So, back on campus at Surrey today for Day 1 of Semester 2; as ever, exciting and daunting! It was certainly lovely to see my fellow students again.
The first session of the day was Milton Mermikides’ lecture on Neo-Riemannian theory. Quite something at 9am, which is, broadly speaking, about two hours before my brain starts properly functioning. Oy veh. It’s a completely fascinating subject (NRT, that is, not my lack of ante-meridian mental capacity) and I hope to be exploring it here a little further. So far on the Composition module, the concepts covered have been based in practical application, although they certainly have been diverse (from the nitty-gritty of Milton's coverage of rhythmic dissonance, through Tom Armstrong’s breathtaking clarity around Messiaen’s approach and on to Cameron Graham's exploration of form). Each topic has really pushed me to produce sketches - and latterly complete pieces - that I wouldn’t have begun to attempt previously. The sense of being out of my comfort zone has been by turns intoxicating and terrifying. Ok, that’s a little strong, but you get my drift.
Anyway, more of all that compositional stuff anon.
The last session of the day was an introduction by Tom to this semester’s Research Techniques for Practitioners module. This time out it’s all going to be about collaboration, a subject close to my heart, and endlessly interesting, not least as I vacillate on whether I’m any good at it or not. In “big five” terms, I’m pretty high on extroversion and openness; I really, really enjoy others’ company and broadly really like working with them. On the other hand, well, I’m an only child and, again, in big five terms I’m also high on disagreeableness. I honestly didn’t think this was the case for years, as I associated the trait with conflict, something I actually go out of my way to avoid. But I get it now: I kinda do like things my own way, even if it takes me a while to get to the point of making that clear.
Anyway, I guess we’ll see how it goes. The others are so much more advanced than me in so many respects that I think I’ll be the bum choice as collaborator anyway. Sigh.
One of the requirements for the module this semester is to start a blog, or carry on with one if you have one already. Guilty as charged on the second front, of course. But this has already got me pondering about what the hell I’ve been doing here for the best part of a decade and a half. A quick re-cap…
I launched a Typed blog, Don’t Get Me Started, sometime in the mid-noughts. If memory serves, the first post compared the first Transformers film to Die Hard 4, which I’d just watched back to back on a flight from London to NY. It really wasn’t very good. (Nor were the films.) Still, I kept it up, partly because it felt like I should; at the time, I was largely earning my keep as a “digital consultant” and thought I should try to understand emerging comms paradigms as they were, er, emerging. Off the top of my head, blogging and social media platforms I’ve played around with include: Typepad, Weebly, Squarespace, Medium, Substack, Facebook (though not for long - it seemed odious from the get-go), MySpace (hah!), Twitter and even Tumblr(!) I’m sure there are more (does Last.fm count?) - I’m just glad I got out of the dig-comms thought leadership game before I had to deal with TikTok. I really am.
Anyway, it emerged that Don’t Get Me Started had already been taken by a mid-Western woman blogging her menopause, which had far more interesting things to say than I did, so I switched to DGMFS (the “F” speaks for itself) which in time became the umbrella “brand” for all my music stuff, with the blog an occasionally updated sub-section. At times very “occasionally”. The truth is, I don’t really have much to say. Well, not that’s particularly novel or interesting. And some people really do. My good friend and former colleague Dan Hill, for instance, has made his fantastic blog City of Sound (now on Medium) a cornerstone of his reputation for important thinking on all things urbanist and futurology.
Also, I decided some time ago to keep my head down in the ongoing culture wars. I do have some things to say there (as the ever-patient Sarah knows), but my confused political position (libertarian social democrat, anyone?) suggests that I should keep my opinions to the dinner table. And I’m not even sure I have much interesting to say about music, to be frank. How many ways can you say “Bach and Meshuggah make my life better”? (Although, they really, really do, daily.) This is not to say, by the way, that writing about music can’t be a fine thing - Tom Service’s excellent “Dancing About Architecture” Listening Service episode on Radio 3 was clear about that. It’s just that I’m not very good at it, despite years of trying, and there’s quite enough to go around already.
My blogging has limped on, then, precisely to no effect (and to effectively zero audience) other than to keep my writing skills vaguely in the “operational” category. Of course, I committed some time ago to blogging my progress at Surrey, but even that has been, well, a little half-hearted. So I’m glad of this new challenge to be a bit more on it. Let’s see how it goes.
Oh, and by the way, some great music in both lectures today: Bach, Satie, King Crimson, Ozzy, Talking Heads! All grist to the ongoing Spotify “random listening” mill… and as I said to Kate today, “boy, have I ever chosen the right course…”
More soon, honestly!
May I just say you are VERY good at collaborating…
Posted by: Nick | February 09, 2022 at 09:18 AM
Hello Simon! It looks like I've got some catching up to do - something for the train on the way in tomorrow. I enjoyed this first post and you use this blog engine adeptly. You've got quite a self-deprecating style and maybe after rite MMus concludes you'll realise you don't have to be. Anyway, a good brief first mention of the module and I look forward to continuing to read.
Posted by: Tom Armstrong | May 09, 2022 at 07:31 PM