I am still here. I did write a long entry earlier in the week, but it was a bit rambling and unnecessary and seemed like a rather poor excuse for a new arrival in the inbox, so hopefully this will be a little better. I am tapping this on the back of a terrible night’s sleep (bad news) which at least means that I have been awake for hours and have therefore finished my carol arrangement for Parliament Choir’s Christmas concert (good news).

There was plenty of good news over the weekend as well, from the RetroChic gig on Saturday night to the performance of the Missa Seria at St. George’s on Sunday morning to the first sighting of copies of the card game Aleph Null, for which I have written a soundtrack. It was one of those patches when everything seems to happen at once, one of those moments when all those small daily subterranean efforts suddenly, briefly bubble to the surface before disappearing once more.

I have also made progress on a couple of other pieces this week as well as sketching a couple of ideas for something new, which may or may not come to fruition. There was even an old piece, dug out of a dusty folder on my computer, which might fit well for a forthcoming submission or even for general use, something else that was going to sit there unseen and which might now be used.

Still, weekends like the last one, a mixture of musics and performances, always help, not just because they provide a fillip but also because they remind me of just how much different material I like to listen to and be involved with, making me think of that Duke Ellington quotation of there being only good music and bad music. I concur, even if I am not always sure that my writing fits into the ‘good’ camp.

I have often looked back and wondered where my life might have been had I chosen to focus on a single aspect of music rather than doing pretty much whatever interested me. I might have been a more successful organist or band member or choir director or even composer, but would I have been a better organist, band member, choir director, composer? Somehow I doubt it, because everything goes to inform everything else, and I would certainly never have experienced the effervescent tingle of delight from a weekend such as the last, that touching of all the bases.

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