Promenaders

Last week I went to four Proms over the course of seven days. For those that don't know, the Proms are a series of concerts that happen every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. They are truly epic with a concert happening every night, sometimes twice an evening and with afternoon concerts on Saturdays. Extraordinary music, extraordinary performances, and the chance to see people you wouldn't normally be able to for a totally reasonable price. (I can't tell you how bummed I am that I missed Steve Reich. Man.) The concerts are broadcast on BBC radio 3 and some of them are filmed for television as well.

Royal Albert Hall is a giant tube of a building, and for the proms the centre circle of seats are taken out and the resulting flat floor space becomes the arena for standing room tickets that you queue up for and then pay £5 for on the day. The proms are named after the standing promenaders that fill up the arena. (Pronunciation Tip: promenAHders not promenAYders)

Last Thursday Meredith played her first ever prom as part of one of her trials. Being the good and dutiful friend that I am, I agreed to come listen and stand for the duration of the concert. I arrived about half an hour before the concert, jumped into the little queue, paid my £5, wandered past a cellist warming up on the staircase ("Nowhere else to sit!")  and then wandered back and forth trying to find the door to the hall (I expected it would be propped open, it wasn't. I felt more than a little stupid when I eventually figured out that just because the doors were closed, that didn't mean that they were locked...), up another small set of stairs and ta-dah! The arena.

Royal Albert Hall is a little overpowering. Ornate and large and filled with people. I hunkered down in my chosen floor spot, but it wasn't long before I realised that I knew the man over there to the left with the little round glasses. Peter conducted the baroque ensemble that I performed with a bit last year and he is a lovely guy. He has a season ticket to the proms and shows up nearly every night over the summer.

Season ticket holders have their own queue and have a guaranteed spot in the arcade as long as they show up at least 20 minutes before the show begins. This is significant when the lines are super long and wrap around the entire block since only about 1,000 people can fit in the arcade. (Or 700? I've heard conflicting accounts of the capacity.) Season ticket holders, it turns out, are their own special breed.

When I went to Peabody my favourite game to play during audition week was, "guess the instrument." It worked best when they weren't carrying their instrument and you had to guess entirely based on looks and how they moved. (Best. Game. EVER.) Sometimes specific instruments were difficult to pick out (harp, flute, and singer have only subtle differences) but I had a 100% success rate with guessing the genre. Jazzers look significantly different to orchestral musicians, and early music geeks have distinctive hair. (I'm so not even kidding about that.) My point with all of this is that Peter claims you can pick out Season Ticket holders. (More or less, some of them are tough if they work in offices and have to wear a suit.) That being said, if the fellow in question has a lengthy beard and is wearing a cycling outfit: that's a season ticket holder.

Being new to this whole environment (Thursday was my second Prom ever, I went to one last year but that is it.) I asked Peter to explain some of the Prommer culture. There's a passel of hardcore prommers who all have season tickets. They stand up at the front, stage left. At the end of the interval they stand up and, with their chests puffed up tio the sky, chant in awkward and weirdly scanning unison: "Arena. to. audience: promenaders. will be. collecting. for. musical. charities. after. the. concert. So far. you have. donAted. over. (Wednesday it was £40,000) pounds.  Thank you."

There are weird little regulars' tics as well:

You can get season tickets or day tickets to stand up at the top of the hall in the gallery as well as in the arena, ("Why would you do that? You can't hear anything from up there!") and whenever the lid of a piano is opened, say for a piano concerto, then the arena hollers, "heave!" and the gallery responds back, "ho!"

If the concertmaster then gets an A from the piano instead of from he oboist- then everyone applauds.

There was, for many many years, a fountain in the middle of the arena. This fountain has been removed this year and there are some people who are not pleased. These people also happen to be season ticket holders of good standing and lengthy service, so they've started a petition. Some even wear T-shirts with the fountain printed on them. Peter, being the crotchety old man he's not old enough to be yet, is stubbornly against signing the petition.

As Peter was explaining the ins and outs of the Proms, another season ticket holder joined in our conversation. Alex is a Classicist. His PhD has something to do with the god Aries and associated war gods. Alex is nocturnal and wakes up in time to come to the concerts, so he talks about getting lunch after the show.



On Wednesday the London Philharmonia was playing, so I went to that as well because I don't pass up opportunities to see Gwen perform. I had been having a lovely picnic with friends in Kensington Gardens (I learned how to bowl for cricket!) and then leisurely walked over to the hall intending to check out what the programme was going to be. Except the line was unexpectedly long and an hour and a half before the concert already went around two corners and halfway up the third side of the block. Did I mention it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella? I was very wet when I made it in, but I still made it.

My first summer in Britain I had the opportunity to play a Handel Opera in a residency programme out in  the countryside somewhere. It was delightful and a powerful learning experience; being completely immersed in baroque recitative meant that for the first time I understood it, and how to play it and how the form of the music seriously affected how the bow needed to be used and where the emphasis of the phrases were and all that. It was fabulous and I got it.


