Refinement

So remember when you're clearing out the halls

There is no tomorrow in the clutter of your soul

This place is just a ghost town, that follows us around

Nothing more.

Those are the chorus lyrics to the song I'm working on right now, in my bedroom, back in Milton Keynes. Every day something new comes, I change the chords around and invert the notes, but even then the melody sticks and goes round and round my head. I think it's because this song is something that is genuinely me. Of course, they are all me, but when you study a subject, you are foolish not to break your boundaries while you have the enforcement to do it. Many a thing I have written over the last year or so has been new and different to the innocent madrigal vocals I came to Brighton with. They have been deeper, more seductive, more mature maybe than the bareness of what I was a few years ago. Refinement is the common word for it I guess. But I know that I will always, when my heart is really in a creation, sing the way I do and write as rawly as I have. So here, in a song that covers so many insecurities, it is the old singer-songwriter piano and voice girl who wrote in secret in her teen years showing herself. And I am thankful to have her back, as I missed her and felt lost over the last few months without her.

It's hard when you finish something like a degree. The obvious thing to do is work. Just keep pushing even if it is in the wrong direction. But I've been working constantly for years so if anything, that isn't the next move for me. When my contract was up and my graduation over I moved back to my parent's house where I had access to the baby grand piano and planned to write and record an album finally, all by myself. I have enough songs for it, but whether they are the right ones I don't know. I'm sad a lot and I feel lost and really quite lonely, which can make it hard to get the guts to record so much yourself and really try with no guidance. Music is the one area I feel nervous promoting myself. Modelling? No problem. Pole dancing? That's ok too. But music is innocent, personal and fragile to me, and I lack confidence in what people hear and see when they find me. It's just like the others I'm sure, you just convince yourself enough that you are fine to put your work out, and then hopefully the feedback combined with your facade and fake backbone will be enough to get you gigs and find you a path to some kind of success, until the backbone is real and your presence is genuinely strong.

I will try and do a masters. I know where I want to go, but I'm not quite sure which area I should focus on exactly. I'm not a one-trick pony, for better or for worse. My dream was to combine the arts. I had insane theories about sculpture and music when I was at Central Saint Martins, and it would be fun to explore it again. I've seen many masters in 'Sonic Arts' which have left me intrigued. Perhaps this would combine the art and the music in a way I've always wanted? But I've also felt as if a masters in Composition would give me the final shove I need for my music writing. The only answer is to speak to the lecturers of the courses and see what they think. I guess this is the first step. Realising what you need to do is already a movement in the right direction. Then I just apply and go from there, and hope that the right one will recognise me.

All I can do for now is work hard and keep moving the way I am, and it will all be redeemed somehow. As a tutor once told me when I showed up to my assessment empty handed after being dumped and confusedly forgetting my sketch book at the ex boyfriend's house far away, "I can tell that you are really really sad right now, but let it fuel you. Often an artist's best work is made when they are in the most pain."

I made some of my best art and wrote some of my best songs later that year, that have stayed with me ever since.

AKC x