What makes music special?

I have met people over the years who are only to pleased to impose whatever degree of instrumental talent they may possess on anyone within earshot. They will do this in any place and at any time and although. My own response is always akin to having witnessed them spit in a railway carriage (which used to incur a £25 fine) or fail to clear up after their dog on a public footpath (£100 and climbing). But I realise that many do not share my opinion and actually enjoy the experience, at least for a short while.


Secretly I wish I were more thick-skinned. I envy these transgressors their opportunity to practise at any time in any place, even on the most shrill of instruments. Some become very good and, needless to say, uninhibited performers. For my own part I need to be asked to play in public, the request implying permission. Even then I must suppress the knowledge that, whatever the feelings of the majority, someone at least will be wishing I'd just shut up. And that is the person for whom I have most sympathy.


As the teaching season draws to a close the opportunities to perform have increased to fill the void. July is a time for village fetes and other outdoor events but the most recent spate of gigs for the Eastern Straynotes kicked off at Blackfriars Hall in Norwich, playing at the graduation ceremony for Norwich University College of the Arts. The building, once part of a mediaeval friary, has a wonderfully flattering acoustic – "like singing in the bath" as one of our number put it. It has wooden flooring, presumably laid on stone, stone walls and a high, steeply pitched wooden roof all contributing to the reverberant sound that survived filling the room with excited, champagne drinking graduates with their friends and families. This was just as well as we had been asked to play without amplification.


On Saturday, as well as playing at the first fete held by Norwich Steiner School in their new premises, the Straynotes performed in the wonderful Plantation Garden. I have mentioned this in previous postings but, being 'built' in a former quarry it seems to mirror the towering, century old gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral next door. We played at the far end (from the entrance) and again the acoustic was very supportive. A walkway climbs out of the hollow through flint-faced terraces that create a reflective semi-circle behind the 'stage' (a patch of grass on this occasion). A very singular acoustic, only enhanced by birdsong. The other band, a duo called Solto Sueños, comprised Spanish guitar and a woman who sang beautifully in Spanish and the flint backdrop, along with steep sides of the garden, helped her voice carry to good effect.


On Sunday we played again at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts. Another high-ceilinged venue but one in which the sound always seems to disappear into the distance to be lost without trace. In spite of a sensation of playing into cotton wool, that takes some getting used to every time I play there, it is a real privilege to play in such a wonderful building in the presence of so much, and so much variety of, great art from all times and places.


So what makes music special? What all these places have in common is a sense of being somehow sacred and of being places in which, I hope anyway, only the incurably gauche would venture to play unbidden. Blackfriars Hall has existed for several centuries and began life as part of a religious community. The Plantation Garden, although one Victorian gentleman's vision and passion, has come to mean a great deal both to those who have helped restore it and to those who visit for the very real peace it brings in the middle of a city. And the Sainsbury Centre, also a place visited for reflection and the calm it retains regardless of school visits or other events, plays hosts to artefacts that have been deeply significant to people in ages past. All these factors have a bearing on the way I play.



For me, to be invited to add sound to such places is very special indeed. For all the mistakes I might make performing in these venues, the music sounds far better than a perfect rendition during a rehearsal at home.

Dead Kitten Update

Last week's trip to Wells was an opportunity to use my Dead Kitten (see post for 20th April) in conjunction with my Zoom H4 recording device. I wanted to interview as many children as possible about the work they were doing - art based inspired by Andy Goldsworthy. Although there'll never be time to turn the photos and sound files into a son et lumière production I find it very interesting to hear what the kids have to say. Having the microphone usually focuses their minds and is good experience for them. I can also assure my paymasters that I am gathering 'evidence'.

Playing back the sound files, the Dead Kitten seems to have done its job well. It was fairly still in the trees last week but it doesn't take much of a breeze to interfere with the proper working of a sensitive microphone. Tomorrow is the big test: Mundesley beach, wind from the east, recording seaside sounds as a backing for some poetry. The poems in question have been written by children of seven and eight and I'll be recording them reading them too - but indoors.

My new cuddly toy

Do you enjoy buying new bits of kit? It would appear most of us do and when we feel the urge but can't afford a major item, we go for something minor instead. I used to wonder, when I began taking music seriously, why music shops are full of rulers, rubbers and post-its adorned with clefs, staves and all manner of hackneyed puns: Gone Chopin, Bach in five Minuets (sorry). Having met a fair number of heads of music over the years I realise they are nearly all stationery fixated and the novelty music-themed mug is a must. The answer to their reliance on retail therapy? Increase their budget so they can afford to buy something real.

My latest purchase is a 'Dead Kitten'. The name amused me as a 'dead cat' is the name horn players give to the fluffy pad-saver they stick down their saxophones after playing. My beloved Buescher Aristocrat (pictured) is modelling one. The Kitten, however, is a bag of long-haired, synthetic material with an elasticated opening, designed to fit over the end of a Rode NT4 (below), which is a stereo microphone. It reduces wind noise, making outdoor recordings possible. Even in a light breeze the action of air on a microphone, especially one of high quality, can ruin a recording as it obliterates all other sound.



