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.

Fear and the  inevitable decline or its nearly my birthday again

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, music, Musings, other, pictures

Doom is just around the corner. Perhaps? Or around the next corner maybe. Suddenly the inevitable can be seen in a fleeting glimpse in the corner of your eye. You try to avoid the temptation but alas you fingers flick towards the Google search box on your android and you type the words wanting to know how long you might have left. Not that long so pull your finger out and get on with it old chum says the AI oracle in very short order. So trying to distract myself from the notion that we only get one shot at this I attempt to keep calm and carry on anyway.

January proceeds as expected so far. Interspersed with mild burst of paranoia.
I just had the exercise bike delivered. Great fun getting it up the stairs as its 21 kg or 3 stone and a bit… The box went up end over end on the steps with a bit of shoving from my thighs. So that’s some serious cardio training even before I got it out of the box. I hope it will help keep up my stamina during the winter months when taking walks is not always that great when the cold starts to bite. It also has a couple of extra resistance training aids too. I have a bit too much belly and I would like to see if I can shift some of it also my core muscles are weak and that makes my back worse too. So I shall try and work it in with my other exercises too. I am not expecting miracles but who knows it should help a little. The pain is real as they say. Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Weird Synchronicity

It’s so tiring though. So here is an old tune that needs a few more plays I feel. I am continuing to work on stuff as usual of course and seeing if I can find a few new tricks along the way too.

And as ever the world falls apart around us minute by minute of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace

Peace means societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups.

“Psychological peace” (such as peaceful thinking and emotions) is less well-defined, yet perhaps a necessary precursor to establishing “behavioural peace”. Peaceful behaviour sometimes results from a “peaceful inner disposition”. It has been argued by some that inner qualities such as tranquility, patience, respect, compassion, kindness, self-control, courage, moderation, forgiveness, equanimity, and the ability to see the big picture can promote peace within an individual, regardless of the external circumstances of their life.

Etymology

Before the word ‘peace’ came into English lexicon, Anglo-Saxons used a phrase “friðu sibb” for “pledge of peace”.

The term ‘peace’ originates from the Anglo-French pes, and the Old French pais, meaning “peace, reconciliation, silence, agreement” (11th century).[3] The Anglo-French term pes itself comes from the Latin pax, meaning “peace, compact, agreement, treaty of peace, tranquility, absence of hostility, harmony.”

The English word came into use in various personal greetings from c. 1300 as a translation of the Hebrew word shalom, which, according to Jewish theology, comes from a Hebrew verb meaning ‘to be complete, whole’.[4] Although “peace” is the usual translation, it is an incomplete one, because shalom, which is also cognate with the Arabic salaam, has multiple other meanings in addition to peace, including justice, good health, safety, well-being, prosperity, equity, security, good fortune, and friendliness, as well as simply the greetings, “hello” and “goodbye”.[5]

If only…

January and all that

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, music, Musings, other, pictures, whatever

Well its arrived again, I am sure we had one only 12 months ago. Dull, Cold and Grey like a Dickensian firm of solicitors. I have been clearing out old papers, bill and similar in the feint hope that the place would look less of a mess, but its hasn’t worked. So far I have 2 gigs in the book for next year. Not a lot but at least its not zero. The world is a complicated and contradictory place at times. Particularly the human condition and the strange, wants needs desires and impulses that arise from our fleshy being. Many of us are left with itches that are far too dangerous to scratch. Its hard not to succumb. The temptation is there though trying to pull us off our true compass heading and straight on to the rocks. Or perhaps that is just me….
Trying not to go mad in winter. It ought to be a self help book really.

Here is a new song. I bet you never saw that one coming 🙂 What’s it all about. As usual only you the listener can decide of course. There may be clues in the lyrics of course.
Its Called “I Am So Easily Lead”

Diana Stone in the studio: January 2024 mixing "I Am So Easily Lead"

I often find getting started each day very difficult, but by the evening I am usually quite lively and this used to work in my favour when I was playing gigs as I would often get home at 03.00. Now I am so often just watching YouTube. Times have really changed a lot for me. At the moment I am watching the Avengers (Steed and Mrs Peel) that is, not the Marvel crowd. Its a great looking show but very much of its time of course.

Theoretically I could do some music recording and production at any time of day almost. If am recording it might take a day or a week depending on what it is. So I might do an hour one day and 5 the next. And not at any particular time, so I could be doing something at midday or not start till the afternoon. It al depends on the day and what I am working on. Sometimes I may just stop and do something unrelated for a while. I don’t have any hard and fast rules. Sometimes you need to be inspired and you just get stuck of course. I do have motivation aplenty a lot of the time. Stuff gets done but not too any particular timetable or order though.

Here are my most recent tracks:

There is always something unfinished

Delta Ladies, Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, history, music, Musings, other

Here’s a tune called “Tin Foil Hat On 1234”. And why not indeed. I am not sure what its about but I am convinced it has a sincere and profound message for you to find if you listen to it often enough. What do you think it means, other than yesterday’s cold pizza for breakfast. Meaning is often overrated and best left to philosophers I feel. Yesterday I had the first rehearsal of 2024 with a band I am in called the Sonic Boomers. Great fun and its sounding pretty good. We just need a few gigs now having made our début last year with a handful. We are ever hopeful, or deluded. Possibly both in equal measure of course. We won’t be playing “Tin Foil hat On 1234” though. Yet! 🙂

My back seems to be a bit unhappy after yesterday’s efforts. I might have carried stuff a bit too enthusiastically I think. It is very easily done. I still move quickly when I am active. You just forget that although you are feeling energetic at the time you may pay a price for it later. You feel better and you think I don’t need to make two trips to the car and then your doomed. It is a very fine line between that and loosing upper body strength at times. When we came out of the two years lockdown although I could walk OK I felt quite weak in my core and I still am. That makes your back worse too of course. You feel better and you think I don’t need to make two trips to the car and then your doomed. It is a very fine line between that and loosing upper body strength at times. When we came out of lockdown though I could walk OK I felt quite weak in my core and I still am. That makes your back worse too of course. Today is therefore a bit of an enforced “taking it easy” one.

We have had flooding in this area in the last couple of days, that’s has caused a bit of bother with water running off the fields on to roads rather than sinking in to the ground.

Diana Stone say welcome to 2024 with love xxx

Smile it may never happen but if it does, run away very fast…





Happy New Year we hope

I am fighting my usual winter malaise at present. My mood drops very rapidly sometimes. Literally from one day to the next. I looked at my diary for last year at this time and I was a lot busier even then. There seem to be less and less opportunity’s for me personally with regard to live music as time has passed. That’s a shame. I have tried getting involved with a few things of course, but its slim picking’s right now. Plus to much time for introspection brings up some very odd and disturbing mental landscapes. I now know why people get old weird and crazy if left to long to their own devices. At the moment I feel I am starting to rust.