Area 136

Sarah is sat at the piano in the conservatory, mucking about playing things. Jo has given her a few lessons and she can already read music better than I can. OK that would not be hard, as being a guitarist all those dots and squiggles are lost on me.

She played a little phrase and as I passed I said

"that sounds almost like the start of The Final Countdown"

"Oh yeah" she has three more goes and is playing the opening riff to the song!

She is sitting there singing the tune out loud, then learning the notes on the piano by experimentation - and she is quite good at finding them quickly, not too much thrashing about. Then she sings the next phrase and works on that.

Now this is probably something most kids can do, but the reason I am excited is that she knows when she is right, she can hear the notes when they fit and work out which ones don't on her own without prompting. And this is how I taught myself to play guitar and how I used to learn all the songs for the set lists of the bands I was in.

You get the tune fixed in your head then try to play it, slowly at first as you get the parts, then at full speed. Simpler songs are just picked up as you listen to them go by and by the end you have most of it sorted. More complex ones take a bit of re playing and going over slowly.

Anyway, she seems to be able to do it as well to a certain extent.

Which pleases me no end.

Proud Dad alert.

EDIT

We sat and watched the You tube vid of that song, Sarah said to me

"I don't know what I want to be when I grow up - a singer or someone who works with animals"

Then when the chorus came round again she started singing

"It's the final pet shop!"

nutter.

Well OK, it may be nice to get some stations that play the sort of music you like all day, but I seam to remember a lot of talk about “CD Quality sound” in the beginning, which seems to have died down now.

Which is good, because basically you need an ariel consisting of about twenty feet of wire running all up and down the damn wall just to get a signal that doesn’t cut out all the time and make it sound like Metallica are playing underwater.

And even then if someone else is in the house and has the cheek to move around it can get very patchy. “Stand still, I am trying to listen to the radio in here!” is not a reasonable request.

And the world of digital radio is full of disappointments. I found a station called “Yarr” on the air but was very disappointed when I discovered that they were not playing Sea Shanties, giving out shipping news and the exchange rates for gold doubloons.

Bugger.

Just over the way from my desk, about ten feet away in fact, another desk sits against a low partition wall. A woman is sat at it with her back to me talking to another woman who is standing behind the petition.

The standing woman is tall and attractive and is quite well blessed in the breast department (I think that is where she works) BUT, she always leans on the wall with her arms folded under said features and leans forwards as she talks. And wears low cut tops sometimes. Today is one of those sometimes.

Sorry, what was I saying?……………

I seem a little distracted.

I was going to do a post this morning about how odd a lot of the people in this office are, about how when they walk in through the doors they are fully in work mode. Talking about it to colleagues that they are with, or sitting down at their desk and immediately talking about this project, those figures, this report. I mean, easy guys – the day has just started.

I was going to say that I find my more relaxed and gradual slide into the working day suits me better.

Then I got an email first thing asking me if I had done something or other.

Which I hadn’t.

Which I am going to do now.

Bye!