Leniwards

Track Count

2007-08-09T00:45:00.000+01:00

As of just over an hour ago, the completed track count stands at six, with two verses and a chorus's worth of vocals to do on the seventh track. Album looks like this:

Cant be wont be
Mary
Delay
Blank Space
Power Cut
These are my catechisms
Suburban Paranoia

Blank Space was finished this evening, brand spanking new (the very first note is only 5 days old) and Power Cut is a produced version of a solo piano piece I wrote some time ago (18 months, maybe?) which I broke my personal best with by recording and producing in the space of 2 and a half days, with pretty much no sleep or food.

I am knackered.

Current listening: Homogenic - Bjork.

Track 5

2007-06-16T18:00:00.001+01:00

That's what I'm up to, for those of you who are convinced that I must have been slacking. Partly, you're right - I've had a few weeks off in the last 3 months due to illness/depression/general laziness, but I've also been working. Finished track 4 yesterday, and am currently reworking Mary, which I'd already recorded and hated, which will be track 5. The album currently looks like this:

Can't Be Won't Be
[Mary]
Comfort
These Are My Catechisms
Suburban Paranoia

I've also done my first live performance of the new material, which went extremely well. I'll be doing anoher on July 9th at The Vic Inn in Derby, alongside longtime pals The Carter Manoeuvre.

From now on I shall endeavour to update you briefly, with what I'm working on that day adn which album I'm setting things up to (mic placement, dahling).

Today:

Mary [Version 2] & DVD backups of completed work (taking aaages)
CD in the HIFI: Frou Frou ~ Details

i havent forgotten you

2007-03-09T20:26:00.000Z

i'm just taking some time to think.

in the meantime, i'm joining in with the book reading competition. remember, i believe there are more works of great literature outside the 19th century 'classics' than there are within them.

Bold for ones I've read
Underline for ones I've read part of
Italic for ones I want to read

Top 100 Overall

1. Pride and prejudice, Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings , JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter Series, JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockinbird, Harper Lee
6. Bible - i reckon i've read all of it over the years.
7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell (8th equal)
9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (8th equal)
10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
11. Little Women, Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
15. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
19. The Time Travellers Wife, Audrey Niffenneger - just purchased this
20. Middlemarch, George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald F Scott
23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace, L.N Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll - Blegh.
30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S Lewis
34. Emma, Jane Austen
35. Persuasion, Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S.Lewis
37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh, A A Milne
41. Animal Farm, George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
47. Far from the Maddening Crowd, Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Atonement, Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
52. Dune, Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikrem Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
72. Dracula, Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses, James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal, Emil Zola
79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession, A S Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Alborn
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
94. Watership Down, Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas
98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T00:13:00.000Z

Tonight, I discovered My So-Called Life. Thanks to youtube, I'll be investigating the other 18 episodes over the coming week or so.

Limbo Ponderings

2006-12-17T20:11:00.000Z

My left ear continues to be bloked and has also begun to swell up quite considerably whilst itching like a mother. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might well be infected (shock!). Fortunately, I'm seeing th nurse for the syringing tomorrow, so it should get sorted.

Meanwhile, I have discovered how much of my life rotates around my hearing and I'm so bored I'm crawling out of my skin. There's only so many DVDs I can watch.

However, I was thinking today about something so I thought I'd share it:

I once read a Tori Amos interview which said that she fell in love with her husband when he came in to engineer the recording of Boys For Pele, which is a record all about her breakup with her former boyfriend (Eric Rosse) whom she was with for seven years. Assuming this is true (there seem to be a lot of Tori inconsistencies in interviews), I find the concept of Marcus (the engineer) falling in love with this woman whilst spending every day wading through her passion for someone else quite bizarre. But I love the image.

The Challenge: Officially on hold

2006-12-15T23:27:00.000Z

So, I havent really updated properly since Tuesday. I have a very good reason. I haven't been working. Because I've gone deaf.

Now, this really really freaks me out, but I'm fairly certain it's temporary. I've been undergoing treatments leading up to an ear canal irrigation procedure on Monday 18th, and last Monday my requirements changed from warmed olive oil to ear drops. They seem to be causing some residual blockages in both ears, which make hearing things in depth (and in crowded atmospheres) difficult. However, today, I got a really itchy left ear and accidentally managed to push the newly soft wax deeper into my ear and am now totally deaf in my left ear. I'm kicking myself, and not realy enjoying the experience.

However, it means I can't trust my hearing for mixing or setting up mics, so I'm taking a fairly obligatory break. :( Hopefully the procedure on Monday will fix everything completely. I'm terrified of being stuck like this.

The Challenge: Day Nine

2006-12-12T19:23:00.000Z

As I've finished for the day, I thought I'd update on the actual challenge day, rather than tomorrow. I have spent 5 hours trying to get a good piano take, fairly unsuccessfully due to a number of stupid things I have done, the worst of which was probably neglecting to eat at the right time. The others include recording 12 minutes of nothing because I forgot to switch from playback to record on the desk and, I've just realised, mic'ing the hammers and wondering why I get an annoying clicking noise during the quiet moments.

