I realized on the bus ride to class today that it would be a brilliant idea to bring Halloween candy to school-- so I nipped off to a Tesco Express but they didn't have any Halloween candy (oddly they did have many, many advent calendars). Instead I bought a box of assorted cadbury's mini bars which is basically the right thing, plus- for some reason all of the pictures of the types of chocolate inside had costumes on- close enough for me!
People were very happy to eat the chocolate, laughed at me for calling it "candy," and then ate some more chocolate. I ran into the 1st years at lunch time and passed it around there too. Amazing how popular chocolate can make you...
Friday, October 31, 2008
Things to catch up on
I've had a list in my notebook for a week about things about which I really must blog. But it's just been sitting there for ages... so here you go:
1. In improvisation class we have been working on chord progressions and becoming comfortable improvising over them. This can be quite intimidating, particularly if your bass keeps going out of tune so notes aren't really where you expect them to be... but on Tuesday I had a couple of eureka moments and actually sat down on the floor to scribble down thoughts during the middle of class.
Improvisation is about making a statement, having something to say and saying it with confidence-- even if it is in a structured improvisation. I've become comfortable with STATEMENTS in free improvisation where you can really screw up- but of course you can also say something in a structured environment. This had literally never occurred to me before. Also- there is communication between the soloist and the rhythm section; just like in free improvisation you can have a conversation, play off of each other, communicate something through the playing of the solo. I mean, duh. But a new duh.
2. Last Friday we had a day long class at the London Contemporary Dance School. I'm madly in love with that place. I'll tell you more in another post but what I want to tell you here is that after class (the school is by Euston and King's Cross) and before the Stockhausen concert Emma, Jo, Michael and I went to go find tasty vegetarian food. I lugged the bass quite a ways and was like "Michael! Where are you taking us?!" when we arrived at Ravi Shankar. I tried to tell them that my family had eaten here and they met my teacher/mentor but I hadn't really met my teacher/mentor yet and the story all got very convoluted except that I was able to get across that a smoking viol had been involved...
The waiters loved that the bass was there. They moved a table so that he (this bass is a he. I've never had a male bass before) could have a place to lean in the corner and then one of the waiters in particular kept coming by to ask more questions about it. It was cute.
3. This weekend Latana and Ella and I were all at home which is a bit of a rarity. We were cleaning the flat and got the storage space under the stairs all cleaned out and organized so that there is no longer I giant mound of stuff in front of it. Well done us. We also were giggly all day long and roamed about the flat doing a bit of yoga on the ground floor landing and eventually singing pop songs from the 30's and 50's at the piano in Latana's room. Have I mentioned that I have the best flatmates?
4. Last Saturday was Kate's friend Cos's birthday party to which I was invited. I wasn't really planning on going but then I got this manic phone call from Kate and Simon who it turned out were right outside our flat. They were a bit lost so borrowed my map and dragged me along to the party which turned out to be marvelous. Lots of Cos's friends in bands singing various odes, lots of bouncing around dancing and generally being a bit ridiculous. Much more fun than sitting at home.
1. In improvisation class we have been working on chord progressions and becoming comfortable improvising over them. This can be quite intimidating, particularly if your bass keeps going out of tune so notes aren't really where you expect them to be... but on Tuesday I had a couple of eureka moments and actually sat down on the floor to scribble down thoughts during the middle of class.
Improvisation is about making a statement, having something to say and saying it with confidence-- even if it is in a structured improvisation. I've become comfortable with STATEMENTS in free improvisation where you can really screw up- but of course you can also say something in a structured environment. This had literally never occurred to me before. Also- there is communication between the soloist and the rhythm section; just like in free improvisation you can have a conversation, play off of each other, communicate something through the playing of the solo. I mean, duh. But a new duh.
2. Last Friday we had a day long class at the London Contemporary Dance School. I'm madly in love with that place. I'll tell you more in another post but what I want to tell you here is that after class (the school is by Euston and King's Cross) and before the Stockhausen concert Emma, Jo, Michael and I went to go find tasty vegetarian food. I lugged the bass quite a ways and was like "Michael! Where are you taking us?!" when we arrived at Ravi Shankar. I tried to tell them that my family had eaten here and they met my teacher/mentor but I hadn't really met my teacher/mentor yet and the story all got very convoluted except that I was able to get across that a smoking viol had been involved...
The waiters loved that the bass was there. They moved a table so that he (this bass is a he. I've never had a male bass before) could have a place to lean in the corner and then one of the waiters in particular kept coming by to ask more questions about it. It was cute.
3. This weekend Latana and Ella and I were all at home which is a bit of a rarity. We were cleaning the flat and got the storage space under the stairs all cleaned out and organized so that there is no longer I giant mound of stuff in front of it. Well done us. We also were giggly all day long and roamed about the flat doing a bit of yoga on the ground floor landing and eventually singing pop songs from the 30's and 50's at the piano in Latana's room. Have I mentioned that I have the best flatmates?
