renaissance man
I knew it! Or, rather, it’s what I wanted to believe. And, in all honesty, this study seems so small as to be of questionable scientific merit. But it’s in line with my confirmation bias, so I’m running with it!
Anyway, I doubt anything would stop Teresa and I chatting in our baby-ish ways with our cats. We did it with Tigger, now we’re doing it with Chester. It’s natural! We love it. And, so it seems, so does he.
Excellent!
I’m typing this at roughly 2.45 a.m. I think I’ve dozed for about 30 minutes, perhaps? Other than that, I’ve been wide awake all night.
In some ways I don’t mind. What I mean by that is that I’m not in a highly agitated state. But as I know that there will be ‘payback’, there is a dull and muted sense of dread.
And, ironically, my worst nights are often those that precede my most demanding days. So it’s Tuesday night, and I need to be sleeping properly, as Wednesdays are my busiest teaching day.
I feel relatively okay right now. Like I ought to feel during the middle of an active day. But how am I going to feel midway through teaching?
Teresa, meanwhile, sleeps like a champ. Just as she always does. She’s a gold medalist ninja snoozer, whilst I’m an F-grade dunce, sleep wise!
It’s all particularly galling, in a way, as I’ve only recently read Walker’s excellent Why We Sleep, so I’m particularly aware of the need to sleep properly. Hey ho! It is what it is…
An interaction with family today has made me reflect on the incredible depths of penetration that politics really has. And how the establishment so totally owns and runs and controls the ‘status quo’.
The dominant narrative in the UK right now is that we’re all united in grief over the death of Queen Elizabeth II. And any dissent from this position is automatically negative and therefore despicable. This position silences debate, playing very powerfully into the interests of retrograde Conservatism.
And the ‘shut up and don’t complain’ card is very powerful. So I’m very happy to see and respectful of those few brave souls taking a principled stand against the ongoing propaganda and lies that swaddle our monarchy.
From Labour MP Clive Lewis to barrister Paul Powlesland, and the guy caught on film pointing out to Charles the costs to ordinary people of the monarchy, it’s refreshing to find that some people are not being hypnotised by all the pageantry.
Powlesland said “One of the many things that makes me proud to be British is our freedom of speech. It’s one of our most precious and sacred rights and it’s far more precious to me than the royal family is.” Amen to that! And, as he experienced, when making a very mild protest in London, these freedoms are being systematically attacked by our current Tory (mis)government.
And in the UK today amongst some of the most powerful groups serving and enabling Tory repression are those very large swathes of people who are doing alright. The ‘I’m alright Jack, don’t rock the boat, with your carping negativity’ crowd are helping silence dissent, or alternative views/possibilities.
And, lest we forget, we wouldn’t have things like weekends, holidays, sick pay, the eight hour day or 40 hour week, etc, if it wasn’t for the dissenting voices. Or even the NHS, which is really and fundamentally a response to the massive blood sacrifices made by the working masses in two world wars. If we’re required to make such sacrifices for the state/nation, shouldn’t that state/nation look after us? Damn right it should!
I like history, including the colourful Napoleonic wars, with the ridiculous peacock finery of uniforms that were often destined to be torn into bloody pieces, along with the ‘soft machines’ wearing them, by shot and shell. I love cathedrals, but I loathe religion. I can see the appeal of the pageantry. But I also see the oppressive institutionalisation of inequality such mummery represents.
It’d all be fine if nothing meant anything – a position that appears to have escaped the genie’s bottle of left-wing ‘postmodern’ academia and infected the entire organism of modern culture with a very pernicious form of relativism – but alas, stuff does mean something. And in this case it means ‘shut up, know your place, and march in step with us, backwards towards a fantasy feudal past’.
No thanks!
I’m inevitably going to see some of today’s tomfoolery. Teresa likes that sort of thing. I can hear she’s watching it now. So I’ll get sucked in as well. Hey ho!
