I’m about to round off my professional life as a freelance programmer in 2022. Two or three smaller regular jobs will continue in some way but I don’t think I will take on another major programming job that will consume most of my time and energy. I’m 68 now, time to retire.
I hope I’ll continue to be mostly healthy. That would leave more time for music – which so far is a hobby for me, not a profession, as Robert Fripp recommends to his students … which enables me to do it just for fun. There is no ambition in me to become ‚better‘ even though I need to practice if I want to be able to play something specific. It feels like a privilege that I can make music with a certain innocence.
2021 felt like I did not have much time for music because my programming life took up too much time – but looking back a bit closer shows that there was actually a lot of music happening: not many gigs and sessions, due to the pandemic, but some did happen, plus there were many occasions when I played for myself, and videotaped/recorded some of it – ‚real‘ music, sketches of compositions, bizarre sound/noise experiments (something that I seem to love a lot), and videos that I took on walks, with music added on later (something else that I seem to love a lot).
So here it is, half an hour of ‚fun with music and noise in 2021‘. Most of the music was created/composed by myself and/or by the friends I played with. The pieces I played with The Absurd were composed by Michael Frank and Göttin Gala. You’ll hear a very short snippet of a Morton Feldman piece that I used for a video. And I played a piece by Steve Hackett that most of you will recognize. Thanks also to Kaki King for the Passerelle.
I hope there will be many more annual videos like this to come. I like this format. I wish more people would put together videos like this, showing some moments of their lives with music.