Keeping Up

It looks like I've dropped the ball (again) on this blogging thing. I know I was going to try to update more frequently, but honestly, sometimes I just don't have anything of merit to post. I've been filling my time with Christmas shopping, Christmas parties, Christmas concerts and Christmas decorating, which there isn't much to say about - the concerts and parties have been good, and the shopping and decorating have been a bit of a hassle, but nothing in particular jumps out that's worth mentioning because the only people who would care are the very same people who were in attendance. And of course, I can't talk about the shopping, because there are secrets involved, and don't be fooled - there are no secrets on the internet.

When I'm not Christmassing it up, I'm still playing LotRO (and I'm Christmassing it up there too). I've been trying to act with Christmas cheer and good spirits, and I've been trying to be generous and thoughtful to those I encounter in Middle Earth - moreso than usual, since 'tis the season and all. I have my own goals and ambitions, some with self-imposed deadlines, that I've been frantically working towards, but if someone needs me, I've been shelving that to go help them, and sometimes that works toward my own ends too, whether I knew that it would at the time or not. Things have a way of working out in the end.



This is a picture of the Bards of a Feather, the virtual band my character is a part of. This outfit is specially designed for the holiday concert line-up we have planned. In LotRO, you can play free-hand by hitting certain keys on your keyboard (this is customizable) while in 'music mode', or you can play music files that are written in abc notation. The musicality of this is somewhat limited in that there are no provisions for dynamics - everything is played at the same volume. Even still, quite a number of songs have been formatted into abc notation, and the results can be quite nice. I've tried my hand at transcribing various songs, with varying degrees of success, but for this Christmas season, I took it upon myself to create an original arrangement of Jingle Bells - the next step, I guess, would be to move into original composition. Technically, I've already done this, but I would like to do this for multi-part arrangements. It's very exciting, and I'm feeling inspired, so perhaps with some of my Christmas time off, I can set to work on this.