As anyone who knows me personally will know, I’m a knitter. My friends have all accepted that if I visit them I will inevitably produce a knitting project from my bag to work on while we’re chatting. I like to take on big, complicated knitting projects – the kind that feel like a marathon of complicated lace patterns, confusing construction and weaving in endless loose threads. The longest knitting project I’ve ever worked on, a scrap yarn blanket, has taken me two years so far and isn’t even halfway finished!

But what on earth does any of this have to do with composition? Well, in the online knitting community, every Wednesday people post ‘Work in Progress’ pictures of their current knitting projects. It’s a chance for everyone to celebrate how much they’ve done, lament the mistakes that led them to unravel half their lace shawl, encourage each other and give advice. I love WIP Wednesdays. I think there’s something special in sharing the progress of a project while it’s still being done. People can see the project evolve from a ball of yarn to a finished, wearable item of clothing. It gives everyone who has followed the journey a connection to the project and the creator that they wouldn’t have if they only saw a picture of the finished object.

So, I’m going to do the same with my composition projects. On Wednesdays, I will post about something I’m currently working on. Composing a piece takes a long time and if I only show you the finished product you’ll never get to see how it evolved from a blank piece of paper into a piece of music for you to listen to or play. And hopefully you’ll enjoy sharing the journey with me!