Another Pair Of Eyes

Museic

Increasingly, I listen to music as a specific activity as opposed to simply putting it on in the background (which is what I’ve always done). It is good stuff, music. Either gives you the space you need to think or takes away the requirement to think at all. I have been a-hunting new music as a result of this, and have found the odd few bits. Turns out the free-on-iTunes ‘Rootless‘ (Marina and the Diamonds)* was pretty good and Fit New Neighbour (as opposed to Drunk New Neighbour or Sports Massage New Neighbour and her Hands of Pain) has a bit of a metal compulsion so I’ve been a-hearing some of that too. ‘Minerva‘ (Deftones) is a newer find for me and I’ve rediscovered all my old gothicky music which is a refreshing change from el bog-standard-beats that I hear on Radio 1 every morning on the way in to the hospital. Including that Tinie Temper song, which is fundamentally shit on a multitude of levels. And Rude boy. That is not good. I’ve also been told to chase up Metric and Miike Snow, which I am in the process of Spotifying with mixed results – the lady in Metric has a lovely voice but I’m not convinced there’s enough variety in each song to support it. Miike Snow I’m still going through.

Gripe: Fireflies, by Owl City. For a start, clearly a one-hit wonder and it’s got a good chorus, but the lyrics are so inane they make me want to rip the speakers out of my radio. Or re-tune it or turn it off or whatever. Either way, it was a song I really used to like until I actually listened to it.

Anyway. Meandering. Anyone got anything they want to recommend?

Musing on music.

*Actually, quite a lot of her album is good easy listening, although sadly her actual released song ‘Hollywood’ I don’t particularly like if only for it’s somewhat irritating ‘Shakira, oh wait it’s Catherine Zeta’ line.

Projects

Well, I’ve hit a bit of a rut now. My bike is pretty functional – needs new brakes still but other than that it runs very nicely. It’ll go up in its final form when it’s done properly, though. My assignment is done and submitted, my paediatric essay is complete, my chillis/peppers are almost ready (some of them, anyway) to be picked. I’m no longer completely lovelife-bereft.

And I’m left with a bit of a feeling of ‘now what’? I like having projects to keep me going, something to do when I’m not working or out and about, something that at the end I can say ‘yes, I did that, and it’s useful’. I’ve still got Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle running on the piano and I’m two pages through that, but I still find myself needing something else to do. And turns out, Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle has presented exactly the type of problem I can solve from a practical standpoint, because it is hard. In fact, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever played, and as such, the one I’m having to practise all the time, learn all the time, relearn all the time. As such, to avoid driving my housemates to distraction, I’ve got to use my headphones. And they have nowhere to go when I’m not using them – can’t go on the piano as I then can’t play the lowest octave, and if they are on the floor I tread on them. I like my headphones and want to keep them intact.

Yes, sure, it would be easier to take them out of the piano and put them on my shelves on the other side of my room every time I stop using them, but it would have been easier to buy a new bike. Instead, and this is on a budget of £10, I will make a little kind of cabinety shelfy thing to sit under my piano which will hold the headphones and which will also serve as somewhere to put a lot of the music books I’ve begged and borrowed from various people. It will be good times, and give me a chance to do some woodwork which I’ve not done since I was at school and which I kind of miss. It’ll be harder without a pillar drill and I’ll have to nab some tools from home, but it should be do-able and come the end we’ll see just how much of my D&T I remember…

Step 1 – a plank, a problem, and an idea.

Russian Roulette

I heard this the other day and found it reasonable, much as I hate going along with the crowd when it comes to, well, anything. Still, fairly haunting and despite not being ‘catchy’ per se I find it stuck in my head on a regular basis. Problem is, nothing can really follow it in a playlist. I like playlists, and I like them to be well designed with regard to mood or rhythm or whatever.

This is a big problem.*

*possibly exacerbated by the imminent start of my essay.

Circles

I’m bored of my current music ‘phase’: a set of playlists which I play often. I’m hunting new music (and therefore spending money I don’t have)* so anyone’s recommendations are welcome. I go through these time when I play a particular set of music a lot, then abruptly go off it and am left at a loss (hence yesterday’s album-buying spree [Florence + The Machine's 'Lungs' and Little Boots' 'Hands'...contemplating La Roux as well but not currently convinced...anyone capable of giving me a recommendation own this?]). Times like that I tend to put my library on shuffle, realise I am not finding enough stuff and start running around people for something else new and interesting. I come back to music a few months/years later and then it all seems new and fresh, and the cycle repeats. Around we go.

My hobbies tend to fit a similar cycle, with the exception of badminton which is solidly by my side and has been for the last 4-5 years. Piano follows a cycle that is measured in days (grrr, <insert piece title here> I’ll come back later), poi/staff one of months, hockey has an annual quiet phase in January (in no way related to the rain, ice, dark and dangerous cycling roads in winter that are part of getting to hockey at that time of year).

Faux-profound statement: I guess most of human life is done by cycles and circles, from day/night, social circles, seasons up to the life cycle itself.

In other news, today my ascent to what should be my lifetime-thus-far peak of fitness begins in earnest. 40 miles a day (cycling) for the next four days, then upwards from there working up to 100-150 miles once every couple of days by the end of July. Sadly, today it is also pissing down with rain so I’m going to begin my ascent to fitness with a descent into hypothermia if I’m not careful.

