At last - The Tomb of Spirits

All the rewrites and timing alterations are complete and 'The Tomb of Spirits' opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge at 2pm today.  Here are some photos from the last rehearsal I attended, which featured half a dozen or so students coming in to photograph the proceedings.

The three cues are all very long, the third over16 minutes, but I will post an extract or two in the near future.

Teaching and performance commitments in Norfolk make it impossible to attend but I shall be thinking of Sally Brown, Anthony Best and director Steve Tiplady at two o'clock this afternoon.

A very old flute indeed

Another from the BBC: Apparently archaeologists have discovered flutes made from bird and mammoth bone. The flutes, from a cave close to the River Danube in southern Germany, are about 45,000 years old.  The BBC article is here while the source article is from The Journal of Human Evolution.

The picture, of one of the flutes from two angles, suggests a swannee whistle but I'm pretty sure that what appears to be a stick protruding from the bottom of the instrument is just a label.

Why the British talk about the weather

My first real brush with the outdoors this year involved a weekend at what will be this year's Midsummer Camp venue.  The last weekend in April and, although not especially cold, it never really stopped raining.  Blind optimism, poor judgement and bad luck caused me to turn up with a strange tent and no car to retreat (or escape in).  And I quickly discovered that my tent had no fly-sheet.

The following weekend was to be the Body Land Movement dance event in Cambridgeshire (see recent post).  I was looking forward to this but confess I didn't fancy another wet camping experience, even though we had been allocated a yurt and the site boasts a kick-ass sauna. And there was another reason why I was apprehensive.

A highlight of the wet weekend in Suffolk was watching a mediaeval band, in costume, playing wonderful music. An experience made all the sweeter by the knowledge that I was about to be rescued from a second wet night in a horse shelter.  One of the players complained of cold hands so, in a fit of mediaeval chivalry, I proffered my hand-warmers.  These garments, a gift from my daughter, make playing outside possible at all times of year.  And now I'll be without them until I return to Suffolk in mid-June.

But just as it looked like the rain would hold off, in spite of near-zero temperatures, and the dance weekend would go ahead, news reached us from Cambridgeshire.  The river had burst its banks, flooding the woodland where we were to camp and hold the workshops. The dance floor and the main infrastructure was unaffected but parking, camping and walking about would be impossible.

Now, only two or three weeks later, we have blazing sunshine and temperatures in the mid twenties.  And who knows what it will be like in September when the re-scheduled event takes place? So, if there's nothing else to talk about in Britain, there's always the weather.

That's the kitchen on the right.  Drinks by the pool, anyone?

Procrastination

It's about time I posted.  It's been a busy week with three shows on the go, two in rehearsal and a 'show and tell' session about the R&D (research and development) for Pied Piper.  But I'm a firm believer in procrastination; it allows time for assimilation and for fresh ideas to appear.

So I've been doodling. I first came across Norwich based artist Sarah Beare when I saw an animation of hers at the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts. It had been made for an exhibition called 'Unearthed' which featured Japanese and European figurines from the early Stone Age. Sarah's animated figure was a response to that.

More recently she has been making small silver figures, a mere 31mm long, called Dolossies.  Last year Sarah made an animation to illustrate and explore their potential.  The animation was silent but, we agreed, crying out for sound.  So I took Sarah's starting point - hitting a bunch of keys - and had a go.  And, as it is such a short piece, I had two more attempts. My intention was to take a very different approach each time but somehow I kept mining the same vein.

If you're interested in the figures, and other larger figures being specially manufactured in China to Sarah's specifications, then she has a website. And Sarah's blog, which tells the story of the figures as it unfolds, is at http://www.sarah-beare.blogspot.co.uk/

Each clip is only 35 seconds long.

Playing outdoors

So much to write about. A new piece of kit, a malfunctioning microphone, selecting tin whistles and, in respect of the whistles, the start of the R&D (research and development) week for The Pied Piper tomorrow.

But all that in good time.  Today I drove across to a piece of woodland south-west of Cambridge where I'll playing for a weekend of expressive dance over the first weekend in May.  It takes place in beautiful woodland with a dance floor in the trees, roofed but not walled, and involves the participants camping in clearings.  Most importantly, the site has a spacious and very effective sauna.


Today's meeting was primarily to connect with the space.  Much as I enjoy playing jazz in gardens for weddings, there is nothing quite like improvising in response to the environment and the moving human body. The Romans used to leave offerings to the genii loci, meaning the spirits of the place.  It is curious that the music I play on this site is completely different from that which comes to me at other sites.  Everywhere has a different  vibe.

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.

The Tomb of Spirits

Another show for the Fitzwilliam Museum is coming together nicely. Last Friday I went over to Cambridge to see how The Tomb of Spirits was developing and to discuss the audio requirements. The exhibition which runs alongside the show is of Han dynasty tomb goods from two tombs: a minor king and an emperor's brother.

Since I got back I've been recording dew drops falling into a jade bowl, entombed to make sure the deceased did not go thirsty in the afterlife. Not having a jade bowl to hand I tried a singing bowl and a pyrex dish before settling on an IKEA soup bowl. The challenge is to get the quiet drips recorded above the 'noise floor', the background hiss of the recording gear.

There will be plenty of scope for bamboo flute, dulcimer and Chinese percussion. A search for Chinese music on YouTube yielded some disappointingly cheesy results until I remembered The Guo Brothers who set the bar very high. If I can recreate even a flavour of what they have done I shall be very happy.