heids_b: books, tech, travel ...

I’ve just started reading Stasiland by Anna Funder. It’s a book of stories from behind the Berlin Wall and has won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.

In a big effort to 'do something I've always wanted to' I signed up for group guitar lessons at my local community centre with a mate from work at the start of 2013.

Initially I thought I would be at an advantage to the rest of the group as it seemed I was the only one who could read music and I had also played an instrument before.

Our teacher (who teaches primary school students during the week) pointed out that, due to the frets on the guitar, you are pretty hard placed to play a wrong note on the guitar, unlike the violin where you need to play every note precisely without any kind of guide. So I was pumped to get started and enthused that the transition from violin to guitar would be relatively easy!

After the first few lessons though, I realised that there are some fairly major differences between guitar and violin, for example:

the fingers you use to play each note are completely different between instruments

the distance between notes is physically much larger on guitar

the strings are lined up flat on the guitar, whereas violin has a curved bridge

guitar has six strings to deal with compared to four strings on the violin

you can see where you are putting your fingers on the violin whereas if you hold the guitar correctly you can't really see where your fingers are.

So basically the guitar feels completely massive and way too roomy compared to violin, and unless I really concentrate, I automatically go back to the fingers used for notes on a violin.

It has been a fun and sometimes frustrating journey so far, but a couple of weeks ago I think I turned a corner and I am getting the hang of it.

You will be happy to know that I can now play O When the Saints, Frere Jacques, Hot Cross Buns, London's Burning, Molly Malone and a whole heap of other short songs.

1835 - The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia by James Boyce is a recent non-fiction work detailing the founding of Melbourne in 1835 which was the catalyst for land grabs right along the east coast of Australia.

The book begins in Tasmania where every inch of good farming land has been taken and the population is eager to move to grasslands of Port Phillip where there is much good land for grazing.

John Batman leads a group of rogue land speculators across Bass Strait, illegally camping on the Yarra. Soon after, they start bringing sheep and workers across and the land grab begins.

Boyce details the policy issues, government power and the plight of the local Aboriginal people - displacement from their homelands, to disease and lack of food.

I was keen to read about Batman, Bourke, Lonsdale after whom our city streets are named and find out more about their contribution to the founding of Melbourne.