My plan of being up and at ’em from the very start of September fell at the first hurdle, as a couple of terrible nights of sleep caught up with me and I completely failed to get up as early as I had hoped. On the other hand, I did feel refreshed for the first time in a while after time spent in rooms that were either too cold, too loud or smelling too strongly of chip fat (don’t ask).

Today has begun a little better, though, and I did at least do some editing yesterday in preparation for trying to get more of my scores out there, so if you have the inclination to do so then please do grab a free download of my setting of Thomas Hardy’s The Oxen, which, like many of my scores, is free to copy and distribute for non-profit use. This and many other pieces are available on my website and, in general, if something is not there then I can usually dig out a copy anyway. The link the The Oxen is here.

I think that I have recognised (I would have written ‘come to terms’ but it has not really been a fight) that I am well past that stage of being a promising young composer, and that I need perhaps to begin thinking and behaving as somebody who has a considerable body of not too shabby stuff in their catalogue. I still have no publisher, of course, and no publicist other than myself, but I think that I can keep pushing things, even if it means that I might fly a little further under the radar than I might otherwise have done. It is swings and roundabouts with that kind of stuff anyway, and I have yet to meet a writer who grabs me, sits me down, looks me in the eye and says “you must get an agent, it’s the best thing evah!“

So on we go, into day two of the plan for Act III, a couple of years later than expected, maybe, but here in any case, so what does a day’s delay really mean? I have a weekend of music ahead of me and plenty of time to do more editing and writing, so everything seems to be heading in the right direction so far, but it is definitely early days.

Another reason for my getting up so early this morning was to catch the new King’s X album, their first release for fourteen years, a time span during which most bands have formed, burned brightly and faded to zero, but not the X, who continue to produce music some 34 years since their recorded debut. Admittedly, their drummer was technically dead for a short period of that fourteen years, but those couple of brushes with The Reaper seem to have done nothing to stop Jerry from his sterling efforts at the back of the stage, while Ty and Dug continue their amazing riffage up front. My five-word pitch for King’s X was always Beatles meet Metallica but better and I think I’ll stick with that for now.

I used to say that all we needed was love/Now I’m thinking what we need is a flood…

Hmm…