Summa: diary (February 23-26, 2026)
February 23 (Monday). At the weekend: rain so fine, it felt like cobwebs on my face; and after the rain, sunlight — like a tender love unannounced, rising slowly when you least expect it.
On the BBC website today, a testimony by the last surviving teacher of the Aberfan disaster: Mair Morgan. The historical accounts of the tragedy tend to emphasise, understandably, the loss of children. However, over 50% of the Pantglas Junior School’s teachers perished that day too. I wish the authorities had drawn up a list of survivors. Even amid great darkness, there’s often reason for thanksgiving.
9.00 am: Studiology. ‘Finish it, John!’, urged the inner-tutor, as I essayed the composition that had evaded resolution last week. The climb felt so much steeper this morning. My boots sunk deeper into the mud. The incline was strewn with rocks I’d not anticipated. Mist covered the mountain-top above me. ‘Trust your counter-intuition’, added the inner (counter)-tutor. 12.00 pm: Progress. Once both the logic and illogic of the composition are identified, the path to resolution is more or less straightforward. To use a well-worn metaphor: now, it’s like assembling a jigsaw puzzle having consulted the picture on the lid, rather than struggling haplessly in its absence. Tomorrow, I’ll be walking gingerly down the other side of the mountain.
7.30 pm: On Saturday, I’d made good headway with the track texts. I revised that day’s efforts in the evening.
February 24 (Tuesday). 7.00 am: I awoke with no idea what day of the week it was. ‘Saturday, perhaps? No?’. 7.45 am: An ambulation (before it rained), taking in the town’s ‘historic district’: Castell Aberystwyth [Aberystwyth Castle), the Old College, and St Michael’s Church. These buildings represent a period extending from 1110 to 1833.
8.45 am: Tea, writing, and correspondence. 9.30 am: Studiology. A review of yesterday’s solutions. Having redeveloped the musical passage of the composition, I began shaping the ‘effects’ samples — evoking the sounds of many rescuers clambering over the rubble, digging with their bare hands for survivors, and talking in hushed tones so as not to occlude the noises made by those buried beneath the coal slurry. Some of my compositions begin with what I called ‘scaffolding’ sounds. They enable me to kick-start the process of construction. However, once the ‘building’ is self-supporting, they’re removed. As they have been today.
1.45 pm: Adding while tightening. Shunting while aligning. Pushing while pulling. 3.15 pm: I inserted a field recording of a stream in the dingle near my home; it’ll serve as a constant throughout the composition’s length. The idea was inspired by a small section of 16 mm film-footage taken by a news agency in the days after the disaster. Streams of dirty water can be seen pouring through the front gardens of terraced houses (those on Moy Road, close to the path of the avalanche, presumably) and cascading onto the pavement. The reservoir of rain that moved the tip just kept on flowing.
February 25 (Wednesday). 8.00 am: An ambulation down the avenue, across the town, through the car park, passed the harbour, and onto the Promenade. It was unseasonably mild. Crocuses were in bloom — a harbinger of Spring. My path crossed that of Paul Croft, one of my former colleagues at the School of Art and a master print-maker. His world seems so far away from mine, these days. He was on his way to participate in a PhD Fine Art viva voce.
9.00 am: Home, reflection, and writing. 10.00 am: Studiology. The final day on ‘Hymn: On Their Hands They Will Bear Thee Up (October 21, 1966)’. I was sonic kerning — micro adjusting the composition’s constituent elements in relation to one another. Thereafter, the sixteen tracks will be auditioned on several types of headphone and, then, on two other pairs of studio monitors, and minor adjustments made.
11.30 am: Correspondence with a friend and former colleague who recently lost their mother:
When my Mam died (nearly 40 years ago), I felt as though a spiritual umbilical cord had been cut, finally and irrevocably. Like me, you’re an orphan now.
Towards the end of the process of revision, pieces fall into place fairly quickly. By lunchtime, the track was ready for review. My ears were tired of hearing. 1.45 pm: I returned to the second track, and made notes on the compositional methodology and structure that undergird the piece. They will, in turn, inform the written account, which will be added to the track text following the theme’s descriptor. All sixteen tracks will be processed in the same way. 2.30 pm: Studyology. On with further track texts.
Over the past few days I’ve been reading online articles about ageing, and its implications for men of my antiquity. Physical, mental, and emotional health are all in jeopardy, and will be increasingly as we get older. (Sigh!) I’ve had health challenges over the past three decades, and created workarounds to offset these deficits (for the most part). However, diseases of major organs (including the brain), cancers, failures of muscle and skeleton, and dementia, haven’t effected me … yet. I exercise regularly, eat healthily, and maintain the correct weight for my height. I’m fortunate and grateful.
What has surprised me about growing older is the accompanying amelioration of self-perception, spirit, and emotion. And with it, a crystallisation of confidence, clarity, certainty, and commitment. (I’m beginning to know, even as I’m known.) Moreover, the intensity of my joy and melancholy is far greater today than it was a decade ago. Memories (however wide of the mark they’ve drift in the retelling) are more vivid and consoling. (Others of my age have acknowledged the same experiences.)
February 26 (Thursday). 6.45 am: Pink morning.
7.45 am: An ambulation. Prayers and benedictions. I cast my eyes upon the waters; remembered affections returned on the incoming tide. 9.00 am: Xtra-large eggs purchased, then home. 9.15 am: Writing. 10.00 am: Studiology. Rather than return to the first track for the penultimate mix, I pushed on with writing notes to accompany the compositions. It’s so long since I began making the tracks that I find it hard to reverse-engineer some of the sounds in order to explain how they were manufactured.
In the background, I put together a coherent collection of unused sound samples from the current album for the Studium site. Once a project is in the bag (more or less), then, a tidying of its folders and files begins.
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; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice