Do you remember that childhood feeling, after successfully pestering daddy to buy you a toy you really really really want, you finally get home, tear open the packaging and finally get your grubby little hands on it? It's been some years since I last cried and bawled in order to get what I want from my father, but I just had similar feeling of denouement (yay...always wanted to use that word!), of the sort that used to ensue whenever I manage to drag my parents to Toys' R' Us as a kid.

On Wednesday, I had no lectures, but I went to see an Internet friend perform in a lunch-time recital in a church not too far from UCL. I have never actually met him before, but from his posts on the Classical Guitar Forum regarding his occasional recitals in London, I have had several opportunities to see Paul Miron (or 'PaulM') perform but never did get round to it. So, I was pretty determined to make sure I get there. From what I gather, Paul is a fairly accomplished amateur player who had just been awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music (FRSM), the highest accolade on the 'grades' ladder (remember Grade 1 exams, anyone?), and (I'm told) equivalent to a post-graduate degree in music. Apart from that, I knew nothing from him.

I went to get lunch at Chinatown first, before walking over to the Bloomsbury Methodist Church where he was to perform. I've walked past the church a long time ago, when I was in first year, so I knew its general location. However, when I approached the New Oxford St. area, I had to take a few wrong turns before I finally found the church about a minute before the recital was due to start. Not surprisingly, there wasn't more than a dozen people sitting on the pews, and I took a seat in a very nice spot just before Paul came on-stage.

I grabbed a copy of the programme, and quickly glanced through it. It was mostly music by South American composers, although he didn't actually list the pieces he was going to play.... most of them were familiar names like Reis, Pernambuco, Jobim etc, but there was a couple of unfamiliar names as well. Turning over, I read his bio...played guitar since 11...working in finance....'started in an academic career as a theoretical particle physicist'. Wow...another thing in common with me!

When he finally came on stage, he was carrying his Smallman guitar (read: very expensive) , and he was a rather short and stocky middle-aged person about my height, with a short-cropped hair as one would expect from someone in finance. He played his pieces one-by-one, and I enjoyed his playing, even though the sound from his guitar was somewhat lost in the large spaces of the church. It was technically very impressive playing of some very difficult pieces, although there were mistakes here and there (and God knows I know all about stage-fright induced mistakes!), and the rhythm was always there, as befitting South American music.

After the performance, I shook hands with him and chatted with him briefly, but he had to rush back to his job so I didn't hold him there for long. I had some things to do in college, but I decided to walk the other way, towards Leicester Sq to visit the Spanish Guitar Centre. It's a dingy little shop perched above one of the most touristy and crowded areas of London, but it was founded by Len Williams, the father of John Williams, and in many ways it's the spiritual soul of classical guitar in London. The walls are covered with neat rows of guitars (cheap ones that is...the expensive ones all stay in the cases), and what empty space remaining is adorned with pictures of famous guitarists visiting the shop. I haven't been in there for quite some time, but I have been wanting to buy some sheet music for some time, and rather than making a blind purchase online I decided to go there. Barry, the proprietor was there, and I told him what I wanted: the Prelude, Fugue and Allegro BWV 998 by Bach (... for all you non-musicians, 'BWV' is a catalogue number for Bach's music). He promptly took out a few versions for me to compare, and I grabbed a cheap beat-up guitar from a corner and sight-read (badly) through them. The BWV 998 is a piece which I have been completely in love with since I bought Paul Galbraith's recording of it in the summer. I have been listening to it almost every day, and even reading stutteringly through the sheet music on a lousy guitar was a beautiful experience. Finally, I settled on the cheapest copy (most of the versions were more or less the same anyway), and walked off to college to get some things done.

That evening, I eagerly took out the music and unpacked my guitar, which has been sitting sullenly untouched in a corner for a month thanks to my finger injury. It's difficult to describe how spiritually fulfilling it was to finally play something which has been playing in my head for months, even if I was only hacking my way painfully through the notes. Over the past couple of days, I have literally been playing my guitar more than in the past month, and I've been neglecting quite a few of my other obligations (admittedly none which are very immediate).

Anyway off I go to practise more...I've almost memorised the first (and easiest) page of the music now...only another 10 pages or so to go!