And It’s Not Really Working

Musings

Well, things are stil a curates egg pretty much some good, some bad some middling. A mild panic this morning for folks at the compound here as the vehicle gates have jammed though they managed to manually open them.

A thrilling day so far, cleaned washing machine filter but it didn’t actually need cleaning. A couple of emails sent.Stuff like that..

I do find a massive feeling of inertia when dealing with people generally. Everybody has the same story to tell now. People (younger ones two) are not going out so much, pub attendance is down and so forth. People do feel things are in decline with an added dash of ‘Is that all there is’

Another musical mate Tally Trow (exe a couple of decent bands and an occasional DL bass player to boot) has asked me to do a musical collaboration, on line remote stuff of course though. So that’s small plus.

A thought on my music conundrum:

I think my problem is I exist in an odd place on the music spectrum. I have pro level skills (but without the sight reading skills level I am not quite employable enough) but I am not despite what you might actually think a massive ego maniac. But I can’t handle pro level opportunity’s now. I can’t jump back into 4+ gigs a week I would need a 6 to 9 month or so warm up to do that assuming my old bones and brain cells still can do the deed. All the regularly working pros I know also teach 2 or 3 days a week. That’s a good way to make contacts of course. But you can learn more off YouTube in ten minutes unless you have a really good tutor. In space there are what is called Lagrange points. There are spots between the Earth and Sun and Mars where crudely put the gravitational pull on an object is balanced so satellites (notably the most famous recent space telescope James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) ) can be parked and remain in place.

So it is it seems with my musical efforts. In perfect equilibrium but tidally locked in a cosmic doldrums. I was offered a while (I didn’t ask for it) a serious try out for what I thought was a bunch of aging never was in a sort of prog rock band. I politely declined as it was not quite the right fit and I did not think I would have the stamina. Then a mutual friend expressed amazement as it turned out said band were a big thing on the UK modern prog festival circuit…

Mental Health

Mine is not at all good at present to be honest. I am right on the edge at present
And nothing makes sense anymore. At all. maybe it never will again?
Maybe see you on the flip side…

A mini rant about musical matters

Musings

About 2 weeks ago I put an add on a music message board to try and expand the possibilities’ of getting out and playing more primarily but in the local area not miles away. It had 235 views and not one single response. I wonder if that’s a record? Wow.

Yes I am in a Band/trio and also a folk band but they are not exactly busy and whilst I am quite comfortable performing I am not primarily a solo performer and attending open mics where I don’t really know people is quite difficult for me. I have met some lovely people but not anybody that seems to be up for a proper ongoing collaboration and working up numbers to take anything forward. These thing take a bit of time. I am not looking for sympathy
just wondering what I am doing wrong? At times I wonder if this is simply because of my age? (69) I have recorded a lot of stuff over the years that’s available online. Over the last 10 years over 6 or 7 online platforms material I written and recorded has clocked up about 300,000 streams so I can’t be that bad, can I?

I play Piano, (also keys and synths) Violin Guitar and dabble in one or two other things.
I sing but I would not call myself a vocalist.

Sitting in a pub for maybe two hours on your own waiting to play a couple of numbers however good the other performers are is not the greatest thing for me as I am not good at small talk and never have been. I tend to get anxious doing social stuff on my own. Its a problem because I worked with the same person for 17 years and played about 4000 gigs approx until they passed and then lockdown hit and after that end of story pretty much it seems. Now for various reasons I am not able to travel (finance being one of them) miles to meet up with people. If I had a more outgoing personality maybe I could bang on a few more doors, but I don’t.
Anyway here is a song I recorded last week..

February 2026, Thoughts On Getting Older

Musings

Well, a funny old day. I couldn’t settle to anything at all. Slight gloom ensued. I am sleeping OK but still waking up tired at present. What I notice is if I am out and doing stuff I feel OK but at home although I am nowhere near as anxious as I have been for a long time I do feel very tired. Again though if I am beavering away making a recording or writing music or learning something new I am fine. So how much is depression and how much is actually physiology in all this? I can get energy to do stuff, but once I have run through my to do list, its like my strings have been cut and I collapse in a heap.


BTW I had a funny dream and at the end of it I was on a wooden boat with Donald Trump and others in NY harbour near the statue of liberty and it was sunk, and the Donald was saying don’t launch the missiles they will destroy us all as we are at the target. We were all bobbing around in life jackets at that point, then I woke up… It was so real.

I should have gone out again today as being in a lot seems to put me out of sorts a bit. I had a quick walk around the block but even with several layers the cold got to me. Even being out for 20 minutes makes a difference though I find. Sometimes when I am feeling a bit low I sort of lock up and stop doing anything. Usually at that point the mournful thoughts creep up. Having been very busy with various music and related projects and having finished those, I did not want to plough straight in to the next thing and sort of thought about going out but didn’t.

I have been working on some music, I feel half dead but that’s OK. A song that’s developing nicely so far. It’s the case that creatively I do better if I have switch off and refresh. yesterday was a bit like that and half today I was also mentally off line.

Music 🎶

Those were the days 😉