I’m working on a piece where I know the beginning and I know the ending.

What has been the real challenge is deciding what happens in between.

The beginning establishes the melodic motif and information, there’s a development of ideas, particularly rhythmic, and the ending starts with a return of the precious melodic material in much more dramatic fashion with a flurry of interplay between the instruments. I’m digging it but the gap in the middle has eluded me for weeks.

I’m getting there now, and from carefully chopping away at it, I’ve managed to find what works, I’m suggesting where I’m going without giving the full game away, especially from a tonal and harmony point of view.

It’s an abstract process but eventually by chipping away at it, you find a creative solution, one that bridges the piece together and allows it to establish the sense of direction.

Humans are not very good at it.

The agricultural and industrial revolutions have made us exceptionally good at utilising the Earth’s resources and improving lives for many of us, but it’s come at a cost.

And whilst I’m no expert or a virologist, I’m confident in saying that this pandemic is a cause of us taking our exploitation of resources too far, in particular the way we treat animals.

I greatly admire the innovations that have happened and developments of technology in the sustainable world of energy, but whilst there are many amazing people working in this field, there are those who are still working with resources that will benefit a minority in the short term whilst harming many of us in the long term.

We should not wait for disasters to bring out the best of us as that might be too late.

The choices we make today are essential in how we determine the course for the next century and the generations to come.

The fields that people choose to work in, the choices we make, the pressure we put on people in positions of power to live and work with the long term in mind is essential.

When I think of my outgoings, it comes down to access and an on demand culture.

I pay subscriptions for on demand, music, media and music software that I use day in, day out.

I’ve never paid to digitally own music unless it has come with a physical copy.

So with this distinction of what I pay for and what’s worth my money, I honestly find it to some extent baffling as to how NFTs have become a thing. Non fungible tokens. The idea of digital ownership is a bit crazy to me, because it is the equivalent of owning nothing, even if it is presented as ‘scarce’ or exclusive.

The idea of paying vast amounts for collecting something has always been a thing, from baseball and pokeman cards to canvases of famous paintings.

However, what is rather infuriating about NFTs is that they are not even a tangible product but use an enormous amount of electricity. What a waste.

There has been an inevitable rat race and hustler’s cycle between creators and buyers who are trying to get rich quick but the likelihood of most NFTs having any value at all is next to nothing. Maybe that’ll change in future but for now, it appears to have been a fad that went as quick as it came.

In a world where there is so much information and artists are trying to figure out how to sustain themselves in a digital world, it’s worth evaluating the way to which we value that which we create, but I am no way near convinced that NFTs and the underlying idea of scarcity is the right answer moving forward, especially where ecological sustainability is concerned.

If you are a creator, you are better off not spending any energy on trying to create or promote this kind of thing as you will be less a creator for it.

I was required to turn around some music today. It was four minutes worth to work as an underscore.

All of a sudden, an hour or two becomes precious and adrenaline kicks in and you find it within yourself to work to the wire to provide something.

It can be tense but it can also make you realise how focused you can be when the moment requires you to be so.

The other aspect of this was the challenge of finding ways to reach the required duration of the piece. I find the trick in effective choices with repetition, holding out notes and providing just enough contrast to make the music serves it’s purpose.

In many ways, I highly value the times where turnarounds are tight. It makes you realise what you are capable of when you are asked to provide in a limited amount of time. What would you be able to create and ship, if you had just 24 hours to do it?

The algorithms of social media reward you for feeding the machine, constantly.

It’s why I found it of no surprise for YouTube stars finding themselves starting to burn out, trying desperately to keep their viewership up by constantly creating new content.

It becomes a saturated rat race where no one wins because you end up being forced to find stuff to post that’s sub par standard and then views end up tanking.

Quality is what should be rewarded instead. If you should be consistent in anything it’s, making sure that what you do is consistently good and consistent in terms of it’s intent.

By intent, I mean, knowing what it is your posting and who it is for.

One of my favourite YouTube channels is Red Letter Media. They are unique in their approach to reviewing and appraising films and they are hilarious. Their ‘Best of the worst’ series where they watch B movies is a genius idea. They post quality videos consistently and they ship regularly enough but they only do it when it’s ready.

Having an acknowledgment of both consistency and intent is a good starting part when it comes to figuring out how and when you want share your own work with the wider world.

This last month, I’ve been juggling several different projects.

It’s good to be busy, but having this many different things on the go is sometimes a little tricky because it’s hard to focus in on a specific project or thing.

One way I decided to tackle this at the start of the week was writing a mind map with each project and the specific tasks required.

Following on from that I then highlighted the ones that required deadlines first, as red, meaning this was what I needed to do in the immediate short term.

Things that had a week or fortnights timeframe was highlighted amber whilst other projects that had much more flexibility were marked as green.

When there’s a lot going on, it’s good to differentiate what needs doing in the short, medium and long term.

Bute Park was full of people today. It’s of no surprise as well because as warmer temperatures, longer days and the optimism of Spring comes, we are eagerly waving goodbye to what has been a difficult winter period.

From a work point of view, it’s been tougher to find the motivation to create, especially with endless Zoom meetings that drain you mentally.

I forced myself out of the house and with a good reason of attending a rehearsal. To interact with other creators in person, even if it was just for a moment was a welcome change.

Even if we can’t interact, dance or enjoy life in the way we should normally do, these little moments are key for the sake of our sanity.

If Pandemic burn down is getting to you, I encourage you to turn off the screens, step outside and take a new direction, and try and find a way to interact with someone else in person, even if only brief and at a distance.

We will be past all of this soon.

As software has developed, new trends appear in the culture, some of which are intentional and others which comes an unexpected byproduct.

Music notation is something that fascinates me. There is a beauty to reading a score and I love that in this day and age, you can follow scores to a wide range of works on YouTube.

When it comes to scoring your own work, there are few options, some paid and others free that allow you to get your music down. It’s more efficient and easy than writing by hand.

However, it’s easy to overlook many aspects of score writing and fall into traps. Stages sizes, margins, font, where certain symbols go, there whole books dedicated to getting it right. ‘Behind Bars’ by Elaine Gould is a go to for Sibelius users. There are endless discussions to be had about presenting your work to a standard that is publishable.

As skill is developed in music theory and composition, you want to get to a point where you’re directing the software to do what you want it to do.

Very often in the world of cinema, TV or theatre, a composer has to work with a director where communication can get quite abstract.

Music has very specific terminology and it can’t be expected for ever director to know exactly everything that a composer does.

But in order to achieve the collective goal of the sound that works as a theme, cue or underscore, the process of exploration, pitching and pinning down ideas takes place.

Sometimes, the director will offer a word or two that describes what they are after, it could be a type of sound or a mood. He could also give you a reference point of what he thinks can work to help you find what they have in mind.

Through empathy, an open mind and a willingness to engage in the journey of the process, you eventually land on the sound that can work for the project. It’s a fascinating type of collaboration.

The type of language and communication that forces a willingness to listen and explore possibility naturally happens in this instance, but I think it has every potential to work in other disciplines and professions as well.