Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 124.8).

7.30 am: The garden was awakening to the onset of Spring:

8.00 am: A communion. Some time ago one of my tutees, who’d an admirable concern for the wellbeing of her peers, remarked that in her experience most students get drunk because they feel hopeless. Alcohol creates a temporary sense of oblivion that masks their low expectations about life’s prospects, present distress, and inconfidence (a revived archaism) that anything will change for the better.

The ‘demons’ of Hopelessness and Helplessness often roam the earth hand-in-hand. There’re times in life when we can’t hack it alone. (I don’t believe we’re intended to. No shame in that.) When help arrives, hope revives. The psalmist’s help came from a God whose power, wisdom, knowledge, and beneficence, he believed, had been declared in the conception, creation, and sustenance of everything there is. Those same infinite and eternal resources were now directed towards the crises and intractable problems that dogged his life (and that of anyone else who called upon his name in faith). And in this were grounds for hope beyond measure.

9.00 am: Studiology. I listened again to Wednesday’s work on the ‘All Scripture’ composition. After several minor adjustments, I made a ‘proof’ of the mix. After which, I reviewed the ‘Wisdom is Better … ‘ suite, and did the same for that. I’d still one track to complete and little idea how to deal with it. My working assumption is that not all the tracks that I’ve composed to date will appear on the CD. One must operate a strict quality control.

The source material for the ‘final’ (don’t hold your breath) piece required deep interrogation. To begin, I isolated one of the four sections of the aggregated Bible reading, and removed all frequencies down to 50–30mHz. There’re times when the conceptual underpinning (and logical necessity) of a work doesn’t result in an outcome that’s particularly engaging. This composition is a case in point. Thus, I had to work harder to realise its aesthetic surprise. To that end, a new processing rig was, first, constructed:

The objective was to, throughout the day, process one of the four parts through various combinations of modulators in order for me to hear something in (or realise something from) the source that was not otherwise apparent.

After lunch, I hammered away at the first part until it was bruised. I’d intended the piece to sound sublimely peaceful. It inclined, rather, towards Swedish Death Metal. The work would find its way. Trust the form. Throw caution to the wind. Break the mould. Resist reserve. Be vulgar and loud. ‘Throw the ****ing thing off the table, John!’

In, then, with the heavy guns:

It’s a device that can rip a sound to shreds while permitting complete control of the process. By 5.00 pm I’d generated seven modulated tracks. My mind began to conceive of the 12-minute composition as having a narrative arc that started the Creation (Genesis) and ended with the uncreation of all things and the recreation of heaven and earth (Revelation).

7.30 pm: I began the process of assembling the tracks in a DAW session, and close-listening to, and re-equalising, each.