Tag Archives: Music

Dont Panic

Well OK I shall try not to then. This week has not gone to plan so far as I have had to change a few plans. Having to do that has made me a bit anxious though. Fingers crossed about getting back on track with stuff. but not today I think.  Most things have been done though with slight delays as it turns out. I am not sure how  Omicron is going to affect the planned musical doings I have on the Horizon at present which may through a  spanner in the works post Christmas break.  I did another Covid test which is ambiguous in its result. So I shall do another one tomorrow.     

 

So anyway here’s  a new tune for you and you, and you too. This one has electric 12 string(open tuned in DADGAD for you  guitar nerds) and Violin and a rhythm I programmed up myself so its a little different at least in that respect. My other recording projects are still on going with Jon Bickley and the Invisible Folk Club too at the time of writing.

In many respects at this time of life I am not in too bad a place considering. I have no lack of anything materially. I am and have been loved though not necessarily always understood. Much of my life described to me at the age of say 25 would have seemed the wildest shores of fantasy. So whilst I do not take great joy at Christmas I am not any less happy than others. I would be happier if I could have a Christmas drink with absent friends, but in some senses I have everything I need. I am a little bit depressed. That often happens to me around Christmas though to be honest, so perhaps it’s not really news. Its perhaps just the usual midwinter effect.

I am though more than a little obsessed with my age. It never occurred to me that I might still be around at 64 with another year about to click around the odometer of life in a few weeks. I suppose we all have thoughts like that of course.  I feel as if maybe I should not be not still be here at times. I feel as though I have done as much as I can and there is nothing new for me in some respects. Maybe its a special sort of crazy reserved just for me that I am experiencing?  Actually its more like some form of dépersonnalisation than the typical depression that I have had in the past. I feel as though I am reading the book rather than having  the lived experience in certain respects. That sounds weird but I think I have nailed it.  I feel very concerned about the future because I just cant imagine what its going to be like?  More of the same or something a  little different. So dare I hope for better after the last two years?  I just feel that there is more likely to be something really awful just around the next bend in the road.  I have a bit of a phobia about starting anything new that might take time as I feel as if that is really tempting fate.  Curiously Covid-19 is not at the top of my list of demons of which there are many and various. All creatures great and small of the unnatural sort beating there ghastly wings and extending their tallons or tentacles to ensnare me.  What am I on….

I suspect if I am not carried off to the never world by demons Christmas will be marginally  tolerable.  Its the best one can hope for.
 So just in case ” Seasons Greetings” and all that to you. 

The last song this month is Golden Ticket

I finished a song a day or so ago. I slightly messed up the final transfer of the mix so I had to redo it. Its  fairly conventional sounding tune for a change. Straightforward one might say in many ways.  As I type this we have gone from a heatwave to conditions more like the beginning of November in the space of a week or so. So I am sulking as I cant go out to play mostly due to the dread C19 virus messing things up bigtime. I dont expect much sympathy as you lot can’t really keep calm and carry on either can you? 

So here is the song first in case you dont want to read all the whinging first.

I am glad we got that bit over first. So back to the whinging then.  Some people are relentlessly upbeat all the time.How do they do it and what are they on?  The walls continue to close in on me I am afraid. I have been trying to open the doors but the wind is blowing them firmly shut again. The damp is making my bones complain again.

I cannot say I have ever felt as isolated and out of touch at anytime in my life so far as I have during the weeks since March 23rd this year when lockdown restrictions were formally introduced in the United Kingdom. Everything is strange and surreal. Even the most mundane activities as we go to the shop masked like cowboys with bandanas as we buy a hand of bananas. The novelty has worn off now though.
Will we ever get back to normal? I am not convinced its going to happen anytime soon. One year, two years, longer perhaps. It’s hard to imagine really. So far we have had restrictions for 159 days.  And we are still here.

if only I still had something to say.

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“He that can have patience can have what he will.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Why is patience so important?”
“Because it makes us pay attention.”
― Paulo Coelho

 

Pending review

Well today was a bad day. I felt very low, sometimes however much I try things just get on top of me. I get angry, frustrated and all logic goes out of the window.  That’s one of the gifts depression brings to the party.   So today I have been trying unsuccessfully to shift my mood with many distractions.  Listening to music from my teenage years Neal Young, Elton John, Hendrix, Yes and also a bit of other stuff like the Dudley Moore trio. !968 to 1972 in particular was an incredible time more music and revisiting it helped me a bit.  I am still fighting it out with a French Language course but being dyslexic doesn’t really help to much, but I can’t give up. So many times in my life it seems as though I have had to though.  Its very frustrating, or maybe I am a lot stupider than I thought I was.

I also started recording a track which will be a song once I have sorted the lyrics into some sort of order. I spent a couple of hours working on that.  I think it might be a reasonable number if I can get a good enough vocal on it. I can sing but my voice is not going to win awards. In the past I did work with some guest vocalists on some collaboration’s but personal circumstances make that a bit difficult to do here.

Also I am listening to the sound and production on recordings I really like to see if I can get some sort of warmth into my own stuff. Some of the 70’s stuff is particularly appealing. Perhaps I need to open the doors up figuratively and literally  and try again?

Now I am a bit wary of people and i am not always a good judge of character, I can be easily fooled or duped if I don’t keep my wits about me.  Also I often get suspicious of peoples  motives and that can get me in trouble if I misinterpret them. The trouble is often ends up with me feeling isolated and cutting myself off from opportunity.