Comments

• Jangle_Jamie Scottish HighlandsNew De Rijk, some Gitanes and quite a few others

  December 2025 Posts: 446

  Thanks Buco! Happy New Year to you too.

  I hope 2026 is going to be ok.

  I have to sell some guitars, so that's a plan. I'm also giving dry january a go, which I think I'll find really hard at times.

  Cheers, Jamie

  
• Willie HamburgNew

  12:34AM edited 2:42AM Posts: 927

  Yes, happy new year to everyone!

  Plan is to retire completely from work at school this summer. No wind band classes, no puppet playing any more. Sob. And to sell a lot of instruments (double sob), keeping only one archtop, one lap steel, the euphonium, two recorders and one pocket clarinet. And, of course, the clavichord! So there will be enough stuff left to keep me busy, especially with Ancient Music like this little piece written by Daniel Speer, a very versatile and interesting musician and author of the baroque era:

  Clavichord-Speer-Aria.mp3

  Another plan is to put together a little program for solo busking, vocal/guitar and recorders alternating, singing and playing blues, jazzy tunes and folk.

  Edit: and, of course, the trio with french horn, euphonium and tuba will be continued!

  
• billyshakes NoVA✭✭✭ Park Avance - Dupont Nomade - Dupont DM-50E

  6:49AM Posts: 1,734

  By the looks of the sidebar, it's also happy birthday to a lot of folks here (😂). True or not, happy new year to you all and clever resolution pun, Buco. ;-)

  
• adrian AmsterdamVirtuoso

  11:39AM Posts: 583

  Happy new year! My main goal is to record a new album this year, as I've got a backlog of tunes built up.

  Adrian

  

  Give my albums a listen: Melodic Guitar Music and Layer Cake
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  12:41PM Posts: 5,771

  @Jangle_Jamie I haven't done a dry month in several years now. Somehow there's never a good month to choose from.

  @Willie I've been wanting to get back to busking myself. I'm warming up to the idea of using the looper pedal to build my own backing track, instead of playing the stuff from YT through the amp. Yay for the wind/brass trio. I've been following your progress on clavichord, you're starting to sound really good.

  @billyshakes a friend who's real b-day is today called us all out in this group chat we have, "thanks for bday wishes, jerks". His got buried among 15 others that popped up on my phone today. What is with these generic dates?

  @adrian I'll be happy with another recorded song myself. My backlog would probably fit a triple LP at least.

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• billyshakes NoVA✭✭✭ Park Avance - Dupont Nomade - Dupont DM-50E

  3:12PM Posts: 1,734

  a friend who's real b-day is today called us all out in this group chat we have, "thanks for bday wishes, jerks". His got buried among 15 others that popped up on my phone today. What is with these generic dates?

  My guess is people use Jan 1 as a random, memorable date when forced to give a birthday on various sign-up forms. Sort of like you might pity the poor person whose number really was 867-5309. 😂

  
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  4:07PM Posts: 668

  Happy New Year People!

  I thought I'd shake it up a bit so New Years Eve I practiced all morning and then worked in my shop all night.

  Then New Years Day I practiced all morning and now I'm working in my shop.

  I'm thinking I might just keep doing that.

  
• Buco NOVA, DCDeity Ivanovski maple/spruce

  4:29PM edited 4:29PM Posts: 5,771

  @paulmcevoy75 You're kinda describing a dream life.

  I practiced today and I'm about to again. I did my fair share indulging last night. One of the few advantages of being a middle-aged dude for me is that my body is processing booze super well for some reason. 20-30 years ago I'd be punished today after last night but this morning I got up, had two espressos and got on with my day.

  

  Every note wants to go somewhere-Kurt Rosenwinkel
• paulmcevoy75 Portland, MaineNew

  4:45PM Posts: 668

  https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/124015#Comment_124015

  oh I wish. I really miss drinking. But lately I really want to be productive daily and it seems like even small amounts of alcohol mess up my sleep enough that I really regret it.

  I've kinda given up on Maine as a place I want to stay but I'm probably here for another 6 months so I've sort of gone full hermit, just working. It's been a bit lonely (A BIT!) but it's also a real luxury. I'm getting 3 hours a day of practice (well 2:45 the last two days) on my non-work days. It's annoying how it flies by but I think progress is being made. Music remains hard but I'm enjoying it. I think. I kinda want to be out of here but I hope that I look back on this period as one of a lot of development.

  I'm very happily almost totally out of instruments at this point, one last guitar leaving the shop this week. Now I pretty much only have stuff I want to play and I like all of them (still working on a perfect classical model for myself, and I have a few extra nylon strings floating around. So 2 extra guitars). I really hate having too many of my own instruments around, it's depressing. I'd love to make big $$ with them but my real pleasure is having people playing them. So clearing house is nice.

  Starting a new batch of instruments. If all goes well these will be the last instruments I make in this shop. It's been frustrating working in one medium sized room, dust is always a huge issue. Still it's been pretty awesome. My first real shop space of my own in my whole life.

  that's the new year's news from here. I'm making a wooden necklace for my mom's birthday from scraps of very old 1930s flamed maple and some Koa and maybe some other stuff I have. I've been procrastinating for weeks on doing this. Gotta get done.