What to do? What to write about? The festive season approaches with a gallop: the decorations up (half our lights blew tonight and need fixing tomorrow), the cards displayed and the turkey thaws – drip, drip, drip. The Missus has been recovering from a wretched cold and I am succumbing to the illness. Been feeling giddy and weak in the arm/shoulder area. For me, this is the first sign that I am sickening for something. And so, I respond with orange juice, plenty of fluids, paracetamol and some junk food. I find that the old adage about feeding a cold works. 🙂
Presents are wrapped and under the tree. My mother asked me what present I wanted tonight. I had the choice between a slow cooker and a vegetable steamer. I went for the steamer. I asked for a new set of kitchen knives from her and hoping she delivers. Our old knives are sooo awful that I’ve managed to slice the side of my left thumb open five times in about a month. I know a bad workman always blames his tools but a semi-blunt knife is more dangerous than a really sharp one…and no matter how much I try to sharpen our old knives they remain blunt in places. Sliced fingers crossed, eh?
It’s scary how quickly the year has gone. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were watching The Producers at Drury Lane and visiting the panto at Stratford Theare Royal (all on the same day, Christmas Eve). No panto this year. I’ve decided I needed a rest and last year’s panto was a heap of steaming pantomime horse dung. I think we have a break from tradition every decade or so!
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to get an email courtesy of the David Gilmour website saying that I had been selected for premium tickets for his concert at the Royal Albert Hall in May. The tickets are expensive, but it’s my first gig booked of 2006 and I remember how much we enjoyed seeing him at the Royal Festival Hall. Today the tickets went on sale to the general public and sold out really quickly. Thank god for websites and the ability to pre-register!
Been steadily recording more music for the new CD. I’ve really had my head up my arse recently and I’ve finally managed to wrench it free and obsess about the things that are important to me. Making music and being generally creative is that. All those other bad habits are out of the window now. Gone, banished, not coming back. I’m going cold turkey….hmmmm….cold turkey.
Has a result of this sudden spurt of recording, I have a couple more minutes of stuff done for the project known as “Textures II” – though this title WILL change on completion. I edited together some of the completed bits in the order that I like and came up with 25 minutes of music – there’s another 8 minutes done but not glued together yet. Sooooo…I might be finished sooner than I realise!
Today, I have been messing around with the whole tone scale. When I play using a scale like this, I end up creating music that sounds like a certain progressive rock band. I did the drum loop myself and I am pretty pleased with it, but it is not completely finished yet. We have a beginning and a middle at the moment. There are no solos at the moment, but that might change. I like it because it is heavy and I like the busy drums. The drums almost sound real. I just wish I was a better player/arranger when it comes to drum tracks because I usually just let a loop run throughout a track and play around it. This is something I should try to address, but I just like doing things that way. That’s the problem with recording sometimes…you can’t be sure if you are doing it right. Hopefully, the final result will sound OK. Here’s what I’ve done so far:
Direct download: http://www.darrenlock.com/media/heavyking.mp3
Now I am just pleased because it is holiday time and I’ve got the Missus to myself until 3rd January 2006. What more could a boy want?