In the Shadow: Glimpsing the Creative Unconscious

By Andrew Keeling

How do composers compose? And why?

Initiated by Robert Fripp, the Diary was intended from the outset to be the record of a living composer: one who stood with one foot inside classical music and the other in rock/folk music. Besides demonstrating the minutiae of the creative process, it also sheds light on Keeling's involvement with Fripp's record label, Discipline Global Mobile, as well as the Soundscapes orchestrations and the creation of the King Crimson Musical Guides.

Andrew Keeling is a composer, musician, improviser, arranger, teacher and writer who lives in the North West of the UK. His music has been performed and broadcast by many leading musicians and released on several record labels. It has also been published by Faber and PRB. He has written three musical guides on the music of King Crimson and has orchestrated and arranged the music of Robert Fripp. Andrew plays flute in an improvisation duo with former King Crimson violinist, David Cross. He is also a keen fell walker.

"Good fortune to meet an honest man." - Robert Fripp

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Keeling
• Release date: Apr 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9780956297785

Andrew Keeling

Andrew Keeling is a composer whose vocation only became fully apparent when he was 31. He has said, "I began to think that the musical and psychological pursuits of the first half of my life were insufficient to sustain into the second half of life. Composing presented itself as a solution to this dilemma." He had previously been a cathedral chorister, played as a multi-instrumentalist in various rock bands, and performed as a flute recitalist. Meeting such composers as Sir John Tavener, John Casken, Nicola LeFanu, Anthony Gilbert and Howard Skempton, and the result of embarking on a Jungian analysis in 1987, paved the way for his subsequent creative activities.Since the late 1980's he has written music for the likes of Opus 20, Het Trio, The Hilliard Ensemble, The Apollo Saxophone Quartet, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Evelyn Glennie, The Goldberg Ensemble, Fretwork, Virelai, Gothic Voices, Jacob Heringman, Matthew Wadsworth, Catherine King, Steven Wray, Alison Wells, Ian Mitchell and many others. Some of this music has appeared on CD releases by the Discipline Global Mobile, Riverrun, Burning Shed, Metier and UHR labels, as well as being performed and broadcast worldwide. It has also been published by Faber, Fretwork Editions, Staunch Music and Alto Publications in the UK and PRB Productions in the USA. He has written that, "Both compositionally and analytically, I wanted to reconcile certain features of the rock music I knew and liked with the things I'd assimilated from contemporary classical music."Since the late 1960's Keeling has been a keen advocate of the music of King Crimson, and in 1999 was invited to arrange new versions of the group's music, as well as the solo guitar Soundscapes, by Robert Fripp himself. Some of these have been performed, broadcast and recorded by The Metropole Orchestra of Amsterdam, the early music group Virelai and Contact Contemporary Music Ensemble. He has also written with former Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble, former King Crimson/ELP lyricist Peter Sinfield and author/poet Alison Prince, and featured as an arranger for former Fairport Convention/Steeleye Span/ Albion Band founder member Ashley Hutchins, Ken Nicol (Steeleye Span and the Albion Band) and border-pipes player, Matt Seattle. In 2009 First Things, an album of his early acoustic songs, was recorded by Ken Nicol and released by MVS Recordings. Also as a flautist, together with former King Crimson violinist David Cross, he recorded and released English Sun, an album of nine improvisations, on Noisy Records.Andrew Keeling is also co-author, together with Mark Graham, of A Musical Guide to King Crimson, a series of books exploring the music of King Crimson and published by Spaceward Publications.In 1997 he was awarded the first PhD in Composition from the University of Manchester, and was subsequently a lecturer at the University of Liverpool and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Book preview

In the Shadow

Glimpsing the Creative Unconscious

Volume 1

The DGM Diaries

(1999 - 2002)

by Andrew Keeling

Copyright © 2010, 2011 Andrew Keeling and Mark Graham.

Published by Spaceward, Cambridge, UK

ISBN 978-0-9562977-8-5

XX/IV/MMXI

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

So Far...

Composing

DGM Diaries

Appendix 1 - Andrew Keeling: Creative Evolution and Individuation by Peter Davison

Appendix 2 - Circumambulating the Musical Self

Notes

Works

Releases and Publications

Photographs

Foreword

For anyone interested in such matters the diaries provide both macro and micro views of the composer's world. Alongside musings on John Cage's position and influence on contemporary culture, the merits of popular music, or reflections upon the contradictions of a post-modern world, we see how everyday life tugs and pulls upon the creative process. Whether it's intimate portraits of family life, teaching, or the arduous task of composing or arranging music, the warmth and generosity of Keeling's spirit, evident in much of his work, can also be found in the pages of these diary entries.

Sid Smith, freelance music writer

Introduction

Space - 1999, is a Gerry Anderson TV series. It’s about how the moon is blasted out of the earth’s orbit by an atomic explosion and how the inhabitants of Moon base Alpha are set on a strange but enlightening journey through space always searching for home. In a sense the concept of that series is a metaphor for my creative life. For a starter, 1999 marks the year during which the second half of my life – essentially, my professional life – was really blasted into being.