On that note, I need to go roll out into the world outside.

Circles

*On the note of money, Amazon have quite a few free songs kicking around, they change a lot – if you keep an eye there are a few good ones in there. It’s where I picked up this, which I rather like.

Ireland

I’m back from the Emerald Isle. Anyone miss me?

Probably not, what with Honduras and the Wimbledon finals and days so hot you could die, but there we have it. I certainly enjoyed being disconnected from everything and living with a group of college friends for a week or so. We were right down south near Cork in a house by the sea and it was lovely (although there were the inevitable days when it was Rain and everyone was stuck inside and sharp edges started to show). Hats off to the organiser, who did a fantastic job. The house also had the world’s most out-of-tune piano, which was fun. Still, after all the good times and all the constant company, being dropped back into the world is so mundane.

However, back in the real world I am, and with that comes to inevitable job hunting, boredom, work and mysteriously wasting day after day without really understanding what you’ve been doing. Any holiday at home is a holiday at home too long, in my opinion – I like to be doing things. If life is getting boring, then you’re doing something wrong. Harsh? Maybe.

Anyway, enough of that. At some point during the holiday we were all sitting around the dinner table assigning an animal to each person based on their characteristics (read: based on very little). It was one of those throwaway converations that start suddenly out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. Still, some interesting things came out of it: some people are really quite perceptive.

One thing I did (re)discover in Ireland was my love of reading. The only things I read at uni are road signs and textbooks, neither the most inspiring works. If I do read a book, it takes me quite a while before I can get through it because lets face it, time spent reading could be used for cooking or working or going out or chatting and it feels kind of indulgent. As such, I only brought a couple of books with me to Ireland. They were finished in the first two days (incidentally, The End Of Mr Y. is really quite an interesting read, and very closely matches my ideas about God), and a further 3 bought from Waterstone’s  in Cork went in a similar fashion (C.J. Samson. Go read.). It just goes to show how much I missed it: the phrase ‘vociferous appetite’ would not be out of place.

I do suffer the same problems with books that I do with films though. Even if I know a book to be good, I will have great difficulty starting it if I think it’s going to be serious and thought-provoking, even though I know I’ll probably enjoy it. Still, its enjoyable, can’t complain.

I count myself lucky to be able to read as I do.

I’m going to stop writing now. Literary verbiage.

maybe I’ll just write a quick note directing you to Florence + the Machines’ Rabbit Heart, because I like it. Stick with it.

Extension Tubes and Finale Notepad

Oh, Finale Notepad. You promised me so much, and yet I find myself frustrated by you so often. It would appear that so many simple things are beyond you. D.C al segno confuses you and is unfamiliar, and putting a semibrieve and quavers on the same stave in the same bar? Well, that would be outrageous. I had to add another stave to the music…but wait! Another stave? Surely that cannot be done on a piano, you must define my piece as one for organ. To add insult to injury, you insist on making me count ledger lines rather than writing a simple 8vB – this is surely equivalent to criminal neglect. Still, I suppose that in the absence of a more complex and functional friend, your thrifty ways will have to do and I shall simply have to work around your idiosyncrasies in my quest to work out Philip Glass’ Metamorphosis II* without paying through the nose for it. So far, irksomeness of your interface aside, things are progressing at a halfway-decent rate such that my irritation does come packaged with a dash of gratitude. Hear my muttered thanks, Finale, but do better next time.

Other news. I am developing a pathological hatred for the annoying sing-song of the ice cream van that, without fail, pulls up outside our house EVERY BLOODY DAY spewing insipid sound in all directions. I was playing with my extension tubes and 50mm prime this morning, and then with layers on pixelmator to see what effects different blending would have. I never noticed that £2 coins were initialled before this morning. When you spin a coin fast enough, the rotating image of one face appears in it. Interesting in that you can see one side or the other, but if you see both at once they appear to rotate in opposite directions. I place money on there being a simple explanation, but I like the oddity so I refuse to think about it too much. I’ve taken to just eating cress randomly in the absence of more appropriate things to do with it. It is like I’d imagine eating peppery grass to be.

50mm lens, 1/125s at f8 with 30mm extension tube

How big does cress get if you just leave it to grow?

More extension tube fun, same setup as above. Three layers in pixelmator, two identical (one normal blend, one screen blend) and one desaturated with colour dodge blending. I like it. I’d never noticed the initals or the pattern in the middle before…

*which interpretation do you prefer?

Elise

Whoever Elise was (there is probably a record which I’ve simply not looked up) I hope she was pleased with the piece that Beethoven wrote for her. It’s a horrifically stereotypical piano piece in my mind, but I still rather like it on musical merit (perhaps with the exception of the section which starts at 1:03 and doesn’t seem to fit at all). It’s also really quite well known, and hence Elise has lived on through the ages. Much to still be thankful about.

Still, seeing as it is such a stereotypical piece, and it is so helpfully written in C major and hence has no accidentals to remember, I’ve decided to dedicate some time to learning it. Ostensibly it will help me practise reading music etc, but as anything I decode from msuic once basically gets committed to memory I actually am going to memorise the whole thing. Useful party trick, I suppose! When I have actually learnt it, I might do a Hannah and record it for you to judge, but I might not. It might take a long time. It might not.

Wish me luck, not just with this but with the whole piano-learning experience!