Summa: diary (November 16-22, 2024)

Bound to them in prayer for life.

November 16 (Saturday). 8.30 am: An ambulation, against light wind and rain. The sea is at one and the same time a simple and complex proposition. This would be the ideal condition of painting and drawing, if I returned to these practices.

9.30 am: I stopped off at Tesco Express on my way home, to say hello. It has been closed for refurbishment for the last few weeks, and dearly missed. A staff member kindly toured me around the improvements and additions — which are subtle, rather than obvious.

10.00 am: Domestics, pre-Christmas admin, and updating diary appointments for the period until the end of the year. It was fascinating to read a friend/acquaintance’s latest blog post Holy Chords 2, and their account of the discussion we’d had recently (see: November 2, Summa diary (November 1-7, 2024)). I’m very conscious that my conversations with former, and other staff’s current, PhD students can too easily descend into tutorial mode. (‘Once a teacher …’ .) The ideal is always to engage others in a meeting of minds, and on equal terms. I learn so much.

November 18 (Monday). Beginning a week, a day, and hour, sometimes requires enormous resolve. ‘Begone distractions!’ 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Correspondence. 9.15 am: An errand to run, in town. 10.00 am: Studiology. A review of last week’s work, then, on to first-stage processing of samples captured for the Aberfan [working title] project. (In the far distance, quiet thunder.)

One of the objectives is to expand my sonic palette. I want to hear (what would for me) ‘new’ sounds. But sounds that are also appropriate to the current project’s subject. Thus, it’s insufficient for a sound to be either novel or intriguing or impressive only; it must also be serviceable. 1.45 pm: Each sample is processed up to four different ways, on the two rigs. They were originally intended to develop improvisatory techniques. At it turns out, my initiation into the rigs’ capabilities has been through composition instead. The two projects dealing with improvisation will grow around the Aberfan project. 7.30 pm: An evening of admin and populating Bluesky with ‘following’s. There are sound practitioners on this platform whom I’ve not encountered on X [formerly Twitter].

November 19 (Tuesday). 7.30 am: Writing and URL-links tidy-up. 8.00 am: A communion. 9.00 am: The season’s first snowfall. The world seems quieter when it snows. Rarely does the fall settle in Aberystwyth. The temperature on the West Wales coast is 2°C higher than it is just a few miles inland. We benefit from the warming effect of the Gulf Stream.

Delta Width Variable (for Daphne Oram) was released. Which is the least of it. Dissemination is by far the harder part. I’m a member of some 20 special interest social media groups, related to electroacoustic, noise, electronic, sound art, and experimental music. I post news of, and links to, my new releases on their feeds. Which is no guarantee of anything. ‘Horse to water’, as it were.

11.00 am: Studiology. I’m moving too slowly today. ‘Where’s your drive, John?’ ‘What’s your reluctance?’ ‘What disappointment are you anticipating?’ ‘What distraction are you sheltering under?’, the inner-tutor interrogated. On with processing, with haste.

2.15 pm: Wrapped in my Harris Tweed shawl, I enjoyed an online hour with one of my former PhD Fine Art tutees, during which we tried and failed to put the world to right. The world is too far gone, presently. Nor could we resolve the mystery (or problem) of beauty. It’s a concept I require to frame a particular aspect of art, natural phenomena, people, and God. But the beauty of the one is not that of the others. Beauty is variated; mutable; relative; non-propositional; ever extending its boundaries; resistant to precise definition; and, sometimes, contrary to expectation, not immediate, and needing to be learned. To my mind, ‘beauty’ is a shorthand for something very complex that involves (at the very least): efficiency; economy; rigour; ambition; engagement; challenge; and an appropriate relationship between concept, craft, and execution.

November 20 (Wednesday). 7.30 am: That snow may come.

8.15 am: An ambulation and shoppery. 9.15 am: Studyology. A review of the book project. I read, rewrote, and read again what I’d written. Writing is difficult. No medium betrays the creator’s inadequacies more clearly. There are no hiding places. You can’t bluff or blunder your way through writing. You can’t pretend that obscurantism, poor spelling, and a failure to grasp the principles of good grammar and syntax, are just expressions of ‘your personal style’. Your style should always be clarity, concision, integrity, and a degree of elegance. It doesn’t have to be great literature — just readable. On this baseline, you can attempt to build a personal style. No guarantees, though.

1.45 pm: I maintained my course after lunch, moving from the Preface to the book proposal (once more). The latter will provide the scaffolding for the Introduction. Quite deliberately, I’ve held off approaching a publisher until the book’s thesis and scope are finalised. If you present an idea with too many holes, the publisher will likely fill them, and bend the proposal in the direction of what they think will sell best. Finding a publisher that can accommodate interdisciplinary approaches (including biblical studies) is perilous too. Increasingly, book markets are geared towards unidisciplinary/monographic titles that have an obvious niche.

November 21 (Thursday). 7.45 am: Correspondence and writing. I’ve been reviewing videos of my guitar improvisations in public places. Since 2010, when I first collaborated with the visual artist Maria Hayes on the Concert: To do Something in Cooperation with Another presentation/performance, my endeavours have been — as I’ve identified in respect to my compositional work — interpretive. The guitar was my pencil and the activities of the collaborator, the subject of my scrutiny and translation. In principle, improvisation has been object-directed. ‘But I press on … forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead’, to adapt the Apostle Paul’s determination.

9.00 am: Studyology. A second day on the book, with thoughts about where it should land at the back of my mind. I maintained this course for the remainder of the morning and afternoon, while dipping into biblical reception history and theory. How are sounds received beyond the text? 10.30 pm: Storm Bert swept boxes and bins around the garden and turned the garage, with its motion-sensitive lamp affixed, into a lighthouse. I braved the elements and intervened.

November 22 (Friday). 6.30 am: Correspondence. 7.30 am: Studyology. A distillation of the book proposal into a single sentance. Only when I’m able so to do, will I know that the essence of the project has been clearly comprehended. 11.00 am: I broke off to correspond with colleagues about prospective publishers. I’ve not been in contact with them for many years. From 2005 to 2007, we collaborated on a series of convened conferences around the theme of the Bible and art, funded by the British Academy and AHRC, with the co-operation of principal museums and galleries in the UK, which served as the venues.

By lunchtime, I’d made some headway with Proposal Mk II, and found an appropriate commissioning editor for an initial discussion about its contents. 2.00 pm: Some encouraging comments from people in the know, on Bluesky, regarding the recent release dedicated to Daphne Oram. It only takes a little intelligent kindness to lever great resolve. ‘I press on.’ Many things are coming on in small ways.

4.00 pm: An ambulation.