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On his blog, Mark Watson recently started up an idea called the Ten Year Self Improvement Challenge (TYSIC for short). Readers of his blog were asked to submit things which they wanted to accomplish over the next ten years, and it would form some sort of community of people working on it together.

I didn’t post anything up at the time (the official start date was 4th March) but, on reflection, I’ve decided to take up the challenge. Here’s my TYSIC:

I’ve always lacked discipline when learning an instrument. At the piano, I always used to (and still do) learn things up until I can sort of play them… and then stop. I’m finding it the same at the guitar as well: I learn things up until I can “sort of” play them… and then stop. Well, no more. My aim is, over the next ten years, to try and get actually good at playing the guitar. (I say guitar, I didn’t want to be too ambitious and I already play the piano to an extent I’m relatively happy with … I might extend to the piano as well depending on how it goes).

So, from now on, when I practice guitar – and I’m going to try and do at least 10-15 minutes every day – I’m going to be doing the things no-one really likes doing: scales, finger exercises, and generally playing solos really really slowly to make sure that I’ve got them perfectly. We’ll see how it goes, but I started last night and felt better as a result!

I thought as well that it would be better to do this as TYSIC rather than just an aim of mine, because the TYSIC community will hopefully keep reminding me of this!

I’ll update here from time to time with my progress.

Just thought I’d post a quick update with what’s been going on here recently! We had a quieter weekend this week.

On Friday night, because it’s half-term this week, we had the 21 social. It was a cleudo-style murder mystery (well, technically a kidnap mystery), where the leaders all played suspects and the kids had to work out who did it! It was actually really fun, even though I’m not very good at that kind of thing.

On Saturday we did a bit of shopping, and then in the afternoon went round to see Jo and Evie. We took some dinner round – we cooked some Balti Butter Chicken which was absolutely delicious (even if I do say so myself. Well, Phil did most of the cooking, so it’s not like I’m praising myself anyway!) And we also played some Guitar Hero. I must say, I’m finding Guitar Hero more difficult than playing the actual guitar for some reason! Well, not more difficult as such, but it’s a completely different skill from playing the guitar. I’m sure that if you’ve never played an instrument before it would give you a bit of a leg up, but I doubt very much it would help you in any way other than rhythm, and perhaps strenthening your fingers a bit.

Anyway. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, then came back for lunch, and then went round to Jo’s again and went for a walk around Castle Park with Evie. We fed the ducks, which is something I haven’t done in a long time! The ducks didn’t seem too bothered though – maybe lots of people feed the ducks on Sunday afternoon?!

Afterwards we headed out to Sunday@6, before watching ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’. I think I’m enjoying this series less than I did the previous two… it’s kind of gone from being a quaint slice of English life to taking a few issues and hitting them with a sledgehammer. I don’t know whether the writing team has changed, but it seems this series is a bit more “hey, let’s have some social commentary in there!” than it did in the previous series.

This week is only a two-day week for us – we’ve both taken off our remaining holiday for this holiday yea, Wednesday to Friday. At the weekend I’m going away for a Bible Training weekend with the Proclamation Trust, so I’m quite looking forward to that. I’ll report back on that next week…

Hah. In “my room” (a/k/a the study) in our house I have a piano, two guitars, and an effects pedal. The piano has the ability to record things, and it also has the ability to pretend to be a bass. The effects pedal has a little drum machine on it. Can you see where this is going? Yep, I’ve just played four instruments simultaneously… sort of. And I did cheat on one – I wasn’t actually playing the drums. But still, it’s fantastic fun. I’ve just spent half an hour rocking out like Led Zeppelin. (Note to self: using the “Jimmy Page” setting on my effects pedal does *not* make me sound like Jimmy Page…)

It does make me think that I would quite like to be in a band though. Sunday@6 is good but it’s only really worship music at the moment. Anyone a bit crap at playing an instrument, like me, who wants to play a few random songs occasionally? ;)

Aaaanyway. Weekend antics. What did we get up to, etc. The usual. 21, shopping, church, relaxing. We watched “Burn After Reading” on Saturday night which is a typical Coen brothers film – a bit weird but quite clever and funny in places. Quite off-beat humour, if you like darker comedies you’d probably like this one.

The other news is, after rambling on about media centres and the like in my last post – and those of you who follow my Twitter feed will know this – we’ve decided to buy a new HDTV. It’s an LG 32″ Full HD model. Apparently, after we bought it the assistant told us it was what he and another one of the assistants had – and they were both really happy with it. Why he didn’t say that before I don’t know, but still, it looks pretty good. It should hopefully be delivered on Friday.

