It’s been a great week in terms of discovery. I have always poo-pooed the idea of ABC musical notation, failing to understand why anyone would choose to labour over the differences between G, (the G below middle C [the comma is a symbol, not punctuation]), G and G’ instead of “learning the dots” as it is called. In the same way, it’s also been a mystery to me why so many “folkies” are resistant to the dots, the more extreme declaring you a fraud if you can’t or won’t learn by ear. These so-called purists, of course, are talking ballocks. As it happens, I am quite capable of learning most things by ear, but I don’t see the point when I can save a lot of time by finding the sheet music. Very often, however, the sheet music contains errors or is not written for violin (my instrument), so adjustments have to be made. Over time, when I have been playing a learned tune (without the dots in front of me), it has deviated in small ways from the original sheet music as I have put my own, or my instrument’s, stamp on it. So, while I have no time for by-ear fundamentalists, I have been totally wrong about ABC. It’s not just a system for reading music. Using a program like EasyABC, it enables you to compose or edit using only your computer keyboard. Over the past few days, I have been editing tunes in my collection with two objectives: 1) to suit my instrument and 2) to create smoother links or segues where one jig leads into the next. One of my bandmates has even composed a hornpipe. My ambitions are much more limited, but I reacted like a child when I put A between { } and up popped the grace note A.
March 25th was the 200th anniversary of the beginning Greece’s struggle for nationhood. The ceremonies and marches proceeded with dignity and good taste. Nothing was over the top and the Orthodox element wasn’t overplayed.
On the lighter side, there were several articles looking at the foibles of some of the heroes of 1821. For example, Papaflessas was a whoremongering, hard-drinking priest and a dangerous liar at times, but my favourite article was on Karaiskakis. Like most of the fighters, who were illiterate and “ελάχιστα δεσμευμένοι από τους κανόνες της λεκτικής ευπρέπειας” (= possessing only the loosest of bonds with the rules of verbal decorum), Karaiskakis had a fondness for coarse language, even baring his arse on occasions to wind up the Turks. It seems, too, that Karaiskakis’ equivalent to “Talk to the hand” was “I’ll talk to my dick and see what he thinks.” The article is here: https://menshouse.gr/istories/139931/evrize-kai-sti-machi-pos-o-athyrostomos-karaiskakis-ekane-oplo-to-megalytero-elattoma-toy
Unfortunately, the last week of March has also been a period where Covid has been getting worse. March 30th saw new infections increase to over 4,000. Yesterday’s figures were slightly better: 3,616 new infections, 76 dead and 739 intubated. Figures show that the overwhelming number of infections are domestic. Only, 20 new cases yesterday were identified at border entry points. (That is just over 0.5%.)
The total death toll is nearly 8,100, 96% of whom were 70 or over and/or with underlying illnesses. At its severest, Covid is attacking men more than women, with 64% of those in ICUs being male.