2 04/30/2001 The final day of April. An appointment with Dr. Mc awaits this a.m., a rehearsal of the AS Level pieces this evening and some teaching in between. Discovered errors in the book proposal yesterday so revised it. It is now ready for submission. Phoned my mother who is bearing-up, then went to Scorton walked around the road (the footpaths remain out-of-commission) and had tea in The Priory. Came home, sat at the piano, looked at more ideas. These are going nowhere. No point in forcing anything. The African Sanctus has to be analysed this evening after the rehearsal for purposes of IB teaching tomorrow.

1 04/29/2001 At 22-00 I finally put the completed analytical text of Larks' Tongues In Aspic, the formal book proposal, CVs and letters into two separate envelopes to be posted to two American publishers tomorrow. I expect it will take some time for the project to be assessed. Then wandered around the garden (or what there is of it!), flung my hands up to heaven and shouted 'Hallelujah!' Came back in doors and listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd's third album 'Nuthin' Fancy'. I saw LS three times in the mid-1970's, and particularly liked the way their three guitars were organised into a tight unit. I don't think Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Ed King were brilliant players but they worked damned hard to achieve results and that's what I admired. I searched-out their vocalist Ronnie Van Zant when they performed in Leeds in 1976. He seemed a very kindly sort of man and we talked for a few minutes. Again, I was determined to reach some kind of understanding of the group as they seemed to have something which escaped me at the time. He also signed the cover of my 'Nuthin' Fancy' album. I was sorry when he was killed in the plane crash which put pay to their career in 1977. For me, that was a very sad day, as was the day when I heard that their guitarist, Allen Collins, had also died as a result of a long illness. The first time I saw Lynyrd Skynyrd 'live' was in Bradford in 1974. They were supporting the Dutch group Golden Earing. I thought they were absolutely splendid, to the point and like a well organised version of Free. I think they admired the British blues/country bands first and foremost, and in many ways sound far superior to their American contemporaries. Also listened to Scelsi's 3rd Piano Sonata, which is a fine piece. This is from S's first period of composition, and owes something to serial techniques, but also anticipates the later music in terms of just one or two pitch-centres which are central to the process in a piece. Scelsi had a 'creative breakdown' around 1945 and was hospitalised. From 1952 he began to compose again but the music had changed. For hours on end, while in hospital, he would sit at a piano playing just one note over and over again. This became the basis for all his later music. 'Hurqualia', from 1960, is one of these pieces which is formed around a C natural. Pitches fan-out from this core-pitch in quarter-tones and semitones. It's big music, but what could be regarded as a static style is actually revivified by the rhythmic side. It has a kind of Eastern side, with the pedal pitches sounding like the drones found in Indian music. Scelsi is not afraid to repeat material, and write in huge wide-spanning octaves. If anyone asked me what they should write for their final year undergraduate dissertation, or an Mmus thesis, I would suggest something on Scelsi. Scelsi's is music from the unconscious.

Didn't sleep well last night. I awoke thinking about my dad in the home. I must have dozed-off again because I awoke around 8-00 just having had a splendid and vivid dream.

Also spent an hour at the piano last evening looking at some of the ideas which have gathered. At the checkout in Safeway yesterday I heard how one idea I'd previously had could be be more successful if it's slowed down to half-speed. Came home and wrote about fifteen bars of music.

E-mails from Barbara, Robert, Jacob, Chris and Leigh, and various students responding to the work I'd returned to them.

7 04/28/2001 Today my father was admitted to a residential home. He didn't want to go. Would anyone? When I called yesterday he was very upset, and I left with both my mother and father in a bit of a state. What more can I say? I feel bloody useless.

To Manchester. On the journey there I completed the KC book proposal. All that remains is for it to be typed this evening. This wasn't as difficult as I imagined it would be. The students at the RNCM are completing their work for the 9th June Young Composers' concert. There are a lot of pieces to be rehearsed/auditioned. We have to fill an hour, so there will be one or two disappointments. I warned everyone this would be the case. One of my composition students ( a fine flautist who is 14) came to the tutorial with 'In The Clear' - the flute piece on Quickening The Dead. He amazed me by playing some of it, and intends to learn it for a recital next year. Excellent! Katharine Durran also tells me she has spent the past fortnight completing the forms for funding for the song commission. This looks promising.

Went to Blackwells. Last week I saw a book which is priced at £32 but didn't feel like paying that amount. I found Keith Negus' Popular Music In Theory (Polity Books) instead for half the price, which is a much better read and more in line with my own current interests. Had a brief look through it on the train before falling asleep at Bolton and waking suddenly at Preston.

Ideas for a new piece keep coming to me. Listened to The Planets this morning with one group. Holst didn't wait for funding to write the piece: he wrote it because he had to. Maybe that's why it remains as one of those epoch-shaking works? I think I should do the same. I always used to. Come off it Keeling!: just damn well write it and forget the funding...

6 04/27/2001 Dream: Dusk. Winter. A pink and orange sky. On the way up a mountain road covered by ice and snow. I'm determined to climb the mountain. Walking fast, wrapped-up well in my fleece, scarf etc. What will it be like on the summit? The people who own the tea/coffee stall are storing things away in a cave. If I reach the summit will I make it back before nightfall?

5 04/26/2001 Yesterday turned into a warm, sunny one. Mowed both front and back lawns. Totally shattering experience. I own an old manual push-mower. The lack of fell walking has meant that I'm now completely out of condition.

Decided to go for the Larks', and xeroxed/bound two copies which were later both sent out. Robert sent the name and address of someone who he feels might be interested in it as a one-off analysis. Last evening I came to look at the actual book proposal details. Lots to do for this, such as compare mine with other books in the field. I begin to consider this today.

Also prepared A Level Music History teaching material which I've been asked to do for this term. Found that I have many of the relevant topics which I've covered previously with students. Came across an old programme of former students' A level recitals which I must have put in the folder along with my notes. Strange coincidence. IB material will have to be revised over the weekend. Today, AS Level composers day and thrashing out recording details. One of the pieces is for flute, electric guitar, keyboards, bass and drums, called 'Con-Fusion'. The other is a really beautiful song for mezzo-soprano, flute, acoustic guitar, keyboards, bass and drums called 'I Fall Apart'. Also, a solo flute piece, by an A Level student, has to be recorded. My flute playing has improved over the past three days: it has had to!

Walked along the beach last evening. Very warm and lots of sun. Wide-open spaces. The tide was a long way out. The Lake District was obscured in the cloud that has arrived here this morning.

4 04/25/2001 Yesterday at 17-50, on the train between Kirkham and Poulton, as I looked up from my reading material and looked out of the train window, I was suddenly aware that I had distanced myself from the events of recent weeks. An inner calm... Just a passing moment of light shining through the darkness? It continued through last evening, and remains this morning. How was this put into effect? Was it sitting quietly in the Lady Chapel of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, lighting a candle and looking up to the Mother? Was it hearing 'One Flesh' over the ether from J. & S's concert last evening? Was it listening to 'The Last Goodbye' by Jeff Buckley, or 'Elephant Talk' from the new re-edit of 'Discipline'? Or was it simply the absolute knowledge that self-delusions have been stripped and now is the time to face things exactly as they are? As Marcus Aurelius wrote all those centuries ago: The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are. Time to move on...

3 04/24/2001 An unusual day to be going to Liverpool (my usual day is on a Wednesday), but students have asked me to be there from 14-00 - 16-00 today to look over their work. Yesterday term proper began, and I actually managed to play some flute myself in preparation for recordings of A Level/AS Level work to be made later in the week.

