The meme
This is the meme that's being going around my Friends-list for a while. You comment on this post, and I will give you a list of five things that you remind me of, or that I'd like to hear you speak of, or something, and then you post the five things to your own journal, and elaborate on them.
These five are courtesy of Ideealisme.
1. Your favourite lunch on a sunny day.
Goodness me. I love the Wicklow mountains, so there's the place anyway. I would make a picnic. Bring an litre of innocent smoothie, and some French bread with cheese. Some coleslaw, perhaps, and a flask of tea. And maybe some lettuce, and other sandwich ingredients. Oh! And, of course, some fresh strawberries and raspberries. Mm, I love raspberries so very much.
2. How do you compose? Does it come from your head straight to the software or is there an intermediate process?
It generally starts off with a riff or melody or chord or something that I come upon by chance (by playing an instrument). Then I'll type it into the computer, and work more intellectually. The music often writes itself; other times, I'll come across an impasse which stops me for weeks, and I'll start working on the end of the piece or something. Most of my raw material is arrived on by chance, I think, and developed intellectually; and most of my raw material is very short.
Rarely enough, I start off with an idea - I wrote an orchestral piece once where my main concern was to write a long, romantic melody, to get away from the Reich-like melodic fragments I wrote too much before then.
I often get past an impasse by thinking up some simple idea, going with it, and finding - to my surprise - that it works pretty well. As such, I often feel like many other things would have worked too. So I often feel my music is somewhat arbitrary. I'm not very German.
3. What do you think of people on the Irish classical music scene?
They're nice people, by and large. None of the composers have international reputations, and some of them are depressingly un-intellectual. (I get on better with philosophers, by and large. I like composers, but run out of things to say very quickly.) Donnacha Dennehy isn't very nice, John Buckley isn't interested in amusing excited 17-year old student composers, but does great talks. Kevin O'Connell and Seoirse Bodley are really nice, the latter very intellectual, Martin O'Leary is a nice chap who writes good music... Ben Dwyer is nice and seems to really get what's important about music, but you see that he understands that only when he talks - I can't hear it in his music, which is a bit amateurish.
Apart from actual composers - the performers are just normal people. I've drunk with the Dublin Guitar Quartet, and the Diversus Guitar Ensemble all go out drinking after tours. They're just people, really. But generally very nice people, neither legalistic nor alcoholic.
4. Do you feel you have a "heimat" or more rootless than that?
I've often said that my home is in me; that I take it with me. I'm not sure how true that is, but there's certainly something in it, as I'm not given to loneliness or homesickness. Also, I tend to fight with my mother when I go home, even when I've not been home for a month and miss the place (and my cats!). I also feel at home with my biological mum in Jamaica - but I've yet to fight with her, so it's still novel, with all the love and none of the pain or annoyance. I'm not looking forward to our first fight, though I suppose it must happen - all sons fight with their mothers. :(
Mind you, I wish I had a proper house, somewhere where I could stay for more than a year! I'd keep dogs and cats and have room for my 'cello - I'd make it feel like home, by living in it and getting to know my environs. But that's years away, alas.
5. What sort of work do you see yourself doing?
I'm very concerned to live ethically. That's the real reason I'm going to do a postgrad in philosophy. I have an aptitude for teaching, but I mainly want to live well, and if that's teaching, well and good. If not, I'll do something else.
I don't think I'm good enough to become a composer, I know I'm not good enough (or interested enough) to become a performer. If I wasn't a volitional agent, I'd probably work toward becoming a philosophy lecturer. However, I don't know if that's the best way to spend my life, and I think I'll try and become a teacher in a third-world country or something of that sort.
I'd also like to be a rock star.
--
And on that note, I've decided it will be very good for me to give up LiveJournal for lent. So I'll see you at Easter, friends-list.
-James
These five are courtesy of Ideealisme.
1. Your favourite lunch on a sunny day.
Goodness me. I love the Wicklow mountains, so there's the place anyway. I would make a picnic. Bring an litre of innocent smoothie, and some French bread with cheese. Some coleslaw, perhaps, and a flask of tea. And maybe some lettuce, and other sandwich ingredients. Oh! And, of course, some fresh strawberries and raspberries. Mm, I love raspberries so very much.
2. How do you compose? Does it come from your head straight to the software or is there an intermediate process?
It generally starts off with a riff or melody or chord or something that I come upon by chance (by playing an instrument). Then I'll type it into the computer, and work more intellectually. The music often writes itself; other times, I'll come across an impasse which stops me for weeks, and I'll start working on the end of the piece or something. Most of my raw material is arrived on by chance, I think, and developed intellectually; and most of my raw material is very short.
Rarely enough, I start off with an idea - I wrote an orchestral piece once where my main concern was to write a long, romantic melody, to get away from the Reich-like melodic fragments I wrote too much before then.
I often get past an impasse by thinking up some simple idea, going with it, and finding - to my surprise - that it works pretty well. As such, I often feel like many other things would have worked too. So I often feel my music is somewhat arbitrary. I'm not very German.
3. What do you think of people on the Irish classical music scene?
They're nice people, by and large. None of the composers have international reputations, and some of them are depressingly un-intellectual. (I get on better with philosophers, by and large. I like composers, but run out of things to say very quickly.) Donnacha Dennehy isn't very nice, John Buckley isn't interested in amusing excited 17-year old student composers, but does great talks. Kevin O'Connell and Seoirse Bodley are really nice, the latter very intellectual, Martin O'Leary is a nice chap who writes good music... Ben Dwyer is nice and seems to really get what's important about music, but you see that he understands that only when he talks - I can't hear it in his music, which is a bit amateurish.
Apart from actual composers - the performers are just normal people. I've drunk with the Dublin Guitar Quartet, and the Diversus Guitar Ensemble all go out drinking after tours. They're just people, really. But generally very nice people, neither legalistic nor alcoholic.
4. Do you feel you have a "heimat" or more rootless than that?
I've often said that my home is in me; that I take it with me. I'm not sure how true that is, but there's certainly something in it, as I'm not given to loneliness or homesickness. Also, I tend to fight with my mother when I go home, even when I've not been home for a month and miss the place (and my cats!). I also feel at home with my biological mum in Jamaica - but I've yet to fight with her, so it's still novel, with all the love and none of the pain or annoyance. I'm not looking forward to our first fight, though I suppose it must happen - all sons fight with their mothers. :(
Mind you, I wish I had a proper house, somewhere where I could stay for more than a year! I'd keep dogs and cats and have room for my 'cello - I'd make it feel like home, by living in it and getting to know my environs. But that's years away, alas.
5. What sort of work do you see yourself doing?
I'm very concerned to live ethically. That's the real reason I'm going to do a postgrad in philosophy. I have an aptitude for teaching, but I mainly want to live well, and if that's teaching, well and good. If not, I'll do something else.
I don't think I'm good enough to become a composer, I know I'm not good enough (or interested enough) to become a performer. If I wasn't a volitional agent, I'd probably work toward becoming a philosophy lecturer. However, I don't know if that's the best way to spend my life, and I think I'll try and become a teacher in a third-world country or something of that sort.
I'd also like to be a rock star.
--
And on that note, I've decided it will be very good for me to give up LiveJournal for lent. So I'll see you at Easter, friends-list.
-James