There goes another new year's resolution

A belated happy new year to you all. I hope you all survived the festive season. We did but out waistlines didn't. Every year we buy enough food to feed us about 3 times over. Every year we say never again but then we do exactly the same again. Why? Tradition: if we didn't then it wouldn't feel like Christmas.
 

So here we are in 2013 and already I have broken my promise to post at least something on the blog every day. As you can see, this binge-eating spree has upped my lethargy level to new heights and even blogging has been too much trouble. But on the other hand, I have been working hard recording stuff on my new 24 track machine with which I am forming a deep bond. The stuff sounds great (biased, moi?) and it's remarkably easy to use. This is in stark contrast to my Roland keyboard. I 've had it for years but have never used the sequencer feature, despite various half-hearted attempts. So the other day, I sat down with the manual and was determined to crack the thing.

 

 

Now this manual is a massive tome, full of reams of instructions, rather loosely translated from the Japanese and pages and pages of technical data. By the time you'd absorbed all this, the damn thing would be obsolete and in fact this is exactly what's happened as everyone (except me) uses computers these days for recording music so even my brand new 24 track thing could be said to be somewhat antediluvian.

The fearsome Roland XP-80...what can it all mean?

Anyway, after an hour or two spent pressing various buttons and staring myopically at the keyboard's hopelessly inadequate LCD screen, I am ashamed to say I admitted defeat and gave up. Ridiculous isn't it? But I can't see how I am ever going to get to grips with it unless I attend a 3 week course and if such things ever existed then they wouldn't now, due to the obsolescence issue.

The wondrous Tascam DP24...the beating heart of the Marshside hit factory

This failure meant I had to play some tricky Steely Dan chords correctly several times over and use my old drum machine, which means days spent programming it. The Roland has better drum sounds but if you can't figure out how to record a pattern then it might as well sound like a cake tin. I honestly think this is the first time I've been beaten by technology which I suppose is not bad, given my advancing years. I know some people who can barely turn their TV on and as for tasks such as streaming music from the PC over the home network to the living room stereo...climbing Everest with one hand tied behind the back would be easier.

 

 

Still that's nothing compared to the UK's inability to cope with a few snowflakes. This has become such an annual news story and standing joke that we've now come to expect it but it really is rather poor, to say the least. Here at Marshside Acres, we carry on regardless and the Eastern European workforce are experts at gritting the tracks, cutting logs for the fires, breaking the ice on the ponds and cossetting the livestock. By the standards of their winters, our current weather is positively balmy and we have a job to persuade them against wearing shorts and t-shirts.

A snowy vista at Marshside Acres...asylum-seeking workforce not pictured.

They work hard but then with an influx of Romanians and Bulgarians due soon, they know they face stiff competition.


More snow expected tomorrow: bring it on!