As I arrived at my parents' yesterday so did the chap for the Social Services. There is a meeting on Thursday when they will decide if my father can be placed in a nursing home. What choice do we have? We've all wrestled with this dilemma, but if something isn't done then my mother will also be ill. I never thought for one moment it would actually come to this.

Arrived home and revised the Larks' analysis. The first draft now has several additions to the text, and can soon be photocopied with the examples transferred to the new edition. There is one thing about the analysis: it seems to say something about the music, which is pleasing. It is very unlike many of the newer, popular music analyses I've seen because I have used a quasi-musicological approach, although not exclusively. The reason? The motives in Larks' are spread around the work to create unity: the seeds grow into fully-formed musical units. With this work it's not just a case of song following song. There is a rationale in the way pieces have been positioned. Whether this has been done on a conscious level, or an unconscious one I can't say, but I suspect a little of both. In terms of the form (and I use the word 'form' rather than 'structure' with this work, whereas with a composer such as Xenakis, for example, I might resort to the term 'structure'; LTIA is organic) it owes rather a lot to the forms of previous King Crimson albums. At the same time, it marks a turning-point between KC I (II) and KC III. I speak here of formal concerns and instrumental textures. The analysis should be complete by the weekend. It's been a huge undertaking. A book would be a MAMMOTH undertaking but, I think, useful to people.

E-mails from Henry, Jacob and Neil. Ingrid Sawers also phoned last evening saying she is intending to approach universities with various programmes which may include my pieces. Yesterday, I also looked through some of the musical ideas I've had recently but just didn't feel like doing anything with them. The spirit isn't there. Waiting...

2 04/23/2001 When I went to my parents' on Friday my mother asked me to phone Social Services: she is still waiting for my father to be assessed. We found little had been done about it, but the person I spoke to said they will get around to assessing him this week. However, after we retuned from Stockton yesterday, my mother phoned saying that my father had had a turn for the worse, and she'd phoned the emergency doctor who was surprised that the assessment hadn't yet been done. This is a very worrying time.

Had a cup of coffee on the return jouney yesterday, and stood in a car-park looking over to the Howgill Fells. More orchestral ideas arrived in those few moments. Katharine Durran told me on Saturday that a clarinet and piano piece seems a possibility but not an immediate project. She is thinking more along the lines of a French song project first. One thing has become clear over the past few days: to force anything at this point in time would be a mistake. Waiting...

1 04/22/2001 It's raining. Today is my sister's birthday. My mother and sister looked around some residential homes yesterday. My mother can no longer cope with my father's health.

I have a long drive to Stockton-upon-Tees today to return Nicholas to university. This is his final term. Two more journeys and we won't see Bowes Moor again, nor stop for lunch in Barnard Castle. Three years have flown-by.

Read through Larks'. A few mistakes here and there which can be revised. The next thing is to type the book structure, and a page on why I think there is need for this work on King Crimson.

Jacob Heringman wrote last evening saying that he and Susanna are performing 'One Flesh' in a concert. Tried replying to him, but message keeps being returned. Welcome E-mail from my old friend, and ex-colleague, Allan Williams.

7 04/21/2001 Iain Cameron brought this to my attention today: T.S Eliot said that 'April is the cruellest month'. And Hexagram 5 (Hsu) says: 'The rain will come in its own time. It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events...There is nothing to do but wait until the rain falls...Fate comes when it will, and thus we are ready'.

6 04/20/2001 At 17-15 yesterday I added the final example (no. 72)) to the Larks' text. Phew! Done! And now the read-through and revision process begins.

Friends bought a ticket for me to see/hear Gary Moore play in Preston last evening. An hour and a half of very loud blues. Bumped into one or two old friends. Returned home and dreamt of I-IV-V progressions all night, plus endless modes with b3/b5 included. Went back to Dave's after the concert, and he played a Peter Frampton DVD, followed by old footage of Humble Pie. Steve Marriot...what a great voice! Humble Pie were one of those groups who were just waiting to happen. They looked like they were having fun on stage.

On the way to the concert one amazing synchronicity, and on the way home a further two, one centred around a conversation with Geoff and the other the sight of a fox on the road in front of me which coincided with events over the past few days.

E-mails from Robert Fripp and Henry Warwick. Term begins to day, and as I write this Jeff Buckley's 'Grace' is playing. Buckley's arrangement of Britten's 'Corpus Christi Carol' is one the most beautiful pieces of all time:

And on this bed there lieth a knight,
His wound is bleeding day and night.
And by his bedside kneeleth a maid,
And she weepeth both night and day.
Lully lullay....
The falcon hath borne my mate away.

5 04/19/2001 On Wednesday evening completed the first draft of the Larks' analysis. The examples are being added, with 20 left to go. It reads better than I thought it would. Sue had a look through it, and has come to the conclusion that it's more academic and that's the kind of publisher who will have to be approached. But how is it possible to deal with King Crimson in any other way? Sid has written an excellent overview which people will find very interesting. It fills in many of the holes, in Crimson history, that we weren't aware of. My own reading of the group is quite different. I feel I'm justified in dealing with the group in more technical terms. I wanted to deal with the music, first and foremost. I was determined to learn what makes it what it is. i.e. Why do those songs/pieces sound so very, very good, and have their own particular flavour which sounds like nothing else I've ever heard? I also felt that I didn't want to deal with it in terms of some of the new popular music analyses, although something from that genre has gone into it. The next stage is to send it out and see what happens. If it is to go ahead it will have clarified by the autumn.

Yesterday drove to Ambleside and parked the car on the other side of Rothay Park. Signposts all over saying keep to tarmac (due to Foot-and-Mouth), so we walked from Ambleside to Rydal on the back road. It was deserted. We passed one person walking the other way. It was a sunny day, but the clouds came in and we got caught in a blizzard at Rydal. Looked up at Nab Scar, Fairfield and High Pike. Orange bracken all over Loughrigg. Dora's Field was open, so we walked around it. Then, bright sunshine. Wordsworth bought the field (not really a field now) for his daughter. Went into Rydal church and sat in silence for 20 minutes. Found a fragment of plainchant in a book. Wrote it down in the notebook. Walked back to Ambleside, looked towards Wansfell, and had lunch in the Apple Pie Shop. Looked around bookshop. Bought video: blockbuster-epic, Eric Robson in 'Remote Lakeland in the footsteps of Alfred Wainwright'. There's bound to be blood and guts in this, action shots, people falling off high buildings, car chases, love and sex on the high fells etc. etc. Then bought new shoes which look like Cornish-pasties. Walked around Stockghyll Force. The waterfall looked good. Sung-through CS&N's 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes' to myself. Drove home, gave car a thorough washing before returning to the Fylde.

Can't get into my e-mails. Iain wrote yesterday. We are also STILL waiting to hear from the funding body whether they are interested, or not, in the SKHK project. They promised a reply very soon. This is the final day, proper, of the holidays.

3 04/17/2001 Awoke with a killer headache. Not quite a migraine, but getting there. It's beginning to pass as the painkillers take effect, and Nick Drake's 'Bryter Layter', playing at the moment, is also playing its part in the process. Reached 'At The Chime Of A City Clock'.

