Last week was literally the first time we’ve been away for any purpose other than for me to play a gig in as long as I can remember. It’s a fact of life that I suppose for most self employed people… getting time off is really difficult, there’s always something going on. The opportunity to go and stay in a Cornish farmhouse for a few nights with some friends proved to be too good to pass up though, so I postponed some lessons and we fished the luggage out of the attic.
I did take a guitar. It was suggested to me that this might be a good opportunity to do some writing, but quite frankly the company was too good, and there was too much to see and do to be sat alone staring at the cows for inspiration. Animals are a recurring theme in my songs already, and I’m not trying to recreate a Pink Floyd epic. Time to get outside and breathe, breathe in the air…. (hahaha)
So whilst I get myself back into the normal swing of things, (which in all honesty happened pretty quickly with two separate trips to Worthing yesterday… one to help one of my students play at a music festival for people with learning disabilities, and one to a pub in the evening with The Stills), here are a few holiday snaps!
And this is what I’m reading, a book on music and cheap life lessons by the American pianist and composer Ben Folds. You might not remember the Ben Folds Five. You might not have heard of the Ben Folds Five. There were only three of them after all. A band in the 90’s that didn’t feature a guitarist wasn’t initially on my radar, but my goodness, the energy, song writing intelligence and humour of this band is hard to fault, so I’m going to share one of their songs with you...
The other interesting thing about Ben Folds’ more recent career is that he’s kind of developed a reputation for composing songs and music on the fly. A kind of musical ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ on an epic scale. I would therefore respectfully suggest you take the time to check out this video of Ben composing live at The Kennedy Centre with the National Symphony Orchestra a few years back. It’s a brief insight into how orchestral music is essentially built up and composed. It’s also a pretty good analogy of how bands work, all the various, individual parts joining together to form a whole. Anyway… enough rambling - check these out, I’ll write soon! Wish you were here! Curse you, Pink Floyd, you're everywhere!
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