I'm still pretty pissed about what happened on Sunday, but I'm fighting the urge to just give up and am currently listening to the track (which I really should start referring to by its name at some point). I have decided that the instrumental mix is a bit weak, but it was my first attempt at any mix ever, so I'm not holding it against me. I actually suspected this on Saturday, but couldnt face spending another 10 hours remixing it. I think that's what I foretell for my future tomorrow.

So much for not being time consuming.

The candles I bought which I only burn when working on this track are about 5/6 gone, which constitutes, according to the packaging, just under 40 hours. I'm betting they'll be gone before I finish mixing this.

The Challenge: Day Eight

2006-12-12T19:15:00.000Z

I wake up still fairly upset over the mistreatment of both myself and my work from the previous day, as well as totally knackered due to very late night, as previously mentioned. My irrational emotional side cannot face working on, or even listening to, the track I'd been working on, so I resolve to do something else entirely. I used my time to hunt down some more mix stands with which to record piano more effectively (I hoped) and do some much needed piano practice. Not, I might hasten to add, because I needed to /practice/ but because playing the piano is the only way for me to get through any kind of emotinoal trouble, especially the kind caused by previously mentioned persons.

Monday is my film night, so I go out and relax with some truely atrocious independent short films and, fortunately, some good ones.

The Challenge: Day Seven

2006-12-11T12:31:00.000Z

I had some other demands on my time yesterday, but I attempted to work the compression unit until it sounded the way I wanted to. Didn't quite get there, but it's a work in progress.

My boyfriend came over last night, and I played the STILL unfinished track 9after a week of listening to it, I just want it done) to him. In hindsight, I should have just spent the day here finishing it. Long story short, he doesn't like it. He feels that it's flat, although he does think the arrangement's good. His is the one good opinion I am always (totally and consistently unsuccessfully) hoping for. And every time it doesn't come, I am left feeling that the track that i was so proud o ten minutes before is total rubbish. This time, I was also left feeling untalented and what I am doing feels totally pointless.

As a Day Seven Special Preview, as of 12:37 this afternoon, I am still crying intermittently and feel completely decimated. I don't want to work on this today, and the fact that I was up until 3am trying to explain how I feel every time he does this to him and am therefore totally exhausted isn't helping. I am, however, determined that this isn't going to stop me doing what I genuinely enjoy doing. It'll just take me a while to get back into it with any kind of enjoyment.

I am currently ignoring the implications for my relatinoship of the above statement.

So I have a new Challenge, to start as of the end of this one (which is Sunday December 17th). I am not going to play him everything, but I am going to work every day. I am not going to play him anything until I have written, recorded and mixed at least 4 new songs and recorded and mixed two that I have written but not yet recorded. At that point, or the point at which I feel able to face this kind of total emotional wreckage again, I will play them all to him in one half hour. However, I will play them all to other people first, as the comments from my other friends is really helping to keep me afloat.

I would like to think that by the point I play them to him, he'll be impressed, that maybe I'll be good enough for him then. However, I'd also like to think that by that point I'll have worked my way out of this horrific victim position and would no longer need his approval either way.

The Challenge: Day Six

2006-12-10T12:08:00.000Z

So, I began yesterday with a heavy head, believing that I needed to basically rewrite the whole track, and had o idea where to start. After a couple of hours of wrestling in it and changing almost every vocal part in it, I decided that as it was almost an entirely different song, i should at least finish mixing the first version of the song just so I had it as a reference.

I opened the second, partially mixed, file (the first file contains all the original instrumentation separately, the second file contains the original instrumentation mixed together as one track, layered with instrumentation I then added to it and, most importantly, all the takes of the various vocal parts I'd been trying the day before to replace the original chorus).

On hitting play without checking what it was actually set to play (I usually have a variety of tracks playing and the rest muted, to see what's missing and what's necessary. Oddly, it played a combination of two new chorus parts I'd been trying, but not the original. They really worked together, and the whole track sort of fell into place. Awesometastic on a stick. It required about 5 new pieces of instrumentation, and a variety of new vocal parts in the background, and it's going to be a bitch to mix together well today, but man am I happy it's all settled. No more recording to do (except, possibly, one new overdub to replace a vocal in which I have just ignored the key signature), just mixing.

The track was unveiled last night to two friends, both of whom approved, which was a relief. Playing new songs to people has always been nerve wracking for me (though never from stage).

On a less useful note, I think I ran over the cable from my DT100s with my chair yesterday and now the right side intermittently cuts out and crackles. SIGH.

The Challenge: Day Six

2006-12-10T01:50:00.000Z

much much to say, but 2 am. sleep now. update in morning.

