Update Just to Update, 1st Week of Sept 2014 Edition

1. I'm about a third of the way into Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. How I missed this one until now, I have no idea. It's a peculiar book: takes place in the early 1800s in an alternate England where magic still exists, though only two "practical" magicians remain, other magicians being merely "theoretical," reading up on the history and theory without actually doing any magic. At the beginning of the book, actually performing magic is considered a bit improper, though thrilling.
Anyway, I'm very much enjoying it so far. If you know the end, don't tell me!

2. Today I'm listening to Hank Williams over and over. A friend made mention of the song "I Saw the Light," and his version is the one that plays in my head as soon as I see those words. Listening to him is bittersweet now: this is music I listened to as a kid until every word is part of me...but now that I'm more familiar with the hard, short life he led, I can't help hearing double-meanings in so many of these songs, and it tears at my heart. Love his voice, though.

3. Tomorrow I'm going to do something that scares me, rather. I've been a regular blood donor for several years now, but yesterday I got a call/plea from the Puget Sound Blood Center asking me to consider donating platelets. This requires being hooked to a machine for several hours: blood goes to a cell separating machine that collects platelets, and then red blood cells are returned. This is WAY, WAY creepier than merely bleeding into a bag. I'm a pro at bleeding into a bag at this point. I have a 2 gallon pin to prove it. But a) the nice blood center lady said they're at "emergency" levels, and b) I accidentally totally missed my last appointment to donate, so I have guilt. So...off we go. Maybe I can include it in a story someday.

Added bonus: totally legit excuse to sit on my rear reading a book for several hours on Saturday.

4. I appear to have been conclusively adopted by a desk, whether I like it or not. It's a sturdy but unattractive thing that used to be a nurse's station at a gynecology/urology practice, just to add to its charm. (Everybody, CRINGE!) I got it for free when I helped some of the folks there move to a new building.

In a lot of ways, it's an ideal desk for me: it has a file drawer plus another drawer for junk, a pull out work-surface for times when I need more paper space, a big built-in space for organizing documents, plenty of book space up above. However, the lamp on the underside broke, so it's dark. Also it's ugly. And did I mention ugly? I thought to maybe sell it and eventually replace with something slightly more of my own choice, but no bites. Beyond conning friends into helping me haul it to Goodwill, I seem to be stuck with it. And I'm beginning to think I'm not meant to get rid of it. It seems to be My Destiny.

So I guess I'm going to try to find a new LED light to mount on the underside of the hutch bit. And maybe I can pretty it up. Somehow. Maybe I can cover it in decorative duct tape. That would go along with my milk crate and garage sale rejects motif.

5. I've been posting a bit more poetry and such over on my reflections-and-thoughts blog, Thorns and Blossoms. Some of it's a repeat of what I've posted here, but not all, so check it out if you've a mind to.

Scattered (UJTU)

1. How do people travel all the time and still manage a normal life? I went on one five day trip from June 27th to July 2nd, and I'm *still* all discombobulated. I'd originally hoped to finish the first draft of Mind Jinx (my current work in progress) by mid-July, but that's out the window. Haven't recovered my usual routines AT ALL. New estimate: end of summer at best. I'd also hoped to write a trip report, but I feel like I'm a bit past the window for that. May yet take a stab at it, however.

2. My garden has grown tremendously. I have strawberries, peas, carrots, lettuce, and am starting to get cherry tomatoes. The big tomatoes and summer squash are right behind, and I have a baby eggplant and baby delicata squash coming along nicely. Now if I can just manage to water faithfully.... Western Washington may have a reputation for rain, but it pretty much all hits in the winter and spring months. Around the 4th of July, a switch is tripped, and it's high desert here. Nice in that you can pretty much plan on weekend outdoor activities without worrying about wet, but it does mean you suddenly go from plants drowning to plants dying of thirst, and you have to develop new habits instantly.

Sweet potato vine, just for fun!

First full sized tomato (a Cascade) is changing color...

Bitty baby bell peppers

Summer squash coming along

Baby delicata squash

Eggplant! First time I've seen these growing....

Mmmm, sugar snap peas....

3. I'm in the middle of a major music muddle: for *years* I've intended to sit down and redo my music library by re-ripping all my old CDs and then re-adding any digital purchases from backup/cloud. I had a lot of gaps and strays and tracks that weren't titled consistently, and it was driving me crazy. I'm thinking about upgrading to a new computer sometime this year, and chances are it won't have a built in CD drive, so now seemed as good a time as any to tackle this project. I'm going to get it all tidied up and then back up to a decent external drive, so I have a clean starting point from here on out.

