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Fiona Bas plays traditional Irish music in Gainesville, Florida.

Swallowtail Jig
Haste to the Wedding
Hare in the Corn
Drowsy Maggie
Idlewild Jig
Star of the County Down
Life is all Checquered
Father O'Flynn
Dirty Old Town

Phase Out
Museum Jam
High Line Pop
Jack Snug
Persia Stink
Dog & Dogs with Ruint Toy
Brunch Queue
Comfy Work
Transatlantic Cables Jam
Tubeway Demo
Sunyim(?) And Damian (ANONYMOUS 400)
Rhubarb Is Not A Berry
Wallpaper Complications
Bark Practice
Tense Times With Resolution
Jelly Dino Shockneck
Green/Lush
Snackweed
Kong Outburst
Folksy Masculine
Every Generation Rediscovering & Repackaging The Same Wisdom
Cloisters From The Ground
The Center For Practical Philosophy
Cloisters From The Air

I'm in NYC with MEB and BC.

Greasy undertube poles. I got filmed buying a veggie kimchi dog for The View! Also, I kinda like SE hipster fashion more than NE.

Museums. I'm also learning Irish tunes on my Baritone Ukulele (I flew with it) and landed in LGA. Talked to a guy "Peter" that graduated from UF about his buddies in Groove Shark and the ethics of music sharing. Caught Yellow Cab to Manhattan.

Up to four tunes so far: "Temperance Reel", "St. Patrick's Day (Jig)", "Whiskey Before Breakfast", "Drowsy Maggie".

I gotta transfer them to cello, though. But at least I'm drilling the melodies into my brain. Only eight more to go!

Tomorrow: working from not-home. I'm playing with The Pup Bunny Crespo. He is more calm & enjoys resting quietly with only the occasional need for stimulation & snax.

Excited to be visiting the Chogye International Zen Center! I will journey via undertube people-conduit & chant & sit with some folks.

Woah, I really need to work on bringing those tunes up to tempo esp. Drowsy Maggie.

Interesting

Cello Banjo
Octave Mandolin

Hung out with Ginger Carrot & Ginger Carrot Pals.

Very fun! There was a dawg named Caesar that fetched water sticks & barked & there was a rope swing & rickety "ladder" nailed into a tree (for swinging out over tea-colored water & plunging into murk).

Very small snails & a huge sturgeon splashing. Lukewarm Bloody Mary in plastic bottle. A wallet that slipped off the roof of a moving car & was found.

Driving on 441 and 27 through High Springs & two-lane country roads talkin' about hazelnut tree symbiotes (truffles!).

The tenor banjo can be tuned identically like a baritone ukulele. Turns out I held one once! In the land of the Utahans at the shop of Longwinded Music Man. It would let me transport my ukulele tunes into louder acoustic jam settings!

This week: Practice; Practice; Break; Practice; Flyin' to see some urban mammals I know.

Oh, I sold three books on Amazon!

"One time a dog started from point A to have a walk on the road. At the same time another dog started his walk from point B on a different road. There was a junction where both roads met. There the two dogs had a good time together for a while."

Zen Master Seung Sahn's response to student Roland Wöhrle-Chon's request for advice regarding his engagement and upcoming marriage.

There's a fuzzy and slightly giddy feeling that follows a really focused session of meditation. That's not the point of meditation, but it's a pleasant side-effect.

Wednesday was my first lesson with a cellist (my previous teachers were a violist and a violinist). The verdict: I've been doing it wrong all along! Looking forward to digging into my form and technique and refining it.

This morning, I achieved that fuzziness and optimism from yoga, push-ups, and wall-squats followed by simple-breakfast, followed by cello practice. One specific exercise, long tones, has required an especially intense amount of focus: draw the bow on its edge using just a single horse hair as slowly and inaudibly as possible, taking two minutes to complete an up-stroke and a down-stroke. Really enjoying practicing cello every day.

Last night, a part of my dream included entering a book store where one descended a staircase made of books into a narrow passage walled and floored in books that grew gradually narrower and gradually darker and dimmer (dim blue light). Not a nightmare! Just an interesting space. Also: I defused a nightmare situation deliberately within the dream itself rather than simply waking up and trying to calm down so that the nightmare wouldn't return.

Tonight, a show. (I am half of Ice Jet).



I need to read the following more closely:
http://stringvisions.ovationpress.com/2011/12/the-case-for-active-practicing/
http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/
http://christianhowes.com/2009/10/29/perfect-practice/

Follow this link for video of Tatsuya Nakatani in solo performance as well as audio of the Gong Orchestra.

http://hearhums.blogspot.com/2012/03/tatsuya-nakatani-gong-orchestra.html

I participated in the orchestra for the second time. The first performer to do so.

Long flights and long drives.

The gray-white lid of the sky pressing down between the mountains.

Escape into snow-dusted crags and then the red-browns of the high desert.

A curtain of ice; skipping across shallow clear streams rock-by-rock.

Scrambling up sandstone and calmly walking with and through clouds of fear and panic.

Exhaustion, joy, sadness, long conversations, long silences.

Long drives and long flights and resuming the solitary-not-solitary life.

Snow falls on the intersection of 2100 S and 1100 E.

Finally got a chance to try out the LR Baggs Cello Pickup that I had custom-made for me. All I had to do was email their support department, send them a bridge blank, and then have a violin maker shape and voice the bridge for my cello. Yes, a bit more effort than a clip-on, but totally worth it so far.

I'm very very happy with the sound. It is very balanced and is neither nasal nor excessively bottom-heavy like my Fishman C-100 pickup. It needs very little in terms of equalization adjustment and also rejects feedback exceptionally well even at loud volumes.

It didn't come with a jack, but soldering it to a Switchcraft mono 1/4" plug was super-easy.