This week of concert going has resulted in a similar realisation- as soon as the Philharmonia started playing the penny dropped- orchestras sound different to each other. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't GET it before that concert started. The basses are amazing and there were all these textures that I could pick out and hear and they were smiling and in to it and it was totally delightful in a way that was unique to that week.

So that's what I've been up to.

New Tykes!

There's always space for more tykes, right? Well, now on some Sundays each month I trek all the way out to Harrow to be a Kodaly/singing teacher and theory teacher for a studio of 3-8 year old Suzuki violin students. The 1.5 hour schlep each way? Totally worth it. Goodness, that was fun.

There are two groups of children, the beginner and generally younger A group; and the older and more advanced B group. The teacher whose studio this is is also Dalcroze trained, so she's taking care of that with half the group while I've got the other half for singing. It's meant to be Kodaly based, but I know very little of that- so we're just doing a lot of singing instead. (Close enough.)

I started with the older B group where I began teaching a song I learned in an Orff workshop (bringing all sorts of music education strands together!), it's a Japanese dancing game that is excellent for working on both a sense of pitch and sense of rhythm. Actually I didn't start with that, first we talked about how all of the notes have names (Do Re Mi, etc.) and that we would use two of those to learn each other's names. So we sang this "hello" taunt (it's really just a chant on two pitches, but since it uses only Sol and Mi it ends up sounding like playground teasing: "nyah nyah nyah nyah" You know.) We even used Kodaly hand positions! (Though that is really the extent of my knowledge right there.)

Then we moved into the Orff dancing song and I had them bounce tennis balls around the circle (though passing is a skill they don't have yet, so really just a group of them bouncing the tennis balls while everyone else sings) which is a Dalcroze thing to do. All this for a Suzuki studio! Music education theories ALL OVER THE PLACE! 

Suddenly my 40 minutes with them were done and in trooped a group of 3-5 year olds. Well, hello there age group I have two years of experience with! Not gonna lie, I kind of made up my lesson plan as I went along. I figured to get started I'd do my favourite vocal warm up- The *MAGICAL* Stew Pot (I just made up that name. Right there.) which is a miming game that works on phonics sounds as well as warming up the voice and the jaw. Children choose what to throw into the soup pot (this group was the most reasonable I'd ever had- all were thoughtful soup ingredients; no Christmas trees or chairs or dragons to be found. That being said the soup did contain noodles, pasta, AND spaghetti. If I remember correctly, all three of which were offered by the same girl at different points.)

We then did the same hello business with Sol and Mi and, because I had the picture cards with me, we did the same fairy tale based Do You Know The Story song that I've been doing at school. I love the Drunken Sailor tune, and the the picture cards! They're so brightly coloured! 

Suddenly those 40 minutes were over as well! 

One of the mothers came over to where I had been sitting on the floor with the children and bent down so that her face was inches from mine, "You're a very good teacher," she said, in such a stern voice that for a second I didn't understand that she wasn't cross with me. "You have them..." and here she gestured to her hand. I was honoured. And belatedly realized that I hadn't even had to tell any of the children to settle down or to stop poking their neighbor. I think I want to work with Suzuki trained children all the time. They were brilliant. 

A ten minute break later and the older, group B were back in my room for theory. I went ahead and asked them as many questions as I could think of, drawing on a laminated, blank piece of paper I was grateful I'd taken with me. (Portable white boards are useful things to have...) Yes to clefs, no to key signatures, yes to note names, no to time signatures. Guys, I have be dying to teach theory for ages now. I'm so excited about this class. I ended up dividing the class into two, setting up a tic-tac-toe/naughts and crosses board made up of various note values and letting each team choose where they wanted to go. If they could answer some questions I thought up on the spot about those notes- then they could put their marker down. 

In practice, they always got it right because if they didn't I would pause the game and make sure everyone understood (either through another diagram or through walking it out (yay Dalcroze!) or through verbal/aural explanation). They were clever enough in playing the game that it was a draw (as all good tic-tac-toe games are) and then those 40 minutes were done as well. 

I caught the wrong bus, took it to the end of the line and back again while trying to get to the first of the trains that would get me home. It is a mission to get there, but THIS. THESE are the kids I want to teach. These are the kids I've been waiting to teach. 

I had a freaking wonderful first day. 

New Years in the North

Nik and I went to Newcastle for New Years: I met a cavalcade of his friends, all of whom are full of inside jokes, laughter, enthusiasm, and possibly too much energy. Over two days we were at three different families' homes, played numerous board games (most of which were either collaborative in design or possible to steer towards collaboration, much to my delight), played an epic 2010 quiz, ate heaps of delicious food, and had a wonderful walk right after mid-night through an old, icy train track (sounds dangerous; wasn't).

I thought they were wonderful.

Definitely looking forward to seeing them again and hanging out more, but for now, let's move on to the nostalgia part of things.

In 1994 my family took a trip to England. This was our first big international trip and it was a Big. Deal. We still talk about it regularly and it certainly looms large in my memory. (Can't speak for the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure that sentiment is shared.) One of my very favourite parts of the trip was going to Durham.

