At Home with the Craft

Hello, my name is Edward! I'm a student at the Royal Academy of Music, London. This page is sort of a mix between an artistic blog and an introspective journal, and is often just good old-fashioned writing my stream-of-consciousness. If you would like to subscribe, contact me through my email address, at edwardtait06@outlook.com.

Additionally, feel free to get in touch about anything, as I am genuinely open for conversation about anything, particularly all things artistic, spiritual, entrepreneurial, and to some extent, intellectual.

~ 2nd February 2026 ~

I have a theory on technology. I recently watched a video of kids from the 50s and 60s, who were asked what they thought the future of the world would look like, and, you guessed it, they imagined robots, automation, machines, and so on, taking over everything, and remarkably quickly as well. I’m pretty sure they said within about 30 or 40 years. Things obviously didn’t turn out to be anywhere near as extreme as that, but then I got thinking about something of a similar topic. Strides in technology, from 2000 until now, have drastically bumped their way up, around the pace at which those kids from the past imagined it would, yet since it previously hasn’t been that quick, our expectation has gone right down. This can be visualised a simple double-curve, with our rate of expectation starting very high, and levelling off over time, and the rate of technological advance starting steady, and ramping its way up until today. The obvious question then is, where is the crossover point? I reckon it’s already happened. I think we are already well beyond the speculative stage, and we are already beginning to play second fiddle to technology itself. We have had our expectations lowered way too much, to the point where we’ve societally allowed the rate of technology to outsmart ourselves. I find that a little scary. Is anyone with me on this?

~ 31st January 2026 ~

Many composers say that you should be able to justify every single note in a piece of music. I don’t agree with this, as I think it opens up the doors to so much waffle, in attempt to justify everything. It’s almost impossible to. Once you get to a certain point in your musical instinct, you have to trust it, and that’s definitely better than people desperately trying to find a “reason” behind everything they’ve done, when there often isn’t a reason. It’s done by vibe and artistic progression, and you can’t put that into words, in the same way that you can’t explain, in words, the greatness of an individual composer or work of music.

~ 26th December 2025 ~

In answer to a question that I get asked a lot, the music I write for piano, although I’ve written no pastiche music throughout most of 2025, is naturally extremely influenced in various ways by the repertoire that I play. That is not a rare thing at all, and in fact I think it would be quite difficult to avoid doing this completely. Not only that, I think it would actually be quite arrogant to try and do so. If you have a vast knowledge of a certain range of repertoire for your instrument, by some of the greatest composers of the past, and then completely go against it in every way, you are implying that, for want of a better phrase, you know better than them. This is really not something that will make a great musician or composer of any kind.

~ 13th December 2025 ~

It’s very easy to criticise, when you don’t know what goes on in other people’s lives. “Why doesn’t he work as hard as me?” you’ll say, or “Why don’t they learn repertoire that’s as difficult as me?” and therefore… “How is he even studying here?” Fix your own life, not others.

~ 9th December 2025 ~

Answer me this... Why are so many people still using Zoom and Portal and doing video calls? COVID is over, so why is it still a thing? I think it's because people have realised that it's actually a surprisingly attractive way of living and working. I remember a lot of people used to view the lockdown as a "gift", in terms of giving us time to achieve big things, individually and within ourselves, but I think it's done even better than that... I think it's given us the ability to help us reset as a society, and to rethink how we do things. Perhaps, just perhaps, we should be doing more remotely, or travelling slightly less, when there is quite a clear and beneficial alternative.

~ 26th November 2025 ~

Being sick for several days has made me realize how fragile my schedule is. Just three non-functional days have thrown off many of my plans, and forced me to rearrange it into some even busier days going onwards. Perhaps there is something to be learned there, that I have way too much on, and that I need to prioritze. Musicians often can’t afford to prioritze, which isn’t always a bad way to live your life, but I think I took it a little too far. I’ve ended up, in say the last month, spending more hours working at the piano than at my composing, simply because of the number of commitments I’ve taken on, which all felt completely “natural” to building up my early career. It is important, however, to step back and say “Why is that?” Or more crucially, “Why do I think that?” I am making up for lost time in the development of my piano technique, but perhaps a bit too quickly. It’s not just piano, of course, and while composition itself is the thing I find the most natural, the course definitely isn’t. It’s supposed to test you, which makes sense, but I definitely can’t afford to “test” myself in the amount of different disciplines which I set myself.

~ 19th November 2025 ~

I can't compose consistently and well enough to become a composition professor, or any sort of academic composer. As for entrepreneur, dream on. I haven't won a proper prize for ages, and I can scarcely accompany or teach, in other words, do both of my jobs. I feel like I invested myself too quickly and thoroughly into the dream of a fellowship, and it's come crashing down on me equally as quickly.

I said to myself that, starting from September, I would let nature and my scenarios guide where I wanted to go in life, but now, following this metaphor as closely as I can, nature's routes have all dried up.

~ 16th November 2025 ~

I think the reason I want to be a professional composer is that it is a perfect intersection of my various different conflicting personalities. These very often overlap and cause severe divides within me, as I am drawn to the different approaches that I can view the world from, at different times and in different contexts. However, the image of my future as a composer which I aspire towards, and have for which I have many plans, somehow manages to bind all of these together, not perfectly, but far better than any other vocation I have explored pursuing, and trust me, there are many examples of them too.

~ 13th November 2025 ~

This blog or journal, or whatever I end up thinking of it as, does not deceive my thought process in the slighest, and will not cater for those who don't want to hear it, as in the following. Don't let patronizing people destroy your confidence. Having finally got mine back, I'm never going to let anyone take it away from me again. Let that be a lesson to everyone. Patronizing will eventually end up receiving what they give, and worse, so make sure you are on the right side of the motivational pivot. The pivot deceives how you feel in the moment, and if you are being made to feel worse, this will help you grow, and if you are on the other side, patronizing people, you will end up on this side, before it is out of your control.

~ 7th November 2025 ~

A lot of musicians have a slightly stuck-up view of popular works of classical music. One of the most beautiful piano pieces ever written, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, is somehow disregarded by so many advanced pianists, because it is too “overplayed”, whatever that means. While I understand that there is plenty of great music which is not played enough, we must ask ourselves, why are they overplayed? For some, a tiny few in actual fact, they are popularised through film or TV or celebrity usage. This is, however, only a tiny number of them. Even when they are used for this purpose, in order to work in this purpose, and live off the attention they gain, they must be beautiful and great pieces in the first place. Mozart’s Turkish Rondo is an interesting one. While it is nothing in the level of beauty as in Clair de Lune, it is witty and deeply well-constructed, as is most of Mozart extraordinary output. They should be absolutely no reason to sneer on them, as many professional musicians sadly do. As with most of these diary entries or blog posts, or whatever they like to be called, they are mostly directed inwardly, to myself. However, if anyone is reading, please don’t subscribe to this snobbery that has deeply soured the world of music. It is no doubt an equal and opposite reaction to the upshot of “popular culture” within the last century or so. Please try and understand a middle ground. To preserve an artistic integrity, that really is so important. That’s my take.

~ 31th October 2025 ~

Talent and skill is a strange and bewildeirng thing, when you think about it. What could be just a doddle for you could be doing a huge favour for someone else, and vice versa. Everyone leaning into their greatest skills and perfecting them over time is how the world becomes a better place. This is not just true in music, although I recognise it most through the world of music, since I know it the best. When a great accompanist lends a tiny bit of his effort to another performer, they find it extremely helpful, and won’t even recnogise or realise many of the mistakes which the accompanist will. They are simply grateful for this exchange of skill. Where I recognise this the most is a little bit of a bittersweet situation. In performances of my compositions, since I am still quite young and haven’t had many professional or high-skilled performances, and therefore when even a fairly good one happens, I am over the moon, as that is, for me, presenting myself and my own work as a success.

~ 28th October 2025 ~

Don’t be ashamed of “the cram”. Not even just with creative people, but almost everyone in the world, with any sort of task-based job, will naturally leave more of the task towards the end of their time limit. This is partly down to motivation, and you familiarising yourself more with the task as you goes on, and also, you simply become more knowledgable as time goes on. It is tempting to force yourself to “get it out of the way as quickly as possible”, which can sometimes by helpful, but not always. This is especially true in the case of art, for the reason of inspiration and wisdom, as previously mentioned. It is absolutely not something to avoid doing, just because it’s “slightly more risky”. The whole world’s fucking risky, so embrace it!

Carrying on from what I said earlier, there is a perfectly appropriate term for this behaviour, which is procrastination. This is often overlooked, as the word tends to have negative associations. I have had experiences before, which, making very little sense at all, I actually feel more of a passionate and inspired urge to be creative or finish a task, as a direct result of the sudden "realisation", although obviously it's not quite a realisation, that time is running out. It turns my focus from when to do something into what I'm going to do, meaning right there and then, at that very moment. What's especially weird about this urge is that I don't feel that stressed. If it's an overnight urge, for example, as in, I am completing the project the night before, as I often do, the adrenaline is actually what keeps me sane, contrary to popular belief. It is the most surprisingly effective coping meccanism out there. I am able to stay up all night as a result of me finding a sense of purpose by finally getting on with this task which I've previously put off for so long.

~ 8th October 2025 ~

Artists have an awareness of the nature of the world more directly than anybody else in it. We all tend to somewhat awkwardly claim that we get too absorbed in what we do, but that’s because our work is based around how we see the world. Art is also the only lasting thing that tells the future what the past was really like. I think of this when I listen to the late Brahms Intermezzi. They were some of his last pieces, written for the solo piano, a performance metaphor for him retreating his artistic work back to within himself, and when you hear them, you can just feel a huge fountain of age and wisdom and stoicism weighing down upon you, through his music. No matter what age you are, or when in time, you understand his mind through what he wrote. They really are incredible works of art.

~ 7th October 2025 ~

I’m really proud of myself. I rewatched the series adaptation of Brideshead Revisited today, my favourite show from about 3 years ago, and it made me realize how much I’ve changed since then. Back then I was unproductive and in a bittersweet state of romanticism and ambition, to be a great composer and possibly writer as well. Now, considering how far I’ve come, as much as I miss my Purcell years, I feel very satisfied with where I’ve got now. It’s not been smooth-sailing, but on reflection, it’s been a lot better than it was a few years back. All I want to do is continue in that path.

~ 3rd October 2025 ~

I recently watched some videos of 50s and 60s American presidential debates, where one of the contestants said that he believed that both parties wanted the best for their country, but that they simply had different ways of getting there. This made me think of something, in a way, completely unrelated… A popular philosophy among music teachers, that I’ve noticed, is actually this, wanting the student to achieve their own vision, but through the methods in which that teacher believes to be the most effective. One thing that both the political and teaching analogies have in common, is that they are increasingly becoming more “involved”, as in, there is less focus on the successful product in its own right, and more on the influences upon this product, and how this arguably gives it more credit, in the case of either a politician or a teacher, or in fact any other sort of “informative” job. This is a very open-ended theory, with really no answer from me, but perhaps some food for thought.

Whilst programming a recital, and trying to categorize all my pieces into a genre, in order to come up with some sort of theme, this happened… Ravel is impressionistic, my piece is somewhat impressionistic, Beethoven is, although not strictly, definitely romantic, Brahms is romantic, Liszt is romantic, and finally… Scriabin? Where is he? I initially said romantic, which soon seemed stupid to me, as I realized how out of control and uselessly large the “romantic” era had now become. I changed him to “post-romantic”, which I thought worked, until I realized, why isn’t Ravel there? His music feels equally as “following on from” romanticism to me! Where does the line stop? Here’s an interesting way of looking at it… If the world of romanticism is so huge, which is not something I’m going to try and contest, then why is impressionism, which shares so much in common, and fits within the wider boundary of romanticism, not generally considered part of it, in the same way that, for example, serialism does? Perhaps, is it because impressionism is more distinctive? If so, how and why? It is easy to pose this as a question, but if you think about such an obvious statement for long enough, you can often forget, such as in this case, not to question it. So, here’s an open question, mostly to myself… Why is this?

~ 21st September 2025 ~

A lot of people throw around luck as a sloppy term, likely to try and discredit people from their hard work. Would you agree? In the world of music, that is absolutely the case, and it’s quite a problem, in a number of ways. For a start, almost every opportunity in the world of music comes from who you know and what power you have, with the only big exception being competitions. As for performances, it’s almost all about who you know. But talking about it in terms of luck makes you forget I simple fact… Everyone knows different people, and all composers will get different opportunities, but the majority of them still carry a heavy amount of work of the part of the composer, even if they are not directly involved in the performing of it.

~ 16th September 2025 ~

If you feel like you are being overwhelmed by the number of things you are behind on, simply take them one at a time. Although this might seem way too obvious, it is surprisingly effective. However, there is a troubling level of irony to it. Feeling more at ease with everything going on makes you more self-confident, yet, simultaneously, you need self-confidence in the first place, in order to build up the discipline required to get back on top of things. In order to get past this cycle, taking the leap of faith in the “over-achieving” part of you is sometimes necessary, although it’s certainly not a good idea to overwork it.

There's a lot of talk about finances when you're a student, which is completely understandable. Earlier today, however, I was hit by some sort of ephiphany... There are plenty of people who say that it's necessary to save as much money as possible as a student, even pushing to say that the "university experience" should fall behind in priority to any part-time work, as a way of sustaining their studies. Some people do take it way too far, and I'd like to ask them... Where does it stop? If you want to really put on your ultra-financial brain, and not consider anything else, then why study in the first place? University is the only concrete time in your life where you have the flexibility to figure out what sort of person you are, and not a time to waste memories and good times, just because they're not the absolute best path towards having a more stable and reliable future.

~ 12th September 2025 ~

I really need to keep quiet about plans and ambitions, as has been suggested to me, as a "rich man's mindset", in order to achieve big things. My some people keep luring me in with competitions, saying "You will definitely win that", before I don't, and he does. To counteract this cheek, and avoid disappointment, like at NCEM, and other similar events, I need to keep quiet to everyone about these kind of plans. I don't want to jinx it. Knowledge is power, and silence is control. I reckon the plan is to get my hopes up, before they sink again, and if that happens enough times, I'll give up composing, and reduce the competition. That's not going to happen, because I'm not going to fall for it anymore.

What I've realized, listening back to loads of my sketches of pieces from several years ago, is how many varied composers I've influenced by, even within the same pieces. When I'm told that a piece of mine is in the "style" of another composer, I no longer agree. In almost all scenarios, every phrase or melody or piece of orchestration is likely to be somewhat inspired by a different composer, as this is how most composers ultimately work. It is almost impossible to draw a line between doing this significantly and not at all. There is a reason that we don't say Debussy's music is "in the style" of Faure's music, despite them being somewhat related stylistically, as all music is so much more nuanced than that. The only difference is that some music is inspired far more directly than others, and that's about it.

Most people have significant other lives beyond their careers, except for politicians, or at least acording to the media. A lot of people are shocked to even see politicians in their daily lives, separate from their careers, and try to play the hypocrisy card for almost everything they do. Why is this? There might well be a reason, beyond the surface… For a start, the work of politicians affects people far more than any other job, except for possibly law, which overlaps with politics a lot anyway. The one obvious contender, which isn’t talked about anywhere near as much, is big tech. Almost everyone in the West uses one of the social media giants, if not additionally PayPal or Amazon. Do the tech giants get as much attention? Certainly a lot, but it is also far more of a minimalist job, in theory, as we should, as a society, be trying to strive towards less censorship, rather than more. Politicians, on the other hand, are designed to decide what the rules are, so although quite similar in scale, do pretty much the opposing job.

~ 11th September 2025 ~

Although the influence of composers's music can be traced back to both genres as well as individual composers, I think it is much more effective, and less patronising, to characterise by genre. The reason for this is simple... genres are artistic terms, and as broad as you make them out to be, for example, impressionism, which is used to describe my own music as much as it is used to describe Messiaen's, and rightly so. Being described as "like Ravel" or "like Prokofiev" is just a cheap and easy way of calling you a second-rate version of that composer, which doesn't help anything or anyone.

~ 7th September 2025 ~

I love sitting in churches. I walked out of my flat for a quick walk, and ended up exploring a church, as a potential concert venue. I ended up having the first moment of silence that I've experienced in a while. It is always there for you... The stable support of our Lord... I still question whether or not he exists, but I am really hopeful that some entity like him does. He is the sort of guidance I could use in my brain at the moment.

~ 6th September 2025 ~

I'm not at all going to enjoy living on my own, for a while, at least. What I'm looking forward to is the eventually change... It's something that I need to do at some point, and I'd be much more comfortable doing earlier than later. If I can learn to partially cater for myself, then I'll feel like I'm taking less, and doing more, for society. Hopefully, by the time I move city or instituition completely, I'll be fully there.

I'm a bit concerned about flat sharing, in another way, however. I just hope the pressure of the responsibility in living together with a friend won't cause us to turn on each other.

