.
Christmas reviewed
And so begins New Year Proper. Life returns to normal, whatever that might be.
Looking back at Christmas, I feel fortunate to have had two whole days in the company of my entire close family - children, grandchildren, partners, dog, cats, etc - with no obligations except to enjoy a very unhurried, relaxed time together, with nothing much to do except eat, drink, chat, play, take photos, play games, play music, read, watch TV and snooze. No-one was ill. No-one had a cold or flu. No-one got sick. Everyone enjoyed good food and drink. There was warmth and laughter and extremely good cheer.
No-one had anything to do with religion, or paid any attention to the religious aspects of the season. Yet there were spiritual as well as social (and personal) aspects to our time together. Maybe we should pay more attention to this. Maybe we should all try to re-claim the spiritual realm from the God-botherers and those who think they hold a monopoly on spiritual intelligence. Of course it's love that binds people together, and binds the universe together, but 'love' is a peculiar and ambiguous word. We might as well use 'attraction' or 'gravity' or 'magnetic fields'.
Maybe we ought to talk more openly and more often about what the midwinter gathering and feasting means to us. If the whole experience is kind of wonderful, then we ought to make time to say so, and give proper thanks to one another.
The giving of gifts isn't the biggest thing, but I now think it's also important. After all, it doesn't take a whole lot of time or energy to buy somebody a bottle of wine or spirits, or some special teas or coffees, or a box of excellent chocolates. These things might be cliches, as far as giving is concerned, but I do believe that something is better than nothing. And if you have no money at all, then there is hopefully a parent or a best friend one can turn to for a small loan.
When there are large gatherings, however, the Secret Santa gift is possibly the best idea, where everyone just gets one special gift, with a fixed price ceiling, and with no-one knowing who gives what. If you want to give someone something more - then you can always do it when you meet one to one - at any time of the year. The gift of time - in terms of hours saved from doing stressful shopping - is surely the best gift of all. Especially at Christmas time.
........................................................
Learning To Play
I had an interesting chat with my cousin's husband, who said he'd love to learn to play the guitar, but doesn't have time to do it.
He's a busy man, but surely it's possible to make the time to do something, like playing an instrument, when it gives so much pleasure and relaxation? A few years ago a friend I was close to said something similar with regard to her piano playing. No time for it.
In the case of guitar learning/playing, I think the problem is the mystique that surrounds achieving anything musical. As far as most people are concerned you need to sign up for a fixed course of fairly or possibly very expensive lessons, depending on whether you have group or one-to-one tuition with a decent tutor. And then there's the cost of the instrument. And knowing which one to buy . . . The obstacles seem endless. With the time thing being the biggest obstacle of all. Even if it is 'just' one evening, or part of an evening, per week.
My solution is this. Most adults in full-time work can find £200 - £300 for a decent electric guitar and a powered 'effects box', into which they can plug headphones. Later on, if required, they can invest in an amplifier. An effects box (such as a Zoom) is better than an amplifier in the first instance since it'll give a bigger range of tones and sounds, and you can have it as loud as you like through the headphones. An electric guitar is also a lot easier on the fingers for beginners, since the tension on the strings is a lot less. By all means have an acoustic guitar as well, but electrics are the best bet - which is the opposite of what most people presume.
Secondly - DON'T have any lessons. At least not until you can strum the basic major and minor chords, and you have your fingers moving properly, and 'instinctively' - in the same way you move your feet on the pedals of a car - without consciously lifting and pressing them down. You can find chord charts on the Internet to show you where to place your fingers on the strings.
What you need, in the beginning, is a proper 'feel' of the instrument. Tutors and lessons can't give you that. You get that from hours of strumming on your own - even whilst watching TV. You need to properly familiarise yourself with your instrument - making it your friend. Getting to know how it sounds, how it responds to your touch, knowing when one or more strings sounds 'wrong' - and needs retuning. Easily done with an electronic tuner.
Neither do you need a tutor to teach you the scales. Again - find scale diagrams on the internet and practice them on your own. No need to leave home, pay tutors, or spend time coming and going.
Next you need to know the chord structures of your favourite songs and tunes. Again - discover on the internet that the majority of rock,folk and blues tunes need only three or four chords. Practice strumming them, memorising them, moving from one chord to the next with precision and timing, and without having to look where you're putting your fingers. This bit can take months, or years. Practice, practice, practice. It's enjoyable when it all starts to sound like it should. A tutor can't teach you how to do this. You just need basic knowledge, and the time (and determination) to practice.
Next - research shows that most people who play a guitar have picked up far more knowledge and techniques from personal friends and family than from a tutor. These people will tell you what you want to know. A tutor will tell you what he or she wants you to know. Most tutors are crap teachers. They are inflexible in their methods, don't pay attention to what the student really knows and can do, and don't pay attention to what their pupils most want to do. They will assess you in terms of what they want you to do - not what you are trying to do.
