A new practice schedule for a new month.

 "Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November."

Hey, that's the same number as the number of tunes I have in my violin repertoire!

One tune for every day in November!

I've decided to also learn those 30 tunes on my guitar, so I'll know the repertoire on two instruments.

Don't get me wrong, the violin will still be my main instrument.

Every day I'll target one specific tune on one instrument. I'll give that half an hour (on each instrument) then I'll devote another half hour (on each instrument) to three or six repertoire pieces.

In those two hours of practice I'll also make sure that technical practice (scales, etc.) is not neglected.

On the guitar that includes pick work and on the violin that includes long bows and intonation checks.

There you go.

I've done my guitar hour. Now it's violin time. It'd be good to get a bit of double bass (bass has its own repertoire) practice done too.

Ciao tutti.

Working again.

 

Hey, I said working not war king.

Bloody computers. Updating my (our) computer has been a taxing event. I have just got things almost back to normal. Akish and The The The Guy have also helped by getting their blogs going again. Unfortunately, there were problems with P. E. Nis's blog. Never mind, I'm sure he'll make his presence known with heaps of comments. 

Unfortunately, I must leave you there for now because I have quite a bit of music practice to catch up on. I have been looking after my elder grandson for quite a bit of the day. 

Hey, it is great to have things working again!

Long may it last!

Ciao.

So, why am I writing a post this morning?

 

Well, I was fifteen minutes into some guitar practice and I realised how cold I was. I remembered that there was a nice heater down by our computer, so I put the guitar on its stand and headed down to the computer.

The heater is on.

So, what am I going to write about? Does it really matter? The only person who I can rely on to read it is Peter.

AKA the hat guy.

Though he will be busy tidying up his house today because 'The Old Girl' comes home late tomorrow. He only has two days to get things in order.

I was mucking around on the computer, as I started to warm up, and I saw that Rob still has a blog.

See here.

He has gone back to his older name. No mention of The Curmudgeon. I wonder if he still reads our blogs? Well, there hasn't been a comment from him for quite a while, so probably not.

I guess I should get back to my guitar practice.

Then I'll get back onto the violin, the instrument that gets by far the most practice.

Well, that's it from me.

Ciao Peter, and anybody else who read this.

Father B speaks.

 Father B speaks here...

"Firstly, let me say thank you to Richard of Richard's Bass Bag (the original bass bagging site) for attempting to save me from embarrassment by not using my full name. Yes, my full name is Father Banana. It seems that I am not the only priest around here named after a fruit. There was quite an incident in our local church recently when two men appeared and claimed to be Jesus Christ.

Beautiful Jesus

Angry Jesus

I found their pictures on recent posts on this blog. Both claim, by their name, to give a particular 'quality' to our saviour. How do we go about finding out if one of these two men is the actual Jesus Christ? The only blogger around here with expert knowledge has buggered off. Well, Catholics do tend to be more conversant with the Bible than atheists. Fortunately, Richard (of RBB) has agreed to send out a series of questions to these two 'I am Jesus' claimers. So, I'll pass you over to him."

* * *

Okay, thanks to my computer expertise, I have made contact with both Beautiful Jesus and Angry Jesus. They have both agreed to answer my questions. Here goes...

Richard (of RBB): Okay, let's start. Would you consider yourself worthy of the title 'beautiful'?

Beautiful Jesus: Yes, most certainly.

Angry Jesus: Okay, I'm certainly not ugly but I prefer the words 'rugged' and 'handsome'.

Richard (of RBB): Do you find yourself getting angry?

Beautiful Jesus: I like to control my emotions, but I do like to give out love. I encourage my disciples to tell others that they love them, especially in slightly tight situations. Your ex-blogger Rob was very good at doing this. Your other blogger, Peter, doesn't really qualify as a disciple and would probably never say such a phrase to another man. Sad.

Angry Jesus: I pride myself on my anger. It cuts through the shit.

Richard (of RBB): Are you claiming to be the Jesus Christ who died on the cross to save us all from sin?

Beautiful Jesus: Yes.

