Matthew Walton’s Blog

Today is the day for dancing for joy: I passed my grade 4 descant recorder exam with a merit! 127 points, which means only three from getting a distinction. I’m absolutely overjoyed and gobsmacked — I thought I’d pass, but I really didn’t think I’d get a merit. Wendy said she was sure I would, but I thought if I did it’d be by the thinnest of margins. Turns out that thin margin was the one between me and a distinction instead. If I’d just practised my scales more, I might have got that.

The recurring criticism was a lack of dynamic range, which is tricky to do on the recoder so I generally just don’t bother. I’m going to have to change that — an extra mark for each piece and in the sight reading could once more make the difference. Also, it’s nice to get nice comments from the examiner, and this set of comments was generally positive and all very helpful. I’m on top of the world!

My readers (yes all three of you) may have noticed a distinct lack of blogging lately. Things happened, I went a few places, saw a few films (_Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest_, and Superman Returns — both excellent), played the recorder some more, bought a new recorder even, and stressed a lot about my PhD.

It was to spare the Internet the latter that I didn’t post much in that time. Also at the moment I’m not entirely sure what I want to be using this for anymore, so things might be a little quiet for a while.

Then again, they might not! Why not come back next week and find out?

My final point is to note that it’s far too hot, and the place I live is too noisy. Mornings have not been a good time for me lately. I hate having to sleep until half past nine, but at the moment I’m just not getting enough rest because I can’t get to sleep early enough! Roll on autumn.