Thursday, went to the horrible Waterfront in order not to see a tribute band. If Fire Would Fall was very very good; the other support band wasn't.
Friday, after the MARA conference talks and supper, an electro-acoustic gig. That was one excellent and enjoyable performance of varied styles and instruments smoothly running into each other. I loved the minimalist bowed gongs, Bowers going mad with metal, and the strange things done with electric guitars and clarinet-in-parts; it was great to see JI and SW playing together. The stage set was very pretty, all different coloured cables and lit-up apples, decorated with people artistically draped around on the floor.
Tonight we have jazz.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Voice workshop 16 June 2007
Voice workshop led by Guillermo Rozenthuler, a London-based Argentinian singer and voice teacher, with "extensive expertise in World Music and a unique approach to vocal training".
He began by showing us exercises to open our minds to new ways of thinking and responding - walking backwards is apparently especially good, and exercises to relax the neck, "the hinge of the brain to the body". The things to concentrate on are focus and to avoid feeling isolated - to be "present and of the world", which involves something he calls "practising presence". The gestalt is most important: giving one's part, whatever it may be, to the group. It is different from, for example, football chanting, in that listening is essential: Navajo conversation is mostly people sitting in silence and listening; improvising is a similar process of making a comment in a conversational landscape.
He commented that England is still such a powerful country, so the more its people engage with themselves, the better. Even in the few years he has lived in the UK (since 2000), those things which define Englishness have changed and are being dropped as "hangups of expression" decrease, e.g. behaving without inhibitions is more common now even without the use of stimulating substances; people are more willing to engage with their bodies and trust in expression. I found this an interesting point of view for the thesis.
Improvising is hampered by making value judgements, so as he noticed us affected by it he re-set our mental environment by stopping and starting, and changing time, to make us concentrate on listening and reduce our time for value judgements.
We blended amazingly well by the end of the seminar, and were all happily experimenting. The results were so good it was a pity not to have a record of them; but then, that's one of the characteristics of improvisation - it is ephemeral.
"The purpose is not just to do something together but also to make music."
He began by showing us exercises to open our minds to new ways of thinking and responding - walking backwards is apparently especially good, and exercises to relax the neck, "the hinge of the brain to the body". The things to concentrate on are focus and to avoid feeling isolated - to be "present and of the world", which involves something he calls "practising presence". The gestalt is most important: giving one's part, whatever it may be, to the group. It is different from, for example, football chanting, in that listening is essential: Navajo conversation is mostly people sitting in silence and listening; improvising is a similar process of making a comment in a conversational landscape.
He commented that England is still such a powerful country, so the more its people engage with themselves, the better. Even in the few years he has lived in the UK (since 2000), those things which define Englishness have changed and are being dropped as "hangups of expression" decrease, e.g. behaving without inhibitions is more common now even without the use of stimulating substances; people are more willing to engage with their bodies and trust in expression. I found this an interesting point of view for the thesis.
Improvising is hampered by making value judgements, so as he noticed us affected by it he re-set our mental environment by stopping and starting, and changing time, to make us concentrate on listening and reduce our time for value judgements.
We blended amazingly well by the end of the seminar, and were all happily experimenting. The results were so good it was a pity not to have a record of them; but then, that's one of the characteristics of improvisation - it is ephemeral.
"The purpose is not just to do something together but also to make music."
The Phantom of the Opera
No, not that one: the 1925 silent movie. Mistressdickens, bloodredglossy and I went to Norwich Cathedral to see it with improvised organ music. David Dunnett (lovely man, I miss him even though he taught the subject which gave me the most pain) gave a wonderfully witty introduction to his old friend David Briggs, who then told us the background and a little history of the film and this project. He opened the gig proper with the good old Toccata in D, which was more fun than usual because the company who provided the kit specialise in making church organ gigs visual as well as auditory. Normally the organist is invisible to the audience, but there he was on a big screen, madly attacking the 5 keyboards and all those stops and with even the twinkletoes passages discernible. Then the film came on. I love that film: Karloff in hyperactorial mode, and the famous make-up (he designed it himself and it was kept secret even from the other actors until the last moment; when the film was shown Ladies Screamed and Fainted).
If one didn't want to concentrate on the film, there was always Guess the Motif. There were some bits of Lloyd Webber tunes, probably more than I recognised as I'm only familiar with the songs arranged for choir and orchestra by David Ruddock, and some Wagner, and Rossini, and... you get the idea.
Much fun.
If one didn't want to concentrate on the film, there was always Guess the Motif. There were some bits of Lloyd Webber tunes, probably more than I recognised as I'm only familiar with the songs arranged for choir and orchestra by David Ruddock, and some Wagner, and Rossini, and... you get the idea.
Much fun.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Bugs!
Among the madrigals in next week's gig (16 June at St Thomas, Norwich) is a pretty ditty by John Wilbye, with the following text:-
Thus saith my Cloris bright,
When we of Loue sit downe and talke together,
Beware of Loue, Loue is a walking sprite,
And Loue is this and that,
And O I wot not what,
And comes and goes againe, I wot not whether.
No, no, these are but bugs to breed amazing,
For in her eies I saw his torch light blazing.
Explanations welcome...
Thus saith my Cloris bright,
When we of Loue sit downe and talke together,
Beware of Loue, Loue is a walking sprite,
And Loue is this and that,
And O I wot not what,
And comes and goes againe, I wot not whether.
No, no, these are but bugs to breed amazing,
For in her eies I saw his torch light blazing.
Explanations welcome...
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