week 41 rhodes & voice

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last morning of work

taught for the last time this term this morning...

except for a little workshop i'm giving next wednesday morning for prospective students i am a free, albeit slightly poorer man for 2 whole weeks...

i have borrowed a miniDV camera from my work over in hammersmith to cover Wfloopy(shaman) being away next wednesday/thursday driving a fast car - the dawn project continues therefore but also i have this camera in my possession all through easter and i have a yen to do a whole different project with it...

no idea what yet but it's likely to be similar in it's relationship to the sun... have to buy another miniDV tape for it...

i improvised this afternoon and i love it, rhodes, voice and arcdev industries dubb box...

one version is uploading to googlevideo as i write this and another version is rendering as i write this... the one rendering now is specifically for youtube, being 10 minutes in length with a goodbye youtube at the end... youtube viewers will have to go to longcat.net to see the entire thing, so maybe youtube's wierd 10-minute rule will work in my favour if i ever get a following over there,

it'll pull people over to longcat.net...

tonight Wfloopy(shaman) & T are coming over to join me, spski & dinah in a shabbat meal being prepared as i write this by my beautiful dinah... two members of this household have been away this week and the space they've left is gorgeous...

so tonight we dine with dinah's parents, tomorrow with mine, mum & dad are coming over to see felinity & G's new house, we're meeting them in clapham for a thai meal,

before which me, dinah & spski are going to catch the prestige @ the prince charles, something we've been hoping to see for awhile now, good timing in the prince charles's schedule..

happy days x

dawn project videoblog week 3

subscriber

a grey day for week 3 of the dawn project... we're in British Summer Time now so the shot was @ 8:30am instead of 7:30 which is a less interesting time of day in my opinion...

even though for the sun and the trees it's the same time of day as last week's 7:30 (GMT) the humanity around is much more awake and present...

@ 7:30 there's not very many people around, @ 8:30 it's still not very busy but one is less alone...

also it feels more normal to be awake @ 8:30, i was really enjoying the wierdness of 7:30...

anyway no point complaining, it is what it is...

and the other news this morning is that i've got what i've wanted for a little while now...

a youtube subscriber...

happy day...

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almost out from under

killer day today,

i woke up this morning with that sudden wakefulness that alcohol the night before can do... me & dinah celebrating 18 months since our first kiss last night and i was a little unsure that i would get up today...

but i did, and i cycled out to the canal, sadly couldn't stay on it all the way to my destination as there are works going on... got to the school with moments to spare, found out that the lesson i was observing actually started an hour early...

did my observation then i was out....

found the limehouse cut and spent an idyllic hour or so cycling around and filming, another videoblog on the way...

and now i'm here @ work again, just 3 more students work to go over then i'm out from under this particular paperwork mountain...

another one just a little further on i'm sure but the sun is shining and i'm almost free...

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week 40 piano & rhodes

after asking youtube what i should do about my piano being out of tune with my fender rhodes i decided today to improvise with both of them, in all their out of tune glory...

so i had to be a little inventive, only having one camera to hand, and i came up with the idea of putting a mirror in the frame pointing the camera's gaze at the rhodes keyboard...

nifty notion, the jury's out on whether it looks any good but i did it...

it's week 40 and it's up there at the top of this post..

i made sure it was only 10 minutes long so that i could upload it to youtube as well as googlevideo... another question i asked youtube on thursday...

must work out how to put longer video's up there on youtube, some people can do it... how?

went to see dinah perform some dance last night, she was great, the video of that will be myspace videoing any day now...

my life is so full of internet video's, once my improvisation has uploaded to youtube i'm going to upload the videoblog for this week's dawn project filming...

ok, about to go shopping... later x

3 decisions

it's all about youtube these days...

back at work burrowing through the paperwork mountain...

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dinah rocks out

with Wfloopy(shaman) in their 1st youtube featurette...

just put the finishing touches to another of my own youtubing daft things... tomorrow now, oh and i did get up @6:15am for the dawn project...

that was ages ago x

Billy Childish is Dead

people come to this blog for the strangest things...

our 5555th visitor was searching the web for the above, the medway based punk influenced billy childish, from somewhere in london, sitemeter tells me it was bromley but i've learnt not to trust it's locations within london...

to my 5555th visitor on the night of the equinox... something kind of cool there...

i'm stuck @ work trawling through the mountain of paperwork i've been putting off, sadly it doesn't look like i'll get through it all tonight as i'm scooting up to W(floopy)shaman & T's for an equinox fire this evening and then it's early to bed so i can rise bright and madly early for the dawn project tomorrow...

so i've got to push on...

a good lesson today but then they almost always are on a wednesday this semester...

and i was playing the piano in the break and i had to keep reminding myself that nothing is wrong... this project to shift my sleep really messes with my emotional state...

strange days...

