London with a messed-up lower back. And probably especially not if you’re still bruised from seeing the osteopath the night before).

Anyway, I’ll be back soon. And then the whole adventure will start all over again

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Turned out the reason I didn’t get much done yesterday was because I was coming down with a cold. So today has been spent mostly in bed. There has been Buffy, there has been (oh joy!) Aeroplane port-wine-flavour jelly. And that’s been pretty much it. Rest and relaxation. That’s creative, right?

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Oh I’m SUCH a good girl! Got up at the crack of dawn this morning and went out to Cass Art at High Street Kensington today with the in-common-laws to buy the nephew-in-c-l an easel and I didn’t buy anything! Not even when sister-in-c-l tempted me greatly by saying “Oh look! They have a set of 10 gouaches and it’s only £14.95″. It was reduced from something like £35 and STILL I didn’t buy it. I am amazing.

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Finally got my cave day today that I’ve been craving half the week, and it’s been just great. Stayed in my pyjamas all day, cleaned up my Gmail, listened to some stuff on SoundCloud and posted a new file to my account – Nightride, a film score I wrote back in 1998. I read a bit and watched a couple of videos, including this most excellent one, Snooky and the metronome, which I have to say totally made my day. Poor little kitty

So it’s been grand. I have achieved very little and I’m proud of it. I feel more rested, more sane, and my tooth isn’t quite as bad as it was yesterday, even without painkillers.

Cave days. Highly recommended.

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Well, today was noteworthy. Today was the first time in all our 14 years together that Djelibeybi actually a) remembered Valentine’s Day (albeit it’s on a Monday this year) and b) did something about it. Normally he just doesn’t remember it’s happening until the day, when I give him a present or make him a special dinner and he says “sorry” if I’m lucky. Last year he went off to a film shoot at 7am and I didn’t see him till midnight, without so much as a “love you” as he left. That one did not go down so well. But this year he really did very well indeed – he thought up something to do (go to Crouch End, peruse the shops and have lunch at the fabulous Monkey Nuts), booked the restaurant (!!!!) AND actually (eventually) remembered that we had something planned (although there were a lot of “what are we doing on Sunday again?” moments). And it was nice. It didn’t really start out too well – a little minor squabbling and grumpiness on both sides of the fence, but lunch sorted us out (I had the chicken schnitzel BLT topless burger [no bun, but on a bed of little gem lettuce instead] – fantastic) and then we had a lovely walk to Turnpike Lane (lovely in the sense of enjoyable and companionable sauntering and chatting, not lovely in the sense of scenic beauty. Hornsey doesn’t really do scenic beauty, I think) where we ventured into Sainsbury’s and ventured out again with the DVDs of the new Star Trek movie & Iron Man plus snacks, before heading home to a lovely quiet evening on the couch. It may not be everyone’s idea of romance, but it was actually really nice. And it meant a lot to me that he even thought of it.

And of course, in spite of it being pre-Valentine’s Day, I still did some work – namely deciding on and uploading the last file to go on SoundCloud, which is to be my warbly rendition of the Satie Chanson arrangement. Not great singing, but I think it provides an interesting foil to the other pieces that are on there – catharsis would be too much like the beginning of Deconstruct, I don’t have time to sort out the string quartet version of Pieces of Eight (it needs a lot of work to get the pizzicati in and separation between the movements – might need to pull it into Pro Tools ultimately to get it all working right), likewise a lot of the piano pieces, which end up sounding a bit mechanical from Finale but can be made a bit more human in Pro Tools with the simple drawing of a wobbly line for the attack of each note, I don’t really want one from the vault yet even though Nightride is basically ready to go (might put that up later in the week), so with the Satie song all ready for uploading, it’s the logical choice. So I think everything’s in place now, although I won’t announce it now (when most people are sleeping) but will wait till the morning…

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Quietish day at home. Djelibeybi assembled the hutch to go over his desk in the revamped study, so we’ve started painting it now – hopefully we’ll be able to put it in place by the end of tomorrow. We watched the very interesting global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, then followed it up with… (isn’t it obvious?)… Zack and Miri Make A Porno. And I’ve done a bunch more work on the LCF secret site, which is now very nearly ready for launch to members, which may sound low-key but is actually very exciting. There you have it.

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