The Challenge: Day Five

2006-12-09T13:37:00.000Z

Yesterday, as I'm sure you gathered from the preview, was more than a little frustrating. Having mixed the instruments together until it sounded really good, I got to work on the vocals. I had some guide takes in place already, but wanted to get some good final takes to replace them. It was my inability to get takes that had any life in them which made me realise that the parts were wrong. More specifically, the chorus (which was, at that point, the only origina part of the track left from the beginning of the writing process) just didn't work. The melody was a little dull, but more importantly I had no connection to the lyrics.

I found something that (I think, though all confidence in the track has now disappeared entirely) works much better, but obviously needs a double chorus rather than a single, and makes one of the parts fit badly, so i need an interlude or an entirely new middle eight. Essentially this all means starting again. Joy. Got a few tracks of new instrumentation laid down last night before giving up exhausted and crawling into bed.

The Challenge: Day Five - Special Preview

2006-12-08T19:57:00.000Z

Fuck.

The Challenge: Day Four

2006-12-08T11:12:00.000Z

Actually got an early start as I wanted to start mixing the track. Very quickly discovered that my desk is wired incorrectly. Joy. No smart arse coments about how I didn't notice that earlier, please. Knowing that i had about 8 hours of mixing to do that day, and a desk to rewire with no idea whether the problem lay with the cables or the strips themselves, I went to a movie.

However, I did come back and work, like a good girl. After a good five or so hours of mixing the instrumental parts, I realised that it was seriously missing parts (which was better than halfway through when I was convinced that the whole thing was utter bollocks because EQing instruments out of context is no fun). However, I managed to sort that out VERY successfully and then realise dhow exhausted I was and went to bed. Today I have five tasks to be going on with, and then the track should *fingers crossed* be finished, and I might even leave the house for a significant period of time on Saturday to celebrate.

The Challenge: Day Three

2006-12-07T12:26:00.000Z

I woke up with the strong urge to work, but had totally forgotten that I'd promised to meet someone in town for coffee. I found myself instead of in my cosy lil studio stuck trying to find eardrops in a labyrinthine Boots, about fifty times the size of any normal high street pharmacy, surrounded by the bane of the earth (hoardes of christmas shoppers) and, due to the totally illogical layout of the shop, confronted with the Relics Of Bintishness. By which I mean the stand of torture weapons which women sometimes use (though how is often beyond me) to make themselves look pretty. I gave up forming designs on such pursuits when I read a particularly harsh Bliss article about how, by not stripping away your cuticules (surely they're designed to be there?), you were doomed to be unattractive, unpopular and unhygienic. Add to that a virtual cacophonic medly of "festive tunes" and I was ready to kill.

On finally arriving home again (having quite unfairly bitten the head off the person I was meeting for coffee), I settled down to work, and the first 5 hours pretty much flew by. I got a lot done - one track is pretty much finished, though I'm going to fiddle with it a bit more today and obviously it still needs mixing. Before beginning this challenge, I cleaned the house and set up the studio the way I really wanted it to be. Now, as well as being strewn with glasses, bits of paper, cables and more instruments than is healthy, there are white fairy lights and altar candles on every flat surface with space (which, granted, isn't that many). Once it gets dark and I light up the place, I feel totally and home, and grateful to be in this space, which is something I havent had before here, or even generally after dark. I am looking forward to the winter and the dark nights sitting here. Results are the aim, but the environment is a bonus and an encouragement.

The Challenge: Day Two

2006-12-06T11:47:00.000Z

I didnt get a lot of sleep Monday night (due to some nightmares which left me twitching nervously in the dark, followed by a ridiculously early parcel delivery), so it took a while to get going yesterday. However, once I did, I got a lot of work done. I got stuck on what I was working on yesterday again, so I switched to taking apart I track I abandoned a while ago. It's now working quite well. Needs more instrumentation. Job for today.

The Challenge: Day One

2006-12-05T16:57:00.000Z

I have set myself a musical two week challenge. I will be updating with my progress the daily with news from the previous working day.

Day One:

Continued to battle problem track from the beginning of October (as yet unnamed). Have made some progress, I believe, though unrecorded as yet. Very satisfying. Have also started on ideas for rhythm track of The Sickness, which will be based on guitar noise rather than synthesised percussion. Classical piano work complete, though yet to be recorded.

2006-11-24T20:23:00.000Z

I was making pancakes last night for dinner (something I am craving regularly now), when the 10 o clock news on Radio 4 informed me of the death of Nick Clarke. I, quite unexpectedly, burst into tears, especially as I began to remember that he and his wife had two small boys (one memorably named Bendy, I believe). I don't know why I have this reaction to the news of the death of someone I have never met (seeing the headline about Lynda Smith whilst travelling through Coventry on a bus had a similar reaction), but it does seem to happen.

