Agony Aunties and Uncles: Am I being stubborn?
This tale is inspired by Mark Mapstone’s recount of a fraudster trying to swindle him of cash….
I’m not as confident as he about copying and pasting emails…. Also, I am stubborn, not massively, but quite, I get this from my dad, I’m not the only stubborn daughter in the fam. It’s fairly important you know this.
What”s this building up to……? I have stupidly got myself into a pickle with the maintenance man where I live. Hmmm. Problematic situation, dull though it is:
- I move to a new yard in Hackney. We need keys for the post box to access mail. None given, okay I can deal with that.
- Agency advise us to ask maintenance man to assist. Done. He says he’ll get it sorted.
- I get locked out my flat. Agency advise me to contact maintenance man, he said he’d be there in 30 mins.
- He lets me in, I am very grateful. The end. No mention of fees.
- Few weeks later, emailed by maintenance man re keys, there will be a £10 charge.
- I reply with a pithy, please bill the agency, as they were supposed to supply the keys.
- He’s reply: I should have charged you £30 for attending your lock out. You can either pay me £30 or £10.
- I said, I’d contact the agency first and get back to him, as I didn’t get any keys in the first place.
- Same day, he sends me through an invoice for £30.
- I didn’t like the tit for tat, arsey nature of his reply. He mentioned nuttin about lock out fees at the time or more importantly prior to it! He could have charged £300!!!
- Since then, the agency have washed their hands of the matter, although prepared to pay him £10 (they subcontract him for work and were the ones to recommend I get in touch with him when locked out).
- There have been some terse email exchanges in between. (Phone would have been easier, but the maintenance man doesn’t pick up, prefers email).
- The maintenance man has assured me he’ll take me to small claims court if I dont’t pay up.
What would you do? Mum told me off and said I should just pay up, friends reckon the maintenance guy is a ________ (insert profanity) and that I should ignore.
I’m not quite sure. If I’m forced to pay him, he’ll be getting it in a massive bag of copper coins and 5ps, (in weird amounts). Trus!
What would you do?
Music tech geekery
Thanks to Create Digital Music for the heads up. I’d love to deliver a music project which had young people using the MIDI grids! I like the energy of the performance, if you push the buttons does it effect the velocity?
dromama from Altitude Sickness on Vimeo.
The Guitarmaton (by Ian Hattwick) looks like good fun, but goodness it would take someone like me ages to make!
Last one is Jordan’s Rudess’ iPad music application released a few days ago called MorphWiz, what a melancholy sound! I’m sure, no certain there are other synth sounds available, but again think the possibilities of using an application with live instruments would be wicked!
MorphWiz first experiment – Tiridum from Geert Bevin on Vimeo.
Return to Wordle
I used this a while back and did nothing with the data, this wordle cloud show the tags that appear more frequently on my blog, the importance of a tag is shown by its font size or color (strength):
This is my twitter wordle cloud:
What’s yours like? It’s made me think about how I use my blog, my SEO keeps showing hobbit references, because of this hippy blog post I wrote some time ago, maybe I should pander to the interest, write some hobbit/Tolkien inspired music.
100 Hour Challenge Anyone?
I went along to a regional creative agent conference today and was inspired by Ewan McIntosh to do a 100 hour challenge, well in fact, I was initially inspired by Rachel Carter, who was inspired by Ewan (in a previous training event) to do it. Thing is, I’m uncertain as to whether I can do it because I work away from home a lot.
What is the 100 Hour Challenge? I quote Rachel Carter:
“Pick something about which you are passionate, which you have a deep desire to learn or to achieve yourself. It can be related to work or totally personal. Ideally it’s something you will share with the wider world. Practice, read up on, share your knowledge on your chosen challenge for at least one hour a day, every day, for 100 days.”
I want to improve my improvisation techniques, learn more about jazz scales, but that involves using a piano/keyboard. When I work in Brum I hardly have access… You’re meant to practice an hour a day. However, I can only practice when I’m near a piano. What’s a girl to do? Can I do the challenge as soon as I’m home in London? Am I creating ‘extraneous pillars’? Excuses? Can I do a slower version of it? Am I being lame? What do you think?
margin music tour photos
Some photos from last Saturday taken by Jonathan Howells our VJ.
Doctor Farrah on the mic
Dusk, Blackdown and myself messing with midi
Trim bustin rhymes and the occasional witty one
Some more flickr pics from the Polstar:
Margin’s Music
Sorry about all this blogging, what can I say, I’m on a roll!
So I’m part of a musical experiment led by producers Dusk and Blackdown, I’ve kindly been given permission to use some pics from our last rehearsal. They were taken by Jonathan Howells, who has done some wicked stuff which you can check here.
Me looking confused, all day long rehearsals hurt the brain and we only discovered air-con the third rehearsal I think:
Dusk plays with his Theremin:
Ableton Live playtime:
Percussion by Renu and in the backdrop lovely visuals by Jonathan:
Sibelius meets MIDI from Reason 4
Kiss from a Rose…?
I went along to a community music event last month in Winchester and was taught a lovely song; a Hybrydian Seal Calling chant, I’m going to teach it to my primary lot this term as a warmer, some nice chord clashes! There were only five of us singing away, it was good fun! Impressed with the iPhone recording quality, yes, that’s me crooning!
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Happy Work Pit
The pic above sums it up, I’ve been in a dark room, staring at and playing synths for the last few days, yup, I asked for it and it’s happened, snowed under with work, I’ve even turned down a few projects!! I know!?! The other day I was bemoaning the hustle!
Loads of established freelancers advised me that 3 years is what it takes, and they were right! I do hope I won’t be eating humble pie next term, what with this new government, I saw little on the Tory manifesto about arts and culture funding, gulp!
Anyroad, I’ve been workshopping loads, composing and playing synth for an experimental music project, a fusion of dubstep, asian sounds and percussion. The biggest challenge has been learning the MIDI parts, being in time with machine, you can’t make eye contact with Ableton Live, but you can with the person triggering it I suppose.
I also had loads of fun writing songs and creating pieces for Birmingham Jazz’s Creative Jam sessions, my favourite piece was in a 5/4 time signature, nice and funky. You can check iPhone footage here:
Here is the 5/4 piece.
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Fro Chronicals
Been really loving, as in romancing my afro recently, after 8 years of laziness, braids and natty fros, I’ve been methodical in grooming it. Plaiting it each night, satin wrap, I’ve been making my homemade spritzs to hydrate my tresses, as well as moisturisers using unrefined Shea Butter, they are sooo easy to make! If you are interested in using natural hair products, (because most industry products contain harmful ingredients to cut back on costs), you can check these useful links. British curlies is a great site for those wishing to purchase a lot of US products made specifically for afro textured hair, Leave in the Kinks – a really useful blog for nappturals, hair grooming tips galore and the occasional meet up too!
Beautiful Video, Not Sure About the Music
It’s also faced criticism about the ethnicity of the character, the sensitive issue of HIV, it’s highlighting of a significant number of carriers being black people were discussed on the comments, I’ll need to mull over that one….
Thanks to kiss my black ads for the heads up!