This book is centred on the online Diaries I’ve written since that time: first, for Robert Fripp’s Discipline Global Mobile record label and, then, for Mark Graham’s FraKctured Zone, a resource site for the music of King Crimson. I’m grateful to both Robert and Mark for inviting me to write for both. Robert once suggested to me that in the process of writing a Diary one is transformed. To a degree, I think that’s true. It helps one to remember oneself; it holds one up to public ridicule; it allows for introspection. A Diary also clarifies the minutiae of the creative process. This is my intention.

I’m a freelance, self-employed musician and have been since 1977. I’ve made a living from music; not a very good one, but I have got by. I’ve never earned a fortune from my music. I’m a composer, songwriter, flautist, guitarist, teacher and, sometime, writer. I have never experienced full-on, close-up celebrity status. I’ve never made a conscious intention to network. Offers have come out of the blue. I’ve done better than some, but not as well as others. I stand somewhere in the middle to lower reaches of Division Two. I have one foot in the marketplace and one foot out of it. I often think lack of mainstream success has driven me forward. I have never thrown in the towel. Robert Fripp once wrote to me saying ‘A composer needs luck.’ I’ve been half-lucky, and this has created a tendency to keep busy. I’ve met those who’ve had some considerable success and found that, mainly, disappointment lurks there.

I certainly don’t regard myself as a writer, and I don’t want this writing to be an autobiography; another example of those dreadful celebrity writings that glare from the shelves of bookshops or litter the internet. Rather, I’d like this to be regarded as several things at once: an expose of the creative process from one point of view; an educational initiative; a document for people who might have come to a crossroads or are on the point of decision about their creative futures. I simply want to demonstrate that, with hard work and a certain openness to the unknown and unseen, it’s possible to make something out of life if one is determined. Even if one isn’t determined life often places obstacles in one’s path forcing one to change direction; to follow a different path leading to new, unchartered yet necessary experiences. As the I Ching suggests, this can be a rich source of education.

Author and Jungian analyst Dr. Anne Maguire once told me that everything lives in the shadow, meaning the unconscious, hence the title of this book. I’ve found that it’s from this source - that deep alembic where the springs of ever-living waters are to be found – that all my creative efforts as a musician have emerged. It remains a mystery to me why this should be so. The only explanation I have to offer is that it’s a just-so story. It just is. I don’t see myself as particularly special, but I do consider that it has been a calling; a true vocation.

I would like to thank: Robert Fripp and Mark Graham, Spaceward Publications, Steve Pennington (Steeple Films), my family, my parents, my sister Kathy, my tutors, Peter Davison, the many musicians who’ve invited me to write or commissioned my music, Ken Nicol, Dave Cottrell, Jacob Heringman and Susanna Pell, Sid Smith, Tim Bowness, Stephen Fellows, Peter Sinfield, Dr. Anne Maguire, David Cross, Gert-Jan Blom, Peter Dunton, Molly Drake, David Wilkinson, Kevin Price, Linda Halliwell, Andrea Riley, Alison Prince and Richard Steele. I count these people as friends. They’re the ones who’ve encouraged and helped me.

(Andrew Keeling. November, 2010)

So Far...

I was born on June 17th, 1955 in Denstone, Staffordshire to Geoffrey and Sheila Keeling. My father was a builder. His failure in life is that he was just too nice a man. My mother had previously worked in a bank. She also played the piano and wrote little piano pieces. My sister, Kathy, was born in 1959.

I went to Denstone Primary School. I was so poor at Maths that I used to fain sickness to get out of doing the subject. I also had visions and strange dreams. One Wednesday, waiting to go to Uttoxeter market with my mother on the bus, I ‘saw’ two hands spooning water out of a glowing blue stream under the ground. At around the same time I had dream of a woman, dressed in white robes, suspended in the sky. She held the moon and stars in her hands. She looked down at me and smiled. I remember waking terrified.

I was good at History, Art and English. I could also sing. This was probably due to my grandmother who used to carry me around singing to me when I was a baby. After singing a solo in a Christmas Nativity play, the vicar’s wife suggested to my parents that maybe I should go for the annual voice-trial at Lichfield Cathedral. This meant I’d have to go to boarding-school and sing in the cathedral choir. I was successful and began Lichfield Cathedral School in September, 1964. There, I learnt flute and piano although I desperately wanted to play the classical guitar. A friend at home had started the instrument, but at Lichfield there was no guitar teacher and they thought I wanted to play electric guitar which certainly wasn’t looked on favourably in those days. In 1966 I wrote my first piece: a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. I remember hearing the Director of Music and his Assistant discussing my efforts. ‘This is remarkable,’ said Mr. Hill to Mr. Robertson. I liked the feeling of success, so I continued. Here was something I could actually do. I was a good footballer, though. I was generally unhappy as a boarder, but accepted it and the years passed by. My final cathedral Evensong was in March, 1969. The Canticles (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) were Dyson in D and Handel’s Zadok the Priest. I will never forget that moment or the many good memories that time brings to mind. The Lichfield experience was a thorough grounding for my subsequent life as a musician.

