A Very Adult Blog

I'm going to take up from where I left off last blog, when I was speculating on when I might be able to get a copy of the recording of my composition with the aforementioned choir. The answer: an indeterminate, possibly interminable amount of time. Yes... The plot thickens...

You see, it turns out that the project which gave us wannabe composers the chance to do this in the first place was (up until the end of last year as far as I can make out) state-funded (that dreaded phrase). As everybody has been reminded again and again for the past forever or so it would seem, the economy is pretty much shit at the moment. And as everybody also knows, we have a government whose first priorities don't even lie in education or a properly organised health care system, let alone anywhere near the arts. So I suppose it should hardly be surprising that the funding for a project such as this was probably the very first thing on the government's list to be removed when they realised they needed to cut loose a few sandbags. Hardly surprising at least to someone who keeps even remotely in the know about current affairs... it certainly caught me a bit by surprise anyway, me in my little 'my daddy's job is secure enough that I don't have to give a toss about anything except where I'm going interrailing next summer' bubble.

Upon further inquiry, I found out that not only has the possibility that the project would be continued in coming years been completely written off, but they've actually turned off the tap on the funding for the current project as well, which is obviously well underway. So everything regarding the recordings, everything, has been thrown up in the air, and no one knows what's happening at all at all.

(At this point I'm going to go very out of character and try to step back and consider the position of someone other than my horribly selfish self in this mess.)

Thinking about it, it's deductable that the choir who were running this programme are no longer being paid for there work regarding it. And, after educating myself on the matter a bit, I've found that they're no longer being funded for ANY of there projects. They were reliant on the state funding which up until so recently they had been receiving. That day at the recording in DCU, they weren't even being paid for. Now, I know it's difficult to put forward a case for their right to funding at a time like this, and it's undeniable that there are much more necessary causes which themselves have been cut; I'm not going to go as far as saying the choir deserve some state support more than, say, a school for the disabled that's had to tell it's students to go find somewhere else to learn as the state in cutting its losses and abandoning you (let's face it, you're not an investment that's going to 'pay off'). But at the same time, the waste of talent that the end of a choir like this, considered by many as the best of its kind in the country, a choir that can lend itself to faciliate and to inspire young people to write their own music, just seems unjustifiable to me. It is a travesty, plain and simple.

I'm a completely self-professed airhead when it comes this whole buisness of the recession, but based on the little I know about the economic climate, job losses and funding cuts, I'm brought to wonder at what is being done to invest in the future, and I don't mean next year or the year after that. My english teacher at school, who we'll call K, is adamant on this subject about the need for investment in young people and in education. You only have to look back through the countries history to see that that is true; the building of primary schools throughout the entire country back in a time where the economic issues weren't looking so hot either was the biggest single investment ever made into the country's education, and the pay-off is plain to see in our highly educated workforce and in the number of international buisnesses who choose to set up their bases here. So why isn't education the buzzword of these recessionary times? Why aren't people saying now's the time to pour investment into schools?
Another thing K likes to say is that when you were born in Hollis Street 18 years ago, you had no greater or lesser potential than a child born on the same day whose parent's were not as financially well off. The difference is, he now has a 50% chance of ending up in jail at some time in his life, while you have a 50% chance of being his barrister. Whatever about those statistics... A more obvious example of the failures that still exist in the education system, there ain't.

If people never in their life receive support or inspiration to achieve what potentially could achieve, what chance are they going to have in these gloomy times to succeed in making a happy life for themselves? The source of this kind of support and inspiration for many comes from the home, though not for all, but it should certainly come from school for everyone. Not even necessarily in the classroom... on the pitch, in an after-school club, in the friends you make there, even in the Young Scientist for god's sake. Or in a music programme which gives you a little bit of focus, a little bit of a nod to say 'you might actually have a few ideas there', a sense that you've made something real, a look through the window into the world of greatest singers you're likely to find.

