Tag: Music

Thoughts

What’s in a name?

minceandskirlie

I’ll be honest, I’m starting to really dislike my name. Not Chris, that’s fine. I mean my gamertag, Twitch screen-name and the name I’ve been using for most of my socials in recent years – Folkedoff.

It started simple enough. I think I picked it as a gamertag when I registered a new xbox account in the xbox 360 days. I like folk music, the off is part of my surname, and yes it was a childish play on “fucked off”. That joke got old real fast once I had kids and they got old enough to read my gamertag out loud.

Also for a joke to be funny, people have to get it. No-one gets it. If I jump in a new twitch stream and hit follow or start chatting, people don’t seem to be able to parse “folkedoff”. Not just those who don’t speak English as a first language either; Americans seem to have real problems with it. Admittedly you could argue that they barely speak English as a first language either… (joking obv. after all I’m Scottish and the same could be said for many of us)

Nothing kills a pun like mangling the pronunciation, so it’s painful to hear all the variations of the name people can come up with.

As a gamertag it’s not too bad. It’s fine. But now I’m using it for everything it’s starting to bug me a lot. If it was just Twitch it might be bearable, but now I’ve tried to align my most active public socials like Threads and Instagram with Twitch, along with any Discord memberships the name feels really clunky and uncomfortable. I’m not happy with it.

So what do I do about it? I don’t know really. I guess I have to change it but I don’t know what to change it to?

If my primary focus for a name is to choose something to use for content creation – Twitch, YouTube, and socials then it should be something broad enough to cover all the content I’m creating. On Twitch I keep intending to main music, playing some folk songs and trad tunes, maybe testing out some metal and electro stuff, but it never works out like that and I spend more time streaming sim games like DCS or Flight Simulator, plus a few variety games I pick up on game pass. While folkedoff kind of fit the music theme (assuming you get the joke), it’s clunky for anything else. Then on Threads and Insta I’ll often post pics of projects I’m working on, arty experiments, Warhammer models, wildlife pics, plus all the other thoughts and nonsense that comes into my head. Lastly there’s this blog as well!

I guess I need to take some time to think up some new names and mull them over. There’s a few, including Mince and Skirlie, that I’ve used for other projects in the past that might fit but probably not really. If I switch it up I think it’ll be something new. Full rebrand!

Ideally I want something simple, easy to say, catchy, maybe a bit folky or metal, that will fit with music or gaming. I don’t really want to split things up too much into separate Twitch streams or YouTube channels. Maybe I pick something from nature, a bird name or something like a Scots name for one of my favourite birds or some other object related to my interests. There’s a lot to consider. Let me know if any of you have good ideas for picking names!

Watch this space then for the big rebrand on Twitch and socials once I’ve made up my mind!

Music, Thoughts

Once More Round The Sun

minceandskirlie

It was my birthday last week, another lap of the sun completed. I don’t really put much stock in birthdays any more or get really excited for them (though I did have a great time with family and a lovely meal out with my wife on the day itself). In fact I find myself now spending most of the year struggling to remember exactly how old I am now. Am I really 43? Or is it 42? Once I hit somewhere around my mid twenties I think I mentally felt like this is my age and I’m going to stick with it. Anything above that doesn’t really count. Just no-one told my haggard, ageing, body.

I fell down a synth laden black hole this week. It all started a few weeks ago when I dug out my Korn Volca Beats and was determined to learn how to use it. This magnificent piece of procrastination coinciding with the start of my latest Open University module of course. Then I started liking and following loads of synthy accounts on Threads that just post chill, ambient beats on hardware synths. I was scrolling for hours just checking out loads of cool sounds.

That led me to browsing hardware synths on Amazon for a while until I came to my sense and decided I should just use the toys I already have. Rooting around in my spare room, I dug out my Akai Miniak synth that I bought over a decade ago and also never learned how to use. I managed to switch it on and play around with some of the presets but it really needs some proper time put in to it to get the best out of it I think.

Time I don’t have it turns out! As my procrastination caught up with me after I had a birthday weekend and I suddenly found I had dropped behind schedule a bit on my uni course and needed to get my head down to catch up on some reading and go hug some trees on the first dry day we’ve had at a weekend for a while. I really went out and hugged some trees, as the course had us out measuring the circumference of local trees with a tape measure. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any posts on the local nosy neighbour facebook group for our town wondering why someone was hanging around all the trees taking pictures and measuring them.