The time to go to a paid tutor is when you are familiar with your instrument, have a working knowledge of the basic individual notes and chords, and have trained both hands to work together to strum chords or pick individual notes. I believe this to be true even if you ultimately want to play classical guitar, jazz guitar or improvised lead guitar.
I just wish someone had said to me when I was young - you CAN play a guitar, you CAN play a keyboard - all you need is an instrument, some basic knowledge, and someone who's already picked up the basics to show you what to do.
Had there been an Internet to use in those dim and distant days . . . who knows what might have been possible?
JFDI - Just Friggin Do It.
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Showing posts with label musical tuition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musical tuition. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Monday, August 2, 2010
Layer 338 . . . Tom Jones Revisited, More Music, Equal Opportunities, and Developing Talent
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Further to Oxzen's recent musings about Tom Jones, the latest Observer had a whole page on the man, his life and his career, including the news that Praise & Blame has become Britain's best-selling album. At 70 Tom is the oldest male musician or singer to reach No 1 in Britain - taking over from Bob Dylan and his album Modern Times.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/01/profile-tom-jones
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/28/tom-jones-album-charts-praise-blame
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/22/tom-jones-praise-and-blame-cd-review
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/25/tom-jones-praise-blame-review
It's appalling when someone like Tom Jones is described as "not much good at school", which means only that he didn't do well "academically". What they're trying to say is that the pupil was a bit, or plenty, thick, when the reality is that the school was hopeless at finding someone's talents and developing them - and in fact the school never even tried to do so, which was probably the case.
Here's an example. My old secondary school is a school Listed by English Heritage. (My old Primary school is too, but that's another story). What that means is that it can't be mucked about, or its original form changed, which includes its outdoor areas. It had, and still has, a large number of games pitches, and a proper athletics area which includes facilities for both track and field events. In a school like that there's at least a possibility that some of its pupils will be seriously encouraged and enabled to do well in sports and athletics.
By way of contrast, a similar school built at roughly the same time on the opposite side of the city is not Listed. Some years ago at least 50% of its sports fields were sold off to a property development company, and those previously open areas and sports fields are now covered with bijou houses. So what kind of message does that give to the local community and its children about the value the school, or society in general, places on children's physical education, or encouragement for achievement in sports and athletics?
In this country we throw money at "elite" athletes whom we think might win medals in high profile competitions like the Euros and the Olympics, having identified those so-called elites from club competitions, but the reality is that most kids don't get any proper opportunities for proper coaching in a school context, so that only those who join clubs have sustained contact with trained coaches, facilties for practice, and the excitement of regular competition. It's not too difficult to guess which kids get to join the clubs outside of school, and have eager parents driving them to and from their clubs and competitions.
It's the same story with tennis, of course, which is why twats like Tim Henman and the odd character like Andrew Murray are Britain's sole high-achieving representatives at the Wimbledon championships, which are said to be the biggest and best tennis competition in the world. In some other countries even the smallest villages have decent public tennis courts.
It's somewhat different with music, since it's possible to own an instrument and become proficient at playing it through hours of practice at home, with or without lessons from paid professionals - not that this happens very often.
The crying shame, however, is that music as a school subject is on the whole taught in a tokenistic "academic" way and not thorough regular instrumental lessons by skilled teachers and tutors of musical instruments, except for a small minority of kids who have been picked out as having gifts and talents, or who get access to instrumental tuition because they have pushy parents, who probably, in addition, pay for private lessons.
It's not hard to imagine how much potential talent goes undiscovered and undeveloped, mainly because as a society we don't set out to develop it and don't fund such activities - leaving it to ambitious and dedicated parents to buy the instruments and the lessons if they want their children to have the joy of playing an instrument, either solo or in a band.
Because of this lack of opportunity most people in our society don't own an instrument, and have never known the pleasure it gives to play well and to play in bands, and we don't as a whole appreciate what developing musical talents does for children - especially those kids who find it hard to succeed and build their self-esteem through "academic" work.
Even if a child never does well enough and isn't talented enough to make and sell albums, or perform in public, the pleasure that's to be had from playing an instrument, or being able to sing well, is incalculable. The number of undiscovered, frustrated and underachieving musicians in this country must be massive - with huge consequences for individuals, communities, and the country as a whole - both in terms of individual fulfillment and enjoyment of life and untapped commercial potential.
Just ask people like Wynton Marsalis what music does for the soul and the spirit. Many of us get some benefit from just listening to music. Being able to create and play music gives a whole other dimension.
Other countries see and do things differently. Schools in places like Japan, Korea and China set out to offer all kids, and not just the 'elites', a proper musical education - seeing it as integral to the development of character. It's the norm. It's not unusual.
