Eurobid day

It's been an exhausting couple of days... The Euro-bid went in today (fingers crossed), yesterday was staff training for Inquiry-based learning, preparing to go to UAE, Izzy waiting for her new brother, etc, etc. Tomorrow I'm going to her school centenary celebrations...

These improvisations using score writing videos are really interesting me at the moment. It's as if the music itself is a reflection of the process of composition rather than some finished article. The video is a document of a process, a revealing of the person behind the pen.. maybe more revealing than a video of a figure.


it's reminding me of 'Le mystere Picasso':

taking a score for a walk

Here's an innovation... drawing a score and then playing around with it improvising with it. I think I'll try this with pictures too. I am so tired... incredibly busy day today...

Jazz harmony tutorial

All sorts of possibilities are emerging with my new toy (laptop)! Here's a tutorial for tritone substitution harmony which I did with the inking tools in word (superimposed on a screenshot of manuscript paper).

You get real reflective practice by doing this sort of thing. There are mistakes (at the end I talk of the 'proper dominant', where instead it should be 'proper tonic'...) But from one recording to the next, it should get better...

Video on Organisation and the VSM

Here's my video on the organisation and the VSM, using the new inking features on my laptop... Lots of potential here!

Open Position

I'm playing around with open position chords. Bearing in mind the stuff that I've done on 'grounding', the presence of so many open 5th, 6ths is not new... but this is approaching it from a different perspective. Open position chords have a richness is covering the broad spectrum of sound... there is a completeness, a feeling of 'many voices' with different characters, rather than more homogeneous closed position sounds... Will experiment with this more

Isobel passed her first piano exam today!

new improv with laptop

here's my first post created with my new laptop. I'm very tired ... it's been a long week!

new laptop

it arrived a day later than I anticipated, but the new laptop is here. very good. but I'm too tired to do an improvisation tonight.

Last post from this computer!

I'm getting a new laptop tomorrow! (I desperately need it... this one's got no battery and the screen's falling off).

This improvisation is inspired by the Burgundian Cadence found in Machaut and other 14th century music. Interesting how 'oriental' it sounds.. is that just that my fabrication?

The bitonal bits are also interesting. How do the different tunes maintain their consistency against each other. Astrid organised my teenage philosophy last week where I theorised about the consistency of tunes. Why can't you develop a tune? (Percy Grainger said you could only repeat them..) What gives a tune 'completeness'? What makes them memorable? And when two are played against one another in different keys, how do we hear 'two tunes'?

Strategy passed!

My strategy got over its biggest hurdle yesterday. Feels like a great weight lifted from me. This improvisation was done very late with the volume very low and recorded on the piano. Suddenly got me thinking about other things that can be done using this technique.

Explanatory Principle

So here is an explanatory principle. The grounding (open 5ths) which somehow connects us to something reassuring and solid and eternal. It may be delusional, but then the result will be pathological. Perhaps I can only hope it is both personally and socially efficacious.

Metaphysics as a guide to Morals

It's been nearly a week since my last improvisation! But I've been so incredibly busy.

Been reading Adorno's Aesthetic theory together with Iris Murdoch's "Metaphysics as a guide to Morals" which I recommended to Astrid (and then found on the bookshelf). The theme emerging from these is the idea of 'unity'. For Adorno, the unity and internal coherence of the artwork was paramount. Murdoch starts by pointing out that 'unity' and is a construct.

Lots of discussions about idealism today. I'm really a pragmatist: I see that everyone has their unity; there are many unities. But then again, there is transcendence; there is deep personal control (positioning). 'Unity' may be synonymous with 'explanatory principle' (Bateson).