On the work front, very little is getting done. I still feel totally blocked. I started something new, but I've no idea at all where it's going. However, an impromptu entire song (pretty much) showed up on Tuesday night, which I'm working to finish and am thinking about taking to an open mic night in the near future. It did, however, show me how long it's been since I'd played acoustic guitar. My fingers were so sore afterwards and, three days later, the index finger is still very obviously numb (I've had problems fretting with this finger since I sliced the end off it two years ago).

However, I am thinking a lot more than I have been in the past, and am coming up with various projects outside the music to get up to, most of which involve getting back into my writing. I look forward to it.

On a similar happy note, I almost fit back into all the clothes I ate my way out of in the months leading up to my final exams thanks to a very very careful eating plan. However, the backlash is that I stood in my kitchen for 15 minutes just now, trying to work out what to eat, with no success. I went shopping last night, so the cupboard is stocked and, more importantly, so is the fridge. But sweet things are making me feel really sick, including too much fruit, and I don't feel like anything I have that's savoury. Gargh.

i would be honest

2006-11-20T00:40:00.000Z

if only i could do it without being melodramatic.

fortunately, as the days grow darker i find myself finding myself more easily.

well, it's only been 2 and a half months...

2006-11-10T22:35:00.000Z

that is not to say i havent done anything. i havent completed a lot, but i have been doing things.

i'm currently working on:

a solo piano instrumental
a rerecording of a previous track with timing issues - distorted harp/
phased timp/electric grand/3 part vocal
an as yet unsketched track which is complete for the first 1:27,
but i'm a total blank following it
a track which is fully sketched but i think may well be a bit crap.

i'm also taking a lot of photographs & loving it. i'm attempting to pick up a cheap scanner on ebay, so i should be able to show you some at some point. i'd quite like to turn my spare room into a darkroom at some stage. it'd be fun.

didnt do any work today (aside from piano practice), but i was at the gym for 2 and a half hours having not slept a lot, so i'm just so sleepy. however last night i spent 3 hours tuning the yangqin, which was tricky without a guide (despite trawling internet - mine is seemingly not a standard anything). however, thanks to dt100s, you can watch series 7 of buffy whilst doing it.

early night for me, avoiding jeanette winterson's powerbook (worst thing i've read in a while) in favour of atwood's tent. getting up early, go for my regular morning walk and green tea, then back here for work work work.

nite all.

My brilliant plan was not so brilliant...

2006-08-31T18:02:00.000+01:00

OK, so I havent been updating as regularly as I said I would. However, this does not mean I haven't been working. In fact, it's just taken me the best part of 3 hours to program 10 seconds of a new track I had an idea for this afternoon. It now sounds nothing like I'd planned it to, and this pleases me for no apparent reason. I've also laid down several basic ideas for tracks to be developed and have almost completed a two minute instrumental on piano, marimba and string quartet. It needs french horn.

The dreams of people killing me has ended, but I'm now dreaming vividly about other things. last night almost all of my teeth broke off during a performance of an experimental play I was putting on in a haunted venue in Edinburgh. Rereading that sentence, I think I can safely blame Amanda Palmer's latest blog entry for that little gem.

Kontakt 2...

2006-08-17T22:14:00.000+01:00

...is awesome.

That is all for now.

Ding dong. Ding. Ding. Ding dong.

2006-08-16T09:53:00.000+01:00

That is the sound of a piano being tuned. It goes on for what can be hours, monotonously over and over. But it's bearable to get your beautiful instrument playing well. Unfortunately, I have three of the buggers. Didn't dare ask him to do three at once though (strain on the ears), so he's just doing Henry Jane and Bertie (shiny shiny pretty nice) and I'll get him back after the festival to do Phillip.

I'ts a day of learning Kontakt 2 and ringing people today. Woohoo! In other news, no one tried to kill me in my sleep last night, so that's a definite improvement.

Not been here in three days, apparently.

2006-08-14T23:08:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry, it's just that I've felt really shit for the last few days, and have no interest n pblishing blog entries saying "Something has yet again prevented me from doing x, which stops me doing y". I'm spending all night every night running from various people who want to kill me (every night a different plot with an uncannily similar aim), which I'm trying to hope isn't prophetic or portentous in some way.

The happy black pit is reopening, and I'm just the little pink ping pong ball rolling around the edge. Rolling. Rolling.

Stumbling block.

2006-08-11T19:05:00.000+01:00

Having spent too many hours researching sampling software (and finally deciding upon one, only to order it before the cut off for postage before Monday), I find myself wondering what to do next. There are a wide range of things to do, many of which I need to wait for various bits to arrive in the post before being able to do, but it's very much a matter of picking one to start.

As I have not been feeling well today, I have contented myself with various household chores I've been putting off doing (though still ignoring the laundry) and continuing my Musical Education. Turns out I do know what the White Stripes sound like without even realising it. Oh, and Meg's a robot. And Paul McCartney's dead. And Thom Yorke's blind in one eye. I really do have a fun time with myself.

