A thread on why music, dance, and the arts are important to me - a #STEM person and educator in my day jobs. #music #art #artseducation

As a kid, people would tell me not to bother with music, dance or art. You'll never be famous. Past some point, it's just a waste of time and money. Concentrate on academics. Late teens, I insisted on music and art. I got C's but I don't think I could have coped with more than 2 STEM A-levels. 1/7

I'm building concepts for a YouTube channel slowly - I think I'll film some of the work I'm doing on guitars. One needs a clean and restring, another needs refretting, another could use new hardware and electrics. I've been repairing cases too, and have ideas for case design.

The room-decorating slowly progresses. I've had to buy a new sander, and we're only a couple of coats of paint from being able to use half the room (I'm doing it in halves to avoid moving my stuff into storage). The damp is vastly improved now there's air movement, but a couple of patches remain.

My holiday is over, which means I must resume decorating (largely rebuilding my front room wall) in my spare time. Going to try and do it on weekends: one day DIY, one day fun, and no more overtime. Can't manage any longer with limited guitar access!

I'm not saying the local school could use improvement, but... The English flag thing isn't going well 😄 There are UK flags hoisted at a junction, and they include the Republic of Ireland 😬🤦🏻‍♀️👀 The local Aldi wall has been spray painted into a series of Danish flags too 👌🏻🇩🇰🤣

I may have gone mad. For this #BandcampFriday we’ve put the price of every single digital download on our Bandcamp down to £0. Bearing in mind I run a record label. That's a LOT of free music. It’s technically a pay what you want deal so.. Explore lightsandlines.bandcamp.com Tell your friends!

Hello world. If you're wondering where I went... I was on the verge of finishing my house decorations for now (and having a music area again) before finding a damp bit of wall. Peeled back the wallpaper. Major redecoration and crack-in-wall monitoring to commence 😭

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to say ‘hey, evil seems pretty popular with some parts of the electorate, let’s try a few evil policies and see how they go over with the voters’

Watching #TheCrow (modern TV version) and I have no emotional investment in these characters ☹️ I'm going to have to go watch Brandon Lee until I feel better.

My boss has come to the end of a hard year of declaring his commitment to DEI, and is celebrating by taking the trip of a lifetime to the USA - because he saw that flights were cheap at the moment 😬 At least two of us have tried to tell him...

Soundcloud have been feeding artist data to an AI algorithm. It is our social responsibility to flood SoundCloud with crappy music 👌🏻 Outstanding! www.instagram.com/reel/DJcuXL1... courtesy of mattsagraham

One of my students introduced me as a "professional musician." I don't know if I'm flattered (do my fractions of a penny on Spotify make me professional?!) Or alarmed that they thought I had a whole different career 😭 We agreed that "professional" was doing some heavy lifting 🤣

On Easter holiday from the day job and doing a huge amount of decorating (again). For years I've avoided starting large jobs because I got exhausted so quickly, but feeling a lot better these days. Plus I've given up trying to get any help 🙄 Got high hopes for having my tiny studio area back soon 😁

It is the last day of teaching today. We always condense spring term and have some project work from now until exams. It's also a deadline for a bunch of draft reports ahead of the end of month. I've been working evenings and weekends for weeks now, hoping each one will be the last... Soon!

One of the weird things that happened to me this year was meeting students from Dubai who said exactly this to me. They seemed to think I knew this and was on side, and this was the way it always was. I wonder if they ever figured out their Prof. is from one of the poorest towns in Europe..? 🤣

I didn't know I could love the @dropkickmurphys.com more 😭💚🔥

Today I have the grim job of turning down an invitation to a conference in the US. It's one of the things I enjoy about the day job, but I'm scared. I don't feel safe flying, I don't have confidence I won't be arrested, and I've heard that some MAGA people just trashed a conference in Florida 😳

From a British point of view, the Trump administration was - and is - a constant onslaught of "look what they did today!!!" With other US governments, I barely knew the names of anyone besides the president. They would just pop up on the news occasionally doing some visit or conference 🤷🏻‍♀️

Aha! I found my code to get back into my old Twitter account! Past me put it in the back of my practice log?! Left a signpost to here, put it to private, and will try to move my followers list before deactivating 🙌🏻

Deep in marking and writing reports ☹️ but I'm resolutely still going to guitar lessons, even with minimal/no practice between! Had the great experience of *nearly* sight-reading some tab this week 🎉 And I was able to transcribe something *in my head* in the car (ok, just power chords, but still!) 🔥

This week has been A LOT. Looks like some of those spotty youths heard about the red pill and took 'em all 😭 On the plus side, found a gardener who actually did work. It was way more difficult than you'd think. And the garage that wrecked my car is daring me to take legal action 🙄

Had a good day learning how to set up guitars thanks to a new book by #DanErlewine The new-to-me #ESP #LtdGuitars sounds awesome and plays even better 🔥💯😎 Spent most of yesterday searching for naptha (lighter fluid) now that we don't have a tobacconist nearby, and found french polishing supplies 👌🏻

I honestly hadn't imagined the threat of nuclear world war 3 would happen quite so quickly. While people report on Trump and Putin, I find old thoughts and feelings coming back. The ones where there's no point worrying, because we're here in nuclear no man's land whoever wins.