After all that talk about media centres and the like, I finally decided to go with a solid state Blu-Ray player. They had a very good deal on them, and I felt like the rest of our needs (iPlayer etc) for now can be handled by my laptop. So, not a very exciting outcome really, but there’s still scope for change!

Anyway, I think that’s all for now. Last night Matthew came and stayed with us, just for one night, because he had a meeting in Maldon this morning. It was nice to see him, albeit briefly, and he was even able to come and play drums at the Sunday@6 music rehearsal last night. Good fun.

Well, that’s about it for now, I’d better stop rambling again!

Yesterday my new Zoom G1XN arrived. For those of you who aren’t into guitars, it’s basically an effects pedal that gives you a whole load of options for how you want your guitar to sound – heavily overdriven, reverb, delay, chorus, modulation, compression – that sort of thing.

Anyway, it’s really good fun. I had a play with it last night, and even without much experience playing with it I think it makes my playing more interesting (though it wouldn’t take much, to be honest). I don’t want to do myself down as a guitar player, but… I am not great. And I can use any help I can get with making my playing sound better! Plus, I think it will be really useful when playing at Sunday@6 (for example) and I am playing with another guitarist. Having a bit of reverb and the like will hopefully let me be a bit more creative in filling out the sound.

What I really want to get at the moment though is a decent amp. I was borrowing a friend’s amp for a week or so (Peavey Classic 30 – proper valve amplifier) and it sounded sweeeeet. Solid state amps just aren’t the same! Still, the effects should give me somewhere to start for the moment ;)

This weekend was relatively quiet, as weekends for us go! On Friday we helped out at 21 as per usual. Then, on Saturday we spent the day doing various things which needed to be done i.e. a bit of shopping and gardening (well, mowing the lawn anyway!).

In the evening we headed down to Ware in Hertfordshire for Philippa and Tom’s wedding, at a place called Fanhams Hall Hotel. (It should be noted that the Philippa was not my wife – but she was flatmates with Phil at uni a few years ago. Strange world.) It was a really plush place – although we did wander in to someone else’s wedding by mistake! When we arrived at reception, we asked where Philippa and Tom’s wedding was, and she pointed us through. When we went in the DJ announced the first dance and cutting of the cake, and said “Congratulations to Stewart and Zoe”… ooops! Fortunately we were only in there for about ten seconds so were able to beat a hasty (and stealthy) retreat. Anyway, after finding out where we were supposed to be, we had a good time and spent half the time dancing the night away.

We weren’t at church on Sunday morning as we didn’t get back until the small hours! But some friends of ours from church had previously asked us round for lunch, so we headed out at lunchtime. They weren’t expecting us! – it was arranged a few weeks ago. Because we were not at the prayer meeting on Thursday night, and then not at church in the morning – plus someone at church said that we were away for the weekend – they assumed that we were away! So that was all rather embarrasing, but quite funny :) We did have a nice lunch there anyway, and stayed until the mid afternoon.

Then we got back home, watched the second half of the Andy Murray vs. James Blake match (go Andy Murray! – wonder if he will ever win Wimbledon? on that form, maybe), and then headed out to Sunday@6. I was playing lead guitar for the first time, so that was quite nerve-wracking but seemed to go quite well!

After Sunday@6 we came back home and watched “Grow Your Own”, a little-known British film. It was actually really good, I would definitely recommend it! And… that’s pretty much it.

Well, this weekend was a fairly eventful one! On Friday evening we were helping out at 21. Fortunately I wasn’t doing the talk this week – I say fortunately because it was a difficult passage! Judges 14. But AJ did a good job despite that and I think everyone had a good time.

On Saturday afternoon we met up with Tom and Chris J at the Bricklayers pub for the first part of “The Magnificent Seven” – a pub crawl encompassing the seven Colchester pubs which are in the good beer guide. Unfortunately we were only able to stay for two (The Fox and Fiddler was the next one) but it was a good time and hopefully we’ll get a chance to do the full one sometime later this year. I tried a couple of beers I hadn’t had before including one called “Binary Bitter”, a pale ale which was very nice!

In the evening we went to Matthew’s birthday party. It was superhero-themed, so I dressed up as Christopher Ecclestone’s Doctor Who (well, he’s sort of a superhero) and Phil dressed up as Rose. It was a fun evening, although I think I ate my own body weight in chocolate covered things (the chocolate fountain was good).

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then straight afterwards went round to Laura’s. We had a very nice Thai style curry, and then spent the whole afternoon watching Gavin & Stacey Series 1 – which none of us had seen before. It was brilliant, I’ve really got into Gavin & Stacey (we’ve been watching series 2 on BBC3) – it’s very clever, although it’s really funny at times it also has some great ‘drama’ style moments and is actually quite touching. It’s also quite realistic – the families are both so well written and played, I feel like I recognise them! Bryn (played by Rob Brydon) is probably my favourite character.

