So now, retirement and musical aspirations. There’s definitely a moral to this retirement blog although I’m not quite sure what it is but there is. As you can probably guess from the title it’s something to do with spending money on music-related gadgets, for lack of a better word. And the fact that I’m not sure what their correct descriptor is gives you a clue as to the nature of the problem, for that is most definitely what it is.
This week I attempted to do two things music-related to my current musical retirement goals. The first came about by chance after reading what one of our folk fiddle group had said about a video clip of a young man (he was ridiculously good) playing the bodhran (sometimes known as an Irish drum, see picture) along to one of our Thursday night tunes – Tam Lin as you ask. The person had commented perhaps we should get a bodhran player.
I thought I’ve got one of those. I’d bought it on one of our Irish holidays in Limerick for about £30 (note the price), many years ago. After the usual initial enthusiasm it had rested quietly in the attic waiting for its next moment in the sun. And possibly here it was.
Not in any dramatic way just as a prompt to take it out and see if I could still play it. It’s not like playing a normal drum (look it up on Google if you want to know more). Suffice it to say you play it with a double-headed tipper using your wrist to manipulate the ‘stick’ against the face of the drum.
It’s a bit counter-intuitive but, as I say, look it up. For my purposes here what you need to know is that, after all this time, I could still get a reasonably Celtic sound out of it. That is, I could make it work. I wasn’t going to take it to the group and risk looking a fool. But there was satisfaction in simply getting a decent sound and rhythm out of it. Which I did.
And your point? Well the point is that this last week, as you may remember, I spent about 10 times the amount spent on the drum on my latest toys – a midi keyboard and a mixer type thing (Focusrite) (musical tracks not flour) and here’s the kicker, I could not get a cheep out of them. Not a sound.
So I took it back to the shop. I did not quite say it’s broken but I secretly hoped it was then it would not be my stupidity that was the cause of the silence. It wasn’t broken but it did take ‘the expert’ a very long time to work out what was wrong with it – or did he?
Anyway after an hour or so of ‘crossbeam’s gone out of skew on treddle’ type talk, it made a noise and I took it home. No actual music but at least it made a noise. And here’s the thing, it continued to make some kind of sound up until I went to bed that night and turned it off. And here’s the next thing, the next morning it was back to not making a cheep.
Now this isn’t some analogue machine that might vary in performance from one day to the next, you know like an old car. If something of that kind is temperamental then fair enough, you might expect it. But this is a new digital (i.e. no moving parts etc.) piece of equipment that had worked the night before.
I know what you’re thinking, you’re saying to yourself, you simply haven’t turned on the condenser toggle. Maybe, maybe but I tried every switch and toggle I could find and no success. It’s a horribly complicated piece of software. Unnecessarily so in my opinion. Over-engineered you might say.
I was, I think it fair to say, bereft. I spent the whole of yesterday morning trying to get the bloody thing/s to work. After a couple of hours I gave up and picked up the bohdran. Surprise, surprise it worked. I bashed it with the tipper and it made a noise.
So the moral of this story? I’m not sure, maybe that bigger isn’t always better or more complicated more enjoyable than simpler, the simple pleasures are best, or more expensive necessarily guaranteed to bring increased pleasure. And maybe there’s a lot to be said for analogue over digital. I do not know and yesterday I was about past caring. Feel free to let me know if you have an opinion.
Retirement and musical aspirations summary
As a regular reader of this retirement blog you will know that music forms a large part of my retirement. You will also remember that I hate it when my retirement life is out of control and this week it’s been way beyond my control. Sometimes music gives me a pleasure that no other retirement activity can bring and other times it brings me pain. Well this time it’s brought me both in not quite equal measures but close. If only I’d stuck with bashing the drum. I’ll let you know how the digital side of life works out, it surely has many miles to travel.