Angry Jesus: For fuck's sake! If dad had wanted to get rid of sin, all he had to do was shake his hand. I told him that there was no way I was going to be nailed up on a piece of wood. I think he found an actor to stand in. Beaut Jesus is just a bloody actor! Dad would have promised him a place in Heaven.

Beautiful Jesus: No, I'm not and my name is not Beaut!

Angry Jesus: It's bloody true and you know it! Anyway, I think you look like a pansy. 

Beautiful Jesus: A pansy? Where are you coming from?

Angry Jesus: If I were coming you'd soon know all about it! Pansy!

Richard (of RBB): Okay, I think we'd better wrap it up there. Thanks guys, no more opinions or answers. Please. Gosh, you can probably see why it is easier being an atheist! Ciao for now.

* * *

A B B

 

Father B sat at the back of the church. He liked to take in the full picture. The church was about a third full and mass was due to start very soon, He would not be saying the mass, but he had been asked by Father Orange to give the sermon. He had accepted the request. He noticed that the front row was empty, except for two bearded men with long hair. One sat at the extreme left and the other sat at the extreme right. Father Orange came out onto the altar accompanied by two altar boys. He asked the congregation to stand and a lone organist started to play a church style song. I doubt that he was pissed but there were quite a few wrong notes.

After the hymn Father Orange went into action, assisted by the two altar boys. After a while, at the appropriate time, he introduced Father B as the person who would be delivering today's sermon. Father B got up and approached the pulpit.

He spoke. "Good morning and welcome. Today's sermon will be about Jesus. He is known as the Son of God and he is instrumental to why we are all here today. As far as I know, he doesn't play a musical instrument." There was a light polite snigger from the congregation. Father B carried on, "Nay, but seriously folks, the Jesus who came down to Earth all those years ago was a quiet man, a man who wouldn't stand out in a crowd because of his appearance."

The man sitting on the left of the front row, if you were looking from the front, seemed very agitated. He just couldn't sit still. The man on the right gave him quite an evil look. Father B became more aware of both of them and felt uncomfortable.

Suddenly the man on the right got up and approached the pulpit. "Hop down, Father," he commanded. "I don't want to slip on you." He was making a joke of Father B's name. Father B wanted to hold his ground but thought that it might be safer to move. He certainly didn't want to be squashed up there. The guy climbed into the pulpit and then he spoke.

"Hi, some people call me A and I'm here to tell you about the real Jesus. Let me start by saying that he certainly wasn't considered beautiful. Also, he didn't take shit." The guy who was at the left stood up and placed himself in front of the pulpit. He turned and spoke to the crowd.

"People often refer to me a B Jesus." He pointed to A. "I guess you can guess what they call him, but he IS NOT who he claims to be!"

* * *

Gosh, we have a situation developing here! Maybe we need Satan to break this up? Maybe this sort of thing is what got Satan into trouble in the first place! 

To be continued.

The present state of the blogs.

 Into resting?

OR

Boar ring?

I'm off to work now. Will concentrate on violin practice today. What will you concentrate on?

Come on readers reader, let me know in the comments.

I reckon that Peter will be cleaning the house and putting silly hats away.

If Rob was still around these parts, he'd answer, "Cleaning toilets." Then he'd complain about cleaners not getting fancy work cars. 

Ciao uno.

Tuesday, a wet day after very strong winds.

 I've just read a new post by TC. It literally goes on a bit. It's like quite long. Have a read.

"Like I literally feel good in this hat, but
I won't like wear it when The Old Girl comes home."

There's a link to his blog (The Curmudgeon) on the righthand top of this blog,*

I've seen a few comments from that ex-blogger Rob on TC's blog but I don't know what has happened to his blog. I haven't bothered to look because it has probably gone again. 

I'm home from work today. I spent most of Sunday night in A & E and got to bed at 3am. Same problems, different day. I'm feeling like I'm on the mend today and will most likely return to work tomorrow.

Practice suffered yesterday. I only did fifteen minutes on the violin and half an hour on the double bass. Hopefully I'll catch up today. I find that double bass practice is good for my health. It gets me off the couch and standing up. It also gets quite a bit of movement out of my body. I'll try to do a bit more double bass practice today. In fact, I will.