Aaaanyway. After that we had our meeting about the music for Sunday @ 6. The meeting actually made me realise (again) how far I have to go with the guitar – although I can play chords pretty well, there are still lots of other things I want to be able to do. I’m getting there slowly, I just hope I do actually ‘get there’ in the end though!

Afterwards we came back home and did a bit of revision for the Moore Course exam (not long to go now – 4th April!) and then we watched the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, which was good fun.

Well, after having the little rant about the car, I thought I’d post up something a bit more positive! I bought a new guitar yesterday. It’s a Squier Stratocaster Classic Vibe. Squier used to be cheap knock-off copies of Fender guitars… now they are expensive knock-off copies of Fender guitars! Just kidding. Apparently it’s one of the better Squier guitars, it seems pretty well built and plays nicely.

I also tried a few other guitars in the shop – notably an Ibanez and an Epiphone Les Paul. I liked the sound on both of them, really ‘warm’ – but I thought the Strat would be the best all-rounder. Plus it was in my price range – the Epiphone was a bit more expensive.

So, I am now the proud owner of my very first electric guitar. And it’s been great fun so far! Although it took a bit of getting used to, I think I’m getting the hang of it so I can do pretty much the same things on the electric that I could do on the acoustic guitar. What I’ll have to do now is learn to play with distortion and some powerchords, and then of course learn some solos… but there’s plenty of time for that!

Anyway, I’m dead chuffed with the guitar – it seems like a great little guitar to get started on, and I think it will last me for a long time. So, yay!

I’m ashamed to admit it, but… I’ve started learning to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar. Just the intro bit. I tried it not long after I’d started learning, but I couldn’t manage it! Now I’ve been playing a bit longer, I think my fingers are a bit more nimble so it’s a little easier for me. Still pretty difficult, but just about possible.

So at some point I may be able to go into a guitar shop and act out the scene from Wayne’s World (Wayne starts playing a guitar, assistant says “Hey!” and points to a sign saying ‘No stairway’, Wayne says: “No Stairway. Denied!”)

I’ve also been learning “Blackbird” by the Beatles, which is a great song although uses a really weird strumming pattern which I can’t seem to emulate properly. I’m gradually getting there with the guitar, although I still don’t think I’ve got strumming patterns nailed yet. Fingerpicking, too, is something I’d like to get into more.

Ah well, onwards and upwards! I don’t think I’m doing badly for 9-10 months. Hopefully I will be able to do more ‘progress reports’ soon!

… that’s actually a line from “Spaceballs” (The Movie), I thought I should probably point that out just in case you missed it. (It is a rather short quote, after all).

This weekend has been mainly very hot. So hot in fact, that we didn’t really do much over the weekend! on Friday evening we went round to my parents’ for a BBQ, which was lovely.

Then on Saturday we did a bit of shopping in the morning and then not much for the rest of the day. On Sunday we went to church in the morning (nice and cool inside the church), and then came back home and crashed out for pretty much the rest of the day! It was far too hot to do anything. I did spend a fair bit of time playing the guitar (not much energy needed – not the way I play it anyway!).

I feel like I’m gradually getting there with the guitar… bar chords still a bit iffy but I’ve been focussing more on fingerpicking the past few days.

We also watched “Black Gold”, which is a documentary style film about the coffee trade, from an Ethiopian point of view. Ethiopia are one of the world’s biggest producers of coffee beans, but their farmers are paid a pittance. Apparently the coffee roasters will buy a kilo of coffee for around $0.30. One kilo of coffee beans will make about 80 cups of coffee – each cup retailing for about $2.00 or so. You do the math.

I still can’t believe in this day and age farmers are still being treated so unethically – we’ve been buying fair trade tea and coffee (as well as other things) for a few years now, I would highly recommend others to do the same, if you don’t already :-)

Covers of songs, that is to say.

In my guitar learning, I’ve been looking out some old songs to play, and I came across Joe’s “committee song” (to the tune of “Can’t take my eyes off of you” by Andy Williams)… it certainly brought back a few memories (“At last Linja’s arrived / at just a quarter past five” and “And although we’ve just finished / Joe’s got just one more thing” being two of my favourite lines).

Anyway, I was looking around the internet for chords to the song, and I stumbled on a cover version I’d never heard before, played by Muse! If you haven’t heard it already, you should definitely watch it on YouTube. It’s a whole new slant on the song, but I really like it!

If only other cover versions were of this kind of standard…