All posts by diana Stone

About diana Stone

Diana is a performing composer and muscian playing Piano Violin & Guitar. She currently plays with the Rock/Roots band Elephant Shelf and also the Delta Ladies who mix roots acoustic music and electronica. She composes in a variety of styles from pop to rock to Jazz and and classical music.Diana is also expert in multi-media recording and music production.

End of the Year Round Up

Well it’s been both very productive and also slightly frustrating in equal measure. My original music that I have been writing and recording has fared quite well this year. So on one level a productive and creative time for which I am very grateful. My health has been as you would expect mostly though I did manage to get Covid again. I have also had a few live gigs with the Sonic Boomers and Orchard, and John Bickleys Invisible Folk Club Band. So I have not done too badly considering. I have even made a few dollars more. Go me 🙂

At this time of year it’s not always easy for a lot of folks. Sometimes we crave company but its not quite the sort we were hoping for when we are expectantly waiting for Santa to come down our chimney with his magic sack full of joy?

My Christmas message to you all is ….

Play more of
Diana Stones Music or I will send the Household Cavalry round

Latest tunes on the links here.

Jingly Nerves, Jingle All The Way

Hey it’s Christmas jumpy time. Jingle Bells or what!

A pleasant afternoon playing two Christmas shows at Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital and at the Danesbury Neurological Center. On the way there though I bagged a Pigeon on the A1. Car 1 Pidgeon 0. What is wrong with these self sacrificing suicidal avions? I seem to be the f**king vegetarian reaper!!! Hospital’s and institutions are not my normal habitat tis true (they have slightly bad associations). Endless trips to the Child Guidance Clinic. X rays for the TB and so forth… Some of the punters were listening and tapping their feet. We did 2 one hour shows one in the hospital day room and one in the care home day room. Went Ok, mostly women there. Don’t think I will be making a career of it. We are doing a summer show there as the trio though. Very positive feedback from staff and punters. A few aches and pains this am after yesterday’s gig, it was good but needed a lot of concentration so although I played OK I was slightly less relaxed than normal. maybe a bit of additional muscle tension? A lot of material to learn in a short time might have made it a bit more tiring.

Its All About The Money You Know

A song for you, or you or even you? But not you though.

Friend’s. As we get older they get a little rarer don’t they? I did have some work friends at the Civil Service. I lost touch though as I was so busy with gigging after I left. They were out socialising whilst I was “working”. I opted out the 9 to 5 completely aged 50 and on balance it was a good idea for my sanity if not for my bank balance. But just lately I am feeling a chill wind.
Spent a while this morning working out all my finances again. Things are reasonable with luck. Most of my problems now are the ones in my head it seems. Its you, it’s me. I did not expect to feel like a child that’s expecting a visit to the headmaster for a cosmic ticking off when I go back to school on Monday. Every day that passes I feel less in control and at times more fearful in general. That’s why geriatrics like me play in rock bands and stuff init? I don’t see my decrepitude in the mirror so much except when I look at my twisted spine but I have had that for ever of course. So I do what I can and try to do no harm. Getting rid of my car is practical but also symbolic though. What hurts is the fact that I don’t need it as my life is different now. I do dream about Vicky from time to time and in dreams we just talk about stuff. It seems so real. I can see why people feel the need to go to the big house and sing to an invisible cosmic imaginary friend 😊

We need friends, compassion and love of some sort as much now as ever

I have try and stick to the premise “It is what it is” and stop looking for meanings and reasons and shit like that. I can’t quite embrace the chaos though however much I try.

Touching wood I feel a bit better today at least so far. I got a nice message from somebody that listens to my music, about 25 years old by the look of her. she has my stuff on repeat. Poor soul… lol 😂 Its interesting to note though that it seems to appeal to people much younger than me from other feedback I have had. It is definitely not modern in any respect, a lot of it of anything is really rehashed 60s and 70s but obviously with a more modern sound/sensibility.The more I look at the information I get from the websites and streaming platforms that host my music the more I feel that I ought to take it a bit more seriously perhaps? Again something to look at in 2025 perhaps? When you have South Korean Girls between 17 and 20 listening a lot to some tracks as just one strange example perhaps there is a way to do more. I could try teaming up my music with some AI generated video content perhaps? Anyway just thinking out loud. Would that be too weird?

Nietzsche said:

“What they would like to strive for with all their powers is the universal green–pasture happiness of the herd, with security, lack of danger, comfort, and an easier life for everyone; the two songs and doctrines which they repeat most often are ‘equality of rights’ and ‘sympathy for all that suffers’—and suffering itself they take for something that must be abolished.

Whats the answer, somewhere in the middle of these extremes I guess?
“We opposite men, having opened our eyes and conscience to the question where and how the plant ‘man’ has so far grown most vigorously to a height—we think that this has happened every time under the opposite conditions, that to this end the dangerousness of his situation must first grown to the point of enormity, his power of invention and simulation (his ‘spirit’) had to develop under prolonged pressure and constraint into refinement and audacity, his life–will had to be enhanced into an unconditional power– will. We think that hardness, forcefulness, slavery, danger in the alley and the heart, life in hiding, stoicism, the art of experiment and devilry of every kind, that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical in man, everything in him that is kin to beasts of prey and serpents, serves the enhancement of the species ‘man’ as much as its opposite does”– Will to Power

I think actually that may be the next conservative party manifesto

Don’t have nightmares