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March 26th, 2006

10:20 pm - AAAAARRRRRHHHHH ME HEARTIES! Things appear to be running quite well for me at the moment. My coursework is on track to be basically all finished by the end of Easter. I have several offers from places I'd like to go, with the lowest one basically being CCDE. My highest offer is also attainable being ABB. I have also managed to get a piece of mine played by the youth orchestra that I go to, with a reasonable reception I think. Impressively, the people next to me were more nervous about playing it than I was, as they didn't want to muck up with the composer sitting playing right next to them :D Hope to see you all in a cheerful mood tomorrow. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Schubert-Symphony no.2

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November 27th, 2005

10:15 pm Well, things are getting there. My bass playing has improved drastically recently, although spent too much time with the french bow, so my german style playing has slipped. I've managed to scrape some time to compose in today, and work has gone surprisingly quickly, helped by me reducing orchestration to two staves until I have the time to set aside to do it properly. Concert for my orchestra on Friday, which should be fantastic fun. I can't really think of anything I'd rather do with my time then play with that orchestra. Just got to wait for holidays now so I have some time to do what I want, instead of school work. Got to sort out UCAS too now. Seen enough places that I like now. Current Mood: creative Current Music: Davis-Sonata for Double bass 1st movement

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October 28th, 2005

08:08 pm Been having a fantastic half term week. Last Friday night I was phoned up by Bob Pepper, the conductor of the English Schools Orchestra, who asked me to play with them this week. The course has been brilliant, the main highlight being the whole of Brahm's Symphony no.1 . The concert is tomorrow at St. John's Smith Square, which is apparently a small venue with many pillars to make sure you don't get stuck behind. My bass playing has moved on so much during this course, mainly thanks to our sectional tutor, Alison Yates, who did a great job. Had a really good Wednesday night too. Wnet with Hannah to see a concert at the Barbican. LSO played a really good concert. The program was Rossini Duetto for double bass and 'cello, Paganini violin concerto no.1 and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. I hadn't heard any of the pieces before the night, but all were good. Oh and Hannah, Alison said the duetto isn't actually too difficult, well, the bass part isn't atleast. My confidence in your playing is much than of my own though. Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Tchaikovsky-Souvenir de Florence

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September 6th, 2005

07:47 pm been very very busy. Done a lot of playing double bass and been very productive in composition. I've almost finished a Piano concerto movement and I've started a new string quartet, a set of piano nocturnes and various sketches for things. Reworking on some of my older pieces is getting there quite well too. Met an awful lot of new people. Who knows what they think of me but of the people I've spent any time with I can say I think quite highly of them. This is all very short, as is my time nowadays. Current Mood: rushed Current Music: Beethoven Symphony in C minor (not the 5th, from sketches)

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May 14th, 2005

08:36 pm I've finally done it. There has been a piece of music that I've heard so many times, but never found out the name of it, and today I know. It's got to be the most beautiful, heart-wrenching thing I've ever heard. Samuel Barber's Adagio for strings Op.11/Angus dei. A chilling piece. Things have been going quite well recently. All coursework is now out of the way, and all to adequate standard I think. I am now a 2nd Dan Black Belt and I have trained under Sensei Kanazawa on a one day course, who is the chief instructor of the SKI and so basically the no.1 in the world. I have managed to scrape back some time for composing again. I now have a piano sonata, an overture and a piano trio on the go as well as everything else that I've started. I'll get round to finishing it all some day. Now I'm going to sit back and relax for the rest of the night. I've been searching through universities and music colleges for prospectus', played a lot of drums and guitar and been composing. I feel in the mood to unwind and again listen through the whole of Beethoven's 9th symphony. It will be the third time in 24 hours. It is a bit of a spoiler though because of how large and spectacular it is, it means that when it finishes I think "what now? what can I possibly listen to now which can be bigger than that?" Current Mood: melancholy Current Music: Samuel Barber-Adagio for strings Op.11