Well, that's me for today. I'll go and do that double bass practice now.

Ciao tutti.

* the original bass bagging site

Jesus Christ!

Which one of these two best represents the guy named in the title of this post?

Pretty Jesus

 Angry Jesus

Here's a more important question.

When we all die, who will be right? The Christians or the Atheists or people who worship a different god?

Will there be a Jesus (pretty or angry)? Will there be a Shiva or Brahma? Will there be no gods at all? Will there be a godlike figure that no one on Earth knew about?

One thing is for sure, we can't all be right.

Everyone thinks that THEY and THEIR BELIEFS are correct. 

There wouldn't be too many Catholics, for example, who think that they might have it all wrong.

THERE IS NO CONCRETE PROOF FOR ANY POSITION.

Lots of people will disagree with that last statement. They'll quote the Bible or the Quran or maybe even try to prove their thoughts with science. 

If nothing else, unless people who believe that there is absolutely nothing after death are correct, there are going to be a lot of disappointed people. "That's for damn sure." (to quote Jack Reacher).

Maybe Music is the ONE TRUE GOD?

Well, it does seem to cater for just about everyone,

There is music from just about every culture and heaps of different forms inside our western culture.

There is Classical, Jazz, Rock, Folk, Heavy Metal, Funk, Country, Pop, and the list goes on and on and on.

I think I'll go with Music.

Maybe you're reading this and feeling smug because you have proof of your opinion.

Please let us know about it in a comment. Make sure it is 'proof' though. Please don't just quote the Bible or something similar.

That's it.

Ciao.

Mid Labour Weekend.

 Today is the middle of Labour Weekend.

Sort of like the middle finger.

If you're a fulltime worker, it's the holiday tomorrow (on Monday) that makes it all worthwhile. Neither our other blogger (Peter) nor I usually work on a Monday, so it makes little difference to us, except that I have been invited to morning tea at my grandsons' place. Yes! It will be great to see them both.

My practice for this year now stands at 329 hours. I'll certainly get to 330 today.

I have no gigs on the horizon. Okay, I did turn a silly gig down, but I have nothing on the horizon, not even a jam. I have not had a double bass gig for over a year. Hence, I guess, the fact that my double bass practice is falling behind. There is a folk festival not too far down the road in the Nui but it is very expensive to get in and there is no promise of a chance to play. Anyway, folk musicians aren't very exciting to play with.

However, I am doing worthwhile practice on the guitar and violin. Practice is its own reward - it makes you play better.

Well, I'll leave it there for this morning. I think my next step will be towards the bathroom.

Enjoy your mid Labour Weekend day.

Ciao.

Good morning, it's Labour Weekend!

 

There must be a National Weekend some time too? I hope there's not an ACT Weekend or a NZ First Weekend.

It's a cloudy old day in the Nui and it is supposed to rain soon. At least my lawns are done. The property is looking pretty good. 

My practice is going pretty well too. It's not quite 8am and I have already done half an hour on the guitar. I hope that Peter is practising his guitar.

Peter

He's evidently going away in January and staying in a place where a guitar is provided. He seems keen to be able to play some background music for his lady. I guess he'll be learning a few chords first. Then he'll probably run over a few pentatonic scales. 

I'll read Rob's new blog (Robert's Cello Bag) later to see how his practice is going. I hope he is working on his scales and looking for patterns that will help him to get around the instrument. I hope he is not wasting all his practice time on Hayden concertos.

The new computer is going pretty well now but I still can't do screen prints. Ah well, it's something I can work on.

We're driving up past Upper Hutt around lunchtime to visit some friends of Shelley's at a camping ground. It doesn't look like it'll be a great day to visit a camping ground, but that's life.

I think I'll go and do another half hour of guitar practice. As Peter knows now the guitar is a good instrument to practise when you haven't been up long. You can sit on the couch and make yourself comfortable. That wouldn't really be possible if you were practising the trombone or the double bass.

See you later.

Ciao.

It looks like he's back!

Rob is back and he's got rid of all the silly stuff using The Curmudgeon's blog. TC will forgive him when he sees this. 

