The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

Drum rudiments on tablet, practice pad, and a real drum, what's the difference? Tomorrow will be catch up day! Trying out... 'intermittent fasting'! Hip term for what's commonly referred to as 'skip a meal'! Pushing back when I eat and stopping at around 830 pm. Nothing but water and coffee in the morning. How is this different ftom the Chinese belief (often repeated by young students) of not eating after 9 pm but you must have breakfast. We'll try it but I don't think it's sustainable. Show notes up on stevensirski.com. Have a great day!

Finished watching Wolyn, gruesome movie. I was warned that it was worse than Schindler's List and I can see why: the violence is excessive and personal. Truly horrifying to think things like this could have happened, even though this movie's story is itself fictional. Onto December Drumming and making my way through the tracks. Look on my website for more. I've posted tracks under each day. Pushing through and making time for Chinese studies, what about Russian? Show notes on stevensirski.com

Watching Wolyn (Volhynia), translated as 'Hatred'. Polish movie about a Polish guy and a Ukrainian girl falling in love... and then a World War erupts. Oops. Poland, Russia, Ukraine, all vying for their land. Historical. Makes me appreciated where I've come from and where I am. December Drumming continues as I work on a few solos to catch up to things.

St. Mykolai today!

Gold chocolate coins and Mandarin (easy-peel) oranges!

December Drumming along, new tracks posted on my website! Have a listen! I like what I'm hearing so far.

Website has been slow. Not sure why. May need to look into hosting mp3s somewhere else.

Work week begins, more busy than I thought it would be.

Spent the morning creating word lists for my Chinese class. Target remains March 2022 for HSK 5.

Show notes up on stevensirski.com

Have a good week!

All about Track #5 for my December Drumming challenge. This one was a pleasant surprise, and not what I intended at all. I recorded three takes using three different kits: Chinese, Modern 909, and Big Room. After listening back a few times, I decided to go with the third take with the Big Room kit. To edit the track a little, I sent the project to my computer to work with Logic Pro. When I opened it, however, Take 3 didn't work! Nor did it work in Garageband. The other tracks were outputting sound but Take 3 wasn't. And this is where the surprise happened. Since both Takes 1 and 2 were playing at the same time, there was a bit of a relationship between them. Listening to them all the way through, I did a little bit of editing, shortened the track a little, and voila! Done! It bounces, it's ethnic, it's modern, it works! And since it's a meld of the Chinese kit on my iPad and the Modern 909: that's where I took the name from. Hope you enjoy the fifth offering of my December Drumming challenge! Show notes on stevensirski.com!

All about track #4 for my December Drumming challenge. This one is called 'Phone Tap Bap' (though I could have just as easily left out the Bap) and uses everyone's favourite device to make sound: the cell phone keyboard. Recorded with my cell phone, using my cell phone's keyboard, this is a rhythm played featuring the phone's haptic feedback system. I then imported the file into Logic Pro, killed as much of the room noise as I could, then added soke FX to give it a little more oomph. Trippy, short, head noddable. Show notes on stevensirski.com. Thanks for listening!

Korean food Friday night. When in Beijing, try something exciting?

Future of work? Skilling up? What more can I do to prepare?

Where else is hiring these days? Could I maintain my current lifestyle if I shifted location? Back to backpacking days?

Early 40s, people still ask, after mid-40s, do they still ask if you'll settle down?

Today's drum track, want to try messing around with the Garageband stock music files. Is it possible to create something clubbable? Listenable?

Show notes on stevensirski.com! Hope you had a great week!

Router or rooter, British pronunciation or general pronunciation?

The anatomy of a power nap: black out your eyes, take the pressure off of your lower back (lying on your side usually helps), relax your eyes or, if needed, close your eyes and then cross them, that is, look towards your nose while your eyelids are closed. Finally, use a timer so you're not thinking about getting up and set it for 4-10 minutes. You can power nap in the first few minutes and then remain relaxed for the rest yet aware. I always try to maintain some form of awareness while napping just so I can respond if someone might step on my toes or something.

Drum track for tonight. Working on it as we speak. Check out my website for the full list so far.

stevensirski.com

Have a great day!

Happy December! Already! Last month of the year!

Start of December Drumming, how does Decedrumber sound? Ha!

I’ll get things organized… tomorrow. Right? If this start is any indication, I’ve got to get things better organized. Next week should be a bit easier.

Today’s track: ride cymbal only! 2 minutes and 50 seconds of it! It’s a play around on the ride cymbal and, not going to lie, I kinda thought this was going to be my opening track anyway. I’ve been thinking of this one for a while so thought I’d finally give it a go. I hope I didn’t already do this for Jamuary since it was so easy!

Full disclosure: the riff I play on this track is taken from a track I recorded YEARS ago for a jazz EP. If anything, this is today’s revision of it.

Now, where to publish? Everything’s going on the website for sure, but maybe also on Bandcamp? And, of course, the daily audio offering.

In other news, got the plants planted! I hope I did it right!

Show notes on stevensirski.com, hope your December starts well enough!