I went on to Oakham School, in Rutland, after winning a Music Scholarship, beginning in the summer term of the same year. This is where my problems began. My academic abilities were poor. I think I’m probably number dyslexic and, at that time, people who were weren’t understood. We were the ‘thickies’. I had a Maths teacher who made my life hell. Fortunately, there was a Hymn Tune competition in my first term. Applicants had to write a good hymn tune for the school to sing. I wrote a new version of City of God, How Broad and Far and won. I beat several older boys. My school colleagues noticed. I was not totally incompetent. The hymn was sung by the whole school in the school chapel on a regular basis. However, one of the older boys, whom I’d defeated, hated me from that day on and, as a House Prefect, made my life thoroughly unpleasant. I have never forgotten that. I learnt what jealousy can do to someone.

It was at Oakham that I got into the underground rock music scene. Several of my friend’s siblings were at Oxford or Cambridge and news used to reach us of the music scene there and in London. I began to listen to Cream, The Beatles (as ever), The Moody Blues, Leonard Cohen, Led Zeppelin and so on. I also played flute in a band for an end-of-term House Supper, performing Fleetwood Mac’s song, Oh Well! Parts 1 and 2. I taught myself guitar and started writing songs. I was off! I began to read the New Musical Express, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. In December 1969 I first heard King Crimson’s first album, In the Court of the Crimson King. My life changed after that event. I wrote to Robert Fripp who replied. I was stunned and became highly motivated. I became a devout Crimson disciple. I formed my first rock band while I was at Oakham. Being a Music Scholar meant I was expected to continue with classical music. I think it was the Oakham experience which created the tension I’ve felt exists for me between classical and popular musics which, only now, is being resolved.

In 1971 I was withdrawn from the school. My parents were unhappy with my progress and with the fact I was wasting my time playing rock music. Largely, I ignored their advice and protests. My parents had moved north to the Fylde Coast of Lancashire and I joined them there. I went to St. Annes Technical College but left when I joined a semi-pro band. In 1973 I decided to apply for Huddersfield Polytechnic to study the flute. I was successful and studied with Atarah Ben Tovim from 1974-77. I also continued with my interests in song writing and guitar playing. In 1977, and three Diplomas later, I left.

During the same year, I worked for a Blackpool arts organisation, Fylde Arts, as Musical Director, and began teaching the flute part-time at Rossall School in Fleetwood, a post I’ve held ever since. I felt that teaching part-time, one-to-one, would give me time to do other things. It did. I joined Emmanuel Church in Fleetwood and directed the music. Whilst there, I also played in a Gospel-rock band which the Pastor didn’t like. I was married in 1978 to Susan Sheard. Sue is a Pharmacist. We have three children, now all grown-up: Nicholas, Christopher and Elizabeth. My children are good people and have done well in life. Nicholas lives in London, is married to Roseanne and works in the city. They have a son, Ben. Christopher lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, and works for the city council. He is married to Helen. Elizabeth and her partner, Paul, live in Dublin, Ireland. They have a son, Liam. Elizabeth works in funding. My family kept my feet on the ground and gave me a connection with the real world.

By 1983 I was tiring of the church. Free-church religion had lost its meaning for me. The band with which I’d played had stopped and I heard that Lancashire Polytechnic (now, The University of Central Lancashire) had started a part-time, external London University BMus course. I wanted to start using my brain. I applied and started in September, 1983. During that time I started writing contemporary classical music and studied with Nicola LeFanu and James Wishart. In 1989 I was awarded the BMus and went onto study for an MMus at the University of Liverpool. Two years previously, I’d become seriously taken with the work of Swiss psychologist, C.G. Jung. I went into Jungian analysis in 1987, after feeling I was out-of-kilter with myself. I’d begun to sense there was something greater than ego underpinning life and it wasn’t the god of the Free Churches. I also studied Composition privately with Anthony Gilbert at the Royal Northern College of Music. Following the MMus I met the composer John Casken at a concert at which one of my pieces was performed by Het Trio of Holland and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. John invited me to be the first student on a new PhD in Composition course which the University of Manchester was starting and where he was Professor. In 1997 I was awarded the first University of Manchester PhD in Musical Composition. Mysteriously, I paid no tuition fees for any of this part-time study. All the fees where paid either by university bequest funds or by professional organisations such as the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust. I sensed the doors simply opened. This period began the time when my music began to be performed around the world; first, in the UK and then in Spain, Korea, North America and Canada, subsequently followed by performances in Russia and Japan. It’s been much the same since. I haven’t stopped writing since 1989 which marks the date of my first ‘real’ piece, Meditatio for solo viola, strings, harp and cimbalom. This was released on a Discipline Global Mobile CD in 1999.

During this time I also lectured in Composition, Musical Analysis and Orchestration at the Royal Northern College of Music and the University of Liverpool. I was also Composer-in-Residence at the Junior RNCM. Some time later I became increasingly unhappy with ‘process’ composition and music analysis. I felt the music I was hearing in those circles, and was being expected to write, was more to do with academic, scientific rationale than what I considered music should be about. I was always more concerned with the ‘whys’ rather than the ‘hows’; with the sacred and divine rather than the purely secular; with what I liked rather than what I didn’t like. The unconscious, in the form of my nightly dreams, was making this quite clear.

Then, out of the blue, Robert Fripp of King Crimson, phoned asking if I’d ‘like to come and do something for Discipline Global Mobile’ his record company. I also met Ken Nicol who played guitar in Steeleye Span and, through that, my song writing resumed. I also formed an improvisation duo with former King Crimson violinist David Cross, and things really began to move into unchartered waters.

