Welcome

Posted on by jofreya
  • Thanks to those of you who very kindly said they would read a blog by Jo Freya otherwise known as ‘the inane ramblings of a deranged woman’….welcome to my world.

As far as I understand it blogs only really work if you do them regularly and stick to it. So to make this manageable I intend to publish once a week. That means you may get a full weeks worth of ramblings or just a day when I have the time. I think daily would be too much for me and probably for you too.

I will apologise at this point for spelling and grammatical errors that are inevitable. I am border line dyslexic which can make the spelling side difficult and my grammar is instinctive. I went through primary education in an experimental period where they thought teaching grammar was no longer a good idea. Fortunately I am an avid reader which helps with sentence construction and punctuation but it is not learnt. It means I can just about tell you what a noun or adjective is but not much more. Imagine then trying to learn French and Latin at school, both taught grammatically and both of which I failed. I speak French well but have problems writing it and the only Latin phrases I am left with are the ones that amused me at the the time e.g. ‘Salve Procax’ which if I have spelled that correctly means ‘hello cheeky’ but being a girls school we were also amused by certain latin endings which we enjoyed and recited particularly, mito, mitis, mitit, mitimus, mititis, miterant……and any others that had ‘tit’ in the word. Almost as hilarious to us as hearing a teacher say, ‘you’ve now got a free period’ or talking about ‘private members’ and ‘members of parliament’. We don’t really use the word ‘member’ in the same way anymore but in those days I did rather feel that all parliamentarians were set up to fail when actually being called a ‘member’ meant they were a ‘prick’ by default whether they wanted to be or not. A beautifully ironic reflection of the complexities of the English language.

A typical day in the life of Jo is one where I have a rehearsal or a gig etc. Yesterday (Tuesday) involved admin in the morning and at the moment that’s a whole lot of mail order due to Blowzabella’s new CD and book plus bits of agency admin – yes I run a small agency mostly for acts I’m in but also for friends I care about. Then, via the post office, I went for a swim. Like most people I fall on and off the exercise waggon but in a moment of idleness I happened to be reading about the Chinese year of the rat and how we thrive on exercise..it keeps us sharp. So I thought I’d better go and do some. Then over to my sister and brother-in-laws to do a guide vocal ready for the Narthen CD which will be out this summer and a Narthen rehearsal ready for our next gig.

I also scribble things down. Mostly to keep my hand in. Verses like these remain in books unless when re-read I think they have potential to be turned into a song:

Some shoes last forever

and tell the tale they’ve trodden

Streets of life, here and there

Through sunshine days and sodden

The outside so dependant

On who the wearer’s are

Who may polish, spray or mend

So the shoes can then transcend

The dirt that tries to mar.

JF

Then there as the little Mazurka that popped out the other day when I was actually trying to do something else. Next stop will be to notate it..ha ha. I confess it takes me hours. Here ’tis: https://soundcloud.com/music-39-2/alternative-path-mazurkaby-jo-freya

The blog will range from direct reflections on life as a musician. That’ll be the here and now and observations and stories that happen whilst I’m on the road in the various bands I play in and the projects I am involved in. You are quite likely to get a lot about food as I eat it enthusiastically, regularly and enjoy cooking it as a hobby. Whilst I’d aspire to entering myself on Masterchef I really have no idea how to make a plate of food look pretty but love it when it does. So, I may share recipes and I may just describe wonderful things I have eaten or awful things I’ve eaten and as they crop up my own culinary disasters. I can promise you that there will not be millions of photo’s of food, especially not my own, but there may be the odd one or two if this blog allows it and if I am particularly amazed by something.

Other entries may include my observations on human life. Life according to Jo or what I think is happening. I don’t intend to point fingers at people or moan but who knows..that may happen for time to time and you might get a reflection on the literary world too as I like to read.

I would like the blog to be interactive. So please comment and ask questions. Your question may then become the subject of a blog. Who knows…..I have a view on everything..all be it warped!

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Published by jofreya

I am a professional musician living life to the full and sharing that with my readers.

28 thoughts on “Welcome”

    1. It was inspired by a book I was reading that reminded me of the excitement of having new shoes as a child…one pair until they wore out. Now I have a truck load!…although shoes still excite me.

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      1. ‘The proof of the pudding’ is just shorthand for ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’. That longer version makes sense at least, whereas the shortened version really doesn’t mean anything – nor does the often-quoted incorrect variation ‘the proof is in the pudding’. The continued use of that meaningless version is no doubt bolstered by the fact that the correct version isn’t at all easy to understand.
        The meaning become clear when you know that ‘proof’ here is a verb meaning ‘test’. The more common meaning of ‘proof’ in our day and age is the noun meaning ‘the evidence that demonstrates a truth’ – as in a mathematical or legal proof. The verb form meaning ‘to test’ is less often used these days, although it does survive in several commonly used phrases: ‘the exception that proves the rule’, ‘proof-read’, ‘proving-ground’, etc. When bakers ‘prove’ yeast they are letting it stand in warm water for a time, to determine that it is active. Clearly, the distinction between these two forms of the word was originally quite slight and the proof in a ‘showing to be true’ sense is merely the successful outcome of a test of whether a proposition is correct or not.

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  8. That’s a lovely mazurka tune, Jo! Hope you enjoy the journey that you’ve started on this blog. I enjoy seeing the world from your perspective – always refreshing and unique!

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  10. A great read!
    Here’s one for the road Jo.
    A sign for your rear windscreen …
    Sona si Latine loqueris.
    Honk if you speak Latin.

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  13. Great first blog Jo! What I was saying in the reply that went missing early this morning, I believe, was this:

    Three things stuck with me immediately:
    I also grew up at the time when grammar was thought to be not necessary. While the emphasis instead was on the freedom of self expression was admirable and undoubtedly liberating, I, too, felt the loss of learning the basics not long afterwards.

    You’ve got a wardrobe full of shoe songs to cobble out!

    Did you end up choosing a title for your mazurka and did you choose one of the many suggestions or come up with your own? I’d have offered “Mazurka Berserka” but a certain John K already used it!

    Looking forward to reading all future musings!

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    1. I called it “Alternative Path” which wasn’t one of the suggestions although there were many good ones. Mostly I hadn’t had time to digest all the suggestions and that was my draft title which when I came to post it here as part of the blog meant that that had to stick. Next time I’ll pay more attention. I genuinely thought many of the others were better than mine.

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  14. Ah, silly me, the name is with the tune! It sounds beautiful, and it’s actually really special hearing it just played as a solo, very haunting.

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  16. Lovely tune Jo. Since you say you allow questions, could I please ask, when you write some fantastic lyrics for a song, or indeed a tune, do you have to copyright or register them in some way as yours? Thank you.

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    1. Yes Ann you do. Much is done by trust in our business but actually shouldn’t be. I am a member of PRS where my titles get registered. If you are not a member of a publishing company or PRS I was always advised that you should write them down and post them in a registered envelope to yourself and not open (or record them and send a memory stick to yourself) . As that is dated it helps prove it’s yours etc. On the internet things can be helped by the fact that things are date lined. So with the ‘shoe lyrics’ I state quite clearly they are mine and the blog is dated. If someone were then to complete and publish a song with that in and not credit me I should be able to prove that my lyrics pre dated there’s.
      Anything on CD goes through publishing anyway. I hope that makes some kind of sense.

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