peely-wally

off work (teaching & LAT) today - feeling a bit off-colour.
humph.

spent large portion of the day asleep - strenuous activities include
walking to sofe & watching telly
having bath
reading

however, did do a little bit of practise too.

Usually I practise up in Liz's bedroom - it's a loft-extension so when the door's closed up there I'm slightly less audible to Jane & Duncan downstairs (and even more slightly quieter for Liz too!).
I've discovered that if I stand in a particular place chez Liz I can see my reflection well enough in the shower door for practise purposes. This is useful as I have about as much bodily awareness as a scarecrow! Apart from admiring my gorgeous visage [coff, coff] and the superlatively gorgeous lustre of my little E-flat shiny friend I was peering at myself for the following reasons:

• to see what I was doing with my left wrist

Sophie noticed that I was doing a weird arching thing with my left wrist. I was looking at it today, and it most definately is weird! I'm pulling my wrist up & back so it looks more suited to the part of "The Claw" in Toy Story that determines the wee green guys' destiny! I hope I don't do that while I'm playing recorder - eeewww! Maybe I do it as a habit rooted in my compensating for my knackered thumb? Whyever I do it - It must cease forthwith!

• to see what my fingers are doing

are they flipping, flopping & flapping about like bunting on HRH's Jubilee? I have a really bad tendancy to do this on viola / violin as well as on recorders - and the bad habit has now branched out into pastures new with the arrival of a saxophone. I have to admit though, in a pale & paltry effort at self-justification, that it does feel a bit weird to be able to keep my fingertips poised on the pearls, waiting to spring into service with the tiniest muscular message arriving from my nerves & neurotransmitters.


To a lesser extent, I can also see whether my shoulders are attempting to get within flirtatious brushing-past distance of my ear-lobes, and take evasive action when I appear to be threatening to sink into a tortoise's retreating position. I can also see if I'm using my diaphragm (not the contraceptive variety - don't have much call for one of those, funnily enough, not being married!) at all when I breathe.

The mirror-gazing seems to help, as does wandering about the room (which I used to do for miles on end in any of the rooms in "The Annex" that were big enough to accommodate perambulation with a bowed stringed instrument).
I started to get a more reliably sax-approaching noise today, even in the little 15ish minutes I did. I did long notes & busked around a bit too, as well as going up & down C major (1 octave) and doing patterns like

C-D-C-E-C-F-C-G-C-A-C-B-C-C'-C

and its predictable antithesis

C'-B-C'-A-C'-G-C'-F-C'-E-C'-D-C'-C-C'

checking I'm not moving my lips around (like ventriloquism training!) & trying to maintain consistency of tone, while looking out for nice-sounding notes, and trying to devine what accident of their conception made them so.

I think I'm getting the idea of what I'm looking towards. My sound at the moment's not so much a flatulent one as a distinctly maritime one - but it was beginning to approach land slightly.
I suppose this little snail's got a long journey on a Virgin Train to reach the ark!