...................................................
SRE
Talented writers, whose books have been shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, are apparently no longer writing about sex. So says an article by Tim Adams in the latest Observer. Mr Adams has in the past written extensively on this subject in Observer 'specials'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/sex-british-novel-chatterley
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sex/story/0,,818295,00.htm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/bodyuncovered/story/0,,1067744,00.html
Adams reminds us that DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', following its eventual publication in 1961, sold around two million copies.
So why are there no novelists writing about sex and human sexuality in the 21st Century? Surely the subject hasn't lost any of its interest? Surely novelists still have something to say about sex and relationships?
Apparently Andrew Motion thinks novelists are afraid to describe sexual encounters because they fear they'll end up being nominated for the Bad Sex Award. Quite right too - they've learnt a lesson that most descriptions of people having sex are rubbish. They're either stupidly full of inappropriate metaphors and similies, or they simply fail to convey the true essence of positive sexual experience. Quite possibly too many of our writers, who tend to live quite solitary lives, have had too little in the way of sublime, satisfying and fulfilling sex, and therefore find it difficult to say anything about it with an authentic voice that speaks of knowledge and wisdom.
However, it's not as though sex isn't a basic and integral part of most people's lives, since most people recognise that sex is rather wonderful, especially when you're young and prone to falling in love. What one might call transcendental sex is surely an essential part of a life well lived, since the urge and the instinct to have sex is hard-wired into all, or most, of us. And whilst the sex drive diminishes as one gets older, that doesn't mean that sex loses its potential to give pleasure and to provide an amazing intimate connection with those we most wish to be intimate with.
At the very least sex provides physical, emotional and spiritual release and stops us accumulating stress and tension to the point of exploding. Wilhelm Reich wrote about this decades ago in a book called The Function of the Orgasm.
DH Lawrence set out to tell the truth about sexual desire, and sexual needs. Lady Chatterley represents all women who have sexual needs but have great difficulty in expressing and satisfying those needs, thanks to personal inhibition and the restrictive conventions of society.
According to Tim Adams, Lawrence also set out to legitimise the word 'fuck'. "Lawrence had striven to cleanse it of its furtive, contemptuous and expletive connotations, and to use it 'in the most simple, natural way: one fucks'."
.................................................................
Sex and the City told stories of New York women fucking their way through life in a search for Mr Right, so that they could settle down and live happily ever after.
There was a three page article in yesterday's Observer - in the New Review section - which also dealt with writing about sex. In particular, with women writing about sex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional
True confessions in new women's lit
Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City columns inspired some dire chick lit, but also a generation of more serious young writers
The piece takes issue with the whole genre of chick lit and so-called 'confessional' writing, which has no artistic merit and does nothing more than entertain and titillate. Of course it also makes a hell of a lot of money from people who are desperate for a bit of entertainment and titillation.
As for serious writing about sex and relationships . . .
Meghan Daum, another of this new wave of serious 'alternative' writers who focus on sex and relationships, apparently
The article concludes,
What a wonderful thing it is to have writers who seek to question common assumptions and to challenge the status quo, who also set out to illuminate broader truths and spread a little enlightenment.
.
Further to Oxzen's recent musings about Tom Jones, the latest Observer had a whole page on the man, his life and his career, including the news that Praise & Blame has become Britain's best-selling album. At 70 Tom is the oldest male musician or singer to reach No 1 in Britain - taking over from Bob Dylan and his album Modern Times.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/aug/01/profile-tom-jones
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/28/tom-jones-album-charts-praise-blame
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/22/tom-jones-praise-and-blame-cd-review
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/25/tom-jones-praise-blame-review
It's appalling when someone like Tom Jones is described as "not much good at school", which means only that he didn't do well "academically". What they're trying to say is that the pupil was a bit, or plenty, thick, when the reality is that the school was hopeless at finding someone's talents and developing them - and in fact the school never even tried to do so, which was probably the case.
Here's an example. My old secondary school is a school Listed by English Heritage. (My old Primary school is too, but that's another story). What that means is that it can't be mucked about, or its original form changed, which includes its outdoor areas. It had, and still has, a large number of games pitches, and a proper athletics area which includes facilities for both track and field events. In a school like that there's at least a possibility that some of its pupils will be seriously encouraged and enabled to do well in sports and athletics.
By way of contrast, a similar school built at roughly the same time on the opposite side of the city is not Listed. Some years ago at least 50% of its sports fields were sold off to a property development company, and those previously open areas and sports fields are now covered with bijou houses. So what kind of message does that give to the local community and its children about the value the school, or society in general, places on children's physical education, or encouragement for achievement in sports and athletics?
