If you’ve been reading this blog over the past few days, then you’ll know that I’m contemplating some pretty big life changes – getting my own business off the ground, putting composition centre-stage in my life, working seriously at getting my music heard and audience-building, that sort of thing.

I’ve had some pretty intense ideas over the past few days – one of them just yesterday, which I think might actually bring in some real cash but I don’t want to announce it yet – going to run it by someone whose opinion I value and who falls neatly within my target market – and while it’s been great to feel the ideas flowing, and even better to find myself still composing in the midst of it, I’ve also been starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

So today I’ve put in a major chunk of work on ditching the overwhelm. I had a good long think about the way I work best and realised that I’ve always been happiest in my work when I’m not just beavering away at one thing all the time – my brain likes to hop about. So then I figured that instead of just trying to think of ways to bring in money, I should sit down and work out what sort of things I actually pretty much always enjoy doing. There was a bit of a list, but most things were pretty synonymous with the following key points:

• Composition (well, duh!)
• Publishing and its attendant elements – writing and editing, music copying, layout, picking out fonts
• Helping people do stuff better (so long as I don’t need to speak to them on the phone)

And after that it all became pretty clear that I should probably focus the bulk of my business-building efforts in the direction of publication – I should write my book on how to build a website that actually works, I should publish music and possibly recordings, I should try to get some copying work and get some clients to pay me to design some stuff (I do have a degree in that after all). Because the third point really can tie in very well with the second point if I do it right. And I think that if I can make a living doing a combination of these three things, then I could be very happy indeed.

Which was a comforting thought, except then the fear set in: How the hell do I start building a publishing company? I mean, I have no plans to be Faber or Penguin, but even once you have content, how do you get heard?? Here I found some of the lessons from the e-book I bought the other day useful – just some bits and pieces about being noticed online. Of course I know a fair bit about using social networks, but I tend to keep quiet rather than shouting and I’ve generally restricted myself to the more general or larger ones – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Delicious.

So I figured that if I was to conquer the fear and do anything at all about getting this off the ground, the first step was to work out exactly what I was going to try to do, and for each of those goals, to write down as many actions as I could think of that would need to happen in order to reach the primary goal of having something for sale (actually selling something is part 2 – first up one needs to have something to sell and something with which to sell it). This resulted in 3 full A4 pages of to-do list. Um. Yes. Quite.

Seeing everything I need to work on down in black and white (well, black and yellow) actually was a bit of a kick in the derrière, to the extent that this evening I have written 3 emails, created a Twitter account for our company, Raspberry Blue (@azurefruit – yes, a little lateral thinking had to come into play as raspberryblue is taken and even though it hasn’t been posted to in a year, alas, it is not available. Go on, follow us!), created a SoundCloud account to post my music to, and discovered that I actually did open a Bandcamp account a few months ago, so I’ve tweaked the profile details there and basically it’s all ready to start receiving content (really quite excited to see what happens with this particular part of the plan – more on this later).

There’s still an absolute Everest of tasks to do – including building a whole website for Raspberry Blue, creating yet another blog and writing some starter-content for it, writing the book, working on laying out my scores, making semi-proper recordings of my songs, where possible, designing business cards, designing flyers, getting the laser printer fixed… on and on and on – but it feels fantastic to know that I’ve taken some real steps today, and now that those steps have been taken I’m significantly more confident about where my feet need to go tomorrow. It’s the big breath before the leap.

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Feels like a wasted weekend, even though I know it isn’t. Today I finished the London Composers Forum secret project site – all that time with Drupal the other week has really paid off and I’m pretty pleased with the functionality I’ve been able to provide – secure logins, simple document workflow, inline images in rich text, document submission and storage – fun stuff!

But yet again, no music at all, which is getting a bit frustrating.

Also on the plus side, more painting today means that the new furniture should be able to be launched into place tomorrow, which will allow – AT LAST – the piano to return to its home in the study so I can actually use it.

