Summa: Diary (June 1-6, 2025)

Sometimes, I walk in the world and in my head at the same time.

June 1 (Sunday). Proof of presence.

There are people who have a decided view about what others should do. They foist their unsolicited opinion on either the hapless victim or (worse) someone they know (with every expectation that it’ll be passed onto the intended recipient). When I was a teacher, I never told a student what they should do (even when asked). Instead, I’d offer them a range of options, and explain the pros and cons of each. Three principles were in play: 1. I didn’t want to rob the student of the opportunity to make a mature and responsible decision for themselves; 2. I didn’t want to be held responsible, if my advice proved errant; and 3. I had no right to dictate a course of action when I was insufficiently aware of the student’s prior experience, future ambitions, and the complexities of their intellectual, emotional, and soul life. I often told students what they shouldn’t do, when an intended course of action was either clearly beyond their present capacity, or downright daft, or likely to prove injurious.

9.00 am: An ambulation.

Observations: There’s one grave at which I always pause to remember. They were known to, and born fifteen years earlier than, me, and passed away nine years ago as a result of an accident. (Too many have come after but gone before me.) Close of their grave is that of another who died in 1977 (the year I began art school), at 15 years if age. The inscriptions on graves rarely reveal anything about the backstory to their occupants’ demise. Wives outlive their husbands by up to thirty years, in some cases. That’s almost half a lifetime. When the sun shines, the Municipal Cemetery reminds me of Stanley Spencer’s The Resurrection, Cookham (1924-27).

June 2 (Monday).

When I fail, it’s always on my own terms.

6.00 am: And I looked up.

6.30 am: Writing and reflection. 8.45 am: Studiology. I took up the second composition from the Six Bells [working title] suite, once again. I’m becoming jaded with this project. The pull of other ideas and challenges increases in inverse proportion. In the meantime: ‘Be ruthless, rigorous, and relentless, John!’, exhorted the inner-tutor. There are times when you must proceed in the absence of enthusiasm, knowing that the end-time is near. 10.30 pm: In order to force my own hand, I slashed at composition and removed nearly two minutes of material. ‘Concision and, with it, intensification. Isn’t that so often the solution, John?’ ‘If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away’, as it were. And, so often, this realisation comes only at the final mix.

12.30 pm: A commemoration of friendships past/passed (2018-19). Remember, hold onto, and uphold your friends — even though you may disagree with them over many and important things. Seek peace and a basis for unity; listen, and speak kindly. Friendships are not self-perpetuating, and are rarely ideal for one reason or another.

1.45 pm: A review of changes that I’d made using headphones, over the studio monitors now. I was closing-in on a resolution. 4.00 pm: An ambulation along the Promenade and across the Castle grounds. 7.30 pm: I updated the album description of the suite (to reflect recent changes to the compositions), and continued reading about the Japanese ‘Noise’ scene.

June 3 (Tuesday).

I long to return to the time of my innocence.

6.30 am: Dreams about the First and Second World War, and a hotel key for ‘Room 7’. (‘Don’t go in there, John!’) 7.30 am. Self-reflection and writing. There are things I can’t do, but the doing of them still haunts me. 8.15 am: Studiology. A review of yesterday’s mix of the second composition, and a little tweaking and polishing. I don’t accept the opinion that ‘you can always do better’. It’s cruel. It assumes that you’re not trying either hard or intelligently enough. Artists with experience, integrity, ambition, and standards usually perform to an optimum. They can’t tolerate the idea of anything under par being launched into the world. For everything they do has their reputation wedded to it. 10.00 am: ‘Let go, John!’

I returned to the first composition, and reviewed last week’s mix on the studio monitors, and in the light of what I learned while finalising the second. I’m in the realm of subtleties. The subtitle of David Novaks’s book Japanoise is ‘music at the edge of circulation’. It indicates that the subject of his study is variously niche, unknown outside of a small but faithful coterie of enthusiasts (some of whom are noise artists, musicians, critics, and historians), and beyond the boundaries (and, therefore, the constraints) of music commerce. The artists’/musicians’ perform in small spaces to small audiences, and release their work as limited-edition CDs on either their own or an indie-label, and/or as streamed format. None of the performers are likely to become a household names.