Did well on Larks' yesterday. Only 6 pages remain till the draft is complete. There is a section on the rhythm in Larks' 2, and the conclusion then...examples. I've been able to chop bits out which make it slightly more coherent. The big test will come when it's printed out and I can sit and read it as one. I guess some of it will be forced to change. Listened to Goldfrapp's 'Felt Mountain', Ultravox's 'Systems of Romance' and Penderecki's 2nd Symphony as I wrote last evening. Penderecki took on the full vehemence of the musical establishment when he decided to write in a neo-Romantic vein a number of years ago. Following works such as 'Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima', P. felt that the only way forward was to go backwards. Listening to the fine music which is the 2nd Symphony I've come to the conclusion that he was absolutely right. The more I think about it myself, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that, for myself, a change has to be made. This is part of the process and is part of the problem I'm having with writing at this moment in time. When I heard John Bortslap's tone poem 'Psyche' in February I wasn't there by accident. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but there was something to learn. At the concert Nat told me she'd read a review in the Daily Telegraph on my piece 'Reclaiming Eros'. I haven't seen it. David Fanning, who had written it, compared it to Faure. For me, this was excellent news. Many years ago I had a dream that I visited Faure. He was very old, in a wheelchair and had something to tell me. The dream ended.

Yesterday we walked along Lytham Green. Lytham Green is a long stretch of grass which runs all the way from one end of the promenade to the other. There is a windmill in the middle. Many years ago I played in a band called The Sensible Club. It was a great band: three electric guitars, keyboards, bass and drums. Sprog, Paul and I also sang. Besides playing 3rd guitar I also played soprano sax and flute. Kevin gave me an old tape of one of our rehearsals which I sometimes play. It sounds fabulous, poor quality, but great playing. One of the songs I wrote, and which we played, was called 'Lytham Green':

The day was on the wane,
The tide was on the turn,
As we went running over to Lytham Green.
Could've sworn there was some singing,
From a church where a bell was ringing,
We took our cue from a blaggard's song
And sailed away to sea.
Let me tell you what I want to say
It seems no use now that we've sailed away.
And we never needed friends to help us be
What we never ever wanted to be.

Well, the words seem pretty dreadful now but after rushing, laying hands on the tape just now and checking it out, it still sounds OK! Kevin's guitar playing is really amazing. The interplay between the three lead guitars is quite incredible. We worked hard for around seven weeks, sometimes through the night in a cellar under Milbourne Street in Blackpool. Rehearsals began at around 20-00, and the next time the trap-door up to the street was opened was sometimes 6-00 the following morning. A complete set came together pretty fast, but I was press-ganged into joining a church, and left the band which continued and played several gigs before ceasing to exist. This was also part of the process. There is also another song on it called 'Round and Round'. Paul, the bass player and vocalist, wrote it. I can't make out the words clearly, but the chorus is:

I have watched you from a distance
And you're just the same as me.
We keep going round in circles,
Going round, round, round trying to break free.

Also re-read Emma Jung's 'Animus and Anima'.

2 04/16/2001 Today the sun is shining. It would be a perfect day for a fell walk. The Minister for Agriculture was on TV last evening saying that he's 'looking into the possibility of vaccination for cattle'. What he really means is when all the thousands of forms have been completed and it's been through another 150 committee stages and then discussed at a further higher level and... . THEN we'll have had 4000 outbreaks of Foot-and-Mouth! It's strange how we don't hear about F&M in the Netherlands since vaccination happened there. I angrily switched-off the TV!

We took out Jamie, the dog, yesterday but drove into heavy rain towards Abbeystead. So, we turned around and returned to Sue's parents and had a cup of tea there instead, came home and ploughed-on with the Larks' analysis. Only 13 pages left to go, now. It's nearly there! Continue to see ways in which it might be abbreviated.

Phone call from David Rogers, old friend and computer supremo. He told me that he'd found some old photos from college days (1974), and did I want copies. He said he thought he'd better check as one of my old flames was to be seen with me in one of the photos. 'Send them!' So, half an hour later they arrived. He also warned me about my 'two foot hair'. Yes...those were the days in which a lot of people had long hair and I was one...and by gum, it is long! Nicholas, who is also currently in the process of writing a book, looked at the photos, turned to me and said; 'You were a hippie!', to which I replied ; 'Yes, I suppose I was!' In one of the photos I'm sitting with my parents. My mother looks incredibly young. The thing which struck me, more than anything else, is how quickly time passes... Those were the days in which my parents used to shout at me to , 'Smarten up! Get yer 'air cut, lad!' But they never once questioned my musical aspirations. They only encouraged me, although they didn't fully understand what I was doing, which brings a story to mind. When I was a student, at Huddersfield Polytechnic (now University) I was elected to play in the PTO - The Peripatetic Teachers' Orchestra of Huddersfield. One of its assignments was to visit local schools and play music for the children. This happened every Wednesday afternoon. Because my flute playing was of a particularly high standard (then!) I was chosen by Mr. Newsome, the conductor - a nice chap who had a yellow Ford Escort with a Bunnygirl sticker on the windscreen (I always wondered about that) - to perform Mozart's Andante in C supported by the small chamber orchestra which included some very fine players. Now, the players all looked smart - shirts, ties jackets etc. Very presentable! Apart from...yes...me of course. With my two foot hair, denims and baseball boots I stood out like a very, very sore thumb. Every week we went to a school to perform for the children - always secondary schools - and at the elected time in the performance Mr. Newsome would say; 'And now, Mr. Keeling will come and play Mozart's Andante in C for you', to which I duly stood up and dragged my way to the front of the stage, with hunched shoulders (which every hippie had to have). And every damn week it happened: I could hear the kids in the audience say, 'Did he say Mr. or Mrs. Keeling? What is this?' followed by fits of laughter from them all. Even as I nervously put flute to lips and spat out the Andante in C, the hubbub continued. Mr. Newsome never said anything, but only, 'lovely performance, Andrew!' I was mystified. I became so paranoid in the end, so damn sick of kids laughing when I shuffled out to the front for the weekly Mozart slot, that one day I said to Barbara, my girlfriend; 'Right that's it! This hair has to be removed!' So, Barbara got out some scissors and cut the hair to my shoulders. I felt confident. Happy. 'No more kids will laugh!' thought I. 'No more bus conductors will say, "What's your fare, darlin'..oops! Sorry mate, thought you were a girl!"' I thought, this will show 'em...except when I got to college on the Monday following no-one said anything. I said, 'Hey, look I've had my hair cut!' Nothing...not one damn sign of recognition from friends. So, Wednesday came and I was still feeling a little confident about things. Orchestra to school, Mozart slot and yes! Those kids still laughed...only louder! I was devastated! Completely demoralised. I returned to college and said to Barbara; 'Why? The hair's gone but they still laugh...why, oh why?' She said, 'still more needs to be removed!' So, one week, shortly after, we came home to the Fylde and my mother, who used to have a hairdresser come and visit the home, asked her to cut my hair. I had it severely cropped. How I cried as it fell to the floor. We returned to college, and on the Monday morning walked into the Refectory and everyone cheered! At last people had noticed. No wonder, the hair was short. Very short, I thought. Barbara said later in the day, 'Andrew. I will have to watch you. You now have a fan club. Girls can see your face. They like it. I will have to hide you.' But, the objective had been achieved. There were no further riots when the orchestra visited the schools during Mozart's Andante in C. I have never been able to play that piece in the same way since 1974-75.

As I dropped off to sleep last night I heard music. I reluctantly dragged myself back from the edge of the abyss, came downstairs and wrote the idea down: four descending pitches supported by two piano chords. The same happened with Off The Beaten Track, the viola and piano piece on QTD. I heard the music from 5:46 - 6:06 in a dream and placed it in the piece.

1 04/15/2001 One day it rains, as it did yesterday, and one day it's sunny, as it is today. Constant change. We went to see my parents yesterday afternoon. There is improvement in my father's health. He is managing to do some washing up, and is trying desperately to overcome his condition. My mother is finding things very tough-going.

