5 ft 11 in her socks, she'd have to stand you on a box, not appropriate behaviour...

So, I've never been crazily into classical (or indeed baroque, romantic, 20th century etc etc for you pedantic fellow musical geeks) piano repertoire before, and then I came across this dude:

www.jamesrhodes.tv

So, he's like, a classical pianist....with the drug-fuelled past of a rock star....and the looks of one too.
But he is SO passionate. And dedicated. All of a sudden I'm well into all this Beethoven and Bach business, and it was ever only really Chopin or Debussy before.
Some of this music is so delicious though, it could melt in the mouth. Or maybe just on the ears?

I've found myself ploughing through this incredible Beethoven sonata with my unpolished Grade 5 skills, which is daring as hell, but it's not just the music I've fallen for...it's the backstory. When Beethoven wrote this music, he'd just started going deaf, and he channelled his frustration, passion, desperation and depression all into this one composition...

...and to me, that is mind-blowing. As James says himself on his programme, about the 3rd movement: "How could a man so desperate and surrounded by such chaos write something so eternal?"

Today, twas dearest Prime's day of birth, and now she's all an official adult and that :/ I FEEL SO YOUNG NEXT TO HER NOW. And small. But nothing changes there...

Tis also Christmas Eve Eve.....but I'm not feeling too Christmasy at all. Maybe I AM getting old after all.

If I give up living a lie...

So, last night we had an amazing Skype session. And tonight, Skype has globally crashed.
WASN'T US.

All this video-calling reminds me of summer. Such a while back now :/

We broke up yesterday! :) From school, not my wife and I...happy birthday wife... Basically all I did was sing in assemblies, play bass in wrong keys, injure myself lugging amps around school, sit in a violently competitive quiz, escape school early, and pig out on chocolate. Interesting last day, then.

Then, it snowed overnight. A LOT, apparently.
Then today, I got shoved out of bed at stupid o' clock cos we had a random visitor, and then I sat and did nothing.

Well, I lie, I sat and wrapped Prime's birthday/Christmas offerings. It took most of the mid-afternoon, believe me. I utterly FAIL at Christmas wrapping.

Tomorrow I know 6 people with birthdays! :O RIDICULOUS!

I just asked Ellen if I was Emma Watson. It's the eyebrows.

HMMM, for an early Christmas present we downloaded the new acoustic Elliot Minor album. It's like eating chocolate covered in melted chocolate covered in dark melted chocolate sitting inside a chocolate fountain of Galaxy.

In short, delicioisly surreal.

Alex from Elliot Minor has in fact been in contact with me after I sent him a song of mine. Fingers crossed for something to come out of it...I'm constantly checking my emails...

Also been in contact with this West End guy Paul Spicer about giving me lessons in performance before my conservatoire auditions. £25 an hour which is good, I just have to get down to South East London. HAHAHAHA I have no clue how.

Almost Christmas boys and girls!

I've got so much to think about...

Just got back from the Post 16 Awards evening to sing for 10 minutes. Pointless really, like the rest of the day.
Didn't even get a chance to see all last year's leavers....and one particular person everyone was keen to see seems to have turned into a right snob over 3 months. Damn, thought better of him. Let's hope we're all wrong!

About 6 of us turned up for choir too! 3 ex-choristers joined us again however...the legend is true, once you join choir, you NEVER leave. The men outnumbered women for the first time in recent choir history however.

So pointless day...Music first, nothing ever happens anyway. Movie Pictionary in Philosophy, double English was supposed to be looking through drafts and marks and that, but come on...talking about romanticals and Christmas is far more exciting.

One. More. Day.

She took a light and left me in the dark....eh-yehh...

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting for talkative people.
I'm waiting for school to finish.
I'm waiting to feel remotely Christmas-y.
I'm waiting for the post.
I'm waiting for chocolate to magically reappear in the fridge.
I'm waiting for a bit of sanity.
I'm waiting for important email replies. From legendary people. About music.

I'm not sad at all.

Except, I'm finding it hard to come to terms with the fact I actually quite like this new McFly song. DAMN. Going against my musical beliefs :|

Select few McFly songs are my guilty pleasures, however much I hate to admit it.
I do ADORE the Back to the Future trilogy however. I must watch it all some point over Christmas....anyone want to join me, maybe?

2 days to endure.

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it...

No need to get the violins out, but I feel SO DAMN LONELY right now. Where the HELL is everyone?

I really like this Olly Murs song. Is that a bad thing?

Need a break so bad :/ But every day up till the end of term is still SO important :/ Absolutely fed up and in need of a permenant hug. Any takers?
Today's just been such a rollercoaster. Blehhhh.

Christmas really couldn't come any sooner!

What a shame, I could have been your lover...

