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

In spite of the entropy of passing years I still go to clubs and stuff, although by the time I've been there for two hours I've had enough. There is also the fact that I nearly always have pupils having lessons the following morning -and that takes priority; the livelihood of a self-employed music teacher is rather precarious and if there is work you take it because you never know.

I've not been back to the Slimelight for ... n years. The only time I've been after the pandemic was to the opening of an exhibition by Parma Ham. I am not sure I'm comfortable with the new regime there although it seems that things have got better. I do go to local clubs and several smaller format nights are organised by friends in Aces & Eights, just a few blocks up the road in Tufnell Park and at the Albany in Gt Portland Street, just an 88 bus ride away. This suits me. It is good to see friends and people I've known for many years and catch up (although I do find that difficult in the noisy environment of a club) and dance a bit. In terms of catching up I think I prefer the Hampstead Alternative Picnics that Jon Hannan has been organising since .. 2007 or thereabouts. Last week's one was lovely. I also went to Reformation at Aces & Eights last night. It was good, I even danced (well, I call it 'dancing', others might differ!).