Learning to Love you More

Assignments for anyone who is a little bit sad or a little bit happy. My favorites:

Staying awake

or
Crying art


or
friend's friends


or
Trying to be sad

Try it.

Ever so long awaited

Hey, Everyone! The Cedar's newest, best ever, full-length album is, finally, now, officially:

Available!

Hurrah! From CDbaby or gigs or me or itunes (but I don't recommend itunes because then you don't get the lovely hand-made-out-of-William-Morris-Wallpaper-and-twine case, or all the free gifts that go inside it.)

Free gifts?!

Free gifts!

Oh, and music too.

Extreme viola

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely, 100% love, love, love what I do with the Cedar and the Stringbeans etc. But sometimes, I need to live a bit dangerously to get the viola-adrenaline flowing. Sometimes I play with the Mandibles.

This is dangerous because I don't do it often. Not often enough to actually know the set list, which is constantly growing and changing. Just every now and then the oppurtunity presents itself and I get to go pretend I know what's going on onstage in front of audiences. Including taking solos on tunes I've never heard before. Brilliant! That's my kind of adventure sport.

For those interested, the on-stage process I go through goes as follows:

-Find the tonic (that is to say, what key the piece is in)

-Figure out the harmonic structure (does it just go I-V-I? What's up with the minor section in the middle? etc.)

-Figure out the bass-line

-Watch out for the look from one of the others that means Go! Emma! Make up a solo now!

-Smile.