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.

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.

Five Rhythms

I have just returned from a week-long camp held annually as a celebration of the midsummer solstice. It takes place in a beautiful meadow full of clover, buttercups and a variety of grasses as well as some wonderful mature trees including oak, beech, hawthorn and pine. There is also a tall conifer I am told is a Wellingtonia.

There were about seventy people in total and we camped in three circles, each with a fire pit in the middle for communal cooking and social focus. It was a closed camp (no visitors) increasing the sense of a shared experience. The beautiful setting and perfect weather made for an idyllic few days.

A prominent feature of the camp is Five Rhythms dancing. This is a new age dance form devised by Gabrielle Roth. Imagine good old fashioned 'freaking out' (for those of us who danced to prog rock in the 70s) combined with little bits of Chinese five element theory and a smattering of other ideas. Some describe it as a spiritual journey, others as a dance form for people who can't dance.

Playing music for it is surprisingly demanding. Each of the five movements can last fifteen minutes or longer, depending on the whim of the teacher. Our ensemble comprised three musicians playing, between them, djembes, balafon, assorted percussion and guitar. I dabbled in most of these, except the guitar, and added clarinet, alto saxophone and both bamboo and orchestral flute.

The music was entirely improvised but we agreed on keys and time signatures before hand. Although the dances took place in a marquee, our rehearsals were held in a mud structure based on an iron age round house which had a wonderfully warm acoustic. Each movement presents its own challenges. The first movement, Flowing, is usually played in 5:4 or 7:4 and this can take some getting used to when playing a melody instrument. The third movement, Chaos, is far more ordered than its name suggests and needs to build to a crescendo. however, building to this over several minutes requires both concentration and strong communication between the musicians.

I am pleased to say that we played for a total of five waves (each dance through the five rhythms is called a wave) and played something different each time, even when the teacher sprang a second one on us in the last session. Our three part singing on one rendition of Lyrical (the fourth movement) went down particularly well.

Afterwards the wonderful sauna on the field, built in the shape of an icosahedron, beckoned.

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.

Balafon fun in the Plantation Garden

Last week, with other artists and teaching staff, I took a group of nine and ten year olds to Norwich's Plantation Garden, a former quarry transformed by a Victorian gentleman. We were exploring, very loosely, the concept of sacred space and contrasting the Garden with the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the adjacent plot. The former represents one man's vision while the latter is more corporate in its design and execution.

We had a great time in the Garden, playing with mirrors, pinhole cameras and magnifying glasses. (This was about seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.) There is a gothic fountain with frogs and fish and we took samples to view through microscopes.

So what was a musician doing there? Well, partly it was about cross-disciplinary exchange and I very much enjoyed that. But my own contribution, besides a magnifying glass grabbed as an afterthought as I left home, was an old wooden xylophone. I brought two pairs of beaters and just the notes C D E F# & A as well as the same notes an octave higher. I could have chosen any other pentatonic scale: the beauty of pentatonic scales is that there are no 'wrong' notes and it is easier to generate sonorous harmonies.

When the time feels right I sit in the sun playing the instrument until it catches a child's attention. I then teach them to play a simple game based on West African balafon technique which needs two people. By now someone else wants a go so I relinquish my beaters and help them get started. From here on in it's just a matter of making sure everyone gets a turn. Occasionally I remind them of the game but they are often happy just enjoying the sound, making up their own games or playing random notes in time with each other. The sound drifts around the garden.

I have yet to play here officially but my friend Andy Kirkham, whom I play with in Eastern Straynotes, has played in the Plantation Garden for weddings. I look forward to my own turn. Oh, and the balafon game will be Game of the Month at www.playwithsound.com in April. I'll describe it and suggest some possible applications.

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.

Playing in a space with no electricity

Do you enjoy listening or performing in unusual venues? I've always been drawn to them. They bring their own challenges of course. Access, space, light and power for a start. And then acoustics and audience sight lines. A few Fridays ago I played in a mud building based on an Iron Age round house, deep in the Norfolk countryside. And when I say deep I'm not just using a cliché; the mud promised to be deep and sticky and it didn't disappoint. And, usually for a venue, there is no outside light. So, a dark, muddy access. But the space inside is lovely with a wood burning stove that throws out a good heat. And there is no electricity – just candle light – and I just love that. The acoustic is warm and only slightly reverberant on account of wooden dance floor. The musicians stand on the stone flags by the wood burning stove and, while the dancers learn the steps for the next dance, they attend to the mulled wine.

So that just leaves sight lines. I feel I've used the word 'unusual' a little often but, except for a pit band at the theatre, how often are the musicians placed at a level below the dance floor? On this occasion the audience is there to dance, not to watch the band. Circle dancing to be precise. And I just love playing for dancers, too.