Newsletter - February 2023

Echoes from the past, the present and the future

Feb 07, 2023

Hello!

February has arrived and with it the weather is edging out of full-winter here in Scotland (at least on some days!) and I’ve been able to enjoy a bracing walk in the nearby hills - the stretched out view of one of the panoramas shown below.

I’ve been venturing back into my creative projects too with some progress on music, website and Substack - which is acting as both a blog and a newsletter.

Why bother with a blog/newsletter you may ask?

I’ve been asking myself that too.

After all, I can share photos and music project updates on Instagram (I do!).

Part of it is about connection.

I’ve had quite a bit of interest in my music project with people wanting to know how I was recording the tracks (and where), what kind of set up I had and also, was it just me playing on them.

It’s difficult to get too far into that on something like Instagram and most people are not interested.

I am also interested in what other creative people are working on too and creating a connection via Instagram is not really that great.

In an online setting I think a newsletter/blog is better.

You can write about what you’re working on and thinking about and send it (or not) to people who have been interested enough to let you know their email addresses.

It’s a slower, more gradual way of building up connections and you can share what other people are doing too, which makes the whole process much more rewarding.

There are other good reasons for doing a regular update blog/newsletter;

It can act as a kind of journal/timeline to look back over

You can see your own progress on your creative projects

A record of what you’ve learned

Also, the Substack platform lends itself to this. You may want to give it a try if you haven’t already. I’ve written about it here

This week I have been thinking about …

ECHOES

It started with my phone. It’s at the centre of so many things now.

I was using my time usefully (!) and amongst the noise on my little screen this video started to play →

I have absolutely no recollection of seeing this Top of the Pops performance before but I’ve heard the song many, many times.

I knew nothing about Martha or the Muffins and I had always thought that their band name was supposed to be a bit of a joke .

A Muffin is a kind of cake, isn’t it?

And Martha, was that the singer’s real name?

It turns out it was and there were two Martha’s in the group Martha Johnson and Martha Ladly

And they were Canadian (I’d always assumed they were English)

Echo Beach is not a real place but was inspired by Sunnyside Beach on the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Toronto, a place I’ve been too without realising the connection to the song.

Echo Beach,
Far away in time

I’ve had it stuck in my head all week.

I think that’s called an Earworm?

This song does seem far away in time for me as it was one of the songs I played with my first ever band, Synopsis (another great name?!).

We played every Saturday night in the snooker club in Nairn and various other venues in the Scottish Highlands.

I joined Synopsis as their drummer and as I’d never played in a band before my Tama Swingstar drums were scratch free and still shiny.

They had a great sound to them.

In an empty hall they had a natural reverb that leapt out and bounced off the walls and ceilings.

A kind of echo.

I can still hear them now.

All the time, in fact, my ears have a steady ringing most days!

Of course these are all echoes from the past but it is funny how a seemingly random thing like a video on your phone can trigger memories which bubble to the surface and then set up home in a corner of your mind all week.

Memory becomes more important as you get older.

How it works or doesn’t work can be a sign of ageing. Thanks!

I’m now wondering if memory has a physical side, is it contained in an area or your brain that can only expand to a finite size?

I decided to look this up:

Unlike short-term memories, long-term memories have a physical presence in the brain, and aren’t dependant purely on specific patterns of activity. Neurons make new physical connections and synapses with each other when a new long-term memory is formed. This connection endures whether it’s being used or not.

what-happens-in-your-brain-when-you-make-a-memory

I didn’t know that!

I’m now wondering if we have any control over what gets stored as a memory and what doesn’t.

Is everything in there?

Even the stuff we think we’ve forgotten about?

Of course, you can employ the services of memory assistants, photos, diaries, journals, blogs and even social media posts can serve as good timelines too.

A good reason for keeping up a regular newsletter too.

Austin Kleon thinks so, in his recent newsletter he wrote;

Groundhog Day has passed, but as we know, “Every day is Groundhog Day.” This weekly newsletter functions as a kind of diary for me, and like any diary, it serves to show how cyclical life can be: Last February I was writing in an ice storm (“Trying not to spiral out”) and the February before that I was writing in an ice storm (“It ain’t grand.”)