takes a considerable amount of tweaking.



Works eventually though.

I made a thing. I've written an 8-minute loop of music for an exhibition at none other than the V&A. Should you go to the exhibition British Design: 1948-2012, in the final room you will find a pavilion dedicated to video games. While gazing at the amazing wall of giant lemmings, if you listen closely you might hear this:

(If that doesn't work try heading to Once in a Moon dot com)

I'm quite proud of the work I've done. Nine short pieces form a kind of narrative arc (they're titled after chapters in Campbell and Vogler. These are then rendered three ways (in the style of 8-bit computers, analogue synths and modern sampling). These play simultaneously overhead, so that as you walk through the chronologically arranged gallery the music changes with you.

I've learnt a lot about how I write, and some interesting tricks to make me write different things. I've learnt that I need to get good at kontakt before I do anything like this again (the sampled set is not what it should be). I now feel like I can legitimately put composer on a business card.

The downside is I'm having a really horrible post-project slump, which had it come before lent would have spurred me into actually doing something this lent. As it was I was still in the throes of project stress and had no time for anything else. Any ideas for a new work of art/ludicrous contraption/folly to keep me amused for the next couple of months?

In other news, the Mary Pickford Revisited event didn't exactly thrill me. The films show their age (around a century) in very odd ways. The pacing is uneven and plots may or may not conclude. Often long takes are used where nothing happens and then entire narrative arcs are given in a single glance. The scores were generally neither interesting music nor appropriate matches to the films.

The first film (The New York Hat) was about a girl who is bought a new hat by the local chaplain as a promise from her dead mother. The townsfolk whisper that they're up to no good. He shows the letter from the dead mother. They are ashamed. He gets together with the girl anyway. The new score had little to do with the film. Some excellent sideburns and other assorted facial hair.

The Female of the Species features two sisters and another lady trapped in the desert. The sisters consider offing the lady. Then they find a baby and they all live happily ever after. Yes, it makes that little sense. One of the sisters had what can only be described by the german ubermonobrow.

Finally the feature Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley was a good film, just a bit long for its plot. Girl has a guy. He suspects her of having a fling with a rich guy. They split. They get back together. The score did some wonderful work blending SFX as percussion and using words from the intertitles as lyrics ("My granma scrubbed, my ma scrubbed, and I like scrubbing" was a great chorus and the simple "snitch" over every entrance of the baddie). If I could have knocked twenty minutes out of it, that would have been perfect.

Last night I saw Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm. It's mental. It has a series of attractive girls who can't act and famous men who can reciting a script which is dire. So many plot holes it's unbelievable. Breasts, phalluses (phalli?) and poor special effects abound. It was great watching it in a dingy basement screening with like minded people (there was even a chuckle when the credit for Cinematography came up).

Surprisingly, I've not had as many problems adjusting to Ubuntu as I was expecting. Someone described your OS as plumbing, in that once you've got the pipes in and you've got used to which way the taps turn, you don't need to know how it works. The GUI looks and feels like OSX and the idea of using a command line for the complicated stuff is fine. The only thing I'm being frustrated with is constantly being told I can't use the GUI to do simple things because I don't have root access. I'm the only user, and I've kept the highest access level that was presented to me at the install. But instead of a simple file move being a drag and drop, I have to look up a command, check the paths, open a terminal, type it carefully, check the paths again, check I've typed it right, enter a password and hope I've not done anything wrong. I won't lie, I've thrown a keyboard a couple of times over the past week. Pretty much though, everything's working as planned. *Crosses fingers* 

( Play 1 - Adrian Mitchell - Satie Day/Night )

( Play 2 - Adrian Mitchell - Man Friday )

( Play 3 - Gertrude Jennings - In The Black Out )

( Play 4 - Marius von Mayenburg - the ugly one )

( Play 5 - Gene Stone and Ray Cooney - Why Not Stay For Breakfast? )

( Play 6 - Steve Thompson - Roaring Trade )

( Play 7 - Richard Bean - in the Club )

( Play 8 - Laura Wade - Alice )

( Play 9 - Chris Hannan - The God Of Soho )

I'm having a break from plays to read George Gipe's novel of Gremlins, which is bad. I knew it would be. I've been reading btothef_rss and I wanted to see if Gipe could screw up any film he turned his hand to.

Nope. Failure to blog regularly. Total failure to live to any kind of routine as well. I have been listening to new music and reading plays, but very slow to find time to write anything about that, and I need to before it slips away.

I worked Improbable's annual Devoted and Disgruntled conference the weekend before last. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt like I was part of a community. I left with a zeal to make something good that I've been lacking for a while.

After that my parents turned up for a couple of days and I took them to see Randy Newman, who was excellent, and Matilda, which was good.

I've handed in my not so secret composing commission, but I've yet to have any feedback on it. I'm not exactly straining at the leash to ask for it as then I'll have more work to do and I need more sleep.

Tonight I'm seeing Mary Pickford Revived, a bill of silent films with new live scores as part of the Women of the World Festival.

Saturday marks the opening of Ken Russell Forever, which is a ten day festival of his films in a variety of venues across London. I'll be catching as many as I can. Although I probably don't need to see Gothic again.

Tomorrow brings me having my first day in with my new computer. I've installed Ubuntu and I have a feeling I'm going to need some hours to get my head round the change. It's a small machine for the living room so my hulking great desktop can go in the Den. My task is that by tomorrow night I'll make it play an episode of Hart to Hart off a NAS drive using XBMC. Wish me luck.

Today I've listened to the new recording of Fine and Dandy by Kay Swift, a forgotten contemporary of Gershwin. The music sounds like jazz standards that I surely already know and some of Paul James's (always perfect) rhymes are fantastic (I particularly like sinful/skinful). The album has obviously been brought about as a labour of love by a highly skilled cast. I wonder if the Finborough is thinking of mounting a production...

Lent already. I've not been blogging much this year, so mostly I'll actually be writing here through lent. God knows I'm busy enough. I really ought to have something worth writing about.

( Vows? )
Anything else I should do? Not do? Any album recommendations? Any play recommendations?

If anyone reading this is in Glasgow for October 1st, I've got two spare tickets for Zoey Van Goey. It's going to be an epic gig and I can't go. Free to a good home, O.N.O. Send me a message and two fabulous tickets could be yours.

Mostly for my records, these are the rules as emailed to players of Musical Chinese Whispers. The game is still on if anyone else fancies joining. Ideally I'd like three more people.

( MCW Rules )

Huzzah. Livejournal appears to be working again. Let me take this opportunity to invite you to join me in a game.

I am having a game of Musical Chinese Whispers. It will start next week and be played over email. The idea is I quickly record a snippet of music, record it and email it on. The next person listens to it once and once only, rerecords it and posts it on. Repeat as necessary. Hopefully the music out the other end will be wildly different to that which went in and we can all have a good laugh about it.

Would anyone over here care to join in? Leave a comment or drop me an email if you're up for it.