The Curmudgeon is master of the short post.

 Sheesh! The Curmudgeon is master of the short post.

When writing an extremely short post, don't forget the value, and space filling ability, of a picture.

Robert's taking the pizz.!

"Richard's gone a bit quiet on variation 9 from Paganini's caprice 24! It's devilishly difficult after all. I've heard professional recordings where the violinists just bounce the bow instead!" says Robert the awful lot of different things.

Then he takes the pizz. out of it!

Robert attempting to play Var. 9 from the 24th.
Caprice without using left hand pizzicato.

Okay, Richard (of RBB) hasn't gone quiet on variation 9. He has been working hard on six pieces that he has to play in two concerts in May, four of which are on the double bass. He tries to divide his practice as evenly as possible between the two instruments - violin and double bass. He has taken time to work on variation 9 (with the left hand pizz.) and it is coming along nicely. Hey, it's all just about a bit of practice, though Richard (of RBB) HAS found a great way to practise left hand pizz. He'll make a recording of it when he has it mastered but, at present, the concerts take priority.



I've got to say that playing this variation with the bow should be an offence punishable by Hell for eternity.

I had a restful day... I sat in a chair for two hours and forty minutes.

 The only problem was that two people were shoving things in my mouth and it cost me $3,300.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as 'The Murder House', 
as we called it, in the 1960s. No pain killer and the
drill was foot driven. The dental nurses, though very
nice, were learners and, naturally, made a few mistakes.

Still, nearly three hours was a long haul and not without some pain and discomfort. 

I've supposedly got three more long visits to go. 

FUN!

"Hey! What about us? We've got important things to say."

 

"BAS'S BAG
GOOD KIWI BLOKE
IRASCIBLE OLD BASTARD
LOOKING BACK TO TOMORROW
NORTHLAND MUSINGS
PETER'S GOLF BAG
PETONE PONDERINGS
THE ALUMINIUM FOIL CURMUDGEON
THE BLUE MAN
THE CHURCH OF THE BLESSED CURMUDGEON
THE CULTURED CURMUDGEON
THE CURMUDGEON EXPRESS
THE CURMUDGEON'S AGONY AUNT
THE MUNDANE CURMUDGEON
THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON"

This was left as a comment on one of our posts. The Curmudgeon's 'boss' was going away. She'd left one idea in his little ex-3P head.

Still, all poor old TC was thinking was,

"Hey! What about us? We've got important things to say. BAS'S BAG, GOOD KIWI BLOKE,

IRASCIBLE OLD BASTARD, LOOKING BACK TO TOMORROW, NORTHLAND MUSINGS,
PETER'S GOLF BAG, PETONE PONDERINGS, THE ALUMINIUM FOIL CURMUDGEON,
THE BLUE MAN, THE CHURCH OF THE BLESSED CURMUDGEON, THE CULTURED CURMUDGEON, THE CURMUDGEON EXPRESS, THE CURMUDGEON'S AGONY AUNT,
THE MUNDANE CURMUDGEON, THE MUSIC CURMUDGEON."

Well matey, you'd better get onto that kitchen. All the rest of that silly shit can go in here.

Anyway, all we've had since his bold proclamation is:

• An attack on the Catholic church - nothing new there.
• A threat about people having to smell his dirty old T-shirt.
• A pot full of pasta.

What a letdown after such a bold boast.

"Hey! What about us? We've got important things to say."

So, your smelly old T-shirt is important?    NO.

I've seen better pasta in a soup kitchen.

Why couldn't we have something about the Presbyterian church? After all, they are the one true church.*

The one word that stays with me is DISAPPOINTMENT.

This is a guy who has got 'the office' to himself for three weeks.

HUGE PROMISES but LITTLE ACTION.

I'm off to the dentist. That should be more exciting than reading any little pathetic offering over at The Curmudgeon Ink.

* Well, they're no worse than the rest and they don't have graven images.