In this country we throw money at "elite" athletes whom we think might win medals in high profile competitions like the Euros and the Olympics, having identified those so-called elites from club competitions, but the reality is that most kids don't get any proper opportunities for proper coaching in a school context, so that only those who join clubs have sustained contact with trained coaches, facilties for practice, and the excitement of regular competition. It's not too difficult to guess which kids get to join the clubs outside of school, and have eager parents driving them to and from their clubs and competitions.
It's the same story with tennis, of course, which is why twats like Tim Henman and the odd character like Andrew Murray are Britain's sole high-achieving representatives at the Wimbledon championships, which are said to be the biggest and best tennis competition in the world. In some other countries even the smallest villages have decent public tennis courts.
It's somewhat different with music, since it's possible to own an instrument and become proficient at playing it through hours of practice at home, with or without lessons from paid professionals - not that this happens very often.
The crying shame, however, is that music as a school subject is on the whole taught in a tokenistic "academic" way and not thorough regular instrumental lessons by skilled teachers and tutors of musical instruments, except for a small minority of kids who have been picked out as having gifts and talents, or who get access to instrumental tuition because they have pushy parents, who probably, in addition, pay for private lessons.
It's not hard to imagine how much potential talent goes undiscovered and undeveloped, mainly because as a society we don't set out to develop it and don't fund such activities - leaving it to ambitious and dedicated parents to buy the instruments and the lessons if they want their children to have the joy of playing an instrument, either solo or in a band.
Because of this lack of opportunity most people in our society don't own an instrument, and have never known the pleasure it gives to play well and to play in bands, and we don't as a whole appreciate what developing musical talents does for children - especially those kids who find it hard to succeed and build their self-esteem through "academic" work.
Even if a child never does well enough and isn't talented enough to make and sell albums, or perform in public, the pleasure that's to be had from playing an instrument, or being able to sing well, is incalculable. The number of undiscovered, frustrated and underachieving musicians in this country must be massive - with huge consequences for individuals, communities, and the country as a whole - both in terms of individual fulfillment and enjoyment of life and untapped commercial potential.
Just ask people like Wynton Marsalis what music does for the soul and the spirit. Many of us get some benefit from just listening to music. Being able to create and play music gives a whole other dimension.
Other countries see and do things differently. Schools in places like Japan, Korea and China set out to offer all kids, and not just the 'elites', a proper musical education - seeing it as integral to the development of character. It's the norm. It's not unusual.
...................................................
SRE
Talented writers, whose books have been shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, are apparently no longer writing about sex. So says an article by Tim Adams in the latest Observer. Mr Adams has in the past written extensively on this subject in Observer 'specials'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/sex-british-novel-chatterley
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sex/story/0,,818295,00.htm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/bodyuncovered/story/0,,1067744,00.html
Adams reminds us that DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', following its eventual publication in 1961, sold around two million copies.
So why are there no novelists writing about sex and human sexuality in the 21st Century? Surely the subject hasn't lost any of its interest? Surely novelists still have something to say about sex and relationships?
Apparently Andrew Motion thinks novelists are afraid to describe sexual encounters because they fear they'll end up being nominated for the Bad Sex Award. Quite right too - they've learnt a lesson that most descriptions of people having sex are rubbish. They're either stupidly full of inappropriate metaphors and similies, or they simply fail to convey the true essence of positive sexual experience. Quite possibly too many of our writers, who tend to live quite solitary lives, have had too little in the way of sublime, satisfying and fulfilling sex, and therefore find it difficult to say anything about it with an authentic voice that speaks of knowledge and wisdom.
However, it's not as though sex isn't a basic and integral part of most people's lives, since most people recognise that sex is rather wonderful, especially when you're young and prone to falling in love. What one might call transcendental sex is surely an essential part of a life well lived, since the urge and the instinct to have sex is hard-wired into all, or most, of us. And whilst the sex drive diminishes as one gets older, that doesn't mean that sex loses its potential to give pleasure and to provide an amazing intimate connection with those we most wish to be intimate with.
At the very least sex provides physical, emotional and spiritual release and stops us accumulating stress and tension to the point of exploding. Wilhelm Reich wrote about this decades ago in a book called The Function of the Orgasm.
DH Lawrence set out to tell the truth about sexual desire, and sexual needs. Lady Chatterley represents all women who have sexual needs but have great difficulty in expressing and satisfying those needs, thanks to personal inhibition and the restrictive conventions of society.
According to Tim Adams, Lawrence also set out to legitimise the word 'fuck'. "Lawrence had striven to cleanse it of its furtive, contemptuous and expletive connotations, and to use it 'in the most simple, natural way: one fucks'."
.................................................................
Sex and the City told stories of New York women fucking their way through life in a search for Mr Right, so that they could settle down and live happily ever after.