It's turning out to be even more daunting than I anticipated. I'd forgotten just how much music I've acquired over the years, not to mention Teaching Company courses and the like. But re-ripping has been an interesting walk down memory lane: I still like a lot of the same music I did way back when, but my buying and primary listening habits have fluctuated, and going back through the albums is like excavating layers of the last fifteen or twenty years of my life from sedimentary rock. Early classical period...flatpicking guitar period...folk rock...middle early classical...Irish. Etc. It's all pretty mixed, honestly, but every so often I come across an album that all but defined a given time in my life and which I've not listened to in a long while. Fascinating how a few notes can trigger a flood of half-forgotten memories.

Wintergrass 2014 (Late) After Report

This is the one and only photo I took: my scribbling and caffeination supplies for a morning of jotting down memories.

I spent Feb 27-Mar 2 at Wintergrass--the big indoor music festival held at the Hyatt in Bellevue, WA. We take over the whole place--people wandering around with fiddles and guitars and banjos and mandolins, jamming in hallways and stairwells. And then there are the concerts! It was, in short, an incredible experience. Highlights for me:

Beats Workin' (Peter Ostroushko on mandolin, Mike Dowling on guitar, David Lange on accordion, Cary Black on bass): they played swing and bluesy stuff and original tunes and...oh man, were just so good and so fun all around! My favorite was Peter Ostroushko's "Heart of the Heartland" on Thursday night.

Väsen, the truly excellent Swedish folk band, currently a trio with 12 string guitar, nykelharpa, and 5-string viola. I've liked them for a long time, but had never seen them live. My only regret is that I only got to see them twice over the course of the festival. I bought their Mindset album, and I have to say, while there were flashier, more mind boggling performers at Wintergrass, Mindset is the album I've had on repeat ever since. Favorite tune: Hundlaten, which Mikael said he wrote while walking his dog--the title, as I recall, means, simply, "Dog Song." It's bouncy and fun and gets hopelessly stuck in my head.

The Kruger Brothers. I'd not seen them before, either, and WOW. As someone said about Jens Kruger, there are good banjo players, great banjo players, and then there's Jens Kruger. I've never heard music like that before. And Uwe's voice and songwriting are icing on the cake. Favorites: "Carolina in the Fall" and the first bit of their "Appalachian Concerto."

Chris Thile and Mike Marshall. I just don't have suitable words for what they do. Improvising, in harmony, even at high speeds or in funky time signatures like 25/16. Really. They were amazing, and I do not use that word lightly. Mando gods.

Combination of the above: one of my favorite Väsen tunes is a beautiful waltz: Josefin's. Not only did they do it, at the very end of their last set on Saturday, but Chris Thile and Mike Marshall joined them. It was...I still can't describe it. Magical.

I also have so many other happy memories: morning jams after breakfast, a trip to the dim sum place nearby, where we laughed at our varying ability to eat with chopsticks, running up eleven flights of stairs sometime after midnight when I got sick of waiting for the elevators after the last concert of the day, a walk to the QFC (across the street) wherein I got us so lost I think we saw most of Bellevue....

Good friends, good fun, good food, good music. It was a perfect vacation. And the accommodations definitely beat the tar out of your average bluegrass festival...beds? Private bathrooms, with fresh towels provided daily? Thermostats? Whoa!

Blue for Bluegrass

Starting a new Field Notes this weekend for my daily doings log. This will be an important one, since Wintergrass, the big indoor bluegrass/acoustic music festival in Bellevue, WA, is starting Thursday, and I imagine I'll have much to remember! I decided to keep with the "winter" theme, and grabbed one of the Cold Horizon notebooks. Seemed fitting. And I'll be bringing mechanical pencil, since it's easier on-the-go.

So excited!

UJTU: Walk, Run, Snow, Play

Our Saturday to Sunday snow storm left me a bit buried...

The walking project continues apace (har har). I will need to fit in a few short evening walks or longer weekend jaunts in order to make up for a few slack days, but otherwise, I'm on track.

I *am*, however, thinking of once again attempting to get into running. Nothing fancy: it would just be nice to be able to handle 3-5 miles of slow jogging. Even at a slow pace, it'd be quicker than walking the same distance, thus freeing up some time for my next resolution-to-tackle, "Write More."

