It’s going to be a short post, this one. Over the last couple of months I have been experimenting with an exercise – to produce 30 blog posts over 30 days. I set out well – with a series of titles, I worked away at them, producing new material. After a few days, I was … Read more
I’ve been listening to Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ today. It’s a change from the ambient and drone music that I usually play whilst working. I played the recording made by Glenn Gould in 1981. It’s been a favourite of mine for years. I have a collection which includes Gould’s earlier recording from 1955. The way he … Read more
Some quick notes about narrative approaches and complexity. This is a topic that I have studied over the years, and am revisiting now – looking for ideas. I have read fascinating material or attended workshops by the following: Dave Snowden – his work on narratives and narrative capture, plus his theories of complexity. Eve Mitleton-Kelly … Read more
Sometimes we really need absolute certainty. We need to know for sure what we will do – what the beginning, middle and end point look like. Total clarity! This might be for the certainty required to attract funding and the confidence of those who are prepared to invest in our idea. In those situations developing … Read more
In the early 1980s I worked for a couple of years as a Community Artist. I was part of a team of artists from different disciplines. We worked with a diverse range of people from 8 to 80 years old, most of them with some sort of special need. Sometimes we worked on our own, … Read more
Why do I love abstract and weird? Well… to be honest, why not? Sometimes it’s so important for the music we listen to or the things that we read to challenge us. If all we listen to is the sweet and obvious sounds then we miss a whole sound palette. Being open to adventures in … Read more
I have mentioned before on this blog that I am a huge fan of the work of David Sylvian and Richard Skelton. An initial google might lead you to think that these two have very little in common. Sylvian began his career in the last 70s and early 80s with Japan, a band that trod … Read more
In the last post I mentioned that I worked as a Community Artist in the 1980s. This involved teachings skills in photography as well as creative writing. It must be said that my photographic skills were pretty basic. This was in the days of rolls of film, black and white moody photos and dark rooms … Read more
I want to write about experiments in poetry and poetic form. This isn’t going to be a comprehensive history of experimentation in poetic form. That would be a very long blog post, maybe a book – and not one that I want to write (just yet anyway!) Instead, this is a personal story about being … Read more
I didn’t get what was meant to be happening with John Cage’s 4:33 when I first heard about it. This was a piece of “music” that lasted for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Except it wasn’t a piece of music because the musician would sit at the piano (or any other instrument) and not play … Read more