I must remember to go into town tomorrow and join the library. The CD collection for hire is bordering on awesome, considering it's a public library, AND (remembering I have spent the past three years in Coventry where the library has some short stories in Urdu and a lot of phone directories) it has fucking BOOKS. I have the sudden urge to read like I used to before going to University to be Educated. Being educated in the Word really hindered my need to learn. Methinks I shall dig out some mythology (particularly some Celtic and some pre-Roman Slavic methinks) and perhaps some books of art. I want to read some Neil Gaiman that wasn't co-written with Terry Pratchett (currently up to Friday, and appparently the apocalypse is coming. Who knew?).

I'm genuinely bummed that I didn't go to the gym this morning (you wouldn't believe how much I'm not sleeping properly right now, and how disinclined that makes me to get up and straight away head off to bounce up and down and admire the still-not-decreasing mass that is my arse). It turns out that I'll only be able to go twice next week, due to a range of factors which basically mean I have to be at home all the time for three of them and, besides this halting my return to Camp Skinny, means I'll probably miss Ross and the rest of the gang finding out about Chandler and Monica (yes, I schedule my workout around Friends - ever tried making yourself do something you hate whilst watching yet another fucking house makeover show?).

On the plus side, I HAVE managed to find a piano tuner who'll come over and make my C3 even more beautiful than it already is, and fix Henry Jane before she calls up the hit men to sort me out good and proper. She is an angry lady, not to be gotten on the wrong side of. Really, I want him to do Phillip as well, but calling someone and asking them to tune three pianos by ear in one go on 4 days notice seems a tad harsh. Relieved I found someone though - the other tuner in the area said he was booked up til September. Sheesh.

I believe I am best spending my weekend preparing to fall in love.

Lots of work = lots of frustration

2006-08-10T00:18:00.000+01:00

So, you may think that the lack of update yesterday meant I didn't do anything work-related. And you'd be right. Instead, I went to the gym, came home, dyed my hair (when rinsing the damned stuff off takes upwards of an hour, it's a little time consuming) and went to the pub quiz (we came last, and proudly).

Today, however, is an entirely different matter. I've actually only just stopped battling my sampler/computers to try and make the fuckers work. Progress has been made on the sampler, but major setbacks have occured with the G4 - turns out that the version of mac os (10.4 - tigerrrrrrrr) that I spent an ridiculous amount of money on (though not as much as apple wanted me to) is the only release of mac os x currently not compatible with my digi 001 soundcard, which renders all the samples on my sample library unreadable as the editors wont start. Githats. Turns out that the ideal version of mas os (10.2) is only about £8 on ebay, but I have the horrible feeling the whole thing's going to involve formatting of some kind. And my computer gooroo is busy until Sunday. Wish I'd known that before I went through 3 hours of trying (failing, trying, failing, trying, eventually succeeding) to install 9.2 in order to provide the classic environment said editors require to start the fuck up.

In other, much better, news, the piano is arriving on Monday. Wahey! :D I had this whole post I wanted to do earlier about my addictive response to keyboard patterns, but I was too busy and now I'm too tired. Gotta be up early, as ever, for the fucking gym (personal trainer (just a random one, you understand. I don't have one) walked past me today while I was on The Machine That I Despise and said "You can go faster than that, surely". Bastard). Fortunately, two week anger with it is being displaced by amusement at Girl-With-Disproportionately-Massive-Breasts-Who-Must-Hold-Them-Whilst-Using-Treadmill.

Nite.

Bob Clearmountain

2006-08-07T15:21:00.000+01:00

Whilst trying to track down where the samples I've inherited from Bart with my new (old) mac, I discovered Bob Clearmountain's homepage. Some of these actually made me laugh outloud. His whole self makes me smile, in fact. Plus, his piano is beautiful.

Today...

2006-08-07T12:47:00.000+01:00

... is the first official working day of my self employed life. And I'm really looking forward to it. Just had a great workout at the gym (cross trainer, I mock you and your obligatory speed of 6+ and head straight for 9.6). Am in that half-knackered-half-refreshed state. It's a lovely (but not too lovely) day outside, I've just had one of my favourite kinds of lunch (Morrisons' salad bar, je t'aime) and I'm ready to get going.

Got a fair amount of annoying administration stuff to do (council tax, trying to get hold of the fucking piano removalists), but ce cera. Going to spend today trying to work out how to use the new sampler (button tastic, with a somewhat intimidating sized manual). Might even do some research into microphones. Gosh. :D

Sod's Law states...

2006-08-05T22:29:00.000+01:00

The piano men rang me today, during the only two hours I've had my phone off in the last month.

On the plus side, The Tempest with Patrick Stewart was awesome. Fucking amazing music.

And relax...