As I’m typing this the soporific harmonies of High Anglican service waft up the stairs. It seems as if, thinking back to the ECW – what Royalist history calls ‘The Interregnum’ – with the Stuart Restoration, and then later the Glorious Revolution, England, or what became the UK, awoke momentarily from the stupefied slumber of monarchy, only to lapse back into a deep sleep. A sad state of affairs that continues to this day. Wake up!
* Gillray was a brilliant satirical political cartoonist. But his fabulous talents were deployed by the oppressor, to maintain a conservative status quo. Nowadays Gillray’s job is accomplished via the predominantly right wing media, be it print, TV, or online. At least Gillray left us something we can still admire and enjoy! The tawdry disposable ephemera of our own times barely exists beyond the few minutes or hours it’s required to do it’s job.
ADDENDUM
Ever since hearing the news of the Queen’s passing, I’ve been thinking, who else died that day? How many took their own lives, amidst poverty and despair? How many of those who died, anonymous unlamented (relative to the Queen that is), might have lived longer and better lives – richer lives, even if not in the fiscal sense – if our society was less wealth and power crazed, venal and uncaring?
Well… what the absolute feck was that!? Just heard a very long supersonic jet or rocket type rumble in the skies overhead. And it’s coming back…
The main episode seemed to go on for ages, maybe five, or even 10-15 minutes. Oddly and disconcertingly long. Not just a simple fighter jet flyover type deal. And it seemed to get closer, move away, get closer, move away, return… it was really quite alarming!
It sounded like what I imagine an incoming nuclear missile might sound like, or a huge jumbo jet, heading for an unscheduled crash landing!
It was so scary I got dressed – I was still in bed – and went outside, with a mind to try and film a bit. But my iPhone memory was full, so I wasn’t able to do so… dammit! I noticed our neighbour was also outside, looking worriedly skywards.
I googled ‘just now roaring in the skies overhead march cambs’, and a gov.uk/MOD low-flying complaints website came up, top of the search results.
There was a tel. number, which I rang, only to be told ‘nobody home, please email’! So I emailed. And I await a reply. This isn’t the first time this has happened recently. But it was the loudest, longest, and most discombobulating!
It’s the sort of evil apocalyptic sound that I imagine would precede nuclear annihilation. And it makes one think, would that be it!? No warning!? A terrible ‘tearing the heavens in twain’ roaring, and then either evaporation type obliteration, or poss’ much worse? Very scary!
UPDATE: I got a reply to my email…
Thank you for your e mail regarding aircraft noise on 8 September 2022 in the March area.
I have checked our records for the date and time you quoted, however, this does not indicate any military jets operating at low level in the area. The disturbance on this occasion may be attributable to military aircraft operating at medium or high level, which for fast jets can range between 2,000 to 30,000+ feet Above Ground Level.
I can advise that some military aircraft activity does take place over the sea, but weather conditions are not always suitable and due to its flat and featureless nature the sea does not always provide the realistic environment necessary for aircrew essential training needs.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) takes its responsibility to the public very seriously indeed and would prefer not to cause any disturbance to those on the ground. Unfortunately, there are no uninhabited areas of the UK large enough to cater for essential training needs. I hope you will understand that the MoD would be failing in its duty if it did not ensure that aircrew were fully competent in a wide range of flying skills and tactics before they deployed on operations.
I apologise for any concern caused on this occasion.
Regards, Sarah Hodgkinson
Low Flying Complaints & Enquiries Unit, SWK-lowflying@mod.gov.uk
Well… that was a typical government response: opaque and ultimately more confusing than illuminating!
Whilst looking for images for this post I found this, an article on sound used as a weapon, in which the author of the article, (?), says, of fighter jets flying overhead, “their unnatural volume and the coarse noise of their engines triggered a palpable and overpowering sense of unease and distress.” Too damn right!
And then I found this, a more local/recent piece, in which they discuss exactly what I was thinking about:
“The sight and sound of heavy bombers and fighter jets in the skies above the UK have taken on an extra resonance following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Urkaine. Military training flights regularly take place but conflicts and tensions mean more attention than normal is being taken of these RAF and USAF missions.