A short post because I'm in a bit of a hurry this morning.

 Okay, it doesn't seem as though TC* really understands music practice. He gives a quote from Robert the awful lot of different things in a comment that he left on his blog. (He actually left three comments. Pity he doesn't put the same enthusiasm into kitchen renovations.)

"I laid on the couch with my electric violin chatting with Sue and studied it."

Okay, there's always room to work on that grammar, but Rob illustrates an important concept.

Practice is different than performance.

Practice is about examining, repetition, thinking and experimenting.

Performance is about thinking very little and feeling the music.

This photo shows something about performance that makes a HUGE difference.

Robert is smiling - he looks like he is enjoying the process. This 'happiness' rubs off on the audience.

This is something that I need to practise.

Well done Rob!

* The Curmudgeon

A poetic thought on reading a comment on a post, two back.

 He looked at the statues of Jesu, Mary and Joe

And felt a bit of a conundrum. 

The shortened name of the non-sperm supplying dad

Reminded him of a condom.

Then he felt a lurch because

Joes had been banned by his church.

Again he looked at the erections,

Oops, statues I mean,

When the child got the signal to go

No way could he be stopped by a joe,

For God, in all his genius,

Did the job meant for Joe's penis.

Inspired by Robert the apathetic sanctimonious sinner, toilet cleaner, and threatener of eternal damnation.

Politics explained.

 The word 'politics' comes from two words - Polly and ticks.

"Pretty Polly!"

Sometimes parrots get ticks - little flees that can be really annoying. 

When parrots have ticks they are more likely to repeat themselves incessantly.

"Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker! Polly want a cracker!"

There you go.

* * *

I restarted working on Variation 9 from the 24th. Caprice yesterday. 

No, silly! On the violin!

That's the one with the left hand pizzicato. I found a great way to practise it! I won't bore you with the details. They say not to practise left had pizz. for long periods, at first, because it can give you blisters. After years and years of double bass practice my fingers have strong callouses, so no problems there. It's going really well - I might slot this variation into my May concerts, if I'm happy with the way it turns out.

I'll keep you posted in my posts.

Ciao tutti.

No poems were used in the presentation of this blog.

A new day (post poetry).

 I did one and a half hours on the violin this morning.

Peter probably yawns.

Now the hard work gives a warning,

Time to do the lawns.

How do I get away from this poetry thing?

I'd rather have a bee sting!

I have one good retort,

"Soon the grass will be short."

Life without poetry.

Okay, recently poetry has gone through our blogging community like a new strain of Covid. 

How much of a story is lost when there is a need to rhyme?

Fitting in regular rhymes must determine the direction of the content.

Let me give you an example.*

I have two short concerts coming up in May where I will perform at two libraries. I will be playing solo on the double bass and the violin. I like to joke that the violin is just a little double bass that is tuned back to front, a bass is tuned E A D G and a violin is tuned G D A E. So, all you have to do, when you switch to the violin, is play everything backwards.

Okay, let's put that same information into a rhyming poem...

I don't need any bribery

To play solo music in a library.

Bass and fiddle have the strings

To play quite a few different things.

The bigger of the two has a big fat E

While the other starts with a higher low G

Are they front to back? Or back to front?

I guess I'll have to hunt.

If the fiddle goes higher than the bass,

That's just something I'll have to face.

* * *

Okay, it took me much longer to write the silly poem. It is not an economic way to get a message across. The need to rhyme means that one's thoughts can easily become less clear.

What are these flowers trying to tell
you that couldn't have been simply said?

* Please note well that any poetry that enters this post is not for any reason, other than to show how a message can be lost for the sake of a 'flowery' read.

Richard's Bass Bag* is now officially over poems.

 Poems left as comments, on this post or any future ones, will be deleted.

* the original bass bagging site, not poetry central

For Pete's Sake!

 by Richard (of RBB) - the poet featured on many blogs that have a huge readership

Peter wrote a post the other day,

He does this for no pay,

Something about a kitchen,

The result of the old girl's bitchin'.