I actually planned to start this weekend by jogging the last half mile or mile of my usual walk. This may seem counter-intuitive, leaving it to the end, but I don't usually find my rhythm even for walking until I'm a couple miles in, so I think waiting a bit until my legs become my own is best.

However, Saturday afternoon a snow storm blew through. Nothing like what some of the east coast has seen, or what we used to get in Vermont, but six inches of heavy, wet snow put a damper on my plans all the same. I did go out and walk in it yesterday (three miles of laps between two half-mile markers), which was HARD WORK, but probably burned as many calories as my usual longer walk...but there was no way I was going to try running in the stuff, especially over uneven, footprint pocked trail.

But sometime this week, I hope. May have to wait until my legs recover...my calves are awfully tired and sore from that snow workout.

In the meantime, I got a good start on my "Play More" resolution. I've had the tenor banjo out pretty much every day, working on triplets and trebles and tunes. Currently I'm trying to polish up Humours of Tulla and The Clumsy Lover and learn Garrett Barry's and Pinch of Snuff, to name a few. Also continuing to practice Gravel Walk in the vain hope that someday I'll be able to keep up with the insanely fast pace they play it at the local session.

I need to change strings before Wintergrass. Especially mandolin strings. But changing mandolin strings is something I tend to put off as long as humanly possible....

Additional Autumn Adventures

Yet another busy, fall-flavored weekend! To start with, Saturday morning I went over to the farm stand for more pumpkins and apples. Thought of you, Jeff: lo and behold, they actually had McIntosh apples! However, they were in the sort of gourmet apple section and were quite a bit more expensive than more local varieties like Honeycrisps. I was tempted for nostalgia's sake, but my inner Scot put a kibosh on the idea.

Saturday afternoon, I got to hang out with friends and play music at Hope Grange's "Octoberfest" in Winlock, WA. This is an annual community event, kind of old school: the kids dress up in Halloween costumes and there are activities like face painting and games like bean bag tosses, for which you can win candy. They also have a hay ride on a wagon to a nearby pumpkin patch, where kids can select a pumpkin to bring back to the grange hall and decorate, or take home to carve later. I rode along for one of the trips. The weather was beautiful, and the sound of the tractor (no horses on this hay ride) drowned out any mistakes. Bonus! I think we may have had more fun than the kids did.

When I got back from the hay ride, I made apple sauce from apples I got from friends and got apple butter started in the crockpot to cook overnight and into the next day, and Sunday afternoon, I canned nine little jars of fresh apple butter. It turned out nicely, I think! I still have enough apples left to make another batch, too! I want to vary this next batch a bit, but haven't decided just how. Maybe find cinnamon oil to make it exceptionally potent? Hm. Ponderable.

New apple butter!

Next weekend our office is moving locations, so no big major plans for me. Should be relatively uneventful, aside from Saturday morning. I hope. I need some time to do some NaNoWriMo plotting. More on NaNo plans in my next post!

Are You Good Enough?

A rose I drew awhile back, and almost immediately hid from public

 view, because it's...shoddy. But you know? Shoddy is OK.

This post by Stephanie of Rhodia Drive really struck a chord with me:
Art Making is Accessible to Everyone

I am afraid to mess up. More than that: I am afraid of being found inadequate. In many ways, I've always felt like this. While my brothers happily doodled away as kids, I would set the bar impossibly high, and give up in frustration when I couldn't reach it.

To some extent, I've gotten past this in writing and music--especially music. Yes, I do have moments of frustration. I wish I'd started younger. I wish I was more consistent. I wish certain aspects came to me more intuitively. But I enjoy music within my own limitations, with full knowledge that I'm never going to reach stratospheric greatness.

Writing can be a little more challenging. There are times when I wonder why I work at it at all, because I will never be able to write in the ways some of my favorite authors write. I don't have Vernor Vinge's scientific mind, therefore "I can't write." I don't have Ralph McInerny's grasp of theology and knowledge of academia, therefore "I can't write." I've never suffered extreme poverty or pain, I've not traveled to exotic places, I've not done x, therefore "I can't write."