My opinion has changed, over the past year, on finances. I had a personal crisis about 10 months ago, during my early months at the Academy, where I realized that in order to feel self-sufficient and "right", that I needed to start making money, to feel like I've earned my place in the world. I tried... I got a few students, and kept slowly building my website portfolio, and more. I also nearly got my book published, but evidently didn't, for reasons previously discussed. I'm moving out now, and one thing occurred to me in the process... In this financially unstable time in history, in Britain at least, it's unlikely that I'll be fully "self-sufficient" for quite a while, whether from my parents, loans, or teaching jobs, which I don't massively enjoy. Since I don't have the pressure of becoming self-sufficient, I could try and feel more mature by using this time to learn how to cater for myself, and live healthily and comfortably, and manage practicalities, in time for when I start making a living for myself.

I used to be scared of what my life would be like after living at Purcell, without that comforting backdrop which I'd known for years. One of the reasons the breakup affected me so much was that it was one of the few things from Purcell which still held true. It took a friend to unlock something in me, however... Life won't always be in one place, and even once I settle into the Academy, there's no guarantee I'll be there. What matters is the present, and finding my crowd, my family, my friends, so that I can enjoy life, like I should be doing. Using your time, at least some time, to make new memories, is just as important as those you have of the past. That way, no matter where I travel, study, visit or live, I'll enjoy life!

~ 5th September 2025 ~

It is said a lot, in this decade, that people who provide help to others are often most in need of help themselves. Why is this? Perhaps it’s because helping others can give us a sense of purpose, which we need to improve our own self-confidence. Or, putting my cynical hat on, is helping how we hope to be appreciated ourselves, so that we can get something back? Whichever is true, I think we, talking personally as well, need to spend more time figuring out why this is. Perhaps it’s different for everything, in which case, this is even more important.

I hate being sick, because it means I'm unproductive. Even though my cold is not fully over, it's got significantly better, so I'm going to go into Academy today! This will give me a better environment, in which to be more productive. I'm attempting a composition project, where I'm getting every single composer, in any form, at or from the Academy, to write a bar of an extended piece of solo piano music. It's not going badly, but it just takes a few slowcoaches to make the whole project's progress a bit of a drag. I think some people still haven't finished their holiday yet!

Making a list of postgraduate options is harder than expected. Oxford? Is that realistic? Well maybe, or maybe not... At the moment, it's simply the dream. If I could get there, it would prove so many people wrong in their judgement of me, especially those from my primary school. Although, perhaps dreams are best not to latch onto in the first place, as they can disappoint you, more than a lot of things in life. But I'm starting to think that this is fine... They are, after all, in dream form, the only things that can't be taken away from you. They are in your mind, and nobody else's, at least to the extent of their passion.

~ 3rd September 2025 ~

A lot of people are hesitant when discussing and listening to contemporary music, on account of it not sounding “nice”. Yet, in the context of supporting music, it is seen as extremely effective, like in film and TV soundtracks. What changes between the two? It could simply be that we are forced to focus on one more heavily than the other, since soundtracks are, as the name suggests, simply supporting another form of media. You could also interpret it relatively, as in, concert composers follow in the tradition of far more “conservative” music, while soundtracks are relatively new, and still, ultimately, a fairly young industry. I’m not completely sure…

Let me tell you my take on composing competitions… Certain people often regard them as a waste of time, as it can often require composing a new piece from scratch, often for it never to be performed again, if it is successful at all. On the contrary, however, I don’t think this is anything negative… That is a new piece you’ve written, which you must be proud of anyway, if you’re going to submit for a competition. As long as you’re always writing stuff that you are proud of, then producing more and more, and quicker as well, can’t be a bad thing!

~ 2nd September 2025 ~

I'm glad I made more effort at making friends with the new guys than I did yesterday! I even secured a good friend who I've been trying to keep on my side, as we could both gain a lot from doing so. Still a shame that none of my close circle have come in yet, but at least now I know I can live aside from them! As bad as this sounds, it's likely all for the best.

I'm wondering whether the monarchy is viewed positively... genuinely... I know so many people who are divided on which side is the "popular" and "inevitable" side, which is ultimately what politics is about. But as it's been said before, the monarchy doesn't just present a political issue... The monarch symbolizes and says just as much about culture, as proved by the never-ending commentary on their involvement in colonialism, slavery, crusades, and more.

~ 1st September 2025 ~

First day of second year! I hope this time round, I successfully make the most of the freshers experience, despite not being a fresher. What is constantly on my mind, however, is the last time that I said this... At the end of Year 12, I had come out of a very bad place, and promised myself that I'd make Year 13 the best one possible. I was right, and even went pretty much straight back into a relationship at the start of that year. Are you seeing any parallels here? What if that happens? I wouldn't be against it, but I hope these cycles of relationships don't play out the same way as they have proven to do.

I'm still looking forward to this year though! Living self-sufficiently is tricky, and takes getting used to, but I've got to "eat the frog" at some point. I'll really try and make an effort to eat as many frogs as possible, as that's the only way my skyscraping ambitions will be reached. I pray that it will!

~ 30th August 2025 ~

I think a lot of people, when talking about politics, slip up on the first hurdle, by only looking at evidence which backs up what they believe in. I also, however, don’t think it’s necessarily our fault… While it’s possible to be extremely self-controlling, technology and social media feeds into this damaging divide, often only showing us stuff which fits with our view of the world. The same happens with social circles… If you make friends with loads of people who all share the same views on everything, you will fall into the trap of thinking that the collective opinion is always right, and that you must be proven wrong, and otherwise, you cannot ever be wrong. Even if you are mostly, but not entirely in agreement with your friends, peer pressure makes it dangerously easy to iron out your “inconsistencies”, as they’ll be seen to others, which prevent you from sharing exactly the same views as them. We all, myself included, need to watch out for that, and I’m certainly not accusing anyone… An instinctive movement towards a “group identity” is a very human thing, however damaging it is.

~ 29th August 2025 ~

One of the great internet coaches, who I look up to a lot, said something about public speaking, which I watched recently, which stayed with me… He said that the purpose of rehearsing is to sound less “rehearsed”. What he meant by that was more clear in context… People had explained to him that rehearsing speeches made it seem too much like they were following a script, in other words, too “prepared” and “unnatural”. But, as he pointed out in his speech, the more you rehearse and familiarize yourself with the “unnatural”, it will become more and more natural. “Rehearsed” is therefore a deeply confusing and double-edged word, as well as being one of the most stimulating psychological tricks in the world of performance, and naturally could also be applied to performing in a musical or theatrical context.

I don’t understand fate. How come the nicest and most optimistic people in the world can get taken before any of the rest of us? I understand that not all the suffering in the universe is down to God, and that we have our free will, but some things are beyond our power. At this age, I am still constantly asking and wondering to myself whether the universe does have a plan, or if it’s one that we can even visualize, or if it’s just conceptual. Either way, I can’t see the answer very clearly at the moment, and I’m lost. I have been for a while… I do hope there’s a way out of it…

~ 23rd August 2025 ~

Composers spend years trying to find their voice, but some will realize that it's a waste of time, for them. It's not a right of passage... It doesn't just happen because you push yourself to, otherwise it's not at all natural. It instead comes with experience and you coming to terms with your calling in the ongoing conversation, which all artists have a place in. It is, ultimately, not a problem if you don't understand your place yourself. As long as you keep doing what you are doing, and well, then your place will be established, even if you don't notice it. It's a sad contradiction, which is necessary to keep in mind.

~ 21st August 2025 ~

I've been on holiday for the past few days, in Cornwall, in the same rented house, in the same town as last year, again, with my family. One of the reasons I looked forward to it so much, above other holidays, was that I was looking forward to recreating how good last year's one was. In the end, it wasn't. It was great, but it definitely didn't feel the same. This is very natural, as I've come to realize, as so many things in my life have changed in a year. I think a lot of the things we say that we want in our futures, whether it is a second home, a great relationship, or a teaching job at familiar school, is really just a way of trying to return to the base in our memories that we hold so much nostalgia for. I've felt this nowhere more deeply for that my old school, Purcell. Perhaps, however, this is not the healthiest thing to do. Perhaps it's time to look ahead, embrace what and who is in front of us, now, and have high hopes for what is to come. Am I perhaps being too over-optimistic?

~ 18th August 2025 ~

There’s a strange inconsistency that underpins the relationship between all of the different artistic practices which I do. I love composing and arranging, but creatively struggle to arrange my own compositions. I also love writing, but would struggle to adapt my stories and poems to music. I think the is an essential need for collaboration between artists, as our entire existence is about building upon a wealth of what art has already been created.

~ 17th August 2025 ~

It is possible, as somebody I know suggested, that the moving wing of a butterfly can cause a tornado half way across the world. Everything is affected by things outside of their control. Don’t fret over them, as they always happen, to everyone. As long as we do our own best, we’ll be appreciated, once we are absent from our place in this earth.

At the Tate Gallery in St Ives, earlier today, I was reading about the works of Alfred Wallis, and I heard that he was greatly impacted by the effect of the modern world and Industrial Revolution taking over his Cornish home. What’s interesting to me is this… Most artists, composers included, many who I know well, are protected as the image of “forward-looking”, for their rejection of tradition and form, but as Wallis proves, what if they are actually expressing themselves for the opposite reason? My Head of Composition at the Academy is a perfect example of this, describing his music, in his own words, on his website as “An uncompromising reflection on the modern world.” They are describing how they feel about the effect of real-world progress and modernity. That’s what a true “artistic” reaction to society is, which is why it is super ironic that so many musicians and artists, in this day and age, end up “looking towards the future”, as this is what has traditionally been what sets of the heart of their pain that they are reacting to.

~ 14th August 2025 ~

A common observation about the piano, as an instrument, is that it is the easiest to begin, and the hardest to master. I completely agree. First things first, it is undoubtedly the easiest to begin, simply because it is everywhere. You can’t do music theory, composition, or any kind of harmonic analysis, without the piano being used as, rightly, the most convenient way to display the 12-note scale in order. As a result of this, being the most recognizable, to entry-level musicians, it is not a surprise that it has been the most popular to continue, including on to an advanced level. Other instruments have come close, notably the violin, and possibly, in recent years, the clarinet, but the piano, or at least variations of the keyboard, throughout history, have remained the “default” instrument, if you like. It’s not something I’m proud of, but that’s just that. Furthermore, it’s no surprise that, since it’s the most popular instrument, there have been more musicians throughout history trying to push the technical boundaries of the instrument further and further. Think Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Alkan, Rachmaninov, and you’ll realize that it has almost never slowed down for any long period of time. No other instrument even comes close to this, in terms of rapid and consistent innovation in the standards of technique. There are techniques which we consider completely normal in the music of Rachmaninov or Ravel, which, just 50 years prior, for Liszt, would’ve been shocking and new. That ultimately shows the rate of progress with the keyboard. It’s very easy for people to compare instruments, and their comparative level of technique required, which is overall quite a lazy way of looking at things. There are entry-level pianists, and there are professional virtuoso pianists, all using the same arrangement of keys and the same knowledge passed down over the generations. The breadth of the piano’s use across so many genres and schools of music has caused the universal breadth in the level of standard, which makes perfect sense. It is, as previously pointed out, the instrument that you begin your musical training on, and unsurprisingly, has a completely overblown opposite reaction.

~ 11th August 2025 ~

I watched an interview with Rubinstein, late on in his life, where he denied being the greatest pianist in the world, and claimed that there is no such thing as “the greatest”, or in fact any way of comparing musicians. If that is true, then why do musicians spend thousands of pounds and several years of their lives studying with the greatest musicians, through teaching? I think it is a little short-sighted to say that there is no such thing as an objectively better musician. A better musician, as well as an artist in general, absorbs knowledge from as many sources as possible, and the more you do of this, the more of a well-rounded musician you will be. This is how you become a great musician, and I think Rubinstein didn’t really think through what he meant. There is a group of the best, and he is in it, and it is important that people like him acknowledge it, otherwise it de-legitimizes the entire musical education industry. As much as I disagree with many of the institutions for artistic reasons, education is also important, and being exposed to new ways of playing, composing and studying music is important.

~ 8th August 2025 ~

I think it's remarkably difficult to distinguish between American and British influence over the world. This might seem obvious on first reading, although it's often overlooked with regard to the difference between the military and territorial scope of each.

~ 5th August 2025 ~

Let me say something… I love composing, and I also love playing the piano, but unlike most of my fellow pianist-composers, I wouldn’t really say that I enjoy playing my own music. Although both disciplines contribute to my overall musicianship, I don't enjoy them for the same reason. Composing is how I express myself, and piano I have started to love relatively recently, as it helps me come into a deeper connection with the great composers. This helps me understand their music better, and improve my own musicianship, as I mentioned. That being said, I will of course perform my own music, as it makes perfect sense, as they are probably my two greatest skills. It’s just, I simply won’t be able to find it very satisfying until it’s over, whereas with other great music which I play, once I’ve learned it well enough, I just enjoy performing, whether it be Ravel, Prokofiev, Liszt or Beethoven… any of them. My own music is the only exception to this feeling.

~ 4th August 2025 ~

Back in February, I was encouraged to begin composing what became my Peter Pan suite, by members of my orchestra, the Chorleywood Orchestra, who rightly understood that there are very few contemporary works which maintain a strong connection with the classic tales that we all grew up with. Peter Pan stood out as truly the best option for me to set, as there are an abundance of imaginative characters, settings and little subplots, all of which were great fun to set to music. Naturally, to fit these all into a single suite, while maintaining some level of musical continuity was a challenge, on top of stretching it out across 30 minutes of orchestral music. Many of the movements use different stylistic approaches, and portray widely different things. For example, the movement which introduces Captain Hook as a character is steadfast and grotesque, similar perhaps to one of Prokofiev’s sarcastic marches, and the following movement, depicting the Mermaid Lagoon, is deeply impressionistic, prioritising colour and timbre, as if painting a portrait of the scene, more similar to Ravel or Gliere. Although there are a handful of recognizable themes and motifs throughout the suite, they can often be quite vague and only loosely recognizable. That being the case, what binds the whole piece together? To me, the answer is clear, context! We all know the story deeply well, and can use the music as a way to follow through this well-loved tale. Bernstein once pointed out in an interview that the one thing that makes Beethoven’s music so great, on top of his melodies, harmonies and orchestration, was his prioritizing of form, and the way that it unfolds and progresses. One thing that music is particuarly special for is that it progresses. It develops over time, and we follow it through, which makes it such an effective medium for bringing stories to life! I am really looking forward to having my suite performed by Chorleywood next year, hopefully, if it goes ahead. If it does, I hope to see many familiar faces in the audience!

~ 3rd August 2025 ~

Classical music, in my view, is best summed up by the philosophy of "You can only break rules if you have rules." I mean this just as much in the context of a lot of contemporary music, as in the context of commercially-driven music. My dad, although not a professional anymore, told me something that very few others even allude to, which is that classical music is about rules. I've taken this as more of a benchmarking statement, in other words, pun intended, the rules are the rules, and not the exceptation. In regards to contemporary music, what people should remember, which I have possibly said before, is the metaphor of dissonance. Dissonance, being the theoretical opposite of the rules of classical music, is important to talk about, and, as the metaphor goes, dissonance is like a spice... when used too much, it looses its touch, but when timed and controlled well enough, it is what gives the music its very character.

~ 2nd August 2025 ~

I feel like the most mature people always hide it under a guise of immaturity, almost like a defence mechanism, as this helps them retain the power that comes with being more self-sufficient and in control of yourself.

~ 1st August 2025 ~

Having more friends is of inestimable benefit, as it allows you to see the world from different perspectives. You always learn from each other, and are constantly becoming better citizens for this reason. They often warn you about things which you yourself don’t realise, or can’t realise, which they do only to help you. Or sometimes, for the less “in touch” friends of yours, they’re just there to suddenly send you an out-of-the-blue message, which often comes when you need it the most.

~ 30th July 2025 ~

Analyzing and truely understanding contemporary art and literature and music is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and often requires a reliance upon instinct and personal experience. Nothing connects more deeply to human imperfection than art does, so a human approach must therefore be taken to understand it. This is no doubt recognised across the music world, with several great musicians considering there to be no objective greatest performer in the world. What I wonder, on a similar note, is whether this also applies to composing... There are composers who are almost universally considered to be great, a number which, upon rethinking, adds up and up, as we think of more and more composers who are "simply incredible". Does this say something else about how we interpret art, which is that we always look for the best of what an artist has to say? It has been proven to be true with music, but what about other art forms? When it comes to literature, I think readers tend to be more alertly critical in their reading, as there is a lot more at stake when using languages that everything else in the world is understood through, unlike music, which is far more of an abstract way of communication. What about fine art and painting? I don't know enough about that to comment, so perhaps that's my next point of research?