Composing

The first piece I ever wrote was a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis when I was a chorister. I remember feeling as though what I’d done was somehow right. Even though the piece was dreadful it felt like I’d gone home. It was also contemporary, probably written after singing Edmund Rubbra’s Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in Ab. I’d be 11. I used to write little organ pieces during the holidays. Everything was based on my experience of singing in Lichfield Cathedral choir.

However, I found myself not just listening to choral and organ music, but also to the pop and rock music of the day. I loved The Beatles. At home we had A Hard Day’s Night and Help! I’d seen both films at the cinema. One morning, at school, I was standing next to a friend in the breakfast queue. He raved on about Jimi Hendrix. I kept in touch with Martin Titmus even after we’d both left Lichfield. He’d gone onto Malvern where he’d got involved with a really vibrant music scene. His parents lived in Blackburn, Lancashire, so I used to go across there to stay and listen to some of the things he’d been getting into. There was Lol Coxhill, Soft Machine, Tyrannosaurus Rex (although he’d get me into the T. Rex album which is, quite frankly, easily Bolan’s best effort) and so on. We also went to see Pink Floyd on tour performing Atom Heart Mother at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. That was an important moment for me.

In retrospect, there were two musical styles demanding my attention even at this early stage. As I’ve already said, this created a sort of conflict of energies but, I think, a purposeful one. The classical music gave me a discipline and the pop music an energy. I liked both and always have done. The colour belonged to the pop music and the rigor was contained within the classical music.

When I went to Oakham School I wrote hymn tunes and choral music. I had a Jubilate Deo performed by the chapel choir. The Director of Music, Phillip Coates, encouraged this side. He used to run summer choir courses in Herefordshire, and I went to two of these. We made a record and I sang the solo in Allegri’s Miserere recorded in Leominister Priory. This was in August, 1969. I also sang the solo in Stamford in G in Hereford Cathedral the following year. All these experiences would have an effect on my gradually blossoming creative side. When I teach students, nowadays, I never deter any musical likes they might have for the main reason these are probably going to turn out to be the bedrock on which their own music is likely to be based, if it is going to exist at all.

After I left Oakham in 1971, the classical music composing more or less stopped. Because my energy was directed to playing in bands and writing songs, there seemed no need for it. Even though I continued to sing in St. Thomas’s Church choir in St. Annes, there was no outlet for it. I went to Huddersfield Polytechnic in 1974, and even there I did no composing at all. I was on the Performer’s Course, so all my attention was on flute playing. I continued to write songs, because I got into the acoustic guitar more and more and took five classical guitar lessons, but essentially I was self-taught. Nick Drake’s music became an all important influence around this time. In fact, for a while I thought I was Nick Drake reincarnated. I also listened hard to Lynyrd Skynyrd. The triple guitar interplay of that band intrigued me, along with the fact that all the solos were the same each time rather than improvised.

The real composing began when I joined Emmanuel Church in Fleetwood, Lancashire, in the summer of 1977. There, I became responsible for running the music of the church. The title Director of Music never sat easily on my shoulders. I do my best to avoid titles. I felt that it was more a case of promoting the church itself than the work of God. As one might have guessed, I’d had a ‘born again’ experience. This was something that was going to wear thin as the years passed. As the person responsible for the church music, I found it easier to write my own pieces for the various vocal groups in the church. I wrote a Mass, two sets of Canticles and countless short anthems, hymns and songs for the choir; countless songs for the various soloists; the music for a Gospel-rock band, Thruaglas Darkly; the music and arrangements for a choir and backing band called Vision. It taught me how to write practically; about vocal and instrumental ranges; about people. Beyond all, it taught me how a musician should communicate with audiences. Perhaps the main thing that I observed was that if a piece is to be true it writes itself. I found once ego entered the space, the music produced was somehow inferior or did not work at all. It took me another thirty years to fully accept this.

I left the church at the end of 1989 although, in spirit, I’d already left in 1983. During the overlap between the final departure and going to Lancashire Polytechnic (The University of Central Lancashire) to study for a London University BMus, I wrote my first contemporary classical pieces. It also tied-in with my growing interest in the work of C.G. Jung. At that time, I wanted to exercise brain over heart, probably as a reaction to the attitudes of the church. All the pieces from this time I regard as juvenilia and later withdrew it all. The first piece I consider as being my Opus 1, so to speak, is Meditatio for solo viola, strings, harp and cimbalom. While on holiday in Littledale near Lancaster, I dreamt the whole piece through from start to finish. I awoke and wrote down what I remembered. I later took it Anthony Gilbert who was Head of Composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Tony had agreed to take me on a private student. He taught me to ‘look into’ a piece and rationalise what had been presented intuitively. His help over the four years during which I studied with him was invaluable. He was brutally honest about my early efforts and, at times, would become irate. I didn’t really like his music, but felt his orchestral song cycle, Certain Lights Reflecting, was a masterpiece. I liked his Violin Concerto as well.