Returned and continued with Larks'. Nineteen pages are left to complete and then comes the time of revision. I also keep having ideas for a new piece, but I cannot write with enthusiasm at the moment. Tried sitting at the piano on Thursday evening and wrote about three bars of ideas, but then abandoned it. The spirit isn't there at the moment. Then last evening, while watching a video of A. Wainwright's Memorial Walk around the Lake District had further ideas. When pieces begin to emerge it's a little like starting again, never having written a piece before. It drives me completely mad. Completely mad! I have a huge A3 clipboard with stacks of bits of paper on it all covered in scrawlings. The piano keyboard is also covered in papers, pencils, CDs, pens, stamps etc. etc. at the moment and surrounded by piles of books and papers. I have a clip-frame hanging just beside the computer, which contains a postcard of a Blake print from 'The Gates of Paradise'. It's plate No. 9, and depicts a man at the bottom of a ladder which stretches up to a crescent moon. The man has his left foot on the first rung and he stands looking up longingly at the moon. The caption is, 'I want! I want!' I bought two or three Blake postcards in the series around six or seven years ago, but this is the only one which remains.

Completed the book on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

7 04/14/2001 Saturday 14th. When I was at boarding school the warning was to look out for Saturday the 14th rather than Friday 13th. Apparently, it was more likely that things went wrong on the Sat. rather than the Fri. And on one year, it happened. It was a school speech-day Evensong in the cathedral, when all the parents and friends came to us hear us sing magnificently, after a fun-filled day (not!) of racing round sportfields winning trophies that meant absolutely nothing to anyone. Not being much of an athlete (I could run the 100 yards and 200 yards quite successfully) sports were not really my thing. Returning to the cathedral service. I don't think the worship of God was really the issue: parents simply came to see and hear their offspring performing beautiful music in a beautiful setting. That year I was a 'bookboy'. Sounds saucy? Before you ask, not really. There were two bookboys, and one of the lay vicars (a tenor called Carlos Gilson), who set out the books for the choir before evensong. This was worked out on a rota basis, so myself and my friend were bookboys for one week and then another two on the following week, and so on. We arranged the books for the boy choristers, and Carlos set out the books for the lay vicars (the men singers). In every cathedral there are different sets of Precis and Responses which start the services: Priest - 'O Lord open thou our lips'; Choir - 'And our mouth shall show forth thy praise' etc. In most cathedrals a setting is selected by one composer for one week, followed by another for the next week. That year, on that week, it was the turn of Aylward's setting. From what I can remember, John Aylward was a 16th century composer. So, my friend and I, David Ratcliffe, set out all the books, putting the Aylward setting at the top of the pile to kick-off the service. Now, as it was a special day it had been suggested to Carlos, unbeknown to David and myself, that he put out the setting of the Precis and Responses by Bernard Rose. The Rose Responses are possibly the best, and most often performed today, and were written, I think, in the early 1960's. So, we returned to the Vestry, the Dean commended us to the Lord and the choir processed in. So far, so good. As usual, we took our places in the choir-stalls, cathedral packed with said parents waiting for magnificent performance from one of the best choirs in England at that time (probably not, but dream on). A single pitch sounded from the organ to prepare the Subchanter for his line, which he duly sang to a monotone: 'O Lord open thou our lips'. And then it happened. 'And our....!!*&5&^%++....'(try again); 'And our mouth **%3!"+?@@' Crunch, dissonance, confusion, mayhem. The Aylward setting had collided in one great mass of an evil collage with the Rose setting. It was really magnificent and, looking back, my first encounter with truly contemporary music. Stockhausen really had written nothing to compare with this. Boulez? A total non-starter! It resolved itself when Richard Greening, organist/Master of the Choristers, leaned over from the organ console, 60 feet up above the choir, and shouted, 'Aylward Responses!!' Then the serice continued as normal. David and I had been right, and Carlos?...You have taken your place in history. As for God? Absent on that day, or was he....?

6 04/13/2001 Listening to John Cage's serenely beautiful Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. Is Cage an original? On the basis of these pieces, I'd say so. I think with Cage we are probably forced to suspend judgements. Many of the judgements we make are based on what we perceive to be the dominant forces at work in our culture. In the West, the Austro-German tradition has held sway and, to some extent, still does. Cage did a great deal, via Zen Buddhism and his interest in Hinduism, to help us aspire to some kind of unmediated experience, which can only appear when our tastes and preconceptions are suspended. How easily I fall into these traps. 'This is what I like, and I will cling onto that NO MATTER WHAT!'; or, 'This is what I know and I will cling to it as long as I can'. Thinking a little about Cage has helped me review several things which deperately needed questioning. There can be no doubt that the Sonatas and Interludes are just very, very good. They allow us a glimpse of 'other'. I read something very fitting on Robert Fripp's Diary yesterday . He says, 'I trust the process even when the outcome is unclear'. Cage continues the line from Satie, Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, Varese and Partch, standing closer to Satie, Ives, Varese and Partch than the others. He owes much to Duchamp as well in terms of anything can now be regarded as art. That he influenced the likes of The Beatles, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Michael Nyman, Berio, Stockhausen, Arvo Part etc. etc. etc. goes without saying.

Larks' took wings yesterday. The section of Larks' I from 2:54 to 4:53 are just about the most incredible I have EVER heard. The hammer blows of the G-Bb-C-Db-Bb-C power chords, at 3:40 and 4:38, and the percussion crescendo and textural accumulations which precede them are just...well...difficult to describe in words, even more difficult to convey in the text of an analysis. If played at volume 11 (no! let's try 12, damn it!) it is just possible for me to reach Neptune via Mars and Saturn, with a reviving coffee on Venus on the return journey.

5 04/12/2001 Thought a little about John Cage. Did he have the one true original compositional voice in the twentieth century?

Sat on the sea-front in Blackpool while Sue, Elizabeth and Adam went shopping. Looked seawards and watched the waves rising and falling. Dazzling sunshine. Rejoiced that winter has ended. Noise from the passing traffic behind. Music thundering out of Brannigan's Bar. A student sold me a rag-mag. In it are German motoring terms like: Boot - der platzer fur mutterinlaw; Wheel Clamp - die Bluddenklankkon sonavabitch; Breathalyser - die Puffinten fur Pistenarsen; Learner Driver - die twatten mit Elpatz etc. etc. Lotsa laffs. Met others and had scone and tea. Came home and wrote six more pages on Larks'. Thirty left to go. Marked a student orchestration. Took it around to the postbox and, while bending down to retrieve the sock which my new shoe had eaten, ouch! Back muscle pulled.

Came home. Thought/read more. Nothing on Larks'. In reply to a question a friend asked: what is an original compositional voice? Something difficult to define. There are many compositional voices dependent on individual typology, education and experience. The need to express oursleves is a universal phenomenon. We all have the ability to be creative, but few of us find we have outlets for it. Also, people are creative in different ways, not just through music. I believe that music finds us. Music is there all the time and it needs channels in which to enter the world. I learnt this from Robert Fripp. He's right. Some composers harness tradition (i.e. Mathias, Shostakovich) others are captured by the zeitgeist, such as Cage and Stockhausen in the 1960's. Some go for the influence of the East, while some prefer the West. There isn't 'one' true original compositional voice. Our circumstances, experiences and abilities have much to do with the way in which we shape an original musical impulse as anything else. Our culture is an important factor. Some feel inspiration is the key to their endeavours, whilst others fabricate ideas. Both are possible in conjunction with each other. Like Plath and Hughes some composers feel their work is shaped by a force beyond their control. Stravinsky and David Lumsdaine may have said that we only re-compose what we've already heard. Both are accepted methods and require hard work to bring to fruition. Voices come in many shapes and sizes, and the divergence of styles during last century and this will continue to be prompted by the huge diversity in educational and technological methods and advances. Some of us have to make strengths from our weaknesses. I really don't feel like going on and on this morning....it gets boring.

