As a process, writing music again has been a steep and very time consuming learning curve to be on. But that’s fair enough – I’ve written before about how my sense of time these days is wholly distorted.
(There are earlier background entries about writing music here and here.)
I say ‘writing music’ but it’s far more than that. It’s writing it, playing it, recording it, mixing it, criticising it. And it’s keeping it interesting – to me if no-one else. It’s also very enjoyably absorbing.
So, it’s been a lot of learning and re-learning but everything moves on – and so do I. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it – and I have and as I write this, I’m pleased with what I’ve done. I tried to provide a soundtrack to a brain recovering, with all its episodes, repetition, uncertainty; its triumphs and determination, and its open-ended future. As I write this, I think I’ve gone some way to achieving that.
But this piece is building on the start I made when I was not long out of hospital. Now, with this version finished, I need to write something wholly different. Wholly different in the broadest possible sense that I can muster.
As for a title, coming to the end of this version coincides with the entry I wrote the other week, The Better I Get The Worse I Get.
And I was going to give the music the same name. But, while I’m still happy enough with everything I said in it, I think, perhaps, it’s not complete; it’s certainly not completely accurate. As it stands it would be easy to think that, overall, how I’m feeling is negative. And that’s not right. I can – and do – often feel down. But I always get up. But I don’t give up.
And hence the title of both this entry and the piece of music: ‘The Better I Get (The Worse I Get), But …’
As a saddening footnote, the consultant I mention in one of the background entries, who encouraged me to write music, died from Covid towards the start of the pandemic. He was given no protection. And that’s criminal. The government has squandered billions – yes, billions – of pounds and thousands of lives. I wouldn’t wish to know anyone who is responsible for that track record and is able to live with themselves.
Arguably … one idea of what’s a ‘good’ soundtrack to depict a brain’s recovery is possibly very, or wholly, different from someone else’s.
But that said, it may also converge. And, further, that the music is ‘out there’ and public means it can be used as others see fit. That then begs questions about any limits the author may wish to impose on its use, but that’s another issue.
Keep Informed
There are regular updates to ‘Getting Directions’ (and its parent, ‘Unstated’).
Click here to receive the monthly newsletter, to make sure you don’t miss out.