2006-08-03T18:19:00.000+01:00

Emergency mother-related house clear up complete. State of alert level down from 1 to 3, rising again to a possible 2 if I don't leave the house to pick her up really soon.

Still no word from piano men about delivery. Only seem to remember I need to call them AFTER they've closed. Will try to remember tomorrow.

There may be another few days' interuption of service whilst my mother is here. Please bear with.

Bad Dreams.

2006-08-02T23:06:00.000+01:00

At last! I have some actual work related news to report! The studio has now been (mostly) put together and I am ready to get down to the task in hand and /make some fucking music/. And thus it should cme as no surprise to anyone that my mother is coming to stay tomorrow and staying until Monday. Ah well. Points for intention. I also need to arrange delivery of the new piano (delivery guys said last Tuesday that they'd ring me on Monday. They lied) and get the other two tuned. I don't know how many of you have experienced the joy of listening to one quite out of tune piano being sorted. Those of you who have, imagine that, but times three. Ja.

For those of you who are demanding that this be a more interactive service, perhaps with a few audiovisual displays and some kind of large jigsaw puzzle which eventually makes a working clock mounted on one wall for the kiddies, let me now inform you that as both of my macs have been moved upstairs for "logical" purposes, by reading this you are effectively sitting in my studio. Say hello. Try not to make too much noise or break anything.

I'm knackered, so I'm now going to crawl into my big bed and hope that I don't have yet another epic-like nightmare tonight. Last night's was about being herded around in a group by a Japanese man in a big leather coat who was killing us off one by one if we failed to please him in whatever tasks he set us. This sort of thing is happening nightly, atm. Makes me tired, but not at all sleepy.

I know, I know.

2006-07-31T22:39:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes. Two days, no update. Well, it was the weekend and I decided to give myself two days off from everything - the gym, sorting the studio, doing this blog. I wasn't even here on Saturday night, so ha. :/

To add insult to injury, I'm not giving you a long blog update tonight, as the boyfriend is very sick and is staying here to as to get some peace and quiet and a bed really near the bathroom (he's been put in the spare room so I can sleep and gym and everything in peace). I've taken the role of nursemaid so far as to give him a homeopathic treatment without actually telling him what it was. Though apparently muttering "Ah! Arsenicum!" whilst poring through my box of goodies doesn't increase his confidence in me.

However, on one slightly work related note, the installation of Mac OS X on the new (old) mac went wrong and now the whole thing appears to be totally farked. And my resident expert is too busy wretching his guts out to help me fix it. Ah well. Tips, anyone (On start up it's just getting stuck on the timer with what looks like a no stopping sign - it went for a full 9 hours last night without actually booting up fully)?

Fuck.

2006-07-28T17:23:00.000+01:00

Well, I did go out with good intentions of completing all the tasks on my list, but I almost died between ASDA and Homebase, so I've decided just to come home and hide in my bathroom til everything goes away.

Thwarting the system.

2006-07-28T15:07:00.000+01:00

Despite the idea of this blog being to update at the end of the day, to be sure I cover everything I've done every day, I'm doing this now before going out and doing many of the things I really should be doing. It is fun to thwart, because any word with that many mismatched consonants is alright in my book. Also, most people thwart dragons and evil wizards and such, and that would be cool.

I got hit with surprise customs charges on the "bargain" microphones I bought off ebay t'other week, which didn't come from Edinburgh after all, but the middle of the bloody USA. Unfortunately, my ribbon mic's coming from there, so I'll undoubtedly end up with another bill like this in a few days' time. Annoying.

Speaking of, I am totally freaking out about the amount of money this has cost so far. I know that I was prepared to spend a fair amount to get this started, it's just that actually doing it has made me feel a little bit nauseous. I'm sure I'll get over it, but I'd like a cuddle. On the plus side, Bertie is now officially mine and will be coming to stay very soon, or so I hope.

The gym is making me feel loads better, and I think I'm going to ask for more weights exercises at the review on Wednesday - my stomach muscles and the ones round my outer thighs feel left out. For those of you who've met me, this'll probably come as a surprise, but I'm actually enjoying the exercise and activity. Perhaps it's addictive. Ah well, I always thought I should have one anyway.

I have to take my dining table apart, and I can't work out what tool I need to do so. Today I must do laundry, go to ASDA/Walmart and go to Homebase. Woo. And Oot.

TPBB (tiny post before bed).

2006-07-28T00:34:00.000+01:00

Very short, as must get lots of sleep before rising way too early to go to the gym for the priviledge of making my thighs hurt even more than they do already. Did no studio based work today, as was too knackered and now wince when standing up, sitting down and climbing stairs. Did, however, get fooled by my brilliant system of arriving at the gym in time for the friends double bill into doing an hour's cardio instead of half an hour. In my defence, I am feeling very fat & also it was that episode when Chandler's in a box.

Sleeping now. Will do more tomorrow.

Trust it not, for it spaketh untruths.

