taking the blip

Ever since lockdown started, I’ve been planning to “do some recording”.  Like all such good intentions, apathy and procrastination got in the way.  Who would have thought it was possible to spend so much time - and energy - doing nothing.  

The ‘getting started with Affinity’ project never got off the ground.  Anniemay - as is often the case - has shamed me; not only has she downloaded the software, she’s now filling Blip with fancy editing tricks.

Other grandiose plans have also come to naught.  When the letter from the NHS came telling me I must hide in a cupboard for 12 weeks, I thought I could use the time to improve my mind and my education.  I would read a book.  Not my usual lightweight Kindle fare - something a bit more substantial.  The compete works of Charles Dickens?  Or Proust perhaps?  Nah.  He spent 7 volumes searching for lost time.  It’s a bit too close to home.

A few weeks ago, my friend Neil send me a recording he’d made of a song he used to play with his Dad - ‘Someone to watch over me’.    He’s made a lovely job of it - he’s particularly good at playing ‘jazz’ chords on the guitar - all those awkward jobs that have upper case and lower case letters as well as numbers and symbols.

I’ve got the lyrics to an old(ish) song that I’ve always fancied doing, stuffed away in a drawer somewhere.  It’s remained there because it requires more than the handful of chords that I can manage. 

I make a rough vocal on my phone and send it to Neil - “what do you think?” - being code for “do you fancy recording a proper guitar accompaniment and sending it back to me so I can sing to it?”

The guitar part is now in my in-tray.  As I expected, he’s done a fabulous job; not just the chords for me to sing to, but some lovely twiddly bits in between.

Best get started.  No excuses now.  Except perhaps a coffee first?  But before that I could get the microphone out of the cupboard and blip it.  

That takes longer than expected and now it’s nearly lunch time.  Later then.