Geez...

When the hell was the last time I posted????

Apologies, avid reader [cough]. Busy, busy!

Last post was about band practice, eh? Okay, catchup time then.

First up, had Rockschool the following day (last Thursday). Had our first little exam. Did okay. I think I scored 80%. Most of it was about chord construction, what chords are in the major keys etc. Some was practical 'play this scale in this key' stuff. I pretty much goofed on 2 out of 10 in each section. I was really distracted that night, I can tell you. I even had to ask for one question to be read out again as I'd zoned out completely, thinking about work.

For homework we were supposed to learn our study-partner's song, then learn and tab out the chord structure for the first song in our 'easy' songlist. Mine was "Mr Tambourine Man" which has a structure, albeit a rather changeable one depending upon how many lyrics Mr Dylan wanted to throw in. We were also given a number of pentatonic hammer-on exercises, which, for some reason, have been giving me trouble. They shouldn't be hard, but my issues arise on the high B/E strings. I can't seem to get the notes clean and switching from the 2 semi-tone to 3 semi-tone interval from the G to B-string trips me up every time. Not a clue why. I used to think I was pretty good at that stuff!

I actually didn't work (real work) at all over the weekend. My excuse was that I was stuck at home waiting for a plumber, who didn't come on Saturday then didn't turn up on Sunday until late... and who's supposedly coming back tomorrow morning to try to fix our boiler startup problems, though he doesn't come across as particularly convinced that he knows what the issue is. The upside to that was that I got to wail on the axe for a bit, both acoustically and with some electrification. It felt good. Very good.

Band practice this week is on Thursday, overlapping with Rockschool, so I'm going to have to cut out of class early and arrive late at the studio. I used to complain that I didn't have enough guitar going on... now I'm having scheduling conflicts! Quite the change. I still don't know how I'm going to juggle Rockschool and The Band and still do both justice. Frankly, though, The Band comes first in my books. It's what I want. In many ways it was the reason for signing up to RS in the first place. It just so happened that, like London buses, I waited forever then the two came along at once.

Tonight I have to write out the structure of "Mr Tambourine Man" properly so that I can perform it in class on Thursday. Any more playing than that is a bonus!!!

Oh, and as Tim's away on a residential course this weekend I should have lots of time for practice. If I can I'm going to head down to the Magic Ship (supporting) gig in Barnes on Friday night to hopefully kick of a rockin' weekend.