mistrustmusic's posterous

Catching up

First, a few changes/updates I've made to this blog: - I've reverted to the "everything's gone green" theme from last year (see why below). - Most of my old songs and tunes are now available as free direct downloads in my Music page. - I've reorganised my links on the blogroll-type list, and included some new friends. Still more changes to be made though... Too much time on Twitter recently has left me little time for my proper blog here on Wordpress, and even less time for changing the homepage at mistrustmusic.co.uk. I realised the other week that the link on the homepage still pointed to my blog entry about my Rude Mechanicals remix being released last October. I guess it was still relevant at the moment, but now it's coming out on the Pitch Black remix CD at the end of April, I need to update it. Cue redesign in Dreamweaver! I'm trying to tie in the design of the homepage to my photo of Talacre Beach that people have commented on, along with this wordpress blog. Vincesapplemac (Vince Elgey), one of my twitter friends, keeps telling me to go the self-hosting route and install a wordpress.org blog so I can change the theme to something more individual than the wordpress.com themes.  Maybe he's right, but I need to get organised first! In the meantime, I'll probably add a couple of pages to mistrustmusic, including links to all my music. Other recent news/updates Henry in New Zealand, who is definitely my number one fan, is still plugging my Rude Mechanicals remix! Can't thank him enough. I've made quite a few new friends on Twitter - as I mentioned earlier, so hello to everyone on there. I've also invented  a couple of new categories  on there: #fickletwittering and #unfollowed. If you're a twitterer, have a look for them to discover what they mean! If not, all will be explained in my next post on here.  I'm going to see Ultravox in concert next week, and getting very excited about it! For those who don't know them, they were big in the 1980s, and have just reformed for a one-off tour. I'll hopefully be twittering from there and post some photos up in twitpic. The last time I saw Ultravox (in 1984), they were using a lot of pre-MIDI equipment, things like the ARP Odyssey and Yamaha CS80, so it will be interesting to see  how they recreate the songs using things like the MacBook Pro... (Follow them on Twitter!) I've sent Animat some video clips I took of them performing the live score of Tuvalu in Leeds a few weeks ago. Some of the clips are very dark, but they may put some on Youtube.  My songs on MusicFreedom have disappeared, in fact MusicFreedom.com has disappeared! Paul, my 16 y.o. stepson with Autism, is still out of school, however he's visiting a special school for an hour or two twice a week, which is progress... Really need to publish more updates on here! By the way - the photo of the tree is one I took on my new Sony Ericsson phone.

Filed under  //   austic spectrum   autism   autism.asd   midi   music   photo   photographs   pitch black   social networking   twitter   ultravox   wordpress  
Posted April 9, 2009

Autism and music

image: 29 may 2006 - eventful.org.uk - 0008 - (medium) by Headancer/Simon Green (copyright 2006) (link to Headancer homepage) As you'll probably have read on Paul's blog, he's still not back in school. This is having a massive knock-on effect on the rest of family and my in-laws, and is generally causing chaos at Mistrust Towers. Anything from a decent night's sleep to watching tv is being affected as Paul's life is almost completely unstructured and he's having to find things to do all the time, something he finds quite difficult at the best of times. He's getting tired at all the wrong times, just because he's getting really anxious in the mornings from not knowing who may call round to see him (school inclusion people, mainly). If you haven't been here before, he's got Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not otherwise specified, which means Autism/Asperger's type personality and behaviour, hence all the anxieties. What's this got to do with "mistrust music"? Well, for some reason, Paul has decided that he wants to learn to play the drums. That means he wants a drum kit. Not just a basic, cheap kit. A proper one, with all accessories included. Bear in mind that he has a very small bedroom and there's nowhere else in the house that it could go. So that's a non-starter. I've told him we'll get a basic drum pad-type thing - one of those plastic things without about 4 pads on it, with a set of plastic sticks - so he can see how it goes. Judging by his recent attempt to learn to play the guitar, he'll give up if he can't work out how to play a particularly beat. With Paul, it will be as follows: Learn the bass drum, then the snare, etc. Then learn a rock beat, then a waltz, etc, and if he gets stuck on one, he'll pack it in. He also wants to learn keyboards..... He's been fiddling with my old Casio MT31 (which still works after nearly 30 years!) but it's got small keys and he's having problems playing the notes. He's gone onto "Learn to Play.com" or something which has basic riffs to play, and has been practicising the same thing over and over till he gets it completely right. The problem is that there's no audio on the site, so he relies on me to say if it's right. Once again, if he can't play one of the tunes, he'll pack it all in. It's good that he's interested in making music the "traditional" way, instead of using loads of samples in Acid Pro, and he's actually got potential in the technique side of things. He now wants to use my Evolution Midi keyboard, plugged into the computer, and use a keyboard training program. All this means I'm getting less and less time to come up with some new tunes. I've got the playing bug again and I want to do some live work, but there's very little time to do much at the moment because of all this domesticity. The tunes that went to Candycover music library should be live soon, and that could open up some new opportunities, and I'd like to be prepared for anything that comes along. Howeve, anything that will keep him focussed, occupied, and will develop his skills, is something we've got to keep up with. You'll probably have noticed the image at the top of this post. It's a photo by Headancer, one of the Big Chill Forum folk. I asked on there last week if I could use some of the things that have been occasionally posted on the forum, or if anyone could point me to some others I could use to brighten up my blog. So, thanks to Simon Green (Headancer) for use of the image. If you want to see more of his photography, please go to Headancer on Mac.com and tell him I sent you. Please note: All the images used on this site are copyright and should not be used without the owners' permission. The pic I've used is from eventful.org.uk. It reminds me of the fact that I'm off on holiday in about 5 weeks......

Filed under  //   artists   aspergers   autism   autism and music   big chill   blog   blogging   childhood   children   library   music   personal   photo   photograph  
Posted June 14, 2007