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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Yes, I know things have been a bit quiet round here, but it’s not like it’s been uneventful. There’s been the back-pain drama, there’s been the dental drama (round 2 of drilling and filling today so back on the painkillers again), there was a birthday, which resulted in lovely presents from lovely people, including: 1 proper real-live microphone, Nigel Slater’s fruit cookbook, a book on libretto-writing, one on poetry-writing, 2 seasons of Chuck. Plus of course the presents I bought myself: the iPad (which you know about and seems to become more useful and awesome with every passing day) and Logic Studio, which arrived on the birthday day but took us a couple of days to install due to my having dropped my laptop several months back, meaning that DVDs go into it but can’t really be relied on to come out again… Still working on how to get the software instruments that come with Logic up and running…

So there’s been a lot of playing about with toys. Mostly the ones I bought myself though as I need to get a cable for the mic, I’m finishing up other books before I start the libretto ones and my back has hurt too much to do much cooking (barring a culinary experiment which resulted in an apple-enhanced caramel cake which went down quite well).

So I’ll just slide over the missed days and focus on today. Obviously, I went to the dentist. He says that this should be the last of the deep drilling (thank heavens). Been pretty uncomfy though, but yay for painkillers! And also yay for spectacularly beautiful summer’s day even though it’s only spring! It was so lovely, I decided to walk home instead of catching the bus (which was taking too long and I was also getting bored), so I walked back through the sunshine and the intermittent smell of jasmine, listening to the birds going twit in the hedges and chatting with a friend in Australia via IM. Rather lovely, actually.

Once home I actually didn’t immediately have a nap, as I’d expected. Instead I did some work on my new piece. It’s been a little stuck lately but I managed to prod it forward a little and flesh out some of the earlier parts too.

Then there was tinkering about with Logic Studio. I’m really enjoying using this. Fascinating to discover that the interface basically hasn’t changed since I was using microLogic at uni – 15 years ago! so it’s mostly familiar, and the bits that are less familiar – the audio-editing side of things, isn’t that dissimilar from Pro Tools, so I seem to be picking things up pretty quickly. And I can’t begin to express how much easier and more comfortable it is to work in it, not needing to be tethered to a hardware box at all times. I don’t have to think twice about opening it up for a small sound-file-trimming job. And I’ve discovered some cool stuff – beat mapping to make a MIDI file sound more like it was played by a human than a robot to start with! I borrowed a book from the TVU library yesterday and started working my way through it this afternoon. Finding out some interesting snippets, but I’m hoping I can get away with just borrowing the book and not having to buy it. Would rather spend my birthday Amazon voucher on the Advanced volume

And then when the sun was setting, I got all inspired to grab the iPad and try a little bit of drawing. It’s not great, but it was fun to do and an interesting exercise, messing round with silhouettes and trying to get the sunset colours to blend a bit

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The big news of the day is that, having managed to reserve an iPad 2 online last night, I actually got into town in time to do so! So now I’m writing this on my very own iPad. Yaaaayyy!

So most of the afternoon has, of course been spent setting it up, loading apps, transferring settings, syncing, etc. And generally playing about, This was taken with the iPad’s camera using PhotoBooth:

Not sure that app will get a huge workout, but hey, it’s fun.

Also did a tiny photo walk today while waiting for Djelibeybi to arrive at Holborn for us to go and fetch the new member of our techno-family together. In the rain. Some nice shots, I think, but they’re on Flickr so I’ll add them in later.

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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…

Tagged with: completion, conversation, events, friends, music, publishing, relaxing, self-promotion, social life, tools, walking, web | Add a comment

OK, so I’m still labouring under a black cloud – it’s been a pretty crappy day – but I’ve managed to pull off some small achievements – went for a walk and managed to get to Boots in time to buy essentials for Edinburgh (most notably mouthwash – the abscess on my tooth is playing up again – really need to go back to the dentist and get myself referred for that root canal she threatened me with last time. Oddly, am resisting this. How strange). I walked back via the station and picked up my tickets for tomorrow and felt a little better for the exercise. I had a brilliant idea for solving the train-snack issue which Tesco had been unable to provide a non-sugar-or-preservatives-overload answer to – and ended up making a pair of little apple crumbles, one for tonight (YUM!) and one for tomorrow. I finished packing the dishwasher and have actually run it twice AND done two loads of laundry. My bag is about half-packed. And I’ve ruled up the remaining pages needed for me to work on the orchestral arrangement on the train tomorrow – straight lines plus moving train is never a happy combination. Something has to give and it’s usually the straight line.

