A new ukulele blog

Not much goes on here these days. Too busy playing the ukulele at the moment which is why i’ve started a new blog called “Ukenaut all about my ukulele explorations. See you over there, maybe.

Moselele – Eight Days A Week

I had a great time last night at the first session of the Moselele Ukulele Group – known as Moselele.  No previous experience necessary, and I think that attitude was pretty much embraced.  Top marks to @dazwright for organising us and to my fellow ukenauts for a fun time.

We worked our way through the songbook and I think most of us were starting to get the hang of it.  Anyhoo, here’s our triumphant finale to the practice, Eight Days A Week.

Keep an eye on the website or follow the #moselele hashtag on Twitter to keep up with developments.

More Bluegrass from the Old Mo’

Thought I’d post a few more tracks from the Old Moseley Arms Bluegrass Jam.  I didn’t go last week so these are from the 26 January.

Firstly, a standard, Sally Goodin, which I’m trying to learn so that’s the reason for posting this.  As with all the tracks in this post I’m only playing backing on it.  Maybe I’ll take a lead break next week.

Next up, a great  song that regular, Peter, has been teaching us, Cold Sheets of Rain.  No idea who wrote it but there’s a good version by the Hagars Mountain Boys on Spotify

Our version is better though.

And finally Flatt and Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Breakdown.  

Some of you might recognise this from the movie Bonnie and Clyde where it was used for the car chase.  I think this is why a friend of mine calls banjo heavy bluegrass chase music.

Cripple Creek – Bluegrass in Balsall Heath

Been a year since I posted anything.  Oh well.

My favourite thing to do on a Tuesday evening is to go join in the Bluegrass Jam down at the Old Moseley Arms in Balsall Heath.  It’s a friendly and relaxed scene in the upstairs room where a bunch of musicians sit around in a circle playing bluegrass tunes.  I’ve been going along for a few weeks now, just chunking out chord on the mandolin.  When I went a fortnight ago I plucked up the courage to take a short solo – known as taking a break on a tune I had learned, Cripple Creek.

You can hear my mandolin come in at around 38 seconds in for my break.  I’m quite pleased with it.  I got quite a buzz out of playing it and got some encouraging nods and positive comments from a few of the regulars which made me feel real good.

Now I need to get a few more tunes under my belt so I can do it again.

Vote for Created In Birmingham in the 2008 Weblog Awards

Created in Birmingham has been nominated for Best UK Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards.  Please go vote for it.

What are you doing still reading this?  Go vote.  Do it now and do it once every 24 hours between now and 17:00 on 13th Jan.

There’s several reasons you should do this.   CiB is a great resource for keeping track of creative endeavours in Birmingham.  It’s not run by the council or some company.  It’s run by ordinary people who are doing it in their spare time.  It supports artists and other creative types.  In return the Birmingham online community which is strong, is getting behind CiB to support and canvas for it in these awards.

CiB has featured some of my photos in the past so this is my way of repaying that acknowledgement and support.  It was a big boost to my confidence in photography to see one of my pictures up there.

Evening Commute by Ian T Edwards

As I write it is in the lead but that lead is constantly under threat from the other main runner, the blog of a Daily Mail journalist with dubious views on a variety of topics.  So vote as often as you can please!!.

Tuna Day

I’m never too sure about this blog.  It’s just a bit unstructured and without a real purpose other than a collection of stuff.  I’m also not very good at posting to it very frequently so there’s not enough to bring casual readers back frequently enough.  By the looks of my traffic it’s mainly people who’re picking it up via their RSS readers or some very specific searches that undoubtedly leave people disappointed by the lack of any useful content they were searching for.

So I’ve decided to have a crack at a daily blog where I post something about different song each day and where possible supply a link where people can hear it.  I’m calling it “Tuna Day” because it amuses me.

“Bunny Crimes”

X Factor with subtitles for the heart of earing

Picked it up over at The Word blog.  Made me chuckle.

I broke my Speedlite. Hoorah for the internet.

A couple of days back I managed to break the hotshoe off my Canon Speedlite 430EX.  Quite upsetting as it’s not a cheap piece of kit.  When this happens you realise that it’s only a few mm of plastic that hold two costly bits of kit together.  More on that at the end though.

However all was not lost. A quick search turned up a very handy page with step by step illustrated instructions and helpful comments.

I ordered up the part from H Lehmann’s in Stoke which arrived real quick and have just fixed it in about 20 minutes.  And I remembered to remove the batteries and discharge the flash before I took it apart.  That might have been lively.

So it cost me £11.50 as opposed to £180 for a new flash unit.  Result!!

When it intially looked like the flash was junked I did take a look at the new 430EX II which has a metal shoe rather than a plastic one.  Initially this seems like a good idea, but on reflection it may well be a good thing that the hotshoe on the flash is the point of weakness.  I reckon if the plastic didn’t give then it’d most likely rip the mount of the top of the camera or even worse.  Anyway I’ll be a bit more careful about leaving the flash on top of the camera in future.

Start it Up

Been a while since I posted anything.  This was going to be a thinky piece about youtube and stuff but I’m not so great at marshalling my thoughts today, so it’s another one of those “here’s a great thing on the internet” posts.  Well I wasted an evening laughing when I first came across it a few months back.

Stevie Riks is a comedy musical impressionist but don’t let that put you off.  He has a great range of characters and there’s tons of clips up on YouTube.  And he’s bloody funny.

As a starter I suggest Mick Jagger flogging his car, Macca making a cuppa, The Bee Gees and Bono trying to find a lottery ticket (you’ll see the punchline coming a mile off but that doesn’t make it any less funny).

Sorry if you end up wasting most of an afternoon.

Dropping science at the LHC

Picked this up from Word Magazine’s “something for the weekend” mailout.  The boffins at CERN drop science explaining how the LHC works in a rap that somehow is not cheesy.  Some might prefer they concentrated a little more on not bringing the universe to an end and didn’t muck about making daft rap videos but not me.  This video help make sense of it and the chorus is now stuck in my head.

altogether now – “LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone, ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions………………………”