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Been a bit quiet here (again).
The end of summer and the coming of autumn has hit me a bit this year. It feels like my world is getting narrower and a little more difficult to navigate with each day. Partly it is the precariousness of my way of earning a living, which may be beginning to catch up with me -I am of pensionable age by now (how did that happen) but apparently many of my qualifying years didn't have all the NI contributions paid (no idea how that happened) and therefore don't count, so I only get a paltry one that is probably less than I spend in coffee in the month. Can I carry on doing private music teaching? Of course, while I have health but -odd things are happening: there are a few times im the year when I normally get a number of enquiries and some of those become pupils -which makes up for the ones that move away or the more casual ones that give up for whatever reason. The main of those times of the year is when the new school year starts, in September. Well, this year I didn't get one single enquiry. Not one phone call. This had never happened in the many years I've lived in the UK. It may be due to the cost of living crisis or maybe the patterns of how people look for an instrumental teacher have changed... no idea.
Social life still ok, although I have already missed quite a few gigs I would have like to have attended. Lack of energy, sometimes lack of money or just not having been aware they were happening. I still go to the little alternative club nights at Aces and the Albany but I can only take a couple of hours of that now. Still good to see people and catch up and dance a bit.
A pupil who is a lecturer at UCL has suggested the possibility of doing a recital (probably a lunch time one) there. It has to be some sort of lecture-recital, I am tempted to do one themed on Spanish and English Renaissance lute (and vihuela) music, tracing the parallel lines between the two styles of music between two nations perennially at war in those times. Probably would play the 'Canción del Emperador' by Luys de Narváez (link to a performance of mine of this work, below) and the ever popular (in a very narrow segment of the population, alas) 'Lachrimae Pavan' by John Dowland. I wish I was a little better at promoting my 'product'! but, still...
Canción del Emperador:
https://flaviomatani.dreamwidth.org/1547157.html
Lachrimae Pavan:
https://youtu.be/IEeL2e9y3b0
The end of summer and the coming of autumn has hit me a bit this year. It feels like my world is getting narrower and a little more difficult to navigate with each day. Partly it is the precariousness of my way of earning a living, which may be beginning to catch up with me -I am of pensionable age by now (how did that happen) but apparently many of my qualifying years didn't have all the NI contributions paid (no idea how that happened) and therefore don't count, so I only get a paltry one that is probably less than I spend in coffee in the month. Can I carry on doing private music teaching? Of course, while I have health but -odd things are happening: there are a few times im the year when I normally get a number of enquiries and some of those become pupils -which makes up for the ones that move away or the more casual ones that give up for whatever reason. The main of those times of the year is when the new school year starts, in September. Well, this year I didn't get one single enquiry. Not one phone call. This had never happened in the many years I've lived in the UK. It may be due to the cost of living crisis or maybe the patterns of how people look for an instrumental teacher have changed... no idea.
Social life still ok, although I have already missed quite a few gigs I would have like to have attended. Lack of energy, sometimes lack of money or just not having been aware they were happening. I still go to the little alternative club nights at Aces and the Albany but I can only take a couple of hours of that now. Still good to see people and catch up and dance a bit.
A pupil who is a lecturer at UCL has suggested the possibility of doing a recital (probably a lunch time one) there. It has to be some sort of lecture-recital, I am tempted to do one themed on Spanish and English Renaissance lute (and vihuela) music, tracing the parallel lines between the two styles of music between two nations perennially at war in those times. Probably would play the 'Canción del Emperador' by Luys de Narváez (link to a performance of mine of this work, below) and the ever popular (in a very narrow segment of the population, alas) 'Lachrimae Pavan' by John Dowland. I wish I was a little better at promoting my 'product'! but, still...
Canción del Emperador:
https://flaviomatani.dreamwidth.org/1547157.html
Lachrimae Pavan:
https://youtu.be/IEeL2e9y3b0
From:
Partial pension years
Martin Lewis is on a bit of a campaign at the moment about pension credits. He said that while a full year's credit's payback time can be 3 years - asking about which partial years are fillable could be lucrative as it as an all or nothing - so sometimes paying £16 for a week could complete a year.
They are currently in an interim period, that ends next year, where you van pay for additional contributions for up to the last 16 years but that drops to 6 years next year.
Might be worth looking into it and getting some advice etc.
He discussed this on his podcast this week - I'[ve included the details below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0jyhlyt
From:
Re: Partial pension years
From:
Re: Partial pension years
From:
Re: Partial pension years
Hi Flavio, if you have an incomplete year paying to complete the year (which could be a little over £16 would mean you would gain several hundred pounds a year by doing so. The £16 is a one off charge rather than ongoing and the payment is ongoing..
If it is a thousand pounds that would be a one off charge and even paying for entire full years the payback time is 3 years. Incomplete years as it is all or nothing are even more lucrative. Might be worth raising it with Martin Lewis to make it clearer. He has a show on radio 5 with Adrian Chiles weekly