Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

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

Only two guitar lessons today -need to get a little busier..- but interesting ones. The first one, an Indian lecturer in classical languages (latin, greek, etc) wanting to learn rock, classical and flamenco (the latter not my specialism but I have started him on Soleares and I'm learning a fair bit about this along the way). The second one, an eleven year old girl doing a Trinity Rock & Pop electric guitar Grade 5 exam. Very different lessons, both stimulating in different ways.

Flavio (that's me) on a quick take at home of Napoleon Coste's Etude/Prelude Op 38 No 2, a piece recorded for a pupil. The guitar is a Yulong Guo Chamber Concert. Napoléon Coste was a French guitarist/composer who lived between 27 June 1805 – 14 January 1883.
for info on guitar lessons/performance:
flavio_matani@mac.com
camdenguitar.wordpress.com

Flavio (that's me) playing J S Bach's Prelude from the Lute Suite 1006a, during a presentation at the programme 'Nachy Presenta' at the Venezuelan Cultural TV Channel TVN5 in 1985 or so. Interesting that I chose such a difficult way of playing that piece, so many things I would do differently but it still is a record of my playing at the time.

I'll be playing a concert at the garden of the Rustique Café in Tufnell Park on Thursday 26 July. Do come along if you can. Details on the Facebook event here.

Pisador's 'Pavana muy llana', 'very easy Pavane' https://youtu.be/hcn9gwNVnJ4 via @YouTube -I may play this at this event on the 30th: https://www.facebook.com/events/1341626609281999/ come along if you can #guitar #classicalguitar #kentishtown #northlondon #camden #kentishtowncityfarm

Played a little local summer garden concert last night, something that was becoming a bit of a local tradition for me and the people concerned here in Kentish Town/Tufnell Park but I hadn't done last year because of the accident. Interesting that a lot of people who were coming and looking forward to it, etc, didn't. Luckily other people did. I think it went reasonably well, although playing in the open on a day like yesterday -with gusts of wind, temperature dropping, etc- was a bit of a chore at times, with frozen sticky fingers...

One thing that I used to do at some point but I never quite know how to 'sell' is the idea of the house recital: sit fifteen or twenty people in a living room (sounds like a lot but a normal living room can hold twenty people ok without them being too cosy, on folding chairs or similar), give them a guitar concert with a glass of wine in the interval, charge them twenty quid and give half of that to a local charity. It is a lovely idea and something that works very well with classical guitar.. everybody comes out happy, I get a little bit of money (which for a freelance musician/music teacher ..) and a local charity gets a little bit of support. But I'm hopeless at actually persuading people that it is a good idea to host one of these...

A take at home of Flavio playing an excerpt of M Ponce's 'Tema Variado y Final'