David McSherry

The Best Laid Plans…

This blog hasn’t really turned out as planned. I intended to post an update after each weekly trip to Leeds but there is just too much material to select from and with the present workload for my job, finding the time to write anything meaningful has proved impossible.

The sessions in Leeds have been incredibly stimulating and enjoyable. The three modules of the first trimester (Industry Studies, Critical Evaluation and Composition Analysis) have introduced me to huge areas of philosophy, ideologies, cultural and critical theory, and, of course, music that I’ve never come across before. I’ve loved it.

My task over the Christmas break is to write an essay for each of these modules (and present a conference style paper in January) followed by a 20 minute music composition for hand-in in May. Hopefully, I’ll be uploading work in progress and thoughts about the composition process as I go along.

I’ve been to the library, Amazon and raided the university’s e-resources ready to fill my brain with a Christmas book gorge. Have a happy Christmas, see you in 2010.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Everyone keeps telling me it will fly by but from here, January 2012 seems like a hell of a long way off. I enrolled on the MA in Music Production (composition pathway) at Leeds College of Music today and January 2012 is when (hopefully) I’ll graduate. The reading list and the workload also seem a little daunting and the drive from Lincoln is, well, you can imagine.

Reading for next week is Analytical Methods of Electroacoustic Music by Mary Simoni, A Guide to Musical Analysis by Nicholas Cook and Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek’s The Future of Music (good job I’ve already read that one) along with a whole load more.

So am I glad I’ve decided to load myself up with even more stuff to do? Of course I am! After years of writing and producing music, it’s a chance for me to dig deep into critical environments, social context, analysis and theory. To write some more music and reassess some of the music I’ve made in the past, maybe even finding more reasons as to why it sounds the way it does…. as Tony Wilson would have said: “Praxis makes perfect”.