Managed to find a CD of Xenakis' music which includes Nomos Alpha. I feel completely unable to comment on the music. It does not connect with my typology. I can't say, 'Ah yes, my dear! This is wonderful!' But each to his/her own.

3 04/10/2001 One sits oppressed under a bare tree and strays into a grey, gloomy valley. For three years one sees nothing. When a man or a woman falls into adversity, its important for them to be strong and to overcome the trouble by inward means. If one is weak, the trouble can be overwhelming. Instead of proceeding on the way, its possible to remain in this state under a bare tree and fall further into despondency. This makes the situation only more hopeless. Such an attitude must by all means overcome. In times of adversity it is important to be strong and sparing of words. (Hexagram #47: K'un).

In a sense one could apply the Axiom of Maria to this: one becomes two which becomes the third as the fourth. Plato also headed the Timaeus with a similar quotation: One, two, three - but where, my dear Timaeus is the fourth?

In other words, it's best to allow a conflict to cook in the 'inner laboratory' so that what emerges from the opposites is a new and 'third' position, viewed as the fourth as only possible, complete and right solution to any given situation. I guess this is why it's possible to align both the I Ching and the Axiom of Maria in this instance.

My father fell out of bed on Sunday evening and badly hurt his head. On arriving to see my parents yesterday morning I couldn't get into the house. I returned home post-haste and found a telephone message from my mother left at 5-25 on Monday morning telling what had happened and that they were one their way to Blackpool Victoria hospital. Except that I didn't receive this message till 11-30. She was still there. My sister phoned saying it was no use going as they were, at that very moment, on their way back home. The cut my father received to his forehead, isn't too nasty but as he couldn't yell out 'help!' in the night he lay on the floor for ages as my mother was asleep.

Otherwise continued with the Larks'. Larks' I analysis is now well on the way, and things read better than I thought they did initially. I felt quite uplifted last evening when I read through the text. It might just be alright. Sue thinks chapters should be called 'sections' as the concept of chapter, in the dimension of AGK analysis, just does not fit. Seems like a good idea to me.

While I copied the text I listened to some music: If I Was by Ian McDonald about 400 times; Larks' Tongues all the way through which just about blew me through the wall (especially the first entry of the full band during section two which is one of the most powerful and exciting things I've heard in my life); T2's It'll All Work Out In Boomland one of the greatest 'unknown' albums of all time; Crosby, Stills and Nash which is just very beautiful music; Best of Traffic - I love No Face, No Name , No Number. A very pleasant evening spent listening to some very enjoyable music. One might ask, 'but you're a composer of contemporary music. Do you listen to 'contemporary' classical music?' The answer to that is, sometimes. I don't feel the need to go into some huge diatribe about this, but....(groan!): composers have a huge responsibility. They provide points of focus for listeners for intellectual, spiritual, psychic and, even, physical regeneration. Their material should contain a sense of wholeness (1 to 2 to 3 to 4) and correspond to the very stuff listeners are made of: organic material. So, there is a kind of circular movement at work which starts 'elsewhere', passes to composer/performer (in the case of jazz or rock they are often one and the same and have a hands-on approach to their materials), to listener, back to 'elsewhere' and then the loop begins again. Performances are, or should be, ritual-like. I'm unsure that I hear this sequence at work in a lot of recent contemporary music. Concerts don't have a sense of ritual. I sometimes hear or read about clever processes as a way of generating musical ideas, but processes which bear no relation to the sounds as the composer hopes they might be perceived by a listener. There is 'process' at the back of every Western and non-Western music. But if that process is divorced from the sounds produced then it becomes nothing but mere abstraction. Music has to functional. The comment may be that once music was part of the Quadrivium and that it was placed alongside mathematics and astronomy and philosophy/theology. But as it eventually passed into the liberal arts as part of the restoration of the Greek humanities, seems to me like an important moment in time: music was waiting to be heard not just thought about. The theatre and opera house, for the Florentine Camerata, became a ritual: where cosmic influences could be perceived and grounded through theatre, music and dance combined into a wholeness - Opera. There is, of course, going to be mathematics in music because its at the back of nature as a natural phenomenon. That music is simply abstraction does not give it a voice in the world of matter and spirit. (Intellect, maybe. But judgements need a sense of wholeness to be effective). Webern, and Messiaen and Stockhausen, at least, had this at the back of their thinking. However, their intellectual aims (only) were taken up by the Darmstadt school and fed into the world via the university. Music, again, became treated as a science. This is almost like a restoration of the state of play when music was part of the Quadrivium. I think music has to work on multi-levels of meaning. I hear music by many contemporary composers and, quite honestly, there is little I hear in which I sense that something 'other' is involved. I can name pieces which I've heard which have this innate 'otherness': Karen Markham's 'The Wheel Has Turned'; John Casken's Cello Concerto; Robin Walker's 'The Stonemaker'; James MacMillan's 'The Confession of Isobel Gowdie' (maybe); Tavener's 'The Protecting Veil'; Simon Holt's 'Siren Song' (a lot of early S.H is actually very good, especially 'Icarus Lamentations'); Thomas Ades' 'Traced Overhead'; Gavin Bryars' Cello Concerto and 'Incipit Vita Nova'; Michael Nyman's Fourth String Quartet; Gorecki's Third Symphony; David Matthews' Fourth Symphony; Nicola LeFanu's entire output up to and including 'Blood Wedding'; James Dillon's 'Ignis Noster'; David Lumsdaine's 'Mandala 3'. These are pieces which, I suppose, correspond in some way to what I've just been talking about. Some of them have been recorded and published, others remain pitifully ignored. Markham's 'The Wheel Has Turned' is a GREAT piece. Ignored? Yes. Walker's 'The Stone Maker' is GREAT music. Ignored? Yes. Both pieces have had one or two broadcasts. The composers don't have publishers. Why is this? Because it has been deemed, by those who drive the engines of the market-led forces where legitimation is the name of the game, that perhaps these composers aren't upwardly-mobile enough. Very probably. Actually, these composers are introverts and lead a life close to the spirit. Their music aspires to this realm, and functions within it because they are like this as people. Those in places of power can't manipulte these kinds of people. They are a law unto themselves. They are possessed by their muse and not by clever processes. Karen Markham once said to me; 'The problem with much musical education nowadays (we were talking about composition - what else?!) is that it's all to do with "pitch-manipulation" '. That stuck with me. Robin Walker feels that Form (as opposed to structure) is a musical shape perceived in its totality after its unfolding in real time, which isn't to be confused with structure which is a describable pattern or design. I'm not absoloutely sure whether we can continue to push musical abstraction to the limits and I think this is why, after the New-Complexity (as if music wasn't already complex enough!) there has been a return to more traditional materials. My own feeling is that if Nature (which we all fundamentally part of although we forgot that a very long time ago) is guiding us then only a few 'archetypal' and recognisable forms and materials will emerge. These will vary within each composer, according to his or her capacity and be moulded within the framework of their typology, education and experience. That's what I think today. Tomorrow, of course, it could be different.