Maybe the space is too straight,

She says it needs a renovate.

He doesn't think the idea is great,

For Pete's sake!

To workmen he says, "No!"

He gave up work many years ago.

He bought this house for a bit of peace,

Once workmen start, they never cease.

I mean, what could be dumber

Than having to talk to a plumber.

He'd rather take the old girl on a date,

For Pete's sake!

He's always been a snazzy dresser,

He does this to try to impress her,

He tells her about his old Humber 80,

She says, "Give it a rest, matey!"

Now he may have to talk to tradies

When he much prefers chatting with ladies.

His fortunes have taken a skate.

For Pete's sake!

He'll have to wear a workmen's outfit,

There's no way to talk her out of it.

He'll have to look like he cares,

High ladders might show them his fears.

He'll stick to unloading their truck,

He'll show them he does give a damn.*

Will the tradies pick him out as a fake?

For Pete's sake!

* word suggested by Benny Hill

Martedì

 Why do poems have to rhyme?

Must it happen every time?

Well, no.

I think I've left my run

To make the All Blacks

A bit late.

This is the good thing about

Being a musician,

You can go on until the end.

Provided your ears and hands

Hold out.

I have two half hour gigs

In May.

Hey!

Before you call this

Boring,

Remember that

It's not about kitchen

Renovations!

And!

It's in poetic form,

Which Robert,

He with the very long name,

Understands.

The sanctimonious sinner,

Toilet cleaner, and

Threatener of

Eternal Damnation.

The scariest guy

In our nation?

Hey, it's not a crime

To have the occasional 

Rhyme.

It can add a bit of a

Chime.

Peter's now the

Post police,

He bangs them out but

Some are brief.

Ever since I have been born,

I haven't found

Such need to yawn.

Well, there you go,

I'm back on track,

I hope there'll be

No looking back,

As TC grumbles even more

About posts not going

Out the door.

The picture he posts

May be grey but

At least it fills in

Some of his day.

Writing a post won't

Bring you gold but

It'll fill in time

As you get old.

Welcome back to 'the bag'.

 Well, as you all know, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.

I showed this to an Irish friend
and I don't think he liked it.

Here's one I thought Robert the quite a few different things might like.

He'll probably be too busy celebrating 
St. Joseph's day today to read this.

Well, it's good to look at different perspectives.

Shelley bought a Lotto ticket today. It might be something to do with the $15,000 bill I am about to incur for dental work. Holy Hell! It made me think of this next situation.

A little while ago I asked Shelley to pick me up a cheap perfume. What the Hell! She went out and bought me something from Paris! Must have cost a fortune! That money could have probably paid off a good portion of my dental bill!

NOT

Ciao tutti.

Update from the bag.

 

"Hey! Who took my chinrest?"

Okay, I've watched the first two videos on Paganini's secret. The lady who made the two videos studied with a famous guy, who I have never heard of before, who worked it all out by studying Nick's compositions and paintings of him playing. I'm waiting to watch Part 3, which is not available yet. The lady certainly knows her stuff. 

She says that, in the days of no chinrest, players had to hold the violin up with their thumb and the chin wasn't able to help. She demonstrates the one position - where the thumb can be left stable while the hand moves the fingers up and down the fingerboard. It seems that fifth position is the best place to pivot your hand, but it might be that most of us humans have to drop down to third position to reach out for first position. 

She says that Nick wrote lots of double stops that are easier to play if your hand is constantly moving and using the same fingers. I tried this and it makes sense. She is right here.

Evidently Nick's one scale was the chromatic scale - I'm waiting to watch Part 3. She does say that the advantages offered by Nick's method are an add on to what we already do and not a replacement. She makes good sense to me.

* * *

Okay, what else can I tell you about?

There's not much exciting happening over on Peter's blog. 

