New settings for classical music

I live somewhere amazing, above a pub that does things like get classical musicians playing Messian's Quartet for the end of time on a Tuesday. That was courtesey of a bunch of musicians known as Pindrop. I particularly spoke to Lisa & Kate I think. I can't find a suitable online thing about them - grr.

Instead I found this: www.pindropclub.co.uk
These guys look pretty cool too, I partiuclarly love the acoustic only aesthetic and the chance that they will be playong instruments they built themselves...!

Making something.... a cycle of inspire - explore - create - inspire...?

I was fed with this stuck on my wall. Better in pictures than words. Go figure for yourself. Not sure about Plato. That suggests something fixed.

Injury, soft tissue changes, fuzz

As part of ongoing hand rehab, I've been seeing a chiropractor who specialises in a physical therapy called Active Release Technique. Very very handy stuff, all soft tissue based, really amazing results. I didn't know you could do that with muscles.

As a result I'm really interested in soft tissue injuries. I think a lot of musicians overuse injuries are soft tissue or connective tissue based. Maybe there is a pattern of varied movement that keeps everything in good working order and when that is disturbed, stuff starts to go wrong.

There's a youtube video about the "fuzz" that can build up - I need to go hunt this.

Library trip 1: mouth music & spiro

This week's library cds (from Oxfordshire County Library):

Spiro - Lightbox (just because I saw it)

THERE IS A MAN UPON THE FARM - Working Men & Women In Song
RANTING & REELING - Dance Music of the North of England
YOU LAZY LOT OF BONE SHAKERS - Songs & Dance Tunes of Seasonal Events
TROUBLES THEY ARE BUT FEW - Dance Tunes & Ditties
- all from the Voice of the People Series out on Topic records

I was hunting mouth music, dancing songs and diddling. I lightly checked through each and the closest I found to what I wanted was Phil Tanner on Troubles they are but few, diddling very finely his four-hand reel.

I am going to have to look at these again and read the liner notes very carefully. I think I need to set aside a couple of hours to do this, maybe in the library. Must find out if they have listening facilities there or if I can take a CD player in. Troubles also referenced another couple of CDs in the series: Rig-a-jig-jig, which I've heard and Irish Dance Music, which I've not.

Spiro sounds like folkie Phillip Glass to me, but more melodically driven. Really didn't think I would get into it and then bang, I did. Hurray.

Other things on my mouth music hunt - I want to find out more from Jigjaw, and I want to go to C#s. I need to know what I'm looking for first...

Irish harp gets going in London...

This article at the Irish World tells you what I've been working on all year. Lots of effort but really good results. Hooray.

Common place books

Milton had a common place book, i.e. a notebook with headings that he could jot things down as they occured to him and easily find them again. With the tag function instead of headings, this is my common place book.

Study into how the brain adapts post-amputation

The Nuffield Trust's Oxford Centre for Enablement (OCE) and Researchers at the University of Oxford are involved in a major study which it is hoped will shed new light on how the brain adapts following hand amputation. Key people - Dr Tamar Makin and Dr David Henderson Slater.

I'm fascinated by this as I've had to relearn how to function many times. I've gradually acquired the perception that unless you can easily tangibly do something, at least for a while, you don't really develop an intuitive way of thinking about the thing you could do with it. This really changed my view point of musicianship - did funny things to it. I think I've got round it by playing all sorts of instruments with right and left hand - built up a picture of the lands beyond my limitations by shifting where the limitations are placed.

The study:
http://www.noc.nhs.uk/aboutus/news/article.aspx?id=190