Preparations for my songs are ranging from going very well to not at all. I've spent quite a lot of time with the backing track for Island Magic, and am pleased with my progress. I have it to a point where I can just about play through the track, so it's just a matter of tightening parts up and working on the sections that allow improvisation. I've also been doing exercises almost every day to develop my left foot and double bass drum technique and I'm feeling a difference. However, whether or not I'll quite get up to the standard required for 'Selkies: The Endless Obsession' remains to be seen. It may still require me to simplify parts of it, but I'm still in the process of learning the track and I'll decide nearer the time how I will fare with it.

We have only had one rehearsal since our sample performance due to me having family issues and having to be out of town, but we have our next scheduled for two days time. I am hoping to be able to play the full track of Schism all together - we only did half of it for our sample, and although Dechlan, my guitarist, and myself have played through it all, Dave still has some issues with parts of the second half of it. I'm hoping he'll have these ironed out so we can play through the whole song and go on to work on other things.

On the down side I've had serious problems with finding a keyboard player. I've asked everyone I know who might know someone, and the general consensus is I might be able to find someone to play 'Subdivisions', but 'Universal Mind' may be beyond hope. Even the guitarist I have lined up to play the latter with is having troubles with it, leading me to think I may have to drop the track in favour of something else. It's very disappointing for me as I saw it as being one of the main focal points of my set, and I've already taken the time to learn it and was looking forward to playing it. To make things easier on myself at this stage I may consider again finding a song with a backing track I can play to as I'm struggling to coordinate rehearsals and find people in time. My family issues came at a bad time and have set me back a bit, and generally living as far away and not being familiar with a people round the college has made it very hard for me. I also have a backing track for Subdivisions I may consider using as it is the only other songs that I require a keyboard player for, and so would eliminate the need for a keyboard player altogether. Of course playing with backing tracks takes a lot of the live music out of the performance which may marr it for some of the audience, but if it makes it possible for me to play a set I'm happy with that is what I'll go with.