1.30 pm: An ambulation to secure 4 litres of milk in town. I was accompanied by an academic at the university, who lives nearby. They were clutching a manila envelop stuffed large with their final batch of marked exam scripts. Relief was palpable. I remember that feeling. Am I developing survivor’s guilt? 2.15 pm: A third run-through of the first composition, attending to the relative perceived loudness of the components, in particular. Small and delicate sounds rarely seem as forward in the mix, when heard on studio monitors, as they do over headphones.

June 4 (Wednesday).

‘Worthwhile for whom?’ Worthwhile for me.

7.00 am: ‘Wakey wakey. Rise and shine!’, as my mam would gently embolden, to rouse me from bed for school. 7.30 am: I broke fast and took breakfast. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Studiology. A fourth run-through of the first composition, taming aggressive frequencies, resolving localised obfuscations and conflicts, and smoothing transitions. I swear the task gets harder and harder the closer I get to completion. ‘Attend to the drama too, John!’

I’m dealing with an accessible and a socially-relevant subject matter using technologies, conventions, and conceptual approaches that lie outside the experience — and, therefore, comprehensibility — of the general public. ‘Aye, there’s the rub’. ‘Sound art’, or ‘sound composition’, or ‘noise music’, or whatever, is — from the standpoint of popular cultural — where abstract art was during the 1920s and 30s. It’s still on the margins, recondite, and requiring a re-orientation of expectations on the part of a prospective audience. Today, abstraction is mainstream. 1.00 pm: ‘Let go, John!’

After lunch, I turned to the third composition, decided it was resolved, and tidied and archived the project’s folders and files. (In the background: YouTube videos of Japanese and other experimental music.) I was reluctant to jump into the Aberfan [working title] project again, so soon after completing the Six Bells [working title] suite (or Minors for Miners as it will henceforth be known). Besides, there were other dreams to pick over.

Prayer for them to be:

June 5 (Thursday).

Don’t shrink to the size of whatever you’re doing presently.

7.30 am: A communion. 8.15 am: Writing. 9.00 am: Studiology. Yesterday evening, I sketched the layout of a better ‘small rig’. This will require me to dismantle both the current ‘small rig’ as well as the ‘large rig’ (eventually), and amalgamate their most useful components.

In a moment of reverie while supping tea, the image of a golden key suddenly and powerfully presented itself to my mind’s eye. It was a Yale type, but bright, and polished magnificently — the essence of keyness. I suspect it recalled a plastic version that was attached to one of my 18th birthday cards: the ‘Key to the Door’ which, in the UK, marked the age of consent and symbolised the freedom to come and go as you please, without parental consent. But what was its import now? (It was the second key to enter my thoughts this week.)

Dismantling equipment is as like taking apart a long-established and knotty problem in one’s life: a certain doggedness is required. (In the background: Elizabeth Oldfield’s Sacred podcast. Recommended.) 1.15 pm: An ambulation.

2.00 pm: Back at the studio, I cleared away cables, prepared the floor space, and readied it for the reintroduction of the guitar rig next week.

June 6 (Friday).

When desire conflicts with discipline, which gives way?

7.45 am: A communion. 8.45 am: Studiology. ‘Tear down. Rebuild’, urged the inner-tutor, referring to the ‘large rig’. Never before have I reconfigured a sound set-up mid project. Simultaneously, it made sense and no sense. Nevertheless, the decision would force me to realise a new and improved ‘small rig’ that incorporated many of the ‘large rig’s’ strengths, with the added virtues of being expandable, adaptable, and (maybe even) portable. On this occasion, I would begin with the mixer and work outwards in every direction.

As my hands turn to their task, my mind and heart strain towards a vision of the completed new rig. ‘Imagine yourself standing in front of it, John! What do you see directly before you?’ ‘What’s to the right and left?’ ‘What’s at your feet?’

1.45 pm: I continued to paint-over the canvas until it was white, once again (as it were). A new beginning; a fresh start; turning the page. If only life was this straightforward. In so doing, I was also clearing a space in my head to think new thoughts, redefine problems, and conceive better solutions. 4.00 pm: An ambulation.

Meanwhile, in the US:

If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? (Matthew 12.26)

See also: Intersections (archive);  Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Facebook: The Noises of Art; X; Bluesky; Instagram; Archive of Visual Practice