WFH: DAY 46/LENT 15. In my dream, I was playing guitar (while wearing a wide-brimmed hat) in a band, at an open-air rock concert held at an academic conference. (Oh, that there really were such things.) Hundreds of delegates sat, eating dessert, in deckchairs before the stage, which was flooded by a great deal of dry ice. 6.15 am: I awoke with twinges in my lower back. (Too much strutting about and wielding my axe in the Kingdom of Morpheus, no doubt.) In reality, having not had an opportunity to escape into the outer world for a walk over the past few days, my muscles had become taut.
7.30 am: I made preparations for the morning’s teaching. 8.00 am: A communion in transit. ‘Loosen those limbs, John!’ There were very few on the Promenade. Most were crowded around the Diner, drinking takeaways. The air was cold, but vitalising. I walked at a brisk pace. I shall return to running this route shortly.
9.00 am: An Art/Sound one-to-one tutorial. Where possible, I want to tap into each student’s enthusiasms. It’s important, too, that they address elements of the module’s content and historical span.
9.45 am: I set up the Teams room for the first of the day’s lectures, at 10.00 am. Today, I would sail dangerously close to the maelstrom of self-indulgence, as I examined the relationship between minimalist art and music, and rock music and album-cover design. This is my period, my cultural heritage, my enthusiasm. ‘And young people today jolly well need to know about them!’ (he proclaimed, evangelically). My technical prompts, lest I forget:
12.15 pm: I hailed one of our PhD Fine Art students, who’s currently on Temporary Withdrawal. I make it a matter of principle to maintain contact with folk who have, as it were, ‘returned to shore’ for now. None should feel side-lined or deserted.
1.45 pm: I uploaded the morning’s video material to Blackboard, and posted an update to the Art/Sound group. 2.30 pm: Studiology. For the remainder of the day, and all of tomorrow, I was committed to realising phase 4 of the mixing process, and the finalisation of the CD tracks. To begin, I listened again to last Friday’s and Saturday’s conclusion to phase 3 of the mix. I hear a composition in a more complete and rounded way when I’m not also following its passage across the graphic chart of the Digital Audio Workstation. Seeing, and thereby anticipating the sound of, the brickage of sample elements as they move towards the ‘play-head’, distracts from the perception of the work’s totality.
By the close of the afternoon, I was fully persuaded that I could do no better, the work could be no better, and that any further intervention on my part would unpick the good that’d been achieved.
7.30 pm: I returned to the dedicated CD website, and worked to fill-in some of the absent image banners for the track pages.
