Meta

The thing about living with problems is that not only do you have to find new methods to get past those problems, sometimes you have to create new approaches to find those new methods. So, I think about thinking sometimes. I use this blog to reason a lot of stuff out, so from time to time there will be something a bit obscure tagged "meta". Ignore or read - your choice.

More mouth music

One of the great finds of Towersey for me was see JigJaw (http://jigjaw.co.uk/) -

"JigJaw combines the percussion and passion of dance traditions with vocal harmonies in a tight, scintillating quartet of singing and dancing talents!"

They were fab to watch. Also to their credit was the calm with which they experience drunken enthusiasts at a midnight spot in the ceilidh in the dance tent...

Anyhow these guys are probably going to be my next stop in looking for mouth music in English. Marvellous

The harp session and this September's concert

I run a harp session. In summer 2007 I suddenly got it in my head that I wanted to start a harp session. The sessions in Edinburgh were so much fun - that mix of playful music making, meeting other folk who loved harps and playing lovely tunes suited for harps is really a winner. I started the harp session in July 2007 and just over 2 years on we have more support than ever. The pattern we've settled into is I teach two news tunes in the first hour, thereafter it's an open forum for tunes. Initially working by ear was very foreign to some folk, the two years haven't always been as easy ride and I think I've learnt as much as they have! I'm very grateful that the sessioners have stuck with it, everyone is a much stronger ear player than they were and it's getting easier and easier to have fun with the tunes now.

Out of this session has come an ensemble. One of the most fun but difficult things I do is to facilitate / create a performance out of the ensemble. I'm trying to open it up to as many people's input as possible while keeping the final performance fairly good - a tricky balance to strike! The concert we're doing is about 50 mins long, so long enough but not too much. Each concert we're allied with a different charity, good for us and good for the charity. This time it's the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (www.torturecare.org.uk).

The first concert we did was pretty terrifying, certainly for me and I think pretty daunting for all of us. We got an enormous amount of support from the audience, as well from each other, it was lovely. This time round we are coming to the concert from a completely different place: there's an expectation to live up to. We've got more members and a different mix of repertoire. I expect next time will be very different again. I'm looking forward to it.

So: if you're free on the 27th Sept and can space £6, get yourself to the Quaker Meeting House, 43 St Giles, Oxford (opposite the Lamb and Flag pub) for 3pm. Hope to see you there.

New term ... new projects...

All very exciting but very busy!

New performance - harp duo with Tori Handsley - Harps Restrung...

Steph West is joined by Tori Handsley: two harpists with a shared love of dancing rhythms, vivid chords and a free flowing melody.

Each brings influences from her respective traditions: Steph - early music, English & Irish folk; Tori: Jazz, Latin and Classical. Together they explore a funky and percussive sound world of tunes, songs and groove.

Tori and I are going to play in Brick Lane as part of a 3 day festival:
"15 minute factory brings together new and cutting-edge acts from across all art forms, blurring the boundaries between performance, art and music."
http://15minutefactory.blogspot.com/
We're on early Saturday evening.

New teaching challenges too... more Irish harp classes, a new adult class and other exciting bits and pieces. Also: more time to reflect and plan. Hurrah.

Favourite compliment ever

I spent bank holiday weekend at Towersey festival. I bumped in a melodeon player who I'd done a ceilidh gig with a few months ago. We were chatted about operations etc and I mentioned my hand.

"Oh - I never noticed" he said. "You play like it doesn't matter."

Free improvisation

I met the Oxford Improvisers last night, went along to their Monday night session. It was great fun - like going swimming, an hour of being completely immersed in something so completely alien to the rest of your life.

Within the world of harp and folk all the sounds are fairly nice, not very aggressive, certainly not very discordant (even if you consider Irish fiddlers liking of flat C sharps). With this is was aggressive sounds, crashes, scrapes, extreme chromaticism (barely tonal centres), gestures and barren silences. There was a guy with an amazing bag of percussion *stuff* - pots, pans, anything. One particularly fine bit of bent metal. Not very lyrical at all - I brought some lyricism I think.

I was also singing and what a joy it was for it to not only be allowable but completely appropriate to make utterly horrible deranged noises. I found singing allowed me to follow the chromatic movement much more easily - on harp I'm still not mapped chromatically as much as I want to be.

So any - my new hobby - free improvisation. The players were all really lovely too, fun, happy people. In common with playing folk or trad (or maybe any aural music?) you had that sense of knowing them unexpectedly well afterwards. I think I have probably seen their faces in the street a few times but after such a session where attention flows so clearly I feel I will recognise them instantly now.

What can I do to improve my musicianship?

These are my notes for what I want to focus on working on now in each situation.

...in sessions....
playing fewer tunes
tackling specific challenges each tune
try to get the whole tune in mind before playing any of it
accompaniment improvisation.
following tunes players rhythm as closely as possible.

... in rehearsals...
lots of prep beforehand
close close ensemble work.
being brave with performance.
ask for feedback.
keeping an eye on time keeping

... in practise....
small chunks to good standards
perfect posture, hand shape.

... in background gigs....
stamina.
posture.
improvisation.
allowing the music to breathe in awkard spaces.

... in proper gigs....
audience focus.
allowing the music to breathe and really aiming for a great visceral connect with the audience.
story teling.

... in teaching....
have a very clear idea of what you are teaching & directing each time