2006-07-26T22:09:00.000+01:00

Despite what the blog tells you, I've slept since making the last update, which means it was made yesterday. This is a different day's blog, dammit!

Not a lot to report today. I went to the gym for a couple of hours, first for the induction and then just for the damned exercise, and i felt so good after I was done. Felt like shit while I was doing it (and, I might add, during the ritual weighing procedures beforehand), but walked out feeling almost perky. Came home and really wanted to start work. But, of course, not everything's ready yet, not everything's even here yet. So I spent a bit of time making some room to move stuff around to (eventually) make room for the arrival of Bertie sometime in the near future.

Thus, in an arid region for actual information, I'll give you a handy glossary for future reference:

Sunday, Cathy, Joni and BabyJo are guitars - guitars only have one name, and are female. Joni was my first guitar, after the guitar I learned on (which was not mine, and I named Joannie), and BabyJo looks like her, but is much smaller.

Three is my tenor guitar from the US. Yes, it's a bad pun. Take your time.

Ruth is my big harp, who keeps changing her name. She was Sian when she got here, but she arrived new so I figure she's still finding out who she really is. Ruth doesn't feel right either. She'll let me know eventually. Her little sister is Joanna. Joanna likes to snuggle.

The keys are a different issue. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, they always give me two names: a male one first, then a female one. In some cases, like with my trusty rusty beast of an upright (Henry Jane), the two names are used as effectively one (she is only ever Henry Jane, never just Henry, never just Jane). Henry Jane is, as all acoustic pianos are, a girl. However, all my keys have some gender issues, ranging from near androgeny to some serious lesbian butch going on. A good example is my CP70B, who is a serious cross dresser. A male impersonator, if you will. She's damn good at it too. Her name is Philip Letitia, but people just call her Philip. It's better than way. The new piano's name is Bertie, but she's Anna to her friends. We barely know each other right now, so I'm sticking with Bertie for the time being. We'll work towards it. I'm so sad that she's still so far away. A nice dutch man sold her to me, and things always bode well when there's a Dutch person involved.

As a side note, the gym is not only helping me overcome the large-ass-tired-after-stairs issue, but is solving a minor personal crisis on another level. After far too long catching the bus to Uni every day, I began to believe that the way the day turned out would be based on whether or not I managed to obtain a Metro on the way in in the morning (or, indeed, by very good fortune on the way back. Tip: always check the back seats upstairs. It's a goldmine). Having moved here, and having bought a car and suchlike, I was afraid that I would never see Nemi's shiny happy face again or, more importantly, find out if her blue haired friend ever recovers from her breakup (totally tragic at the time - i'd have snapped her up if she wasn't two dimensional AND fictional). My friends from the time can atest to this. Imagine my glee, after two solid Nemi-free months, upon discovering that my gym stocks the Metro, and that there are still copies available late into the afternoon.

(Please, no suggestions about looking up the strips on the website. I tried this once. It only made me feel dirty).

Well, must be up early for the rigors of the cross trainer and suchlike. Plus, I'm knackered. NN.

Bedtime.

2006-07-26T00:31:00.000+01:00

I'm going to keep this brief, because I have my gym induction at 10am tomorrow morning and I'm not getting the early night I planned due to unexpected pub quiz incident (joint 3rd, btw - and Valletta is the capital of Malta):

Went to Oxford today.
Bought piano.

Scary monsters (and super camera problems)

2006-07-24T23:14:00.000+01:00

Having spent a good long while searching for my usb cable so I could upload pictures from my camera for y'all to see (and having then found it sitting next to said computer, looking suspiciously innocent), I have discovered that I never installed the drivers for it on the mac (the laptop having recently sadly, passed away) and now have no idea where they are. Sigh. I can only assume that this is my mother's disembodied influence attempting to stop me from posting pictures of my things on the interweb.

But ah! Let me explain to you the lack of post yesterday. It is not, as you may have assumed, my inability to keep a new resolution after only a few days. Actually, I have a tale far more disturbing to relate.

I came in late last night. The boyfriend and I had been working on putting the studio together (read: playing with the CP70-B until I got cross about him putting his feet on it and went upstairs to shift the heavy stuff myself & then him talking me through all the pretty coloured dials on the console) and then went back to his for Chinese. I then insisted on watching terrible Ben-Elton-book-adaptation-movie. I didn't get home until past 1am (rolling into the driveway with the lights off, because I find myself coming and going at late hours a lot at the moment, and I'm afraid the neightbours will get the wrong idea about me... or something).

