Played Jay C again and alas! Lost again. Was up 5-2 and lost 6-7, 3-6. He just breaks me down. Hits short balls. Hits deep balls, Fast balls, slow balls, Heavy topspin, slice. Sharp angles and eventually I start hitting errors. This time I really tried to stay leaning down into the ball and did the new serve thing. May have helped slightly... well that's being optimistic. Lost by about the same score as usual.

I've changed my grips so many times. I think today once I was getting worn down some more topspin would have helped. Against lesser players I don't get broken down and I can hit flat balls with precision. Today I eventually really could have used more topspin. The backhand especially broke down. So I'm going to change my grip, yet again. Going back to double bevel 8 on the backhand and double bevel 2 on the forehand.

I've done this before but I thought with the new super powerful racquet I have even less room for error hitting flat.

....so I tried it against Blake H (the really good high school player) and lost the first set 6-1 and was down 3-1 in the second. I was using a semiwestern/continental grip on the backhand and the top hand in semi-western always has added errors. Additionally not having the bottom hand wrapped over a little just leaves it feeling "wrong". On the forehand side I was going continental/semiwestern. It didn't feel as bad but the extra topspin is an extra calculation.

I switched back to my old backhand then and used the new grip on the forehand but not really trying to hit so much topspin and I came back and won the second set and then a tiebreak 10-4.

The Andy Murray grip backhand works good except when I play a really good player like Jay C. Then it finally gets broke down. Now going to try the old double eastern forehand grip on both sides. This means less access to topspin. But I think it will break down less. I think it won't look as nice against a ball machine. But against good players I will hit less unforced errors while still being capable of hitting winners. It means hitting the ball beside my body instead of out in front of me and I think that's actually preferable and leads to more consistency. Just less topspin.

This is what I did last summer and I quit it because I decided I needed more topspin. All these other good players hit balls that look like pros and I'm looking not as smooth and hitting a Connors ball.

I may be mistaken but will try this a few times. The thing is, how it works against mediocre players and a ball machine isn't the same as how it may work against a really good player. When I don't have time or I'm getting worn down by shot after shot, running all over the place, I still want to be able to hit a decent shot then instead of falling apart. The real test is how I will do next time against Jay C.

Looking forward to playing Jay C again. This last time he only won 1-6, 7-5 (10-7). I was up 6-1, 3-1 when I fell apart. I think switching to the max p really helped me get that far. Now I've made a couple changes that I think will take me further.
1. Remembering to lean down, keep my head down, on groundstrokes. This will hopefully stop me from getting tentative and having my groundstrokes fall apart. Seems to work.
2. Tossing the ball while not otherwise doing anything. Thus a much higher ball toss. Combining this with a platform stance similar to Fed/Sampras.The ball toss was so so much more consistent the one time I've done this.

After splitting sets with Jay C I then played Alex V and played pretty bad and won 6-3, 7-6. He also played very well. Then 4.5 doubles and played very well. At one point won 8 games in a row and was the best player on the court. I really do well with doubles when I crowd the net as tall as I am. My serve was erratic this day though. I then played a 65 or so year old guy who was really pretty decent. I won 6-1, 6-2 and felt like my groundstrokes were really shaky. He was doing a good job of hitting short low balls. And in return I was slicing a lot and coming to the net. And I played the net very well.

Then played Ab M with doing the two things mentioned above and won 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. This was also the first time weighting the Max P up to 13 ounces. Had a lot of balls just catching the tape or barely long. But my serve was the best it's ever been. Both a high percentage of first serves in and plenty hitting the lines. Ab M couldn't get the ball back. Was really hitting up the T well, though need to improve my out wide accuracy.

Also increased the tension up to 55 on the mains the last few times. I suppose I have very slightly less power. And do have more control. And it isn't hurting my arm. Not feeling the topspin though. Find myself just wanting to hit flat mostly. Topspin does add so much more of a calculation and even at a higher tension not so sure of the consistency of how the ball comes off the racquet with much topspin.

Unable to do anything outdoors and feeling stir crazy at the moment.

It's much easier to be "original" in your artistry than it is to copy. Being original means just doing whatever pops into your head, improvising on a keyboard or whatever. But to the extent you're truly original, chances are good that your art is going to be a completely solitary endeavor. Unless you somehow manage to re-invent most of what others did, it's probably going to be kind of crude and there will probably be little interest in it.

To copy or to imitate is harder. It takes actual work trying to sound like someone else, learning someone else's music or style. It's also far more likely to lead to making something that actually sounds good.

But ideally you should be doing both. You absolutely should spend time trying to sound like or learn the style of other artists. You may find that you just can't imitate someone, in which case you then attempt to imitate someone else, and someone else, etc. Ultimately you should go from imitation, to incorporating and finding "your own voice". You should be far more worried about sounding crude/rudimentary and just not very good, than in sounding unoriginal.

To the extent you go towards highly original, it's almost certainly going to be a solitary hobby.