Two years earlier, in 1987, I’d written a thesis about the music of Sir John Tavener and went to meet him to discuss his work. I got the impression he didn’t really want to speak with a student and left me waiting outside his home in Wembley Park, London, on a freezing and icy February afternoon. He arrived back two hours later, but I’ve never held this against him. I don’t blame him. I like John’s music and always have. His music has a sense of ‘otherness’ about it. He worked from the angle of Tradition and, although I didn’t know it then, I was also heading in that direction. I talked to John for two hours. Those two hours have resonated within me ever since. I showed him a couple of my pieces. He looked at one – a trio for flute, viola and cello – and five minutes later asked me, ‘Do you like writing serial music?’ I replied that I didn’t. He suggested that I omit all the black notes. That set my future in motion. Not immediately, but many years later. I consider John Tavener as the most important composer that England has produced since Benjamin Britten. His music stands as a beacon in our disparate musical culture. I also agree with many of his statements, including that about the ugliness of much contemporary music.

In 1992, after completing my MMus in Composition at the University of Liverpool, I was accepted by the University of Manchester as their first student PhD composer. My supervisor was John Casken. John is a good man. He’s also had some considerable success as a composer. As a teacher he’s unparalleled. I like his Cello Concerto and String Quartet No. 2. I always got on well with John and studied with him for five and a half years, writing ten pieces under his guiding eye. When I left after receiving the PhD in 1997 I decided I wouldn’t have any further composition tuition. I felt the urge to find my own voice or, rather, my own voice was thrust upon me. The composer Chris Dench had mentioned to me some years earlier that composition teachers tend to hand on their ideas to other composers actually blocking their development. I think Chris is partly right but not completely. However, I did go for one further lesson with Howard Skempton as part of an SPNM Adopt-a-Composer initiative. Howard was completely different from John which was precisely the reason I chose him. I liked him but, although Howard would have liked me to have continued studying with him, I chose not to.

In the same year I applied for a Britten-Pears Foundation summer course for Young Composers but was rejected. This came as a blow. I have no idea why it happened. All I could think of was that I wasn’t a student of the organisers (Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews) and, therefore, unfamiliar to them. I began to think that, actually, I was hopeless and began to doubt my music. Perhaps there were problems with what I’d been doing, technically speaking? In retrospect that moment was the turning-point. It was no accident. There are no mistakes. In reality, I was beginning to have serious doubts about the sound world of contemporary classical music and its failure to connect with audiences. At the time I couldn’t put a finger on just what was wrong with it. I was so far in that I couldn’t see out of it. What’s more, the dreams I was having were putting a spotlight on my involvement with it. They continued to make it quite clear to me that my lyrical side should re-emerge, but I was reluctant to allow that to happen. It had never actually left, but during 1997 I’d written several choral pieces where this lyrical aspect had been felt profoundly. It’s as though there was something within me which was straining for an outlet.

While I was writing-up my final PhD thesis, I was also listening to Robert Fripp’s guitar soundscape album, A Blessing of Tears. I wrote to Robert and told him I liked the album a great deal. Then, in late 1998, he phoned suggesting that I ‘come and do something for Discipline!’ Discipline Global Mobile was the small independent record company he’d founded. Robert put me in touch with the American lutenist Jacob Heringman and Cathy Stevens, the viola playing daughter of the composer Bernard Stevens. As a result I also met Jacob’s wife, Susanna Pell, who played the viol in the very successful early music ensemble, Fretwork. I also met Bert Lams from the California Guitar Trio. Robert suggested I might write pieces for all these musicians who, like me, were part of DGM’s Present Moment series. For all these a different kind of music had to be found or, rather, the very one which had begun to re-emerge within me some time earlier. Now it could find an outlet except I was still reluctant to allow it to emerge fully. But, it is where I began to experiment with fusing what the unconscious wanted of me along with my academic training. Jacob also kept an online Diary on the Discipline site and, like me, was in the throes of completing his first album for the company. It was an exciting time.

Suddenly I was thrust into the professional world. This was better than any post-PhD experience I’d have gleaned from the Britten-Pears Foundation. At least, it was more appropriate for me. It also struck me that, unwittingly, Robert Fripp had now changed the course of my music twice: first, at school and, secondly, at this point in time.

Jacob Heringman phoned me one day in early 2000 inviting me to write two pieces for his early music ensemble, Virelai. There was no time to conceive anything pre-compositionally. No time to write chord-sets or note-rows. No time for rhythmic grids. I abandoned the whole lot, sat down on the settee one evening after tea with my guitar and wrote My Lute, Awake! and Sad Steps. They were completely spontaneous and much like the song writing I’d always felt at home with. Next, I was told that the Radlovica Festival of Early Music in Slovenia had decided I should accompany Virelai to their performance there. The two consort-songs were to be premiered at the event. Geographically speaking, I had no idea where Slovenia was but found myself in this beautiful place, one to which I’ve returned several times since. The pieces I’d written were a success. They connected with the audience and many people came up and said so after the event. This was a first for me. The music I’d written as part of my academic studies had been finely wrought, or so I thought, but people generally gave me wide-birth after concerts. The Radlovica experience taught me one thing: if one composes what one likes, and composes ‘improvisationally’ (from the unconscious), then it’s very likely that something new and unexpected will happen. Although I knew it then, it took many years to fully assimilate this insight. I had to find a way to integrate my academic learning with what was emerging from unconscious or, rather, what the unconscious demanded from me at any one given time. Techniques and methods, as well as unconscious contents, tend to be project-specific. I also came to realise from the Radlovica that the muse-driven composing I had first experienced some years earlier while writing my Saxophone Quartet, Wrestling with Angels, would probably become important. Music has to have a living energy to it; a vibrancy. I found that academic processes are insufficient for this. I now understood that listeners connect with art on an, often, unconscious level. This is what’s always happened. Music driven by scientific principles is fine, but not the whole story. For me, inspiration had won over process. I also had the sense it was no longer me (ego) producing the music but something greater than me. My interests in Jungian thinking only strengthened this, but still I remained reluctant to completely let go of my rational outlook. I felt I needed something to cling onto; to fall back on if the inspiration dried-up.

