It's cold

this is like March... but our language teacher said that this is perfectly normal June weather. I'm trying to stay warm by turning on the heater (in June, damnit!) and listening to Regina Spektor, mainly the "Begin To Hope" and "Soviet Kitsch" albums (thanks Rene!). (Favorites: us, fidelity, Samson). Regina, if you read this, could you please make a short trip from Hultsfred, Sweden, to Oslo on your tour? Thanks! :-)

Buddy Rich's Secret Weapon

About time to post something about drumming again:

When I was around 15, I attended a 1-week workshop where Jojo Mayer taught us all kinds of crazy things. He made a real effort to get everything across, from his unbelievable foot technique to... well, you name it, the guy can do everything. Anyway, while we all practiced a lot during that week, of course you need to put more time into it - and so at least I never managed to make the "one handed roll" work. This is one out of two common techniques for playing fast strokes with one hand, the other one involves the rim of the drum.

Recently, some 20 years later, I stumbled over it again on youtube. Jojo now (maybe also back then? I don't remember) calls it "Buddy Rich's Secret Weapon" because, apparently, this is how Buddy called it. I think it's what Buddy uses on his left hand in this video, right at the beginning. This video is quite impressive, by the way.

Now check out Jojo showing it off. This video starts with his foot technique, and he shows the one-handed roll at 1:18. At 1:34 you can see (or rather hear) the limit of how fast one hand can really go... I don't believe anybody can play faster than that (without using both ends of the stick).

So, of course this is only a gimmick - this is why I never practiced it, but now I felt like getting started, just for the fun of it. It's also one of things that you can nicely do on the side while watching TV (or, in my case, your landlady's DVDs with Norwegian subtitles :) ). I found this video of a guy who's teaching it very well, although I admit that, just because of the way he acts, my first thought was "heck, this guy is too young to teach me!" :-)

Seriously though, this guy has it all down, and teaches it very well. He calls himself "masterofmoeller" because he's can also do the Moeller technique very well - he shows this in a couple of his other videos. That's another technique that I can't really use well - just a little bit. Many years ago, I spent countless hours in front of a Jim Chapin video tape - which, as you can see here, is annoying ... so I can do it a bit, but by no means as good as the "masterofmoeller", and above all I never managed to really apply it, which he does very beautifully in this video. Check this guy's videos out if you want to learn some hand technique.

Anyway, I'm practicing this now whenever I watch a DVD, and I can already see some initial progress. It actually feels quite natural to me because half of the motion is how I play doubles anyway, so now it's just a matter of filling the missing link in the movement...

Oslo update

I am writing this on the plane back from my first job trip after the move (ICCRG / Pfldnet in Tokyo). It feels strange to go back "home" from a trip, when I know that I will actually arrive in Oslo...

Not much news from there, by the way: I still like it a lot - well, okay, it would be bad if I didn't, in summer! and after not even a month - but I have a feeling that things will never get worse there, only better(*) and better(**) and better(***) and better(****):

(in historical sequence)
* ... receiving visitors and moving to a new flat
** ... moving my drumkit here and finding a band
*** ... family joining
**** ... buying a boat! (just kidding... or not?)

Someone told me that everyone will just claim to visit but eventually most people just talk and then won't really do it. This seemed realistic to me, so I pushed people a bit, and now my calender is seriously packed! But I'm glad about it, and prepared - except for the salmon cooking promises that I made, I really should start practicing now I suppose :-) Oslo is full of museums, and so far I haven't visited a single one - not even the Munch museum which I'd really love to see, and which is almost next door from my place. I'm doing this to avoid spoiling the fun when visitors arrive; I plan to only see at most two with every visitor, so I get to see something new every time, which is also more fun for the visitor than going there alone or with a yawning Michael ("oh THAT again..."), I guess.

The rest of my life in Oslo is mainly about work (which is fine, in a nice environment), getting private things arranged (right now looking for a flat - they are terribly expensive here!) and learning Norwegian. For native German speakers, the expectation seems to be that you better learn the language FAST because everyone does - most people seems to know someone from Germany who managed to become fluent within a year or less. As for myself, I almost showed up for Dugnad with beer and meat because the description sounded like a barbecue to me. But things will get better, language lessons begin in June.

I hope I can get myself to write updates more frequently from now on - see you all soon, og ha det bra! :-)

First Oslo post

So I arrived. Things are nice here - everything looks fine to me, but I don't have anything special to say, really... I took a few walks, started to work, met friendly colleagues, it all looks good. I'm only writing this because I promised to put Oslo updates here, and this initial posting buys me some time before something peculiar (i.e. worth mentioning) happens :-)

A new life

After working at the University of Innsbruck for 7 1/2 years, I handed in my office key yesterday. It felt weird, but good: while I enjoyed my job in Innsbruck, I'm quite happy about all the changes ahead. Oslo, here I come!

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Phew, a geeky heading... well why not, for a change, it really fits, I did eat a lot of fish.

So I returned from Australia. It was a great time - here's one final musical bit, playing in the street with Rene:


...and the video:


at this point I'd like to say thanks for everything to the Swinburne mates. Here's a pic from the "say goodbye and meet the missus" dinner:


(From left to right: Romina, Lachlan, myself, Petra, Lawrence, Warren, Mattia)

After that, we had a nice holiday in south west Australia (Perth, Bunbury, Busselton, Margaret River, Danmark, Albany...) - thanks to Mat+Romina for helping with the plan!

To conclude, and to help justify the heading, here's a picture of the cutest fish I've ever seen, taken in the Perth Aquarium. It's poisonous (only if you eat it), but no, it's not a blowfish. Sadly I didn't take a picture of the description and so I forgot its name.

Rene

After the last two slightly depressing ones, it's high time for a fun post again. But how do I get back to the routine of fun posting without showing off again? I'm just having a great time down here, filled with work which I enjoy, evenings full of music, and surfing in between...

So here's the solution: feature someone else for a change. Rene deserves a post. He's one of my best friends, and a lot of the fun I'm having down here is due to him. I would like to thank him for:

* Sharing his great music with me and letting me join him on stage on a couple of occasions. Check out his new Youtube video! The one major thing that's still on our todo list is to go busking...

* Convincing me to go see Underworld instead of a more serious movie. What a good choice!

(forget the Oscar - I'm herewith giving the "sexiest vampire of the year" award to Kate Beckinsale, very well deserved. Congratulations Kate!)

* Introducing me to Drawn Together. How could I have missed this?

* Introducing me to a couple of cool mates down here - Turin, Geoff, Oedi, ...

Thanks for everything, mate! To end this post, here's a picture of brave Rene singing as a frontman (!) jazz singer at Dizzy... he was scared as hell but did a great job in my opinion.