Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Dowland

Current work: Capri medical romance
Listening to: Dowland
Reading: Anita Brookner, Strangers (very Prufrockian - very sad and lonely characters)

Up to my eyes in stuff, so keeping this short. I’m learning a new piece on the guitar - Tarleton’s Resurrection by John Dowland. (This version is on the lute.) It’s tricky because the chords are four-noters and it’s all over the place position-wise, so I had to think about it. Loved my lesson yesterday: once I’d worked my way through it, Jim got me to do variations with twiddly bits (ha, channelling my inner Ritchie Blackmore). So at three a.m. this morning I was wide awake, fretting a bit; and instead of a book opening up in my head, what do I get? Yup, late 17th-century music. Wouldn’t have been fair to everyone if I’d sneaked downstairs and played it into my phone or what have you… and sadly, after I finally got back to sleep, it had gone when I woke.

Am pleased to report that Paris tickets are in (I was starting to worry), tumble dryer working for now, and electrics in utility room no longer fried. And I have the RNA ‘Fabulous at Fifty’ lunch to look forward to. (And nice scales again this morning.) So the rest of this month is going to be nice… right?

2 comments:

Lacey Devlin said...

Wow your guitar lessons are really progressing. Those of us without musical talent look on with envy ;).

Thanks so much for my birthday wishes! It's so amazing to have a favorite author wish you happy birthday. I'm a big fan of the internet :)

Kate Hardy said...

LOL, Lacey, my version of it is like a snail's, interspersed by quiet counting of frets to work out the trickier bits, and mutters of 'oh, nuts, I messed that up'.

My pleasure on the birthday wishes, and I hope you had a fab day and were spoiled rotten.