Kitten!

Lots has been going on but by far the most interesting thing is that I now have a kitten!

As someone whose illness stops them socialising as much as they'd like I have to admit, I do get a bit lonely and boy does having another living creature here help!

She's 7 months old and an absolutely beautiful silver tabby. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her in the shelter.  She'd been suggested specifically for me and they definitely got it right.  She was placed on my lap and after 2 seconds of 'what on earth is happening' wriggling, she was suddenly rolling around my lap loving hte attention.   A member of staff walked past and said "I think you've been chosen".

There was a bit of scariness a few days after I got her when suddenly the occasional sneeze turned to horrible wet sneezes, gooey eyes and complete exhaustion.  A trip to the vets and cat flu was confirmed. It had been going around the rescue centre.  She had been in quarantine so they thought she'd avoided it but sadly not!

After about 6 days of antibiotics suddenly she started running circles around me (literally).  She's suddenly recovered and become this hyperactive, playful thing.  She wants to jump on everything and likes to think my hand is prey.  We definitely need to work on that one.  I'm quite scratched up and it's getting sore.  A week ago she was afraid of her toys and wanted nothing more than to just curl up next to me. She's still cuddly but I have to be on watch for her teeth!

The most amusing moment so far was definitely when she woke me up at 4.30am the other night by jumping very loudly on to my shoulder. I opened my eyes to discover a very proud looking cat with a 'gift' as a wet kitchen sponge.  Brilliant.

moving forward with music again

Yesterday I attended the symposium I spoke about in my last blog. It was really interesting and I left feeling pretty inspired about the future with new ideas and some contacts too.

What surprised me was that whilst I expected to leave with most ideas about working within this field, I actually found myself relating everything back to my own musicianship and how I can bring that forward.

Thanks to the many shitty experiences I've had with accessing any level of support I have a bit of a distorted relationship with assisted technology.  I'm always questioning whether I should be using things, wondering if impairments will improve only if I resist the equipment long enough and just generally second guessing the validity of my own needs.

In terms of music stuff I'm starting to feel much more as if actually I should just look at the end goal and do all I can to reach it.  It's odd how we internalise this sort of crap really.

I realised yesterday that in order to make it fully accessible for me to make my own music and perform and create it live in the way that I want to I'm going to need much more than my loop pedal and current instruments.  I'll need software and macbook to run it, a means of accessing it and that's before considering as well as suitable seating/wheelchair and PA support to access venues.  I also need to have a serious think about my own health and the amount that I can actually reasonably do.  I need to learn to manage my own health better.  The exacerbation of my illness just after yesterday goes to show how important this is.

I had a good chat with people from Drake music and am hoping to gain some support and insight from them about the way forward as well as hopefully using some of their macs!

One of the pieces of kit that I had previously discovered but thought of more as something to work with others using but not so much use myself was the 'skoog'. This is an instrument designed to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.  It looks like a cube with 5 buttons but actually by means of physical modelling (don't ask me waht that means) allows you to do far more than access 5 notes.  It's also very fast to programme new samples, notes or chords so would be ideal for use whilst playing live.  I'll be honest in that I did find it difficult to coordinate at first but it really does seem to be the most accessible thing oiut there and I'm sure it will get easier.  It would be far more accessible to me than a keyboard or moving fast between multiple instruments on stage. Sadly, as with most things it is quite expensive for an individual to buy.

The beauty of all of this software and kit is that I could then use it for work with community music projects and that whilst learning to use it myself I would not only be developing my own musicianship but developing my skills in this particular field.

So, now I need to think of ways of moving this forward and start making music again in the meantime.

www.skoogmusic.com
www.drakemusic.org

Ideas for the future - access in music.

At about 17 I've wanted to become a music therapist.  I specifically chose my undergraduate music course based on this aspiration as it had links with Nordoff Robbins and was one of the few reputable universaties offering a module at undergraduate level.  I compromised on other aspects of university life specifically for this course.

Whilst at university I realised that funding for these courses was difficult to obtain and that applicants were seldom accepted before their mid twenties anyway.  After some thought I figured that some life experience wouldn't go a miss and thought I'd study for a PGCE and teach for a bit before applying for music therapy courses.  I worked in a primary school to gain experience and applied for PGCE (teacher training).

It was whilst working in the primary school that I got particularly unwell.  One day I woke up and just couldn't get to work.  I didn't know how long it would take to recover from whatever this was so I continued my applications and got a place at the institute of education.  I'd started liaising with their disability team and by this point was considering whether a wheelchair would mean I was able to do the course and placements.In the end I had to give the place up and that's where these aspirations have halted.

When you first get 'ill' with a mystery illness there's always that hope that you will miraculously get better.  Getting ill was also sudden after all.  Over time my understanding has changed and I know think more in terms of 'impairment' and 'disability' than in terms of illness.  Things still might improve or they might get worse.  They might do a bit of both.  I still don't know what the future holds.

Having had all my aspirations paused so abruptly was really painful.  Not knowing whether this dream of being a music therapist will ever be possible hurts too.  That's why it's been really refreshing and exciting to find something that I'm interested in again, in a similar field.

I've been looking in to various different options for making it more possible for me to perform as a musician again, and particularly for me to do some solo stuff.  In my search for switches, mounts etc I found two things that really interested me.
Firstly, there are now much more instruments out there which are accessible to people with all sorts of impairments.  The 'magic flute' in particularly cought my eye.  I love the fact that this field is moving away from tokenistic inclusion and aiming more for musicianship in its own right.  The fact we've moved away from horrible 'midi' sounds means that things have moved forward a long way in terms of gaining mainstream credibility.
Secondly, there are loads of apps for communication and music!

I got a bit excited by this.  I've wanted to do an academic masters course for quite some time but never been entirely sure what I want to study.  But this is something I think I can really sink my teeth in to!

I felt pretty damn lucky then to find out that there are events in London this weekend about this very topic including a symposium for which I found significantly reduced price tickets!

So, I'll be attending this:
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=y04W3T1aK0g6&PBID=454f4674-2eb2-4bf2-a4be-f15ad6ae100a&skip=

Wish me luck and I'll be back with updates and ideas!  I still don't know what part of this field I'd like to work in but hopefully this will give me some ideas!