Across the country, people have been reporting planes such as B52 bombers and F-35B and F-16 fighter jets. Bases being used include RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk and RAF Marham in Norfolk.”
And since first posting this, I’ve heard similar sounds on numerous occasions. Although as yet none quite as long, loud, and frankly terrifying, as those that prompted this post. Strange and scary times
The plan for today is extremely modest; lazy morning, late lunch, a trip to Huntingdon to look at antiques and walk by the river, maybe sit and read. And poss’ a movie back home with dinner, to finish.
We had booked a small cottage via AirB&B. But, for the first time ever, we had to cancel. Times are tight! And, by the looks of things, likely to get worse. We would only have bee. Just outside Norwich. So not far! But instead we’ll be home.
We’ll try and make it feel like a holiday with little day trips. Like the one we’re about to leave on now… Just finishing a moules marinierre and pancake lunch, and then orff we go!
Oh, and a literal footnote; yesterday some Brazilian flip-flops arrived. No doubt just in time for the change from summer to autumn!
Later we went for a walk along the river in Huntingdon. The sun came out here and there, and we had a picnic type snack, and sat and read in the car!
My FODMAP diet is suffering from our total lack of any money. I can’t be buying expensive sourdough loaves, and non-dairy alternatives to milk (Oatly is prob’ my favourite, thus far), when the bank is bereft.
As a consequence, my diet has gotten rather patchy. I’m still avoiding wheat stuff and milk as much as poss. But I am having it with cereal at breakfast most days. Ironically it was seeking to wean myself off that routine that was where FODMAP started for me!
Anyroad, my lunch today – ‘free from’ macaroni, with two fried eggs, omelette style, grated cheese, ‘free from’ pesto, sat’n’pepper – has prompted this post. The pesto at least has a little flavour. Sure,8ts shite compared to the real McCoy. But the macaroni? What that’s free from is texture flavours, or any ability to promote joie de vivre.
It’s the food equivalent of sackcloth and ashes. Why? Surely those of us seeking alternatives to the things that upset our digestion still want food to fulfil that fundamental role, not just fueling our bodies, but bringing us pleasure!
This macaroni, as utterly bland as it is, is at least not totally revolting. Several free-from pastas I’ve tried were, frankly, inedible. Inedible food? Deliberately manufactured as a ‘healthy alternative’!!! That’s got to rank as one of modern humanity’s greatest follies!?
Just stepped outside the front door. Inside I’m sweating buckets. It’s unbearably close and hooomid! Chester is still AWOL. I’ve been out looking and calling for him. When I stepped out front just now, the weather looks and feels like it’s changing. Rain was forecast for today. But has slipped over to tomorrow. At least on my iPhone weather app.
Got the fan on full, and I’m more or less naked! My naturist side is very much in the ascendant these days. Leastways within the four walls that are our home. It’s because I’m always sooo g’damn hot! I associate this with my current meds…
It’s 4.42am whenI start typing this. Just awakened from crazy kaleidoscopic maelstrom of dreams! Votz it all abite, Ulfric!?
Some of the dream stuff is simple and clear: wanting family – parents specifically – to come to one’s aid in difficult times. But the ‘nuclear family’ as it once was went up in a toxic mushroom cloud decades ago. And the radioactive fallout is still blighting life!
Anyway, now that conscious modes have shifted, it’s a quick trip doon the wooden hill, and across the plane of Liv Ingroom, to pee, and to wonder where Chester, our cat is. Hope he’s ok?
After weeks of drought and many days of crazy heatwave, the weather app – and various intrusive newsfeeds – are warning of heavy rain, thunder, and poss’ flash floods. With the ground baked solid, rain water might just run off… crazy times!
I wonder if, re the precipitation, would it be wise, and a potential contraceptive precaution, or solution, to take a fork to the garden?