In the same year I was commissioned to write a Piano Quartet for the Newbold Piano Quartet, to be performed at the Deal Festival in Kent. When I began it Sad Steps continued to resonate within me. As a result, the song found its way into the new piece. I called it Reclaiming Eros because it re-instated that very relatedness I’d been searching for. At the time I was so busy with the work for Discipline, along with various other commissions, I had a sense that the piece more or less wrote itself. I felt I'd been removed from the compositional process somewhat. It was a major audience success and subsequently performed by the Newbolds at the Wigmore Hall in London. It was also recorded on my Reclaiming Eros CD (released by Burning Shed) by the Stor Quartet of Norway.

I’d also begun arranging Robert Fripp’s music for various ensembles. I’d come in to contact with Gert-Jan Blom who worked for the Metropole Orchestra in Amsterdam. Gert-Jan was an excellent musician, admired Robert Fripp’s music and, through the Holland Festival, commissioned me to orchestrate several of Robert’s Soundscape guitar pieces and three King Crimson pieces. These were performed by the Metropole Orchestra at the Paradiso in Amsterdam as part of the Holland Festival in 2003. They were also recorded and will be released in 2011 on a DGM/Panegyric CD. This work was hard and took almost three years to materialise.

I’ve also written three Musical Guides on the music of King Crimson (Spaceward Publications). As far as I’m concerned there is only one rock band: this is King Crimson. Later, I was to meet David Cross who’d played violin in King Crimson from 1972-74. David and I formed an improvisation duo and made an album, English Sun (Noisy Records). For me, this was the fusion of my composing and playing. It was also a performance situation in which I felt completely at ease and demonstrated the unconscious in action.

The Discipline Diaries experience continued till Easter, 2002, when Robert Fripp brought the Diaries to a close. I continued writing a Diary at Krimson News for four years (these are now all lost apart from two or three) and then, in 2007, transferred the Diary to the FraKctured Zone where I’ve continued ever since.

The Discipline Diary and FracKtured Zone Diary writings which follow will, hopefully, provide the minutiae of my creative activities with particular emphasis on composing, arranging (in particular the Robert Fripp Soundscape Orchestration project known here as the DGM orchestration project), song-writing, musical performance and musical analysis - either in the context of my teaching activities or the analysis of King Crimson’s music - both writing, lecturing and thinking about Progressive rock, Post-modernism and related disciplines.

DGM Diaries, 1999 - 2002

09/02/1999 Listening to ‘The North Star Grassman and the Ravens’ CD by 1970’s singer-songwriter Sandy Denny while preparing an evening meal and Robert Fripp phones suggesting I keep a Journal. 'Have you ever kept a Journal?' Robert asks. 'Sort of...more about my inner than outer life,' I reply. Robert suggests that it's to be the diary of a 'living composer': his experience of keeping a Journal has been ' a transforming experience.' 'This could be interesting,' I say, and thinking about it further it sounds purposeful. To initiate it a back-track is necessary.

Drive back from Fleetwood. Receive DAT tape of my piece for four voices ‘O Ignis Spiritus’, recorded last year in concert, from Roger Covey-Crump of The Hilliard Ensemble in the morning post, and phone Dill Katz (who recorded the new Opus 20 CD) to ask him if he'll transfer it to CDR and 'clean it up' if possible. We're collecting material for a future DGM release of my material, and this makes five pieces down so far. Another four autumn recordings to go from Jacob Heringman (lute) Jacob and Susanna Pell (lute and viol), Alison Hayhurst (flute) and Kirsty Whatley (harp).

Receive e-mail from Dominy Clements of Dutch trio De Zonen van Orm. Dominy informs me that the trio have looked at my piece ‘Distant Skies, Mountains and Shadows’ (1992) (for various flutes, clarinets and piano) and wish to include it in future concert programmes as well as recording it.

Peter Dunton of T2 (1) phones. Peter and I are collaborating on a new piece for Evelyn Glennie and Bill Bruford. 'Go with the flow', Peter suggests, in terms of where I've reached in the piece. I agree. But there's always a problem: although spontaneity has always been, and is becoming more and more important in my writing (without it creativity is a sterile exercise), planning, organisation and proportioning, which contribute to a sound architecture, is my main preoccupation with the piece at the moment. Ever the conflict.

