Go on, yo know you want to

I have actually been doing a fair bit of playing recently, lots of practise / rehearsal on trombone for a concert in a couple of weeks, and a bit on the electric bass for services at Church, and of course my regular nights at CSB on tuba.

I have taken a plunge that I meant to make months ago, I have resigned as MD of the Brass Band, although I have enjoyed the job enormously and found the musical challenge very stimulating, I just don't have the time for the commitment, sometimes family is just more important.

Valuable Tips

No matter how experienced, or competent a performer we may be we can always do with learning from the valuable experience of others.

These are all from one of my favourite cartoon strips 9 Chickweed Lane.

We have been having a busy performance based week, on Wednesday my Daughter had a public run through of the song she would be singing at her audition for the BRIT school, on Thursday I had a Brass Band Concert, then on Friday my Daughter had her audition.

Today we will be going down to Brighton to buy her a new guitar, then tomorrow I will be playing Electric Bass at the morning service, before dashing up to London for an Orchestra rehearsal.

Frustration

This weather has really been getting to me.   As always this is a difficult time of year for a gardeners, but this year I do seem to be particularly short of funds, I have work in hand but nothing really substantial, rather than any one big job I have quite a few small ones, but this does mean that although I should be earning wages (when I can work) but nothing or not much in the way of profit.

However trying to be positive I have been able to do a bit of practice, mostly on Trombone, and catch up with a bit of admin, I have to say that my heart isn't in it though.   At least it's better than when I was trying to ply my trade as a pro musician, I remember one year with no work at all from new years eve till Valentines day, now that was tough.

A day at the Museum

We had a little more snow on Wednesday, not much but it certainly didn't do much in the way of aiding the thaw, so yesterday morning once again I looked out and saw settled snow, with the same again this morning, not much but enough to stop me doing any of the work I have in hand, as well as the lack of income I am beginning to get stir crazy, I need to get out and dig, chop, or lop something. I find it very depressing and frustrating when I have work to do, customers waiting, but the weather won't allow it. It is quite nice to have the time off, but when it's not my plan, when I am not in control, not making the choice then it gets very frustrating. And, I need the money to be coming in, especially with income tax due at the end of the month.

At least we did get out for a bit yesterday, as it was my wife's birthday she took the day off and we spent a pleasant couple of hours visiting the Horniman museum. We particularly like the aquarium and the musical instrument gallery, but there is a pretty eclectic collection here, based on the original Horniman collection donated to Londoners back in 1901. It was nice to just spend a bit of time together, just the two of us, no daughter or Mother craving attention, no customers needing stuff done.


After that she went to visit her mother in Hospital (knee replacement) and then we had a nice dinner and a bottle of wine at home. So not such a bad day really ~ if I could just get some work done.

And a Pie !?

I think I have played in this section

Well we have got to the middle of January and I am trying to stick to my resolutions, but it is not as easy as I had hoped, of course if they were easy then I would have been doing them anyway.   I am pleased to be able to say that I have been doing some practise, but so far only on trombone, and I have managed to tune the van radio into Classic FM as well as Radio 4.

I am concentrating more on teh trombone as my next couple of gigs on bass trombone, and I need to build up a bit more strength in my lip, and develop my tone.   So back to basics lots of long note practise and some basic solid studies.

New Year, New Leaf

It is that time of year when you sit back and take a good hard look at how you have done over the last year, well some things have gone OK and some not so much so.   It was good to have a holiday (I missed out in 2011) and the business is still going, on the other hand I have not been playing as much as I would have liked and I am tired too much of the time.   So it's now time to look ahead at what I want to achieve over the coming year.   I am going to limit myself to six things and I am going to try to make them SMART that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

1 To achieve solvency ~ I think I may have mentioned before that money is an issue, like so many other people I ran up credit card and other debt that I suddenly found I could no longer service. I have had to make "arrangements" with my creditors and have, with difficulty being sticking to these arrangements. Towards the end of 2013 I anticipate a small windfall, nothing substantial, but it should be enough to settle everything except the mortgage, that would be a very nice feeling!

2 To take off one day each month, solely for my own edification. I have tried to do this a few times but have always ending up missing a few, these are my days to go to an art exhibition visit a garden or house, time to myself to go out and do something that will inspire and enlighten me. I have already set this in motion I have booked for a couple of exhibitions at the Royal Academy.

3 To spend quality time with my wife, to restore our relationship and to get better at communicating. I think we have started this and things have improved over the last month or so, but I am still very aware that I could "blow it" big time with one false move. When our daughter was born I bought my wife a gold chain, a couple of years ago it broke, as part of her Christmas present I had it repaired, this was meant to be symbolic of my determination to repair our relationship, I hope this was noticed.

4   I mentioned I am tired a lot of the time, too often wake up on the same day that I go to bed, I will aim to go to bed on the same day as I wake up more often.

5   Last year (2012) I managed to visit Wells Cathedral, something I have longed to do for ages, this coming year I want to visit Ely and Lincoln Cathedrals, I long to visit Durham as well (or instead) but I think Ely and Lincoln could be achieved on a single trip over two or three days.   I know that this may not be everybody's cup of tea, but I do enjoy visiting Cathedrals, especially the old ones.

Ely Cathedral

6 To play more music, by this I mean both recorded music to listen to and as an instrumentalist. I need to do more (or indeed any) practise, especially on the tuba, I have noticed that I am not as good a player as was even a couple of years ago. I think that a lot of this is down to my conducting, this takes a lot of the time that I was previously devoting to playing, and I have not made up for it any other time. To a certain extent it is just keeping the muscles in trim, but I definitely need to play the bass guitar more so that I can get to the level where I am playing the music, rather than the instrument! It also struck me the other day that I rarely get to listen to music, the television tends to dominate in our household, but I am determined that I should listen to more of the music I know I love, and some that I don't know, I think this is one of the ways that we grow as musicians, exposure to new music as well as looking deeper into what we already know and love. It could be as simple as retuning the radio to Radio 3 and Classic fm occasionally rather than leave it stuck on Radio 4.

Maybe these are not all very SMART, but they are at least all timed. I'm not always good at making changes, but it is always worth trying to change the things you are not happy with.

Am I Getting Old

The other morning I woke up later than planned, and feeling definitely second hand, I had far too much to drink the previous night and paid the price in the morning. Too make matters more complicated I had at least some sense and didn't drive home but "crashed" at my friends house, so in the morning I had to go home, get changed and then get to work, only around an hour late.

I don't think I was giving prime value for money, I just can't do this sort of thing anymore. I have to admit that I'm no longer a teenager, there was a time when I could (and did regularly) do this sort of thing with little care, now I am wasted for the whole of the following day, ahh another aspect of growing old.

We went out again that night, and for once I volunteered to drive and not drink,  it has to be said that not drinking did not have any impact on how much I enjoyed the evening.   This is a time of year when introspection is very much to the fore, maybe this is an aspect of my lifestyle that could bare a little self inspection.