Category Archives: Diana Stones Songs

Diana Stones music

The things we dare not say

The things we dare not say,if l write my autobiography I would have to leave all the really interesting bits out.

How many of us really know if we have done more good than harm?  I have broken rules for good reasons and also for bad ones over the years. Judge not lest ye be judged and all that.  I have no idea where I would come on the scales…
i am still thinking the thoughts, even if I am not doing the deeds.  But I do such things in my dreams as would make your mind reel.

So we move in to the last days of Trump. He has 11 weeks to go and we wonder what mischief he will be about in that time?
Best not to think to much about it really in my opinion. Lets hope its a damp squib and he fades away into  the distance with feint echos of the sound and fury preferably on  a black horse with a black hat muttering “You will never take me alive”.   

Currently I am revising my French and about time too as my brain is suffering from lock down malaise. I am also practicing sight reading again with the aim of going straight through without stopping or hesitating. It has to be done. I really want to try and get through this period having gained some skills. I hope my resolve will last.

The bones creaking are still creaking but not too  bad overall with exercise regime. Gently does it but regularly seems to be the watchword. The new back brace works wonders to and has lasting effects. Moodwise I am a bit techy this weekend. I really don’t know why. At the time of writing I have just but down the  basics of a new song. the Lyrics are not cooked yet though. I have some rough ideas, which I might sort of freestyle as I go along. I was going to say extemporise but that sounds a tad pretentious dont you think? 

Be good and if you cant be good be careful.

   

 

 

Mostly a review of the year to date

I think a bit of  a summing up will be helpful for me at this point.  At the start of 2020 I had got to a point where I was just about ready to start trying to reconstruct my life and move forward again. My confidence was rather lacking but I managed to pull my self together sufficiently to front a couple of gigs and at that point in February I felt like I was on the mend again and could start getting out into the world again. I still had the anxiety and arthritis problems but they were not so bad at that point. Then of course at the end of February the lockdown kicked in and the plans I had to link up with a few people were stymied. For the first few weeks I was frustrated but OK. But after my self esteem started dropping and I started to feel pretty useless about myself in often depressed and then on top of that started to have anxiety attacks. Often just triggered by a random thought or the prospect of going somewhere. So I have got more and more isolated as time has gone on and my confidence is pretty much at zero in some regards. I have never had to ability to be an easy mixer or make new friends easily. I am not antisocial but I am awkward and small talk is difficult for me so the normal avenues to making new friends and acquaintances are difficult for me to follow.
As the year has progressed I have found it more difficult to keep things together. 

I do have a routine for most days which is  to practice sight reading and spend a bit of time working up musical themes for songs and other works. I write stuff down on manuscript in a condensed form to keep the germ of the ideas. If I am working on a recording (which is most weeks) I put down parts and premix stuff. Part of the day may also be spent on a remote rehearsal/ collaboration session. In between that there are various exercises I need to do to stop myself from ceasing up. This week I have also managed to get out once a day which is helping with the depressive side of things a little. 

When I moved out of London I had hoped to get more involved with collaborative side of recording as I now have the space to work with 2 or 3 people live, and had Vicky and the Delta Ladies continued that potentially would have made for some very interesting sonic interludes along the way.  Sadly the fates intervened and it was not to be. I really had hoped to try and hook up with some local players  and see what might be done but that did not go to well either. 

If we ever get out of this Covid-19 centric universe again it will be rather like starting from zero in many ways. I cannot imagine a normal world where one can lean on a bar listening at a folk club or music pub again. Just being able to nip out and catch a gig again would be great but it is  almost impossible to do anything casually like that now. I feel that we are in for up to another 2 years, before there is any chance of real normality. Maybe by next year this time there will be a light dawning. I really dont know, but thats how its looking at the moment on the basis of everything I see in from the medical and research community.

I note that many people seem to believe we dont have a problem or that Covid is not real or anywhere near as dangerous as it actually is. That is really not helping.   

I am not on my own and its much worse for those that live alone of course, and I dont have a job to loose so I should l be able to just about roll along and keep the wolf from the door but that will not be an option for many others, and I do worry how people will survive let alone thrive.  As I write this I am  listening to “The New Deal – A Story For Our Times” on Radio 4.   A bleak time but there was hope and things did eventually get back to normal in some respects. In contrast to the current covid threat where it seems that “Normal” is  nowhere to be seen or hidden under a rock somewhere and realistically there does not seem to be much hope of sunny uplands being reached anytime soon.  

 

More October 2020

Its turning into a long month.  Covids on the rise according to the latest stats.  Its  a Saturday and I am watching “The Big Bang Theory” on the box. I do enjoy the show but Its really not my ideal Saturday night to be honest. I hope at least a few of you have better things to do with your time. I think the weekends are more difficult in some respects for me personally as there is no differentiation between those and any other days of the week. So I am typing this as a sort of therapy I guess. Also as a break from various musical doings that are filling most of my time now as I feel as if I am stuck in a perpetual groundhog day loop now.  I know a few people are lucky enough to be out getting the odd gig or two, and that’s great.  However Covid or no Covid my attempt to keep the “Delta ladies” going wasn’t really working and in a sense recent events have made it obvious that its really not going to.  So that’s a chapter thats over now. But I gave it my best shot under the circumstances. It was though 14 years of my life and around 130 gigs a year on average. And that ended pretty much with Vicky Martins passing in April 2019. I  played a few gigs afterwards but then Covid-19 finished things for good pretty much. Anything I do in future has to be different, but its like starting from scratch and I dont think I have it in me as you need a particular sort of personality to front a show, and it seems that is not really me right now at least. Of course it may be there isn’t actually much of a future any and that’s that?

I will try to keep making music of course as there is not much else I could do really.

In other news.
I woke up last night with a pain like something had snapped, I had to lie on my side. Fortunately it went away. I think the culprit maybe the new upper back exercises I am doing. So more caution is advised.
All my exercises are basically to make sure I stay as mobile as possible. The upper back is lightly to cause some discomfort as specific muscles will be stretching out of there usually postions. Its hitting the point where there is resistance but not strain that is the difficult bit. It seems to benefit my ability to sit and type more easily and also sit in a much bette posture with out leaning forward. that could be a big deal if I can keep it up as it would allow me to do more useful computer based stuff and might even allow me to get a bit of an extra income from IT again. If I can just sit down for 2 hours a day in front of a compute there is work that I could potentially do that would benefit me. Also the upper back and violin playing are inextricably linked and the better the shoulders and upper back are in terms of freedom of movement the easier it is and the better it sounds.

 

its along road…..