Iain Cameron's Diary
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2002-10-28 - 9:13 a.m.

I dropped some music off at Eike�s and Ciaran�s last night. Ciaran is going to a trade show in Moscow on Tuesday, returning late Friday night � then at 9.30am a rehearsal at my house! He sells broadcasting equipment.

There was some storm damage to the fence around the house � a gate which was attached to the house was blown flat � but it could have been a lot worse. The drive back from Guildford to Leamington was OK although it took longer because I was speed limited by the spare tyre � and also I deliberately tried to avoid tree lined narrow roads. My flat is becoming very crowded with equipment and books. Its not as though everything is out and connected either. I am wondering whether its sensible always to make the journey at the end of the day � particularly after the clocks have changed and there is more light in the mornings. I�ll have to try an early start one time and see what I think of that.

Last night as I drove back I listened to a Radio 2 programme about the place of Jerusalem in the Jewish mindset. What was particularly interesting was the testimony of people who had been raised in the Jewish tradition but who had been alienated from it by their initial visit to the city. I hadn�t realised that the Wailing Wall is the remnant of Herod�s temple. There was also a Radio 4 programme about the phenomenon of management consultancy � about the oddity of a profession which had evolved from an experienced based approach where the advice offered was given by people with practical experience of the business being advised to one where the front line was bright young things working with methodologies. Which is in one sense what Industry Forum � my new organisation � is. Except the methodology has some strange characteristics � an Anglicisation of a Japanese approach to developing anything practical and repeatable..

As I write I am listening to Meredith Monk�s Volcano Songs � adventurous moves into new or seldom visited territory. I could see more clearly where David Beardsley�s music comes from.

Mp3.com has some Minimalist charts � they led me to The Church of Anthrax which I have been seeking in ordinary record stores. It sounded to me very much of its time � John Cale doesn�t seem to be very positive about it in the autobiography.

I did one small experimental piece yesterday � I think I managed to transfer it from PC to MD by an all digital route. It�s a sound piece based on a fragment of Gilbert playing Dayin Dayout and so I suppose it�s a good candidate to pioneer this route. Oh yes it finishes with a bit of Adam P. On the one hand the piece poses the question as to how it comes to be in the form that it appears to have.

Potter suggests that Reich is the extreme case of form made manifest to the listener. I caught some fragments of the programmes about Harold Pinter on Saturday night. Someone who had worked with him said that sometimes he visibly draws on a part of himself that is way beyond his understanding to come up with some of his most potent lines. Another contributor said that they thought that he was the triumph of modernism in the British theatre. He certainly impressed me at a young age.

I can picture to myself that way of working � always trying to draw on the part of oneself that is beyond verbal understanding to generate formal innovations rather than commiting to a route where the formal apparatus is clear to both oneself and the audience. I think I may have had a period of working in that way for a week or two in September. That way of working is probably more common in the visual arts where its all much less verbal anyway. Amongst those working with words its usually the poets rather than the dramatists who work in that way. I remember reading that Jeff Buckley was very impulsive in his working methods � a song would almost be complete and arranged and he would seek to veer off and take it in a completely different direction.

That suggests that if you want to work in this deeper more intuitive way it may be a help if the cycle time on the work is comparatively short � otherwise you risk disrupting the process. Is this the basic premise of Romanticism � if you dig deep enough into yourself and let the results override formal constraints then you will get closer to the truth?

I drank a can of Sainsbury�s Mild last night as a post-drive relaxant � gets my thumbs up.

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