Oh god, reading over this I cringe at how unbelieveably up myself I am...

But ye, it pretty much comes down to the fact that the government are a shower o' bastards who should know what really matters. Capitalist swine and all that, blahblahblha... But seriously, this blog could have been written by mashing up a tape recording of my english classes from the past two years and a website of the 10 most greatest inspirational speeches of all time. oh dear...

Les Choristes

Ok, so I said I'd explain about this 'Composition Workshop'(it was a workshop) to which I referred in my previous crap list blog. Now, a very reputable Irish choir have for the past few years been running a workshop for Leaving Cert. students in which you get the chance to write a piece of music for the choir, to hear them perform it, and to have it recorded and put on a cd, and they do it all for free out of the goodness of their generous, musical hearts. So one day about a year ago our music teacher Ms. D suggested a few of us enter... etc.

After a long time spent not doing it, and then a considerably shorter and more rushed period spent franticly to get it finished some time back in October, the day of the great recording finally arrived last Wednesday, and all the villagers rejoiced and were merry. A motley crew of music freaks (of which I was a member) made the long and perilous journey out to DCU, their absence excused notes already written into their journals, in some cases twice for good measure. Having just enough money TO THE CENT for bus fare, and narrowly escaping an encounter with a 12year old knacker girl who was speaking very loudly on her mobile indeed some way down the bus, we made our way into the grounds, and ascended the spiral staircase to the recording room. I was pissing my pants so fucking much you'd have thought they were that shade of dark, slightly shiny blue to begin with.

So we ran through the pieces, as you do, and they sang as amazingly as expected, and better. Precedings were slow and, even though there were only 4 of us with compositions to be performed. Because of our lack of experience in the area of writing music for a professional choir, or for anything else, it has to be said. They would sing it their way, beautifully, we in our I'm-a-bigshot-composer-now way would want it another and make our little comments, and any suggestion any of us were bold enough to make was greeted with a number of expert throat clearing noises, and our vague suggestions would be discretely dismissed for the choir director's superior, more, shall we say, experienced musical decisions. This buisness was pretty tiring, and we were given a 15minute break after the first 2 pieces had been recorded.

And so for the last few days I've been restraining myself from pestering Ms. D with questions about when the recordings will be ready so that I can begin flaunting my talent, slipping the cd on the background whenever people are around and saying 'oh this old thing?'. Though I said the piece had been a rushed job, I actually did put a fair bit of work into it, and I was pretty pleased with what I ended up with to be honest. So I'm literally bursting to hear it again. In fairness it's quite a novelty to have your own music performed by such a esteemed and talented choir when you've never written anything before and are unlikely to again. And if anyone, you know, wants a copy of the CD, just send me a blank CD and a tenner and you'll get it within 5-10 working days.

A List of Things I'm Looking Forward To

1. Interrailing - Turns out people do enjoy having fun - we're going BABAY! I have this unignorable feeling that it's going to be absolutely epic on toast. Since we've finally booked our flights the whole thing seems more official, not just one of those up-in-the-air projects where you go 'we so totally have to...' and then never bother to do it. The sense of freedom jetting off to the Continent after all the nastiness of the exams is finished with is going to be mindblowing. To say that I can't wait hardly expresses it.

Also...There's a stack of hash brownies in Amsterdam with my name on it...mmmMMMmmm!...ahem

2. Latin Trip - It's gona be maaaad craic; with Mr. O'Suilleabhain along for the ride how could it be anything else? Don't really know what the weathers going to be like in Rome in February, but I'm firmly optimistic thats it's going to be better than in this shithole.

