Sep 2023
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Fortnight notes: strings
Playing so much music over the summer has fired us up to keep it going now we’re back home. I’ve picked up the lavta again, I’ve restrung my huge Irish bouzouki (Marama the massive mando), and I’m learning new mandola repertoire as well. Olga is amassing great lists of tunes and songs she’d like to learn, and we’re starting to work our way through them. [459 words]
Aug 2023
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Month notes: heat
We’re home, after what apparently was almost a month but absolutely doesn’t feel like it. [190 words]
Jul 2023
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Week notes: music, glorious music!
We spent this past week in Spilaio Grevenon, a small Greek mountain village, at the Portitsa Festival. The first week of the festival offered workshops, while the weekend was for concerts (although we only stayed for the first, before fleeing the incoming crowds). My wife followed a workshop in polyphonic singing from the fabulous group Stringless; I took lessons in Greek folk guitar from Giannis Papageorgiou. Our eldest son spent the mornings making art with Giorgos Gerontides and in the afternoons joined us for guitar. (The younger spent his week with grandma.) [537 words]
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Week notes: silence, golden silence
This week our two boys have both been out of the house (one at a summer camp, one with his grandparents). And my wife was travelling a few days, so I had the house entirely to myself for the first time in many years. [109 words]
Jun 2023
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This blog now equipped with comments (sort of)
A blog ain’t a blog without comments, that’s just shouting. This blog now has comments, more or less. On posts where I remember to hook it up, replies to a thread on Mastodon will display as comments here. I expect this to get almost no use whatsoever, but I still feel happier for having set it up. [106 words]
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