His latest post has him trying to boil an egg while he gets upsetat technology. Then he is pissed off because his muffin is too small. He does make a few good points, though Robert the quite a few different things did say, "Trent Horn, when discussing the fathers of the Catholic church, is more comprehensible than this post."

I'm not a fan of Trent Horn because he talks too fast and uses too many big words. He also gives the impression that he is not really listening. To my mind, Peter's post is much more comprehensible.

Some of Robert's posts have been disappearing lately, but I see that he has just put up a new one.

Robert's blog has a long introduction.

Robert went on about a little fan on a desk in an office he was cleaning. Peter said, "Yes, "Ah huh!" sums this post up nicely."

I think that this comment means that he wasn't impressed by the post.

Oh well, you can read these two blogs for yourself and form your own opinion.

Ciao tutti.

Richard (of RBB) goes to confession.

 

"No, that's not it." says Paganini.

Okay, I was doing more study last night and I discovered that I haven't cracked Paganini's 'one scale' secret. Hey, this doesn't mean that my thoughts on violin scales are not good ones, it's just that Paganini had something quite different in mind - something very, very helpful. I'll be seeing if I can make practical sense out of Paganini's approach for myself and thanks to the smart people who worked it out. When I say, 'for myself', it's not my secret and it is out there if you look. From what I've learnt checking it out is well worth the effort - I'm excited about trying to understand it.

Ciao tutti.

 Good morning.

I'm off to a jam this afternoon. A Bluegrass and old time music jam. The 'old time' bit means banjo tunes. The banjos are tuned so that they only seem to be able to play in G and D. The tunes have two or three chords.

I don't know why they are tuned like this. I can only assume that it makes the tunes they want to play easier (Maybe for finger picking?). 

The tunes are pentatonic - they use the notes G A B D E or D E F# A B. I don't know why this way of playing is defined as old time music. I'd call it beginner music. Anyway, it's good to have somewhere to have a play - I don't get gigs these days.

* * *

Robert the quite a few different things popped around yesterday. He didn't tell me about Joseph not knowing Mary before Jesus was born and that maybe he didn't know her afterwards.

"Who's your mum?"

Actually, the picture here is inaccurate because it shows Joseph and Jesus standing in front of car lights. They didn't have cars in those days.

My violin case was open, so I showed Robert (tqafdt) what Paganini meant when he supposedly said, "There is only one scale on the violin." He seemed interested, so I gave him quite a bit of information. I hope he understood it all or, at least, most of it. He didn't mention it on his blog post yesterday. 

I don't think I'll mention Paganini's one scale to the bluegrass boys today. The banjo boys would probably say, "No, there's two. G and D."

Well, that's it from me.

Ciao tutti.

Brent Godfella.

 Brent looked down on those humans he had created.

His all seeing eye (the left one) could see the whole damn lot of them. He held up one finger, as was His custom when He was a little pissed off. He focused in on a Catholic church in a weird little place called Lower Hutt. Then He turned His attention to a nearby Presbyterian church. Those Presbyterian churches were among His favourites, though He did like those long bearded Jewish guys. He also saw bald men as somehow superior - maybe because they were made more in His own image. 

There was a Catholic guy cleaning the Presbyterian church and going through all the cupboards. He looked smug and seemed to be acting a little superior. 

Brent thought how His grandgod Zeus would not be impressed. Then Brent thought about a guy who ran a popular bass bagging site but was unfortunately going to Hell. This guy had questioned whether or not Brent had a cock. Brent smiled. "What for?" He thought. Next to Christians not knowing His name and referring to Him as 'God', it didn't seem to matter. He was sure that He'd told someone to make sure that His name was mentioned in The Bible. Those guys He put in charge of The Bible were imbeciles, that was for damn sure!

"Bloody imbeciles!"

Brent thought for a while. Maybe Richard (of RBB) would be a better messenger for His thoughts?

