I was a teenage Beowulf

Finally into the fight scene. Just downloaded two books on stage fighting and already read one cover to cover (well...a lot of it was warm-up exercises so I skimmed it).

Once again there is so much wealth of things I can't put in the book or my critics will cry at me again. "Birdie" is one of those instant expert types (just add factino and stir). He's got a fancy "combat ready" sword from one of those Chinese companies but has no idea how to use it. Penny has had one class in stage combat, and she's ended up with a display sword with rat-tail tang. Graham is also in the scene and he's actually got HEMA background -- although he hasn't owned up to it yet.

And oh yes, we are starting in the Tiring-room at Shakespeare's Globe in Bankside. So there's props storage and a curtained alcove to stab your Polonius in and the stage is trapped and above the awning is the machinery for producing gods on cue. And the thatched roof with sprinklers in case another cannon shot gets loose.

Oh and just because that's never enough, "Birdie" (his name is Guy, he was calling himself Fawkes at the Battersea Power Station break-in, and another guy on that hack started calling him "Birdie" after, one presumes, the phoenix from Harry Potter) has a scouse accent which is he trying unsuccessfully to hide under the most up-town version of Estuary that doesn't slide all the way into Received Pronunciation.

At least this means no funny orthography. Although Penny does chose to remember that Tony, her Geordie foil, had called Guy a wanna-be "reet bobby dazzla."

So I had a bit of real luck on this. I asked on Quora and a very cool lady from Oxford explained a bit about the Globe backstage, and we shared a few theatre stories (and then I clicked on her profile and, oh, past president of an archaeological society? Whoah, I feel abashed.)

So I know more than enough about the Globe, stage fighting, and prop swords to drown my audience. The problem now is going to be sorting it and figuring out how much I can leave out.

All the time I was struggling with the second slot on my tenor trombone, I was thinking it might just be easier to switch. So I kept looking at alto and soprano trombones. The one advantage of the soprano is it slots exactly like a trumpet, so I wouldn't need to retrain my lips. Downside is it barely sounds like a trombone. There are some plastic altos that are really cute (and cheap) but they sound plastic.

And wouldn't you know. I'm starting to find the lip for the tenor. I still don't like the instrument. Trumpet is more satisfying.

But at least I'm not shopping for a new trombone. Oh, no. After the fuss with the contractor I ended up with the chin-cello hanging by my desk for "loading screen" practice. And I've realized I can really make use of that silent violin practice to improve my fingering.

So I want to switch that back to violin strings. And buy another electric to switch my octave strings to. So, yeah. There's always something in my Amazon shopping cart!

(That was an obscure post title. I'm pretty sure that was Book of Sequels. Anyhow, it promised plenty of "Saxon violence." I didn't manage to work in my continuing adventures with the Yahama Venova but, yes, sax is part of the picture of my growing stack of instruments.)

Sad Trombone

I am surprised and disappointed by how long it is taking to pick up trombone. Of course I got a too-cheap one; scratchy slide, no tuning slide.

The embouchure is just different enough I'm having to relearn my slotting. Well, this week I'm finally starting to get the hang of it. I think it is because it is an octave lower than trumpet, you have to adjust the embouchure a lot more than you would on trumpet when valving/sliding down. Basically, you have to move your lip more; the notes are physically further apart.

My current exercise is to play a long note and slide slowly all the way out to seventh and back up to first. I keep getting a horrid blatty sound on the second partial but it is finally clearing up. And today I blew the top C. Which is loud.

***

On the novel, I am pretty much decided I'm going to throw out the entire first chapter. And move the essential material (there's introductions to a bunch of concepts; dialects particularly Geordie, the difference between England and Britain, Panto, the Home Guard, metal detectors, archaeological survey) to following chapters.

It will make it more focused; all in London instead of starting in the Midlands, more about W.W.II -- dropping the Seven Day's Queen stuff. A weaker opening scene, unfortunately.

And that's 3,700 words of work going by-by, plus re-writes of every single scene in Part I.

I'm also contemplating an even more ambitious re-shuffle to shift the mid-point break earlier, bring in the diary earlier, and be able to have Linnet's experiences of the ghastly Kennington Park shelter happening as Penny is being both broke and suffering from an arrow wound. But that's a lot of shuffling.