But, sometimes you just have stuff in you that has to come out. It's not that you're what to be a good musician or painter or whatever. It's that there are images or music that's just already there in you. Music your subconscious wrote in dreams, etc. And you're just want a solid copy of it. Something so you won't forget it. Or you want to flesh it out a bit. Sometimes you don't care at all if anyone else is ever even slightly interested.

Or sometimes you start out doing the latter and then over the years slowly forget and then end up eventually thinking, gee I should have done the former. I should have spent more time trying to imitate. But you've just forgotten that being popular, and for that matter, sounding particularly good had pretty much nothing at all to do with why you went to the trouble to do this in the first place.

It had nothing to do with it... but then it did start to matter a little bit. You did start to care just a bit that no one really wanted anything to do with your music. And so here and there, you gradually started getting interested in being popular. Imitating so that you could be popular instead of expressing exactly what was within you and doing so in complete isolation.

With the Dunlop Max Predator I won the first set against Jay C 6-1. First time I ever won a set against him. I think he won 16 sets in a row at least and now suddenly I almost bagel him. And then I completely fell apart and he won the second 7-5 and the tiebreak 10-7. But that was entirely mental. I got tentative. Completely quit doing anything with my backhand and forehand. Except for being a total headcase I could have won 6-1, 6-0. Oh well.

On serve trying a bit more of a Sampras motion to get more topspin on the first serve and I find I naturally want to come into the net. It was a little shaky this first time but I still almost won the second set by playing serve and volley a lot since I completely forgot how to hit groundstrokes.

I think I would have fallen apart maybe a bit less if I had continued to hit topspin. I got extremely tentative instead of taking a rip at the ball. Of course this new racquet has so much power I can't remotely take a rip at it unless there's plenty of topspin. But no. On the other hand I quit being smooth also. Got jerky/shaky. Whatever I was doing that got me up 6-1, 3-1 I needed to just keep doing. I really shouldn't jump to a new grip on the forehand and backhand yet again here. I keep on coming right back to the A Murray backhand grip it seems anyway. Just need to keep being smooth in order to be precise. I quit doing that. Ought to write it on my racquet.

So far since using it I've won 6-1, 6-3. 6-1, 6-1. And now lost 6-1, 5-7 (7-10). I may need to increase the string tension a bit. My elbow feels great at 48, but the ball definitely trampolines at times with this huge racquet face. Also may experiment with adding a bit of weight. Serve is a bit slower with having it at 12.5 instead of my usual 14+, though second serve is better.

I think I may have finally figured out a vocal template that means I can sing. I very much hesitate to say so. I keep expecting that I'll listen to it a few days later and change my mind. But so far that hasn't happened. I think the key was n compressor equalizer. I've experimented plenty with equalizers and compressors but never a single effect that combined the two. I don't sound as good as Brendan Perry but.... I really think I can work with this... And it has me enthused to really get back into it.

In the past, for a large portion of time, I was only trying to figure out industrial vocals. I figured regular singing was out of the question. Actually though industrial vocals are far worse for me, because I can't sound angry. In real life people think I'm always so mellow and relaxed. Which is mostly true, but a long way from completely true. Anyway it's reflected in my voice that can sound unemotional, half-dead or trancelike.

So now though I'm not interested in making industrial music. I pretty much never listen to it even as I think it has a very bad effect on my mood. Can really get me in an absurdly angry mood I think.... I'm kind of afraid to listen to it, though I remember what a huge effect it used to have on me. Instead I guess I want to sound maybe somewhat like Dead Can Dance. I'm curious to do a cover of Children of the Sun, just because I'm curious how my voice compares to Brendan Perry. Would be very happy to make music that good. I do own a dulcimer. Hate tuning the damn thing though.

In other news today my back started hurting. I guess because I moved the birdbath yesterday. Also held Hawthy for 2 hours when I rarely hold him for more than 15 minutes in a day. I'm worried I'll have to cancel my tennis match tomorrow. Laying down and avoiding moving tonight.

Read Century of the Soldier and Hawkwood and the Kings by Paul Kearney. Good but way too much about war. Too much massive armies clashing. Ultimately too much of that and not enough of relatively real people just trying to live. Really blah ending too. The hero was Corfe. The super general king. He saves the day. While just about everyone dies, including Corfe. I guess his daughter doesn't die. I suppose it's unique in the extent to which everyone else does. Isolla, Abelyn, the Sultan, Heria, the good wizard guy, Berdolin, Aruan, the bad guy who torments Hawkwood. Does Hawkwood die? Probably. Can't remember. Jemilia? Can't remember. Yes, Hawkwood dies too. Jemilia and her son didn't die. And Corfe's daughter doesn't die. All other major characters die which is unusual. But it's not terribly sad because we never get quite close enough to them. Still far more detailed setting and characters then say Steven Erikson, but far, far short of Robin Hobb, or even G Martin.