Apart from health scares (there's been a couple of these in the last couple of weeks and I'm due for a CT scan next week), an interesting end of this week. I got a call (several calls and a voice-mail message) by this lady who needs a ’Spanish style guitarist’ for a function (her 80th birthday). I said I was not exactly that; I do not play flamenco, etc. She said she was aware that I was a classical guitarist, Would I be free to play (unamplified) at that garden do? How much would I charge? I said £250 and she jumped straight back ‘yes!’ Which made me think I should have said £400, but there you go. I’ll have to prepare a few biz cards to give out at that thing, see whether I can get more custom of that sort. Summer is normally very very slow and I very often just scrape through September, so this is quite welcome.
'Praeludium' By John Dowland  (1563 – 1626)
Flavio Matani, guitar
An old take from 2007

#guitar #classicalguitar #englishrenaissancemusic #lutemusiconguitar #dowland #johndowland #dowlandonguitar #iMovie

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
From a while back: Canción del Emperador' / L de Narváez, after 'Mille Regretz' by Josquin des Prez
Flavio Matani, guitar - live at the Kentish Town City Farm, London, 18-11-18 Also played it on that occasion as the orignial Josquin des Prez song with Ruth Pritchard, which was a lovely experience.


flaviomatani: (Default)
( Jul. 2nd, 2024 10:20 am)
Ah, a Tuesday I don't have to get up at 5:20 am. My Tuesday school has an 'enrichment' week so no lessons (and no income; if you're an instrumental music teacher you essentially and rroughly get paid for lesson given, if the lesson doesn't happen you don't get paid). Today will be a slow day, which I think I needed.Taking my old Yamaha GC15D guitar to a luthier as the tuning machines broke and although this is a simple job, happens that whilst every other classical guitar in the world has a distance within axles of 35 mm, this one's 39 mm. But I'm not prepared to give up on a guitar that I've had for nigh on half a century and on which I played my graduation exam and concert, etc. Oops, this came out rather longer than I thought. Good morning!
flaviomatani: (Default)
( May. 4th, 2024 11:07 am)
Ah, these guitar lessons - right now, very keen 8 year old girl playing almost to the end of the first book and also Ziggy Stardust, doing it for the first time and very well.

#guitarlessons #theseguitarlessons
This is unusual - posted to YouTube a video of me playing that fugue by Bach in a little concert in July. Normally I would get a dozen or so views. This is a long piece (six and a half minutes) and quite ... involved. Certainly not pop music. And yet it's getting, thus far, 345 views. I reckon maybe YT is changing how they measure these things? What constitutes a 'view'? if you put up with two minutes of my playing? One minute? Just run it for a few seconds and keep scrolling? (the latter seems to be what happens in TikTok, where the same video that gets a dozen views on YT gets nine hundred-plus views). Can I really believe my people are waking up to the wonder that is Bach's music, even if it's played by me, warts and all?
Fugue, from the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV998 by J S Bach.

A few slips and technical recording issues - but of course this was a live recording in concert.

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.
I haven't been posting much here for a while.

Life has continued, so far, without much incident. Oh, things of somewhat personal nature, still issues with health, all those things, the consequences of the surgery are still there, etc but overall, I'm ok. As I've said perhaps too many times, I'm still here and I'm not yet bankrupt -I'll take that.

Another birthday looming near -at this point in life I should commemorate rather than celebrate them, but hey. See above -I'm still here.

Have been listening (mostly to lull myself to sleep) a podcast called 'Revolutions'. The bits I've listened to have been mostly about the historic background to the Russian revolutions. Well, I think I've heard about half of each episode (before I fall asleep). So much suffering, so much wilful stupidity. No wonder that country went through all it did in the 20th century.

Also finally a small guitar recital after three years of hiatus, locally at the Rustique Café at the end of July. Will be playing the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV 998 by Bach, Sua Cosa by my teacher J Duarte, Sunburst by A York. It will be a very short programme -but not an easy one, I better get on practising.
flaviomatani: (flavlines)
( May. 31st, 2023 11:01 pm)
Haven't posted much of late because... largely because not a lot has happened. Have been to a handfasting of friends (that was a lovely ceremony), to a couple of little local goth club nights, the Hampstead Alternative Picnic (which perhaps I enjoyed more than the clubs; I'm getting old after all). Discovering the 'fediverse', of which Mastodon seems to be the central piece. Have opened an account on one instance of Pixelfed, which is a kind of de-centralised version of Instagram. Except it is different in several ways and also, as in many of those things, my friends are not there but in Instagram (the old issue with all the Twitter and Facebook killers -remember Discordia, anyone?- so one's reach is rather limited.

Enjoying the half-term week, not having to get up super-early to go to those schools where I teach guitar. But it already is flying past, alas. Apart from getting up late and going for walks, haven't done much or gone anywhere. Practising guitar an almost 'normal' amount, beginning to get Bach's 'Prelude, Fugue and Allegro' to take shape although it is a long way from perfect and when I do a recording take of the fugue, particularly, I could cry when I listen to it -and not for any good reasons. As I get older I'm developing problems in my right hand's ring finger so there are things that I cannot really play or have to find work-arounds for. Tremolo is out of the question now but then I never was much of a fan (except people like hearing 'Recuerdos de la Alhambra' being played for them).

FWIW:
me on Mastodon:
https://mastodon.social/@fflavio

me on Pixelfed:
https://pixelfed.social/i/web/profile/547531299153328020#
this one is a little less easy to remember...
Flu finally going away (I hope -cough!)

