You don't get this from a book...

That's the favourite saying of the Academy. 
It's true tho. 
Despite the gems of knowledge and experience that are handed to us every day, there's the environment. 
Practice rooms are like gold-dust, so there is rarely a stairwell free without a guitarist or cellist at the bottom of the stairs, practising their hearts out. You can just imagine the acoustics in a stairwell; it's like a fountain of music filling all the available space, and it's beautiful. Or today, when I was waiting the the downstairs corridor, there is a whole line of practice rooms...my head was full to bursting with a cacophony of sound...opera singers, concert pianists, various strings, brass etc. all making noise. Class!


There have been some real gems this week. I would like to share a few with you. I have met on my travels some awesome people this week; a lifetime's worth really!
We had a talk from Howard Shore who wrote the music to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and accompanying him was Doug Adams (not Douglas Adams!), who spent 9 years analysing Howard's music from the Lord of the Rings, and wrote a big fat book on it!


His gems;
research the idea; be truthful to the idea
forget about the style; write what is right for yourself
grasp the arc of the piece before you start
write every day


Then there was the guitarist Stefan Ostersjo, who is a performance artist and has worked with many contemporary composers, analysing the lines of communication between the composer, and the artist, through scores and other communication.
'When the performance practice was internalised, personal authenticity became more prominent'


His thesis included the following gem;
'tradition can never be copied, nor can the performance of an individual work. the transmission of a tradition and of a work must always involve an element of transformation'.


There is so much more. I went to jazz composition and arranging with Pete Churchill, had a 1-1 lesson with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, had a great lesson with Gary (who likes my new piece), started to learn the basics of sound recording, and twiddling knobs in a meaningful way in a studio environment, and had a tutorial with postgrad composers, Hollie, Joe and Phil, run by Phil Cashian.


I have so much I want to write here today, and promise I will return to this week and these people...
but for now, I'm tired, It's been a long, and emotional week. It's strange to come home every day and not to be met by Alex, and to cook all my own dinners (well, my Mum cooked for us today; yummy!).
But I'm doing okay. And I'm writing the music. And there's a little bit of me that is starting to believe that it's going to be okay, and that I can make it happen if I just stick like glue to my kids and my manuscript paper :)


Going to see 5 guys names Mo tomorrow, with my kids and some LVP'ers. 
that's nice.


More gems soon!