I have recently dragged myself into a time that resembles now and purchased a Macbook and Abelton Live. Learning curve? Oh yes but, there have been some interesting moments. I have posted a two of my earliest experiments here and I look forward to any comments you might have on them. A cool feature of the setup is that I can process both sides of my Baliset with delays and amp modelling etc and, trigger synths in real time all within the laptop. More on this as I plough through the manual and try out new ideas.

Can there be too much of a good thing?

It is the middle of the Christmas season and I am neck deep in Christmas music. There are times at gigs where it is hard remember whether I played a certain tune or one with similar melody, chords, groove and subject matter. An effort is made try to change things up a bit but, to be honest, it can get a bit tiring. The same tunes day after day.

I resolve to have more tunes in the book for next year and to search out the true gems that exist within the Christmas repetoire. Current examples of enjoyable tunes are: 'Cool Yule', 'Emmanuel God With Us', 'The Man With The Bag', 'Trois Anges Sont Venues Ce Soir', and 'Twas In The Moon Of Wintertime'. I found some of the music from 'The Nutcracker' that will be in the book next year.

Still smiling but looking forward to perhaps playing in a minor key.

Merry Christmas.

It's all worth it.

I was chatting with a fellow muso today about players that we know that have made an impression on us over the years. There was much agreement on who we found to be inspirational until he told me the following tale (shortened here).

A musician of note had been touring internationally with a group of high level players when one night he declared that he had enough of this stuff, packed up in the middle of the gig and left.

This to me demonstrates what I consider to be wrong with more than a few performers today. The player was known for being into experimental music and may not have been the best choice for the gig but, he knew what the gig was and took it on. I would not wish to cast aspersions upon anyone for expressing them selves in music but, if it gets in the way of the gig then the player needs to find another element, in what they are doing, to explore. Even parts that can appear simplistic can be raised to another level on the bandstand by changing ones approach.

I have been guilty of passing on some music during my time. Sometimes it is a specific tune or style. The justifications can be varied but ultimately they say more about me than the music.

All this to say we should all take a moment to consider why we are musicians. Is it to satisfy some idealized need within ourselves, to play with other musicians, to entertain an audience? Perhaps a combination of these.

Back to enjoying the heat of summer, at last.

What Goes In

My children get exposed to allot of music through my own playing, concerts we take them to and what is available to them via recordings.

There is a strong tendency to parade around the house singing what has recently been heard. We are currently being serenaded by songs from The Beatles, ABBA, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Beethoven.

Recently they have discovered a case of old cassettes. I predict an explosion of melodies to issue forth within the coming weeks.