Sunday evening.
1 week and a bit left.
One more concert, an ugly pile of coursework, more snow on the way and a hellish amount of Christmas shopping to do.
Everything's just dragging now :/ Give us a break?!?! Let us have Kit-Kats and all?!?!

Haha, whenever I see Kit-Kat, it makes me think of Cabaret or whatever the musical is where they have that club. And that in turn makes me think of the Cat Scratch Club in Rent....oh, Rent.
I do adore that particular masterpiece, but I've recently found myself as director/musical director for a (heavily!) reduced production of it at school....and I'm terrified; it's my directorial debut on both the dramatical and musical sides. Rehearsals are occasionally fun, occasionally stressy, occasionally concerning, occasionally enlightening....I've had Eureka moments, I've ALREADY had the obligatory directorial commitment/focus rant, I've had panic moments...and I'm still trying to secure a venue and a date(s). ARGH pressure!
Certain people have already surprised me though...I can certainly see the rewarding side of directing, even at a relatively early stage :)
Worried we'll run out of time though :S
And I still (apparently) have a band to get together!

Feeling a bit of deja vu right now.

My speakers keep crackling out :S THEY CAN'T BREAK! I need my musical doses :O

Currently trying to kill some time waiting for people to appear online...feel pretty lonely, everyone else online is 'away', or 'busy'. Mehhhh. Maybe I could go to bed and catch up on some of the sleep I've lost to recent shows and the like...but I'd rather wait.

Apparently Matt just won the X Factor. Guess that means that some sort of slight justice prevails, he WAS the only vaguely original contestant.
I swear blind I will never go on one of those shows however, they make a mockery of the music business :/ Makes me angry to think of the poor, hardworking souls who are bloody talented but can't get anywhere because manufactured, sickly-sweet, plastic-faced carbon copies are being boosted to the top of the charts by that Cowell man and his money-obsessed chart factory...(woah, long-winded sentence, I need a breath)

I actually wrote a whole article on this for the magazine this time last year...woah, how time flies :|

Well backing the Cage Against The Machine campaign this year though....if you haven't heard John Cage's 4:33, go and listen to it all, it's such a brilliant, inspiring piece of music...

Make sure you listen to all of it, course.

"They call it 'musical comedy', I call it BAD."

Oh, dearest friends. Oh dearest, dearest friends. IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG.

I did it. I hacked through the undergrowth of my ridiculously insane schedule after half-term, and now I've pretty much reached the safe side! Apart from hectic coursework times and the Christmas Concert before we break up...

Oh flippin' heck, I'm popular, the phone's off. 'Brb' dudes.

Oh, twas just someone else's status I was foolish enough to comment on, tis all. I'm not popular :'(

Erm, I'll 'briefly comment' on the last number of weeks, because going back through the dreaded undergrowth would be highly unproductive.
BTEC Panto started awfully, but when it finished last week it was pure brilliance. West Side Story was a bit of an effort, but most of the band were lovely and the bass amp they gave me was pretty incredible.
Rent's not going TOO bad either! My directorial debut and all ;)...I sense it'll all become highly stressful there soon enough however.
I've also just played my first Big Band concert at DMH this week! Nothing beats the thud of your bass-playing thundering through a beautiful, refined concert venue ;)...

This week's been fairly lonely though; mother dearest kindly buggered off to Finland (?!) out of the blue (alright for some), and it seems everyone else hurried on over to Oxford for random interviews. Next year is going to be WEIRD if these last few days are anything to go by - except Mother dearest isn't moving to Finaland or anything.

Hmm. What else?

Re-ignited my love for the genius that is the work of Gilbert and Sullivan. No clue? Get out of my house.

It's almost Christmas, doh. You know what that means? Mince pies, Christmas Tree Festival, Ullesthorpe Garden Centre times....

YES YES YES, the BEST time of year for Choir! ;) He Commmmmme has been well and truly dug out, as has Torches (such a dangerous song), and my mind was pretty much blown by the fact choir were IN the garden centre. Match in Christmas-heaven for me (interesting pun that...Christmas and heaven...HO HO HO).

TWAS HILARIOUS.

Getting an EVEN BIGGER bass amp for Christmas too. Cosnidering my neighbours can't deal with barking dogs, me playing Hysteria with the bass EQ up will also be HILARIOUS.

I swear I've spent even more time up in the Music tower recently....I'm so sad. Started looking at unis and conservatoires to apply for as well to do Music, but I feel too young to be doing so :| I swear 5 minutes ago I was on Year 7 induction...

I'm leaving now, because I'm tired, and a tired Taylor usually means any more blogging would be nothing more than waffle. See, I've started already...

Maybe I'll promise to blog a bit more often from now on now the chaos is over? Maybe? Maaaaaaybe?

Don't miss me too much ;)....