~ 27th July 2025 ~

I recently rewatched an interview, by the BBC I think, where a presenter was digging into an African leader for his statement on how, in his words, “Homosexuality is of no importance” in his country. This has been used as an important pinpoint of the “centrist” or “compromising” attitude towards the culture of wokeness, as people use the response that people should at least have the right to be gay, which does not necessarily mean a revolution of how we praise the various communities, and embrace identity politics and more. However, one thing that is often overlooked is this… The latter has evolved very subtly out of the simplistic idea of freedom, as if it is a natural progression. The abolition of custom is a slippery slope, the custom in this case being the standard of marriage between a man and a woman. Once people get used to a freedom, it’s very easy to forget about it, and push on further with what you have, as it’s become the “accepted position” within your society. This, I think, is the basic framework for how the consensus of cultural opinion changes over time. It’s a deeply contentious issue across all thinkers, in all disciplines, particularly in mine, as culture and art is a reflection of our place and meaning in the world.

~ 24th July 2025 ~

I've heard from many that the universe is all one. I'm starting to think that this applies to music. Every composer, every piece, every performance... they all shape many others. Similarly, for both, I get freaked out by their incredibly scary infinity. There is an almost limitless number of possibilities, and can go on forever. It's hard to comprehend this within such a short lifetime, and I have spoken to older people who think the same way as well. Perhaps we don't need to feel like we "know" everything, as we can feel comfortable around people we know and love. But with music? Where does this fit in? I used to think it was everything for me, the most personal and initimate thing I had, but I think the pressure of it as a profession might turn it against me. I'm deeply torn.

I recently tried started having fun again, briefly, after a very deep and depressing conversation. But this just made me look and act like more of a fool again. It's probably best I avoid doing that again.

~ 21st July 2025 ~

Here’s a perfect symbol of how stupid and ignorant many people in the world have become… I only recently discovered this… On instagram, when you try to report a video, it asks you why you want to, which is understandable. This, however, is completely turned on its head, when you realise that there is, no joke, an option for “I just don’t like it!” It’s incredible how intolerant some people can be towards what they perceive as intolerant, which is, I should re-emphasise, just as much of an act of intolerance that you, in this scenario, are trying to ban.

~ 19th July 2025 ~

I see a potential gap in the market! I’ve written a good handful of bassoon pieces now, including a duo, a solo, and I’m completely working on a sonata. There’s extremely little bassoon repertoire, so perhaps I should be leaning into this more, from a business perspective, so that I can have something that almost everyone goes to me specifically for.

~ 15th July 2025 ~

I've had a thought... I'm going to try and achieve everything I want to as a composer within the next year, and then once I have, and still don't have a girlfriend, I'll have achieved everything that I can, so I can proudly say I've done everything I can with my life, and then therefore end my life with a simple bullet, easily and painlessly.

~ 10th July 2025 ~

I am going to say what all composers are thinking, almost out of certainty… We can’t compose effectively and successfully unless we know what the product will be. As a way of ensuring our survival in the industry, we write different types of music to appeal to performers, professors, competitions, and finally, ourselves, and we will spend forever trying to determine which one we need at each individual moment. As a result, I think it’s no wonder why young composers struggle to find their “voice”, when we’re having to play this industry game alongside our creative process.

~ 9th July 2025 ~

Some people are obsessed so much with rights and politics, that they’ll overlook culture way too much. I feel like people need to start treating one just as importantly as the other.

~ 5th July 2025 ~

An entrepreneur, in my eyes, is simply somebody who does whatever is needed to improve the world, through whatever skills and talents they have. This is typically done through running their own projects and businesses, which I do. If I ever go into academia as a composer, I want to try and maintain a balance between my academic and entrepreneurial sides. This will be the biggest challenge in deciding on the career path I choose to take, should it change.

Here’s what my ex does which is really toxic… She pays me only just enough attention so that I can’t complain, but so that it feels like I’m shut out of her life. It’s a good tactic, and it’s clear she’s done this before, with others, but ultimately, who knows…

Here’s something I’ve learned… The best thing you can be is a mature man who doesn’t show it. Maturing is quite ironic, in that sense, and it takes alot of work to really understand what it means and where it shows. You typically don’t notice somebody “maturing” in their day-to-day life, which is why it is very easy to form an opinion of somebody based on the impression that they initially give you.

~ 28th June 2025 ~

When people refer to different types of artists, more often than not, they'll say "Painters, actors, musicians, authors..." My question is, why is a "musician" the general word for someone who does any music, used alongside the more specific roles in other art forms, like directors, actors and authors? My guess would be something to do with the perception of status. Authors and painters and directors are seen as the "top profession" in their industry, who everybody looks up to. Musicians, as part of their trade, are perhaps more often required to use all of these skills, as music, by definition, needs a range of different live elements in order to come together. I'm not sure, could that be why?

~ 27th June 2025 ~

Music is such a huge pool of work, and sometimes I feel lonely within it. I get deeply sad a lot of the time, when my mind is trapped inside the bleakness and lonely sound of Ravel or Debussy, or of Brahms or Tchaikovsky. There are particular moments in these composers, and some others, which just make the world stand still, and engulf you to the point where you are lost in a world of sound, and can’t fully comprehend why you feel that way. I have been deeply troubled by this for as long as I have seen myself as a mature musician, for at least a couple of years. I’ve turned to playing a lot more myself to try and contain this. I’m learning Ravel’s Sonatine and Jeux d’eau, which are full of these moments, but I am constantly reminded of being lost in the world of music. This is its troubling power… it is unattainable, by nature of its separation from the surface level of humanity, yet we are all pushing to get to it, in competition over our careers.

~ 26th June 2025 ~

A lot of people tend to mix up luck with hard work, therefore removing credit from many of the achievements, particularly personal achievements, which they have succeeded at. I've learnt one hugely important thing from this, which is to not give a fuck what people think of you, as they will never understand what goes on in either your mind or your scenarios.

People warned me of running straight into rebound after my breakup, saying that I’d try too much to hold onto memories of her through another person. But this isn’t how I see it, as I look for the same things in almost every relationship, all being that serious to me. I am committed going into every single relationship I’ve had, and will continue to do that.

~ 24th June 2025 ~

I'd say I'm a traditional liberal, as in, I believe in smaller government. Obviously, there are some things which the government need to spend a lot of money on, in order to keep them useful, and obviously I'm biased, but I think we need to spend more on the arts and education. However, I also think we should be trying to raise more money and funding privately. I think we should be doing it more like how they're doing it over in America. I have a friend who's going over to America to continue studying, because there's so much more in terms of private patronage, than instutional patronage, which we have more of over here. In Britain, all the "proudest" and most sought-after sources of funding, or the most "well-respected", are the BBC, NCEM, and all the government scholarships, and more, including, of course, the institutions, like conservatoires and big universities. They are provide the majority of funding in the UK, whereas in the US, it is different. Obviously, it's a different country, and has different needs, so they can't be compared exactly, as the same type of country. However, so much more of their funding comes from private investors and private patrons, because there's more of a super-strong upper-middle class in America, they can afford this level of private funding. One massive advantage of this, not that it works consistently and all the time, is that it becomes less political. One of the huge problems with music and the BBC, who, for the record, I can't stand as an organisation, for so many different reasons, is that when it comes to competitions and selecting people for schemes and funding, it's dangerously a lot more political, to the point where a lot of great talent is overlooked, not naming any names. I'm not saying for any reason, at any moment, that I think Britain should or can follow the exact kind of system that they have in America. We are naturally a less privatized country, but I think we should a least try experimenting with private funding a lot more than we are now, since it's proven to be so effective in America, which is why so many musicians end up going there. It might not work, but I think we should at least try. It definitely won't work to the scale that it does in America, because of its strong and functional upper-middle class, allowing a number of people to become "arts patrons" in this way.

Another thing which is slightly problematic when it comes to my political views, especially given my position, is education. Education is a really tricky thing to fix, and I'm not at the stage where I can complain, although I haven't got a scholarship, so I don't have anything I have to religiously defend. One thing I won't defend, however, is the level of student loans, which are too high. The thing is, the government have a justified reason to put them in, because we've got plenty of financial problem, and this is quite a small one, in the grand scheme of things, purely in terms of numbers. But, culturally, they are very important, because more and more people than ever, in this generation, have been to university. Even more than the previous generation, which is extra weird, as despite the cost of tuition and fees going up and up, after the government started charging for them, the number of people going to university has also gone up. What that shows is that, culturally, we're moving a lot more towards an academic world than a practical world, as in, more people are studying, and for a lot longer. We are developing a demanding student culture, which is larger than ever before, and therefore, we do need to think about how much money it needs, in terms of the government's contribution. They are plenty of things in British culture which I think could be prioritized to a slightly lesser degree. I don't know what they are for sure, but there definitely are some, because times have changed, and of course, the government hasn't. They don't really understand, on many levels, what the newer generations of the country need, and what's culturally important. I think we need to stop thinking about what's going on in pure political and economic terms, and focus more on what's going on culturally, because I think that'll help a lot more, and make people a lot happier. It would eventually fix the economic problems, as once we figure out what we really need, in order to get us going again as a culture, then we'll know what we need to prioritze economically. This will help fix the funding, because we will, quite simply, have to start spending money on less.

Returning back to my previous point, while returning to private patronage might seem too old-fashioned and not fit for our creative scene, we have got to be realistic. There needs to be a comprimise between what artists, patrons, and audiences want, otherwise today's music will not continue to work as a business. That's just what it is, a business, which will not be something that everyone wants to hear, but in order to make a living from music, we have to start to think about it more like this, with a more realistic hat on.

~ 23rd June 2025 ~

If I'm going to be a proper composer, I need to embrace that in all senses of the world, meaning, more than anything else, I need to expand into different genres. What should I start with? A film score? A musical? A jazz album? All of these seem pretty big projects to just launch myself into for the first time, but life's too short to make me give a shit!

~ 19th June 2025 ~

I've noticed that most people tend to be more scared of missing opportunities and deadlines that will effect them in the short term, than in the long term, without realising that one is just as damaging, if not more. It's extra strange, as, more generally, people hate things happening in the moment, as they feel like more can be messed up by the pressure of the moment, but are still more likely to make a quick reaction to it, possibly as a direct result... I'm not sure! It's important to not let all these short-term saves prevent us from making sure that our long-term plans stay in shape, as that will be what most of our lives are centered around!

~ 16th June 2025 ~

I know that I'll never be able to play all of the greatest virtuoso piano music, up to the level that some of my best friends are. However, I can write this type of music, which will at least give me the satisfaction of contributing towards it, as a sort of sub-genre, which it almost has become amongst pianists. We all know what this is, or at least pianists and composers do... Liszt Mephisto Waltz, all the Feinberg Sonatas, Prokofiev Concertos, and all the rest you can predict.

~ 14th June 2025 ~

Don't worry if your life isn't going as you expected, or that you're not proud of yourself, yet. Time and patience goes a long way, pun intended, and things will get better! Once that's happened, you'll be prouder of yourself than you could ever imagine!

~ 13th June 2025 ~

Watford is the most unremarkable place I’ve visited regularly, and yet I cried while seeing the platform and edge of the town, as I passed through it in a train. Now I think about it, I had similar feelings, although not as strong, to when I visited Ruislip, and even Amersham, after returning to it after a while. Humans want to move forward and achieve stuff, but their weakness is that they are constantly attached to the past, something which is largely out of their control.

I was brought into a percussion gig by a friend of friend, who, before asking me, as it turned out, looked at my website first. This gives me some confidence that some people do actually use my website for an actual purpose! I used to think that all the constant updating and altering I did was for nothing, but perhaps there is value in it after all!

~ 12th June 2025 ~

I've had a bit of an epiphany... I think I'm going to drop the Scriabin Sonata which I'm learning, for now. I think I was slightly punching above my weight, in standard, trying to be as good as an actual pianist. But, as I keep forgetting, that's not me, I'm a composer. I'm not giving up the piano, just going to start taking it at a more realistic speed. Part of the reason I started taking it so seriously was to create a balance in my work flow. But it just pushed me to work way too much, too quickly at it, and it's become a source of worry. I want to balance everything, my academic and entrepreneurial sides, with reading, writing, piano, web development, conducting, teaching, and percussion, and probably more, all being a part of that. But, for that to work, I do need to have an actual focus, like the "axis" which my work is balancing around, my composing.

~ 7th June 2025 ~

I have had quite a lot of huge and continuous rail journeys recently, to get to rehearsals and concerts, as most musicians do. It has, as well as simply given me the chance to compose, also given me chance to put my paper down, and my phone down, and start to really observe the world. Sometimes, sitting back and doing nothing, as long as you don’t fall in the trap of constantly becoming lazy, is really important to how we view and interpret the world, especially as an artist.

~ 6th June 2025 ~

One of my friends, a pianist, who is also a very talented composer, recently started composing again, after a big creative block. He had been telling me throughout this time that he wanted to start thinking less "academically" about composing, by which he meant less pastiche. This is the very thing which I am often criticized of doing, in my own music. I've come to a point where I'm not going to deny it anymore, as occasionally, I do. I only say occasionally, however, as most of the time, I don't plan it to be that way, and yet people still find parallels of pastiche for themselves, as I've spoken about before. But sometimes, the music I write is pastiche, often when I've got the writer's block, or can't clear my mind of anything original at that moment, for whatever reason. The difference between me, however, and my friend, as well as just about every other colleague of mine who composes, is that I make this part of my composing identity. I don't hide away these pieces of pastiche out of shame, but I perform them, and see them as valuable parts of my creative development. Although, for the same reasons, they are not my "greatest", they are still works of art, and to me, they are important.

My brother is well-known by all of us in the family, and slightly beyond the family, for being really strong and working out every day. What people don't know, is that I secretly do that do. Something I've learned, as a sign of maturity, is that I don't gain motivation anymore from what other people think. I'm gaining the benefit of self-discipline, and proving to myself that I can be the best version of myself that is possible. That's what makes me proud of it! I still love writing about it, as it remains a small reminder to myself of my private victories.

I used to, until recently in fact, have a list of all my favourite composers, ranked in order. I have now got rid of this, as it was not having the effect that I thought it would. Artists look up to other artists, and ideally a lot of them, to give them the broadest influence. While it is fine to have a "favourite composer", as I in fact do, we are not fully subscribed to one influence, and we should not be pushing ourselves to make one person the centre of what we work towards ourselves, artistically-speaking.

I had realised for a while that humans tend to think that they are the best person in most situations, because we are the only ones who see the whole scope of our side of the argument. It has only recently occurred to me that this is an obvious double-edged sword, as we also see and are aware of every single ones of the faults in our beliefs, as we are the only ones who know of all of them. This friction between the two pulls in our personality often lead us to the very natural and human conclusion that we, each of our individual selves, are the centre of everything, every situation and scenario. This is such a naturally animalistic trait which we cannot, as mammals, fully get rid of. Trying to put it beside us, to the best of our ability, has been one of the driving forces of society, and also one of the best displays of maturity, as both examples lead towards the role of a human being to look towards the great ideas and wonders of art and culture and philosophy. These are things that are always best discussed and debated after one puts his or her own identity and personal convictions behind them.

~ 4th June 2025 ~

I originally used to be against this recent use of pronouns and alternative genders, for the same reason that a lot of people have, which is that it confuses how we speak and talk to these people. But what I've come to realize is that, simply as a general life lesson, we should be thinking through and giving deep thought to what we see, anyway. What I'm getting at is, although I disagree with this whole new gender language, it is, more generally, important to think about what we say. All the greatest minds of recent years have agreed on this, whether it's Rowan Atkinson or Stephen Fry, or any other great literary thinker, who really know what they're talking about, when it comes to language!

~ 3rd June 2025 ~

The people who I thought were my best friends have started ignoring me. I think I know why, it's because I'm not a good enough pianist for them. There's no other reason, other than they'd much rather spend time with people who they can find success out of. That's the same thing with everyone else I know, which has, just like all my former friends, spread to these friends. I'm the only one left in the world who is on my side. Well I've given up on them now, they deserve nothing less. So once I achieve anything big, no matter how hard and painful it takes to get there, no-one will have a right to any of it.

I’m starting to think improvising would be a much better use of my time, as a regular activity, the traditional piano. As a composer, it is actually directly improving how I compose. It also, to some extent, improves certain piano techniques, particularly when I improvise in the style of other composers, whatever that means. Although, that’s sort of the problem in itself, as improvising in the style of other composers doesn’t help my composing much. I’ve started taking a more stream-of-consciousness approach to composing in my most recent pieces, so doing this radically different style of improvising is probably quite counter-intuitive. On the other hand, a lot of people tend to label my pieces or improvs as “in the style of” another composer, even when I don’t plan it to be at all, so maybe it’s best to just ignore them! I started the Scriabi-visations because I felt that my improvs were naturally leaning towards his style, but now I’m focusing on him, it’s had the opposite effect.

Let’s put improvising aside though… I know I was cynical originally, but the Composition Professors at the Academy do really want you to think for yourself. I had a meeting with the Head and one of the other Professors earlier today, and I learned this. Many of my worries about coming here and “losing my voice” of composing, was, as I have now realised, me being too over-alert. As with everything else in life, you don’t know who you are until you’ve tried everything! And now I have, there’s far more to artistic value and purpose than I thought. The year has opened my mind, and while I’ve learned hard truths with it, it’s been a great one nonetheless.