I dumped my bag and jacket in the hallway, brushed my teeth, checked all the windows were closed downstairs and then went into the living room to get Danny Wallace (or one of his books, at least - they make up two of three literary comfort blankets, the other being Good Omens by Gaiman/Pratchett) and to update the blog. I sat down in my big comfy chair (one of two which came with the console) and noticed an odd sound. Like music coming through a wall from a neighbour. Except that I live in a detached house, and most of the people within the nearest mile radius of it will have been tucked up nice and quietly by this point. I listened harder. The sound had a kind of crackly feel, as though it were coming from an old gramophone record. The style of the music seemed to be Sinatra-esque, early 20th century. White guy, band with actual instruments, a whole different kind of performance. I realised it was coming from the amp, which had been left on, attached to the Yamaha CP70-B through a little mixing desk from when we'd been playing with it earlier.

Let me give you some context: My house smelled when I moved in (and still occasionally smells) of old people. Something (must be pipes or similar) makes it sound as though someone is shuffling up and down the stairs at about 7am every day. I live alone, and I know it's not me. I am not going to go into my entire belief system right now, but I do believe in what people might refer to as ghosts, though I don't think that they're dead people who come back. It's complicated. In fact, that detail makes my reaction to this situation less in keeping with my general character. What is probably more important is that I'd bought series 7 of Buffy as a treat and it had arrived that day. I was thus halfway through a 14 hour Buffy marathon. That shit can make you jumpy.

So when my amp started singing what I could only think of as lonely old person music from seemingly no source, I was more than freaked. I checked all the rooms for sad aged folks, including under my bed before I got in it and climbed under the covers for safety. From my tent-like fortress of protection, I rang the boyfriend to tell him I was being haunted by malevolent forces with dated taste in music and that I was somewhat uncomfortable with the whole situation.

He said it was probably the CP70-B picking up radio.

And that's why there was no blog last night. If you think about it, I was held back from you by supernatural forces. That's not my fault. Anyone can fall foul of them. What with the malevolent evil and all.

In other news, I joined a gym today. And I picked up a MASSIVE box from the post office which I've just realised I've forgotten to open. Off I go to do so. Wish me well, adoring nations.

Twenty minutes until tomorrow.

2006-07-22T23:44:00.000+01:00

I promised myself (and, by default, you) that'd I'd post to this thing every day. It is part of The Discipline. As is typing using capitals in all the right places. I hope you're appreciating the efforts I'm going to.

I also promised you photos of the family. However, this would involve finding the usb cable for my camera, which is currently in one of my boxes of cables in the studio (still haven't finished unpacking since the move. sigh). The boyfriend and I are rearranging the studio after the arrival of my desk on Thursday tomorrow, so I shall dig it out then and upload you a bunch of pics.

I wanted to take pictures of the rain storm we had this afternoon too. I danced about in it some. Heavy rain is one of the environments I feel most comfortable and joyful in, and heavy rain after a heatwave just has that added bonus of feeling kind of spiritual. It's like when I lie down on the grass and I get dizzy. It's one of the reasons I'm here in Derbyshire. I love this countryside, the Peaks. I'm determined that I'll go out there more and see and walk and sit and think, preferably high up and alone. Lots of things to do.

Til tomorrow. Sleep.

Momentum.

2006-07-21T22:49:00.000+01:00

"The problem," an Irish man said to me yesterday "with having a home studio is having the will power to force yourself to work every day. I used to get up in the morning and, instead of going to work, I'd watch a bit of telly, or go down the shops for a while."

He looked at me cheerily as he said this and I tried not to look guilty. This, so far, pretty much sums up my work ethic for the past three years of my degree. Aside from the TV part, as I don't own one. I do, however, own a well used Buffy DVD box set and a computer.

To be fair, when I say I did no work, that's not essentially true - I did no work on what i was /supposed/ to be doing. I did plenty of other stuff. I organised myself enough to go on tour around the country for 5 months or so (save for a three week break in the middle for my second year exams). I recorded the first album in the middle there somewhere, too, and managed to hold down, at one point, three jobs aside from the music and the degree.

But I am Gormanesque in doing the things I should be doing - I usually find a way of doing everything else possible first. And here comes the tricky part: I've set myself up to do what I want to do - and only what I want to do - for the next year or so. I'm building (well, putting together without touching the actual structure of the house at all, as the landlord probably wouldn't approve) my little home studio in the spare bedroom upstair in my little detached house here in sunny Derbyshire. I've moved to a new county to do this, where I know very few people. This is it.

And that's where the fear kicks in: what if I can't do this? What if I'm not good enough? What if I just. dont. do. it.?

This is where you come in, gentle hypothetical viewer. You are the person I have chosen to share this with: the excitement, the confusion, the inevitable panic. You are also, more importantly, my official driving force. You're going to guilt me into this.

So, I hereby bestow this quest upon your substantial and yet graceful and aesthetically pleasing shoulders, and end this first post with the promise of pictures tomorrow - I'll introduce you to the toys, the machines and my ever expanding family. Until then, take care of yourself, look both ways crossing the road, wear sunscreen [dance, even if it's only in your own living room], eat five or mpore portions of fruit and vegetables per day and get enough sleep.