That out of the way, I returned to my synth distraction. Which led me to building quite a wishlist on Amazon of some cheap hardware to do some DAWless synth jams. But I think that should wait. For now I have a drum machine, a beastly Akai synth that I just need to learn how to use, and access to Reaper and loads of software synths that I could use to find my feet with first. Yes, that sounds much more sensible. So instead of a new expensive synth that I won’t get round to learning, I received my dopamine hit by ordering a small USB midi keyboard controller instead so I can control software synths on Reaper and figure out what I’m doing.

My big plan is to use the synth stuff as a backing track to do some live jamming with my guitars, but lets see how that works out. If anyone out there has any VST recommendations or even some budget hardware recs, let me know. It would be a good basis of some music streams on Twitch I think if I can get the hang of it. If it works it’ll be pretty satisfying. But first I need to stop procrastinating and get back to some studying!

Music, Thoughts

Beats and Beaks

minceandskirlie

I’ve been busy with uni, work and then a family holiday this month. But I’ve still found time to procrastinate spend on a couple of lapsed hobbies.

10 years ago I picked up a Korg Volca beats just after they were released. A dirt cheap drum machine, with simple workflow, and a sound harking back to the classic modules of the 80s and 90s. I was full of good intentions of incorporating this in some low fi folk compositions. Then never really learned how to use it properly. It still sits on a shelf by my desk, unloved, to this day. However, I picked it up again the other week, when I was probably supposed to be doing something much more important and had a play with it.

https://www.threads.net/@folkedoff/post/CylKp5fL1CG

https://www.threads.net/@folkedoff/post/CynzhKmoace

(One day Threads posts will embed seamlessly into WordPress. Today is not that day. Click the links to hear the results)

Both those basic beats were drummed up (hah!) in just a few minutes. It’s so easy. I really need to spend more time with it. Frustratingly though, I don’t have a way to hook it up to a speaker at the same time as my guitar or my hardware synth (which I also should spend more time with). But if I can solve that problem soon I should start using the Volca more often while writing on the guitar and practicing in general (always was bad at practicing with a metronome).

While on holiday this week I also picked up a hobby I’ve tried starting loads of times over the years. I keep buying sketchbooks, pencils and pens, then carrying them around with me and never use them. Well, this time I spent a couple of nights sitting drawing in the holiday lodge then colouring the sketches with some pens. Mainly to try and impress my daughter really.

Blue tit (Cyanistes Caeruleus)

Goldfinch (Carduelis)

I love birds and wildlife and have always been jealous of people who can draw really detailed pictures of the birds and animals they see. Whenever I’ve tried in the past they always look really wonky. But I’m pretty chuffed with how this blue tit and goldfinch turned out. The blue tit is still a bit strangely proportioned, but the goldfinch is just about right. Think I just need to practice a bit more to get some consistency. I’ve never been a tidy artist and struggle with detail, which also comes across in these.

I might try some different pens next time or maybe even using some acrylic paints for a chance and see if that helps me get the details right.

Anyway I’m pretty happy with how both these bits of activities have turned out. Less happy about how much I’ve procrastinated from what I should have been doing instead, but that’s a whole other blog post!

Thoughts

Maybe I need interaction after all?

minceandskirlie

This is weird. This… Everything. Nothing is normal now. I thought I was doing OK with that but now I’m not so sure.

Last week I beat the lockdown by a day and started self-isolating with my family after I developed a persistent cough. By the middle of the week I was shivery (though had no fever) and felt quite ill, then a few days later I needed two or three naps just to get through the day due to fatigue. Was it COVID-19? Who knows? I might never find out.

I started feeling a little better over the weekend and even had enough energy to record a bit of mandolin for my own contribution to the #COVIDCeilidh hashtag on Twitter:

I told myself I’d try and pick up music and writing again to help me get through this and so far I’ve been pretty good at finding time here and there to pick up my mandolin or a guitar. I’ve loved getting to know pieces of music again that I’ve not played for years and even started working on a few new tunes. But to be honest it’s a thumb in the dyke of my anxiety just now.

The biggest problem I have is working from home. I thought I would really enjoy it, getting to look into my garden all day and watch the birds (and that has been great), go for a run around Stonehaven at lunchtimes, get to see more of the kids. The surprise to me though, as someone who is very much an introvert, is how much I miss the office environment. There’s a constant level of interaction which I find completely lacking now and no amount of Skype texts is making up for it.

