Started to day painting a newly fixed up foot-pedal holder for my synth. The Yamaha FC5A sustain pedal works well enough, but it's a light-weight bouncy thing, and on most floors it will hop around like a proverbial frog during a performance.
For performances, I've made a big holder for it from wood which wedges up against the keyboard stand feet so that the pedal is fixed. This works brilliantly but it's big, as wide as the keyboard stands, is quite heavy to carry, and complex to transport. I essentially fit it in the bottom of the keyboard bag below the synth, but this makes the keyboard only just squeeze in, which is not ideal.
So, I've made a smaller version too which doesn't fix to anything. It has a footprint of double the size of the FC5A and this seems to hold still much better during a performance than the pedal alone, and it's small enough to fit in the small pocket in the keyboard bag. The first test was at Tuesday's open mic. It worked well enough, but needed a bit more height for the 'blocks' that surround and hold the pedal. I've added those, and painted it black today, so it's all ready.
After that, the long job of unpacking, checking and re-wrapping the 10 to 20 paintings collected from the Macc Art Lounge yesterday. They were in great condition, as wrapped by the artist Kate Fawcett. I hate the combination of bubble-wrap and sticky tape, it wrecks the wrapping (masking tape or other paper tape is the worst for this), but Kate used small pieces of thin plastic packing tape which, if one is careful, can be removed cleanly and it all was. I prefer to use cling wrap as it's not sticky at all, but that creates its own waste too, of course.
The afternoon was spent with a trip to buy a cash box for my annual backup drive. I have two, and swap them annual with a distant backup. I was charged £3 for something clearly marked £2.50, the second time that's happened in a month. I pointed it out and the difference was returned in a flash, so bravo to the Dunelm Mill assistant.
After that, preparing art for possible inclusion in the Macc Art Lounge throughout the year, although those will probably only be on their website, or part of back-room stock to be taken out on special occasions. I'll be including some older works, many of which have new frames now and have been refurbished to look better than ever. All are in the £250 to £600 price range, so quite sellable.
The day has now flown, with no creative work or work on my main monthly targets, that is to update a game or two, notate an album, plan the Crewe mural execution in greater detail, and produce more album tracks. Things will move on, though next week is a rare holiday for Deb, so I will get less work done.
Still, there are many positive signs for 2024.
Onwards we stocily march. Onwards we sing as we charge into the future!
