User:Sfjohna

I was born in the UK and live there now, though for seven years I lived and worked in San Francisco. In real life I'm a technology analyst, previously a technology journalist and newsletter/magazine editor. But here my main interest is the arts, particularly music and literature. I studied music many years ago at the University of Keele and have a BA in Music and English. Later, while working, I completed an MA in Modern English Literature from the University of London, Birkbeck College with a thesis on melopoetics. My speciality is British music of the 20th Century.

Most of the entries below fill in some gaps in the story of 20th Century British music through marginal and neglected figures. My starting point has been the circle of composers and others who knew Constant Lambert. One entry typically leads to others that are closely (or not so closely) connected.

"Creations" doesn't imply ownership. Most of my subjects are so obscure that I'm likely to remain the prime contributor. But if others care enough to add to the entries then that's fine with me. It's sometimes hard to accept that others may know more or have a different perspective, but that's really the essence of Wikipedia, and it should be encouraged. Likewise, if others can correct errors and make style and format improvements it means they have noticed the material. The first original entry I contributed (under a different login name in those days) was Adrian Bell, on 6 September 2005. It still includes text recognisable from my original.

I only list "contributions" when the text added is roughly equal to or exceeding the length of other contributions - but many of these are still works in progress. I love Wikipedia, but many entries are still very inadequate, incomplete or inconsistent. I try to apply deep research to those that spark an interest (or more likely connect to something else I've been looking into) and turn them, if I can, into a well documented, unique resource that might end up as the most detailed available outside of specialized libraries. Of course I don't always succeed.