Teresa wants us to get Chester a neck tag. And it might be wise (if that horse hasn’t already bolted?). Has he also got fleas? Found a solitary flea yesterday, in the home.
Crazy dreams earlier! Fading fast. Got the fans back on. Need them on almost constantly! It’s still soo goddamn hot, close and muggy!
This weird, weird part of the night biz’, puts me in mind to read the recently acquired Why We Sleep (or, sometimes more to the point, why we don’t sleep!). Must read!
Teresa’s back to work today. And she’s going to have to travel by bus, as she can’t afford the train indeed, despite me being stony broke, I’ve had to loan her money for travel (a normal monthly occurrence!). That means more time on pubic transport.
We really ought to nationalise so much of our infrastructure; transport, utilities. Capitalism just ain’t working! Except for the billionaires.
Teresa’s doing like I did… off for a middle of the night pee! She just got back into bed, and… Boom!!! Her alarm just went! It’s now 5.10 am. That’s a bit bloody early!!!
Damn right it is, Theo. As are you and your band.
This song came to mind after an exchange of messages with my good lady wife, Teresa. I realise I’m incredibly lucky to be in a long-lasting, strong, loving relationship. Love really is a beautiful thing!
The first part of today’s post is essentially a version of my old Goodreads and Amazon UK review of Stick Control, only I can update that and expand upon it here.
And because this is my own blog, I can also give more nuanced star ratings. In this instance I give Stick Control the rare and coveted six-stars, which, on my normal 0-5 ratings system, means off the chart brilliant.
Anyway, for starters, here’s the augmented Amazon review:
Jazz legend Joe Morello studied with George Lawrence Stone. That alone is recommendation enough! Morello was Stone’s star pupil. And thanks to Morello’s precocious work on Stick Control, we also have Stone’s follow-up, the snappily titled Accents and Rebounds.
I’ve been dipping into this for over two decades now. Although, to my everlasting shame, I’ve not completed it yet.* I use it in my drum teaching all the time. And I tell all my students it’s THE foundation book, ie essential.
A great tool for developing better reading, and – of course – stick control. Starting with such simple building block as singles, doubles, and groupings of three or four, per hand, the numbered exercises take you though a huge variety of combinations, leading with both right and left.
Stone says play everything 20 times. And play with a metronome at various different speeds. This is terrific conditioning practice on a pad, and fun to transfer to the snare. Of course one can then take it to the kit, and orchestrate it there in endless ways. All of this makes this book a lifetime investment. In a way, you can never truly ‘finish’ Stick Control!
Used regularly, and with the appropriate doses of discipline, this book can impart strength, stamina, speed, control of dynamics, and much much more. Definitely one of the most essential non-gear (ie not the instrument itself!) bits of kit in the drummer’s training arsenal.
* UPDATE: Since first posting this review, I am, now (summer of ‘22) making a concerted effort – not for the first time, mind you – to complete a continuous run through of the entire book. At the time of updating this, I’m about one third through the whole volume, getting heavily into the flam section!
So, that’s my Goodreads and Amazon UK review take on Stone’s classic work. In the latest update to that review I allude to what I’m calling elsewhere my Stick Control Summer Challenge. That’s going pretty well. One week into my summer hols, and I’m already just over a third of the way through the book.
This seems like a good time and place to add a few further thoughts on taking a deeper dive into this aged but illustrious tome.
For starters, having gotten further into the book than formerly – I did occasionally dip into later sections, but I’d only ever systematically done the first five or six pages previously!) – I’m encountering stuff I’ve not tried before. Some of it easy, some very challenging (for me at any rate!).
But there are also more fundamental issues, such as stick motion, and the exact ways to interpret certain notation. This is where a teacher from the Stone-Morello lineage would be very handy. I intend to explore this online, as I’m sure YouTube will provide some answers.
I won’t get into massive detail here, as this is an area for more exact exploration later/elsewhere. But taking just one aspect of the core subject, ie ‘stick control’, I’ve been practicing the material in this book sat at a practice pad, and using strokes that range from fairly full to ghost or grace note level.
