Iain Cameron's Diary
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2006-11-03 - 8:51 a.m.

A new Joni Mitchell album is under way I read on the jmlist - mostly I don�t read any of the stuff that arrives but there is the odd nugget like this.

It feels like more than a coincidence that just as I have the impression that I have made a step forward with the philosophy of technology especially music technology, my technology lets me down with a bump. My hard disk on the new-ish work laptop went on Wednesday and then the standby machine gave up the ghost the next day. Let-down is the right expression and I found the sensation of being let-down is very stressful. The only proper reaction is full-on fight back, defence by way of attacking the source of the stress. The cold weather doesn�t help.

The three of us met up yesterday morning to go over where we are on European project - not Valentia. We have a proposition and the next thing is to work up the pitch. As time goes by it seems to me that pitches need to be harder and more direct. There is so much rubbish around. We will try it out on Monday. I was forced to writing out some of the pitch in long hand.

I drove to Woking to hear the travelling Glyndebourne production of the Turn Of The Screw - magnificently staged and it sounded very good indeed. I heard some Ravel in there and also some Shostakovich. The scoring is for string quartet, wind quintet, percussion, harp, piano etc. David Hemmings, as a boy, was the first juvenile lead. It is a very dark work and you wonder what on earth they made of it fifty years ago - it hardly makes sense these days. If there�s a chance to see it take it.

James M has sent a couple of articles, both of which seem to have spun off a paper he gave at Selwyn College.

There is a way of working with older pieces - earlier sketches - that I am currently launched on. I made a short vid yesterday called �don�t trust technology� - nothing fancy - just an early polyphonic flute track and some images and transitions I like. Today I have started on something called two and six which exists as drones plus a dhorn line - it�s a simple intervallic exploration - all fifths - tonic flat submediant - flat seven - sharp fourth - so its about jumps of a major third, second, major third, tritone. But the line across it is good - flows - has points of tension and relaxation. I am currently putting more elaborate harmonies with a nice soft patch from the Casio GM box.

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