The strap

I consider it a successful term, by the standard of recent years, at the academy (formerly the high school). My goals were modest.  I wanted to correct the bad fingering technique of two eleven year old clarinettists by prevailing upon them to use a strap to hold the instrument.  The weight of the instrument means that young players invariably take the pressure off their right thumb by resting the side Eb/Bb key on the first knuckle of their index finger.  Not only does this prevent them from using this key, it also means that they can't reach the keys operated by the little finger of the right hand.

Their previous teacher, no doubt a pragmatist in search of a short-term solution, had taught them to play bottom F with the left hand. This is fine until the pupil needs to progress to playing bottom E and, dare I say it, cross the break into the clarino register. It took a while but now both girls use a clarinet strap and, optimist that I am, their index fingers will soon be employed to play, rather than support, the instrument.

The danger of straps is that children rely on them to hold the instrument unaided.  The site of a clarinet swinging from the thumbrest is unsettling to say the least.  And on the last day of term disaster struck.


I had told a young saxophonist on numerous occasions to 1. Put the strap around his neck before attaching the sax and 2. never let the instrument dangle.  While putting the strap, instrument attached, over his head the saxophone suddenly fell to the ground.  He was surprised that, in spite of having broken its fall with his foot, the instrument no longer played.  But not as surprised as he'll be when he gets the repair bill.

Playing Without Hearing (or The Importance of Good Monitoring)

There's a film called Baghdad Cafe (Percy Adlon, 1987) in which a child plays a piano keyboard that makes no sound, being just a two dimensional drawing on a piece of wood. I saw the device used more recently in Honeydipper (John Sayles, 2007). The idea is that as you run your fingers over the 'instrument' you imagine the imagine the sound. It can work as a solitary activity but is not much good for jamming with your mates.

Last night I was playing some new material with Eastern Straynotes in the wonderful 13th century crypt that is Jurnets Bar. The audience usually includes a large proportion of discerning musicians so it feels better than usual when things go well (and correspondingly worse when they go badly). The gig went went reasonably smoothly but in one of the numbers I was still working out the best harmony to put under our guest singer's vocal line. Whereas it had been possible to ad lib in rehearsal to good effect it had relied on being able to hear myself. In a small room, with plenty of reflection off the walls, this was easy. But in a much larger room full of people the lower register on the clarinet was lost in the general fog of frequencies dominated by the bass and accordion. Fortunately, like the silent pianists in the movies, I had a reasonable idea of how the notes would sound against the voice and just hoped any errors were inaudible.

This was by no means my first experience of being unable to hear myself when playing. The anatomy of a clarinet is such that the sound is directed away from the player. My tendency when this happens is to blow harder causing me to overblow and squawk horribly.

In the late 80s I played tenor and soprano saxes in a loud rock band for a time. They had taught me four songs a night for four nights and I'd made notes of the riffs and chord sequences on a piece of paper. The first gig was in a hall in south London and I taped the paper to my microphone stand. My memory of the gig is hazy for reasons I won't go into here but it went down well with the audience and I was very relieved to have got through it. The relief evaporated in Reading, the following night, when I realised I'd left my piece of paper attached to the mic stand. One of the roadies, not understanding its significance, had thrown it away when he folded the stand.

I spent the next year that I spent with the band trying to remember everything I was supposed to do. We never rehearsed again, but the task was made next to impossible by my inability to hear myself play most of the time. The guitarist's Marshall stack was positioned against the back wall each night, just a short distance behind me. No matter how hard I blew there was no way I could compete with that and whenever the sound engineer turned up my microphone to a level where I could hear myself as well the sound from the monitor speaker on the floor would feed back through the system causing that deafening shriek with which you must be all too familiar. And so that was where I learned to play by the position of my fingers alone.

Some nights I could hear myself, as could the audience. Some nights I couldn't be heard at all. But I've no doubt that the worst nights were those on which I could be heard by everyone except me. Any person with half a brain would shut up and mime but I just kept on trying.