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all the fives

welcome, oh welcome you...

oh 5555th visitor (since i started counting)

oh what a great number....

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petition on zimbabwe

i don't know if you've been following events in zimbabwe in the last week or two, but there has been a lot of violence against members of the opposition party - the Movement for Democratic Change - and i hope you'll consider signing this petition calling on stronger sanctions against robert mugabe's government.

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like they used to be

a morning like they used to be...

woke @ 8 but declined to get out of bed... knew that i needed the extra few hours...

the project to shift my sleep cycle forward not helped by late night TV...

got up @ 8 yesterday and to pay for it i was fragile most of the day, fragile in both directions, made a tune out of 2 samples, sinatra & fiona apple, looking back i realise that all the sounds in that 2 minute piece of music come from the two samples, so i think that qualifies it for music concrete...

anyway i found it amazingly uplifting, called it end up like i and uploaded it to mypace and my CM page, (where it's called perverse)...

but it was easy falling off the uplift and parts of yesterday were down low...

change in the weather to do with it, also this cloud i've been under/part of for a week or so now...

some paperwork hanging over me, same old financial worries poking their nose in...

so today to guard against the fragile i stayed in bed just a few more hours, balthazara waking me up with intentful, purring bread making by my head at the correct time...

the audition for the new drummer for T's band called off tonight for lack of space so i should be able to get this paperwork off my back, the hardest bit of it being telling the students week after week that it's not ready yet to give back to them...

and then teaching this afternoon should be lovely, given that i have to tell them the above, it's still a blessed module, music told how i wish to tell it...

also been thinking about the wealth of ideas i got teaching how to read music which was one of the courses that got cut this academic year, maybe offering some kind of course online... paid of not paid...?

ok, breakfast then teaching... x

sad tape happy bag

longcat weekly no.39

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prog rock out of sorts

strangely out of sorts tonight,

despite having a great day...

i met a new friend today, name of S, he offered me a tamarind while i was sat talking to yimkin after work this afternoon...

bumped into nippy as well and as they both went off to teach their respective classes i chatted awhile with S, sufism, islam, dreams, angels, the new £20 note, creativity and theory...

very nice it was too, hopefully catch up with him again one day,

then i cycled home via manolis's who was also philosophical...

why we can't just accept that we don't know that god exists and leave it at that?

i accept when a woman doesn't love me, i don't wish i was younger or richer i just accept it,

then we can rest...

this u-turn from god to women brought on a huge deja vu for me and also put me in mind of a character in a cortazar novel...

i gave the tamarind S had given me to manolis who stuck two cocktail sticks into it, cut off the end and started trying to grow it in a glass of water...

i still have one more tamarind which is for dinah...

i also did my weekly improvisation this early afternoon, it's rendering now, and immediately afterwards a chord sequence came to me that sounds like it belongs in a progressive rock tune...

i've just played it for about 30 minutes and it's great, it links up (kind of) with some chords i wrote yesterday while jamming with JtJP & D over @ hammersmith...

the creativity continues apace,

but this peculiar out of sorts ness...?

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dawn project videoblog week 1

strange day pre project

didn't get out of bed until way too late today,

and i was very unsettled all day, angry and upset...

partly because we've discovered it may be harmful to the camera to film the sun and that was a big part of my project, more research needed but i'm pushing ahead anyway tomorrow with two different shots and no sun in the frame, atrange that that was exactly what i wanted before and now it's what i can't have...

i bought a miniDV tape after work today from a shop i came across in town, where i'd been cycling around aimlessly looking for such a shop...

the camera is here now, i'm going to bed in about half an hour with 2 alarms to wake me up tomorrow, a big cycle ride up the hill then @ 7:30am i'll be pushing the record button and about 20 seconds later i'll taking it all down again, climbing down the stairs to the disused itself, cycling along it until the second bridge, judging how long that's taken me and setting the time for the second shot, another 20 seconds, then down from the disused and along to Wfloopy(shaman)'s to drop off the camera...

should be home by 8:30ish...

exciting...

just hope i get out of bed ok...

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reshuffle

stood in the apple church...

with A who used to be my student who has replaced my shuffle for me...

he dropped out of the course and i was worried that he was avoiding me because of the shuffle thing...

but no...

and now i have it back... this beautiful shuffle that lights up my life...

anyway, off to meet T for a songwriting session down south...