4. Last Saturday was Kate's friend Cos's birthday party to which I was invited. I wasn't really planning on going but then I got this manic phone call from Kate and Simon who it turned out were right outside our flat. They were a bit lost so borrowed my map and dragged me along to the party which turned out to be marvelous. Lots of Cos's friends in bands singing various odes, lots of bouncing around dancing and generally being a bit ridiculous. Much more fun than sitting at home.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Snow in London!
In October! What?!
I was heading to the bus stop after a long day of classes and a voice lesson and then a lecture when I discovered that it was snowing, in London, in October. Apparently this is the first time this has happened since 1934.
I love snow. It was sleeting at first which really just meant that everything was getting very wet and slippery and difficult to walk through the slush (much less cycle through it which is what Jon, who was walking with me, had to do). I took pictures with my phone of snow on glass awnings, snow covering the bus stop sign, snow on grass, and snow all over cars.
It was Diwali yesterday too so there were lights up all over Hackney which made for a *very* picturesque bus ride home.
This was the first time that Moises, my Spanish flat mate had ever seen snow...
This morning there were still patches on cars and bits of grass that were still in the shade.
I was heading to the bus stop after a long day of classes and a voice lesson and then a lecture when I discovered that it was snowing, in London, in October. Apparently this is the first time this has happened since 1934.
I love snow. It was sleeting at first which really just meant that everything was getting very wet and slippery and difficult to walk through the slush (much less cycle through it which is what Jon, who was walking with me, had to do). I took pictures with my phone of snow on glass awnings, snow covering the bus stop sign, snow on grass, and snow all over cars.
It was Diwali yesterday too so there were lights up all over Hackney which made for a *very* picturesque bus ride home.
This was the first time that Moises, my Spanish flat mate had ever seen snow...
This morning there were still patches on cars and bits of grass that were still in the shade.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Aus den Sieben Tagen
I went to a concert yesterday at Wilton's Music Hall which is this hidden, derelict hall right behind a primary school I did a workshop at. I hadn't realized it was still a usable building, but it is awfully pretty from the outside so I had taken a picture of it during the workshop. I was a bit surprised when I found the hall and realized that that was where the concert was. An organization called Cut and Splice (maybe it was a festival? Not sure) decided to perform all of the movements from Stockhausen's Aus den Sieben Tagen over the course of two days in that hall.
Do you know anything about Stockhausen? He died last year and is one of the most important figures in 20th/21st century Western Art music. My first encounters with his music happened at Peabody in my Music History IV course. We learned about his string quartet that includes four helicopters, which is pretty nuts.
As part of the History IV we could get extra credit for doing a performance of a 20th century piece in class. My friend Laura found the score for Aus den Sieben Tagen and decided that I should be part of the group that performed pieces from it. This was right up my alley as a couple of the pieces demand that you not practice or rehearse ahead of time- extra credit for making stuff up on the spot? You betcha! So that was my first encounter with Stockhausen and specifically playing Stockhausen.
The score is not particularly score like. There are no written notes, it is all text based and written with words. The instructions include things like- vibrate at the rhythm of your body. Vibrate at the rhythm of enlightenment. Vibrate at the rhythm of the universe. Alternate between them as quickly as you can. Imagine you have infinite time. So it's a little bit weird, and more than a little bit mystical. Stockhausen claimed that this music was not improvised, but rather intuited. In retrospect, performing a few movements from this work was actually my first experience with group improvisation (intuition. Whatever.) Which is pretty darn cool.
There is one movement in particular that has stuck with me since my first reading of the score and that is Gold Dust. In gold dust the ensemble has to be isolated in individual rooms for four days with the instructions to sleep as little as possible, eat nothing, drink as little as possible, and think as little as possible. The performance is meant to happen immediately after the ensemble emerge from their rooms. For obvious reasons this was not one of the movements that we performed for extra credit. However, since Cut & Splice were doing a complete performance they needed some people willing to perform it- which is where recently graduated composers come in handy...
I don't remember their names, but the two people who performed Gold Dust (on piano and guitar) are good friend's of Ella's. She had been worried about them for the entire four days they had been in isolation and so was on the edge of her seat when they arrived on stage.
I've never seen more a more bewildered performance or a sparser one. I think maybe only 12 notes were played over the course of five minutes. It was pretty extraordinary actually- because they were so present with what they were doing, and at the same time seemed to be almost wholly unaware of the audience. There was so much space but there was also so much happening in terms of their intensity in that space. When the lights came on again at the end of 5 minutes the pianist lifted his head (the first time either of them had looked up) and just looked so confused. They had to be helped off the stage. I saw them at the intermission and they seemed fine by that point though- so don't get too concerned on their behalfs. (behalves?)
The rest of the performance consisted of quite a lot of extended techniques and washes of mechanical sound. I had a headache after one movement performed by four bass clarinets and a tuba because it had been so high pitched and loud (think about that one for a second.) I think ultimately it was a very *interesting* performance, but not necessarily an enjoyable one. That being said I would certainly be up for seeing another ensemble's version.
