New guitar, new tracks…

This is Martin. Say hello.

Martin’s full name is “Martin X Series CE Custom” and moved into my home this last weekend. He hasn’t shut up since.

This means that my trusty (but battered and bruised) Tanglewood won’t get quite so many outings, but it’s still sounding good. I’ve just uploaded an instrumental track I recorded a while ago – had intended to work on it a bit more, but actually it’s sometimes hard to re-visit things. Anyway, I just wish I’d recorded this with Martin…

Also uploaded a remix of a Switchfoot track that I made for a competition. It really couldn’t be more different to the song above! The decision to start it was really a procrastination technique, thus further keeping me from finishing this Flight School EP, but never mind…

A New Year. A new blog post.

Good grief it’s been a bit quiet on here recently… new Flight School songs are on the way, and also got some songs of my own to get uploaded soon but in the meantime…

This is a cover of Coldplay’s Yellow I did with Miri a few months back. I’m playing with Miri on Sunday (8th Jan) at Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington, and again at China White on 8th Feb!

YouTube Me

I feel like I’m rather behind on this one, but after viewing so many clips of people making crap versions of well known songs (plus a small minority of genius ones) I thought I’d upload something to see where I might belong on that spectrum. First up is a cover of Teardrop, the Massive Attack song which was covered a few years ago by Newton Faulkner using a particular percussive way of playing acoustic guitar and I’ve taken a combination of the two versions.

Also, I posted an instrumental track to Soundcloud today – a fairly cinematic/orchestral sounding track you could imagine being used in a cheesy film ending perhaps. Oh well…

Ending 163 (instrumental) by danhoyes

New tracks!

So I finally got round to getting myself a Soundcloud account (which is beautifully simple to use – very happy that I never have to use myspace again)!

Now as many have found out to their peril – nothing good ever comes from playing around with Absynth. But in this case Absynth is a clever little instrument plugin capable of producing some very cool sounds. Recording this short instrumental (which I’m calling ‘Frozen Lake’ for now) was a good chance to try this out, but I do have to admit that it’s turned out sounding a little like the intro track the The Social Network… not in a way that might end up in a legal battle… more of an ‘I wanna win an Oscar for playing just 5 notes on the piano’ kinda way…

And finally this next track ‘Increments’ is something I wrote and recorded around Christmas time, but has been lying around dormant for a while. It was also the first track to be recorded at the new studio at Music Room I guess. Thanks to Ed Priestnall for laying down some drums.

Beginner Guitar Classes Starting January

Having received some requests, I’m starting up some group guitar lessons for adult beginners from January onwards, probably on a Tuesday or Thursday evening – more info on guitar lessons page.

Also, I’m playing a gig with the talented Miri on Tuesday 7th December at ‘Last Days of Decadence’ in Shoreditch. They are putting on a series of events called ‘Battle of the Sexes’, and with the men having already had their own music night, I will be on guitar duties for Miri helping out the girls. I’m not sure how I feel about that…

And finally, it was the YMCA London South West showcase evening the other day which went very well. I was recognised (much to my embarrasment) for having been nominated for ‘Youth Worker of the Year‘ (!), which sadly I didn’t win, but the nomination is more an endorsement for the project than anything else. We also put together a quick video of some Music Room highlights for the showcase evening… you can view it below…

Running the Royal Parks Half Marathon

On 10th October, I took part in the Royal Parks Half Marathon to raise money for YMCA London South West (where I work – running Music Room).

I did it in an official time of 1 hour, 45 minutes and 20 seconds which put me in 1764th position (out of 10,818 competitors) so I was quite pleased that for a first half marathon! Onto the full marathon…

You can still sponsor me if you wish – just head to:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DanHoyes

Amongst other activities, the YMCA London South West provides housing and support to help homeless individuals get back on their feet and make a fresh start of their lives and we run a number of fabulous youth projects – aimed to reach young people where they are at, by engaging them in activities that interest them, like music or sport, and helping them to build a brighter future.