Strumalola

 One side effect of my Myeloma or maybe the treatment program I'm in, not sure, is a constant howling in my left ear, like an extreme tinnitus which rises and falls in intensity while staying the same note (around about an Eb) along with other ticking, jangling and creaking noises, which the following day led to complete deafness in that ear, while still having the weird noises listed above. Great so can't hear TV properly, can't listen to music in headphones because it would be all monophonic.

But yesterday I picked up my concert uke, had a little play. Had to stop playing after a short while because the high g was irritating my right ear, which was accentuating the howling in my left. It was like a feedback howl.

So I picked up the baritone instead which is tuned GCEA low G. Much better. Finally an instrument I can play ! (Yet to try guitar. That's next. Had to stop playing guitar because of a fractured left clavicle- too painful!)

So anyway here's a little ditty on the baritone.

German Dance

 Continuing with the first Trevor Wye book. Playing with the metronome. 

Two flute exercises

 Couple of exercises from the Trevor Wye book 1

Played slowly with the metronome. Instead of standing I'm sat on a stool with the music on a stand. Much easier on my chest. 

Flute practise

I was feeling a bit better today after some blood tests and in the afternoon I picked up my flute, playing some exercises from the Trevor Wye book. 

I need to practise long tones and air control. 

3 piano plays

 Had a little fun today, messing around with chords and interval jumps. 

Mad World

 It is a mad world out there... 

And I'm a bit rusty

Back on the piano

 Thought I'd give it a try today. See if I could manage it. It went well but I'm terribly rusty. 

Magic Fly

 A 70s song by Space, which was the first piece I learned to play on a bontempi reed organ when I was 11.

Here playing it on my Carry On EWI using Flute voice 

Back on the clarinet

 Back on it. The low F plays, but the E doesn't. Forget second octave yet

Using a noblet 2v mpc and Legere European cut 2.5

Darwall's 148th

 a hymn from the School Recorder book 1 played on tenor Sigo. I used Open Camera for a change on my other phone and an not happy with how it looks. Keeps going dark then bright again for some reason.

Sigo bass fun

 A couple of pieces on the bass, one of which is my own "composition" that I came up with on clarinet a few years ago. 

Something Blue:

A surprise recorder

 A Facebook friend kindly sent me a 3D printed stand for my Sigo tenor and along with it there was a surprise. A 3D printed copy of his 45 year old Hopf soprano. In gold plastic.

Looks and sounds great. Its single hole with a massive bore so is very clear and loud!

Sigo stuff

 So back in January before all this Myeloma crap came up I bought myself a Sigo tenor recorder, a new type of recorder made as a collaboration between the Kunath family who gave the world those weird giant wooden recorders, and Gerry Bollinger, a recorder designer. The internal bore is twisted back on itself and the outside bore is sort of square. As a result the tenor is about the size of an alto, but with finger holes closer together so its much easier to play than a regular tenor, although the low notes are a bit of a struggle; there's no foot joint. Just 2 pieces, headjoint and the body, is very lightweight, and is more versatile, giving the player more freedom to express him or herself.

Zoom forward to June and Jo Kunath heard about my cancer diagnosis and offered to send me a Sigo bass, for free. Like I'm gonna say no to that. I've long wanted to try a bass recorder and oh man is it good!

The instruments are 3D printed and made of something called Resona, which is basically wood particles suspended in modified vegetable starches. Pretty remarkable.

Here's the two side by side.

Anyway here's some videos of them. First the tenor

Now the bass. What a beast!

Ewi ewi ewi

 Been playing the Carry-On EWI, such fun

Open D tuning

 Set the Tanglewood up for open D or Vestapol tuning (DADF#AD) and it sounds fab!

 

And then a little bit in DADFAD. Just dropped the F# to an F

A bit of slide

 Trying out some slide on the Fender Dreadnought (DG5) in open G tuning (DGDGBD)

Ernie Ball Earthwood medium light strings (got em for free, trying em out), Dunlop 222 brass slide

Its been a while...

And some wooden picks I got last Christmas 

Guter Mond

 I took a recorder piece and played it on piano, working out my own LH part.

Ukulele fun

 Couple of pieces on the concert uke

Bit of blues

 On the 4 string wonder 

Guter Mond on clarinet

 Guter Mond (Good Moon) on clarinet. Its been a while but I got it set up, ran through some Rubank exercises and I learned that while clarinet is hard to play, its also hard not to play. So I thought I'd play this German song that I learned on recorder a while ago. Seems kind of appropriate with what's going on above us at the moment...