Margate, June 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. Space without the space.

2. I’m really enjoying Dr Jen Gunter’s new podcast, Body Stuff. Episode 1 takes on the “8 glasses of water a day” myth.

3. A nice breakdown from The Verge on all the biggest features announced at Apple’s WWDC conference that will be coming to iPhones, iPads and Macs later this year. I’m particularly looking forward to homescreen widgets on iPads and offline Siri.

4. One of my favourite podcasts, More or Less, is back with a new series.

5. The People of 1381 is a project investigating and tweeting the events of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Very cool!

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Dover, June 2021

This week’s Five Things…

1. Bo Burnham’s comedy special, Inside, is excellent. Clever and funny. A lockdown masterpiece!

2. A great episode of EconTalk with Ian Leslie (the author of Conflicted) on how to disagree better.

3. Word of the day: Gesamtkunstwerk

4. That’s one talented bird!

5. One for musicians and music teachers. I love these examples for explaining the various musical dynamics (piano, forte etc).

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Berlin, April 2015

This week’s Five Things…

1. I absolutely loved this episode of Tape Notes with Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis which delves into the writing and recording process for Foals’ album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost

2. This Greenpeace advert is very clever. Hits the mark!

3. I discover so much great music through NPR’s Tiny Desk. Butcher Brown is my latest find.

4. Wintergatan, the makers of the amazing Marble Machine are building another music making machine, currently called Marble Machine X. They are documenting the building process on YouTube.

5. I’ve rediscovered my love for Really Bad Chess. If you’re bad at chess but like the idea of chess this might be the game for you.

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ps. I’m taking a week off next week but usual service will resume the following week. 

Helmingham, April 2016

This week’s Five Things…

1. I’ve updated my Now page.

2. Maxïmo Park discuss the making of their latest album Nature Always Wins on the (Sodajerker On Songwriting) podcast.

3. And another music podcast recommendation! Adam Buxton talks about his creative process and his jingles on the Tape Notes podcast.

4. Ted Gioia explains how to listen to old music and hear it the way it first sounded to those alive at the time.

5. A beautiful collection of digitally restored photos of Earth.

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(This is an archive copy of my now page update on 12th May 2021)

Face-to-face drum lessons are back!

Teaching online has been invaluable over the last year but I’m so glad to be back teaching at Colchester High School and South Street Students. I’ve missed seeing my students and colleagues in person!

Teaching online

I’m continuing to teach online lessons to my roster of students that live out of reach of Ipswich and Colchester. Teaching online is very different to teaching in-person and it’s nice having that variety.

Updating drum transcriptions

Earlier this year I switched from using a very old copy of Sibelius for making drum transcriptions and worksheets to Dorico Pro. It’s 1000x better. I regret not making the switch sooner.

I’m now working my way through all of my old transcriptions and updating them with the new software.

All of the updated transcriptions are now hosted on Buy Me A Coffee. In the two months since I started hosting the transcriptions there I’ve had around 200 downloads. Not bad!

Keeping fit

I’ve started cycling to and from the studio. Great exercise and means I’m using my car far less. Good for me, good for the environment!

Miscellaneous

I’m currently reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and How to Make the World Add Up by Tim Harford. Really enjoying both so far.

We recently started rewatching Community (for about the 100th time). Such a funny show. We are continuing to work our way through all of The Wire. If you haven’t watched it, you should.

Since moving last year, we bought a load of house plants. Trying not to kill them has become a fun new hobby. If you are new to house plants I recommend getting a Devil’s Ivy. They grow so fast and seem indestructible!