Sunday afternoon chez Newey

Sunday afternoon.

Missed Monday last week, so trying to make up for it a bit. Will miss tomorrow as well, I'm pretty sure of that, but as long as something occasionally gets written, that'll be fine.

A friend yesterday suggested I put my 'training regime' up here. By this, I think he was being indicative of the lack of actual 'training' I do. And what did he mean by this, anyway? If he was talking in the push-ups, jogging, body pain sense, then that really would be a waste of time, and would serve only as a vehicle for everybody else to either take the proverbial or tell me how much more they do. Incidentally, I have noticed that on the rare occasion I do make it out for a run I always up my speed if I see someone coming the other way. This function bypasses any conscious decision I could make, so I can only assume it has to do with some very basic, animalistic urge to a) show that I am not a weaker human being b) can run away/handle my corner should I get into a fight with another gorilla c) to prove my very worth, in a completely non intellectual, all about brawn sense. I've tried to stop myself doing it, but I can't. What's particularly awful about the whole thing is that when I've rounded the corner after overtaking whoever else was on the pavement, I'm so completely out of breath and close to death I need to stop whilst everything goes dark for a bit. Mind you, this is the North East of England, and so I'm finding myself getting used to 'everything going dark'.

I've spent today picking up a gas heater (because as well as being dark, it's also cold), painting the rust spots on my car, and generally faffing about on here. I quite enjoy these fairly mundane tasks, and have learnt to deal with the domesticity of it all; there's a point where I probably would have lurched if I'd had to do such things on a Sunday (all that could have made it worse would have been a visit to B&Q), but secretly I enjoy such things.

As every musician knows, finding some kind of practice regime is pretty tricky. It's very easy when you're gigging/teaching/generally playing in one environment or the other to abandon furthering your skill, as it feels like you're doing this - it's not as if you haven't picked your instrument up. Whilst of course you'd hope that everyone of the above scenarios provides a learning situation, nothing substitutes actually sitting down and working on new music. So often people say 'I'm stuck in a rut' and so often it's because they just play the same old stuff - so we have to try and challenge ourselves to play different things, make different sounds. I'm aware I've not been great at this recently, and so I've decided to dedicate at least 1 hour a day to it, from now on. I'll let you know how it goes and whether I stick to it, but I also fancy the idea of making an instrumental guitar album, and I'm thinking that the practice and the making of said album can go hand in hand. You'll soon see.

Anyway, if you're reading, thanks. If you've given up.. I don't blame you...

All the best...