Iain Cameron's Diary
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2004-06-21 - 4:57 p.m.

The DTI Value Added Scoreboard arrived � I tinkered rather listlessly with the figures. It�s a bit late to enter my grand plan for the Analysis phase of the Skills Agreement � I drafted a first cut through the Exec Summary � have I got to the key points in the conclusion, I wonder? Apart from that concentration has not been my forte today.

The Observer critic�s list results for ND made me go back to the stuff I wrote under the general heading of major/minor. I wondered what kind of connection might be there between this emerging orthodoxy and whatever it was I said. I decided the points were very carefully made � a kind of logical progression � no cards under the table. Anyway there it is. There�s more which I really ought to archive just in case. I currently can�t be bothered to get it all together for publication � esp on Pink Moon � neither the long rambling nor the short analytical versions.

Peter Chatterton is here and maybe I will ask him about some sort of collection of references on the Making Music page. Since we all put the effort in five or so years ago we might as well ride the wave now � for a good cause.

Good to read Robin�s muse entry esp as I had a further foray at MTTM yesterday � in Wavelab in Gfd and then back up onto the Nomad and up the M40 so I could I play it this morning � thinking I had fouled up one of the transfers but it all seems to be OK on the Nomad when it is played back through half decent kit. Anyway the MTTM has a radical binary structure and a Berg-moment in the second leg. It still seems to be working for me � esp with Dhorn.

I also looked at the old Rauchas soundtrack version of Magic � which Robin was nice about once � and linked it up to the Box via MIDI. I started to wonder about giving it an airing at the MM event in August � its quite strongly arranged � much more so than I would do nowadays.

Anyway I had the idea of a new section on music making on the KK site. Here it is:

Haunting Nick Drake � Meta criticism

There are various ways of writing about a musician�s achievement. One is a simple narrative about any personal connections � together with visual memorabilia to try to recreate the atmosphere in which some of their work was done:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/meetingnick.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/robinfrederick.html

Another is in terms of how such connections and context might suggest sources for the work:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/jazzin1.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/boyce3.html

Or again you can try to show how the work creates its effects:

http://www.robinfrederick.com/nd1.html

http://www.robinfrederick.com/nd2.html

http://www.robinfrederick.com/nd3.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/poorboy.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/RM&ATC.html

http://www.andrewkeeling.ukf.net/NickDrakeAnalyses.htm

The better the work the more endless this process of explication becomes and the more profound the different frameworks that you can use for this purpose. Indeed with truly great artists this process never stops.

You can try to understand the personality of the artist in the work:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/boyce.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/boyce2.html

The greater the artist the more elusive their personality often becomes.

Or you can try to find the artist in the different ways the work is interpreted

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/tribute1.html

Finally its possible to imaginatively project an interpretation of the work on a grander scale:

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/tonyreif.html

http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/exiled.html

One word for this last endeavour is �haunting� and has been best explicated in Jacqueline Rose�s book, The Haunting of Sylvia Plath.

The disruption of the lyric voice in the last part of the 20th century may mean that all serious interpretation of profound lyric writing may involve haunting. A ghost identity needs to be invoked in order to provide the stability which in earlier ages the poet�s identity was able to provide. For the next few decades the greatest artists may be those who most effectively collude with our haunting.

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