~ 30th May 2025 ~

I think throughout this year, I’ve learned a lot about dreams through their painful reality. But I’ve also realised, my book being published has only been a dream of mine, in this form, at least, for about a year. Perhaps, plenty of dreams just come and go. The important ones, like me becoming a good composer, have stayed and grown and developed continuously over the last decade. That’s what I want to focus on right now! That’s my ultimate dream!

~ 29th May 2025 ~

Yes, I am writing this more as if it’s an introspective journal than a blog. It is in theory public, although whether anyone really reads it or not, I’m not sure. Although it’s introspective, like a journal or a diary, it’s public, since I’ve learned that in order to be true to yourself, you must not have a single thing to hide. My dreams and ambitions, as much as I forget, and not completely dead yet. I’ve just been trying to solidify them with time. This is probably a very bad idea, and it’s just another way to make them less likely to be achieved. Sometimes your visions have to be compromised in some way, if not changing them, then at least, as is proven in my case, having to wait!

~ 28th May 2025 ~

I wrote a short solo clarinet piece a few months ago, which I really enjoyed writing, so I've decided to take it further... I've more recently begun writing a solo clarinet sonata. I've used it as a way to test a new way of composing... I've started relying a lot more of pure instinct in my recent music, after suggestion from my old composition teacher, Brian Elias, who I met up with a few months ago!

~ 26th May 2025 ~

Jordan Peterson has been talked about negatively a lot in the press, but I recently heard something he said, which I really admired... "Let them lie to you, ghost you, betray you and run their mouths behind your back! The only way to see someone's true colours is by giving them all the freedom in the world to be exactly who they want to be. You can't force a cheater to be loyal. You can't twist a bad friend into being a good one. And you sure as hell can't make a liar suddenly find their moral compass. What you really want is control, control over these people, over their actions, because you're clinging to this illusion you've built in your head about who they are, but let's be real, that's never who they really were. The sooner you get that, the sooner you'll understand that real power comes from sitting back, watching and then making a move based on what you see!" I almost never share whole quotes and speeches like this, but I just found this one particularly inspiring!

~ 25th May 2025 ~

I think dreams and ambitions are misleading. I've heard many repeats and variations of the phrase "Whatever will be will be." I've interpreted it to mean that you shouldn't worry about what hasn't happened, and focus on what you do have. This means, that you have to find a way to force your hopes and ambitions into your "fate", and hope they will stick. After all, the two are not alligned... What we start to dream about doesn't come as a direct result of fate. All we can do is work towards achieving these dreams, and then only hope for the best! I've sort of learned that the hard way. I had a "dream life" planned out, until the start of 2025, when I lost the love of my life, and now recently, lost a publishing contract for my book. I've come to believe that it's really not a very healthy way to live, to chase your dreams. For true achievers, your path will change all the time. If we want to make the most of life, we must adapt to this, and not force it to be the other way around.

~ 24th May 2025 ~

I’ve spent ages worrying about not becoming self-sufficient with money, and being able to “live properly”. But of course, as I easily forget, almost no students ever are. That shouldn’t be my priority at the moment. I need to stop chasing fame and success and achievement, and start enjoying my young life, because it won’t last forever.

Here’s my life experience as a composer… Each chapter of my life is shaped through every process of composition, from having the idea, to planning, composing, although not always in that order, and then eventually performing. I feel a lot more “complete” and satisfied in my life just after I’ve finished a piece that I’m really proud of, or of course having it premiered. It’s therefore very easy, straight after this happens for a long period of time, to feel very dead and empty, for example, after a large concert is over, or after I’ve been really productively creative for a good chunk of time. In the case of the latter, I’ll feel really pleased with myself for that moment, but then I’m hit the sad feeling of “Oh shit, that’s over!”

~ 19th May 2025 ~

The last few months for me have been all about balance. Balance between my entrepreneurial and academic sides, as well as balance between my pianistic and orchestral approaches to music. They’re all balancing around the pivot of my composing. I’m setting my standards high again, finally. I’m planning, from now and during the summer holidays, to write my First Symphony. This has been long in the works, and I’ve got sketches and fragments from ever since my trip to Greece back in 2023. That was also a pivotal time in my life, where I was trying to decide what my future was going to be. The inspiring views from the Peloponnese mountains which went on for ever reminded me of those stunningly glorious moments in Mahler, a bit like canvases, enlarged and set to fit the orchestra. I’m going to Crete over this summer, and I hope it will be equally as inspiring, and that it’ll give me the space and motivation I need to write my symphony. That’s all I need, a reconnection with nature and the ancient world. That’s what the greatest symphonist, in my opinion, understood, Gustav Mahler. This symphony is a tribute to my life-long fascination with that man. I hope that my symphony will live up to the tradition of the greatest symphonies, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Shostakovich, which I’ve loved and grown up with, ever since a started out as a composer.

~ 16th May 2025 ~

I think there is a natural inner contradition inside the will of all humans. We are naturally competitive and selfish and in for ourselves, but at the same time, we also really, desperately want to be good people and be seen and known and recognised as kind citizens.

On a not-to-distant note, the best entrepreneurs and most successful people in the world are said to have learned a number of things behind their success. An important one is to never talk about your futures plans, as then you’ll be ahead of everyone else within your own strategy. Earlier today I had a piece of mine performed, and while all the other composers were informally invited to take a bow, I thought I’d try an experiment, so I just sat back and didn’t do anything, apart from clap. No-one knew my face, or at least recognised it, which made this easier. One problem with this, however, is that people’s perception of you can become centred around one of luck, as people think that it is unbelievable that someone who doesn’t plan or have strategy at all can make such big progress in their career. That’s a cruel irony of success that I’ve discovered over the last year or so! A few people I know have openly critized the whole idea of advertising a musical career on social media, saying that it leads to musicians evolving to fit only that, and that it changes how a lot of people measure success in the industry. While this is true to some extent, there has been an equivalent to this in every era, meaning in it not exclusively a problem now. Liszt was seen as a “superstar” and so was Paganini. That’s what a lot of these critics now are against, superstar musicians, who seem to paint the idea that the most supreme type of musician is one who never fails, and is judged only by their “perfect” image on Instagram, for example. However, what matters, at the end of the day, is who’s music lives on. Mozart and Liszt and Ysaye, despite both having to adapt to the various popularity-seeking strategies of their day, have composed music which transcends their time, and their music is great enough to be admired away from the context of their time. They were, at the end of the day, also trying to live, and make a living as professional musicians. They all found a way to overcome it, so whether or not you use social media today, or whether you are seen as a “superstar” or not, don’t stop doing what you’re doing, for any reason other than death!

~ 11th May 2025 ~

I was on the train today, and there was a little girl constantly jumping up and down, with occasional outbursts of screaming and yelping. I was sitting there, aged 19, doing almost nothing, and it then occurred to me. Perhaps, is maturity the process of moving from being physically active to active in your mind? Obviously, once you become a true adult, your responsibility becomes about how you act upon what goes on in your mind. But, the move into becoming a teenager or young adult could be the opposite, as it is where your mind tends to be buzzing with new ideas and thoughts. It often comes as a shock, as it comes so quickly, just as the whole world does to the eyes of an early-day teenager. It is clearer all the time that we are all constantly learning more and more. What I’m writing now didn’t start out conventionally as a blog, more nothing more than an introspective journal of things that I think and ideas that hit my mind. While I am writing about stuff that hopefully others can learn from, I am also learning myself from it, which to me is what’s so great about discourse and intellectualism. The more people write themselves, the more everyone in the world can gain from it. Not just the writer, or the reader, but everyone.

~ 9th May 2025 ~

I still get a funny feeling when I see a picture of anything to do with Purcell. Anything related, even looking at old photos of Bushey station, because I associate them together so much. Or even just hearing the Rachmaninov Vespers, or sometimes the Chopin Ballades, which just remind me of how much has changed, and how much we take for granted our childhood. Even now I’m an adult.

~ 8th May 2025 ~

I feel like all my music is written for different people. I don't know what is really "me" anymore.

~ 7th May 2025 ~

I keep saying to myself… perhaps I don’t need a girlfriend. I’m starting to really think that I do. I understand that, now that I’m half filled with alcohol, around two doubles and one single of Gin and Tonic. I’ve recently hallucinated a lot, not just during my drinking hours, but also in general. This week alone, since Monday, I’ve mistaken about 6 different people at RAM for people I knew at Purcell. It’s like my former self keeps creeping into the subconscious. I don’t completely know why, but it scares me every time, as each time it happens, it is followed by the harrowing realisation, just afterwards, that I was wrong, and that I am going completely mad. And, of course, it gets worse every one of the 6 times that I’ve done it. One more thing, I've been worrying a lot about the Instagram story numbers, as I've written a lot about before. At the end of the day, it will never, however hard I try, be consistent. Some will like them, and some won’t, and to such varying degrees of regularity as well. I just need to keep reminding myself that what I’m doing is hopefully making the world a better place, through sharing great music.

~ 6th May 2025 ~

I've realised that artists must be busy, and take on a lot of activities, in order to be true artists. I'm talking even non-musical activities. Anything they do regularly and as a large part of their life brings experience and gives them a more rounded personality, and to be a great artist, or particularly a composer, you need a deep, deep connection and understanding of how the world works. Although I didn't end up going to university, I sort of miss parts of it, for this reason. University allows you to "discover yourself", as people say, in other words, discover where you stand in the world, which every artist has inevitably got to do. I don't for one minute wish I'd gone there, as I'm beginning to love Academy, but still helpful to point out, we can not only learn from mistakes, but often understand ourselves better from facing the consequences of our mistakes, or even simply what could've gone differently. I have, however, tried to make the best of the situation as I can. I'm now reading a lot, and doing plenty of programming and writing and piano repertoirelearning, all to try and reveal in myself a better understanding of how the world function, and where my place is inside of it. If I'm being honest, I think more people could do with doing more of this.

While there are some academic classes at the Academy, which do a good job at keeping our general thinking going, I think more musicians here need to take it more seriously as an individual and personal thing. This is obviously hard to achieve, so I'm mostly advocating purely in hope. Even if it's just as simple as reading books, it is really so important!

~ 5th May 2025 ~

I often like to listen to music when I’m walking from my house to the station some mornings, and on the way back. I’ve had several instances where my parents have met me half way to pick me up, and I tell them thanks, but that I’d prefer to walk back on my own, to not interrupt the flow of this music. That’s how valuable it is to me, I guess borderline sacred! They don’t understand it though, and think it’s weird, which is weird in itself, since they themselves are even musicians! Is it just a me thing? Or, perhaps, a generational thing?

~ 4th May 2025 ~

I'm doing yet another percussion gig down near Wimbledon today. I'm beginning to think that this could be how I make my living, as I've almost made more in cash from that then I have from composing and piano and web development combined. I just hope it doesn't take over my life. My amount of percussion work has increased really scarily quickly, however exciting it is. I just hope that I don't get asked to do so much that the work, and just as importantly, the travel, takes a toll on me.

I've started writing a new piece which I've actually quite proud of, which I think will end up being called something along the lines of 'Ballade', for violin and piano. It's reasonably long, maybe 8 minutes in length, and is supposed to be for me and a potential new duo partner. We're doing the Brahms Scherzo together as well, and hopefully some bigger pieces in the future! I described my piece as strongly impressionistic. While I think labelling composers with these definitions isn't sensible, there's absolutely no reason to say why individual pieces cannot take these names. I've thought a lot about style and one's "voice" over the last few weeks, as I've been writing a lot more lately. Although a voice is important, I think the voice of a work of art is even more important. There are naturally going to be extremely contrasting "voices" heard between pieces written by the same composer, even with composers who are at the maturist in their life. I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, and I think, especially at my age, I need to stop trying to make everything sound like "my voice", as the pressure will probably do exactly the opposite. Hopefully, with time, this will happen without me even having to try. This will be a really satisfying point in my development as a composer, but I absolutely cannot force it! Only time will show...

I think humans have a deep, deep longing to be accepted. It is, however, a sort of falacy, as we want to be accepted for things which we stand out for, and are often looked upon with great suspision as a result. I still think, however, it is essential that we continue to be unique and ourselves. Once individuality becomes a thing to be ashamed of, we easily begin to lose faith in all humans. As much as a juxtaposition as it is, humanity has a collective duty to recognise the importance of the individual's flaws and eccentricities that provide all the "abnormal" things in the world. After all, if everything was completely normal, the world wouldn't have anything to ever work or build towards. At least where I am studying, at the Academy, they have begun to start to appreciate the symbolic "individualism" in composition, which has greatly allowed me to be more productive.

I asked, on my Instagram story, some time ago, through a poll, whether it was easier to write for orchestra or solo piano. Although the poll turnout was almost completely 50-50, I had an interesting realisation. I have obviously done a lot of piano lately, and developed an equally strong interest in conducting, but it's good for me not to grow too attached to either of them individually. I'm a composer, with absolutely no "focus" outside of composing. I'm not either of the traditional roles of being a "pianist-composer" or indeed a "conductor and composer", as neither of them really accurately demonstrates how I see my work, as much as I love both piano and conducting. At what point does a study become a profession, for musicians? A very frequent question, which is, as often discussed, difficult to answer. I would like to hope that I've half reached it already, as I've had paid commissions, and a website, for example. A lot of the most recent times where I've questioned being a composer, and considered moving towards a new career, this question of professionalism is one of the biggest deciding factors. Is this an unhealthy way to look at things? The reason is as simple as how irreversable my success in music is, so far. Comparatively, however, it doesn't really feel that significant at all, as plenty of people aged 19, like me, have not decided what career they would like. But, of course, that has always been a thing of the music world, and conservatoires like RAM and RCM are designed to provide the best tutoring in the world, in order to produce the greatest professionals in the world. In very few cases do people change their minds on a career in music, after going to a conservatoire, mostly because their careers are partially cut out for them, through the opportunities and connections which are gained while studying there.

~ 3rd May 2025 ~

A friend of mine said something I really admire just now. Something which I keep forgetting. She said “Only focus on what I have got. Bye-bye to those I have not got!” I’m very glad to have people in my life who keep reminding me of that! What’s great about life is that the one thing that only grows, in numbers, is the number of your achievements, which is how we always improve and get better, through time and experience, and betting yourself and you do these things!

~ 2nd May 2025 ~

I am writing from the very early morning, around 1am. You have absolutely no sense or idea of how hard this breakup was for me. I went from loving her, to slowly, over time, drifting apart, further and further and further, unable to do anything, as I became less and less important in her life, to the point, now, where I don’t even know the first thing about her. She said we’d stay close, which was clearly complete bollocks. I’ve got to stay up and finish this analytical essay, and try and do some more composing for my lesson tomorrow. People seem surprised when they find out that composers sometimes stay up all night to compose, or, in some cases, achieve anything creative. Somehow I manage to function. Obviously I rarely overdo it. I hardly ever pull more than one consecutive all-nighter, and have only had to once. But still, people find that surprising, which is understandable. Being a composer is a tough life. It’s demanding, and not just limited to the “working hours”, but also demanding on yourself. We don’t have “working hours” in a conventional sense. Our whole lives are dedicated to that, and to dedicate your life to it, you must be absolutely sure whether or not that’s what you want. Over these past few months, I feel like I’ve just struggled to enjoy everything. I guess it’s because I secretly don’t feel like my life is going anywhere. I've given up listening to people. It's got me nowhere in life, as almost everyone I've listened to before has gone on to turn their back on me. Perhaps it won't last long though, the drawer with the knife in is just a couple of rooms away...

~ 1st May 2025 ~

Studying with Gareth Moorcraft has been amazing! He’s been one of my two professors since I started at the Academy in September. He initially went to Oxford, and you can really feel this weight during our lessons. We’ll occasionally talk about, not just composition, but insights into piano, which we both do, and even general musical philosophy. Even though I didn’t end up taking the Oxford path, studying with somebody like him has given me almost as much wisdom as studying there! It’s a bold claim, I know, but I’m convinced it’s true!

~ 30th April 2025 ~

I'm convinced, after everything I've done and experienced, that I don't think being proactive is a skill, but a sign of maturity and responsibility.

~ 29th April 2025 ~

Railway have always been a great passion of my, and more recently, commuting has become part of my daily life. I was recently looking through all the short clips of my commuting route that I put on my Instagram story, accompanied by great works of music, and it gave me an idea. I’m going to make a short film, featuring minimalistic-style videos of extracts of my commute into London, with my own soundtrack. I thought I might try an electronically-sampled soundtrack, as that would be a great way to prove that perhaps I am actually capable of doing some sort of music tech, which is definitely my weak spot in the Composition course at the Academy. Also, from September I’m planning to move in with a mate, much further into London, so the commute with be practically eliminated from then. In a strange sort of way, I’ll miss it. There’s some sort of strange grounding feeling of stability that I get from something as simple and unimportant as a commute. This film project could be something to remember it by! Another thing… I have often felt, when things are getting to me, it’s because there are suddenly loads of people who don’t think I’m doing a good job as a human. What I’ve learned is that, on top of just the “overthinking” argument, this is far from the end of the world. You just need to take a step back, and deal with them one at a time. If you think somebody doesn’t think highly of you, then the only thing you can do in your power is prove it to them!