Teaching in both schools resumed. The one in Islington (not to narrow it down too much) still a nightmare but hey, it is income and work. The other school involves getting up in the dark and a long drive. The world, alas, is not perfect.

Realising I haven't played in public for .. years now. I always found it difficult to 'sell the product', as it were, and it hasn't become any easier as I've got older. But I need to do that -not for any other reason, perhaps, so much as to keep myself able to prepare and perform a programme more or less of the level I feel I should maintain.

Waiting for several incoming money-blows to hit. An unexpectedly large tax bill, a large service charge bill where I live, a hidden threat of a very large one that I thought had been resolved but apparently may not have been. Plus the incoming rises in energy bills and, therefore, in everything else.

In relation to the playing in public, it also has resulted in me not really preparing a full concert programme. I can always play, but perhaps not things that I might find challenging or interesting in that sense.

Dabbled for a bit with AI text-to-image platforms like Stable Diffusion, etc. It is a whole lot of fun although I can see the issues around this sort of thing -I don't think they may replace artists and painters any time soon but many may lose work to these things.

Bibliogoth today with 'Legends and Lattes' by Travis Baldree. I hated the title, came to the book with a lot of anti-hipster prejudice but it was a good reading, light and fun.

Here, have a little bit of me playing an excerpt of  'Usher Waltz' by Nikita Koshkin. If you get a chance.
Finished my last lesson for the day, a Zoom one. I suppose I have developed quite an elaborate set up for my remote lessons. I'm using a Mac Studio with two screens -on the left one I run the Zoom session, on the right one .pdfs of the music we are working on (this is easier on my eyes than keeping the music on the stand, which I also do in some cases). The webcam is an iPhone Xr which gives me a much better picture than the webcams I had been using. The microphone is a Blue Yeti USB cardioid/bidirectional mic -not anything top of the range but much better than what is built into the computers or the cams. I also keep the laptop on a stand -I use this to type a log of the lessons with the exercises and pieces and comments on what we are working on (and where we are in relation to payment), same as I used to do on pupils' notebooks but nowadays don't, and email a copy of the one for the current lesson to the pupil -this allows me to see a copy of those notes that I can review or refer back to.

I normally keep at hand a classical guitar, an Alhambra mid range that by now looks so battered, poor thing. And an Epiphone Les Paul running through a Marshall Valvestate amp.

Probably over the top. What you need for a guitar lesson really is two chars, two guitars, one music stand. But my setup works for me and, it would seem, for my remote pupils.
flaviomatani: (flav eu flag)
( Oct. 19th, 2022 03:14 pm)
As per the title -I'm still here, even if I've been a bit quiet.

In reality, I have to say that it is difficult to keep sending these words into the void with practically no response back. This applies to a lot of what I put on the internet except, perhaps curiously, Facebook. If I put a picture I took in Instagram or similar it gets fifteen views and four likes. If I put a sample of me playing, it gets fewer views and perhaps two or three 'likes'. It is perhaps in the nature of these things that if you don't do a lot of homework on tagging and keywords you get little response. I have been telling myself that I do these things mostly for myself -it may be largely true but it still is a bit disheartening at times to find that a lot of effort (as it often is) results in ... not very much.

I have been doing a tiny bit more social life of late, been to a couple of small clubs (Dead & Buried, Reformation) and re-connected with a lot of people I hadn't seen for rather a long time. That has been good.

Guitar: no public playing. I have been studying the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV 998 as well as a few minor pieces, plus some that my students are playing. Need a few more pupils but wouldn't want to undertake another school, I don't think I would have the time or energy for a commitment like that. Would like to do some public playing, indeed, as this does kick me forward, forces me to keep to the standard I feel I should be at. Not happening for now, at any rate and haven't been chasing gigs.

Health still is what it is, I'm more or less operational but not all my circuits are functioning perfectly. Will need to ask questions about some of those things at some point.

So that's the state of the flav. Not a lot more happening, apart from scales to a metronome, strange dreams at night, nightmarish (often) teaching days at one of my schools and walks to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts. Hope you are all well.
Ballad' by Timothy Bowers - Flavio Matani, guitar
A lovely and very accessible student piece (around Grade 1) recorded for a pupil; this is part of the collection 'Solo Now!' published by Chanterelle Np. 2101

Yes, it is the same thematic material he uses in 'Flight of the Lovers through the Valley of Echoes', second movement of 'Decamerón Negro'. More concise in this one

#guitar #classicalguitar #latinamericanguitarmusic #cubanguitarmusic #iMovie #yulongguoguitar


'Winter Story' by Mirosław Drożdżowski

A first take at home of this lovely piece by Mirosław Drożdżowski.
Guitar is a Yulong Guo Chamber Concert.

for contact & info:
flavio_matani@mac.com,
https://www.flaviomataniguitar.com
Leo Brouwer -'Estudio Sencillo XII' - Flavio Matani, guitar.
A first take at home of Leo Brouwer's 'Estudio Sencillo XII'
We do online guitar lessons!

flavio_matani@mac.com
https://www.flaviomataniguitar.com


#guitar, #classicalguitar, #latinamericanguitarmusic, #cubanguitarmusic#, #iMovie

Flavio (me) playing a quick take at home of 'Yacambú' by Antonio Lauro (excerpt 2)
Currently doing online guitar lessons!
for info on guitar lessons/presentations:
flavio_matani@mac.com
https://www.flaviomataniguitar.com


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