There was a three page article in yesterday's Observer - in the New Review section - which also dealt with writing about sex. In particular, with women writing about sex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional
True confessions in new women's lit
Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City columns inspired some dire chick lit, but also a generation of more serious young writers
The piece takes issue with the whole genre of chick lit and so-called 'confessional' writing, which has no artistic merit and does nothing more than entertain and titillate. Of course it also makes a hell of a lot of money from people who are desperate for a bit of entertainment and titillation.
As for serious writing about sex and relationships . . .
"For all that she might get annoyed by those high-heeled women on the sidewalk, without Sex and the City, there would arguably have been no Emily Gould. The 28-year-old has just published her first confessional memoir, And The Heart Says Whatever. In 11 pithily written essays, Gould, a former co-editor of the Gawker gossip website, charts her experiences as a young adult in New York, working in jobs she loathes, facing up to failed relationships and going to parties attended by people she dislikes. Her debut has already attracted praise from the likes of Jonathan Franzen, while Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of American Wife, has hailed it as a modern-day version of The Bell Jar. Gould is one of a new generation of female confessional writers who, according to Sittenfeld, "speak, in our often phoney and cheesy culture, to the truths of women's lives".
"Gould decided "very consciously to let go of whether or not anyone likes me". In And the Heart Says Whatever, she deliberately resists the urge to mould each story along a neat, narrative arc with a cleverly packaged ending. "I don't tie everything into a little bow and say: 'That's what I've learned'," she explains. "I think a lot of women writers go around apologising, saying: 'Oh stupid me, oh the goofy things I did when I was young and didn't know any better' but I set out specifically not to do that… I just want it to be OK for women to be complete people, to have sides to themselves that aren't whitewashed or palatable."
Meghan Daum, another of this new wave of serious 'alternative' writers who focus on sex and relationships, apparently
"sees her writing as a corrective to the tradition of women's magazines that talk about relationships, diet or body image in a redemptive fashion, plotting each minor self-improvement along a wider trajectory of personal growth. "I tend to be very honest and my goal is to identify something people think but are afraid to say," explains Daum. "That's not the general cultural expectation of women."
The article concludes,
"It's quite scary to men to know what [a woman] is thinking. It's much more convenient to imagine that they aren't really people", says Emily Gould.
In the same way, one imagines it might be easier to dismiss the work of female confessional authors as being somehow facile and glib because, on the surface, they deal with the small moments of everyday experience rather than dealing with the grittiness of big ideas. But this would be to do them a disservice. By engaging with their readers and speaking to them on their own level with humour and candour, Gould, Daum and Crosley seek to illuminate broader truths. They might not always succeed but at least they aim for something bigger; for something that is hopefully a little more nuanced than the endless search for Mr Right and a world viewed through the bottom of a Martini glass.
What a wonderful thing it is to have writers who seek to question common assumptions and to challenge the status quo, who also set out to illuminate broader truths and spread a little enlightenment.
.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Layer 175 Return to Base, Nihilistic Despair, The Alpajarras, Jeem, Jamming, and Healthy Living.
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Trying to get your head around what's happening in the world when you've just spent two weeks off the planet is a bit like trying to open a memory-intensive word processor on your computer when you only have 5 megabytes of RAM available. There's just too much information needing to be uploaded, assimilated and processed, with far too little processing power on tap.
It's very tempting to just switch off, close the curtains and stay ignorant.
What's happening in politics on these sad little islands was pretty well summed up by Marina Hyde in her usual excellent column in the Guardian on Saturday:
A new politics? Let's revert to a state of nihilistic despair
Do you remember "A new politics"? It was that turn-of-last-month movement for restoring faith in the way in which we are governed. It sort of coincided with the vague tetchiness that capitalists had just blown up capitalism and the plebs were expected to foot the bill.
Once upon a time – June, basically – a series of scandals made it voguish to go around saying that not only ought the public to be exempted from funding lavish accommodation for MPs' ducks, but that the whole rotten system needed reform. Even some members of parliament themselves were saying it. Honestly, they really were.
She goes on to describe a typical debate in parliament:
You need hardly be told that the debate played out to a typically underpopulated chamber, or that government engagement tended toward the half-hearted. Indeed, one had the overwhelming sense that the home secretary really just couldn't be done with the hassle, and anyway the argument was way over his head. "I accept that I am not a lawyer," Alan Johnson declared blithely. "I am a hack politician. I go by the advice I get."
This man is home secretary. It's all very well for call-centre operatives and Little Britain characters to drone "Computer says no" at the public, but when you hold one of the great offices of state, and are in charge of an annual budget of £10bn, it does make you look a bit of a spanner. Can you imagine Roy Jenkins addressing the house during the debate on capital punishment with the words: "Don't look at me, luv, I just work here"?
Wednesday's "debate" . . . seemed to crystallise so much of what repulses the electorate about their representatives. The secretary of state . . . seemed to wear staggering incompetence as a badge of honour.
