Journal

This journal is a daily account of my creative work. It's intended to be accurate, not entertaining. If you decide to read it you'll see how I actually write and compose. It's also freewritten, quite unlike my other writing. The ideas I express here are thoughts going through my head rather than definitive views or even solid opinions. So don't take them too seriously. To prevent AI scraping, older entries require a (free) subscription.

Listen to my most recent piece here:

June 29, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Felt unwell today and of course it was the day of the podcast recording. I got through it this morning and then had to take some medicine and lie down for a while. My throat was pretty hoarse by the end of the recording. Did it come off well anyway? I can't really tell. I don't listen to podcasts so I don't know how they should go. I rested for a couple hours at midday and then spent the rest of the day touching up and mixing the recording. I cut out a few missteps. Co-host and I had very different mics and this created a bit of a problem as I had to keep switching EQs. It doesn't sound fantastic. But, this isn't music. It's listenable by a podcast standard, I think.

Pretty unpleasant day really. I spent years polishing the writing in DBL to perfection and I would rather people exercise their literacy than listen to me ramble. I don't have a positive feeling about podcasting it. But, maybe podcasting is what people want. And, certainly my co-host is making it more welcoming for the public. As I've said before, this is my last effort to reach the public with my research on feminine beauty. So, the podcast isn't about me doing what I want to do, but me meeting the public where it wants to be. For one last time. After this is over I swear I'll never do anything for the public again. I've given too much and gotten literally zero.

Too tired to do any music tonight. But the next scheduled recording isn't for two weeks. Ample time to get in a groove, I hope.

June 28, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Wasn't feeling well most of the day. Postponed my usual weekly run till tomorrow or later. Revised the sketch of the instrumental bridge for this song. Tomorrow is the podcast recording so I went over the material for that again. Made some minor corrections and added a short new section to DBL. Really hope the recording goes well and I feel well enough to be pleasant for listeners. Honestly my mood is pretty sour now because I'm sick of making these revisions and I can't believe how long they're dragging on. Maybe I just need to call it a day. I always dig myself deeper with DBL because I can't believe it hasn't gone anywhere and surely some small improvement will change that. I need to be less incredulous. There must be better things I could be doing. Maybe I will feel relieved of this burden after the recording.

June 27, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Not a great day. Had a brain-fog problem today. But it didn't really matter as I was just finishing up revisions/additions to DBL. First podcast recording should be in two days.

"Final version" is a phrase I use a lot and it virtually never turns out to be true. When I was struggling with mixing last month I had over a hundred files that were labeled "final version" and none of them were. Eventually there's a real final version but I can only see it in retrospect. As I mentioned, the podcast walkthrough recording will force a final version on me. Finally. Happily. But I've added over 2,000 words in the past week, plus many images and some rewrites and deletions as well. I hope these are worth their weight and the cost in time. I'll feel a great relief when the day comes that DBL is completely done and behind me and that stage of my life is over. This podcast thing has made it stretch out in a way that I hadn't expected just a month ago.

By chance I read a bit about Bert Jansch today. I was a big Jansch fan at one time. I spent a ridiculous number of hours working on "Chambertin" and got it close but never quite perfect. An interesting thing I learned from some excerpts of his then-wife's biography is that he was practicing eight hours a day at the time he recorded it. I was only practicing five. No wonder I didn't get it right. It's interesting because he had such a quiet and humble demeanor you'd never guess the level of devotion. His music is much more about mood than technique, and his technique never stands out as impressive. I don't think any classical guitarist would think it's technically impressive at all. But the dedication was quietly, almost secretly there. Very interesting, and a good lesson.

June 26, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Having some carpal tunnel today so this is going to be a short entry.

Did a small amount of work improving the harmonies in the outline of the current song today. However, mostly worked on finishing up new additions to DBL. First podcast recording is on Sunday and my co-host needs to be able to read the final version of the sections we'll cover beforehand. I think there's nothing more that needs to be added now.

While I was working on this I did some posting on social media. Which I regretted fairly quickly for the usual reasons. I think that's the end of it.

