Category Archives: music

Hot Hot Hot

Diana Stones Songs, music, Musings, whatever

Too hot today really, really it is. So I am watching a whole lot of YouTube again. And writing lyrics and tunes or at least trying to.I am writing about living vicariously through YouTube blogs among other subjects I am working on songwise.
The heat is not going anywhere for a day or two either. 

 I have done one or two  useful things today. I have sorted out a 15 track web album for Amazon/Apple spotify YouTube and so on.It should  be released by August 6th. 
Plus a bit of minor DIY. So not a bad day. Also recording a bit of a new tune may well be an instrumental featuring violin if its not a song. I havent made up its mind yet.

Looking back two years my world is very different and like many others now much smaller too.  Absent friends are not forgotten at all but the memories of them exist in a parallel universe that can only be visited at quiet times and also with caution advised.
I have adapted and much I had hoped for is unlikely now to happen so a certain amount of acceptance of the limits I find myself bound by is required. I don’t feel at home though yet. 

This week I did my first covid test. A lateral flow  at home.   As I expected it was negative. It wasn’t  difficult to do,  though the self swabbing is a bit  tricky to get right.
You can see if  the test is working before you get the your result and its very quick. Hopefully its accurate. Also you get a covid pass in your phone app that lasts 48 hours if its negative. 

The heat is really wearing me out. At the time of writing its expected to cool by  down tomorrow morning. I do hope so.   

    
  
 

Friday Thoughts Mid July

Diana Stones Songs, glass cage, music, Musings, whatever

Friday again and that came around very quickly. The usual routine,record practice and writing. And exercise of course. How well its going I am not entirely sure. Some things are improved and others are worse at times. The grand opening up is on monday and I am quite nervous about it to be honest. I would like to be out there and up and and at it but after nearly 18 months of keeping a distance it seems a bit daunting to be mixing with  people very much again. I really have lost track of passing time. I know what day it is but no day feels any different to any other now. My mental health has taken me to a strange place now.  I feel a very strong sense of disassociation now as if I am not really here, or that my life is some how a play that I am observing at close quarters and someone else is acting out my role in the proceedings. It’s a very weird feeling. 
Looking out of my window and its very warm and bright and sunny and the world is turning very slowly.   The end of this month sees a date of some personal significance to me. A milestone though if it is passed means only that the future is unwritten.  

And of course there is a song:

 

 Sometimes words are elusive and catching them before they scamper away is tricky.
It’s odd but when I try to write down the words in my head on paper they often just disappear. It’s more than a little frustrating. I am sure I did not have this problem before. Music pours out (good bad and indifferent) most of the time, but somehow words wait until the very moment you attempt to capture them. Suddenly they run off like squirrels up a tree or voles down a hole. 

“ If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”

― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
 

 

 

I was struck philosophical this morning. I thought about my decisions over the last 20 years and on the whole I think they were the right ones. Givinging up the well paid Civil Service Job for full time music and meeting a lot of very interesting people and the fringe benefits was I think a good gamble and not doing that would have been a lot less enjoyable, though they were some bumpy times along the way. Also the fact that my father died at a relatively young age and so had 6 weeks of retirement also informed my decision. I am now just about the same age he was when he died. So for me in a weird way anything beyond this time feels like its a bonus. Also there is no doubt that I am getting more arthritic and regular gigging the way I used to seems unlikely again due to covid, finding co-conspirators mad enough to do it and the physical wear and tear. So doing it when I did seems logical. None of us could have foreseen the current crisis either. So to have got this far is not so bad considering where I started. If there are more fun and frolics to be had I won’t turn then down though.