Before we run out of chapter, I think I'd better make an end to these eras once and for all. I intimated that a few needed to be mentioned weeks and weeks ago, thus far only two have received their due. The first one I mentioned back in A Few New Eras... was the one Yarema, as a now gigging band, has entered. The second one mentioned in ...Bringing a Home-made Desktop PC to Every Household... was regarding my first steps into the luscious world of Linux, and also I suppose in building the computer myself I've entered the era of the Computer Engineer. The third era, presently to be mentioned, is...
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Such a catastrophe! This is almost blasphemy, in fact. Yuk! Can I delete that? That's probably the most horrible bit of rhyming I've read in the last ten years. Carry on - shut up about it! Just get it written. Forgetting the horrible rhyming, it really is almost blasphemy that I've gone over a month now, without mentioning my new post as Classical Guitar Teacher. The girl I was teaching to play the bass since last October went back to Germany in June, and then until the beginning of last month I had been completely studentless. Until my sister came home from her piano lesson one Sunday in September, saying that her teacher had passed on our phone number to the mum of one of her pupils, the mum wanting classical guitar lessons. I then spoke to my future pupil, and we agreed that once I've arranged a plan of lessons for her, we can begin. And we began on Tuesday, the 3rd of October, at 20:00. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that we had our first lesson exactly a year after Marta and I had our first lesson. So that is kind of strange, that it's worked out like that. The lessons are going well, I think. Jess, my adorable sister, has come back home from one of her lessons with praise passed onto me from her teacher Pat, which originally came from Mrs. Zahdi my pupil, regarding our lessons together. So yes, I think I can safely say they are going well. And she's improving fast, which is always a nice sign for a teacher. From having no musical experience whatsoever, she can now read music to some degree, and has a very good ear for tuning, which I think is really a sign of natural musical talent, for I don't think I'm quite a good enough teacher to enable someone to do that after a single hour of simply showing them which frets to play on each string to tune the corresponding string. However, very well it is going, and I think I am now entitled to the title of Guitar Teacher.
Two more quick mentions, and then I must give you your Word of the Week before today turns into tomorrow, and then I'll leave you in peace.
There was a big Zabava at Stockport Ukrainian Club on Saturday the 4th of this month. Four bands played, and there were two vocal groups. Chervona Kalyna, one of the oldest Uki bands around (maybe the oldest, I don't know) played first. With me in them! They didn't have a bass player and were going to play without, but while they were sound-checking earlier in the day I thought they really could do with a bass. So before they were about to go on, I was standing with Slough, the brilliant accordion player from Chervona Kalyna, and I asked him if he fancied having a bass player. And he said, 'Yeah, come along. Come on, let's go on.' So on we went. I hadn't heared a few of the songs before, let alone practice with them, so Roman, their guitarist and my friend Andy's dad, helped me out by telling me the keys we were in and what chord changes there would be. We played Zita Mati pretty much exactly the same as we play it in Yarema, so I was right at home with that one. And we played Yikhav Kozak za Dunai in a different key. I didn't quite cotton on to what it was straight away, but about halfway through the first verse I got what was going on and just transposed what I play with Yarema up a tone, and it went down all right. It sounded pretty damn good, in fact. It was a pleasure to play with those guys. Hopefully it won't be the last time. I kept trying to throw little grins at my band mates in the audience when I made mistakes, but I couldn't really see them for the darkness of the room. When we'd finished playing, I went and sat down with them again, and as I walked up, Dan said, 'Now don't you play with any other bands, you hear? You're concentrating on us.' A vocal group was on next, and then the magnificent Yarema played a blinding set. One slightly funny thing I haven't mentioned yet. You remember that Chervona Kalyna borrowed Yarema's bass player to play with them in their set? They had repaid the favour, because we had borrowed their amazing drummer, Zen, to play with us, because Andy had severed a tendon in his finger and was out of action. Andy still came and set up all the sound for us, and generally helped in sorting out the stuff. There's nothing stopping that guy. But Zen is fantastic. His drumming style I absolutely love. It's really off-kilter, and the place he likes putting his crashes - a quaver into the bar, instead of on the start of the bar - is quite unusual to me, I don't think I've heared anyone play it there before (except in the midst of a ridiculously complicated and dense drumming pattern, maybe) and I love it. At the very end of the night, in fact, I was saying goodbye to old Zen, and telling him how much I love his drumming style and why, but he said he had no idea what I meant, but that he 'loved me, babe,' and had a lot of respect for me. Which is completely mutual and so I told him. I hope to god we can play some music again.
I promised two quick mentions, the second will have to take a sentence after that rigmarole. I've recently been introduced by my good friend Adam to a very good musician called Clark. That's your lot.
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And breathe. We are now completely up to date with the life and times of Miblo del Carpio.
Word of the Week
Gamin
gamin n. 1 a street urchin. 2 an impudent child.
Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary
This is a good one. I've never heared this one before. Gamin? It looks so unusual, doesn't it? Blimey. I don't think it'll be the next word for our favourite, street-corner posing undesirables, though, do you? I might try and make a literary friend and kindly ask him to describe at least one character in his next book as a gamin. A gamin? Really. It comes from the French, apparently.