This pretty much sums up what I've come to understand about how our governance works – politicians (i.e. 'our' representatives) at both local authority level and nationally have no wit, no imagination, no wisdom, no experience of real life, no guiding philosophy or ideology, no level of enlightenment whatsoever. All they do is put their signatures on documents drafted by bureaucrats who have no wit, no imagination, no wisdom, etc, etc.
Marina then quotes from a letter written by the appalling Denis MacShane MP (nee Denis Matyjaszek):
“The Commons will survive this scandal as it survived earlier scandals ... The great historian Macaulay wrote that there was nothing 'so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality'. The British public is in one of its fits of morality right now but this will pass."
Do excuse our ridiculousness, Denis. We are now back in our state of nihilistic despair, and you will find that rather less of a caprice.
--------------------------------------------
I suppose we have to give honest broker Alan Johnson at least a little credit for his admission that he's just a hack politician who has no particular expertise or even any critical faculties - who just does what he's told by his 'experts'.
Read here what Wikipedia has to say about 'MacShane', his record as a parliamentarian, and his expenses claims:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_MacShane
This ridiculous shithead wrote a column in the Guardian last Thursday in which he actually advocated Tony Blair as the first 'president' of the European Union. It's like he's living in a parallel universe, let alone on another planet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/16/tony-blair-eu-president
A realistic assessment of Blair's suitability for the post is given in a column by John Palmer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/15/tony-blair-european-president-labour
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Since returning to base I've been catching up with some spiritually refreshing music, and thanks to Spotify have been listening to the entire output of the divine Webb Sisters. Out of curiosity I also tried “Webb Sisters Radio”on last.fm, which is a curious Internet vehicle for listening to music. This is an outfit that started life in Shoreditch, whose aim seems to be to feed you music that's supposedly similar to the artists you actually enjoy. All I can say is that the solo female singers they send to your computer – supposedly lyrical, melodic, original, etc; supposedly similar to the Webb Sisters – just highlight the sheer brilliance of the Webb Sisters themselves, whose work is outstanding in every way: vocally, lyrically and musically.
---------------------------------
Last week I met a guy called Jeem who plays the piano accordion. He's tall and thin, has long hair and a crazy kind of Dali moustache.
He was playing in a little square outside a cafe called El Tilo, in a village called Capileira, up in the Alpujarra mountains, which lie next to the Sierra Nevadas.
He was playing some Spanish tunes, and I sat down and started to video him. He then switched to playing a great arrangement of “Season of the Witch”, which he also sang. Sitting on the terrace of Bar El Tilo (the lime tree) we were treated to a range of different styles and tunes, including some 12 bar blues.
At the end of his ‘set’ the people in the cafe gave Jeem a good round of applause. He then came round with a hat and collected cash from the customers.
It turned out he’s from Arizona, having been brought up initially in Chicago. He decided to leave the US 17 years ago, feeling disgusted at the turn to the Right the country had made under Reagan and Bush The First.
He now spends his time travelling by bus between places in the mountains and places on the coast, playing in squares and markets and streets, spreading the happiness.
He said he’d loved Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ from the first time he’d heard it, way back in the sixties. I said his version sounded a lot like the one recorded by Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, which he’d apparently never heard.
(Type “Season of the Witch” into the search box on Spotify and you can hear about 10 different versions. I still love Brian Auger's Hammond instrumental.)
He said he’d started playing the accordion when he was 6 years old, though it seems unlikely he could even have picked up a full-sized piano accordion at that age.
Jeem’s the kind of guy who really appeals to me – laid back, laconic, talented, humorous, thoughtful and idealistic. It feels good to be around people like that, as they go around raising spirits.
------------------------------------
We bumped into him again later that day, sitting on a bench, his accordion in its case beside him, plus his folded stool. He chatted some more about his musical influences, and how he intends to learn to play in the classical French accordion style of Bal Musette. I’d have liked to have chatted more, and listened some more, but the hour was getting late.
------------------------------
The Alpajarras are definitely my kind of mountains – high, but not too high; lush and warm and accessible. The kind of mountains with well-established paths that enable you to walk up to the tops and the ridges, and not have to scramble or rock-climb.
It would be good to go back there next year, rent a room somewhere, and spend several days, maybe even a month, exploring the region on foot. I'd also like to get back to Granada and the Alhambra, and get to know those places better. Learning some Spanish would be a good idea as well.
---------------------------------
Jeem talked about hanging out with other musicians and having jams that go on late into the night. The ability to play an instrument and jam with others is an absolute gift. It's too late now for my kids, but I'll try to make sure my grandchildren get hold of instruments at an early age and learn to play them.