Right there and then Brent Godfella made the decision to appear regularly on Richard's Bass Bag*.

Thanks be to Brent.

* the original bass bagging site 

It's almost bass practice time.

 

Home early today,

And the weather is grey.

Now I'm looking for a rhyme,

It's almost bass practice time.

With a gig in the wings,

I'll have to practise many things.

Bowing and pizz,

No time to stop for a piss,

And it's hard to make things rhyme,

It's almost bass practice time.

Hey, a bit of advice, don't use Booking.com. I had to cancel a booking that I'd foolishly paid for in advance. I did it within the prescribed period but, when I rang their number, they weren't interested. Funnily enough, they even implied that on their email.

I rang Booking.com's number before the cut off date but they (well, a lady in a different country) fobbed me off.

Here's what also appeared on my email.

I rang the hotel too, but I could understand when the pointed me back to Booking.com.

Ah well, that's life.

* * *

Sorry but I'm feeling a bit tired and befuddled today, but everyone on the blogging scene will be happy to get this post.

It was sad to see Robert take down the post with his very nice violin solo in it. He is sounding very good.

We haven't had any posts with clips of TC playing the bagpipes, but that is absolutely fine.

Peter's Bagpipes never really took off as a blog.

Well, I'd better get that bass practice done - there are four pieces that I am working on (and three violin pieces) for my May library concert. Haven't I hit the big time!

No need to thank me for the new post but please do so if you feel so inclined.

Ciao tutti.

Another bloody Sunday.

 Richard (of RBB) had chosen not to go to mass this morning. He'd made that decision many, many years ago. He didn't care if Catholic churches had better tables than Presbyterian churches and he wasn't interested in church shops.

He'd worked on a bit of Italian but, frankly, his study had not gone well on that particular morning. No big deal really.

Big deal.

No big deal.

He thought he'd write a post on his famous blog. He'd had a busy time lately, but he always took time to read the blogs of his competitors student bloggers. One blogger was imprisoning birds and swimming in his pool, while another was trying to keep hokus pokus out of science.

So, what had he been so busy doing? Well, music practice was taking a lot of time, along with work, cutting lawns and working on Italian. He was practising for a short solo concert that was scheduled for May - he would perform on both the double bass and the violin. The concert was titled 'BIG and little'. He'd chosen four pieces for the double bass (all written by him). They were Sii Gentile, Gypsy Feet, My Gentle Giant and Shelley My Dear. He'd chosen three pieces for the violin - Sweet Georgia Brown, Manha de Carnaval and The Orange Blossom Special.

These seven pieces all had their own little 'problems' that had to be sorted but Richard (of RBB) was getting there. Playing solo was certainly a challenge!

Now it was time for violin practice. Today he planned to do a little on each of the three tunes. There were little bits he had added that needed constant memory reinforcement. Things were going well though.

Ciao tutti.

Are birds happy in cages?

 

Well, they certainly don't get to fly - which is what their wings are for. Maybe people who keep birds in cages, and fish in tanks, do it to protect them from the outside world and all its dangers. If this is the case, why haven't they got a few homeless people sleeping in their lounge?

How is everyone in blogland? I've been quite busy lately, so I thought I'd better get something posted.

I'm writing this post quickly because I've got another busy day.

Sorry if this post is throwing up too many ideas at you.

I'm off to do some bass practice shortly.

Ciao tutti.

Sorry, but I've been very busy.

I guess that's because I have a life.

Not a bad thing really, but I have been very busy.

"I've been buzzy."

Good joke bee, but I have been busy. I returned to my car today at Settentrionale HS to find that my battery was flat. Ah well, these things happen, but it does make blogging harder. Especially when there is practice to do.

It's good to see that both Peter and Robert have been busy. Peter has found a good way to pass test assignments without doing any work and Robert is writing in the style of somebody else. At least the boys are occupied.

You can't really ask for much more. That could burst the bubble.

Ciao tutti.