Distracting myself with resurrecting the garden. Got it done by midday and giving my new [knackered] guitar some tlc. It looks like the fretboard was lacquered/varnished and it's peeling off 🫤 and the neck joint has some cracks. It's no great loss: I was after the pickups and setup practice.

Had a nice digital detox. Bought a new guitar - well gigged and covered in grot, but custom pickups 💯

While we're mulling politics... Remembering an article which has since disappeared. Someone noticed that loads of US politicians, judges, etc. from the late 70s onwards had gone to the same university dept. in Georgia, run by an economist with alarming ideas about returning to slavery.

Just sharing the wiki of the journalist who highlighted Facebook being part of a network to undermine democracy. Brexit was part of this. Links to her TED talk and and other work at the bottom. Carole Cadwalladr - Wikipedia en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carole_...

Having a little digital detox before I buy another guitar 😫 Cough is still going strong. Feel ok sat down, but can't do much else 🫠

Attempting to work from home with the world's worst cough. COVID, RSV, mHPV and whooping cough (!) are all ripping through my city. I'm not entitled to treatment, so I can't test and find out which it is 🤷🏻‍♀️ Government advice is to go back to work once the initial fever goes, so no sick note 🫠

Left my sickbed today to play Rocksmith - really surprised by how it forces you to progress really fast 🤯

Okay, data cleanliness at home: 1. Clear your cache history on your browser, regularly 2. Where are you saving your passwords? Check, is it safe?! 3. What email software are you using? Based on the US? Make a change to EU. european-alternatives.eu 4. What FTP or ‘cloud storage’ are you using?

Rewatching Machete. How we laughed first time round, at the ridiculous Republican politician having a problem with immigration and faking an assassination attempt.

Feeling shocked and helpless reading news coming out of the US. Spent lunch chatting to students about resistance (their idea - I have no expertise to offer!) My family actually went into teaching after WW2 as their way to make a positive change. Maybe that's my contribution right now.

Done, barring the account I can't get into. I had a few x accounts, including a long-standing professional one. I posted a placeholder and left them for months, but deleted yesterday. Meta is going to be tough: my family and friends are spread out, and it's been our main communication since ~2008.

The technician team in the day job are seriously embracing music tech! A whole pallet of guitars and amps arrived yesterday for the students to strip down 🤯 Anyway, someone brought in a trashed #Lag guitar they were restoring, and it is VERY nice. I don't often find acoustics to fit my hands 💯

I'm back to the day job tomorrow. It's got to a point where I have to take holidays in January because there's so many "important" things I need to be in for over summer 🙄 It took 3 weeks to calm down...

Updated my Linktree this morning. I got everything set up for my noob local indie career in lockdown, and then decided to be a student for a little longer 😊 I've deleted half the social media on there now, between the crazy misinformation and depressing stuff. linktr.ee/Rae_cameron_...

When someone contacts me out of the blue looking for work, using some weird template / AI-generated email of excessive flattery and blatant lies, and citing their enthusiasm for AI-generated music...

Discovered #Rocksmith in a big way after clearing out the storage room and digging out the PS3. I impulse bought it for £1 a while back but didn't get round to actually playing it... Blimey, it pushes you fast! It's actually forcing me to play in time and stood up 😆

Happy New year! I haven't thought of many resolutions. I'll try to be more organised (again) 👀 I'm having a good restful break, and faced down the metronome 💪🏻 I will get these guitar pieces nailed!

Faced the metronome today 💯 It won ☠️

Made a start on clearing out the office/studio. It's an absolute bomb-site after ~9 months of ridiculous overwork in the day job. Looking forward to showing my guitars some tlc, and spending some time practicing and writing

Already a year?! It was a tall order to be trusted with @kiffie8.bsky.social's hauntingly beautiful 'Goodbye at Last,' so I moved right away from my usual processes to explore what my guitar could do, and surprised myself! The whole album came together well, with a real mix of artists. Check it out!

Wondering where my music has been? Well... Remember how I was doing some music tech stuff with students in my day job? I won some funding and institutional support 😱 We're going to be doing a bunch of projects, and figure out some kind of outreach / community engagement.

@mike1infive.bsky.social THE LAL REBOOT IS HERE AND I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! 🥳

This week's guitar lesson 💖 youtube.com/watch?v=AePC...

It WAS hard today. Thanks, Pants!