Imagine a world in which every home, and every market and square in every village, town and city was enlivened by live music. How great would that be? Instead we buy our kids TVs, DVDs, Playstations and Wiis. These things have their place, but their very ease of use takes up time and opportunity that could be put to much better use.
The only public singing that takes place spontaneously in Britain is when drunk people and/or sports spectators lose their inhibitions and let rip with cacophonies worse than frustrated cats and dogs.
----------------------------------
This was the first time in ages I've been in Spain during the summer months, and the first time I've paid some attention to the way the Spanish people use the beaches as places to gather at weekends and after work.
I guess it's similar to the other places around the world that enjoy 'Mediterranean' types of climate – places like Australia, California and Brazil, where descendants of the original colonists get together by the sea and hang out in the same fashion as their European forebears have done for centuries – informally and joyfully soaking up the power of the sun in beautiful places where whole communities can meet and mingle.
Last week, down at the little bay, there were still more than 30 cars parked each evening till just before sundown, with at least 60 – 80 people scattered along the shoreline enjoying the sun, the sea and one another. Some had barbeques and little fires, with fish and meat grilling on little sticks pushed in the ground. Others would head off to eat in bars, cafes and homes. There's a deep simplicity, enjoyment and relaxation in such a social lifestyle. Being able to sit on beaches and terraces in the open air and to eat and drink every day al fresco has such huge benefits.
Back in London, these days, smokers in particular like to sit at tables in the streets. But let's be honest – what is point? In coats. Near traffic. Polluted. Noisy. Sucking poison into lungs.
.
Trying to get your head around what's happening in the world when you've just spent two weeks off the planet is a bit like trying to open a memory-intensive word processor on your computer when you only have 5 megabytes of RAM available. There's just too much information needing to be uploaded, assimilated and processed, with far too little processing power on tap.
It's very tempting to just switch off, close the curtains and stay ignorant.
What's happening in politics on these sad little islands was pretty well summed up by Marina Hyde in her usual excellent column in the Guardian on Saturday:
A new politics? Let's revert to a state of nihilistic despair
Do you remember "A new politics"? It was that turn-of-last-month movement for restoring faith in the way in which we are governed. It sort of coincided with the vague tetchiness that capitalists had just blown up capitalism and the plebs were expected to foot the bill.
Once upon a time – June, basically – a series of scandals made it voguish to go around saying that not only ought the public to be exempted from funding lavish accommodation for MPs' ducks, but that the whole rotten system needed reform. Even some members of parliament themselves were saying it. Honestly, they really were.
She goes on to describe a typical debate in parliament:
You need hardly be told that the debate played out to a typically underpopulated chamber, or that government engagement tended toward the half-hearted. Indeed, one had the overwhelming sense that the home secretary really just couldn't be done with the hassle, and anyway the argument was way over his head. "I accept that I am not a lawyer," Alan Johnson declared blithely. "I am a hack politician. I go by the advice I get."
This man is home secretary. It's all very well for call-centre operatives and Little Britain characters to drone "Computer says no" at the public, but when you hold one of the great offices of state, and are in charge of an annual budget of £10bn, it does make you look a bit of a spanner. Can you imagine Roy Jenkins addressing the house during the debate on capital punishment with the words: "Don't look at me, luv, I just work here"?
Wednesday's "debate" . . . seemed to crystallise so much of what repulses the electorate about their representatives. The secretary of state . . . seemed to wear staggering incompetence as a badge of honour.
This pretty much sums up what I've come to understand about how our governance works – politicians (i.e. 'our' representatives) at both local authority level and nationally have no wit, no imagination, no wisdom, no experience of real life, no guiding philosophy or ideology, no level of enlightenment whatsoever. All they do is put their signatures on documents drafted by bureaucrats who have no wit, no imagination, no wisdom, etc, etc.
Marina then quotes from a letter written by the appalling Denis MacShane MP (nee Denis Matyjaszek):
“The Commons will survive this scandal as it survived earlier scandals ... The great historian Macaulay wrote that there was nothing 'so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality'. The British public is in one of its fits of morality right now but this will pass."
Do excuse our ridiculousness, Denis. We are now back in our state of nihilistic despair, and you will find that rather less of a caprice.
--------------------------------------------
I suppose we have to give honest broker Alan Johnson at least a little credit for his admission that he's just a hack politician who has no particular expertise or even any critical faculties - who just does what he's told by his 'experts'.
