Well,
it’s gone 3pm on Christmas Eve and I’m still working on my thesis. Ho hum. Nearly finished now though. But, I think I’m about to run out of steam and will leave a few ends bits for next week.
Happy Christmas.
Christmas Eve – still working on my thesis
December 24, 2009
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Early December
December 5, 2009Hello avid followers. Hmmm. I wonder if anybody still reads this blog! Who knows.
Anyway, a certain amount of good news:
The thesis is nearly finished. And I have my RA job almost sorted out for next year. The ‘cello playing is going from strength to strength, although I miss playing bass now. Oh well. Will be playing live on my cello, for the first time in nearly a decade this weekend! Somewhat nervous, as I know I’ll be hitting some horrible out of tune notes. But, hey, mistakes are milestones along the path of progress.
I’m also slowly building up some enthusiasm for playing the warr guitar some more. I’ve been listening to some old tracks I recorded, and am thinking I’d like to do some more in the near year.
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Time Flies…
November 5, 2009First off, Time Flies, and the rest of Porcupine Tree’s new album, the Incident, is fantastic.
Secondly, yeah, time flies. Been a while since I blogged. Not had much to say! On the one hand, Cantor imploded, which is bad. Decided I was fed up with bass guitar, and warr guitar for that matter, and packed them away under the bed. I have this niggling feeling that the Warr guitar isn’t worth the practise. It is a somewhat confused and odd instrument (same goes for the Chapman Stick of course). Sure, you can do some truly epic basslines, but hmmm.
One the other hand, my “I’m fed up of playing music” mood only lasted a day, and then I decided to try and relearn the ‘cello again. Which is proving to be a fantastic idea! Such a nice change from bass guitar. I’m getting a few lessons, and having great fun trying to play Bach’s cello suites. And scarily, I’ve now been given some grade 7 pieces to learn. The only grade i ever passed at school was the first one! Time to get practising playing in treble clef I guess. Although, before that, i have to get the hang of playing the instrument…. my hands keep cramping up while playing at the moment.
And in more important news: PhD is going well. Hopefully be finished soon 
In less important news: Ali’s still showing zero interest so I’ve been having a go at playing with somebody else. Hopefully it won’t end as disastrously as the project with Eddie.
Oh, and I was lucky enough to see James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards again. Only a three piece this time around but they still rocked
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Reality Check
August 24, 2009Well, we had a jam last night.
The good: Doug. Doug was good. All doubts about Doug have gone away. Obviously he just needed told to go practise a few times.
The better: Adam, the drummer we were jamming out. Best drummer I’ve played in for years. Was a lot of fun.
The bad: we’re not good enough for Adam, so we’ll have to continue our search for a drummer. Matt and I are both very out of practise playing with a drummer and are too used to playing off each other.
Oh well. Never know, maybe the guy will see some potential and jam with us a few times. But its unlikely, esp as he has a guitarist friend along too, and we have no use for a third guitarist.
We will keep on looking.
Now…. time to work on the thesis….
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I need to practise more
August 19, 2009A good little Cantor jam at Banana Row last night. Well, Matt and I have our usual fun and Doug was Doug. I find it hard to work out what’s going in his head. He seems to alternate between coming up with something magical on gutair, and just being a bit useless. A very different guitarist from Matt, and I think the band will benefit from having both of them We also had our new singer (hopefully) along, and that went pretty well. Hoping she thought the same, and then we have an offical 4th member. Then we just need a drummer to finish things off. In the meantime, we always have my DS with the Korg DS10 
Oh, and we’re coving some King Crimson tunes, so I’m a happy bunny.
On the downside, I really need to start practising properly. Lots. So, am going to aim for an hour a day and see how i get on with that. I have a LOT to do.
Keep working on warr basics, and get faster at playing repeating notes. This’ll tighten up ToaPP.
Get properly really good at playing the little chord progression I came up with for my warr. As it would make a nice little tune. Unfortunatly I wrote some akward changes into it and have to get more accurate with my pinky! And avoid unintentional string bends when I do a large position shift.
Get back into the swing of things with my fretless bass playing (bass playing full stop really). Since I’ve not played with Ali K for months, my bass playing is pretty rusty. Far too many fluffled notes.
Learn how to use a plectrum
Make funk fingers and learn Sleepless as Matt really wants to play it.
Oh, and I have a PhD thesis to write…..
Hohum.
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A Blog for August
August 13, 2009So, what’s been happening? Hmm. PhD has been progressing: 91 pages done. Going to start re-writing my stochastic search paper so I can resubmit it, it’ll hopefully get sent to more favourable reviewers. And I’ll maybe put some sentences in bold.
Music: Cantor is going in an odd direction. Fun though. Despite still not having a drummer or singer. We have one of each to try out though, so fingers crossed
Hoping Ali finishes his phd soon and decides he’d like to play some more duo stuff as I miss playing around on the fretless with him.
Had an ok birthday. Am 27 now. That’s only just still mid-twenties. Am getting old.
A simple track outline
July 22, 2009Hello,
long time no see and all that jazz. We’ll, I’ve been busy making a start on my thesis (83 pages and counting!). But, despite losing our drummer-to-be, and having some worries about Doug (Doug, if you’re reading this, we’re happy to have you, but we ain’t going to chase you up and jamming and practising, etc. but do get in touch if you want to!), Matt and I have continued to write material for our “band.” The latest track we’ve been working on has turned out to be really really simple. Who’d of though eh. I quite like it though, especially the way the 12/8 bass groove changes (while staying the same) when the 4/4 drums kick in. No doubt it will be a lot of fun to jam with a real drummer and I can imagine us fleshing it out with lots of nice details when we start jamming it. But for the time being, it’s our simplest and shortest track to date
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Make: Online : Make a mellotron out of walkmans – Weekend Projects Podcast
July 4, 2009This is very very cool. I’m adding it to my long long long list of things I hope to do one day!
Make: Online : Make a mellotron out of walkmans – Weekend Projects Podcast
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3rd Year Report – Workplan
June 23, 2009| 22nd June | Write 3rd year report |
| 23rd June | Work on thesis |
| Sometime around late October | Finish draft |
| By the end of the year, hopefully | Submit. |
| 1st week of December | Receive final grant payment |
| 20th December AM | Realise that I have no money to buy Christmas presents with |
| 20th December PM | Go to pub to cheer myself up |
| 21st December | Stay in bed with hangover |
| 22nd December | Make Christmas presents for friends and family out of empty cereal boxes |
| 23rd December | Visit parents |
| 24th-26th | Eat and drink as much as possible at parents’ |
| 27th December | Start worrying about not having any money. |
| Early 2010 | Go to jobcentre and sign on  |
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