Getting beyond that, to find my own voice, to accept my own style...this is difficult. But, at least on an intellectual level, I know "all God's creatures got a place in the choir." I'm not, for example, Gene Wolfe. But neither is David McCullough. Neither is Elizabeth Berg or Terry Pratchett, or Jasper Fforde, or Elizabeth Moon, or a multitude of other authors (or casual bloggers) I've enjoyed. Some writers create extravagant and scientifically perfect worlds. Some expose, through meticulous research, a particular period in history. Some simply make you laugh. Some help you to see plain old folks just a little more clearly. Somewhere in that spectrum, there may just be room for me. It may not always be the room I'd prefer at given moments, but...there's room.

Art--as in visual art--has been more challenging still. And I think it may well be key to overcoming what is really a false sort of pride: this fear not even of complete failure, but merely inadequacy. Because it's OK to create art for fun. It's OK to create art imperfectly. It's OK to create art with no larger purpose than simply creating art: for the joy and childlike wonder of exploring artistic expression.

I like this quote from the post on Rhodia Drive. "...they learn to be OK with the quality of their expressions and do it anyway. This was my path. I wanted to make art and so I did."

Another Adventure in Not Quite DIY: Saving a Tune Book

Yes, it's grubby...but alive!

When I started playing at the Wednesday night Irish session, I picked up a copy of their tune book. We don't tend to play from sheet music during the session, but (along with plenty of listening) it's a good resource for learning the local version of the tunes, or for remembering how something starts.

The only trouble is that the books are inexpensively bound, with plain cardstock covers and plastic comb binding. After over a year of dragging it around with me, the cardstock was getting grimy and tattered, and the plastic comb had cracked in places. I knew if things kept going this way, sooner or later it would completely fall apart. So, based on my good experience with my not quite DIY notebooks, I took action.

I took it to the local Office Depot and had them trim off the comb binding. I could have just had them put on a new unbroken comb binding, but in my experience with other music books, spiral bindings work much better. Comb bindings just aren't as amenable to rough usage, tossed into overstuffed music bags or cases. In addition, the pages don't turn as smoothly and you can't easily fold a book back on itself. So spiral it was.



 I'd also planned to have them add a clear outer cover to augment the cardstock covers, but the gal who I worked with suggested we try laminating the existing covers instead, and that worked out well. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it's sturdy plastic laminate, similar to the sort used (or which used to be used) for things like drivers licenses and student IDs. It should last through a good amount of hard treatment.

It's not perfect: in trimming to remove the comb, everything is left a little off center. And of course, the lamination preserved the griminess of the original covers for all time. (To my amusement, it also captured some pencil scribbled reminders I'd meant to erase later...oops!)  This would not be at all the way to preserve or restore something precious. But my book is easier to use now, and the new lamination and binding will vastly extend its life. I'm happy with that.

Total cost: about seven dollars. Cheaper than a new book, in any case. I really wish I'd taken a few "before" pictures, but it didn't occur to me!

Blithering Re-entry

I planted some pretty flowers and they're not dead yet! See? Blithering, as promised!

For the last few months, I've felt like I've had nothing worth saying. Thus, I've primarily resorted to the site dedicated almost entirely to people with nothing much to say, and said a lot of nothing on Facebook. But lately, I've had so much nothing to say, I feel like saying nothing on a grander scale. So I'm back. Maybe. Kinda. Lucky you.

Aside from saying a lot of nothing, I continue to be obsessed with music. Along with playing with friends whenever possible, I'm still going to the Wednesday night Irish session at Tugboat Annie's in Olympia, WA most weeks, which is a blast. I'm still getting the tunes under my fingers, but have most of the most common tunes pretty well down, so long as we don't go to warp speed.

A few weeks ago, I got my hands on a tenor banjo.

My Alvarez Minstrel banjo, complete with groovy '70s orange fuzz lined case...

Tenor banjos differ from your average bluegrass or old time banjo in that they have just four strings (no short fifth string off to the side) and a shorter neck, and are played with a plectrum (or pick, if you prefer). For Irish music, tenor banjos are typically tuned GDAE: same as a mandolin or fiddle, but an octave lower, which means all the tunes translate over pretty much instantly, though the banjo has a much longer neck...quite an adjustment there!

It's also much louder than mandolin. This I like. I like a lot.

I'm also back in a pencil phase, after several months of pretty much not writing at all. Summer is a good time for carefree writing utensils! Currently-in-heavy-rotation pencils include the Musgrave Test Scoring 100 (I have a review for these I may post soon if I can get some satisfactory pictures taken) and a few varieties of USA Gold pencils. It's also almost that wonderful time of year: back-to-school sale season. Aren't you excited? Personally, I'm hoping for more 25 cent Norcom composition books, and maybe a chance to stock up on Papermate Black Pearl erasers.