And sometimes I’m leaning more towards French or German grip, but mostly I’m using American grip, somewhere in the middle. Stick height, grip, rebound, all these aspects start to come into focus more as you dive deeper into the book.
Another thing I’m finding myself fascinated by is, again, like much of what comes from studying this work, nuanced and multifaceted, and that’s how these exercises can become like meditative grooves. If one is playing 20 reps of a two bar exercise and then up to 24 or so different sticking variations of essentially the same (or very similar) rhythms, it gets quite hypnotic!
And one starts to hear the music or the groove in even these quite potentially dry exercises. And it’s fascinating how regularly locking in to a metronome pulse for 20-30 minute chunks throughout the day starts to build better time.
And if you set the metronome volume just right, there’ll be moments where you think it’s stoped, so you stop… only to hear the metronome still going. At those moments you’re achieving nigh on perfect time, as you’re covering the metronome so exactly you’re effectively masking it!
* The Guardian, rather cruelly, perhaps, used this shot of Joe for his obituary!
That opens the door on an aspect of this kind of study that I’m definitely falling in love with; the routine of regular practice is, it seems, like we’re told physical exercise is, or should be, both pleasurable and perhaps even somewhat addictive.
Now to lean into the ‘nuance’ aspect a little. I’m finding that the exact position of my hands and fingers on the sticks is coming more sharply into focus: if I find the right spot – esp’ noticeable the higher/harder and louder the strokes are – I can locate a zone where I can minimise the ‘shock waves’ that sometimes reverberate along the stick.
This must be the ‘fulcrum’, I guess? And it’s slightly higher up the sticks than I usually hold them. At least on the Vic Firth 2Bs I’m currently favouring for pad work. this actually coincides with another train of thought I’ve been having about modifying (or better yet making my own) sticks. But I’ll save that for another post.
Anyway, the ‘practice what you preach’ aspect of studying Stick Control over this summer is proving to be both pleasurable and beneficial. And the associated YouTube surfing has lad me to discover yet another meister-drummer, so I’m adding some of his stuff to my practice work-outs, such as this doozy:
‘If you want to do something better, do it more.’
Since adopting a FODMAP diet and embarking on my Stick Control Summer Challenge I’ve felt a more general urge to look into forming better life habits.
And in doing so I’ve discovered a few more YouTubers whose videos I’ve been finding helpful. There are actually quite a few. So I won’t list them all here and now.
I’ve already alluded to Rangan Chatterjee and Matt Walker (and I’ve even ordered a book by the latter, on sleep). But the one I’m talking about in this post is the ripped and fast-talking Bioneer!
His urge to parade his beefy torso is either quite funny, and/or borderline laughable/creepy. I wonder what the female joggers and dog walkers that pepper his videos make of him? I’m not totally sold on the info-dense jargon-saturated dialogue, either, which doesn’t always chime too well with the accompanying video.
But, actually, two things: 1) who cares? And 2) truth be told, I both admire his accomplishment – and he evidently takes pride in it! – and am myself, strangely, as I’m a real introvert, something of a closet naturist/exhibitionist! NB – Although The Bioneer is always taking his top off, he does keep his shorts/trousers on!
Anyway, I’ve watched and enjoyed a number of his videos recently. There are two things he really rates that I do want to incorporate into my daily routines: squats and hanging.
Squats are easy to get started on, as no equipment is required. Indeed, I’m planning to start ASAP. I’ve already tried the 30 for 30 thing (30 mins of squats for 30 days) a few times.
Hanging requires something to hang from. And, relatively recently, I removed a branch from a tree at the end of our garden that might’ve been perfect! But I kind of had to, as that’s where our new (old) shed is going to be.
Oh, and I love the quote at the top. Perfect advice for cultivating the art of practice in the pursuit of self-improvement.
PS – I thought it funny that when I typed ‘Misc’ at the top of this post, it came out as ‘Musc’, so I’ve let that stand. It seemed most apt!