artsyhonker / Kathryn @artsyhonker@sonomu.club

Hey, sometime after I finish my PhD...

...would anyone be interested in being in a Fediverse Virtual Choir to sing some of my work so I can put recordings online?

Eric Whitacre did this (not on the Fediverse) and it worked super well. I... definitely don't have his resources, but I can probably film a conducting track that people can sing to.

I'm a choral composer; I like to release my music under free culture licences, usually CC by-SA.

I'm working on a PhD in contemporary sacred choral composition.

I'm neurodivergent, and I have multiple healthcrap issues. I'm a migrant. I'm Christian.

You can find my work at http://www.artsyhonker.net/ and fund it at http://www.artsyhonker.net/support

I also run Cecilia's List, a project to highlight Christian sacred music composed by people who are not men. That's very much on the back burner for the time being because of PhD stuff, though.

http://www.ceciliaslist.org

New rule:

You don't get to say "oh, you could sell that on Etsy/set up a Patreon/write an e-book and sell it/etc" unless you promise to buy stuff from the person you are saying it to, at a price that pays them a living wage for their time *after* material and admin costs.

I'd say "I don't make the rules" but I totally just made a rule, there, so.

One of the bottlenecks seems to be around fluency. When thye ask for "examples from the literature" I never know if they mean, like, papers people have written, or pieces of music. I got some (probable) clarity on that for a few things though, which also helps.

Specifically, my supervisor was able to say "actually, no, people aren't using hymnody in the way that you do, and it *is* innovative"

I don't feel like it is? To me it's just... fun and interesting? But still, that helps.

Meeting with supervisor went decently, I am more on track than I thought.

My supervisor *does* believe my work is PhD-worthy.

I would like to get the PhD just to not give in, if that makes sense. So often when I'm metaphorically kicked I just roll over without defending myself, because when I was growing up that was the safest option.

I need to defend myself in order to not retraumatise myself by replicating the experience.

But I honestly don't see the "research" in my work that my external is looking for.

Struggling a lot with my corrections. I can see how my external examiner is trying to ask me "leading" questions to get me to the point he wants me to make, but...

...I don't think the point is there.

I don't think there is much that is objectively ground-breaking or new in my music, beyond "I wrote it and someone else didn't". And I'm fine with that as a composer, but a PhD has to be "research" which means substantial innovation of some kind.

Had a PhD supervision on Friday and I am finally sortof on track with corrections and so on.

Can someone with better German than I have please let me know if this concert will also be streamed online? https://www.kuenstlerhaus-muc.de/programm/2021/10/20/singer-pur-cd-releasekonzert

My setting of Ave Verum Corpus was sung at Winchester Cathedral this morning. If you'd like a listen, it starts at around 1:08:40 in this video: https://youtu.be/9FQaW-09r_w

@andijah Hello, friend. 🙂

I am supposed to be working on PhD stuff but I am stuck on Rainy Fascism Plague Island and enough people are acting like This Is Fine that I feel permanently unsafe. Any actions that aren't about increasing my own and my household's safety and security are very, very difficult right now.

Applied for a job with a youth choir. Haven't done a job application since 2016. Oof.

I'm worried that if I do join the PRS/MCPS they'll basically go after people who are legitimately using my music for free under a Creative Commons license. Which. No, not cool.

I suspect the easiest way for me to not shoot myself in the foot over this is going to be to join the PRS/MSPS, both of which I have avoided like the plague because I think they're a stupid way to organise paying artists and also small independent artists tend to get missed out.

Aaaaah.

Just had an e-mail with some pretty spiffy news that I can't share yet.

BUT.

I am pretty sure that someone has misunderstood/ignored some aspect of a Creative Commons license.

Where does William Tell take his rubbish?

To the dump, to the dump, to the dump dump dump...

Realised the other day that part of the problem with my PhD work at the moment is that I feel like I'm not really allowed to care about the piece I'm composing. No wonder I keep getting stuck!

I mean, I'm not wrong. I'm writing this to jump through a (rather arbitrary) hoop, to prove that I can.

But I think I'm going to have to balance it with music I do care about, or I'll keep being stuck.

Had a good PhD supervision yesterday. I've done more work than I thought. I need to keep going, though.

Of your charity, pray for the repose of the soul of Don Wright, my stepdad, who died this morning.