As a final update, I remain utterly enamored of my Kindle Touch. I take back all the bad things I ever said about e-readers. I like the light weight, the flat "pages," the instant bookmarking--lots of little things I'm coming to take for granted. I'm also fortunate to live in an area with a good library system and access to about a zillion Kindle library books. Let me tell you, it's pretty awesome to be able to finish a library book at nine o'clock on a Saturday evening and be able to have a new library book in your hands in moments instead of waiting a long and miserable two days until you can get to the library after work on Monday.

OK, that makes me sound like a junky. But maybe I am, a bit.

Lately, I admit I've mostly been reading rather light fantasy/sci-fi novels (Tad Williams' Otherland series at the moment, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books). Hey, it's summer, or as well as, though you'd be hard pressed to tell based on the current cold and blustery weather here in the Pacific Northwest. I do have some non-fiction and classics stacked up for later reading, though, plus a bunch of Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries, plus I want to go back and read the flawed-but-interesting biography Kent Gustavson wrote about Doc Watson, a musical hero of mine to say the least, who passed away on May 29th. What a musician and man he was!

Places to See #2

This week's passel o' links I found entertaining or of interest:

► The oldest recorded melody? I find this one particularly fascinating, even a bit spine tingling. If this is anything *close* to accurate, we're hearing music that fell on the ears of the ancients, eons ago.

► Interesting glimpses of New York diaries from all different time periods and very different personalities...as always, I'm intrigued by variances in handwriting and style.

► 10 words that need to die immediately. (They do, they do!)

► The Lamy Safari color of the year, 2012.

► Cats as fonts--cute. (Thanks to notagain at Manual Entry for this one...)

► Guitars in space!

► Speaking of guitar, wanna buy a guitar boat?

► How to make a duct tape rose. Well, *I* thought it was cool!

► And this round's "just because" entry, cat caught barking...

Typecast: No Parallels

Friends and Nemeses (and Emma)

I could mention that I did *try* to do a typecast version of the index card note, since you're likely getting sick of trying to decipher my handwriting, but my typewriters don't care much for these cards and after a certain amount of arguing with them, I gave up.

OK, some of you asked for mandolin samples.  This will teach you to be careful what you ask for.  Here are a coupla tunes:

1. Emma's Waltz, with a friend playing chords.  It's a little too slow.  Also, because I'm petrified, there are no dynamics or variations or that.  I do love this tune, though.  It's purty.

2. Lark in the Morning.  This second tune is one I've been fighting with tooth and nail: a four part Irish jig they play at the local Irish session pretty much every week.  I took an instant dislike to it and it became a nemesis of sorts: every time I tried to learn it, my brain put up an instant barrier.  "Uh-uh.  Not letting THAT THING in here.  No sir!"  But this past weekend I decided to put aside past differences and try to make friends with it.  It's rather growing on me now, though there may be a certain amount of Stockholm Syndrome coming into play.  This is an imperfect take, but it was also about take fifteen.  Good 'nough, I guess.  You get the idea.  Keep in mind that at a session, I'd be just one of a dozen instruments playing it...kinda boring with just mando, and you hear every stinkin' flaw.

I've gotten to practice a bit today, since I'm currently snowed in, and could potentially be so again tomorrow.  Pretty stuff, though!

Not Dead Yet

Reason #1 I haven't been blogging: I've been obsessively practicing mandolin and learning new tunes.  Tunes I've learned since the beginning of November:


OK, I confess, I'd played Banish Misfortune before, but not memorized it, so maybe that one's a lie.  Still, not bad all told, if I do say so myself.  And most of them, I know well enough to play at the local Irish session, without toooo many stumbles.  However, the list of commonly played tunes they gave me when I first started attending is sixty tunes long, and it seems like people toss out new ones every week, so this list is a drop in the bucket.  I still have a lot of work cut out for me.  Fun work, though, for the most part, with the exception of Lark in the Morning Jig.  Don't ask me why, but I developed an instant antipathy for that tune.  Maybe I'm not as much of a morning person as I thought I was.  But I'll beat the Lark yet.

Reason #2 I haven't been blogging: I've been sucked down the e-reader rabbit hole.