3. Panto - Sad to say it, but the Christmas season wouldn't have been complete for me without a trip to the Gaiety with the whole Brady Bunch that is our family. I'm told it's Cinderella this year (by 'I'm told' I actually mean 'I researched online to find out, because I'm that pathetic - LOVE ME') which is very fitting, as I used to watch this movie over and over when I was 4, embarrassingly enough. Hopefully matters will be preceded by a delicious (free) meal at somewhere reasonably fancy, and I'll get to buy one of those colourful spinning things they sell for a fortune a pop at these kind's of 'events'...not to be missed

4. Lanza - Oh the potatoes... with a big dirty mountain of green mojo on the side fur dippin'... who wouldn't want to have sex with that? Spending time in Lisa's 'happy place' as she calls it is going to be QUITE SOMETHING. Once I've finished getting Ann/Sue on board with our plans and it's a done deal I can sit back and wait, drooling.

5. KERRY 2K9 - Presuming I pass my driving test, a major trip to the gee, and beyond, is in store. I'm going to make the bold statement of suggesting that this will be the THE minibreak to top in the years to come.

6. Being Able to Drive - After only one lesson so far I'm already kind of hooked on the idea of being properly mobile for the first time.

7. Getting my Music Composition on CD - I'm not going to explain this one here; I'll devote my next blog to it. See how I leave you in suspense to keep you coming back to read my insubstantial whingings?

8. College - A new beginning would be very welcome at the moment. 6th year can't end soon enough.

9. Seeing Crystal Castles live sometime this year - because it IS going to happen.

Planning for the future instead of studying FTW

SAD - '2k9, not so fine'

Yes it's that time of year again, the time of dark January mornings and early evenings and going back to school, the warm, fuzzy edges of christmas time having been shaken sharply into focus, and now we can see clearly enough to realise just how fucking bleak the immediate future actually is. The Mocks are coming. Everyone is always in bad humour. Summer is an eternity away. No (reasonably) good weather. No FUN.

I'm pretty convinced I suffer from a condition known as SAD (though I'm equally convinced its not a condition of mind, rather a kind of animal instinct). For those of you not familiar with the term, this doesn't mean that being a pathetic loser has been declared a medical condition. SAD stands for 'Seasonal Affective Disorder', and those who suffer from it are said to react more severely than others to good or bad weather; for example, a really nice sunny day might put a SAD sufferer in high spirits for no other particular reason, making them feel relaxed, healthy, energetic and enthusiastic, while a dreary grey drizzly day could send them plummeting into the depths of depression, unable to sleep, uncertain about the future, and uncharacteristically short-tempered.
Now, I've pretty much trawled the interweb for information about SAD, and I've done all the 'do YOU have SAD?' personality tests you like, and I have come to the conclusion that I am one of the many people who suffer from it, whether or not it is actually an unnatural occurance in a person. Every year, come January, I get the blues in a maaaaaaaajor way man (again I stress my view that it's pretty obvious that everyone gets them too, but that's not going to stop me complaining about it);
I find it difficult to get up in the mornings, I have less desire to engage in conversations with people, I find my friends irritating all the time (but when I'm not with them I mourne whatever fun I might be missing out on), I've little motivation to do anything proactive other than plan to do things in the future, and the simple pleasures like stuffing my face, watching tv, playing the piano, drinking, just don't have their usual ability to raise my spirits.

It just one of those things. I know it'll pass, it always does, but it's easier to say that than to believe it. This time of year is really lonely; everyone's got a heavy workload, and they're tired, and because of that they all piss eachother off. I'd love to meet up with all the people I haven't seen in yonks, but I bet if I did I'd just have nothing interesting to say and everyone would get on my nerves. And I could be wrong about that, but as you may be able to tell I'm pretty pessemistic right now.

And ANOTHER thing! Our 6th holiday, initially planned to be interrailing, is pretty much fallen through, as no-one is 'up for it'. I don't even care if we don't go interrailing, I just want to go somewhere where I can have fun with my friends, I don't give a shite where or for how long or how many people are going, but this trip being a shambles is just another monumentally shite thing about the present.....

ugh i need a break....fucking shitness of January!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And NOBODY had better say anything like 'onwards and upwards' in the coming weeks, or they can just fuck off.

SERIOUSLY