Happily the Dead Kitten also fits over the end of my Zoom H4 hand-held recorder. More on that machine another time but it's enough to know that its poorly thought out wind shield blew away on its first outing.

Today was unusually still in my neck of the woods but initial tests suggest the Kitten makes a real difference. With summer on the way there'll be plenty of opportunity to find its limitations.

And now I'm sure you'd like to know how much I paid for five square inches of nylon-backed fake fur and a sort strip of elastic. What was my karmic punishment for being so superior about kitsch mugs and cheesy stationery? Well, including manufacture, delivery and VAT, a cool £25.19. But, before you laugh, I could have much more. OK, now you can laugh. I just hope it brings me at least as much pleasure as your over-priced, Mozart fridge magnet.

The Sainsbury Centre

The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, designed by Norman Foster, is a wonderful building and one of my favourite 'unusual venues'. I love the height, the light, the best hot chocolate in Norwich and of course the art collection it was built to house. On the first Sunday of every month there are free activities for the children, free newspapers for the adults and free music for all. This month the music was provided by Eastern Straynotes, a trio in which I play clarinet. We do klezmer and jazz and the mix seems to go down well with old and young. We are still settling in new girl Sandra on double bass and were pleased with how well it went.



It's not an easy place to play. The sound gets lost in the hangar-like space. Not only that but the audience can feel dwarfed by the enormity of the setting and takes some warming up. However, we did extract a fair amount of applause and foot-tapping. And there were plenty of dancing children for whom we must be just another strange phenomenon in a building that's full of them. A lot of people left when we stopped playing and I like to think it was the music keeping them there.



We were very fortunate that a musician friend, Tom, who does live sound from time to time, turned up and could give us some pointers on the mix. I made a point of photographing the mixer settings at the end for when we next play there in July. I find myself wondering what the weather will be like then. We had warmth and sunshine last weekend and in the break I wandered out onto the grass to look at the lake and the University of East Anglia's famous ziggurats.

Easi-Speak

I am starting work on two projects in different primary schools later this month. In both cases the schools are interested in encouraging the exploration of soundscapes. Although their approaches differ, each school has recently invested in a number small microphones that contain a 128MB memory. Called Easi-Speaks http://www.tts-group.co.uk/Product.aspx?cref=TTSPR1081690, they look and feel like toys which is great because they are lightweight, robust and not in the least intimidating. Being unfamiliar with them I borrowed an Easi-Speak and took it on a trip to Amsterdam last weekend.

I have a Zoom H4 that I use for location recording because it is very portable and records high quality wav files. It has phantom power for external mics as well as a stereo pair of high quality built-in mics. It runs on a pair of AA batteries, records in a variety of formats and has virtually limitless memory, especially if I take along a spare flash card. It will fit in any large pocket.

The Easi-Speak records mp3 files at 128kbps or wav files at64kbps, neither of which makes for hi-fidelity but which makes its memory go much further. To charge its integral battery it requires a dedicated charger or else a computer that will charge it via its USB port. This can be a problem in the field, as I discovered when I accidentally left it switched on, although not recording, and the battery went flat. I don't know how easy it would be to incorporate an automatic switch off if it has been idle for any length of time. I can see this being a problem for children on field trips. The good news is that files already recorded into the memory are not lost.

The microphone doubles as a loudspeaker and there is a headphone socket so it is possible to play back files although, without any kind of display, playback is best done via a computer when back at base.

One feature I am very pleased to find omitted is 'automatic level control'. When ghetto blasters came fitted with a microphone – useful for recording band rehearsals onto cassette back in the eighties – they automatically adjusted the volume level to prevent overloading the medium. A crude form of compression, in fact. In a nutshell it makes the loud sounds quieter and the quiet sounds louder, including all the background noise you would rather do without. On my test-run I recorded myself approaching a barrel organ, passing by and walking on. If I play the sound back now and close my eyes I can see it all vividly as the music fades in and out again. With automatic level control the volume would have remained fairly constant with background noise and hiss morphing into music and back to noise again.

The downside is that it is possible to overload the microphone by holding it too close to the mouth when singing or speaking, but good microphone technique is a useful skill that is easily acquired. Given the choice I would always opt for the ability to control levels myself, even if the odd take is ruined by overloading the mic.

So, all in all, a fabulous piece of kit for the money – a mere £29.99 from the manufacturers (less if you buy five at a time). Just as for some trips you just want to take along a little point-and-shoot camera rather than a bulky SLR, so this is tiny enough to carry on the off chance of coming across something interesting. I want one! And I'm looking forward to learning a few tricks from the kids when we take them with us on field trips.