Farewell, Monster

A rainy Monday is the perfect time to make a long-overdue blog entry.  The eight weeks since my last entry seem have passed in a blur.  For at least the last fortnight I have been completely submerged in 'There's a Monster in My Piano' which is the new show from Garlic Theatre.  The title says it all really.  The story features a toy piano from the famous (in toy piano circles at least) Michelsonne factory in Paris which burnt down in 1970.  These pianos are now rare and sort after.  You may laugh but know this: Yann Tiersen, composer of the Amélie soundtrack, plays a Michelsonne piano.

Being a show about a piano, and not being a pianist myself, I enlisted the help of Norwich piano teacher and jazz musician Simon Brown (pictured with Monster).  He covered the Chopin, ragtime and boogie woogie piano elements.  However, I'm rather pleased with this little piece, half of which we used in the show, which shows off the toy piano while simultaneously demonstrating why you won't often hear it national radio.

It's a waltz followed by a march.  The march bears a very close resemblance to a famous classical piece of music which I'll leave you to identify.

The show was a monster in more ways than one.  As well as involving the sampling of the piano, there are three animated sequences that needed music, foley and scripts recorded and applied.  And the show as a whole is almost never silent.  So it was a relief to declare it 'in the can' at the dress rehearsal on Friday afternoon and kick off the weekend on a high.

Toy Piano

In Garlic Theatre's new show, There's A Monster In My Piano, there is a toy piano.  It's a wonderful little thing with a wooden body and beaters with an 'old-fashioned' plastic look.  It's French made and, without knowing the make and model off hand, I'd guess it was built in the 1950s.    The 'strings' are metal rods and there are no dampers.

I have been sampling the instrument, note by note, with varying attack and collecting various sounds for use as effects. Playing the piano softly is a challenge as too little force fails to throw the hammers against the rods. My favourite sound effect is created by tipping the piano backwards so the hammers fall against the rods in a random fashion.

To give a flavour of the instrument I recorded a snatch of Bach (I ran out of notes with which to play further) and a 12-Bar.  Perhaps I should have picked it up off the floor first; my piano playing is generally bad but seldom this awful  The battery on top of the piano in one of the pictures is AA, just to give some idea of scale.

A voice project

As part of my work on the soundtrack for 'There's a Monster in My Piano' for Garlic Theatre I am collecting true stories about, and people's early impressions of,  pianos.  This has involved sticking a microphone in front of my interviewees and so I am learning the knack of helping them relax while keeping my own mouth shut. An excellent discipline.

I didn't have much to do with pianos as a child myself.  I was just getting interested in the unplayed instrument in our sitting room when we moved abroad and left it behind.  But one teenage episode sticks in my mind.  I was a boarder at a minor public school (private school, if you live across the pond) and weekends could really drag.  So I had plenty of time to walk up the steps onto the stage in the memorial hall.  But the lid of the grand piano was closed and this was the most direct route:

Step 1: the piano stool

Step 2: the top of the piano

Step 3: the stage 

The music teacher, also a boarding master, was young and keen and when he saw a chalky footprint on the top of his pride and joy he was livid.  He determined the shoe size and print pattern (basketball boots were the 'trainer' of the day) and went on a Cinderella-style hunt for the perpetrator. Fortunately the story doesn't have a fairy tale ending. It was a nervous time but I was never caught because:

Step 1: I hid the offending boots at the first rumour of trouble

Step 2: Though tall for the times, I had taken the precaution of growing feet small enough to pass for those of a much younger boy 

Step 3: I had had the foresight to be made a prefect and so, as part of the establishment and old enough to know better, I had placed myself beyond suspicion

I have met a number of non-players with piano related tales to tell.  If you have a tale to tell, as a pianist or not, do let me know.

Back in Theatre

It's good to be back in Norwich Puppet Theatre, working on a new show.  This one is called 'There's a Monster in My Piano' and is a Garlic Theatre production.  Without giving too much away, it's about a piano with a mysterious monster inside.  Touring with a real piano would be a nightmare but this show uses a toy piano.  And I don't mean from Woolworths.  More on the piano later.  Meanwhile, here are some notes from the show.

No pianos were harmed during the making of this show.  I believe this one was already dead.

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.

Norwich Puppet Theatre

One of my favourite places is Norwich Puppet Theatre and I am fortunate in that my work takes me there from time to time. Not so frequently that I ever take it for granted but sufficiently often for me to feel at home. The age of the building alone, some seven hundred years or more, gives it a special atmosphere but the fact that it is a veritable museum of puppets of all kinds makes it a wonderful place to spend some time.

My previous visit was at the end of March as part of Eastern Straynotes when the band was the musical element of a burlesque cabaret evening. The flamboyant, and sometimes bizarre, dress of the patrons vied for attention with the puppets looking down from above. But today it was all about the puppets themselves.

Firstly there was a meeting about the formation of a loose group of artists from different disciplines with an interest in puppets and the venue. This took place in the Octagon, a new extension added to the mediaeval building which echoes the octagonal section of the old church's tower. And the rest of the day was spent working on Garlic Theatre's new show, Little Red Robin Hood.

There are two performance spaces at the theatre. The main auditorium, which comprises the nave of the old church, is steeply raked and seats 185. It is narrow, having been built before our forebears acquired the knack of supporting a wide roof without the it pushing over the supporting walls. The smaller, but much more modern, Octagon Studio is an even more intimate venue with a 50 seat capacity. If I can remember I check out which room the company is using before I go down. The first time I rehearsed there was back in 2002 with Baobab Theatre. It was January, we were working in the unheated main auditorium and I froze. The Octagon is always lovely and warm but, even in July, I always bring along winter woollies if I'm to be in the auditorium. Still, one must occasionally suffer for one's art and it is a small price to pay for working in such a splendid environment.