Preparing Schenker/Forte & Gilbert (Graphic) analysis (2), Set-Theoretical Analysis and Semiotic Analysis for a stint teaching Music Analysis at Liverpool University beginning later this month. At the same time reading Ouspensky's In Search Of The Miraculous (3). From the Ouspensky, Gurdjieff's idea of the 'man-machine' seems to be impressing itself more and more in relation to Evelyn and Bill's piece. Peter's musical fragments (which are the backbone of the piece [more than just found-objects]) are machine-like in character. This has happened before: connections are being forged between materials. Something is emerging.

09/03/1999 Listen to some recent John Tavener (4) while driving to and from Fleetwood this a.m. I've kept pace with John's progress as a composer since writing a thesis on his music in 1986/87.

On return read more of Ouspensky's 'In Search of the Miraculous'. G. speaks of knowledge and being, and unity in man. A parallel here with Jung's process of 'individuation'.

A day of preparing for winter. Dad and I have fixed a door, and in between painting the windows and securing the fences the new piece for Evelyn (Glennie) and Bill (Bruford) has also developed. It now begins with un-tuned percussion, then to the tuned percussion with a return to the un-tuned, with an increasing complexity towards the end, both in terms of surface features and speed: metaphorically speaking, the machine burns itself out. Further question: is the overall harmonic structure reflected in the minutiae of the motives as though in microcosm? Some of my more recent pieces have been written fast - like written improvisations - but this new piece is different. The analysis for Liverpool University is influencing some of the musical decisions in it as expected.

Today's e-mails include: Iain Cameron who knew Nick Drake and played flute on one of his BBC Radio 'Night Ride' sessions in 1970. (Iain also played in Tintagel with Ian McDonald in the late '60's.) Also a letter received from author and Jungian analyst Dean Frantz saying he likes the Opus 20 Hidden Streams CD. Dean is a Jungian analyst living in Indiana, and he introduced me to the work of Peter Birkhauser several years ago. Birkauser's painting 'Die Vierte Dimension' provided the inspiration for my ‘Hidden Streams’. A telephone conversation with Rosalind Rawnsley about funding. Rosalind is Artistic Director of Worfield Charity Concert Trust, the commissioners of my piece for solo harp, ‘Sacred Time’, to be premiered early next month by Kirsty Whatley. Bridgnorth and District Arts have very kindly provided some of the funding.

09/04/1999 E-mail from Jacob Heringman. Susanna Pell and Jacob confirm that they are performing ‘One Flesh’, for viol and lute, in Bunyola, Mallorca, on Oct. 9th.

Ingrid Sawers, from Bacchanalia, phones. She likes their recording of Quickening the Dead, but feels it may require a further edit for my CD. Bacchanalia are a trio comprising soprano sax, and two pianos. 'Also, would you be able to write a short piece for the ensemble, One Voice?' Ingrid asks. Apparently the performance is Nov. 6th. 'Please put specifications in the post ASAP and I'll decide if it's possible in the next few days.' One Voice are an Edinburgh new music ensemble.

Very warm with clear skies, so an excursion to the Lake District. A six mile walk up to Coniston Old Man via Dow Crag accompanied by Sue (my wife) and friends Kevin and Linda. From the summit (the height of which Linda has learnt from Wainwright's Book 4,The Southern Fells, and won't let us forget: 2633 feet) looking down into Coppermines Valley, once the site of industrial activity, it's hard to imagine that men once spent their lives working in this location, largely in the darkness of the many mines which litter the terrain. It is deserted and desolate, the main industry of Lakeland now being tourism. The Scafell mountains are silhouetted against the heat-haze, with Devoke Water and the sea in the distance. The sun is still strong at 20-00, and it's very warm. This gets everything back into perspective and restores one's sanity. It's very quiet. 'Silence is a bridge between worlds'.

09/05/1999 THE FIRST RULE IS TO KEEP AN UNTROUBLED SPIRIT. THE SECOND IS TO LOOK THINGS IN THE FACE AND KNOW THEM FOR WHAT THEY REALLY ARE (Marcus Aurelius). These words which hang on our bathroom wall are, especially today, a source of encouragement.

Later: back with the percussion piece and finding that the unconscious seems to have taken care of the framework by stretching out foreground rhythmic material, providing a background structure. The kitchen door slammed shut this morning, and this seemingly unimportant event may have provided the missing link in the gradually developing piece.

This is fast becoming a day of tension. Revising analytical terminology in Forte-Gilbert. Haven't even begun the harmony course for the RNCM Junior School. Need for organisation throughout this week. 'In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.'

Percussion piece now has definite title. Must work towards rough basic sketch for the end of the week.

09/07/1999 Dill sends back ‘O Ignis Spiritus’ as a CDR. Now have approximately 61 minutes of music recorded for future release. Now comes the problem of thinking about the structure and pacing of the final submission. A number of pieces remain that need recording.

Drive to Fleetwood, and reflect on the many synchronicities which have occurred recently. An incredible one which anticipated my reading of Ouspensky last evening concerning Gurdjieff’s ideas on art. The plastic arts have been much on my mind for several days since Sue and I visited two recent exhibitions. The many questions we asked ourselves can be narrowed down to one: what is the function of art? To answer this takes time, but time well spent. Originally art served the sacred, and there has been a gradual decrease of 'sacred art' in our modern and post-modern culture, going back to the Enlightenment. Art reflects the society and culture in which it is created. However, a change is being brought about. Jung talks about the Self, and this seems to tie up with G's Absolute, Whole or One which, I feel, seems to be in the process of initiating a restoration of the arts.