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funny

now, despite the fact that i hate comic relief and everything about it, i bring your attention to this way too late probably,

the deadline is 6pm GMT today and it's only for british bloggers,

are you funny?

i got out of bed late again today, but made it to the spot @ 7:47am instead of 7:30, the sun was hiding behind some cloud which didn't suit my purpose so much but i took the pictures and video - just my own camera video so not for the project just to see - and raced home down the long hill that i'd just cycled up 15 minutes before,

spski was around when i got back so we spent a few minutes together before he went to work, very nice too,

he's a great deal more nutty in the morning...

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foliage

well, some of you may not be surprised when i tell you that i did not get up super early like i intended to this morning...

but when i did get up i formulated my dawn project plan a little more and cycled up the hill to check out the projected spot:

and i'm a little concerned with the foliage... firstly this branch directly ahead, will that become green as you like and trash the whole shot...? and then the trees in general, will the sun be visible when it's not right in the middle...

also how high in the sky can the sun be and still be in frame? it's looking like the summer solstice sun position @ the time i'll doing it will be too high... only guesses really at this point but it seems that way...

but then the shadows will still be dependent on the sun's position, so even if the camera doesn't get the sun itself there will still be movement between the shots where the sun moves between them,

i'm tempted to cut this branch straight ahead, if i can reach it... no doubt someone will be passing directly below when i do it and i'll be sued...

also the foreground branch will mean i'll have to be very exact with the camera placement, differences between foreground & background are not fixable in software...

lauryn hill amy winehouse

dinah got the new amy winehouse album last week and it sounds great.

there's something very pleasing about it, it mixes an old fashioned sound with a dash of contemporary...

and listening to it after a couple of times i was reminded of the lauryn hill album from years ago that i listened to so much, for some reason the two albums are linked in my mind...

so tonight on TV there was a program called the trap - very interesting, about our perception of freedom and what it might really mean...

so me & dinah watched it on video, as spski was watching a DVD when it was on, and after the video stopped Dave Chappelle's Block Party was on... so i ended up watching it all, dinah left the room, hip hop not her thing...

and who should show up the end but lauryn hill, i'd forgotten about that from when i saw it at the pictures, really great film and great performances...

great to see lauryn hill perform and talk...

ok, sleep soon i hope, i wish to get up in the very early to check out a project i intend to do filming 7.00 am every thursday morning for a year... starting on the spring equinox a week on thursday... i've been doing some calculating and i think it could work...

want to check it out tomorrow, i'll be a mess but that's ok, i'm not teaching tomorrow just paperworking, and more on that beautiful tune i wrote earlier i hope x

beauty

spent a lovely afternoon first @ penny's, eating our traditional sunday roast followed by a waffle, (with ice cream & maple syrup),

then @ T & Wfloopy(shaman)'s talking away about everything, dreams, half asleep hallucinations, our perceptional webs...

then back here and i put my fingers on the piano in a certain way that led to another piece of music, this one seeming to go with the poetry i wrote on wednesday wandering about in east london...

so i recorded it and extended it and i'm listening to it now and it's gorgeous...

that's all... just loving my own creativity x

longcat weekly no.38

ghost sounds

i had a couple of pints with JtJP @ hammersmith yesterday, very nice it was too, could well get back into pints...

anyway we were talking about his time as a student @ berkeley, and he mentioned a technique using the strings in the piano as a kind of reverb, something i've done myself over the years in my own way...

it's one of the things about my piano module that i really like, the fact that it models this kind of piano behaviour and i think i used it once or twice in the early improvisations where i was mainly using the module...

anyway, this early evening i did week 38 of the weekly improvisation and it was largely governed by this, my left hand holding down a chord which i was careful not to sound while my right hand played single notes with the left hand strings resonating with the right hand strings... hypnotic... to me anyway... rendering now...

i had an odd afternoon after teaching this morning, waited around a bit to talk with yimkin but in the end didn't get a chance to and i was a little displaced by this... went out into the cold but bright air with rain close at hand and retraced my steps to the church i checked out on wednesday... some more pictures and thoughts and video's... then cycled home with the benefit of my waterproof trousers as it had begun to rain on & off by then...

manolis's was populated by a strange old guy shouting into his mobile phone and me... manolis himself commenting that he could have gone to cyprus and back by the time that man came off the phone...

and as you can see by the comments i've got a rival longcat somewhere who is jokingly irritated by my presence... me being here 2 & 2/3rd years and they arriving only a couple of days ago... i saw their comment on getting home from drinking with JtJP last night and i was pretty drunk and belligerent (in my way) and i kind of regret not using that alcohol fueled state to hurl e-abuse last night...

but i didn't, dinah did a little later and by then someone calling themselves dongcat had already put their oar in...

i'm not sure i can be arsed...

they're from the longcat is looooooong school of longcat worship which is altogether separate from my use of the name, my name coming from waking up one morning in the flat on hercules street (opposite manolis's), looking down at busby (who was the reason i was there, catsitting, in that lovely flat on my own) and exclaiming about what a long cat he was...

then me & nippy called ourselves longcat & hermione for awhile, no gigs but many beautiful jams...

saw nippy this afternoon in fact, few and far between these days our meetings, that's true of many of my friends at the moment, i'm kind of on the furthest away point in my orbit and have been for a few weeks / months...

not sure if i'm about to come back or are drifting further away...

