Descant recorders - health scare

It's not often my friend Hugh and I meet young girls who tell us we're gorgeous. And if you saw us you would instantly know why. So when I went with Hugh and a couple of others to demonstrate musical instruments on a travellers' site last week I had a pleasant surprise. The boost to my self esteem was short lived, however, as the word used was actually 'gadjos' (pronounced gorgeous). Gadjo means non-gypsy, literally 'outsider'. I found the outsider tag mildly amusing as I live inside a house whereas travellers...

Anyway, when we arrived at a small Portakabin on the site we found a box of percussion had been provided by a school teacher. This contained no fewer than three descant recorders. Some twenty years ago I had the misfortune to teach recorder to a six-year-old boy who took great pleasure in pointing the thing in my face and blowing as loudly as he could for half an hour. This only lasted for two lessons. A third lesson and I'm sure I would have done something I would still be regretting at Her Majesty's pleasure.

My ears are less sensitive after two decades of teaching woodwind but a recorder in the wrong hands still feels like someone drawing on my eardrums with a marker pen. Following this workshop my ears rang the way they used to after a Hawkwind gig. You should know, if you don't already, that if you subject your ears to noise that leaves them ringing you have caused them permanent damage. So the moral is, never give a recorder to a child unless you really know what you expect him or her to do with it. Never casually include one, never mind three, in a box of percussion instruments. In fact, if I ruled the world I would place recorders in the same category as alcohol and cigarettes with hefty fines for anyone supplying them to minors.

Cambridge

It's always a pleasure to visit Cambridge, even on those occasions when, not expecting rain, I get soaked to the skin. I arrived in balmy temperatures and sat outside the rehearsal space with a cup of coffee. But when I left the Fitzwilliam just after lunch it was markedly cooler and the rain was just beginning. And by the time I got back to our rehearsal space I was wet through.

I was in the city to work on a performance project called 'Dreams of Kings and Heroes' that opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum at the end of the month. It is based on, and accompanies, the current Shahnameh exhibition. The Shahnameh tells the Persian story prior to the Arab invasion in the 7th Century AD. It's a heady, and often violent, blend of history, legend and myth is reminiscent of both the Old Testament and One Thousand and One Nights.

Friday was an opportunity to meet the rest of the team, see the exhibition for myself and play with some ideas. Now I'm immersing myself in Persian classical music, quarter tones and all, in the hope that some flavours will find their way into my own compositions. If experience is anything to go by, fifty minutes may not be long enough to accustom Western ears to quarter tones, even if there were to be music throughout the show. But I hope stop short of Disneyfication and strive to do justice to what looks like being a fabulous (literally, for once) son et lumière presentation.

Little Red Robin Hood

I have spent a fair amount of the last two weeks writing music and creating sound effects for Garlic Theatre's new show. I have composed most of the music for the previous four Garlic shows but Iklooshar, one half of the 'husband-and-wife' company, was keen to score this one by herself. My role has been to take up any slack and advise on technical matters and, in the event, very little of my work made it onto the final performance CD.

Little Red Robin Hood sees the merry band turning up to a performance of Robin Hood only to discover that there has been an administrative cock-up. In fact they must perform Little Red Riding Hood. Various shenanigans ensue as the scheming Sheriff of Nottingham, now recast as the Bid Bad Wolf, sees an opportunity to win Maid Marian for himself. Unknown to any of the group, the real Wolf has other ideas.

The play's dress rehearsal took place yesterday afternoon in front of an invited audience at Norwich Puppet Theatre. Having watched the various scenes being worked and re-worked over and over, I was looking forward to seeing the finished article without directorial interruptions. However, through some mis-communication between the director and me, I arrived an hour late and just as everyone was leaving.

But all is not lost. It is playing at a local primary school on Tuesday morning so I can go an catch it then when it has 'bedded in' a little. And as it's just out along some country lanes I'm looking forward to getting there on my trusty bicycle.

Edinburgh

Firstly, apologies for the picture. I took it on a walk along Salisbury Crags one afternoon and the view looks more or less north-west towards Calton Hill and I'm looking into the light. And the picture isn't really 'tourist' Edinburgh. What you see in the foreground is the Scottish Parliament and it is the modern face of Scotland. It's a 'new-build' and was beset with problems, not least of which was the cost which soared from an original estimate of £40 million to a cool £440 million. Another time I might take a closer look. It lay outside the Festival bubble that I inhabited almost exclusively for the three weeks I spent in the city.

After an afternoon performance of The Chalk Giants in Norwich we dismantled the set and packed it into the back of the Puppet Theatre's long white van. Tim, the lighting engineer, and I drove through the night, arriving at dawn and managed a couple of hours' sleep before our technical rehearsal began at 9am. The rest of the company arrived by car an hour behind us.

The two technicians provided by the venue, and who alternated over the course of the next three weeks, had obviously been instructed to be strict with the visiting companies. Although we had negotiated an extended get-in, only 15 minutes was allowed in which to strike our set and vacate the auditorium. As we did this the next act had to get their set past us on the narrow stairs and onto the stage as our 15 minute get-out coincided with their 15 minute get-in. We were given a solemn warning that fines, at the rate of £10 for each minute would be meted out to companies that took longer than the time alotted to clear the stage.

We quickly established a highly efficient routine but there is no doubt that our elaborate set, including a fair amount of technical equipment, suffered as a result of the time constraints. However our technicians, John and Neil, thawed considerably over the course of the run, taking a keen interest and becoming very helpful. They also had the lighting cues, which Tim had given them before hopping on a flight back to Norwich, off pat from the outset. And we became so adept at striking the set that 15 minutes seemed overly generous.

Even so, I had little time to think about photography. But here's a rare shot of Steve setting up for Pinocchio. The toy theatre belongs to the Chalk Giants set and is there so we can pre-set the lights as that show played straight after.

September's free music game

This one is called Biddly Biddly Bop and I got it from an actor friend called Lucy. I usually post a game at the beginning of each month but various factors contributed to a delay this time around. It's an excellent back-to-school activity or workshop icebreaker. Enjoy.

Good vibrations?

I played at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts earlier today, a building designed by Sir Norman Foster on the UEA campus to house the Sainsbury art collection. The jazz/klezmer trio of which I am a part is not especially loud but we do amplify ourselves. And I remember playing here in a nine-piece salsa band some years ago which certainly packed a punch.

It occurred to me that future generations may be shocked at the damage our noise has done to the molecular structures of the works on display, some of which are thousands of years old. I completed an archaeology degree at a time when the practice of leaving parts of a site untouched (so that scholars as yet unborn could one day apply techniques that would make ours appear crude by comparison) was still a recent development. It was symptomatic of a new humility in science: the idea that although we may be at the cutting edge of knowledge we may not yet be the finished article.

I love playing at SCVA but will do so henceforth with a slight feeling of unease. But I notice the venue never seems to hire any operatic sopranos so maybe they're way ahead of me on this. Should I ask to see their risk assessment paperwork or keep schtum and be grateful for the gig?

August's free music game

If you have yet to visit my website you may be unaware that there it hosts a number of music games that are free to use and require no special equipment, knowledge or training. And every month, in addition to that, I post a 'for one month only' game. This month's is a listening game. It is called Detective 2 and is a development of Detective which is on the free music games page.

And this may be the last post for a while as I'm off to the Edinburgh Fringe with The Chalk Giants (pictured) about which much has been written already. Enjoy your summer.