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April 9th, 2005

06:50 pm Hertfordshire Schools Symphony Orchestra Strings course went well. Thoroughly enjoyable and met another few nice people. Also exposure to a couple of different styles of music that I don't tend to focus on so much. Repertoire was:-Corelli-Concerto Grosso no.5 in Bb major -Avro Part-Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten -Tippett-Little music for strings -Schubert-Mass in C major An interesting and challenging mix. The double bass I used was nice but fustrating, having 3 flatwound strings and one ridged string, and being an F neck bass instead of the standard E neck bass. Current works that are getting atleast a cursory glance: -Cello concerto no.1 in D minor -Serenade for String orchestra -Double Bass sonata in A minor -Waltz for Cello and Piano My Grandad's funeral has now been and gone so a return to normal will hopefully soon be coming my way. Current Mood: gloomy Current Music: Shostakovich-Festive Overture Op.96

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February 6th, 2005

09:47 pm Martin has told me he is recommending me for a county orchestra. oh dear oh dear oh dear, now I have to get better at passing myself off as okay. I couldn't resist starting some more composition, so I now have a completed piano ritornello, which will probably go as a set of a few. Currently working on: -pair of string quartets, 1 in C minor and 2 in C major -Sonata for Double Bass in A minor -Ritornello's for Piano -Serenade for Flute, Viola, Violincello and Harpsicord in D minor Current Mood: cheerful Current Music: Shostakovich Piano concerto no.2 in F major Op.2

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January 24th, 2005

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January 16th, 2005

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January 4th, 2005

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January 3rd, 2005

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December 12th, 2004

02:48 pm Everything I post will be brief as my memory is poor :) Watford Youth Orchestra concert went well. Can't wait until I get my recording of the concert and can listen back to it. The school concert went well too, even if we did play Dvorak Slavonic dance no.8 a little slowly. I'm currently managing to eat back my time for composing off of school activities. Current projects are: -a folk music String quartet, starting with a movement that I am doing for my music tech coursework. It is going well at the moment. It's in sonata form and has a completed exposition and the development is coming along. It totals at about a minute and a half out of the three needed, but ideas for it are nowhere near exhausted. -String quartet in D minor-this has come about due to music coursework. It was originally going to be a movement to a symphony, but due to the way A levels are marked it was impractical. This now means that the second symphony will be waiting a long time before it is done. I've currently only got a second movement underway, as I am finishing school compositional work before I continue with my own work. Over Christmas I will be working on these two pieces, plus a double bass sonata and reworking plans for my first string quartet I started. Current Mood: creative Current Music: Davis-Country Gardens string quartet(well, what I've done)

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December 11th, 2004

11:49 pm will do a full update at some point, but here's a pic for Barry.

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October 31st, 2004

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October 8th, 2004

09:57 pm Well, I have just had a bath. Unfortunately for me my cd player decided not to work, thus giving me time to think about random things, which is always a mistake. Topics covered today were mostly religion based. What is put here is vastly cut down, mostly due to my ability to recall is somewhat of a shambles at the best of times. -Is logic any more accurate a way to live life than faith? Faith is of course without logic, so therefore logic is an irrelevant method of trying to prove gods in religion exist or don't. Logic is based on observation. In order to observe something we have to assume our observation to be accurate (it is certainly possible for our senses to be giving false information, such as a ringing in our ears or believing we have heard something when we haven't. Also under this comes the ability to see virtual images), and as Matt Gordon insists to keep pointing out, assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. Assumption and faith are closely related as they both require no factual information to form. It can be said then that both religion and logic are based on assumption and so neither are based purely on fact, but by belief. -Is God a living being and what consequences are there (using the scientific approach)? For instance if living it would have to reproduce. If not then how does it think, and therefore everything not just be completely random. -God is the only being that could be completely original. Every other living creature would have some level of mimickery. That will be enough I think, I haven't the desire to go further at the moment. feel free to say your opinions and pick holes. Just remember if picking holes that this is not a comprehensive account of everything I have thought, and a distinctly small amount of proof-reading has gone into this. Current Mood: contemplative Current Music: Tchaikovsky-Marche Slave

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September 17th, 2004

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September 12th, 2004

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September 11th, 2004

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September 6th, 2004

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