2 04/09/2001 6-30: grey greyness on the other side of the window. The weather is even affecting Tessa, the cat, who also sits staring at the greyness through the window. At 5-30 lying sleepless in bed a musical idea, and title, hit me with force for the clarinet and piano piece which Katharine Durran would like me to write for her and Andrew Sparling. This seems to fit with the other emerging ideas for what might become an orchestral piece. The chances of someone phoning and saying, 'please write us a huge orchestral piece for £xxxxxxxxx!' seems rather remote just now! So, it could be clarinet and piano instead. That's fine by me.

Yesterday, after a morning spent in de-coding the Xenakis, drove to Cockerham and walked along the old railway track into Glasson Dock. Glasson Dock was once a major port from where, I believe, cotton was exported/imported to/from all kinds of far-off places. Now, there is a marina and not really very much to show of times passed. Fed some horses my last remaining mints. They enjoyed them but ended up biting each other for who got the last one. 'When opposition begins to manifest itself, a man must not try to bring about unity by force. In doing so he only achieves the contrary, just as a horse goes farther away if one runs after it. If it is one's own horse, one can safely let it go; it will return of its own accord. So, too, when someone who belongs with us is momentarily estranged because of a misunderstanding, he/she will return of their own accord by leaving the matters with them. Often it seems to a man or a woman as though things were conspiring against them. They see themselves hindered in their progess. They must not allow themslves to be misled, because despite this opposition they must cleave to those to whom they belong. So, in the end the bad beginning will turn out well.' (Hexagram #38, K'uei). Thank you, Nature.

Returned home and continued with Larks'. Other sections of the write-up have now been omitted. Reached about halfway. Forty pages left to write-up plus scores and examples. At last into the actual analyses of the pieces. 'Readings' are complete.

Ian McDonald phoned from New York, with encouraging words about Quickening The Dead. It's grey in NY too. We hope to meet up in due course.

Then on with the Xenakis. At around 23-30 I 'saw' into the piece. At last its beginning to make some sense. This particular piece is symmetrical (23 sections, section 12 being the kernel), and largely to do with a structure (I can't refer to it as 'form') of three fast sections, with pitches derived from and put through, what X. refers to as, a 'sieve'. After the three fast sections there is a section of sustained pitches played at registral extremes, which is freely composed. Then the fast sections resume and so on. The performance details/durations are part of the outside/inside-time structures, mapped one on top of the other, and derived from, and dependent on, the rotation of a 'real' and 'ghost' cube. For several of the sections X. asks the player to detune the instrument - in mid-performance. Practical? Even though X. didn't go for serialism I'm beginning to think there is as much 'process' in this music as there is in any Webern or Boulez. Oddly enough (or not!) X. makes no mention, in any mention of the piece, about the freely composed sections. Hmmm! However, I do think this kind of musical thought has played its part on many composers without them being conscious of it. The whole concept of 'process' in music has slipped into the collective psyche. Although I often use harmonic/pitch 'sets' and ciphers, of all kinds, ideas for rhythmic construction etc. I have to say that, compared to a composer like X., I feel a total fraud and, and feel embarrassed about my inadequate compositional technique. I can't think mathematically. My mind works too slowly. I am too taken with the 'sound' of musical ideas rather than just applying abstract concepts. X. constructed the piece pre-compositionally before applying the aspect of pitch to it. This is alien to me. But, I suppose each to his/her own. (Just read in Robert Fripp's Diary: 'Complete control is a dying to the creative life'. I also met Roger Scruton, who Robert also mentions, at the Bridgewater Hall concert in Manchester around three weeks ago).

1 04/08/2001 A cloudless sky. The kind of early Spring day which is ideal for fell-walking. However, the Foot-and-Mouth epidemic has put paid to that for a while.

Went to see my father last evening. He is improving, and the care-assistant seems to think that he might fully regain his speech in due course. My mother is also looking much better.

Reached about half way with Larks' write-up yesterday. I'm finding that some of what I wrote was, well, awful and can be omitted. This continues today.

I'm also managing to research something on Xenakis. His music is a tough nut to crack. I've been to several concerts where X's music has been performed, and I'm not absolutely sure that I like what I hear. However, there is something to be learnt here and, at the moment, this is the important thing. In one of my old Musical Times magazines I've found an article which says that music, for Xenakis, relates to mathematics in the same way as it did for the ancient Greeks. It seems that in one piece, Nomos Alpha for solo cello, he employs outside-time structures. This is defined as a collection of values for ONE sonic aspect in the piece, which forms and kind of 'repertoire' for the piece. The 'outside-time structure' is combined with the temporal side of the piece and constitutes, what X. has termed, the 'in-time structure'. X. reckons that Western music hasn't allowed for outside-time structures in the same way as Eastern musics, whether they be Byzantine, ancient Greek and folk musics. But what about the outside-time structures in jazz and rock? What about the outside-time structures in the music of Vaughan-Williams (3rd Symphony, The Lark Ascending) Nicola LeFanu, David Lumsdaine or Anthony Gilbert? What about Indian music? Xenakis also employs many quarter-tones in his structures. They are woven into the fabric in a structural way. It's interesting to see where the music of James Dillon, Chris Dench, Brian Ferneyhough and so on, has its origins. I think I may be about to learn something of great significance in this course of study.

7 04/07/2001 Yesterday was very wet and grey in Manchester. But at 14-00 the sun shone.

Managed to do a little more on Larks' before setting out, mainly reading what's already been written and revising sections of it. The American publisher has just been in touch saying that if his company don't feel it's the kind of thing they want, then he can put me in touch with someone else. Must persevere. Larks' is an incredibly INTUITIVE piece.

Got home late and walked from Poulton all the way back home. Killer migraine on arrival. Didn't sleep well last night. In the short sleeping period actually managed dreamt I was playing keyboards on Caravan's 'Golf Girl', from In The Land Of Grey And Pink. It was exciting! And it's playing now.

Spoke with Mark Graham on the phone yesterday. We plan to meet maybe in June. My thoughts are also with you, Jacob and Susanna. Jacob also wants to transpose 'Black Sun' up a minor 3rd from 'E' to 'G' lute.

