I'm glad to report that the weather has improved somewhat in the last couple of days. Yesterday it was even sunny and warm enough for us to have lunch outdoors after our game of golf.

As well as slowly surfing the net (this connection demands patience) and reading while the weather was bad, I spent a bit more time than usual with my saxophone. I've come to the end of "A New Tune a Day for Alto Saxophone Book 1" disobeying the instruction repeated on many pages that the exercises in lesson n must be perfect before moving on to lesson n+1. I don't think I can claim perfection in anything although I'm pleased at my progress in many respects.

There is a CD on which most of the tunes in the book are recorded; on one track with the saxophone and on the next track without it for you to play along. I found that really hard and quickly gave it up but I'm now tackling it again and as well as the playalong I'm having a go at what is even more difficult, playing on top of the recorded saxophone. Anything faster than the death march causes me quickly to lag behind the recording. My brain tries to remember what notes have flashed past me while processing what I'm currently hearing and relating it all to the sheet music in front of me. It's not long before my fingers are flailing wildly, hitting notes at random or just bashing the air.

A small snag has also arisen in that I've broken something. If you visualise a sax you'll see a curved section at the top that leads from the body to the mouthpiece. This is called the crook. It slides into the neck of the instrument and is secured by a small screw. The screw has snapped. This is not a terminal problem since the crook still fits into the neck and I can play but the crook and the body tend to slip away from one another so the flailing becomes even wilder.