Yadiki-dum

I'm still sane. I've only been at home 10 days, I know, but at least I haven't lapsed into a crack in the couch and gorged on fat chips of intellectual carbohydrate pre-packaged as 'Celebrity Cash in the Attic' meal for one. In fact, I haven't watched much on the box at all, only a few episodes of Boondocks and all the IT Crowd I can get on Channel4.com gypo-view.

Needless to say I'm fairly chuffed, and I owe a large part of this to my re-interest in playing music. I say re-interest because I tried - in vain - as a child to play a number of things. First I wanted to go for alto sax, but I was told I was too small at the age of 6. Then, I wanted to play the guitar...so my mum sent me for piano lessons. Her logic stated that this is the way my uncle learned to play: piano then guitar. He obviously had more patience than me. After 2 years of fruitless pursuit I sacked off the piano and didn't have the heart to pick up a guitar. And that's the way it's been for years. Until now. Now I have a termite-hollowed, Aboriginal-painted log called a yadiki to blow on. It does have a common name, but I'll let y'all have a guess at it. There's no prize - only the respect and admiration of the few people who read this blog. So, you have to ask yourself: do you really want the respect of people like these?

Yes, of course you do.

Every day, near as dammit, I've been 'practising' for about 30 minutes: 10 minutes blowing different raspberries down the tube; the other 20 spent trying to figure out circular breathing. The former isn't too hard to master; the second is a total bugger. It involves blowing out through your mouth whilst simultaneously breathing in through your nostrils, whilst keeping enough pressure in your mouth to continually blow. There must be a trick to it. Must be.

It's going to take me a bleeding age to crack it though because I don't have much of an attention span. Take today for example. I started practising circular breathing, put on some Pearl Jam and within 5 minutes I'd stopped practice to sing along. Then a bit of the Smiths. And finally some Led. Oh hang on, I did try and ape the bass riff to 'Out on the Tiles' on the yadiki. It didn't go that well, however I really need this creative half hour to remind myself of what makes me tick. I'm a music man of the most base kind. I haven't got the dexterity to play the guitar; I want to play the drums. But I don't think I have the patience for the drums, so maybe I'll opt for bongos. Bongos and yadiki could work. Singing whilst blowing may be well beyond my reach, but if I could nail some Nigel Tufnell-esque solos I'd be sorted. I also want to dance around too, and that could be one Bridge Over the River Kwai too far. Ah balls too it. I'll just get some wheels for the yadiki and bongos.

My God, I have a vision: percussion on rollerskates. You heard it here first my dears. Today Tidmouth, tomorrow the Wold (it's in Yorkshire)!

Metal Monkey: thinking that song was about him since he was conceived.