The dates have been rushing past insanely fast this term, now we're at the winter solstice which is one of my favourite times of the year. I think it makes a psychological difference that the daylight hours are going to stop shrinking from here on. What was I doing the last few winter solstices?
2002: Writing by candlelight in my cupboard-sized room in Mt Victoria
2003: Jamming with Mike Kingston and Simon Sweetman - sounded great, and the name 'The Winter' logically suggested itself.
2004: Can't remember, probably bogged down in journalism coursework
2005: In Melbourne, went to a hand-drumming hippie gathering in one of the parks. Freezing cold.
2006: Getting ready for end of term concert at music school next Thursday - followed by my first paid overseas gig, in Brisbane on July 1st. Yes I'm nervous.
Richard Nunns (musicologist, specialist in taonga puroro or traditional Maori instruments) gave a couple of workshops at the music school recently. He's been studying taonga puoro for 40 or so years, and in the last eight years managed to give up his teaching dayjob to play music fulltime. So now he plays with everyone from classical composers to Pitch Black and Salmonella Dub to Wellington free-jazzers, and in several different countries.
It's always inspiring to talk to people like that who've managed, as Leonard Cohen put it, to be paid for their work rather than working for pay. Nelson painter Kerry Walker was another one I met recently. At 27 I'm already noticing people I went to school with settling into raising families & careers & mortgages while I'm still chipping away Don Quixote-style at my writing & music. I'm very lucky this year to be able to do it fulltime. It's a myth that inspiration (a rare commodity) is where it all comes from - persistence/stubbornness is most of it. Nunns said he thinks about his music nearly all day every day, so that sounds familiar.
Also good that he had some praise for my writing. I talked to him after the workshop and he said a key to his success over the last few years was finding a niche. It looks like the banjo niche is filling up rapidly though in Wellington as Dan Beban's back from England with one, as well as Jeff Henderson taking it up last year. But I'm out of the Wellington scene now, and it's a change for the better for me.
I've been finding myself less and less interested in playing lead guitar on the music course - there are a dozen other guitarists, most of them more technically advanced than I (at lead guitar that is - I seem to be better than many at music theory and listen to a wider range of styles, but the downside is I've got slow fingers and a terrible ear for pitch) so it's kind of offputting. And no matter how good you get, there'll always be a better guitarist out there somewhere. So instead I'm working on the banjo, saxophone and electronic sounds - things that noone else (on the course) is doing. I did an electro-acoustic piece on banjo and laptop for the class last week - raised a few eyebrows.
As for this week - I did a website update and made a page for Cynthia. And we went up to Mt Arthur to throw a few snowballs in the weekend, and went past a feijoa hedge on the way back and collected a box of feijoas. Mmm, feijoas...
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Posted by fiffdimension at June 21, 2006 10:03 AM | TrackBack