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morning

got out of bed to pump dinah's tire up, and now i've had a tea and done that i'm reluctant to go back to bed...

so i've also finished the marking i've been doing in the last week...

it's a beautiful day and i want to get out there in the sunshine on my beautiful bike...

i have to be at work in 3 hours over in hammersmith...

and my other work - londonbridgework as i call it here - has a new website with a sort of myspace profile thing in it, i've uploaded some tracks to my profile over there, basically it's just for students and tutors and it's a little limited right now, nice to have another mp3 home though x

the number 23

spoiler warning...

ok, so this film was disappointing, not because i was expecting it to be anything... i didn't really know what it was going to be like, we just thought it was promising...

went with my dinah tonight on an orange wednesday...

it was disappointing because the central idea is a good one and it let it down...

and that central idea (honestly i am going to spoil this film for you so stop reading if you're going to see it... it's not terrible... pretty rubbish in places but not terrible... honestly... stop reading...)

and that central idea is that the main character is plagued by doubts about something and uncovers a murder which in the end it turns out he did... his own regretful past catches up with him even though he's blanked it out...

the same device is used to much better effect in another film that i'm not going to tell you the name of, because you really should see that film and it would be a crime to see it knowing what i've just said... it was the film me & edge saw that day back in friendlier times...

....

ok spoiler over...

come back...

i had a great day today, i ran a workshop for new students in the morning and had about 3 hours to kill before teaching in the afternoon which i needed to do some marking stuff in...

so i was cycling along and i decided to go into bicycle madness to get a few things fixed on my bike, which they couldn't do there and then so i left there on foot and walked from shoreditch to southwark bridge road where i was teaching in the afternoon...

one of those lovely light days, much to film and photograph and a certain church inspired me to write some poetry... may come out in a song one day...

then a great lesson in the tradition of great wednesday afternoon lessons we've had recently, then a race back to the bike shop and a lovely cycle home using both breaks and all three gears... heavenly...

my computer is now chugging away rendering a version of the Royal Northern Gardens films that i'm working on, i put the youtube versions all together on my films page of longcat.net and it got me thinking...

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pointless post

kind of pleased with myself, paper work not my strong point...

i've been owing my students some written up notes for several weeks now and tonight i've come close to getting up to date...

and i'm digging using little photo's in word documents to make clearer points...

recorded gordy this morning for SBJ's lyrics... who for some reason i called STB in the last post, i have a plan to record a few other instruments for this project, to get into the habit of it for possible future work...

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marking luning composing

about 3/5ths through the latest batch of marking, all good stuff but my head is a little wayward today, making it harder than usual...

last night's full moon was eclipsed by the shadow of the earth and me & Wfloopy(shaman) spent awhile gazing at it and videoing it with his camera...

and i'm being prolific with piano music... i recorded a piece yesterday in amongst the mad day i was having (purim, so dinah & T were acting and me & floopy were watching/videoing), intended for STB's words, and i've just written a very filmic noe today that i'm about to put down into cubase before i get back to the last 2/5th's...

odd fact, one of the essays i'm marking today was written by a student who i saw at the liberal jewish synagogue last night for purim...

there you go... oh and this video is amazing...

x

longcat weekly no. 37

chasing him down

i was sat here earlier and i signed in to blogger to mark where i was at... i was chasing down a chess player called jrm12, i had him beat in one of the games and i had him on the run in the other...

he resigned from the 1st when it became very clear that i had him...

i was winning in the 2nd but i overstretched myself and i did something daft...

i haven't lost but i'm in a much weaker position and i may lose...

so i ate my dinner with my lovely girlfriend, had a nice chat with spski & her... took out the rubbish, the recycling & did the washing up... came back and recorded this week's improvisation which is currently rendering... but a 12 minute render rather than last week's 12 hours...

now in fact uploading to googlevideo... maybe it'll get there in time to be included in this post which you'll know about because it'll either be at the top of this post or not...

there was some fantastic light around today, i was cycling in to work over @ hammersmith, a little late so i didn't linger, hyde park just wonderful...

then the journey back, partly with D who told me that the congestion charge area has expanded, we cycled through admittedly slightly quieter streets... the canal very beautiful as ever, very cold but very lovely... the light dying through that journey, dusk definitely there by the time i got to our door...