~ 28th April 2025 ~

I just asked out a girl I really love. She said no, but, at least, thanks for the invitation. I've been wondering for too long, but at least now I know. Although now off my chest, I still feel hardly any better. I understand now that most situations are like that, in the end, but still I feel lonely. Not just with her, but in general. Having a partner really helps me to enjoy life more. People keep telling me I'll find the right person, with I hope for, but I've constantly thought that I have already, and each time I try, I end up being wrong. I'm only hanging onto any kind of love in the universe by a shimmer of hope, which I'll keep hold of like nothing else. In the meantime, however, I'll still constantly struggle to find happiness, as I have done these past few months. I've felt quite meaningless, as if I don't know where I'm heading towards. Does everyone feel that? Is it naturally a human thing for people, like me, to have that feeling constantly come back and whack them in the head?

~ 27th April 2025 ~

I’ve started to plan out what I want my next few years of education to look like, like where I want to study from here on. One worry I have is that I will, as a consequence simply of my personality, grow too glued to it, and will slip up if I don’t get into certain places that I apply, which I have looked up to for years. Perhaps I should simply prepare loads of alternatives as backups? I’m potentially considering doing a Masters degree in Piano, rather than Composition, as I feel like I need some practical musical training. If I can perform well enough, that will make promoting my own music so much easier.

~ 26th April 2025 ~

I’ve started wondering again, what or who do I actually compose for? I looked back on all the great composers in history, for an example. Personally, as a composer, I look up to them as the leaders of the world, in my eyes at least. Perhaps, is that the aim of a composer? To inspire other composers, and further the cycle of creation of art? But surely there must also be some sort of largely statement I can make to the world, including not just composers, or indeed musicians... Where can I find this? There must be some way I can discover this... On another note, I really wish I was in a relationship at the moment. I'm feeling like I'm losing my former sense of why I live, and now am stearing with hardly any direction at all! Through all this, my work is all I have left! I'll do whatever I can to protect it and keep on going!

~ 25th April 2025 ~

It is often said that one of the best ways to spur on your creativity is to set yourself limits. I have therefore been asking my friends on Instagram, through polls, their advice on instrumentation and duration for new pieces. On the whole, it’s turned out quite well! But then today, I asked, mostly for my own guidance, at what point does a certain form of music get “too long”, as in “boring”. A lot of people, who usually answer, didn’t. Just a thought, but are people too careful today? As if they are far more cautious about offending people? If so, why is that? I’m trying to think of it purely in cultural terms, rather than political ones, as the latter has led me down many damaging problems in the past.

~ 24th April 2025 ~

I used to think of music from the perspective of the audience, and have often been described as a "people-pleaser" of a composer. But more recently I've been started to wonder whether that's even the right way for me. Several of the solo sonatas and small-scale chamber pieces I'm working on at the moment tend to gravitate away from tonality, or at least, using it as the "exception" so often, to the point where it becomes the main source of themetic material. This is especially true in my new solo clarinet sonata. I'm really glad I decided to write this sonata, at the time that I did, as it has really expanded my view of what music should really be doing, even from a composer's perspective.

~ 23rd April 2025 ~

I may come across as skeptical of academia, but I’m not really. Here’s my view… I think working as a composer in academia is very important, and a great duty to the world of music. What I don’t like, however, is when composers get so submerged by their institution that they turn into professors rather than composers. Part of the reason people go to study composition at universities and conservatories is that they admire their compositional mastery, which is something that can only really be built by having a rounded and diverse career. I don’t like to name names, but there are certain people who have let this be the death of their own creative achievement, one notable one, who I have met before, being Robin Holloway. He once gave a 1-to-1 masterclass which each of the composers in the sixth form, at Purcell, when I was in my last year there. I showed him a new work of mine for clarinet and piano, which he said was "stuck in the 20th century", presumably an overeaction to the slightest hint of a familiar hint of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, both composers who I greatly admired back then, more than most! It was not even just a personal thing, as was just as bad to most of the other composers, with about 1 or possibly 2 exceptions, who he really liked! It was this that brought me to the cruel realisation that he, like a lot of elite academics, has not seen half the music that is produced at the moment, and it is definitely something to watch out for, if I do decide to take the path of this profession.

~ 21st April 2025 ~

Don't focus on thing you can't change. Focus on what you have.

I do try to stay unpolitical as much as I can, but sometimes, a good joke is right there, and it's just too tempting to ignore!

~ 17th April 2025 ~

I used to feel bad reaping all the advantages of living in a decent house and with well-off parents, as a way to try and struggle through launching an artistic career. But now I don’t anymore, because most other people who don’t have those luxuries have scholarships or bursaries to pay for that, which I wasn’t allowed based on some kind of income cap. So, makes me feel a bit better!

~ 15th April 2025 ~

I understand, as people have told me, that it's important to find enough time to enjoy life, by finding things that help me to do this. You do, of course, need to find a way to sustain this, otherwise your enjoyment would not be able to last very long at all. You do need to, ultimately, find this balance. However, this idea has been pushed as an idea so much that a lot of people feel pressured to find a balance, which is the ultimate irony of all, as it causes them to fail in finding balance!

~ 13th April 2025 ~

I’m at a stage in my life where I just want to try out as many things as I can. You name it, writing, filmmaking, piano, conducting, coding, all in the hope of making myself a more well-rounded person. People say I am too over-obsessed with music, to the point of risking burnout. Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re being too cynical, but either way, all the greatest composers understood the world in a profoundly deep and grounded way. I can try and do this myself, as well as I can, by trying to give myself as much experience as possible. There’s another thing I’ve learned, that is somewhat related… You can’t change the past, you can only do your best from now on, and achieve all you can. And if you don’t know where to start, take things one at a time.

~ 11th April 2025 ~

Here's something I've given a lot of thought to for a very long time, relating to the age-old question of "What is classical music?" Naturally, as a contemporary composer, whose influences derive mostly from the classical and romantic traditions, I naturally understand how far our type of music has changed since the days of the greatest classicists, Mozart, Haydn, and possibly Beethoven. However, one thing I do understand, is that most contemporary composers who write music that is labelled under the "classical" genre tend to have studied or analysed plenty of older music. This is amplified by the fact that over 90% of "contemporary classical" composers work in academia, and have therefore lucky studied for many years in the field of compositional technique and traditional music theory. Don't get me wrong, I think it's absolutely fine to write cross-genre music, and expand the boundaries of classical, jazz and electronic genres of music, but I also think it's important not to lose track of the masters who really encouraged us to start doing music. I heard another interesting thing on my film course, earlier today. We watched several random people being asked to sing the theme tunes to Star Wars, Harry Potter, James Bond, and more, which they all did pretty well. Then, however, when asked to sing the music to the Avengers, the highest-grossing franchise in the world today, they couldn’t! They each thought it was just themselves being stupid, but they're not wrong, as they pretty much all felt the same way. An explanation was eventually given, and it was this… “This is why the music is so forgettable… It doesn't challenge your expectations.” So much of the soundtrack to things like the Avengers is not generic exactly, because some of it is fantastic, but often too “predictable”. It should be challenging our expectations more, rather than just following them. All the greatest soundtracks and film composers understand this, including John Williams, Ennio Morricone, and even as far back Bernard Herrmann. It then went on to say the most important thing of all, that perfectly sums this up, which doesn't just even apply to film music... "People don't remember safe choices!"

~ 10th April 2025 ~

I often go for walks in Watford and Bushey, the area around where I used to go to school for 7 years. It is such a long way away, and a lot of it is quite ugly, but I do it purely out of nostalgia. Nostalgia is something which we can’t really control, and on a personal level, as an artist, it plagues me so much. There is also quite a paradox that surrounds it. During my first few terms at Academy, I really began to miss my “previous life” at Purcell, at even the most ordinary things which I took for granted at Purcell I now felt were sacred. The irony is, of course, in comparing these memories to my existing time at the Academy, which I will, almost no doubt, start to miss, eventually, once I leave. I know a lot of famous symphonies, particularly by the early romantic composers, like Beethoven and Brahms, where their last movements have become really famous and culturally popular, which has sadly led to many musicians labelling them as “overplayed” or “overhyped”. For example, while my school did Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony a couple of years ago, I remember a common opinion being that plenty of the earlier movements were fantastic, but that the last movement, including the Ode to Joy theme, was too overhyped. I kind of see the point in this, as I think both are equally as amazing. The reason, however, I think that the endings of pieces are always the most popular is by their own definition… They culminate the piece, all of its ideas and themes and philosophical meaning. When the Ode to Joy theme arrives for the first time in Beethoven’s Ninth, it is a beautifully fulfilling moment, but only in the context of the whole symphony. That’s what a climax is, by definition, as it only works in context, but when it does, you can really feel that it does!

~ 9th April 2025 ~

I am doing a holiday short course in film composing, starting today, and earlier, during it, I was quite struck by something I heard in a video. Somebody on a YouTube video, talking about film composition, said “Copying composers 10 or 15 years older than you will keep you 10 or 15 years behind.” Almost everything in academia seems to be about learning from and trying to absorb the music of a few of the great contemporary composers. As a genuine question, how original are you actually safe to be? How many young composition students actually write music that feels original or “their own”? Like a lot of the time, I don’t have a definitive answer to this question, but it’s worth thinking about… I’ve taken my writing project in a slightly different direction. I’m returning it to the form I originally planned for it, and will be writing up these ‘Highbury’ tales in the form of a set of short stories books. As my first significantly large writing project, I feel like this is slightly more manageable, and definitely more realistic for me at this stage. Also, I was beginning to feel as though the novel format that I was writing in allowed too much convolution, like too many new characters and plots being introduced far too often, and early-stage immature writing blunders like that.

~ 3rd April 2025 ~

I'm thinking that I should'nt focus too much on which career direction to take, and that I should wait until the answer naturally displays itself, through big opportunities and individual successes. This I won't truly know, quite possibly, for a good few years. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, as hard and unstable as it feels right at this very moment!

~ 2nd April 2025 ~

Perhaps I shouldn't overthink too much about not getting through with competitions, and other successes in the music world. There's something I've realized, more crucially. Music has given me almost everything good in my life. Most of my friends, most of my girlfriends, my re-developing relationships with my parents, even one of my brothers. That's more of a success than I remember a lot of the time, but it's so true, and I couldn't imagine my life any other way, and I'm extremely lucky for the way most things have turned out so far!

~ 31st March 2025 ~

I stayed at a friend's house last night, and I asked him an important question... I have many big ambitions that I want to achieve in my life, preferably as soon as I can. I've been pressuring myself into this as soon as I can, as I want my university years to be the best and most productive and ambitious years of my life. Maybe I don't actually need to, but even though I have a focus for my ambition, music, I still have too many things to count that I want to achieve. And I almost certainly won't have time to do all of them straight away. Perhaps I could make it a life-long project, trying to achieve all of these, which might at least give me a sense of direction throughout life, never being bored.

~ 30th March 2025 ~

Wishing everyone a fantastic Sunday morning! Live every minute of your life appreciating it, whether it's composing, performing, writing, trying new types of coffee, reading, stealing a friend's jacket, thinking, trying to push humanity forward for the better, era by era. Like it or not, we are always growing and improving, as individuals and alongside our fellow brothers, which is what we should aim to do. Go and call someone you've not called in a while, as true friends never die. They form who we are and how we see the world, and how people see us. Always value them too! Take them with you as you push forward humanity through the highest revelation of all, music.

~ 26th March 2025 ~

I really wish I’d settled on becoming a professional composer earlier on in my life. I missed out on competitions like BBC Young Composer that were for people of my age back then, all because I was still figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. The NCEM is my only real shot left, as a proper nationally-respected competition, so I hope, one year, before I turn 25, I’ll win that…

~ 25th March 2025 ~

I thought I'd met the best person in the world, who would stay with me and support me no matter what. Suddenly, that was taken away in the blink of an eye. I don't think I've been able to feel genuinely happy at all for the past 2 months. I'm doing, or at least trying to do, as much work as possible, but where's it all going? I feel like my music has no impact on anyone, and neither does myself, or anything that I've done. The few bits of inspiration that have come out of me recently have been irrelevant, just bits of ideas for new pieces, but not for either my orchestral commission or my book, which should be my focus. What makes me feel really worthless is that she has got over me so quickly, with the help of another guy in her life. I'm beginning to think that by the end of our relationship, she simply didn't love me anymore, which is the only way to explain her getting a new boyfriend within 5 days. Every time I see any of their posts together, it feels like a dagger to the throat, and I don't even know what to do about it.

~ 23rd March 2025 ~

I’ve gathered that humans naturally, when given the preference, tend to stick to what they’re used to. We are naturally and surprisingly risk-averse. We will take risks, of course, but if it is the hope of a great achievement, not just simply for the sake of being risky, as much as people like to pretend they like the risk. The reason some people say they like the risk is usually because there is a deeper thing they are hoping to gain or achieve from it.

One of the reasons I feel that composing is the best career path for me, is that it is uniquely mine. It is the most valuable thing I think I have to offer the world.

~ 22nd March 2025 ~

I recently watched a video of a performance of a large work of music, with multiple movements, for solo piano, which went viral, as the pianist had to face a whole minute's worth of applause in between two of the movements. As all musicians know, this is not well-respected in the 'etiquette' of classical music performance. However, it got me thinking... It makes complete sense! The end of that movement was a flashing and virtuosic ending, and I think an applause could've been completely justified. It also, however, gave me the idea for an experiment... I'm currently working on a sonata for saxophone and piano, in 4 movements, and I'm going to attempt to make each movement's transition as seamless as possible, in other words, try and make it so that you can barely tell the difference between one movement and the next! It could work... We'll see!

~ 21st March 2025 ~

I've been stuck and debating so much over what my purpose is in the world over the last few months, and I think I've finally re-discovered it. I have been emercing myself in so much great music lately, from the symphonies of Mahler to the sonatas of Liszt, and I felt like I could never do justice to them by becoming a composer. But, now I realize, it's my duty to at least try. The great composer may seem all-great, but, like everybody, they are just human beings. They start from somewhere, just like me. So that's my plan, I'm going to dedicate my life to trying to, one day, become a great composer!

~ 20th March 2025 ~

Here's my theory on music... Some musician accuse other musicians of playing too "strictly in time", in other words, without emotion. On the other side, plenty of musicians also complain about performances that are too much the opposite, with their over-expressivity loosing a sense of technicality in the music. Their main argument, however, isn't in the loss of technicality, but often related to the feeling of momentum that certain music, in particular, requires more than others. I'm not interested in taking either side, but, I should make clear, I agree with both, to an extent. I perfectly understand the need to transcend the robotic nature of technically-driven music, and the need to add a bit of expressive quality, whether through vibrato or whatever else. On the other hand, I do see the argument of the strict metre in music being a way to "contain" the expression. Both are equally valid, and more to the point, I think that all emotional drama in music stems from the conflict between these two ways of thinking. On a similar note, I feel this is also an appropriate attitude towards influence upon musical style. I think the "tension" between trying to push music forward as an art form, and the semi-nostalgic and beautiful nature of music transported back through time, provides another one of the great questions raised by music as an art form. Although other art forms do this a lot of the time, I think music does it the best.

~ 19th March 2025 ~

I've discovered a new dream that I want to dedicate my life to. I want to set up and direct and conduct my own orchestra. I've been in love with the orchestral world and its great repertoire since the age of about 6, and I think I'm finally at the level of conducting skill where I could comfortably consider it as a profession. Plus, it'll give me plenty of performance opportunities for my own music as well! On top of that, I love devising and putting together programmes, which is one of the reasons I have been able to put on my own concerts so seamlessly, for the most part. I have my debut at the Royal Festival Hall next Friday, and it is quite an important event for me, naturally. On top of my image as a professional, I just hope I don't, as I have done before with big and important performances of mine, let everything afterwards experience the 'anti-climax', as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, that is, where there comes a certain point in one's career, or even just a part of their life, where their number of career successes seem to make a long-time decline.

~ 17th March 2025 ~

A lot of intellectual people, particularly writers, are accused of being “inaccessible”, and are stereotyped to use flowery and pretentious language that not a lot of people can understand. While this is a stereotype, it does raise an interesting point, as a lot of writers are genuinely like this. I can’t bear it myself! Therefore, above the stereotype, what does it mean to be a writer? The literal definition is “somebody who writes”, but is typically applied to books, plays, and more, and even, now, music, which I admit to having slightly expanded the definition for my own personal benefit. However, I believe that the expansion of this definition is not completely unfair. In my opinion, my true meaning of being a writer is somebody who communicates, whether that be communicating their ideas or philosophies on how to live life, or often indeed the meaning of life itself. This is true across books, screenplays, poetry, and even, as I have hinted at often before, music. But then, why do I see myself predominantly as a writer? My own personal conviction of the beauty of nature and existence comes from music. However, a universal stream of understanding and ideas is the only thing that is constantly on the radar of every single human, all of the time. My writing allows me to directly communicate my experience to the world, and my philosophy and ideas on the meaning of existence, which is, I think, what everyone is really trying to find in their life.