Tonight I will give some thought as to whether I've missed anything that needs to be included in DBL, but time is running out. Probably for the best!

June 25, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Today I was back at work on DBL, for the simple reason that while planning out what I was going to say during the podcast, it occurred to me that anything really important I felt I needed to say in the podcast should be written down in the first place, and so if it wasn't there already, I ought to add it. In effect, the podcast planning alerted me to a few more small but important gaps in the writing. Consequently I wrote a number of new paragraphs here and there to fill these gaps. Mostly these have to do with talking young women through parts that might be confusing or troubling to them, not with missing parts to the underlying logic.

Given my slow pace of writing and the need to find new images to match the new paragraphs, that was pretty much the day. The highlight is some late 19th-century French adverts, which I can't believe I hadn't included before.

I think I've covered the important gaps now. But of course, I'm usually wrong. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

Other than that, not a very exciting day.

June 24, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Today was that day I feared would never come... actually made good progress on this song again, partly thanks to running out of batteries.

Day didn't start too well as I had too many ideas about the podcast still running through my head. Current project is to sketch the instrumental sections of the song, of which there are two substantial ones and two slight ones. The substantial ones consist of a simple melodic sequence but with a focus on expressive harmonies. This is the kind of sequence that would sound "pretty good" in hundreds of different ways and a passable version could be written on autopilot. So, the trick is to not write it on autopilot and instead come up with the most expressive sequence of harmonies for the song at hand. That is a lot harder, especially as it is a 20+mm divertissement. Getting the right harmonies over such a long span becomes very slippery. And, I was really struggling because too many options were sounding about equally good. Meanwhile I kept wondering if I hadn't left something important out of DBL that needs to be there before the podcast.

Fortunately, that's when I ran out of batteries.

I've been composing on a miniature Casio keyboard with three missing keys. In the past I would go back and forth between composing with and without it. But, lately I've been so busy with other things I worried I wouldn't be able to compose in top form without a keyboard. Today the keyboard suddenly died and I didn't have any batteries around. It occurred to me that it might have been adding to my distraction, because my mind would wander while my hands were moving around. So instead of going out to buy batteries I put it in the closet and figured I'd finish the divertissement without it.

Below you can see the current (still very rough) sketch of the instrumental divertissement. First image shows the half composed with the keyboard, second half without it. I think the second half is more harmonically interesting. The first half is fine but not super striking. So, going to do the rest of this song without the keyboard and see if that helps me get my groove back.

June 23, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"

Today I followed my current tradition of not doing what I'd planned the day before. Overnight I realized there was an important gap in DBL that I needed to fill before the podcast got going. Something I'd intentionally put off for a long time. I'd rather not say what this was, as, while it needs to be there, I don't want to draw any more attention to it than necessary - whence the long delay. I also made a relatively minor addition to the butt-size section which I thought was missing a puzzle piece.

Once the podcast happens it won't be possible to make significant changes to DBL anymore as these would desync the planned walkthrough from the text. The version that exists when each episode is recorded must therefore be the final final version. And, I always revise everything multiple times before it's right. So, I thought it best to get these new additions over with immediately.

I am feeling rather calmer today than I have been. If you've been reading for a while you'll have gleaned that my health is inconsistent. This is due to some flaw in my digestive and immune systems that causes brain fog and unstable moods depending on my dietary and exercise regime and presumably various other factors. It likely has a genetic origin, at least in part. Unfortunately I've been struggling with this for years and it's very difficult to nail down exactly what regime minimizes the trouble. Whatever I did today is working better and I feel fairly calm for the first time in a long while. Likely it is just a day of good luck and it will be back to the usual tomorrow. Since I don't want to turn this into a food and exercise journal instead of a creative one, I'm not going to discuss this problem again in the future beyond mentioning my state for the day.

I still have some time to work on music, so I am going to at least review the current outline before I sleep. Should I bother to make plans for tomorrow? Well, I hope I will do tomorrow what I had originally planned to do today. And with luck nothing pressing will appear to divert me.

June 22, 2025 - "Returning Snowbirds"