So tomorrow I think I need to implement a new plan of attack – start organising my days better and make sure I’m getting stuff done. Think I need to sort myself out a bit. I suspect this weekend has been somewhat hijacked by the sudden appearance of what would pretty much be my perfect dayjob on the horizon. Which wouldn’t be a problem, if choosing to go for it didn’t mean abandoning the dream of not having a dayjob at all. Really not sure what to do. Going to think about it a bit more.

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I am now officially an employee of the University of Dundee. No, I haven’t moved to Scotland, and no, I haven’t abandoned my plan to take the next 3 months off – it’s very much a part-time, work-from-home deal – proofreading work. It’s sure not going to make me rich but, hey, it may just pay for the books I keep buying for the Richard III opera research!

Speaking of which, I was at the library today so I thought I’d see what they had on the shelf. Really disheartening, actually. Quite a decent number of books on the shelf, so far as I could see, and every single one of them described our hapless Plantagenet as a monster. Not a single revisionist version in there. Guess that means the world is crying out for some art to try to redress the balance.

The more I think about this project, the more I think the courtroom drama format is a good one – it will allow for both sides of the story to be told in a semi-dramatic situation (you can’t just set the reign of Richard III as a story because when you look at the facts it was peaceful and happy and therefore not hugely dramatic in spite of its interesting beginning, punchy end and spicy moments of treason – good judgment, fairness and the love of the people are just hard to convey), will work well for semi-staged productions (which I think is unfortunately something very important to consider today as a fully fledged performance is unlikely ever to happen) and, as I thought last night, it might very well then turn out to be something that could work as a performance in schools (if it’s not too long), which could be very interesting… just thoughts, but still… makes it all the more important to get the history right and make the characters believable (and to ensure the vocal writing means that the words can be understood).

In the realm of shorter-term projects, I’ve had a bit of an idea of how to tackle the one-minute unaccompanied violin piece I’m planning to write for the 15 Minutes of Fame project. The thing with unaccompanied is that, if you’re not careful, one could end up with just a tune and be a bit boring. The best unaccompanied pieces for single-line instrument tend to whisk about between registers to give the impression of multiple lines at once, so I’m thinking of actually writing it as 3 separate lines, and then working to fuse them together somehow. Should be a fun challenge.

And I started exploring the weird and wonderful world of Béla Bartók, which I have somehow missed on my musical adventures so far. Not sure how that happened, but a composer-collective friend said I should have a listen to B’s unaccompanied violin sonata, an, well… it pleaseth me muchly

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I’ve been a little poorly today – not much, just a bit coldy and urk, but enough to make even small achievements feel big. And it’s been a pretty good day. I actually got some stuff done I’ve been putting off for a bit, so that’s got to be good, right?

First up, I finally read Chris Guillebeau’s A Brief Guide to World Domination which has been on my to-read list for some time. It’s pretty good, but I don’t think it’s really told me anything I didn’t already know, being fairly well-read in the matter of world domination (isn’t everyone?). I’d still quite like to read his book, though. I think I’ve got to a point though where I need to stop faffing about and just be brave and DO stuff. If I want to get alternate revenue streams up and running, then I need to write stuff and send it off – finish my book (for small businesses, on how to build a website that actually works rather than one that just looks pretty), submit some articles, see what I can find out about writing music to order. That sort of stuff.

I also rang Thames Valley University. Again. To try to find out some last-minute information about their individual composition tuition which I’m hoping to do this semester. Their form is ambiguous (and so keenly designed that it’s practically illegible – lime green on lighter lime green? Even 20/20 vision doesn’t help with that one, dears!) and their documentation confusing – the individual tuition is listed in a brochure called “Junior College” which is a programme for kids. Because it’s for kids, the composition tutors are all either BMus(Hons) (like me) or MA, unlike the music-school-proper which has fully fledged composers, which is what I need if I’m to learn anything that will be of use to me in applying for an MMus. But the person I need to speak to never answers her phone, and never calls me back, which is a little on the frustrating side. I’d give up if I weren’t so damn keen about doing it. I’ve sent her an email too, so hoping she at least responds to that before the week is out so I still have time to apply if appropriate. AARGH! Think I need to set up a contingency plan in case I get no response at all or find out it’s only the recent grads who are teaching individuals. Not sure what that might be.