~ 15th March 2025 ~

I don't like to compare forms of art, but sometimes it happens naturally. I've been increasingly invested in writing lately, which has made me start to think about this. I have come to the conclusion that all forms of art are, in themselves, more transcendant then anything else in the world. However, I think, on a purely personal level, that music, by nature of being abstract, feels more "transcendant", as it, it should be put "above" everything else. If it's meaning does not align directly with anything else, then it shouldn't be treated like it does. I just played timps in a concert of light music, like waltzes and dances. Although it's far from my favourite kind of music, it's all good experience I guess! On a completely seperate note, people talk about the "exclusivity" value a lot, in all kinds of topics, but I want to test how it plays out in the world of education, particularly music education. A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that Oxford University only receives a handful, often, less then 10, applications a year, for a Composition Masters degree. When you compare this to the number of undergraduate applications, you notice something. Although not everybody applies to Oxford, there is still an element of "exclusivity" that is more strongly associated with their higher-level, in other words, Masters degree-level education, to the extent that it will even put people off applying. I was looking into Masters degrees, as an extreme act of forward-planning, as this is year away for me. The two piano courses that I am mainly looking at are Royal Northern and the University of York. One is a strongly international reputable conservatoire, and one is a very reputable university, although it does not attract anywhere near the same level of prestige as Northern. One of them is a lot more difficult to get into, and yet, depending on the type of student, from the research that I have done on both, they could both be just as informative and highly valuable to building a career in the world of piano. My point in mentioning this is that exclusivity does not always equal value. As an example of this shocking comparison, think about how many RCM Scholars turn down offers to study at RAM and Guildhall, two of the most "exclusive" and competitive places in the world for studying music. The issue is not about exclusivity and standard, but far more, it's about value.

~ 13th March 2025 ~

I've realised, there are only 3 things I can do, post-break-up, to make the best of myself. To create and achieve and produce and do as much as possible. To be friendly and supportive to everyone I know, and finally, to spread the beauty of music wherever and as much as I can.

~ 10th March 2025 ~

I've been recently thinking about something IMPULSE again, back in 2023, when I met Tim Ambler. I found out that he sadly died recently, which is really sad, as he wrote some pretty amazing music. But he was extremely important to my development, however brief my meeting with him was. He was the 'realist' who I really needed to meet! He got me thinking about how I was going to make enough money to live, which ended up being the most beneficial piece of thought that I'd ever received, and helped me come to the conclusion that I should integrate my musical activity into something more sustainable, profitable and livable. In can, of course, as I have learned, work both ways. I've never forgotten that! Although I do plenty of things in my life, there is a clear focus, or centre if you like, on composing music. Everything else sort of builds into that, in one way or another. My web development is two-fold-ly a stable source of income, and also, through my specialism in building websites for creative and artistic people, a way of integrating myself into the creative industries. My writing is simply continuing my practice of creativity, through words, which is something a nice break from the abstract language of music. My filmmaking plays a similar role, but naturally promotes my music far more directly, as half the films I have made, or plan to make, will contain my own soundtracks. All my musical activities, of course, although I obviously enjoy doing them, are ultimately to build up my musical instinct, musicianship, and valuable connections in the music industry networking, as well as simply being able to perform or conduct my own music, bringing me more performances of my own music. It is ultimately a cyclical pattern of career-building and vocation! If it allows me to keep doing what I love, then that's fine by me! I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine, Ryan, who is a composer, studying at the Royal College. Something we both recognised was that composers in academia tend to look down upon people who are, the stereotype of, a "musical entrepreneur". This can naturally often be mistaken for a promoter of "popular" music, a useless term in itself in my opinion, which doesn't really mean anything. My view on this is that, from my experience, academics love to show status by appealing to other academics, which builds their increasingly classic "follow the clique" attitude, and in the process, they forget who they are actually trying to sell and promote music to. Now, it is obviously up for debate, who is the most important listener of a new piece of music, but I think shaming the role of a "musical entrepreneur", so to speak, just encourages people to stay inside the comfort zone of academia. Ryan agreed, and remarked that he sees "the condition of contemporary classical music today in academica, as being to aspire to the ideal of writing highly sophisticated music for highly sophisticated music listeners", and furthermore, that "having a quality of musical entrepreneurship means to be able to package this newly written music in a way understandable for more people." I really understand this point very strongly, as I can see elements of it, not entirely, but at least in part at both Academy and even at Purcell, to an extent. There was definitely an over-judgemental form of categorizing people into different groups, intended, in no better terms than, to "put musicians in their place". This really began to piss me off during my later years at Purcell. Not many things managed to piss me off during that period of my life, but that certainly did!

~ 9th March 2025 ~

I think too many of us forget the power and importance of music, especially those who have it as their work. I recently spent a long period of time questioning whether it was the right path for me to take, and spent my time honing in on other activities which I also really enjoyed. Perhaps a break from composing might have been helpful, to an extent, as it is easy to become stifled and feel very uncreative, without even having to try. But if I've learned nothing else from the past few weeks, it is that it is the one thing in the world that can't be taken away from, not be any people, institutions, or rules of any culture shifts that hit us. Music is not just an amusing activity for our leisure time. For many of us, it is built into our very humanity. Our instincts and consciences are built around it. That is its value! It's almost beyond value, as it is impossible to find any sort of value without it. I pray that more people continue and begin to learn that with time!

~ 8th March 2025 ~

Here's something a read earlier today, which I've been thinking a lot about... "There are only two peole whose pride should truly matter to you, not your parents, not your friends, not even your mentors... Just the 8-year-old you, full of dreams, and the 80-year-old you, full memories." Can I do that? Could that be true? Is that really enough to keep me proud of my life's work? Only time will tell!

~ 6th March 2025 ~

How have these weeks been so shit? Where did I go wrong? Somehow I managed to lose all the most important things in my life in about 2 months, and left with successes I don't even care about anymore. I've got nothing to look forward to. It's all in my head, and always was. I'm a wannabe everything and a master of nothing. What's it all for? Where am I going?

~ 5th March 2025 ~

I recently received a very exciting commission from the Chorleywood Orchestra, which I play percussion in, for an orchestral suite based on a family-friendly old children's story. Me and the commissioner agreed on one of my favourites of all, Peter Pan. They said they wanted popular and memorable tunes, to fit the family-friendly mood, which will require such a different way of thinking to the methods of thinking in which we are encouraged at the Academy. I've been asked to try and finish it by the Summer, to go over it with the conductor, so it'll be an interesting few months of compositional challenge! I wrote a few hundred words of my book this morning, which introduced a new set of characters, which I'm quite proud of. It's a comical scene, and having not written much comedy before, this is one of my best shots so far. I have found a potential opportunity, through an informal invitation, to give a solo recital on the piano, which would be my first professional solo recital, likely later on in the year! This would be great experience for me, once I can get to a high enough standard and comfortable enough with the repertoire I'm learning. I'm going to include Sonata No. 4 by Prokofiev, which I've been learning on and off for about half a year, which I absolutely love and can't wait to perform publicly. My friend Leo was the first to introduce it to me, and his performance inspired me to want to play it myself. I enjoyed learning the first two movements, but the last movement is extremely technical difficult, so that'll be another thing I'll have to spend plenty of time on. It will, however, be absolutely worth it!

~ 2nd March 2025 ~

One of the biggest challenges for me, in trying to establish myself as a writer, is my passion for music. Music is unique for the fact that it is naturally so abstract, and therefore hard to critically explain, using musical terms, while maintaining reason and logic, as is one of the core aspects of any writing. This is a particular challenge of mine when writing about music, such as, for example, the article I’m writing at the moment about the solo piano music of Debussy. Similarly, about half a year ago, I started writing a book, which tried to deconstruct the theory and power behind the genre of romantic music. Both of these brought me the same problem whilst writing, which was how hard it was to explain the most abstract parts of music, while making sense, and what’s more, moving beyond writing vague descriptions of the lyrical and expressive effect of certain moments of music, which made very little analytical sense. The only explanation for this is that I have two very distinctive sides to my personality, a creative one, and a logical one. While I take satisfaction from both in different ways, their overlap poses a big problem. To date, this is the biggest dilemma facing me as a writer!

~ 28th February 2025 ~

I am desperate to leave some kind of mark on the field of musicology. I have had it at the back of my mind for years, and even started writing a book on it at one point, but the idea has now been lost into the fate of reality. I hope this is not the end, and when I have time, I'll try my best to make my contribution. I owe it to all the people who have inspired me on this topic, stemming all the way back to my early years at Purcell. Maybe even before, as my later years at Beacon were very prominent, musically, for me. Or possibly even further? My dad used to work for the Philharmonia Orchestra, where I definitely was inspired and learned a lot! There is a writing competition run by the RPS that I'm thinking of entering, in the field of writing about classical music. The winner gets published in their magazine! Could this be where I make my mark? Well we'll see... One thing at a time! On another note, I recently got offered a gig playing timpani for a local orchestra, for a couple of rehearsals and a concert. It could potentially be a great way to make some new contacts and connections, and of course just general performance practice. However, it runs over two weeks worth of my piano teaching. I need to decide... which do I prioritize? Which is genuinely more important to me? Or to my career? Or to my professional name?

~ 25th February 2025 ~

For the past couple of weeks, partly to try and immerse or distract myself in my work, I’ve started getting up super early, to travel into London and practice from about 8 to 10, or at least, as much of that as possible. I am definitely more productive then! I’m learning Scriabin’s Fourth Piano Sonata currently, and Ravel’s Jeux d’eau. The first of those two pieces in particularly is far harder and more dense and note-y than anything I’ve tried to learn before. However, a have a friend who says that if I do end up finishing learning it, he has a performance space that I can play it at, in around July. As great an opportunity as this is, I’ve only ever performed once on the piano outside of Purcell. I’ll need to practice performing for sure, maybe to smaller audiences of my friends first. I struggle with public speaking, so I have a feeling I’ll have a similar problem with public performing, or maybe not… who knows? The Scriabin itself is an absolute masterpiece in my opinion, and manages to fit so much genius into just two movements, over about 9 or 10 minutes. It’s definitely an under-looked corner of the repertoire, and I think it deserves to be performed as much as possible in public. As well as a personal one, that’s my artistic motivation behind trying to pull this off.

~ 24th February 2025 ~

I decided to start a new project! I did ImprovForty a few months ago, where I recorded and uploaded a new improvisation each day, for 40 days straight, to a decent success, which people loved! It did improve my improvising skills too, but I realised that there is one style of music that I particularly love improvising in, and composing to an extent, but most crucially, improvising on the piano. I started a new solo improvisation project called 'Scriabi-visations', and the name sort of speaks for itself! I'm doing regular, most likely weekly, improvisations, in the style of Scriabin. I am currently learning his Fourth Piano Sonata, and a few of his Etudes, so I feel like this will actually really help me to anchor myself in his extraordinarily unique compositional voice. I am deeply hoping for this to be a success, both professionally and personally! Looking back on the last half year, I think possibly the best time in my life was the summer of 2024, before I started at Academy. I wanted back then to be an entrepreneur, and planned my life around that, and I think, on most measures, things were as best as they ever have been. However, nobody actually knew this dream of mine, essentially meaning that it was all really just a construction in my mind, and quite a short-lived construction, all in all.

~ 23rd February 2025 ~

My recent breakup has made me question, more than ever before, who I can really trust. My answer is simple, nobody. I've realised I need to focus only on what I have been lucky to have. Aside from humans, my art is all that I have left. It is the only thing that absolutely nothing or nobody can take away from me. I hate that this has had to happen, as it hasn't always been like that. Maybe it will benefit me, or alternatively, maybe I'll crash and burn. My art, however, must remain the shining summit in my life, for now at least! I kept setting newer later and later deadlines to myself for finishing my book, but from now I'm going to try and be more strict on myself. This is the only goal that I can have complete control of, at least I can once I have control over my own life and destiny!

~ 20th February 2025 ~

Although I've been quite interested in writing for a while now, I'm not sure when exactly it began to really take over a lot of my creative work. For several months now, in addition to all the reading I've been doing, my musical training has helped me to deeply value the importance of narrative arcs and character and story development that is present across all 'non-static' art, in other words, art that is presented across time, like film, theatre, literature and music. It is difficult to pin down, however, as there wasn't even a clear time where I began to have this artistic revelation. My ideas for writing a novel have been on the scene, inside my brain, since around the end of 2022, but I've only got round to actively writing it over the past few months. I've had enough confidence in my own narrative ideas since November, and thought I should try and go for it!

~ 16th February 2025 ~

I've recently been thinking about something quite profound... where do the boundaries of music begin and end? I was having a conversation with Leo, a good friend of mine, a pianist and a great thinker. He was telling me about his recent appreciation of the music of John Cage, who famously argued that anything can be music. In all seriousness, I am not sure I completely agree with this theory, which is not that surprising for those of you who know me well. However, it did make me think a lot. One of my most recent music technology assignments at the Academy was to use the sounds from a selection of recordings of waves to form a short work of music. As somebody who has written almost exclusively for pitched media, in the form of instruments, voices, and the occasional electronically-generated sound, I did began to see his point, as what I was forming did overlap and in some ways match my natural process of composing.

~ 12th February 2025 ~

Getting over this break-up has been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. I still love her so much, but will have to find a way to live with it. I'm not even sure how long it'll take to get over it. Over the last few months, in fact almost half a year, I have been feeling a lot of longing and nostalgia for missing my past life at Purcell, including all the music I discovered, friends I made, people I met, and memories I hold there, and everything else that came with that. I have decided the try and channel and contain all of this through art, to try and put it all behind me. I am writing 3 pieces for solo piano, mostly for my own self-healing, to try and contain all these pervasive feelings, and hopefully try and put them all behind me.

~ 7th February 2025 ~

I've been doing a lot of reading on this lately. In today's world, people tend to mature most when they go off to university or start work. Broadly speaking, in past generations, kids used to mature much more as actual kids, in other words, at much younger ages, typically due to a faster track into work, and fewer "securities" provided by most governments and people of power. I don't believe that this is a reflection on kids becoming more "entitled", as many claim. I think it is simply that society has changed, and more specifically, the perspective of age, in relativity, has changed a lot with recent decades.

~ 6th February 2025 ~

I had a lesson swap today, and ended up with an hour's lesson with Rubens Askenar, who I'd heard a lot about already. Although not great with the words at the moment, I feel like I should write at least something, as I did find my lesson with him really insightful. He quoted Stravinsky, saying "Notes are like dollars, don't waste them!" Even in general, he had such an intelligent, but also wise, approach to composing.

~ 1st February 2025 ~

I don't know what I have to look forward to anymore. I've lost so much in the last month, and beginning to lose sight of anywhere I'm heading. What is the meaning of life? Even that beats me right now. I'm tried composing, but even that is killing me. I feel like I haven't written anything half decent for ages, and that my creative juices are at an all-time low, both chronologically and creatively. I tried writing a tone poem, which has come to a halt. Same with my symphony idea, all three concertos I tried writing, and most of my other smaller pieces. With the exception of my cello octet, I haven't finished anything decent during my whole time at the Academy.

~ 31st January 2025 ~

I'm quite proud of this thing I'm working on. I'm in the middle of tough times both musically and socially, and I've tried to keep myself grounded with a new literary project, as I've hinted at before. It is a novel that I'm working on. It is my best attempt at a nostalgic exploration into the world of English village life, a world rich with life and character, largely lost or overshadowed by the modern world, and one that I deeply miss, told through the eyes of pets, mostly kittens, who obviously eventually grow up into cats. That is the main focus point of the story, maturity. It's also technical formed out of a "string of childhood tales", something which you can hold me accountable to later down the line. I want each corner of the book, or each chapter, to reveal a new part of human life, whether it is either happy, sad, optimistic, nostalgic or hopeful. This is in hope that, as the fictional universe unfolds over the course of the plot, so does the mind of the reader. Although original supposed to be about a “lost world” or one that has be left behind with the past, as much of the narrative, characters and settings are strongly relatable, as are deeply nostalgic. I must make one thing clear, however. I don’t want to be branded as an author, for the simple reason that I have another greater artistic passion, and also simply that I’m not anywhere near as skilled and trained as an author, compared to my musical training. As with many of my projects, it's measure of success could swing either way, by which I'm refering to its success to readers, or whether or not it is published, or indeed finished, at all! In my state of mind at the moment, it could easily go either way. Best to keep my hopes up I guess! I am feeling a problem creativity, however. I am constantly losing creative focus, and take a long time to compose, far longer than I used to, to the point where I've hardly completed more than a small handful of works since starting at the Academy in September. This is similar with writing, filmmaking, piano, and even, to an extent, coding. It is really sad and painful, particularly at the moment, as I am trying to distract myself as much as possible from what else is going on in my life.

