Fun on Dawn Princess

I’ve got a load of photos and videos to upload from our recent cruise on Dawn Princess.

Jonathan and I had a great time. It was his first cruise, and I really enjoyed sharing the experience with him.

For those of you who haven’t been following my updates on Twitter and Facebook, here’s a few pictures and videos you might be interested in.

By the way, I found it really easy to post photo and video updates via twitter using my mobile phone. Last cruise I tried blogging but that needed lots of keying via the little keypad on the phone, and ended up taking ages. Tweeting was much easier.

Awesome Sailing thru the heads. Beautiful!Approaching Sydney by sea. Looks fantastic :) A ride in the atrium elevator on Dawn Princess today.

Sunday morning @ sea And away we go!! It's a huge ship!!! Cruise ship stranded in river by tide.

Bach Fugure in G Minor (BWV 578)- my jazzy attempt

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on this rendition of Bach’s Fugue in G Minor “The Little” (BWV 578).

I’ve driven our entire house crazy with it, and now my poor wife, Liz, can’t get the tune out of her head. And I can’t stop whistling it and humming it as I walk around.

I think I could do better than this, but I’m sharing this with you because if I know someone listens to it, I’ll try harder next time. Despite my clumsy attempts and the slow pace I took it at, I love this piece. Bach is a genius. This music is just as enjoyable now as it was hundreds of years ago when he wrote it. I love the way the different phrases echo from each part.

This arrangement is in four parts, for four saxophones. I recorded each track separately on my WX5 using the Floboe for Soprano and Alto parts, Trumpet for Tenor part, and Baritone sax for Baritone part. At one place, when the trumpet had a two bar sustained note, I was really tempted to throw in an improvised jazz lick, but in the end I decided not to because I need to play it better before trying something like that.

It’s hard to play this on a wind instrument because you have bars and bars of semi-quavers, and no room to breathe.

Anyway, if you listen to it, please let me know. I’ll try hard to play better next time!

Lullaby

Here’s a simple lullaby.

I picked out the simplest chord progression I could find, (I IV V) threw in a simple bridge (ii I ii V) and played a few different parts on different tracks. (Air Sax, Floboe, Bass Clarinet). The piano accompaniment is a what I got when I plugged the chords into Band in Box).

It’s amazing how something beautiful can come out of something so simple.

The pics are of my sister, brother and me as babies.

Hope you like it

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Fun at Southbank Parklands

We had a wonderful day at Southbank Parklands yesterday.

After checking out the “Machines of Da Vinci” exhibition, we headed down to Chez Laila to enjoy some fantastic Lebanese food, and thick, muddy Lebanese coffee. I thought I might have seen a young Ozzy Osborne there.

Then we hopped on the huge Ferris Wheel, the “Wheel of Brisbane” as the sun was going down. The view was spectacular, and we all agreed that Brissie is a much prettier city than we give her credit for.

Afterwards we went to the free comedy concert at the Piazza and watched The Kransky Sisters, Tripod plus a host of other comedians debating whether or not Queenslanders have more cause than other Australians to be happy. (Of course we do!)

Incidentally, the Kranskys are hilarious. Check out their website if you haven’t heard of them. Tripod are so funny you forget how talented they are as musicians.

All in all, a fantastic day! I hope we have many more days like this.

Liz loves Ferris Wheels Brisbane River & Ferry The Wheel of Brisbane Brisbane River Brisbane River & Ready to go
Getting Ready for the Ferris Wheel Lebanese Coffee Ozzy Osborne as a 6 year old girl Mona Lizzie Da Vinci's Parachute

“Jhon and the Tooth Fairy” by Lilly

Once upon a time there lived a little boy named Jhon. Jhon really wanted his tooth to come out but it wasn’t going to come out. He tride and tride to pull it out but it still didn’t come out.

But one night when he was eting dinner he felt somethink wead (wierd) in his mouth, His tooth came out. He was so iksited. When he went to bed he put it under his pillow and the tooth fary came. She gave him two dollas.

The next day when he woak up he saw that his tooth was goan (gone).

He saw his two dollas. At school he spent it on tuckshop. He bort himself a slush puppy. It was dallishus.

The End.