Laine and I had just finished 4th grade where we had learned about Castles. (Fantasy novel obsessed 9 year old Casey was very into this topic.) I still have vivid memories of what was probably my favourite project of all of fourth grade: designing and stocking a castle keep. (Combining two of my then favourite activities: drawing and designing things that were theoretically worth money and grocery shopping.)

The train into Durham has a magnificent view of the castle and the cathedral. As the story goes we stood on the platform looking at the castle and my dad told me that is was our hotel. Being sharper than your average rolling pin, I didn't believe him. Once he convinced me that, yes, we really were staying at the castle I'm pretty sure it is safe to assume I started bouncing up and down.

The castle is now part of Durham university and parts of it are used for university housing. Since we were there during the summer, they rented out the rooms to tourists. I remember worn stone staircases, bathrooms down the corridor, a wide hallway with places for me to perch (a windowsill?), creaky wooden stairs on the way down to the cafeteria with banisters topped by "pineapples" carved without having seen the fruit but only having heard a description, and telling my dad all about the arrow loops.

"Cakes, you know those are real arrow loops, right?"

".... !!"

Mind blowing stuff.

Oh, right. Nik. Here's how Nik works into this story- he spent sixth form living in Durham, it's where he met all the wonderful people from the beginning of this post. His mother was working at the Cathedral and so while the family lived in Durham Nik and his brother worked as vergers there. This was excellent for me because it meant that I had an extremely knowledgeable tour guide to lead me around. I was also pleased to meet some of the people from stories I've been hearing about his time working there.

It was a wonderful, wonderful day and because they were the cheapest tickets, when we took the train back to London, it was in First Class. Nice.

L to R: Castle, Cathedral, Me

Games! Games! Games!

Oh Sandpit. I love you. For those of you who don't know, Sandpit is a monthly (more or less) event put on by an organization called Hide & Seek, and it is a testing ground for pervasive games. If you search for a definition of pervasive games on Wikipedia it redirects to location-based games which I'm not totally sure I agree with, but close enough. Point being, FUN! and PEOPLE MY AGE! and WHEEE! I love Sandpits because to me they feel like a networking event at a convention for interesting people doing interesting things. Case in point, on Wednesday I met this guy, who was getting spooked because so many people were recognizing him on the internet. I also had some great conversations with a pair of people who do satirical theatre events in North London, a tourist from LA who was stoked that he chose this time to come visit the ICA gallery (where this month's sandpit was based), and one of the people who run The Fun Fed. And those are just the *new* people I met, I'm already friendly with about, maybe 10%? of the folks who show up to these things.

So the way it is organized is that you show up and you are given a schedule and description of the games being played that night. Then you choose which one's you want to play and you go to the reception table thing and get stickers for 2 games. They've been having trouble at the last few events because there have been way too many people for the number of games planned. So this month they beefed up their offerings and overshot a little bit. This doesn't bother me because it meant that I ended up getting to play 5 games. Well, except that the last one was oversubscribed again (people were just showing up without having stickers) so we split the group in two and instead of playing I ended up leading the second group.

I remember what I played because I've still got the row of stickers attached to my T-shirt:

7:00-7:30: Fun Fed - outdoor games that basically boil down to "warm up activities for workshops" and/or "team building exercises." (My favourites.) There were only four of us who managed to get out there for the first time slot so that was lovely but then I had to leave early to get to...

7:30-8:00: Pavement Wars- one team was on lines and the other on cement squares. Each team had a "king" surrounded by the other team and though we could only move one person 2 spaces (lines or cement squares) each turn we had to get to reach the king and have the whole team hold hands at once.

8:30-9:00: Sangre Y Patatas- run by a guy who has developed this game as an iPhone app we were in a black box theatre with bells hung from the ceiling. Everyone had their eyes closed and whenever you bumped into someone you had to say "patatas" if you were a benign potato or "sangre" if you were the monster. Every time the potatoes bumped into the monster the potato died loudly and dramatically. (or quietly saying "oh, crap.") This was actually hilarious and amazing. Our group was so big that after the first free for all we were broken up into three mini sessions and timed to see which monster could get the potatoes out fastest.

9:00-9:30: Fun Fed- I went back again but this time there were more people and it was awesome.

10:00: Werewolf- this one is a tradition at Sandpit events. I gather that they keep trying to not do it but then get yelled at so they keep putting it on. It is "Mafia" but where the evil creatures are werewolves instead. At the planning meetings for Montreat in 2001/2002 we played this every night, so I'm familiar with it. Basically you get a group in a circle and give everyone a secret role- werewolf, villager, seer, or healer. Then each night (everyone puts their heads down) the werewolves decide who to kill, the healer decided who to save, and the seer gets to find out which players are werewolves. Then when everyone wakes up (opens eyes) they are told who was brutally eaten by werewolves and then get to start wildly accusing/defending the other players until they eventually decide on one person to lynch. (This game is rather violent, isn't it?) If the werewolves are convincing enough they can win, if the villagers are clever enough and figure it out- they win.

So that was the games. It was well good.