Onwards I push with the days that seem ever short! The P.R.S. reveals that some of my compositions have been streamed over 1,000,000 times, such as Starscape. I took advantage of these pre-calculated statistics and published (on social media) the "top five" globally streamed songs for the past quarter, these are:
1. Starscape from The Anatomy Of Emotions
2. Loneliness And Divine Love from The Love Symphony
3. Closure from The Anatomy Of Emotions
4. Waltz Of The Forest from The Infinite Forest
5. Jabberwocky by Fall in Green from either its single release or Apocalypse Of Clowns
I'll aim to publish the top five each time, though I expect no response from any followers or the world. I generally feel like the most reclusve, isolated, and eccentric artist in the world. The famously reclusive Kate Bush posted a Christmas letter to the world today. I can't imagine doing that myself! Still, to me it is the art that is important. Perhaps, when I'm retired, like her, I will partake in such propaganda.
I noted that part of the popularity of my music was due to SoundCloud, a platform which abounds with spam, and has seemingly few plays and appears to be of no use at all. I hadn't valued it at all before today, and have this year deleted lots of music from there, with the aim of using the space there for fragments and experimental sound-clips; but today I saw the folly of this and was kicked into a panic, wanting to instantly restore my deleted tracks. I will, henceforth, put one or two key releases from each album on there. I must do it in chronological order because there's no way to sort tracks there, and I don't want ancient music (even these top five are ancient to me) clogging up the space of the better and much more important new releases.
I can't add them all in one lump either, a steady drip always works best in these circumstances, so this frustrating process will take a couple of weeks. I seem to spend too long, waste too much of my life and creative time, doing this sort of thing; filing or listing or promoting old work, otherwise entering its data into some dark and massive database. This all acts like a tiresome barrier to new work. I can quite understand, in these circumstances, the exact mood of Beethoven when writing his Last Quartets. Their dour and spartan emotion at times exactly matches my mood - but, I'm sure you know, dear reader of distant futures, that not all of the emotion there is dour and spartan.
In the afternoon I turned the slow ship of the day back to new music and have worked on the structures to Cotan and Rembrandt. These songs are more emotional than the frivolous others. Rembrandt dates back many years, actually, but I'd only written the first two lines and had a clear image in my mind of a tango-type rhythm. I've recently written the rest and this evening recorded the guitar strums.
The days seem miraculously short - really miraculously so, but I effectively started on the music at 1:30, and must finish by 5:30. How can a day be just 4 hours of 24? I must study my calculator more closely. The world is set for Christmas and a holiday; I wish for more hours, more time to work, less holiday. Even at full speed my progress seems achingly slow.
No time for singing practice today, and a rest day is important. I'll work again tomorrow. Onwards we must charge. I feel, in music and painting, that I'm just beginning. I must manifest this feeling, prove that what has come in the past 15 years is but a prologue.
