departures and arrivals

Ok, so this seems to have developed into a blog about my band. Not that its my only social outlet or anything! no really, I, um, did some gardening the other day and, er, bumped into a bunch of people at the market last week... No, I'm not convincing myself either!
Anyway, my band... We've had a spot of bother recently, for reasons I shall merely put down to "musical differences" we have spent the last couple of weeks without a bass player. It now, hopefully has resolved itself and we'll be back on course soon, with just over a month before our next gig. Plenty of time!! But an interesting upshot of having a bit of practise time on our hands is that me and the splendid Tone D. Lowerer have finally got it together with a few tunes of his Udu drum and my vocals. It has proved a stomach churning experience.
I'm not generally a one for stage fright, but this is the scariest thing I've (almost) done in a very long time. I say almost, as we were booked to do a slot in the Living Room music night at the Cwps, but unfortunately Steph, who runs it, was taken ill and it was cancelled. But we had a bash at it yesterday in the barn where we practise. It wasn't in front of many people, but I've just heard the recording of it, and I sound really nervous, so maybe it's a good thing we didn't play the Cwps the other day, in front of lots of people! I don't really get what makes me so nervous, but as someone pointed out a few days ago that it is scary, but healthy, to push yourself away from your comfort zone sometimes. So I will try again, and hopefully feel a little bit less nervous next time!
Oh, and I was really impressed with the sounds in the barn yesterday, the good doctor, who owns the barn, was testing his new PA out, whilst we obligingly made a racket. It was a real treat having someone there tweaking knobs and leaving us to focus on making music.

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Pandoras box

I bought a very sexy thing the other day. A multi-effects box for vocalists. Wow! I can not only be a cyborg, wizard, alien or monster, but I'm learning how to programme it to do vaguely sensible stuff as well!
I have completely neglected my family and chores since I've got this thing. In fact, apparently, (according to the man who sleeps beside me) I was making sound effects noises in my sleep the other night. I didn't really understand that, but I have been working on a spooky breathing effect that makes me sound like a hyperventilating old witch, so I don't really want to probe any further as to what he meant.
But they are great, better than telly (not difficult). It's going to properly complicate my music making though, it's hard enough remembering whether I'm supposed to be singing or playing the melodica at any given time, let alone pressing the right button and avoiding some of the sillier sound effects whilst on stage! But I shall use it, dammit! It is my shiny new toy, and the icing on the cake is that it is sparkly and purple! I have yet to practise with it with actual other people - this might be a sobering experience as I'm sure, like most things, it's going to sound best in my own head, and not neccesarily the ears of others!

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