Hot Mikado

Tonight Hot Mikado, by one Rob Bowman, opens at a local high school where I teach woodwind. It's a musical of the kind the school stages on a yearly basis. Based on Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, it was written in the 1980s in the style of the 1940s. This makes for an interesting libretto with its satire on the British political and imperial system of the Victorian era mixed with cultural references from the swing era - Roosevelt's New Deal for example - along with a 1980s slant: 'We don't need your disco sound' chirrups the chorus.

Having been late for the first band call (other work commitments), missed most of the second (another gig) and unable to make the dress rehearsal (a heavy cold, real humdinger) I find myself approaching the first night feeling somewhat unprepared. Practice has been all but impossible but, in the best showbiz traditions, the show must go on. And so it shall. The part I was given calls for flute, clarinet and alto sax. Fortunately someone else has taken on the flute elements. Some of the changes are very quick and the shortest allows a minim rest (no more than a second in that particular piece) to switch from flute to alto.

The original operetta has a personal resonance as it is both the only G&S work I've seen live and the first live show of any kind that I attended. I was ten and the headmaster organised a music club for the six or seven fourth formers in the junior boarding house. One day he announced he was taking us to see a light opera and, when the day came, we duly went. What an eye-opener. The only live music I had experienced previously was the school piano as it bashed out hymns in morning assembly. The only stage show was the school nativity play. I was blown away and the experience was only eclipsed by seeing Hawkwind a few years later.

So I confess to being a little suspicious of Hot Mikado when it was announced. Not really being a fan of musicals I'd never heard of it and anticipated a dumbed down version of the real thing. A bit like a Hollywood history - the first casualty is the truth. But, although the libretto has the odd cringe worthy moment (as I'm sure would the original if I listened again), the music is good. In fact the best numbers are the ones Sullivan wrote and Rob Bowman messed with. Hot, certainly. Fun, fast and furious. I just hope, for my sake and everyone else's, I can reproduce it satisfactorily tonight.

Sauna acoustics

I have mentioned a rather special building in the past. It is a sauna constructed primarily in plywood in the shape of an icosahedron. I have spent many happy hours in there over the years and have heard speech, laughter, chant and song within its walls (sides?). On my last visit I was treated to some very atmospheric didgeridoo playing late one night around the full moon. This prompted me to try out the acoustic with my clarinet.

I visited in the morning, when it was cool, and set up my recorder. I then began noodling on a folky theme in (concert) D dorian which allows me to drop down to what is, for me as a Bb clarinetist, known as bottom E. A few snaps, some fun in Windows Movie Maker and result awaits below.

From the point of view of the musician I found the acoustic supportive while playing but with a very rapid decay of any reverberations. Parallel surfaces are avoided when building recording studios as they prevent standing waves from making echoes, all of which are added later to give the required sound characteristics. Although the plywood that makes up the sauna is reflective, very little of the surface area is parallel to any other side of the structure. So, unlike most indoor spaces, it has no sympathetic resonances reinforcing the volume of certain notes. Most producers and recording engineers would agree that a sympathetic natural reverb like this is preferable to one applied solely after the event. And the vibe in a studio is unlikely ever to match this sauna. I could have added a flattering 'atmosphere' but prefer it like this.

Working with children and animals

The old Hollywood adage is never to work with either. I played for a tiny family gathering today with Andy the guitarist. It was suggested we play under a tree next to the hens. Birds seem to like wind instruments in a way that mammals don't. These chickens were singing along merrily so I asked a boy of about eleven to take a picture with instructions to get the chickens in the shot. 'Take as many as you like,' I said. When I got home and looked at the camera I found 230 pictures, only one of which had the birds in shot.

In retrospect their voices didn't carry especially well. We weren't using amplification apart from a little boost to Andy's nylon stringed guitar. However, I appreciated their moral support and they certainly gave us a stage presence we may otherwise have lacked.

The Serenade

Last night Andy Kirkham and I played at Dunston Hall's brasserie. Dunston Hall is a large hotel, conference centre and golf course just south of Norwich. We used to play there once a month on rotation with some other outfits before the credit crunch. "Jazz every Friday" became "jazz on the last Friday of the month" so now we play there two or three times a year.