6 04/06/2001 So, it could be that the Sinfield/Keeling/Heringman/King project may not be doomed after all. Jacob e-mailed yesterday saying that he's heard from the funding body who are still to look through the application. A glimmer of hope shines distantly on the horizon. Not having any ongoing composition projects at the moment has given me time to devote to the analysis of Larks' Tonues In Aspic. It's been like another period of research which has been most beneficial. I've spent since 1984 in this kind of research then compose mode. It all began to happen when I felt that I could no longer successfully a) play rock music; b) just teach/play the flute - I felt there was more to explore; c) the unconscious began to make its presence felt; d) conventional religious outlook (not so conventional) was in a state of collapse. The studies, for my Bmus, were done externally at the University of Central Lancashire (I'd already been to Huddersfield University to study the flute in the 1970's). Someone told me about an external London University degree course which was ongoing at UOCL. I nearly didn't go, and thought, 'Oh well, there's nothing to lose'. The course was BRILLIANT, and happened on Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings. Harmony, counterpoint, historical studies, analysis, and then James Wishart, my colleague at Liverpool University, came to teach some music history. The course leader said to him, 'Andrew has been pestering me for someone to teach him composition'. I'd always written pieces but never studies formally. I felt that if composition was to be taken seriously, it was important to study with someone to gain a workable technique. James agreed to take me on. I remember him asking me if I'd ever considered writing in 'a more 20th century vein'? My early pieces were like Vaughan Williams (now I am returning to this early passion). So, I began to push the boat out, compositionally speaking. Then I met Nicola LeFanu at the Musica Nova fetival in Glasgow and heard her 'The Same Day Dawns'. The experience of hearing this piece was so shattering that I went up to her at the concert and asked her if she'd teach me composition. She agreed. I also approached David Bedford but, for one reason or another, it came to nothing. After studying with Nicola for around eight lessons, I went to Tony Gilbert for twelve lessons, and then met John Casken at an SPNM event when my piece 'Distant Skies, Mountains and Shadows' was performed (I believe that Trio Orm, from the Netherlands, have just recorded this early piece and it might be out on a CD somewhere). John said that he was thinking of starting a PhD at Manchester University and would I consider being the first student. I said, reluctantly, alright. I say reluctantly because I'd just completed an M mus. and felt exhausted. However, studying with John was great and I learnt an enormous amount. I was convinced things would go quiet since completing the PhD in 1997, but then Robert Fripp phoned and things got very much busier! I've been able to question many of the things I learnt on the degree courses, and put all I learnt into operation. Many students, post-PhD, often go abroad so as to extend their experience, but my experience has certainly come about through working alongside DGM, on the many pieces written for musicians like Jacob and Susanna (One Flesh), Cathy (Off The Beaten Track) and the McFalls (Striding The Edge); the arrangements written for Matt Seattle (Lindisfarne), the McFalls (Peace), Virelai (Trio) and Opus 20 (six of Robert's Soundscapes, plus Red and now Larks' Tongues Pt 2); the KC analysis project; several other important composition projects for Jacob Heringman, Virelai, Catherine King, Fretwork, The Newbold Piano Quartet and Steven Wray. The release of Quickening The Dead has also been part of that learning process. The great thing about doing what I've done over the past couple of years is that I've not been isolated in just an academic environment. Things have been done out in the real world. Sine 1989 I've been expecting things to go quiet. I expect one day they will.

Currently listening to Janacek's series of piano pieces 'On the Overgrown Path, Series 1'. I'm not a great lover of Janacek's music but since listening his String Quartet No. 2 I felt I should begin some exploration of his work. On with some more of the Larks' write-up today, before setting out for Manchester later this morning, having almost finished the 'readings' yesterday. Now for the analyses themselves. Once this is complete the scores can be written up into neat, and musical examples, and otherwise, added to the text. In the course of my studies I wrote four dissertations over a period of ten years. The Larks' analysis reminds me of an 'approachable' dissertation! For me, King Crimson's music has to be dealt with in a serious way. I'm unsure whether publishers are going to like it, though.

5 04/05/2001 It was the final day of the semester yesterday in Liverpool. The orchestration students have done/are just about completing their assignments. Advised them to research the orchestration in Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony. The score is an absolute revelation! A short day as my composition students had just returned from a tour and only one arrived for tutorial. More done on Larks' on the journeys. Concentrated on distributional analyses of the motives, and how they are taken into the vocal parts. (Good old Nick Cook!) All this has been kept quite straightforward. No waffle. Strangely enough, whilst going through old notebooks last evening, found lots of things I'd scribbled down about the definitions of octatonic scales. This will be useful. The write-up continues today.

Dream personage on train again yesterday. This time we sat at opposite ends of the train carriage.

Went to see my dad last evening. Goodness! What an improvement! He was coherent, communicative and obviously very pleased to be at home. The Social Services are sorting out help at this very moment. My mother is also feeling, and looking, much better. Hospital is my father's worst enemy.

E-mail server being very slow at the moment, but received messages from Robert, Nat and James Wills. James let me know that Philip Larkin wrote a poem based on Sir Philip Sidney's 'With How Sad Steps, O Moon' which I set for Virelai last year. This is more than interesting.

Continued with Reviving The Muse. Interesting in that it tackles the non-communication problems in much twentieth century music (i.e. Schoenberg). Peter Davison's essay is excellent. My old friend, Robin Walker, also has an essay in the book which clarifies many of the discussions we've had on fell walks which centre around the problems of the unfolding of musical forms. I was pleased to see that he'd used my phrase 'modal chromaticism' in the essay to describe the kind of music he and I (and many more than just Robin and I) are thinking about, writing and wanting to write. The subject of the book is nothing new for me. However, I now see that I haven't been the only one wrestling with this form of angel.

More thoughts about the new musical ideas that seem to be emerging at the moment. Maggie Hemmingway's novel, 'The Bridge', is at the root of this, and has been on my mind for a very long time. Just before the train arrived at Poulton yesterday I saw how the two short fragments might be developed.

4 04/04/2001 April 4th is etched on my memory forever. On this date, in 1993, I won the Gregynog Composers' Competition of Wales. We walked along the ridge which connects Catbells to Maiden Moor and High Spy in the north west of the Lake District. It was a dazzling early spring day - a Sunday. I had a burning sensation in my abdomen all day, which wasn't the lunch I'd just eaten! It was a kind of anticipation that something was about to happen. I arrived back home in the evening to find a telephone message from my mother waiting. The organsisers, of the competition, had wanted a contact telephone number so I gave my mother's as I anticipated we would be out walking. My mother gave me the news that I'd been successful. I wasn't surprised, because somehow I'd had a 'feeling' it would happen. It was also the 4th day of the 4th month. For me, this was extremely significant.

This story is semi-connected to something that happened yesterday although I was going to write about neither. Ian McDonald's song, 'If I Was' from Drivers Eyes, was playing in the car. I played it around three times. It's a song which has 'something' about it. Something 'other' to be more precise. On arriving home I put it my discman to try and discover why. I'd not really analysed it before, but when listening in the car I heard many recurrences of 4ths. On further examination (this is beginning to sound like a medical operation!) I discovered that the vocal line (the main hook) outlines fourths (C - [Eb] - F); the underlay, in the verse, spans a descending 4th; the section following the verse descends A minor to A minor/E; there is a dramatic, and abrupt modulation from the B minor, at the of the section 'being right where you belong', back to F minor ( Dim. 5th which could be respelt as an Aug. 4th); the words 'but when you walk by' outlines a descending Perfect 4th (Eb-[Db]-[C]-Bb); it is in 4/4; verse 1 repeats at the end to make a circular 4 verse structure. It as though all of this unfolds in a perfect circular form. Form is something quite different from structure. The song has a distinctly feminine ring about it, and I think Ian would say that he wrote it intuitively. I think it's one of the very best songs I've ever heard in the last few years expressing, as it does, emotive concerns which underlines the four-ness included in it.

My father returned home yesterday. Immediately he is feeling better for being there. He does not like the hospital where he was. I'm off to Liverpool soon but will go and see him on my return this evening. My mother is much relieved by his return. The doctor called in to see him yesterday, and, after seeing him, is now completely aware how we all felt when he was in hospital. The Social Services are going to assess my dad to see how much help can be given. Getting the wheels in motion is a very slow process, though.

Continued with the Larks' analysis, managing to type fifteen pages onto Wordpad (my Wordpro is non-functional). Began at 10-00 and finished at 21-00 with a number of breaks. There is so much to do and so little time in which to do everything. Wrote-up the section about textural accumulation and 'nature' as applied to Larks'. Also started the section about the folksong voice that is apparent in many guises within the fabric of the album. I'll contiue gathering together the distribution of musical motives, and otherwise, on the train today. It's amazing how this has developed. It would have been impossible to present it on the Diary but, if publishers reject it, then I'll try. It's a huge text. I'm convinced that it would make a small volume by itself. I'm expecting publishers to say that it's too 'in-depth' and 'too lengthy'. I suppose there may be a way of shortening it.

