Pig Sty Avenue

The M-Audio KeyRig's own software has never worked properly.  I don't know how many times I've un/installed it.  The biggest bug - probably quite easily solved if I got in touch with them - is that it takes me to a pages with an error message when I try to register it.  Maybe it won't run properly until it's registered, but at the moment it only loads organ sounds.  It generally feels and looks forbidding and unfriendly.  I've spent a bit of time with it, but today it felt like it wasn't repaying the effort. So I loaded the Ableton Live   (version 6.0 something) software that came with it.  When you register that, it gives you the chance to upgrade it to version 8.0 something, so I did that.  600-odd MB, so it took a while to download.  I took a long, long time to install, too.  It sits alongside the smaller version, not over the top, so it's using a lot of space; (I suspect it's using a lot of memory resources when it's running...

That tune is Hava Nagila.  With many thanks to Howard Lee Custard .

Anybody know the name of this tune?  Composer?  It's my constant companion.

This song was going around in my head all day yesterday, and when I went to Blip it, I found this.  There are similar videos for two hundred-odd jazz standards.  Mind you, personally I'm stuck on my first real two handed tune.  I don't know what it's called, even though it's a tune I knew well.  And getting to know better all the time.  I'm at the stage where I can play it through note-perfect, but at about half the right tempo, with some significant pauses.  I'm learning a lot from it about fingering (fnaar, fnaar), and the way my two hands relate to each other.

This is a note-to-self: we've pencilled this in .

I'd calculated 1500 hours to make me a good-enough piano player.  So I was interested to hear about this .  10,000 hours works out at six hours a day over five years.   It makes sense.  That's probably what Lennon and McCartney had from getting started with pianos and guitars in adolescence to writing I Wanna Hold Your Hand  at 23 or 24. And I suppose wee Mozart was putting in numerous hours per day at the keyboard whilst his pals were playing with toy soldiers.  There's the story I heard about Hendrix, too, that he just practised at the guitar non-stop - he'd go out in the evening to the cinema wearing his guitar.  Of course, I don't expect to have the ability of Mozart or The Beatles or Hendrix.   And I don't have 10,000 hours at my disposal any more, (at an hour a day, that would take me to 80 years of age, which would mean I'd have difficulty qualifying for Young Musician of the Year).  However, the view that ability takes only practice...

Which isn't so bad as it sounds, is it?  Compared to Man Utd and Liverpool, we're quids in.  Debt free in a few years, bringing up our own young players.  Where's the catch?  There must be a catch, this is Newcastle United.

The theory can be absorbed quite easily and quickly.  Putting what one's learned into practice at the keyboard is much slower.  Actually, that's the really interesting part.  It's not unlike language learning in many ways, inasmuch as it will take as long as it takes: either you play the wee piece with all the right notes at the right tempo, or you don't.  No amount of timetabling or box-ticking or money or bullshit can make an iota of difference.  No one else but you can do it.

There was water springing up in the middle of my allotment.  I've dug good deep ditches.  The next job is to get it all dug over, and collect up the stones, (of which there are a lot).  It's been described as "hungry" soil, so it needs a lot of help.  I'm going to divvy it up into four sub plots, and I'll put lime on two and shit on the other two.   And I'm planting a general mix of green manures to give it organic bulk and nitrogen.

On 4 May 2010 13:45, Paul Mullen   wrote: Hi Garry, The left hand of the piece of music titled 'Topic 11, Page 06, Exercise 1' follows the pattern: low-C, G, low-B, G, low-C. If you are playing an E, the Wait For Note method should not let you continue. Let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Paul Mullen Adventus Garry Nixon   to  Paul show details   06:55 (1 minute ago) Hi Paul, Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.   It works fine, and the Wait For Note lets me continue, with that sequence of notes, but those notes aren't shown in the same way on the bass staff - there's a an empty space after that first low-C.  And again, throughout the piece.  It works (and sounds right) by playing the previous note on the bass staff a second time in the space, but it still feels - visually - as if something's missing. Cheers, Garry

"Hello there, "I've found a small but annoying glitch in this software which I purchased online a few weeks ago. "In the Theory Thinker, when it goes onto the Piano Player for practice, on Topic 11, Page 06, Exercise 1, when I'm in the wait-for-note mode, it's not registering that I've struck the E key, that's the second one on the G staff. I can't then get any help for it, because it's kind of stuck on that. It's fine when I play that part in right hand only mode. "Please help me. I've been very pleased with this software up to now, but this is a serious problem. This is the first exercise for two hands, and I need all the help with it that I can get. Thank you."

New strings are en route.  I've come to the conclusion that it simply cannot be tuned with the cheap strings that come with it.

Lee Ryder in the Chronicle summing up the season . And Krul did have a good game, after all.

This is Boy's latest thing.  It's the dog's.  Move the furniture out of the road, turn up the volume, and get on down . [thanks to the other Alex , for telling me about divshare]

This is a strange place to be for a Newcastle supporter, chasing esoteric things like number of points, whilst the actual achievement is already in the bag.  Meanwhile, Hughton continues to keep a level head for next season . This afternoon, apparently, Tim Krul gets an outing.  I hope the lad does well.  This is what we need now, a bloody good second team up our black and white shirtsleeves. Speaking of which, this close season, I'm going to put aside anti-capitalism long enough to buy the new shirt.

Thanks to M. Le Guff  for pointing me in the direction of chordie.com . And just check this ou t.   Martha , on a ukulele?  I should fucking cocoa!