This morning I finally got to do the religious ritual I had been looking forward to ever since rejoining the temple. Vacation and then illness and then having to clean up and rearrange stuff while recovering from illness and various other stuff had all delayed it.
Without going into explanation/details, it was lovely. Joy all around. It went pretty smoothly after a 13-year gap; even after realizing my printed instructions were missing one of the parts it came back to me effortlessly anyway.
This is supposed to be done daily (“for best results”). I know I like doing this in the morning and carrying the sense of peace, calm, insights etc. into the rest of the day. It’s not super time-consuming but does require some time, and I also enjoy getting my workday with over early. So rather than getting up super early I’ll try switching my schedule to shower at night, then ritual, then bed. Maybe I’ll sleep better as a bonus, we’ll see.
I didn’t write about this before, but with a birthday coming next week, it was time to renew my driver’s license. Missouri DMVs have been, in my previous experience, pretty fast and efficient. Last time, my spouse (with an early November birthday) and I went in on Halloween and got it done together in just a few minutes.
This time, they had closed the offices for a computer system upgrade for a week, and we had colds, and it was all awkward. She got hers done right before the upgrade, I did it after, and… oh boy.
Monday was Veteran’s Day, so they were closed.
I was going to go on Tuesday without thinking about how this was (A) the first day on their new software and (B) they had just been closed for the previous 10 days in a row. It was chaos. I saw the packed waiting room and full parking lot at the place we usually go, tried a second one and it was also super busy. This was also during rush hour, so between about 8 miles of driving and getting stuck in two parking lots, that killed almost 40 minutes for nothing. So I went home, planning to return a little earlier the next day.
Wednesday: Google Maps said the first location was not too busy. But when I got there, there were people waiting outside on the sidewalk in the rain. I went to the second location, where I could at least wait inside… standing room only, but still. I pulled my ticket: 48. 15 minutes later, they called the first number: 98. 99? 1? 2? 3? #4 went up and got served. Not just the new computer system, not just catching up from being closed all that time, but also a trainee who didn’t know how to do anything and slowed everyone else down.
I stood for an hour before a chair became available. I waited an additional hour and 20 minutes before my number was called. I got the trainee, and she couldn’t figure out how to make her scanner work, so that took another 20 minutes. And it turns out I have the wrong kind of birth certificate (hospital-issued rather than state-issued, although it’s been accepted for everything else up until now)… so I still will not be getting a RealID-compliant driver’s license. Which means as of March I won’t be able to pass a TSA checkpoint for domestic flights. (Not that we were planning to fly, but still.)
When I get my actual card in the mail, I’ll order a copy of the proper kind of certificate, then probably get a passport or passport card.
The album is now at 58 minutes. Plenty long enough, but I feel like there’s at least one more thing to do!
Not sure what my plan is after that, but another gear study is a good idea. Odessa would be a good candidate for that. Spectraphon is a great candidate for it, there’s a lot going on and I was wanting to revisit array creation and usage now that the firmware has fixed my major beef with it (and added another feature to it besides). Algo could be a good to cover. Techniques with Blades and with QPAS, also. Maybe not the Noise Engineering stuff — I feel like most of their modules are relatively straightforward to work with, the genius of them is making it so largely just “listen and turn knobs” and feel it out.
The Linnstrument is great. Changing the settings is easy — everything is right there on the panel, no software needed. (There are a few hidden settings, but it’s mainly not stuff I will need to set ever again.) Once I got it tweaked to my satisfaction and had a few minutes of practice, it felt very natural.
The string-like grid layout is great. The default is perfect fourths between rows, and I like that a lot. You can choose which scale notes are lit, and I went with just C, F and G so it doesn’t lead me toward either major or minor scales but everything is easily located. Easy to play chords and melodies and find equivalent notes on neighboring rows.
I liked the Roli’s tactile squishiness for slow, pressure-oriented playing, and the way the “key waves” let you feel where notes were. The Linnstrument doesn’t have that squish, but I feel equally confident in my ability to control pressure with it. Pitch slides, bends and vibrato take a little more practice but that isn’t really a problem either. As with the Roli, Y values feel less precise and controllable — in this case because of the relatively small motion, rather than fingers physically “sticking” in one place — but could be good for subtle variation.
And the Linnstrument is certainly far better for faster, more percussive playing than the Roli. Velocity feels right on it. It seems like quite an achievement to me that it’s good for both velocity and pressure, no need for separate controllers!
