NodeBeat and Clarinet
The second challenge for ‘10 Weeks : 10 Sounds‘ is a little more complex than the first and resulted in three long pieces in a fairly laid-back smoky jazz-club sort of style. NodeBeat is a graphical sequencer for the iPad…
DM1 and Walnut Flute
Here we go with the first of ten little musical challenges over the next ten weeks, which will help me familiarise myself with some of the more obscure and under-used instruments and musical software in my collection. I picked up…
10 Weeks – 10 Sounds: A Challenge
I have been gathering quirky little instruments and musical odds and ends for quite some time and, whilst many of these have made their way into my songs, there are still some that remain stubbornly under-used. We were discussing this…
Pushing Forty
For the final weekend of NaNoWriMo I’m pleased to have hit the 40,000 word mark – a milestone worthy of comment, I think. That leaves only 10,000 words to hit the NaNo goal, but I think, from progress so far,…
NaNo Halfway
The halfway mark for NaNoWriMo has passed and I am pleased to say that I have managed to stay on target. The little chart here shows a couple of yellow and orange days, which are those where the daily target…
Peter Hammill at Porgy & Bess, Vienna
Last night Peter Hammill visited Vienna to play a solo set at the jazz club ‘Porgy and Bess’. I last saw him in Glasgow, at the Oran Mor, which was a fantastic gig and a hard act to follow, since…
NaNoWriMo 2012
It’s that time of the year again and, after sitting out last year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I’m giving it another shot in 2012. This time I have set myself the goal of writing another 50,000 words to Some…
Thick as a Brick, in Budapest
I can hardly believe it is 17 years since I last saw Jethro Tull, on the “Roots to Branches” tour (in Glasgow). I recall being a little underwhelmed at the time, having the feeling that the fun had gone out…
Pi Time
After a suitably long wait, I received my much-anticipated Raspberry Pi about a week ago. It’s a tiny single-board computer that runs from SD card and costs the princely sum of $35, yet is capable of running HD video and…
The Avengers Song
Well, technically the Avengers and JLA song, but since the Marvel team are flavour of the moment… A couple of years ago I wrote a song for SpinTunes #1 about a superhero getting into a huff because neither the Avengers…