Quite a number of family members have obtained Kindles over the past few months and all have been raving about them.  And these days, you can borrow library books on them, which knocks down one of the mental barriers I'd set up against them.  The selection of library e-books isn't great, but it's growing.  And Kindles have come down a lot in price.  A few years ago, they were what, $350?  Now, they're under a hundred. 

I got to play with my sister-in-law's new Kindle Touch for awhile over Christmas, and then when I was at Target on New Year's Eve, they had a returned one marked down to $69.  Plus I had a Target gift card.  Plus I am weak.  It came home with me.  Ended up having a bad USB cable, but my phone uses the same cable so I could charge it straight off, and Amazon customer service was happy to send a replacement for the original.  Good deal.

I have to say, I'm smitten.  There is much to be said for the ability to carry many, many large, heavy books in one bitty package, and the ability to request any classic (and a lot of other stuff) for free at the touch of a coupla buttons, without even getting off the couch.  Also, it's lighter and more comfortable to hold than a lot of big books, lays flat, and I can lazily turn pages with one hand whilst eating lunch or what have you.  I haven't bought much yet, aside from Mr. Speegle's short story collection, and Life of Pi, which I've been wanting to read for awhile and which I got for a dollar as one of the "special offers."  But I've gone through half a dozen library books with more in the queue, plus have a bunch of classics and out-of-print goodies waiting in the wings. (First up, some lighter reading: lotsa PG Wodehouse and a smattering of Mary Roberts Rinehart mysteries.)

It doesn't replace real books by any means.  There are still an awful lot of things not available for Kindle, for one thing, and I'm still likely to drag home large stacks of cheap used books, which isn't an option for e-books.  Still, I'm seriously pleased with the little thing.

Anyhow, between reading and music, I've barely had time for things like, oh, bathing, let alone blogging.  What did I miss?  Are we there yet?

Awkward

I wear a hat to bed in the winter, and use a sleeping bag as a comforter.  This lets me turn the heat down at night, thus saving money for more entertaining things than heat.  My favorite hat for these purposes is a thoroughly goofy thing I would never, ever, ever wear out in public: it's blue and white with a pseudo Nordic sweater print, a big pom-pom, ear flaps, and (at the ends of the ear flaps) two long blue and white yarn braids, like ragdoll hair.  It's wild, but it's warm

So...Saturday morning, I get up relatively early, and--still wearing my goofy hat and my long johns--become engrossed in messing around on the mandolin.  I found a really neat Russian klezmer-ish sort of tune and was all but dancing around the living room with the mandolin going to *town* on that tune (not your typical fare, but ooh, it's fun stuff!).  And then there was a knock at the door.

My landlady wanted to let me know someone would be by soon to work on a minor plumbing issue.  She was nice enough not to comment on either my attire or my odd choice of noise-making.

I have no idea what she must think of me now.

Out but not Down

Halvah taking advantage of a momentary break...

I am officially throwing in the towel for NaNoWriMo 2011, at least as far as hitting 50k is concerned.  If I had more free time, maybe I'd do some frenzied catching up, but I don't, and music is still taking priority. The fact that I feel great relief rather than guilt in letting go of this particular goal tells me it's the right thing to do.

I wrote a lot over the course of this year, pretty consistently, usually two or three pages a day.  I've proven to myself I can take a story and finish it without needing a contest as motivation, so I'm not too worried.  If this story is worth writing, it will be written.

Now getting ready for the type-in in a bit here!  Wouldn't miss that, even if I'm no longer a Typewriter Brigade member.

Also working on a set of polka tunes: Bill Sullivan's / Dennis Murphy's / Sean Ryan's.  Bill Sullivan is a decent chap, I'm in love with Sean Ryan, but Dennis Murphy is not my friend at the moment.  Maybe I'll record these (albeit in rather bland solo mandolin format) once I get them down.

Music 1, NaNoWriMo 0

Musical things I did this week: 
1. Went to two concerts: one jazz/swing, with Paul Anastasio, an excellent fiddler (he played with Asleep at the Wheel, and for Merle Haggard, among others), and also saw Randal Bays, who is a highly decent Irish fiddler and also a great guitarist, both fingerstyle and rhythm (he was the rhythm guitarist on Martin Hayes' first few albums, for those of you who know who Martin Hayes is...)  Both concerts were at a very small local venue, where you could really see what the musicians were doing.  Lots of fun!

