That's Auntie Miss Haydock to you...

Oh I nearly forgot - this is totally not about music but it's cool :)

Today I will become an Auntie for the first time! My sister-in-law Julie, who lives in America, is having a baby today!!!!!!


:)
:)
:)
:)

Aunties of the world unite!

Cringe!

While I've been sitting here reading your blogs, I've been thinking about my own challenge.

I've realised that one of the reasons I'm a little reluctant to upload my recordings is because I don't want to sit in the computer lab and hear my songs coming out of computers - AWKWARD! I always cringe listening to myself :)

So, I've decided that I'll wait until the 'assignment' part of the blogging is officially over, and then I'll upload a song or two and anyone who is still interested can listen to it in the comfort of their own home. Maybe with a coffee and some biscuits and an electric blanket (Howie's the expert on that gear, ask him if you need some tips!)

Ba da, ba da da da da...

The other day I learned how to play Neopolitan Dream by Lisa Mitchell, and recorded it on my computer at home. But now I'm all shy and I'm not sure about uploading it!

I might need a bit of encouragement :)

In other news, I just got a last minute ticket to see Florence & the Machine tonight ! There's nothing like a bit of live music to inspire me to play more :)

I'm in here...

This blogging business is working - I've played my guitar or piano nearly every day in the past week! Woooohooooo! It's been fun.

I've made some progress with my goal, and I'll try to provide some evidence soon (in the form of a recording or video).

Last week I learned how to play "Steer" by Missy Higgins (thanks to my Thursday Year 12 jamming buddy Elyce for teaching me this one). It sounds really cool on two acoustic guitars but it's hard to get the strumming perfectly in time with two people - we're working on it!

On Sunday I learned my first song on piano and it happened in a really weird way. I've been listening to the latest Sia album on repeat in my car for a few days now, and I discovered a really nice song that I hadn't really noticed before, called "I'm in here". There are two versions of the song on the album and the second one is stripped back to just piano and vocals. I was listening to it and thought "hmm... nice song... doesn't sound too complicated... I could learn this". Later that day when I was in front of a piano, I remembered and thought I'd try it, without any chords or anything and a freaky thing happened.

I had this really weird "out of body experience" feeling where I felt like my hands weren't even joined to my arms and they were just moving by themselves! And my fingers just played the song. They knew what to do. The song sounded.... right. I can't really explain it.

Have you ever written a piece of writing and had that feeling of being detached from your pen? Where you're consciously thinking about something but unconsciously your brain is making ink flow off the pen and form words that actually make sense? I'm not an artist, but I imagine it must be like that for painters sometimes, when they pick up a paintbrush and lose themselves in the painting and it almost creates itself. That's what it was like with this song. It's like something had been downloaded into my brain and I knew what to do before I'd even tried.

Oooh I just realised what it reminds me of! All you Heroes watchers out there, you know the supernatural "ability" that one girl has where she sees something once and can do it? Amazing things like martial arts, classical piano playing, other skills. It was like that. Only I hadn't seen it, just heard it. It's never quite happened like that before, usually I fumble around for a while until I figure it out. I'm not suggesting I have a supernatural ability either, in case you're wondering! It was just a straaaaaaaaange feeling...

That was a pretty long-winded explanation and makes me sound a bit like a crazy woman.... maybe I am!!!

Not as crazy as Sia though - look at her! :)

*phew*

P.S. Quote of the day: "Miss Haydock, when you speed, are you called a lead head?"

("No, Eb, lead FOOT.")

Bahaha!

I tried to run before I could crawl...

Good day, world.

I may have been a little too ambitious with my first song choice. Here's why:

1) Florence has an incredible voice. Who am I kidding?? I can't sing like Florence!

2) Dog Days is FULL of hundreds of sounds, and trying to bring this song alive with only my acoustic guitar is harder than I thought!

3) I'm not very technical with my guitar skills - I can play chords but I'm not so great at the fiddly bits. Florence's songs happen to be FULL of the fiddly bits!

So, I can play the song, but it doesn't sound too good. I'll keep working on it, but in the meantime I'll attempt something a little easier.

I think I might learn a Lisa Mitchell song, since she actually plays acoustic guitar herself. That's her in the picture. She looks quite sad. I think she's trying to do the "moody musician" look. Cheer up Lisa! (That's right, we're on first name basis...)

Til next time, ciao!

(Yep, I speak Italian too. I can say pizza, lasagne... er.... cappuccino...)

"I’m just your regular West Australian fisherman’s daughter...I'm a middle class folk-singing guitar playing girl..."

Firstly, my dad is not really a fisherman. The title of this blog is from a song by The Waifs, if you weren't sure. I like The Waifs. I like music.

Actually I REALLY like music. I love it. I LOVE IT! Music takes me to my happy place.

Problem is, while I make time to listen to music, in the car, on my iPod, around the house, I don't really make time to PLAY music and that makes me a bit sad :( I tell myself that I don't have time to play, because I'm fairly busy and there always seem to be more important things to do. But the truth is, I don't MAKE time.

So. Here I go, making time.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to learn no less than ten new songs that happen to be some of my favourites at the moment. I'll learn them on piano or guitar, or maybe both. If you're lucky (or possibly unlucky!) you might get to hear one or two of them if I can record them somehow... maybe I will ask my friend Mr Chan to help me out there, he's pretty good at that kind of thing.

I have a few ideas of songs that I'd like to learn.... but I change my mind a lot, so there's no point in me telling you all of them now.

I'm going to start with something by Florence & the Machine. I'm quite a fan at the moment! The first song on their album is Dog Days and it's pretty happy... I like to listen to it loud in the car and it makes me jump around in my seat a little (safely of course.... my foot firmly on the accelerator... oh not too much! The other foot is always near the brake, and hands on the steering wheel in the 10 and 2 positions just like my driving instructor told me about.... oh..*cough* ...years ago. What? You missed that? Oh I can't say it again. Then you'd know how old I am!).

In preparation for my little musical journey, I bought some new guitar strings and I've got a file that I'm going to put my music in. I printed the chords for Dog Days earlier today, and for Passion Pit's song "Moth Wings". That might be second on the list.

Stay tuned for my stories of a sore wrist and callouses on my fingers - I'm so out of practice!!
[Get it? Stay tuned? Stay TUNED?]

;)