Some More Lyre playing by me.

Some videos, posted with the usual provision that I'm a very amateur amateur.  :D

I couldn't believe it, I did one recording of, "The Wanderer," outside with my old camera and only did a tiny flub once, and the memory was full about 5 seconds before the end, dammit!

So we set up again with a newer camera with more memory, this time inside because it was noisy home-from-school-time outside, and I played the song about five times and came to a messy halt every time, so I had a go at this lovely tune, written for the Anglo-Saxon Lyre by Keith Seddon, to settle myself down a bit.  It's called, "For My Lost Love," and was written for his wife, Jocelyn.  It has sadness in it, but joy too. I always think of their love while I play it.

  
After that I flubbed, "The Wanderer," a couple more times and then Cyrano Kitty decided the table was where the action was to be had, so he joined me.  I thought he might help and he did a bit.  I eventually got it about as well as I was going to, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I can play this tune all the way through very nicely when there isn't a camera around.  A born performer I am not! :D  Still, I know that folks are very interested in my lyre, so here you go:

I learned this song by watching and listening to the video of Peter Pringle playing it, and now if you like, you can go watch his version, tuned a little differently and enhanced electronically.  It is more impressive than my version, that's for sure, but I do love playing it, and you'll notice I slipped Odin in there.  In the 10th C, it could have been either Odin or the Christian God he was praying to, and there is some talk that the poem is older and was perhaps modified to be Christian at a later date. Odin likes it better that I put him back into it.  :)  

 
Yesterday I finished my first edit and read-through of, "Freya and the Hairy Goddess."  I did it in four days because I was enjoying it too much to stop.  I really do let myself go a lot when writing these Freya books and it is always fun to read them and giggle away to myself at the situations and quips I come up with. 

I have notes to help me go back and fix this place and that, and more grammar and spelling checks and read-throughs to do, but the book is good, if I do say so myself.  Like the first Freya book, Freya and the Golden Bear, it is Sword and Sorcery, but far from serious or dark.  It is rather naughty, and quite funny. Music may not come naturally to me, but writing novels surely does!

This morning we made a big trek across town to find me a Djembe.  It still smells a bit goaty from the new skin (they have to be skinned here in Oz) and the dogs were rather keen on a nibble.

"Can I eat it mama?"

It was made in Ghana and the guy who buys them, Paul, from Akwaaba, purchases them directly from the makers, so that is a good way to make sure the artisans get a fair wage. It's going to be my Christmas pressie, but I don't think I'll be able to hold off playing it till then. It will be off to drumming circle with me next week!  It has an antelope and a big old tree carved on the base and I knew it was the drum for me as soon as I saw that tree!

May your coming week bring you lots of lovely music to make or listen to, and some silliness and giggling too!