Also listened to Janacek's String Quartet No.2 (marvellous!); Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony (what a marvellous work - what incredibly subtle orchestration); Webb Brothers - Maroon (interesting. They were performing at Manchester University a while ago. Should have gone.); Uriah Heep 'Footprints In The Snow', which is a Ken Hensley/John Wetton song and must be one of the best things I've heard recently. Again, it has 'something' about it. I feel that Uriah Heep improved, as a creative force, about 1000% when John Wetton joined. From a harmonic angle the album, 'High And Mighty', is much better than some of their other records. There is another great song on it called 'Weep In Silence'. J.W. has made a terrific contribution to all the bands he's played with. I once saw him play in Family (1971). The guitarist's amp broke down leaving J.W., Rob Townsend (drums) and Poly Palmer (vibes) to play an incredible 30 minute improvisation. Very memorable.

Also got to finish reading Reviving The Muse and get on with Stravinsky in Conversation With Robert Craft.

3 04/03/2001 We visited the doctor yesterday at around 11-00, and talked to him for around fifteen minutes. He doesn't feel that my father can be looked after at home. My mother disagrees and asked what's the alternative? She thinks that he stays in hospital and declines rapidly, or goes home and improves. The doctor feels, in the end, it will come to residential care. We think that if he stays in hospital or goes into a residential home, then that's really the end. The biggest problem is this: the medical profession tries its very best, but, often, there are problems with the way in which people are assessed as individuals. I'm not of the opinion that the medical profession is letting us down. Obviously there are problems, mainly in the areas of communication and funding, but over the years there have been incredible improvements in health care. My father returns home today, and my mother has decided to get professional 'in home' assistance besides regular visits from my sister, myself and friends. Good to hear from Andrew Bass and Henry Warwick who often write asking about my father. Thanks to Jacob as well.

It rained all day yesterday, so after driving back here I ploughed into the Larks' analysis. By 22-00 I'd managed to type the first section of the chapter. Other things came to mind as I was doing this, especially to do with the rhythmic side which, in the case of Larks' Tongues In Aspic as a whole, is very important. In these terms it is a particularly well organised work. It's possible to deal with all of this in a subtle, semiotically-organised way without including senseless diagrams and words which make absolutely no sense at all to a reader. I've read, or tried to read, many analytical books which I've forgotten immediately. If books have a 'feeling' side, and are written through some kind of connection with the material under discussion, then the words have an integrity and honesty which I think readers respond to. David Snyder asked yesterday how how I'm dealing with the idea of the primal? The term 'primal' is being amplified in this way: primordial, primeval and cthonic. These are all energies which I hear on LTIA. Other albums deal with other elements and this is what I like about King Crimson: the music, and the ideas associated with it (I was going to say concepts but this is a loaded term), develop from album to album. The music never seems to go over the same old ground again and again.

Also sat at the piano for half an hour, improvised and wrote two pages of music quite spontaneously. Saw ways in which these ideas might be further developed. I have a huge A3 envelope stuffed-full of musical fragments. This is my 'orchestral' ideas folder. I'm hoping that, one day, these ideas may be utilised in some way. There are possible titles for a piece scribbled all over the front of the envelope. I can't write music which is not initiated by archetypal events, and I'm feeling that something has been 'in the air' for a while now. Then read a little of Ed. Peter Davison - Reviving The Muse (Claridge Press, 2001). Oh yes!

2 04/02/2001 After revising part of the Larks' analysis yesterday we walked to Fleetwood along the sea-front. A fine, warm and sunny day. Great open spaces of sand, with the Lake District fells in the background. Wished I could be there, as the smell of the grasses, from the sand dunes, reminded me of the the sweet smell of the fell grasses. Sky Larks hovering and singing over the golf course...another reminder of the fells. Called in on Mike Forshaw with a bass guitar part. Mike has kindly offered to help out by playing on J.W.'s AS Level composition. Strangely enough saw Ian Forgrieve on the sea-front with his family, so I was able to ask him if he'd play drums on the piece.

Returned home and phoned my mother. She has decided that my father can no longer stay in hospital as she thinks he is on the decline. She's right. He's better being at home. He doesn't like hospital. I'm going with her, in about half an hour, to see the doctor to decide how to deal with this.

E-mails from Carter, Henry and Simon Wray. Jacob also wrote. Learnt more about semiotics as applied to music from further reading last evening. There is a way of applying this. Musical semiotics deals with the distribution of motives (the building blocks of a piece), and this can be done in Larks'. As I was falling asleep last evening it suddenly struck me that Larks' may be even more of a unified field of work than I originally thought, and this is all part and parcel of the sparks/seeds that are spread throughout it, and, unknowingly, I've already been doing this. It's called 'syntagmatic analysis'. (I owe this insight to the meeting with Nat). Also read an essay about 'Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding' by Sheila Whitely. However, I have decided that this is not the reading to follow apropos Larks'. It seems to me that Larks' has little to do with that dimension, and is surely one of the reasons why KC lie outside the prog field: something which went unrecognised by the producers of the 10 Best Prog Bands Channel 4 programme. My analysis deals more with music, although 'coding' is obviously included within the text, but based on primal and ritual which steer KC (especially Mk III and beyond) towards Bartok and Stravinsky (i.e. 20th century European classical composers) than just merely a band dealing in the post-psychedelic/classical-quotation experience. I'm unsure whether this has much to do with the new methods included in many of the new popular music analyses which are currently available. These are interesting, but I may be justified (by the skin of my teeth) in being guided by my own, 'third way' of working.

1 04/01/2001

Went to see my dad last evening. It was a rather distressing visit. He desperately wants to leave hospital, and tried to leave with us when we left. He had to be turned around by two of the nurses and became a little aggressive. I tried telling him that mum needs to be given time to rest, but he isn't taking in things people are telling him. Goodness only knows what the future holds.

Today is a good, sunny day here in the north of England. Sitting here listening to Tavener's new CD 'Total Eclipse'. Dramatic opening, with high strings, holding pitches from a shrieking high saxophone. It could be Ian McDonald or Mel Collins, but it isn't! It's John Harle who I once saw perform Birtwistle's 'Panic' (the piece which cause the BBC switchboards to be overrun with protests a number of years ago). Back to the Tavener: this piece is 'about' Saul's Damascus road experience, and sounds like J.T. has been listening to jazz and Handel oratorios. The latter influence comes over in the choral writing which is to do with descending chromatic lines. There is a section in Handel's 'Israel in Egypt' (the plague of flies, I think) which is vaguely reminiscent of this. I feel Tavener's style is gradually changing from the very stiff Russian Orthodox music...well, it could be but now we're into a section which also takes that on board! Hang on! There's a bit of Elgar in there, too! And a bit of William Harris! The thing I do like about T's music is that it gives a listener opportunity to digest the musical fabric. One doesn't feel threatened by information overload. There are loads of people in the profession who don't get on at all with John Tavener's music, but I'm not one of them, although I do understand what they may be getting at. There is no disputing that his spiritual vision spills-over into his music. There is a strong narrative element in it all, with a strictly controlled invocation of the sacred. Jacob played a new piece by T. for me a few weeks ago which was also impressive.

More thoughts on semiotics as applied to music. This is a tough one, especially if I include paradigmatic analysis. I may be in danger of losing people in clumsy jargon. I'd be interested to hear from people for their thoughts on what they'd like to see in musical analyses on KC's music. What I have, so far, seems to be neither to complex nor too simplistic: a kind of 'third way' analysis.