For two days now I’ve been sat on my own in our spare room listening to my kids playing and arguing elsewhere in the house while I pick up tickets from my team’s queue, email users and fix problems. All without actually speaking to anyone. Suddenly I feel really distant and it’s hitting my anxiety hard.

Hopefully it passes. This is all new for everyone and I think it will take time for us to adapt. I have an online games session arranged with some friends over the weekend which might help. Plus, now I’m over my illness I should be able to get out running again and that should calm my mind down a lot as well. Failing that I’ll try more music or maybe I’ll start talking to the birds in the garden as though they’re my office colleagues.

Thoughts

Goals for a new year

minceandskirlie

So 2016 was a year that happened. Frankly it’s developed a pretty bad rep, as well as quite a body count. It would be easy to wallow in all the bad shit that happened last year. Sod that, I want to waltz into 2017 on a cloud of positivity.

We had two fantastic family holidays in 2016, to Mallorca in June then Dornoch in October. I ran (slowly) the fantastic 15 mile Illuminator night race in Glen Tanar in September.  We had some great weekends away and I got to endure the hardship of being sent to Paris for a few days to work. I also celebrated some important birthdays with my extended family, went to some brilliant weddings and received news of some more to come.

Above all else, the year was full of the sound of my daughter and nephew laughing and playing.

Now it comes to the start of a new year and I naturally start thinking about what lies ahead. Hopefully a lot more of my daughter’s laughter, but what else? I toyed with the idea of setting vague resolutions like “Play more music” or “Run more”. However I work best when I have a set goal in mind, like a 15 mile night race to train for without my feet exploding halfway through.

With that in mind here’s a few (achievable) things I would like to accomplish this year:

  1.  Record an EP
  2.  Publish a poem or a short story
  3.  Run a sub-2 hour half marathon
  4.  Get my weight down to 11 stone

A couple of these are a little more difficult than the others but should still be achievable over the course of the year, or at least have significant progress towards them.

Record an EP

I’ve played guitar since I was fourteen and for most of my adult life I’ve written music and played in local bands. I left my last band a few years ago to concentrate on a solo music project I was working on, but once my daughter arrived I slowly played less and less until I pretty much put my instruments down one day last year and never really picked them up again.

Over the last month I’ve made a conscious effort to get back on the horse and pick up either a guitar or mandolin almost every day. The aim is basically to get involved again and start pushing the project I started 4 years ago back into being. Eventually I hope to play some gigs but I think my self-confidence is a long way from that milestone. For now I’d be happy getting my playing and my singing into a good enough condition to record the EP I wrote down a tracklisting for shortly after I left that band.

Publish a poem or short story

As a member of local writing group Mearns Writers, I’ve produced a number of poems and short stories over the last two years. While I’ve submitted a few of these occasionally to some local poetry magazines and the odd competition I’ve not made a serious effort to get anything published (aside from posting a few on this site and the groups own self-published anthology). I need to step up my submission game in 2017 and see if I can at least place in some competitions and get some good feedback.

Run a sub-2 hour half marathon

This is simultaneously the easiest and the hardest of my 2017 goals. I should have a sub-2 hour half in my legs. I’ve ran 2:01 at Skye, which is bloody hilly and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to break that barrier. At the same time I’ve not been running nearly as much as I used to and I need to get my routine fixed and stick to it if I’m going to get anywhere close to this goal.

The Great Aberdeen Run is at the end of August and I entered on the day it was announced. That’s the target, though I might try a warm up race at the start of summer to see how I’m getting on.

Get my weight down to 11 stone

This goal will tie in with the previous one. If I train properly for a sub-2 hour half marathon I should lose weight. Since I started getting into fitness and sorted my weight issues over 10 years ago I’ve been stuck floating around the 12 stone mark. At the peak of my running routine, before my daughter arrived, I did manage to get down to under 11 and a half stone but that didn’t last long. I’m now back up to 12 and a half. That needs to be reversed.

Getting back below 12 stone should be easy. Exercise will fix that. Slimming down to 11 stone will need a bit more determination and willpower but hopefully I can get there by the end of the year.

There are of course plenty of other things I would like to do this year. I would like to worry less, focus at work more, cut out internet habits which reinforce negative thoughts, climb more hills and cycle many miles. Those are all good things to aim for but I think if I concentrate on these four achievable goals then I’ll be well on the way to a memorable year without putting too much pressure on myself.