And I’ve got a site for the London Composers Forum up and running – it’s for a super-secret project, so I can’t link to it (and no point anyway as it’s all behind a login) but it’s been great to be using Drupal for a proper site so soon after messing with it. And I’m quite pleased with it – it’s doing everything I want it to do and it’s taken minimal effort to get it to do so. Yay me

And last but definitely not least, I tried a new recipe tonight. I had decided to make the Greek salmon kebabs and was facing an inadvertently small quantity of fish and yet more tedious salad, so I perused the interwebs and found this recipe for garlicky bulgur wheat. I just so happened to have bulgur wheat in the cupboard after the Nigel Slater beetroot lamb burger thingies (MOST excellent), so I gave it a go – and, you know what?, it turned out really really nice! I mixed it in with the salad and it went very well indeed. I am looking forward to attacking the remnants with some leftover chicken for lunch tomorrow.

So not really any music (although I did listen to Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and the Maya Beiser album World to Come which never ceases to be amazing) although I’m still mulling over ideas for the short solo violin piece I’m thinking of writing for an upcoming Fifteen Minutes of Fame call for scores. I need to start somewhere with composing for a single string instrument if I’m ever to get this cello tango written, and this seems as good a place as any, but I’m still at a bit of a loss as to how to tackle it. Guess I should do a bunch of listening…

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First real day of real life after Durham. It’s been quiet, but productive. I’ve worked through a bunch of stuff off my to-do list – sent a ton of emails, updated my website with the recording of the string quintet and generally sorted things out a bit. I also made a start on all three pieces I’ve been thinking of starting over the past couple of weeks – the orchestral arrangement of Deconstruct: Point, line, plane for the London Contemporary Chamber Orchestra call for scores; a solo cello tango I’m thinking of submitting to the Sequenza 21 call for scores; and finally took the first tentative steps towards my first opera. I’ve known what I wanted it to be about for some time (keeping it secret for now!) but I wasn’t sure how to begin. After talking to one of the composers at Durham I got all fired up and a bit of an idea on how to approach it, so now I’ve asked a friend who has a strong interest in the subject area to recommend some books, which she has, and I’m thinking of characters and possible arias and how to structure the whole thing. Very exciting!

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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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I’ve been in Lisbon, in Portugal for the past week, hence the quietness over here. I’ve not had a holiday like that in a very, very long time. In fact, I think I could go so far as to say that I’ve not relaxed that much in over a decade. But now I’m back. Away from the gentle Portuguese winter sun, back to snow on the ground and sub-zero temperatures. That was a bit of a shock to the system!

I took yesterday off, just a sort of recovery moment. I went and had a massage, did quite a lot of sleeping, finished knitting a hot water bottle cover I started before I left, and started on a new scarf (in crazy-coloured cotton chenille yarn) for my mama.

And today I’m working on getting my brain back into composition mode. I’ve read a little more of The Rest Is Noise and just wrote a blog post, A new approach for composers, on caitlinrowley.com about a new site I’ve found called Meet The Composer Studio – there’s some great content over there – have a wander round the videos provided by each of the six composers, and don’t miss Glenn Kotche’s Monkey Chant – brilliant! For comparison you can also creep off and listen to the original Ramayana Monkey Chant over on Ubuweb. Now I guess I should go and actually look at the quintet and see if I can do anything with it!

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Back on the quintet today. I’ve deleted a chunk off the end of the piece and put it to one side for use later on – I was just feeling that it was coming in too soon and I needed to stretch out what I had a bit more before this particular bit recurred. Haven’t quite found what I want to do in the space now, but I feel it’s edging its way, crab-like, towards a new jumping off point. Just wish it would get a move on – I’m off to Portugal for a week on Tuesday!

