Patrick Rose
Singer, Guitarist, CallerIt's been a hectic few months for me. I've recently moved house, and just afterwards my sister decided to get married. This was followed by another wedding the week afterwards thanks to a friend at university. On the plus side, I did manage to sneak a quick day in Whitby for the John Birmingham Cup Final. If you've been keeping up with this blog, you'll have seen the post I made about getting into the final after winning the heat at the Sheffield Sessions Festival.
This weekend I was invited to Wath Festival as a finalist in the Young Performer's competition. I've entered it a few times when I was starting out but I didn't really have my sound nailed down so I didn't get in to the final. They were looking for some late entrants this year so I entered on Tuesday before the Cross Folk gig and got it confirmed during the break1.
Ordinarily, I'd steer clear of politics. It's a tricky subject for me, because I don't think I'm anywhere near knowledgeable about either the process or any of the topics involved. I'm no economist, I'm just a singer. And most importantly, political songs have a habit of being sung to people who already agree with you which kind of deadens the point in my view1
The John Birmingham Cup is a fun little song writing competition set up in the will of John Birmingham and is designed to encourage song writing. Sheffield has a wonderful history of winning it (seriously - in the 10 years or so it's been running Sheffield residents have won at least 4 times that I know of). The Sheffield Heat (which I guess is designed to stop Sheffield winning too many times by attempting to force us to enter into one heat) was this past Easter weekend.
Terry Pratchett died yesterday. It wasn't unexpected, but still.
I've recently started attending the local church, since I'll be getting married there in about 18 months time. There's nothing particularly interesting about that fact, excepting that last night the sermon wasn't by the vicar, it was by a local music teacher. The subject was preparations for exams (apparently, it'll be the music exams this week), and she mentioned how often her pupils don't practice their scales and arpeggios.