~ 29th January 2025 ~

One thing I've learned from playing in these several amateur orchestras and singing in amateur choirs, is how, in a deeper way, are so much more important for keeping musical spirit going in the world. They represent not only what people want to hear, but also how the majority of people experience and interpret music, with a greater sense of community and personality.

~ 26th January 2025 ~

I want to rid myself off this mortal coil. I don't have any purpose anymore. I'm an aspiring composer, with no real purpose, a terrible ex-boyfriend, a terrible friend to many, and not worth the space of a human. I over-fantasise and think I'm capable of everything, then I come back with nothing. What is the meaning of life? Everything is just leading nowhere, and I won't make any kind of worthy impact on the world.

~ 25th January 2025 ~

I have recently, as many of my readers know, taken a very strong interest in piano performing, and even started to consider it as the focus for a potential Masters degree. However, I had a strange, but also slightly self-affirming revelation, very recently. I've always been planning on trying to continue my piano and conducting, as well as even percussion and singing, as they all help to improve and regularly maintain my musical instincts, if not simply for 'playing the game' of the industry. I have, throughout all this, however, never even thought of viewing myself as a 'Pianist-Composer' or 'Composer & Conductor', or anything close to that. This is because there is an overwhelmingly clear focus on what I do, which is composing. Part of me found it really hard to put so much of my life, in previous years, into producing so many crucial piano arrangements, as I constantly worried that I would be made to look like I was making a point, or a statement about the purpose of music or something along those lines. As ironic as it is within my own career, I have become increasingly underwhelmed by the significance of my arrangements, as terrible as that sounds. This is not because I don't think they aren't very useful, but that they are nothing close to being inspired in any way. In this light, I do not consider myself anything of a true 'pianist', and for the record, I believe that absolutely nothing, not even my own prized arrangements, matches the fire and beauty of Holst's The Planets and Debussy's Trois Nocturnes. My passion does not lay within the compositional techinques of the instrument, but instead, in the very aesthetics of the music itself. I see my small-time conducting work as my best and most clear-cut way of proving this, taking emphasis of the piano, and creating balance. The purpose of this is simple, to pave the path for what I really want to do, becoming a composer.

~ 24th January 2025 ~

I had a very thought-provoking lesson with my composition professor, Gareth, yesterday. The piece I showed him was my recently-completed solo violin suite. Many sections of it are strongly inspired by some of the post-Romantic virtuoso violin writing, seen in Ysaye and Prokofiev, and other similar composers. His main thought was that some sections of the piece didn't "fit", especially the tecniques that were very over-characteristic of this genre of music, or in other words, too overly "violinistic". As for style and purpose of the piece, he told me that "If it is referencial, it's got to make a point." That's something I've been thinking about ever since. The amount of pastiche that I've written over the past couple of years is hard to define in and of itself, as so much of it bears heavy influence from other composers, without being purposefully pastiche. Personally, I have always looked at the word with great confusion and ambiguity. I don't like its over-use, as it's very oversimplified, and is often thrown at things that are not completely without influence, or "forging their own path", as most music, incidently, actually does not.

~ 22nd January 2025 ~

I am, and have been, working on a large writing project for quite a while. It's based around nostalgic tales of pet cats from my childhood. Sadly, I've started becoming stifled in my flow of work, and I think the only effective way to become inspired again, from a writing perspective, is to take a large walk out in the country, like the early days of the lockdown, memorable indeed. That helped me all the time with my composing, and definitely with any kind of academic or school work. At the moment, all I can do is try to do as many newly-found activities as I can, as that will hopefully, by natural selection, bring me prosperity with the ones that I am naturally suited to. Part of me is still conflicted over all of this, however. I've lost a very important person in my life, and after everything we've been through together, I'm starting to ask myself, what am I actually doing all of this for? Myself? A future version of myself? The world? My friends? My enemies? If I do actually publish a novel, what next? I'm not a proficient enough writer to realistically keep it up as a professional, and therefore, having spent thousands of hours on this one project, what else do I do? I'll be sacrificing a painfully large number of hours. Is it worth it? I'll try and hold faith in the notion that it is...

~ 21st January 2025 ~

I've had a whack-load of bad news over the past few days. Most of all, the classic adolescent milestone of the break-up. I'm not sure whether I want to enter music as a profession anymore. It's extremely unstable, and depends on the fragility of connections, contacts and good reputation, with damaging consequences leading to ending up on the wrong end of this success. I recently started with my first regular piano students. Teaching, especially piano, is going to be very much a working process for me, as I often struggle with professional communication, outside of planned and ready-prepared and written speeches at the start of concerts. It is, however, as I have seen with my former teachers, very satisfying once you develop a strong teacher-student relationship, as it's easier to get into the flow, and teach better and more comfortably. And of course, students need money! I recently started developing a new business, with my business partner, which is a new website designed to hopefully increase the amount of rational debate in this increasingly 'shouty' world. It'll be plenty of work, and likely take a long time, but I'm going to have a go. It's great to have big projects like this, something which I have greatly doing recently, and especially now, as I need to crack down and work, if I'm going to take my mind off other affairs.

~ 18th January 2025 ~

While recently writing a solo violin suite, I suddenly had a thought. Why do musicians love playing their instrument? Is it due to the physical process of playing, or the process of the piece of music itself? Or perhaps, quite simply, the vast body of great repertoire for their instrument? This will naturally have multiple answers, which begs another question... There is a lot of new music that uses every single extended technique in the book, even those that feel uncomfortable and displeasing to play on the instrument. For those who value the meditation in the physicality of playing their instrument, are some of these extended techniques perhaps taking it a bit too far, and even removing much of the enjoyment out of playing? I think it ultimately comes down to the debate of whether the composer's or performer's opinion is of more value. While an extended technique might be troubling for an instrumentalist, it might sound very inventive or even beautiful to the listener, in many cases. In many other cases, however, this appreciation from the listener is not even the case at all, which is how we end up with so many works of new music falling into the danger zone, too far from any kind of public accessibility. There is an obvious reason why these more standard techniques get used over and over again. They are the best ways to produce and build interesting harmonic language.

~ 31st December 2024 ~

It is approaching midnight, and the new year, and therefore, I have a random thought to share, that I've been pondering over for a while. When I was at Purcell, I remember there was a big push amongst composers to try and find out "voice" and artistic identity. I even got criticised many times for writing music that was too "similar in style" to other composers. This is, to an extent, the sad case where I'm studying at the moment, at the Academy. I always felt that it doesn't matter what "style" I write in, because hopefully after a while, my voice will shine through, without me even having to try. I haven't found my musical identity yet. All I can do until that point is simply try to keep writing beautiful music. For Christmas, I recently watched the classic 'Wallace & Gromit' films. Naturally paying attention to the amazing soundtrack, so creative and inventive, I realized how much I would love to compose a score to films as great as this! Let's hope that, over the next few years, I can actually follow that ambition through!

~ 22nd December 2024 ~

Yesterday, I wrote a poem about the American folklore, the Windigo. As the first poem I wrote in about 3 years, it was alright. I think I’ve still got quite a way to go, however. Christmas is just a few days away. Coming to an end, it has really made me realize that I haven’t done anything near what I wanted to achieve this year. I feel like I sort of backed out of A-levels, and could have absolutely done a lot better. I’m at a great place where I am, even if not York, but I still feel as though I haven’t got much to show for myself. I’ve been writing this book, on and off, about the village of Highbury. I’m hoping that could become something. My website-making service is kind of coming back to kick me. I’m quite behind on a couple of websites that are supposed to be finished within a few days. Maybe it’s not for me. I enjoyed it for a while, but maybe I should just focus on my own, and a select few others, in my own free time. The very first one I made, for a trio of friends at Academy, I’ve had to take down anyway, as they’re splitting up.

~ 14th November 2024 ~

I had my first workshop at the Academy this afternoon! It was a cello octet, which I was quite proud of in the end, which was conducted by Aaron Holloway-Nahum. He seemed to really like it, overall. Same with both my professors, Gareth and Louise, who were both there. Phil Cashian, the Head of Composition, said it was great too! However, he interrupted many times to outright say “This doesn’t work!”, before a relieving “But apart from that, fantastic!” near the end of the workshop. It felt a bit conflicting, and I didn’t for sure know how to react. Maybe it’s just how he acts? But overall, I’m really pleased with how the workshop went!

~ 14th October 2024 ~

Another seminar today! From a practical perspective, I learned from today's guest, Catriona Price, how to succeed in the music industry. One of the things she said that practically resonated with me was the importance of not just contacts, but friends. Being surrounded by friends who share an interest with you is very beneficial. However, you must also show leadership and willingness to make the most of these opportunities.

~ 10th October 2024 ~

The other day, I attended a seminar with Charlotte de Mille, who talked about the importance and sometimes benefit of presenting works of art from different periods alongside each other, as they often helped to “tell different angles of a similar story”. This has greatly influenced the way I conceive the concert programmes I put together. Often pieces that can seem unrelated, as I have learned first-hand, can actually compliment each other very well, when presented as complementary works of art, rather than simply fitting into the same venue.

~ 9th October 2024 ~

I have been very interested in film composing over the years. Rael Jones, in his recent talk at the Academy, emphasized the importance of building up versatility in skills, to be able to master the entire process of producing soundtracks. The knowledge of your way around DAWs like Logic and Ableton are of inestimable value, as it is so much easier today to be able to visualize your music, before the expenses allowed for a production come into place.

~ 15th August 2024 ~

Although having recently rethought my life, and decided to become an entrepreneur, there is still, and always, going to be a very important artistic side to my personality. My hopeful success in my 'career' will not change the fact that the artistic side of me will still remain as strong as before. Becoming an entrepreneur does not at all mean that my attitude towards art is changing, or that my priority in the world of art will be making money. It simply means that I will take the focus off of any single study, even composition. I have a lot of passions and interests, and I will dare to, for the life of me, give them all a go. I am also in no way at all turning my back on the music industry or the artistic practice. I am going to keep composing and writing and filmmaking and performing music for as long as I live, but simply harness it as an activity and practice that makes me money, and allows me to take initative. Or so to speak, I have an entrepreneurial approach towards art and creativity. Funnily enough, I was in the middle of writing a set of Piano Inventions, thinking about why I've been so stuck in the music of my influences, when I had this significant revelation, or better put, epiphany. Funny how things that happen if you ask me!

~ 29th May 2024 ~

In many ways, it'shard for a composer to write a truly personal and inward diary, as so much of it can't be understood without the contained expressive power of music. This is why I haven't really regularly tried up until this point, but I've come to realise that I definitely should. I just don't know when that'll be yet. I've questioned music as a career before, more times than I can remember, and have seriously considered professions outside of music. What's brought me back every single time is an unexplainable need for an artistic voice in my life. Music is undoubtedly the purest form of art.

~ 6th February 2024 ~

I’ve come across quite an important revelation, which I see as quite important in my developing years as a composer. A few days ago, just before I turned 18, I found out that I hadn’t been accepted into any of the Chamber Music Concerts at my school. Although these concerts are centred around the performance rather than the composition, any composer who enters their own music knows the value and significance of having their work played at these concerts, particularly somewhere like Wigmore Hall. I originally thought that this was down to popularity, as the two other composers whose pieces had got through were both naturally far more “popular” at school, with both students and staff. At the same time, at multiple times in my recent memory, I’ve noticed that my music has grown in popularity with people outside of the world of music, which is interesting to note, as after all, I don’t try to “please” anyone, and my music could be seen as more “accessible” or to “English pastorale”, perhaps to its own faults. That’s something which I’m not sure about, but fine by me, at least it reflects a large number of people who like and appreciate my music! Now things evidently are beginning to change in my views, as I’ve been thinking about who I try to please with my own music and my career. At the end of the day, to be a really successful composer, I’ll need to stand out, and that doesn’t mean necessarily through the biggest concert halls like Wigmore. If anything, it emphasizes how I’m not easy to be categorized into a single strand of composition. While starting off as a classical composer, I’ve also done film and electronic, which I hope to do far more of in the future. My ultimate point is that my musical future shouldn’t have to live up to the expectation of playing at places like Wigmore or the Southbank Centre, or anywhere just in the “classical world”, because who knows where else I’ll go aside from that. I’m happy with who I am as a composer, and am looking forward to my future ahead of me!

~ 31st January 2024 ~

A couple of days ago, I heard a piece by a friend of mine, Aaron Stewart, called “Sonata in Two Movements”, and it made me think that I need to start to focus on crafting and orchestrating my music better, and working with the performers closer. As a result, I’m going to start going through a lot of my music, past and current music, with several musicians that I know.

I’ve also started to realize, just as a side note, that my style of composition has been largely influenced by plenty of other composers, but that now, my own “voice” is beginning to emerge, something which I’m also going to lean into, in order to develop as a composer, especially going into my years of further education.

I’ve been working on a certain composition for a while now, for Cello and Piano, called Latimer’s Edge, which is like a nostalgic “pastoral English” fantasia. There’s a chord progression in it which I can’t get out of my head, going from C-F#-B-D to B-E-A-D. Something about this progression just somehow screams nostalgia for English countryside, so much that there’s something almost reminiscent of Vaughan-Williams or even Butterworth. I just can’t quite put my finger on it! However, I might use this chord a few times, particularly in my “English” music, as I’ve noted its effectiveness, and couldn’t be a better symbol of my unique voice as a composer, once again, stemming from my nation, which I’m not at all ashamed of.

~ 21st January 2024 ~

A lot has a happened over the last few weeks, and I’ve not written for a while now. My diary’s been filled up with many concerts, personally-run projects, and a couple more university auditions and open days, over the next couple of terms. I think it’s fair to say that my composition career is finally taking off! I’m also slowly working on a big essay, which I’ll publish online as soon as I can. (I’d predict likely around March or April? I don’t know exactly yet.) I think it’d be good to gain an academic presence in music as well. I’m starting to finally build a great career and the prospects of a great life, since I’ve got a girlfriend who I love and who loves me dearly, a great supportive family, and LOADS of supportive friends, who I can thank for this. On reflection, I think I can attribute a lot of this to Purcell alone. In the 6 or 7 years I’ve been here, it’s done wonders for me! I’ve changed so much and grown up so much more than at anywhere else, and am so grateful for the love and support I’ve had from everyone here, teachers, colleagues, partners, and friends. I’ve also notable changed a lot in my view of composition, as I’ve explored a lot over the last year in my blog.

These past 3 or 4 months have, for me, been filled with a strange sort of balance of confusion, excitement, worry, guilt, uncertainty, pressure, and hope. I get weird moments of excitement when things and plans start to fall into place, like offers, journeys, open days, deals, career advances, and of course, personal plans, but at the same time, I have times when I completely lose sight of that, and question my plans, choices, and what I’m going to do. In the process, I’ve made many sacrifices, but I guess that’s how we mature, and it’s all part of growing up.

I’ve been thinking about the possibility of studying law as my postgraduate degree, like a conversion course. Part of me says that I should go for that, for reasons mentioned previously, but the other half says different. A lot of people tell me that I wouldn’t take music seriously if I studied law and became a lawyer, which I don’t exactly see as true, and on balance, I think I’d be smart enough to study law, with a lot of work, obviously. The main problem is how it would fit into my life. Would I do music primarily, or law primarily, or both? Would doing both even work? To put that aside, however, I’ve got quite a range of offers from University and Conservatoire, which are Music at York, Music at Nottingham, Liberal Arts at King’s, and for Conservatoire, a Composition major at Royal Academy, Royal Northern, and Royal Welsh. For the sake of auditions, open days and my applications, I’m not yet going to comment on the preferred choices, until at least a few months away. However, one thing I can say is that I’ve planned out an ideal life with my dream university/conservatoire in mind, which I’ve finally settled on.

~ 21st December 2023 ~

I just did a few days of stewarding work for a concert organizer named Peter Gilbert Dyson. He's a very no-nonsense and straight-to-the-point kind of guy, which, to be honest, I admire. More gets done, and much more easily, with a boss like that. It was not bad pay at all either, I think it was about £20 an hour!