Read here what Wikipedia has to say about 'MacShane', his record as a parliamentarian, and his expenses claims:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_MacShane
This ridiculous shithead wrote a column in the Guardian last Thursday in which he actually advocated Tony Blair as the first 'president' of the European Union. It's like he's living in a parallel universe, let alone on another planet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/16/tony-blair-eu-president
A realistic assessment of Blair's suitability for the post is given in a column by John Palmer:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/15/tony-blair-european-president-labour
---------------------------------
Since returning to base I've been catching up with some spiritually refreshing music, and thanks to Spotify have been listening to the entire output of the divine Webb Sisters. Out of curiosity I also tried “Webb Sisters Radio”on last.fm, which is a curious Internet vehicle for listening to music. This is an outfit that started life in Shoreditch, whose aim seems to be to feed you music that's supposedly similar to the artists you actually enjoy. All I can say is that the solo female singers they send to your computer – supposedly lyrical, melodic, original, etc; supposedly similar to the Webb Sisters – just highlight the sheer brilliance of the Webb Sisters themselves, whose work is outstanding in every way: vocally, lyrically and musically.
---------------------------------
Last week I met a guy called Jeem who plays the piano accordion. He's tall and thin, has long hair and a crazy kind of Dali moustache.
He was playing in a little square outside a cafe called El Tilo, in a village called Capileira, up in the Alpujarra mountains, which lie next to the Sierra Nevadas.
He was playing some Spanish tunes, and I sat down and started to video him. He then switched to playing a great arrangement of “Season of the Witch”, which he also sang. Sitting on the terrace of Bar El Tilo (the lime tree) we were treated to a range of different styles and tunes, including some 12 bar blues.
At the end of his ‘set’ the people in the cafe gave Jeem a good round of applause. He then came round with a hat and collected cash from the customers.
It turned out he’s from Arizona, having been brought up initially in Chicago. He decided to leave the US 17 years ago, feeling disgusted at the turn to the Right the country had made under Reagan and Bush The First.
He now spends his time travelling by bus between places in the mountains and places on the coast, playing in squares and markets and streets, spreading the happiness.
He said he’d loved Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’ from the first time he’d heard it, way back in the sixties. I said his version sounded a lot like the one recorded by Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, which he’d apparently never heard.
(Type “Season of the Witch” into the search box on Spotify and you can hear about 10 different versions. I still love Brian Auger's Hammond instrumental.)
He said he’d started playing the accordion when he was 6 years old, though it seems unlikely he could even have picked up a full-sized piano accordion at that age.
Jeem’s the kind of guy who really appeals to me – laid back, laconic, talented, humorous, thoughtful and idealistic. It feels good to be around people like that, as they go around raising spirits.
------------------------------------
We bumped into him again later that day, sitting on a bench, his accordion in its case beside him, plus his folded stool. He chatted some more about his musical influences, and how he intends to learn to play in the classical French accordion style of Bal Musette. I’d have liked to have chatted more, and listened some more, but the hour was getting late.
------------------------------
The Alpajarras are definitely my kind of mountains – high, but not too high; lush and warm and accessible. The kind of mountains with well-established paths that enable you to walk up to the tops and the ridges, and not have to scramble or rock-climb.
It would be good to go back there next year, rent a room somewhere, and spend several days, maybe even a month, exploring the region on foot. I'd also like to get back to Granada and the Alhambra, and get to know those places better. Learning some Spanish would be a good idea as well.
---------------------------------
Jeem talked about hanging out with other musicians and having jams that go on late into the night. The ability to play an instrument and jam with others is an absolute gift. It's too late now for my kids, but I'll try to make sure my grandchildren get hold of instruments at an early age and learn to play them.
Imagine a world in which every home, and every market and square in every village, town and city was enlivened by live music. How great would that be? Instead we buy our kids TVs, DVDs, Playstations and Wiis. These things have their place, but their very ease of use takes up time and opportunity that could be put to much better use.
The only public singing that takes place spontaneously in Britain is when drunk people and/or sports spectators lose their inhibitions and let rip with cacophonies worse than frustrated cats and dogs.
----------------------------------
This was the first time in ages I've been in Spain during the summer months, and the first time I've paid some attention to the way the Spanish people use the beaches as places to gather at weekends and after work.
I guess it's similar to the other places around the world that enjoy 'Mediterranean' types of climate – places like Australia, California and Brazil, where descendants of the original colonists get together by the sea and hang out in the same fashion as their European forebears have done for centuries – informally and joyfully soaking up the power of the sun in beautiful places where whole communities can meet and mingle.
Last week, down at the little bay, there were still more than 30 cars parked each evening till just before sundown, with at least 60 – 80 people scattered along the shoreline enjoying the sun, the sea and one another. Some had barbeques and little fires, with fish and meat grilling on little sticks pushed in the ground. Others would head off to eat in bars, cafes and homes. There's a deep simplicity, enjoyment and relaxation in such a social lifestyle. Being able to sit on beaches and terraces in the open air and to eat and drink every day al fresco has such huge benefits.
Back in London, these days, smokers in particular like to sit at tables in the streets. But let's be honest – what is point? In coats. Near traffic. Polluted. Noisy. Sucking poison into lungs.
.
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