Strange days...

I find myself in yet another strange place. With Alex gone, maybe for now, or maybe for longer, my situation is very different. For now, it's me, Oj & Nel, and Jake the cat. What a funny little family. (I'd like to include my lovely White Yamaha, and maybe the red Fender Rhodes in my list of nearest and dearest, but fear that is clutching at straws!)
It has not been a good week for the composing, with quite a plethora of emotional backlash taking up much of my time; plus I had a dep keys gig with a new band on Saturday, and had loads of songs to learn for that. Fortunately, they were a great band, and apart from a couple of comedy errors on my part (which I hope were noticed more by me than anyone else), I did a good job. See, there it is again, the music; keeping me sane! 
I shall make my apologies to Gary Carpenter tomorrow for my measly offering, but I'm hoping life will even out shortly, and allow rather more attention to the musical matters at hand.
To that end, I have decided to approach the composing very much as a skill that needs to be practiced daily, like learning an instrument. I aim to do a minimum of 30 minutes composing even on the busiest days, and where time and energy permits, 2 or 3 90 minute sessions in a day will be really productive. Finances are more than tight, so I have to fit in the teaching and gigs to keep my head above water, but I hope that I will soon find the level from where I can be most productive. Crikey, if I can do an undergrad degree whilst getting divorced and going through a custody battle for my children, I guess I can do this. It's not like anyone ever said "masters at the academy?...piece of piss", so I'm hardly unprepared for the level of work ;)


Went to LVP this evening. They are really smashing people, and, as ever, I come away feeling good. Thank goodness for friends and songs and a cup of tea! Some great new repertoire coming up. It's great that we'll be doing the 606 regularly, it gives us a platform for the new work, which is never complete until it's been gigged a bit. 


Going to see the Pete for jazz composition and arranging on Wednesday. Can't wait. So much to learn, so much to say. 


tra la la! xx


ps. does anyone else think the newest version of iTunes grey and annoying? I'm not being a luddite, but I did prefer the old version.