Our primary function is to look good against the pot plants and décor so DJs and bow ties are mandatory. The volume must be such that conversation flows easily over the music but any gaps are not awkward.

The diners in the vast room are hidden from us by screens. We face the entrance so see them as they arrive and when they leave. A few we see as they wander past to get their food. Some are old and shuffling, others are young and preening but none seem immune from attempting a dance step or shimmy as they pass in front of the musicians. (Our smiles were warm and indulgent.) Beyond that our presence is rarely acknowledged.

Last night, for the first time ever, we were asked to play 'Happy Birthday'. This is a harder tune than you may think as the melody begins on the dominant and it's easy to end up with a sharpened fourth if one is careless. I have seen otherwise able players come unstuck. But we had practised this. The trouble was, we couldn't remember in what key.

Andy was all for doing it in E but that meant six sharps for me on the clarinet. I insisted on Bb - after all, he only had to bash out three chords, albeit without a strap. In the even the party began singing (in Eb) as soon as they saw us approaching so we had to join in. We then played it for them in C - much too low - and have agreed F as a key for the future. I'll learn it in E too as we're sure to have forgotten by next time.

Other diners obviously took note and later we blessed an engaged couple and another table's special occasion although I never learned the cause for celebration. No doubt things will return to normal when we go back in October.

Now, having seen the photograph, you may wonder what on earth possessed three tables to invite us to play to them close up. But then you're probably sober.

The Albatros

Continuing the 'favourite unusual venues' theme I was pleased to see one them moored in the harbour in Wells-nest-the-Sea last weekend. The Albatros is a Dutch merchant vessel built at the end of the nineteenth century. I've played on it a couple of times, once in Great Yarmouth for some nautical festival or other and again in Wells when Ton, the captain, was experimenting with running a café/bar on board.

It's a cramped venue - a three piece is possible but only just. On both occasions I began on deck and ended up downstairs where I abandoned attempts to play the tenor sax and stuck with the clarinet. I remember in Wells it was threatening rain and when I felt a couple of drops I thought it must be starting. I discovered, however, that the drops were not coming from clouds but from a flock of starlings perched in the rigging. I've been pelted with other things at gigs but that was definitely a first. Very good luck, of course.

Ton seems to have settled into the real ale and Dutch pancake business and I noticed he still puts bands on. He was late getting back to the ship with the shopping when I met him on Staithe Street so didn't ask about a gig. But it turns out that Sandra, our new bassist, was the cook on the Albatros on a few voyages so I imagine it's on the cards.

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.

Norwich Puppet Theatre

I've just visited one of my favourite venues, Norwich Puppet Theatre, to play for Indefinite Articles' Pinocchio. Steve Tiplady is a fine performer whom I've worked with many times. His shows always give the impression of barely managed chaos, Pinocchio being no exception, and this alarmed me at first. Now I realise that it's just his way and he can bring the audience back in the blink of an eye.

For this show I play as the audience enters the auditorium and is seated. This can take ten minutes or so. I used to use soprano or alto saxophone for this but now I favour the clarinet. It can cut through a din if it needs to but can also play right on the edge of audibility. This is a great opportunity to play whatever I'm feeling; whatever the space suggests. For young children I usually start of in a major pentatonic - calm and unthreatening - but by the end I might be running through a klezmer tune or two. The show itself also features Tibetan temple bells and, for the first time today, a rather strange instrument that I used to use when touring with Baobab Theatre. Always a favourite with children it's very good for making the sound of frogs, crickets and squeaky doors. However, if you hold the stick and twirl the little drum (really just an amplifier) on the end of the length of fishing line it roars like a hurricane or strange beast. I wish I could remember its name.
The wonderful thing about the Norwich Puppet Theatre is that it also acts as a puppet museum with puppets from the last thirty years of shows displayed and hung from every available piece of wall. A truly magical place to visit, although the thought of staying in there on my own for a night gives me the shivers. It is hired for seances from time to time, if that's the right word, and is popular with ghost hunters too. Some very brave souls work there.