makes me think of sitting on a front porch in the American South with a guitar in hand and a dog under my feet, strumming some blues thing..

Yes. Taking a rest in the west or australian wide open. 🦩

Cool and relaxing sound, fits perfect to a dreamy and lazy mood. Beautiful arrangement, Mikey. 💛🎶

Real great feel 🤗 very nice sounds 🤗👏

In 1771 in the fens of Cambridgeshire a miller manages to escape the smoking paws of Black Shuck , but at what cost ? If anyone could bluff Shuck it be a miller I suppose. Cautionary note , this is a true story.
https://youtu.be/j54v4pA5sPg

A Brush with Black Shuck (Video on You Tube)

New & Different

Ooh Aah

Hinkler Blues Box Guitar
Hohner Special 20 Harmonica
Yamaha Tenor Saxophone
Addictive Keys piano
Garageband strings

Tired Of Feeling Tired

Long time ago in the Scottish Highlands. A tribe that lives in a rough and harsh surrounding, strengthened over generations by the unfriendly environment. The borders of the tribes territory are not exactly known. In particular, in the North, the saying goes that vast areas of unoccupied lands will belong to those that first dare to claim it. So a small troup of currageous military men sets foot to the Northern Frontier ...

Composition-wise: The piece explores the change of atmosphere when the same motive is played with different accompaniments. The same theme can be found for instance @ 0:00 ff,  0:23 ff and 1:05 ff. The accompaniment increases in intensity and rhythm for these three instances, ranging from a meditative intro over a – to my ears – tribal dance or chant towards a first  climax of the piece which might make a good soundtrack for a battle in the Scottish Highlands. The track then settles down to the second theme @ 1:33 which again is repeated with much more agitated accompaniment @ 1:55 ff. 

While the track is in general in 4/4, it raises the tension by sometimes breaking the metrum into more unconventional rhythmic structures. This holds in particular for @ 0:46 ff where the metrum changes to a succession of ¾, 4/4, ¾, 6/4, 6/4, 4/4, ¾, 4/4, ¾, ¾, ¾ and then reverts to the original 4/4. Also @ 2:09  there is in insert of a ¾ bar and at the very end @ 2:30, there is a 2/4 break just before the final chord. 

I did some Youtube Shorts in Case with more details on some composition tweaks that I used in this track:
Varying the Accompaniment: https://youtube.com/shorts/7HAWSz2Mg14?feature=share
Breaking the metric structure: https://youtube.com/shorts/tUvaq8D6nUo?feature=share
Ligature Bows: https://youtube.com/shorts/-WBf6Du040g?feature=share
Keeping the attention until the end: https://youtube.com/shorts/qnJl5BQ4yxU?feature=share


The track has been recorded on a Roland FP-90 and mastered in Cubase by adding  reverb, a Stereo enhancer and fiddling a bit with the EQ. 
The picture was created with Stable Diffusion. 

The track can also be found at 
Youtube (including the scores): https://youtu.be/FIQZc7JakvQ
Spotify: spotify:album:5YG7dpoBElKImcbmX7eWTU

The Northern Frontier

The Northern Frontier (Solo Piano)

Anachronic

The image shows a slightly altered photo detail from: Tree Stump, Meanwood Churchyard, a photography by Tim Green from Bradford (Wikimedia commons)

________________________________________________________________________________

"They all go stupid in a race."
(Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880)

The following text passage is mainly a translation from a blog by the author Goetz Eisenberg (*1951) called:
https://durchhalteprosa.de/ 
(which can best be translated as „Perseverance Prose“)

In the translation I have tried to stay as close as possible to the original text, however, due to phrasing, composition (etc…), I have used slight changes and additions.
________________________________________________________________________________

Desensitization

Apocalyptic images 
Every evening on the news 
Heat, fires and disease
Floods, earthquakes, famines, 
War and destruction…
We are given such a daily dose 
Of horror news 
That we loose 
The capacity for outrage and revolt. 
We become numb 
And also threaten to loose 
The abilities we need 
To have empathy. 

(ref1)
Then, as now,  	(2)
We should cry out 
And rise up collectively, 
But the mass of images 
And the flood of news 
Make us fall silent
And paralyse the hooves

All go crazy in a race …

The more drastic the images 
We are presented with, 
The faster we forget 
What we have seen. 
The abundance and above all 
The concreteness of the images
Is the best means 
Of making us immune
To others misfortune. 
This is a facet of the "dialectic of enlightenment" 
That is far too little considered:
The more clearly 
Barbarism can be seen, 
The faster 
We forget it. 
News had a greater impact on us 
When we only heard or read it. 
The images of it arose 
In our minds 
And then occupied us more than one time

All go crazy in a race …

(ref2)
Then, as now,  	(2)
We should cry out 
And rise up collectively, 
But the mass of images 
And the flood of news 
Simply fob us off
With the surface

All go crazy in a race 
They all go stupid in a race	(2)
and we float along with it…

Desensitization

To my granddaughter Ana, who is celebrating her first birthday today......

ANA'S GARDEN

Words I never thought I would have to write.

The great eSyrup, Thom Palumbo has tragically left us.
I am heartbroken. He has been a frequent collaborator and loyal correspondent over the last ten years. When I play guitar, I think of him and whether he would like it. When I write, I imagine his reaction. And now he is gone. He achieved his lifelong ambition of returning to Maine to live over the last few weeks. I was so proud he had done it. I had hoped for more of his time, his music and his humour. An incredible man.

We never met, but we had an uncanny connection. This was done but not finished nearly six years ago, in December 2017. Life and stuff got in the way. Time was our only enemy and sadly a cruel one.

Please listen to his fantastic legacy here and appreciate his beautiful art 
https://soundcloud.com/esyrup

Released with kind permission from David - I thank you and salute you.

Hedd, perfaith hedd, cariad

Be good

Nick

All other instruments - Thom
Guitars  - Nick

Pic: https://www.terragalleria.com/index.html

In Loving Memory Of ESyrup (Thom) - ESyrup and Nicholas Ridiculous

Man-below

Bronchiectasis

Hello and thank you for dropping by.

Thank you to all that leave nice comments. My apologies if I take a little while to respond.

I like listening to music, making simple, tunes when I have time, and generally faffing about in an inefficient manner. Hopefully you might like something on offer here. 

I use a Hinkler Cigar Box guitar (about $30 from Aldi, (great fun), a Flying V ukulele, a couple of old keyboards, other bits and bobs, and a Yamaha tenor saxophone.

Tired Of Feeling Tired

Mikey McFaffington and his Saxophonic Adventures

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