2. Went to the local Irish session for the second time.  It's a somewhat humiliating experience in that I don't know the tunes yet, so everyone assumes I'm a rank beginner and treats me with the sort of condescending kindness reserved for beginning musicians in such situations.  They're all very nice--don't get me wrong--but it can be a blow to the ego.  Not that I'm advanced, but...I know I'm better than I seem to be.  I hate that feeling.  The other frustrating aspect is that the mandolin is *so* much quieter than a whole crowd of fiddles and whistles, so I can't hear myself at all.  Even on the tunes I do know, I have to more or less hope my fingers are going where they're supposed to, and I'm very reluctant to experiment with playing along on tunes I don't know well because I can't hear how wrong or right I am.

We shall see how this develops.  I'm determined to go regularly and really work on learning the music, no matter what, but I'm developing fiddle envy.  The concerts didn't help this.

3. Practiced "some whole bunch," as a younger sibling used to say, including visiting a friend so we could practice Emma's Waltz, which we're going to do as a duet at the open mic portion of a monthly jam we both attend.

And I'm working on chords (memorizing plus executing), a bit of theory (modes and scales, mostly), and trying to learn the Irish session tunes, one or two at a time.  It will be a long while before I've got even a fraction of them down well enough to play at full speed. :\  But you have to start somewhere.  I also foolishly picked up a pennywhistle this week, and have been goofing around with that.  Too fun!

NaNoWriMo stuff I did this week:
OK, so maybe it isn't quite a *zero* score.  I have about thirty letter-sized pages written as of this afternoon, which I'm hoping to transcribe over the next few days.  But even though the story is fun and the narrator interesting, I'm really struggling to stay focussed and motivated.  I had some time off this week due to the wisdom teeth yanking on Monday (which went fine, by the way), and hoped to get ahead of the game, but I figure I'm about a day behind instead (hopefully a bit less by later today).  Here's hoping the time change helps give me a boost over the next few days.  I've learned from past NaNoWriMos that morning writing time is the make-it-or-break-it element for me: I simply cannot just make up for it in the evening.  My mind doesn't work well at night.  At all.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I gotta go play "Cup of Tea" about eleventy billion more times.

Star of the County Down...sort of.

I think I'm going to start putting these music posts up on occasion--not normally this frequently, but now and again--primarily as a means of working on the stage fright I mentioned. Even faced with a microphone, I go dry-mouthed, so this is a good exercise: just recording them and letting them hang out there all public-like.

I can hear the nerves in this one, big time, but I'm done trying for the perfect take. It's an instrumental fingerstyle arrangement I did of an Irish song called Star of the County Down, which is often done in a more march-like 4/4 version...but this was the way I first learned it.

I swear, I *can* play in keys other than A minor. Honest, I can!

Guitar goofing and goofing up

At the type-in, the subject of playing music came up, and someone (Justin?) asked me if I played with a band.  I answered (tongue in cheek) "Not currently."  And then spent the rest of the day worried someone had actually believed I meant it, and that I can actually, in fact, play well enough for such things.  I can't.

But I have had the guitar out more since then, out of shame, so there has been that benefit.

Here's something I came up with years ago that I've been goofing around with again: two chords, very simple melody, fingerpicked.  Lots of the audio equivalent of typos: my fingers were tired and I kept buzzing, my guitar wasn't completely in tune.  Not to mention Tam gets in his two cents at the end, sort of throwing me off.  The tune needs a title one of these days.  It's in A minor, so the "A minor thing" name on the track means that it is, in fact, an A Minor thing.  Not a minor thing.  Or, actually, it is a rather minor thing, but...

Oh, never mind.

Anyhow, it kinda feels nice, having sore fingers again!

Update Just to Update: Self-Derision and Hot Coffee Edition

Vanity, thy name is LFP

So...for practice purposes, to show the others how these tunes string together, I recorded a very quick-and-dirty version of the set of tunes a few friends and I are working on: Jeremy Moonshine/Lilting Banshee/Boys of Tandragee. And then, unrelatedly and serendipitously, I stumbled on Dropbox, and the fact that it allows you to upload and share things. And so I'm testing this. In theory, here be the recording. I'm curious if this actually works OK!

If it does, keep in mind this is a bare bones recording prior to our doing any arranging, so it's pretty simplistic and warts-and-all. It's like a preliminary sketch of a painting, so it's minus the detail and color.