A muso's muse

It's been a while since I posted anything - been too bust trying to keep the wee ones entertained over the school summer holidays! Still managed to get quite a bit of music bits done and have managed to keep up the practice on my new musical toy - the bassoon.

Non-musical new toys are my new digital SLR - a gorgeous Olympus Evolt E-410 complete with the ED 14-42mm 1:3, 5-5.6 Zoom Lens and ED 40-150mm 1:4.0-5.6 Zoom Lens, plus a stack of accessories to go with it all. Never really got on with my Fuji digital camera and have been eyeing up the Olympus range as I used their 35mm OM series for many years and really got on well with them. Very much looking forward to getting some slightly more serious photography done over the coming months.

Back to music - and I've almost completed my latest album - as soon as I've finished off the last couple of tracks (just overdubbing of guitar to be done) and sorted out the final mix I'll post a couple of tracks here for people to review.

Cheers

well my bassoon has finally arrived and it's even better than I anticipated - considering that I haven't played one since 1980 I was surprised at how much I remembered - even managed to reel off most of the 1st movement of Mozarts bassoon Concerto!

Looking forward to getting back up to speed and hopefully getting some gigs.

Just bought a s/h bassoon off Ebay - wierdly enough off my old bassoon teacher from the 70's who I haven't been in touch with since '79! It's an early 60's Schreiber and I can't wait to get my hands on it - just hoping it lives up to expectation.

Well the first week of redundancy went really well as it was half term so was doing lots of silly things with the wee ones.

It was really good to just chill and not have to worry about anything for a short time.

Bit of a strange day today - spent most of it sorting out my redundacy package from ELDC and tomorrow will be my last day employed by them.

Mixed feelings - made some fine friends there so will obviously miss them but I have to admit will not miss the place one bit.

Already putting together my plans for much music making - can't wait

Just about to get settled in for an evening of recording and re-mixing some tracks and my damn laptop won't work off the mains adapter - feels like the input socket on the laptop is very loose (hope that's all it is anyway) pretty sure it's not the mains adapter as tried two and they both work on another laptop (daughters) OK.

Instead been working on layouts and arrangements for some other tracks that are in their infancy at the moment. But I can't really try out the sound layering I want as I need my midi sequencer set-up which is on the laptop - really, really bloody annoying.

Venting my frustration on the digital piano with heavy handed scales & excercise's!

Well, this new synth' module (Yamaha MU80) has rejuvinated my desire to write new material. Adding this little beauty to my midi set-up has opened up all sorts of possibilities - I can now do some work on my ideas for more orchestral based compositions as well as the more synth' based 'New Age' type of works.

Just got a new synth' module - yamaha mu80 - hooked it up to my midi set-up straight away and been playing around with it most of the afternoon - bloody gorgeous piece of kit - looking forward to doing some serious work with it over the coming weeks/months.

Been a hectic week as trying to get lots done around the house/garden plus rehearse with my daughter Hannah as we have relatives descending upon us today and she is doing a mini-concert for them.
She has worked really hard and has five songs prepared that she will be performing with a recorded backing track that I've produced for her over the last couple of weeks.
Had a little accident the other week (tripped and smacked my head against the front door frame) and ended up with concussion so my practice time took a bit of a back seat as wasn't exactly 'with-it' for awhile!
Hope you all have a really good Easter break
Cheers
psft

Trying to do the artwork for my CD and getting very frustrated as I can't get the look I want. I can see it in my minds eye very clearly but my artistic talents are not quite good enough to interpret those visions. May have to switch to plan B and get the camera out as I've a few other ideas that may work.

Practice has been a bit lax lately and it shows - did a spot of playing on the piano this evening (mainly Bach 48) and was struggling a little on some pieces that a few weeks ago I was blasting through without problems!