Oh, and I finished reading The Betrayal of Richard III and have greedily started in on The Daughter of Time again. Betrayal was a really excellent book – easy to read, enough detail to give the author’s arguments weight; not so much as to bog one down. I particularly liked that the final, tiny, chapter was devoted to possible answers to the Princes whereabouts if they weren’t actually murdered at all (which, given the lack of evidence for the murder ever having taken place at all, seems likely) – really quite fascinating. I think I’d recommend it to pretty much anyone as a first step to finding out more about the whole issue – short, detailed, easy to read. And this edition is annotated to bring certain facts up to date with current discoveries without interfering with V.B. Lamb’s excellent writing style. I think this book could be very useful in pulling together the synopsis for the opera, but I’m also looking forward to reading a more detailed volume too. Guess I should order that…

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I spent pretty much the whole of today messing about with Drupal and pulling together the quote for the website I’m suggesting it for. Learnt quite a lot. Not least that 4 pages is stupidly long for a quote. Fortunately I managed to cull it a bit and get it down to 3 – two pages of itemised options, as the client requested, plus one explaining things like what Drupal is, about standards-compliant code and why I’m qualified to do the job. Plus: I did get to watch another four episodes of Dollhouse while I tinkered. And I made moussaka for dinner. And went for a walk (in the afternoon). No music whatsoever though

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I don’t seem to have achieved a huge amount today. Between sleeping badly, getting up late, clonking myself on the head with the kitchen cupboard which resulted in intense wooziness, then accompanying my Da to the dentist and a long and lovely walk home, followed by a much needed nap, there wasn’t a lot of time left, but the walk was indeed lovely – the heavens decided to wait to open until we’d decided to hop on the bus for the last bit, the ankle stood up pretty well to it, I did 20 minutes on the Wii Fit in the morning (just the balance games – trying to do a little bit each day to see if it helps to strengthen the ankle), made my Da a chocolate ripple cake and have nearly finished (I’m pretty sure this time) the scarf for my Great-Aunt which now flows down off my lap and keeps my ankles warm while I’m knitting it.

And I’ve had a fresh stab at trying to generate some ideas for this quintet. Not terribly successful, although the opening idea might end up in it, but it’s more of a texture than a melodic germ. I know it’ll come eventually, but it’s just taking its own sweet time which always freaks me out a little. Contemplating heading into town and picking up the score of the Martinu Sextet that I didn’t bring home the other day – possibly a little score-reading will spark some ideas???? Sort of feel I’m clutching at straws though… Must remain calm…

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A pretty good day, aided by excellent coffee (Monmouth), superb cheese (Neal’s Yard Stinking Bishop – wow!) and some great shops where I didn’t buy an orange overcoat, £30 vintage leather jacket or the score of Martinu’s Sextet. Very restrained of me, I think.

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This morning I was starting to feel like I was plunging into a bit of a black hole with this piece – I don’t have terribly long in which to write it and I just couldn’t feel my way. Coupled with the house feeling like it was overfilled with people and that I didn’t have any space in my own head and things were looking pretty bleak. So I packed up my sketchbook and copy of Rothko’s book The Artist’s Reality and took myself off to the Tate. En route I picked up a restorative bar of Green & Black’s white chocolate and a copy of Jamie magazine (cooking magazines always make me feel better) and cranked up the John Adams on my iPod and the resuscitation of my soul was nearly complete before I even got to St Paul’s.

As I walked down to the Tate Modern – through St Paul’s churchyard and over the Millennium Bridge – I thought about the slim collection of ideas I’d been half-heartedly kicking about for the past few days. I noticed some of the detail in the stonework on St Paul’s – decorative curls like leaves wrapping around something – and suddenly it all started to fall into place – from the thickets of the Cy Twombly Dionesian paintings I saw at the Tate on Sunday through ideas of enclosure, safety and security to claustrophobia and oppression, it all started to come together at last. Of course, it’s still got a long way to go and I haven’t even got notes on paper yet, but at last I have a direction to go in!

Tagged with: art, artist date, composition, creativity, ideas, listening, mentalhealth, music, walking | 2 comments

Yes, more content: today I tackled the overall music page that all the individual content pages will be linked from. It seems a bit out of date (using what was on Minim Media) but that content’s in now and hopefully I’ll be able to update before it goes live.

Today was spent mostly up The Butte – we went up to hear Mass sung by the Carmelite nuns at Sacré-Coeur (gorgeous – I highly recommend it), then on the way down we found that the vineyard (the only vineyard within Paris and reputedly the source of the worst wine in France) was actually open! In all the years we’ve been coming here and staying in Montmatre, it has NEVER been open to the public. So we finally got to go in and have a wander round. Lovely!

Tagged with: church, listening, music, travel, walking, web | 1 comment