Paul Sherman from Opus 20 phones. Concerts to include ‘Hidden Streams’ at the Guildhall, Barbican, London on 10th October definitely going ahead, and again at The Warehouse on November 4th. Alison Hayhurst, flute, performing ‘In The Clear’ at the Hackney Autumn Festival on Oct. 14th too, with the dancer Sophia Lycouris.

Katy Bignold from the SPNM (5) phones wanting scores of ‘The Heart Has Not Stopped’ and ‘The Moon And The Yew Tree’ (6). Someone is interested in seeing/listening to them for possible performance.

09/08/1999 To and from Fleetwood, quickly photocopy, bind and label scores of choral pieces and send them to Katy at the SPNM. The chap behind the counter at the Post Office remarks, 'It must be a good life swanning around and playing the piano here and there.' It would either be possible to justify my daily activities or to go with silence.

A mountain of mail waiting on the doorstep when I arrive home includes the Birkhauser book from Hugh O’Donnell, a CD by Lindsay Cooper as well as details from Ingrid about the piece One Voice would like written: an arrangement of a song for an Edinburgh performance in November, though no funding. The words make it clear enough on the music: 'Are we meant to take more than we can give or are we meant to be kind?' With this one, no funding necessary. Actions not words are required.

Neil Hoyle, from ISM (7), phones wanting more details about the Opus 20 Guildhall concert in October to place information in their Journal.

Writing One Voice piece. Never has a piece emerged so quickly! It should be complete within a week. Bert Lams phones. We discuss the MS. Sounds exciting! On the right track. (Note: this was the first attempt at orchestrating Robert Fripp's guitar Soundscape, ‘Pie Jesu’).

09/11/1999 Back at the table working on the piece for One Voice. Complete by 13-00. Phone Ingrid Sawers to tell her. Premiere at the Theatre Workshop, Nov. 6th 1999. Send score later this week.

Charlotte Bradburn phones. She plays in a saxophone quartet. Wants to hire score/parts for ‘Wrestling with Angels’ (8).

Work on music Bert Lams has sent. Very hard work. This is a brain-teaser: how to align parts which should align but don't? Listening back to the original it becomes apparent that either: a) I've made an incredible botch of the counting (probably); b) because the parts are played with a degree of freedom the parts don't transfer well from sound to symbol; c) Bert's transcription is incorrect (unlikely); d) I'm on the wrong track completely. I suspect a) and d). One thing has clarified: from the original an entirely new piece has emerged.

09/12/1999 Orchestration project: first of all felt this was doomed to failure. Couldn't integrate the parts successfully. Realise I've brought in the first cello too early so rewrite the entire score. Will photocopy and send out the revision to Bert and David tomorrow. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. Much learnt from the project so far.

09/13/1999 Re-arranging percussion part for harp. Bert's caution about using percussion was well founded. Harp may provide reinforcement at the top and bottom ends of the score, as well as triggering the strings on their initial attacks. Also double the upper strings to provide a richer sonority than if single string parts.

9-00 - 15-00: teaching.

Photocopy revised version of rough sketch of score and send to Bert Lams and David Singleton.

E-mail from Mr.McFall. Mr. McFall's Chamber (9) to record the arrangement of ‘Peace’ (10) in the next few weeks. This evening must return to Forte-Gilbert book and revise Mozart, Liszt and Debussy orchestral works for students at Liverpool University.

Last night a strange dream, on my mind all day: ‘ I reverse the car out of the garage and go down a step. No damage to car or me. A kingfisher flies around me. I wind down the car window and it flies to my hand and takes some food from it. Its colours are dazzling.’ Briefly look through Jung for references to kingfishers. Only two; one as a synchronistic event centring on C.G. Jung’s book 'Memories, Dreams and Reflections'; secondly, a painting of a kingfisher in 'Alchemical Studies'.

09/14/1999 Looking at the piece for One Voice. The original title isn't right. Titles for pieces must reflect the processes and concerns of the piece. Also read the article in The Guardian Education Supplement about problems within education sector. I'm fortunate to be in my situations of work: pleasant surroundings, mostly one to one flute/composition teaching.

09/15/1999 Non-teaching day. Photocopy, bind and post ‘...for the moment’ to Ingrid Sawers. Complete, except...do I hear piano or vibraphone (or both alternating) attacks reinforcing the clarinet, violin and cello demi-semi-quavers from bar 81-82?

On with the analysis. After reading a complete book on the subject on Monday evening, turn to another one which fills in points on Schenker. An interesting man, he wanted to fuse Fux's ideas on counterpoint with thorough-bass to establish a way of correcting much of the wrong thinking which had stemmed from Rameau's, essentially, vertical and microcosmic harmonic theories. Many of the ideas were culled from Gestalt psychology, so explain the way in which we ' experience' sound. His analyses are represented graphically: i) by a foreground reduction of the piece under scrutiny (as Sue points out, metaphorically speaking the 'skin') ii) a middle ground reduction of the foreground (the 'muscle'); iii) a background graph reducing everything before to either three ascending or descending pitches (underpinned by tonic-dominant harmony), five pitches or eight pitches, a sort of macrocosmic