Unfortunately I'm still getting used to my computer and can't take screen shots, so I've had to write out (by copying) what I saw on his new blog,

Here goes..

                                                                           * * * * * * * *

ROBERT'S CELLO BAG

Putting C G D and A back onto the cello

Hi all. By the grase of Jesus and Mary I'm back.

Firstly, sorry to The Curmudgeon. I shouldn't have messed with hiz blog. I went to confession and revealed everything to Father Banana. I also prayed to Mary. Anyway, let's get on wiht it.

On this blog ill obviously be explaining the Bible to those athests who dont understand what they are missing out on. Im also going too be talking about the cello and the violin. Ill play a bit of the Hiyden cello concertos and explain how to finger scales on the cello. You can just read, sit back and enjoy,

Ill be puting a link up to my new blog soon.

Its good too be back,

* * * * * * * *

Good to see Robert back on board.

The state of the blogs.

 

For some reason Peter (aka The Curmudgeon) has become obsessed with olive trees and how they manage to bear their fruit. He popped around the other day and got curious about why two olive trees on our property aren't producing olives. Okay, I use olive oil, but olives are not a big thing in my life. I have no desire to eat olives. Still, he has gone on and on about our bloody trees. He even wrote a post about it. He copied a huge thing from Google - it went on and on. Let it go, Peter. As my mum would have said, "You're becoming a bit of a bore."

Rob has shown a face again. I don't think that Peter is replying to his comments because Rob deleted his own blog and then totally copied Peter's. That has changed now and he has a blog called "Not the Curmudgeon" that features a picture that I think is supposed to represent The Curmudgeon and himself. There are no posts at present. I do not know what Rob is playing at. What is he trying to prove?

My practice keeps moving along. 326 hours for the year at this present time, with more to come today. I have been a bit slack on double bass practice. I'll try to rectify that a bit today. 

Well, that's it from me today.

Cerca di mantenere quei blog pertinenti e interessanti, se puoi.

Ciao tutti.

So, how's our little blogging community going?

 Well, it's all a bit confusing, to be honest.

One blogger, Rob, had deleted his blog and then replicated The Curmudgeon's blog. Obviously, The Curmudgeon was not pleased and refused to answer the comments that Rob later left on his blog. Now it appears that Rob has reappeared with a blog called Not the Curmudgeon. WTF! 

It has all been a bit silly around here. Though Rob is a Catholic and they're used to pushing their own point before all others. Zeus! I'm pleased that I escaped from all that shit!

What have I been up to? Well, after two very busy workdays that finished at 8pm, I've mowed about a third of my lawns, chatted to TC and given a friend a two hour guitar lesson. I have got in an hour of music practice and might get in a bit more before bedtime. Tomorrow it is back into the lawns. 

There you go.

I'm off to be productive now.

Ciao tutti.

Gospel Time.

 

Graham 12:11 Jesus was taking a walk on the beach. He was thinking about relationships between his chosen people. He smiled as he thought about the word 'chosen' because he had done the choosing and none of the people had really had any choice. He thought about people who would grow up in places like India. They would be born into a completely different set of rules. 

He thought about one of his competitors who actually had ten arms and ten hands. "She would stand out anywhere!" Jesus thought. Jesus felt a little jealous. This wasn't a good emotion for him to be fiddling around with. The word 'fiddling' made him think of a little known guy who ran a blog with a regular readership of one. He had had a Catholic reader but he had buggered off for whatever reason. Now he just had one reader who liked to go to movies dressed as a cowboy and who had a passion for hats.

Jesus had sent him an 'Eve' to sort out the hat thing but it wasn't really working out - he was still wearing them. "Ah well," Jesus thought, "You can't win 'em all,"

* * *

There you go. Anyone who was missing Robert and his religious contributions to our blogging community will be feeling more at home now.

Okay, time to take my pills and do some practice. I'll put some cream on my itchy arm too. There will be a need for a toilet visit some time soon too.

Ciao tutti.

Two old men were chatting.

 Jim met up with Phil.

Jim told Phil about his sore foot that had been diagnosed as gout. Then Phil spoke. "My father had gout. I remember him going to the doctor around 1973. We were living in Napier at the time. I think I might have had something similar too, a few years back."

