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Today was very frustrating and I didn't get a lot done.
Having decided to set this poem of mine for a competition, I'm revising it ever so slightly. The thing that's tripped me up is "ordinary terraced house" -- a terraced house, in Canada, doesn't really indicate ordinariness, first because joined-up houses aren't referred to as "terraced", second because there's a LOT more space in Canada than here and as a result there's a lot more detached housing. So I'm trying to find an expression that works better internationally.
The house in question when I wrote the poem was actually fairly small even by London standards; new enough to have low ceilings and poky windows, and a ridiculously tiny kitchen.
I think "a small, ordinary house" might be the best I can do.
Other than that? Sent the form off for the workshop. Hummed and hawed a lot. Cycled to and from Stratford to have a sticky bun. The edges of this piece are starting to coalesce in the back of my mind but it won't hold still long enough for me to write anything down, yet.
The rest of the week isn't going to be very productive, either: we have a house inspection on Friday, so tomorrow is going to be for tidying, and Thursday for hiding whatever is left of the mess. But I will keep reading the poem and I will keep pencil and paper nearby in case something does jump out at me; and if there's nothing by Friday, well, I'll try a less intuitive approach.
Some of the best music I've written has been by a similarly intuitive process to what I'm doing now: sitting with a text, doing other stuff, turning it over in my mind and waiting. With the waiting sometimes I get dribs and drabs, sometimes I get whole verses at once, usually I get a melody and some smattering of harmony and then have to fill in the rest myself. But I've also written music by rather more methodical means -- almost a sort of brute force approach -- which has turned out to also be very good; I don't always have the luxury of waiting for intuitive processes. The difference, and the reason I favour the intuitive when I do have time, is that the methodical stuff is far more likely to be crap and have to be scrapped and started again.
Having decided to set this poem of mine for a competition, I'm revising it ever so slightly. The thing that's tripped me up is "ordinary terraced house" -- a terraced house, in Canada, doesn't really indicate ordinariness, first because joined-up houses aren't referred to as "terraced", second because there's a LOT more space in Canada than here and as a result there's a lot more detached housing. So I'm trying to find an expression that works better internationally.
The house in question when I wrote the poem was actually fairly small even by London standards; new enough to have low ceilings and poky windows, and a ridiculously tiny kitchen.
I think "a small, ordinary house" might be the best I can do.
Other than that? Sent the form off for the workshop. Hummed and hawed a lot. Cycled to and from Stratford to have a sticky bun. The edges of this piece are starting to coalesce in the back of my mind but it won't hold still long enough for me to write anything down, yet.
The rest of the week isn't going to be very productive, either: we have a house inspection on Friday, so tomorrow is going to be for tidying, and Thursday for hiding whatever is left of the mess. But I will keep reading the poem and I will keep pencil and paper nearby in case something does jump out at me; and if there's nothing by Friday, well, I'll try a less intuitive approach.
Some of the best music I've written has been by a similarly intuitive process to what I'm doing now: sitting with a text, doing other stuff, turning it over in my mind and waiting. With the waiting sometimes I get dribs and drabs, sometimes I get whole verses at once, usually I get a melody and some smattering of harmony and then have to fill in the rest myself. But I've also written music by rather more methodical means -- almost a sort of brute force approach -- which has turned out to also be very good; I don't always have the luxury of waiting for intuitive processes. The difference, and the reason I favour the intuitive when I do have time, is that the methodical stuff is far more likely to be crap and have to be scrapped and started again.