~ 20th November 2023 ~

I have two contrasting views to share. Firstly, I think one of the beauties of composition is that a piece of music, whilst in the process of being written, can follow you through and reflect everything that occurs in and upon your life. For example, while writing my “String Trio” or my “Fantasia-Elegy”, I feel like every bit of it perfectly reflects the states and trajectory of my own personal experiences, yet by the end of completion, I have a completely abstract and pure piece of music, which I can reflect on, and more importantly, RELATE to, as it’s followed me and carried me through so much. On the other hand, I must share the important and arguable but unofficial “narrative” behind my String Trio. Under this narrative, the three movements can be seen as the three stages of “the development of an artist’s voice”. The first movement, energetic and almost brutal, symbolizes youth and the imitation of a musical style, in this case, Shostakovich, based on my own personal experiences. Despite the contrasting texture of writing towards the end of this movement, this “youthful” characterization stays mostly in place. The second movement is slow and grounded, like an uncompromisingly long and painful elegy. Ideas develop slowly and almost entirely out of each other over a linear narrative. The third and final movement is the longest of the three, in stark contrast to the traditional practice of the “Scherzo” third movement. The piece is instead a long fantasia, with several different overlapping forms and structures baked into it, despite not being easily categorizable. Its structure does, however, work as a movement of a chamber work. This is, after all, the main point of music, as it truly works. I like to think of this final movement as the artist finally reaching his point of finding his own voice. Just like the movement itself, with its noticeably different overall mood and texture to the other two movements, it’s as if all the melodies and harmonies and motifs have all finally been processed into a fully-formed piece of music, one which the fictional “artist” can be proud to call “in their own voice”. This complex but fairly abstract narrative is, in my opinion, one of the main reasons why I feel this is my first “masterpiece” or “great work”. It’s certainly the piece which I’d say “characterizes an important period of my own life, meaning the artistic coming-of-age, and discovery of my own personal voice”. I’ve come to the realisation of what I’ll consider my second “great work”, which is my orchestral concert overture Crenark Hill, which I’m hoping to get perform soon. If I’m going to establish myself as a unique and uniquely personal composer, then Crenark Hill reflects this more than anything. The entire piece, more or less, alternates between tonic and dominant chords, and there’s almost no harmonic progression, except that of motific progression. That’s what I feel makes this piece so unique. Once performed and published, I think it’ll be one of the pieces that’ll build up my name and unique qualities as a composer. The piece is being performed in March, by the way, in Chorleywood, which I’ll keep you all posted on!

~ 17th November 2023 ~

I don't know whether to dedicate my newly-finished Fantasia-Elegy to Katrina or Tom. One's been the best girlfriend I could've asked for, but the other is mainly a clarinettist himself. Also though, on reflection, he's been such a selfless and caring friend to me all this time I've known him. I finally feel I can always go to him when I need to go to someone I can truly trust. The piece itself, particularly the ending at least, I feel musicalizes the lifelong comfort and heart-warm of a friend, in a more direct and personal way than ever. Then again, I could say this about so many people who I appreciate all in different ways for their supportive impact of my life, care, support, and help in growth as an artist and as a person. There's so many I could mention, but I'd like to call out Rocco, Ivan, Oscar, Dexter, Yulin, Ostap, Ashton, Louis, Sam, Samuel, Josh, Tom, Katrina, Yu-Wei, Dima, Jayden, Reuben, Antonia, Adi, Holford, as he's known, Cole, Aaron, and Rhys, above many others. And of course, so many teachers and mentors, as well as my parents and brothers, I'd include Mr Bambrough, Mrs Cox, Mr Longstaff, Mr Darrell Pigott, Mr Adam Simmonds, and of course, the legendary Jacques Cohen. I'm writing all of this with the ear worm of my Elegy, again mostly the heartwarming ending section, going round and round, particularly when reflecting on all these thoughts of inspiration and friendship. I guess that means it is a work of genius after all!

~ 16th November 2023 ~

It's past midnight now, and I'm with Yulin and we're listening to the Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, one of my personal gems of Mahler. I would say he's one of my favourite composers, but in reality, I can't put composers in groups of priorities like this. For example, whenever I try to name my favourite composers, which for the last few years, have technically “been” Ravel, Shostakovich and Vaughan-Williams, all for different reasons. However, I'd now have to add Holst and even Elgar for their just-as-good orchestration and passionate music and wide range of style within their own voice. Furthermore, if I did that, I'd also have to add Mahler, because he's simply the greatest symphonist after Beethoven, another composer who I'd have to add as a result. This kind of proves my point! This is the beauty of composition. I don't just have a select few composers as my “biggest influences”, although I lean more towards certain ones through certain periods of my life. For example, at the current moment, these “influences” would probably be Shostakovich and Ravel, but that's changed from the past, and will definitely continue to change as I grow more as a composer. Through all the other composers I know and love, and all artistic and cultural influences I am exposed to, I'll find my own unique and personal “voice” one day. This day can't really be defined, but instead, this quality within me will slowly unravel out into my composition.

~ 14th November 2023 ~

Here's a genuine question. Who would actually genuinely care if I disappeared off the face of the earth? I can only think of two, or maybe three people who I think genuinely do. To be fair though, I've had a rough day and I just feel really shit now. One of my friends doesn't want to care or spend time with me anymore. Other things like that have plagued me for the whole day, and even yesterday, to be honest.

~ 12th November 2023 ~

I've often been asked why there are numerous tiny technical and notation errors on my published scores. On the whole, I like to think of my scores as really well-polished and neat, but at the end of the day, I don't think anyone's really going to care about errors this tiny, and it's a waste of time re-exporting and re-uploading new versions of scores, when that could be spent on far better activities, like getting commissions and being artistic. As long as it's clear, readable, and every instruction on the score is clearly obvious, it's fine. So I think my simple answer to that question is as simple as you could've imagined. It doesn't matter!

Being a composer. It's the most important job in the world, at the moment, in my opinion. I think this because I believe that the most important reflection on our society is art, and the purest and supremist form of art is music. Almost every philosopher I can think of agree with that last statement, that no art form can be purer and deeper and more meaningful and uncontained and beautifully ambiguous than music. And who ultimately shapes the world of music? It's the writers and composers and producers of music. It's also a form of identity for so many people, particularly more amongst non-musicians, again, in a bigger way than any other art form.

My plan in the future is to have 3 parallel careers. One in music, one in web development, and one in law. There are inevitably going to be plenty of overlaps, such as film productions which I plan to do. However, I'm primarily a composer, and that's really what I've hoped to be for about 10 years. My view on composition has inevitably changed, but still similar in principle, and is now more about legacy, difference and enlightenment above everything else. I want to be remembered and looked up to in a way much more striking and spiritual and artistic than anything else, even law, technology, business, finance, and everything else really.

My true testament to my loyalty to my musical existence would be my 2 upcoming concerts on 30th November and 5th December. I'm playing piano in both. One of them is my own piece, and one's my arrangement of Saturn by Holst. If I can successfully perform both, and rehearse and direct all my other pieces in these concerts in the same way, then I'll finish my career at Purcell in a way better than ever before! That's my goal for the next few weeks, which are now basically just a massive buildup to those concerts!

~ 27th October 2023 ~

I'm weighing between whether to become a composer or a lawyer. As a composer, or as a writer in general, I'm freer and independently-minded, have more of a direct legacy, and, in a stroke of luck, could make millions, from one big success. On the other hand, as a lawyer, it can still be just as rewarding to help small businesses against big government or big tech. It is also generally far better paid, if successful. Can you do both? Probably not very easily, as I'd be completely torn between the drastically different environments and circumstances required for these two different states of mind. A Liberal Arts course, as I've applied for at King's College, could work very well for either, so I'm glad I made that application. Hypothetically, as a lawyer, how would I use my other skills, composition and web development, to help me in this field? Could I set up a few of my own companies on the side, that focus on something as distantly-related of web development, and still retain my title as a “lawyer”? Imagine that my music is published through a company which I use to practice the law of copyright. This could be me as a professional lawyer. I could also have my own personal blog, in which I talk about all kinds of law, and through which I move onto plenty of other subjects which I love, including music, philosophy, enterprise, investing, web development, and railways. It could work, after all, it's best to consider every path!

~ 15th September 2023 ~

There's a word that I heard spoken once in a special way, by my former English teacher, Mr. Simmonds. That word is identity. Now it's been pointed out to me, it's popped up in almost every great work of art I've ever come across within the past 10 years. Even films like Empire of the Sun and Once Upon a Time in America, and of course, above all, in my opinion, music. While writing my String Trio, I was constantly aware of my influence, as in, composers whose music that piece would not be the same if it weren't for. Every composer must find their “voice”, but my question is about what is the route of a composer's “voice”? I'm starting to figure out that it's the identity of a composer that ironically shapes their individualism. My String Trio, for example, although having been influenced and shaped by such a large range of music that I've listened to, somehow feels more personal to me than anything else in the world. The world to me can throw me anything, but I still won't have the heart to change my piece, or in fact, any piece I've ever written.

At the same time as writing this, I'm hearing the Menuet from Ravel's Sonate for the first time, and somehow, I'm already filled with the feeling that it's one of the nicest pieces I've genuinely heard before! Maybe that just serves to show that music and its beauty and fulfilment is completely endless.

I actually can't wait to play piano in concert again. From memory, it's such a good feeling, as in, the whole process of learning a piece that I care about, whether I've written it or not, and playing to others. Sharing the never-ending sphere of music means that it'll never die out!

~ 13th September 2023 ~

I’m thinking of planning concerts to perform my String Trio and arrangement of The Planets. I’d better get in there early before I run into the classic procrastination mode. Under my belief that music is the greatest and purest form of art, I’ve had a thought. If music is unique for being the only art form that’s measured in time, then interactive music can only diminish music’s unique power. It also takes away so much of the composer’s identity from his own music. Maybe tech’s the route of this. Attention spans for most can’t cover any works of art longer than 5 minutes, and art can’t be appreciated if it’s not recognised or heard in full, because if a work of music is structured properly, then it should, by nature, feel incomplete when listening to it in sections.

~ 6th September 2023 ~

This week has been packed. I met the most amazing girl, named Kat. It became pretty clear and really quickly that we both liked each other. However, meanwhile, I know who I'm actually friends with now. That's become clear, as so many of my old friends have dropped all hopes with me and befriended all the new people, and some have stuck beside me, particularly people like Yulin, who I want to particularly call out, as he's been so selfless and always around to support me, like no other friend I've had before.

~ 6th July 2023 ~

This is my second-last lesson with Mr. Simmonds, and he tells me that he was a composer when he was a student at Keele. This led to a long conversation about university. I’ve been comparing conservatoire and university up until this point, but he said that I’ve got the right idea thinking more about university. As an artist himself, I half-believed him when he said that all the activity and speculation around the music of today happens when you get to university. He even helped me personally as a composer, saying that I need to find my own personally voice, or musical language. As I’ve come to agree, every composer must have their own language of writing, as it’s what gives them their purpose towards art. We inevitably got onto Shostakovich, who’s music I love at the moment, and I discovered that he played the cello in Shostakovich’s Fifth, which he also loved. Our last lesson with him really completed the cycle of what I needed to know my place as a composer. He showed us a couple of his compositions from his days as a student, a violin sonata, and a piece for wind quintet. Following on from that, as we summed up our year’s work of studying, he gave us all some of the best advice and reassurance we could ever need: “Whatever anyone will tell you, what I’m about to tell you is so important; the true way to measure a society is by its treatment, its attitude towards its art. And most art doesn’t impact a lot of people, and that’s fine, that doesn’t matter. Every piece of art, or work of literature, or piece of music that you create will have an impact. It’ll raise a question, or state an idea. And this is, I can’t stress enough how important that is, to us as humans. That’s why what you, all you people do as musicians, like all artists, is so important.” All I can say from that, is that one thing can be certain. whatever the future brings for me, or whatever I study, or work for, or whoever I’m friends with, and whoever I know, or am associated with, I’ll never separate from my music, or give up my art. My music is my expression, my identity, my lifelong passion, and at the end of it all, my legacy, and nothing, no force in the world, can block me from that asset. I gave him a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, signed by everyone in that small class of six of us. We then shook hands, and he wished me good luck! I really wish I’d thanked him more, as much as he’s really helped me.

~ 26th June 2023 ~

I just finished the IMPULSE outreach trip with school. A nice experience and all that, and I made some more valuable friendships, but overall, I'm sorry to say, a fucking waste of time. I spent the first 2 days teaching children, in front of my own teachers and the kids' teachers, how the conductor waves his stick around. I then had to conduct music with an ensemble who didn't help me at all by doing all the incredibly hard stuff like watching the conductor, or actually reading tempo markings. However, I had some good talks with my friends, particularly Oscar and Rocco, but also Antonia, who I'm finally beginning to get on good ground with. I also met a composer named Tim Ambler. Despite him being a retired retailer and 'amateur' (using his own words) composer, he probably taught me more than many of my music teachers from Purcell. He admired my capacity to take on a side career, in order to make money, and in fact heavily encouraged me to do so, as he did, when he ran offices in Marylebone. He was also so humble, describing his own music as 'cowpat' music, or 'country' music, which I believe to be a massive oversimplification of how beautiful and well-crafted his music is!

This reminds me of my meeting and inspiring seminar with Errolyn Wallen, who taught me about the importance of personality, identity and life in music, and how it's a composer's “duty” to replicate everything in the music of their own. She was also genuinely the first person in my life who asked me the big question of “Why do I write music?” It was only shortly before that seminar that I had a big revelation. In a seminar with former Purcellian Reuben Bance, I was inspired to write a piece about space, which then evolved into sketches for an 8th movement to The Planets, a piece which I'd originally heard performed by my school back in early December, and by this point had become absolutely obsessed with. I started writing sketches for the whole piece, and a full opening section, with a string passage. On composing this opening, I realized that it was one of the best bits of music that I'd ever heard, and it wasn't done by a dead composer, but was written be me! This made me realize, or more accurately, rediscover that I could write so well, leading me to rediscover all the great things, related to composition, that I'd done in the past. This all started a huge revelation within me, that lasted these 3 or 4 months since, and is still, to an extent, still a subject of subtle debate within me to this day. It was always meant to happen, I believe, as at the end of the day, I'm a composer. That's my identity, my humanity and my existence.

~ 8th May 2023 ~

A few days ago, one of my good friends at school, Dexter, suggested I watch a new film, called Empire of the Sun. I did, and it was fantastic, possibly close to one of the best films ever created, for its acting, directing, and of course, its music. Over these past few days, whatever I did, I couldn’t get the themes and music of Empire of the Sun out of my head, but particularly the music. It was lodged inside of my brain like an earworm. At this point I’m beginning to realize something, that I must do music. I must be a composer. It became so clear in my mind at that point, as if everything I’m doing outside of it, like coding, investing, business, railway modelling, and whatever else I want or need, is all to serve what I am as a composer. After all, I’m going to need I proper legacy, better yet a proper artistic one! To tell the truth, this was always going to be realised at some point. I had a dream, which depicted the death of one of my loved ones, and somehow, in that dream, it made me question everything. Most importantly, however, the thing I figured out was that I need to keep myself living on, through a legacy. And what other better legacy than through music!

~ 17th April 2023 ~

My long-time history teacher, Mr. Pigott, has just announced to us that he’s leaving. It’s apparently not confirmed, according to a student at school, but I’m pretty sure it almost definitely is. In all seriousness, I’m going to miss him. He was well-read and well-spoken, and was a great source of inspiration to me over the years, in more than just history. He was also an inspiration to me, strangely, in music, railways, and just generally regarding my interests during my growing up. He was often hilariously sarcastic and satirical and cynically of plenty of things, in the funniest way that you can imagine, and often even just through his facial expressions. Also, he often replied in his knowledgeable wisdom “no, no, difference is good; some variety is good…” and would go on to explain his opinion and thoughts through his massive brain-based library of knowledge. He’d been fine, in fact comedically enthusiastic, just like my English teacher Mr. Simmonds, about any of us, although me and Dexter in particular, bringing cups of tea into class.

~ 14th March 2023 ~

I’d like to give a mention to one of my favourite pieces of music at the moment, which is The Planets by Gustav Holst. When talking about this subject, my composition teacher Jacques Cohen described The Planets as “a fantastic suite of seven unique tone poems”, which I agree with completely, and I think that sums up a lot of the reason as to why I love them so much. I’m even thinking about arranging it for solo piano, as I’ve been putting together some sketches straight onto the piano, which I might write up onto Sibelius. Jacques is an amazing composition teacher. He’ll say phrases like “anyway, we digress…” and “short is fine, short is good” which, from now on, I’ll never be able to forget, even after I leave the Purcell School, as part of my process of composition! Whenever I remind him, at the start of each week’s lesson, of which pieces I was working on, he had this facial expression, which merged into one of either ambiguity or confusion. I couldn’t put my finger on it, by which point he’d remember anyway. He would use emotive language, in the context of anything we were working on, but in a “factual” way, almost never, until this point at least, using a strong voice or expression, keeping precisely to the point. What a legend! Samuel Kemp, Josh Gearing, and myself are all quite good friends, as we collectively made up the majority of Jacques’s regular students. All of us know his uniquely personal obsession with the green paper cups used at school, mostly for drinking tea and coffee out of, which for some reason we remember!

~ 12th December 2022 ~

I need to reflect on my time studying with, and what I’ve so far learned from my new English teacher, Mr. Adam Simmonds. This term alone has brought me enough to shape my new view of life, as not knowing exactly what I want to do as a career in the future, but as long as I believe in the power and importance of art. I only partially remember his first few classes, and that most of it was simply occupied with learning about and understanding the context behind pre-Civil War, or “antebellum”, American literature. I did, however, notice his unique style of teaching. Even just the way he explained the cultural divide between Northern and Southern states, which, although I knew a lot of it already, I really started to understand a more human and psychological perspective, rather than just a string of events and historical facts. But it took me a while to actually put my finger on exactly what I found intriguing about his lessons, and what gave me a great amount of anticipation in what I’d discover with the next lesson, almost every lesson. Now at least I know, that after all these years of doubt, I’ve definitely picked the right school!

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