Also finally got back to the new website and I’m very excited to report that I’ve now fixed it up for IE7 and 8. Firefox 2 is looking pretty broken, but FF2 makes up only 0.3% of the site’s visitors so for the moment (as in “launching by Friday”) I’m going to ignore it. I’ll come back to it later – apparently there’s a hack you can do to make FF2 recognise HTML5, but it sounds a little fiddly, so low priority it is. Opera likewise makes up a mere 1.2% of the minim-media.com populace and Opera 10 is certainly pretty much in need of no tweaks at all, so again I’m going to ignore that for the launch and focus on the one remaining browser that is both significant in usage and crap at rendering. And I don’t think anyone who works at all on websites will be in any doubt as to which one that is – yup, our old friend IE6. It’s pretty gebrochen – indeed unusable at present – so it unfortunately has to be a pretty high priority, but hopefully a touch of zoom: 1 here, a little position: relative there and a few numerical adjustments and it’ll come back into the fold.

I think I’ve basically decided to not apply for the London Sinfonietta’s fabulous-sounding Writing the Future programme – everything’s getting too squashed, I need to provide a live recording, and don’t have one for anything I’ve written in the past decade and there have been some issues with getting a reference (mostly because there’s really only one person who could write it, and she’s snowed under [although very generously willing to do her best]) so it’s feeling like really it would be best to just set it to one side, ask the London Sinfonietta to put me on their mailing list and hope they’ll do another one I can apply for next year. Disappointing, but I think there are enough opportunities coming up through the Composers Forum to keep me well and truly occupied – including a four-session workshop on writing for percussion in January! Can’t wait!

And I discovered a fabulous recording of chamber music by the Russian composer Taneyev. It’s on Spotify or check out the details on Amazon. The piano quintet’s scherzo is particularly awesome – very cheeky!

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Well not quite. Today marked the one-year anniversary of my accident, so I’ve been doing some thinking and basically come to the conclusion that it’s been a positive experience. And I’ve had a great day working that out. I started out by writing a blog post about the good stuff that’s happened because of the ankle injury, some of which is pretty huge and even, dare I say it, life-changing. I made a Facebook page for my composition because I’m about to have to make one, I think, for the London New Wind Festival so wanted to know what went into it (answer: not much) and see if I can make it work for me. I bopped (on one leg) around the house a little to the Blues Brothers soundtrack which I haven’t listened to in ages, then made myself a cheese sandwich and finally took myself off to the V&A to make a start on the Diaghilev & the Ballets Russes exhibition there.

And ‘make a start’ was the right term! VERY glad I had already decided to sign up as a member. I suspected it would be big and I wouldn’t get round it in one go. What I hadn’t suspected was that it would be VAST and that I wouldn’t get past the first room of the first section in today’s attempt. I seriously think, with the dodgy ankle, that it could take me eight trips to see the whole thing! So it looks like membership has been a sensible way to go.

Then on the way home, I pulled out the score of the first-ending version of the quintet and did a bit of analysis. Harmonically it’s a bit messier than I can fathom with any degree of musicological confidence but the conclusion I’ve come to is that the nice tail I thought I’d have to cut should actually be able to work. It all depends on what surrounds it and what it goes on to. The figuration comes from earlier parts and the melody there, which I’d thought just wasn’t going to work, also has its roots elsewhere in the piece. What’s new is that the harmony is straight major harmony whereas everything else has had a hearty dose of other-key dissonance. But it’s comforting. Now I just need to get in there and make it work!

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I’ve been having trouble with this wretched quintet – I don’t really know where to start with it and my brain’s feeling rather fried from too much social interaction, so I figured I might throw some random stuff at it and see if anything sticks. I borrowed some books from Ealing Library on Wednesday, so I started reading one of those – a history of the string quartet in the morning, then went out to Victoria Library with parents in tow and borrowed a bunch of stuff from Westminster Music Library, so I started in on one of them – Give My Regards To Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman – on the way home and for a little after I got home. And then there was the obligatory next chapter of Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise which I’m having a lot of trouble keeping away from. I think it all did some good at any rate, because I started to form a nebulous sort of an idea which may or may not work as a way of generating base material, but I’m really at the point where any idea is a cause for celebration right now, so I’m chalking it up as a win.

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