Richard's Bass Bag* has been around for nineteen years. I read an AI appraisal of the site on my phone this morning - it just popped up, I wasn't looking for it. It stated that this blogging site was built around the bass guitar. That killed any faith I might have had (but didn't) in AI.

Something that this blog should be famous for is the invention of the phrase 'parallel universe' to cover the situation where someone is telling someone else something that is important to them and the other person immediately replies with a tremendously similar story that proves they weren't really paying much attention, or sympathy, but were thinking of a similar situation that they knew about.

* * *

This site is named after double basses (I have two) but I probably spend more time talking about my violin. Well, the violin has taken over the role of my main gigging instrument. Well, it is easier for an old guy to carry around. I've also done much more practice on my violin lately. I also practise the guitar, perhaps a bit too much at times, and consider it my 'hobby' instrument. I'll try and put in a good amount of violin practice today, with maybe a bit of double bass. Ah, it's so easy to sit on the couch and practise the guitar!

* * *

So, I see that The Curmudgeon is getting ready to celebrate his 20 years of posting.

I'm sure there will be lots of references to old posts of his. We'll probably also get reminders of all his seldom seen blogs by 'different people' like The Violin Playing Curmudgeon and The Catholic Bishop Curmudgeon. 

Obviously we won't be hearing from Robert because his blog has gone. All shut up. I think he's busy trying to make friends on Facebook. Sheesh! (to quote TC)

Well, violin practice calls. Obviously I'll start off with long bows, scales and listening to my intonation and tuning. Then I've got some repertoire tunes to work on. 

Ciao tutti.

* the original bass bagging site

315

 

315

That's how many hours of practice I've done so far this year.

Today was a pretty quiet practice day, I only did one hour.

Tomorrow I am not working, so maybe I should push that violin and double bass practice along a bit?

* * *

Hey, I got a friendship request from ex-blogger Rob on Facebook yesterday. That's not going to happen. 

I'm still having a bit of trouble with some things on my (our) new computer. I can't download pictures and videos at the moment. 

Good to see that Peter made it up north to see his sister on her birthday. What a good brother!

* * *

Yes, I'm giving you little snippets of information on this evening's post. 

I'm a bit tired and information is short.

I've decided to retire from teaching at the end of this year. That's 50 years of teaching done. I have worked at a lot of schools. I guess I'll have more time to donate to my music practice. Provided, of course, that my hands hold out. I'm feeling my age quite a bit lately. I guess that's why I'm finally retiring. 

Well, I guess I'll wrap it up there. Hey, next year this blog will have been going for twenty years. That's quite a long time.

Enjoy your evening.

Ciao tutti.

Not the case.

 

Is Peter correct when he accuses this blog of coming from the right?

This is a purse. It is not the case.

This is the case.

Actually, I don't know what the silly old guy is going on about. 

In my last post I said, "Prepare to move forward, in a VERY POSITIVE WAY!"

I think this statement is what got the old fellow excited. I was actually talking about personal ambitions, in my case music. At the present time I have done 311 hours of practice this year. This amount will be increased today. Remember that I showed you this video.

This is me practising very quick picking on the guitar. Believe me, it has nothing to do with politics. You won't hear a lot of guitarists play this quickly because it is something that requires concentrated practice. Quite a lot of concentrated practice.

Okay, I don't get many music gigs these days, but does that really matter? I have been practising some very interesting things on the violin and double bass as well. I have a whole way of approaching scales that I use for improvising on the violin. I show these to my students but I don't think they really see the value in what I am showing them. Hopefully the penny will drop one day.

Ah well, you can only share and hope.

This is Peter. He also goes by the name
The Curmudgeon.

Evidently his lady is not keen on him wearing hats. I wonder why?

Peter has decided that I have turned right wing in my political thinking. Maybe a guy who chooses to wear a raccoon hat processes things differently from the rest of us? Anyway, I can assure you that I will be voting Labour at the next election, which is early next month. Hopefully that statement will shut racoon boy old man up.

Well, I'd better get back to my practice. 

Ciao for now.