I've been wondering if extended techniques are the fashionable vocabulary with which to realize these pieces. Because the thing is that I don't think the score really suggests extended techniques, though it does seem that straight forward jamming wouldn't really get to the heart of the matter either. Oh! You know what would be kind of a cool thing to try? Making a sample version where you find pieces that to you seem like they sound they vibrate at the rhythm of enlightenment or whatever and then stringing all of those together. I wonder what that would sound like...
Do you know anything about Stockhausen? He died last year and is one of the most important figures in 20th/21st century Western Art music. My first encounters with his music happened at Peabody in my Music History IV course. We learned about his string quartet that includes four helicopters, which is pretty nuts.
As part of the History IV we could get extra credit for doing a performance of a 20th century piece in class. My friend Laura found the score for Aus den Sieben Tagen and decided that I should be part of the group that performed pieces from it. This was right up my alley as a couple of the pieces demand that you not practice or rehearse ahead of time- extra credit for making stuff up on the spot? You betcha! So that was my first encounter with Stockhausen and specifically playing Stockhausen.
The score is not particularly score like. There are no written notes, it is all text based and written with words. The instructions include things like- vibrate at the rhythm of your body. Vibrate at the rhythm of enlightenment. Vibrate at the rhythm of the universe. Alternate between them as quickly as you can. Imagine you have infinite time. So it's a little bit weird, and more than a little bit mystical. Stockhausen claimed that this music was not improvised, but rather intuited. In retrospect, performing a few movements from this work was actually my first experience with group improvisation (intuition. Whatever.) Which is pretty darn cool.
There is one movement in particular that has stuck with me since my first reading of the score and that is Gold Dust. In gold dust the ensemble has to be isolated in individual rooms for four days with the instructions to sleep as little as possible, eat nothing, drink as little as possible, and think as little as possible. The performance is meant to happen immediately after the ensemble emerge from their rooms. For obvious reasons this was not one of the movements that we performed for extra credit. However, since Cut & Splice were doing a complete performance they needed some people willing to perform it- which is where recently graduated composers come in handy...
I don't remember their names, but the two people who performed Gold Dust (on piano and guitar) are good friend's of Ella's. She had been worried about them for the entire four days they had been in isolation and so was on the edge of her seat when they arrived on stage.
I've never seen more a more bewildered performance or a sparser one. I think maybe only 12 notes were played over the course of five minutes. It was pretty extraordinary actually- because they were so present with what they were doing, and at the same time seemed to be almost wholly unaware of the audience. There was so much space but there was also so much happening in terms of their intensity in that space. When the lights came on again at the end of 5 minutes the pianist lifted his head (the first time either of them had looked up) and just looked so confused. They had to be helped off the stage. I saw them at the intermission and they seemed fine by that point though- so don't get too concerned on their behalfs. (behalves?)
The rest of the performance consisted of quite a lot of extended techniques and washes of mechanical sound. I had a headache after one movement performed by four bass clarinets and a tuba because it had been so high pitched and loud (think about that one for a second.) I think ultimately it was a very *interesting* performance, but not necessarily an enjoyable one. That being said I would certainly be up for seeing another ensemble's version.
I've been wondering if extended techniques are the fashionable vocabulary with which to realize these pieces. Because the thing is that I don't think the score really suggests extended techniques, though it does seem that straight forward jamming wouldn't really get to the heart of the matter either. Oh! You know what would be kind of a cool thing to try? Making a sample version where you find pieces that to you seem like they sound they vibrate at the rhythm of enlightenment or whatever and then stringing all of those together. I wonder what that would sound like...
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Activities for you
We moved Creative Ensemble to today instead of Thursday this week and did some improvisation exersises. It turns out that I really like sitting with an idea or concept and trying it multiple times to really *experience* it before moving on to something else.
Here's a fun game:
*Get a group of people together (it will work with 2, but 3+ is better)
*Let everyone choose a very short sound (a sound with no duration) like a click or a tap or a clap,
whatever you want.
*Start the piece and let it go as long as it goes.
*Listen! Do you hear the rhythms coming out of the texture? What about melodies?
*Stop.
Emma put the lid of the piano down over and over again and I thought that worked very well. I tapped my tuning pegs with a pen. Medium loud is best, too quiet and it might get lost. Actually... super quiet sounds could be an interesting thing to play with-- are you listening enough to be able to work with large variations in volume and still make something coherent?
It's a great activity because you can't do it wrong. Because you can only make one sound and that sound is so short silence is built in and the only thing you can be concerned with is where you are going to put the sound. Does it sound like you should make your noise? Then put it in. How many times? With a pulse? Without any sort of pulse? Are you making a rhythm with someone else? Is it repeating? Can you start the piece over and make it completely different even though the super simple components haven't changed at all?
I could do this for hours. Or at least an hour.
Here's a fun game:
*Get a group of people together (it will work with 2, but 3+ is better)
*Let everyone choose a very short sound (a sound with no duration) like a click or a tap or a clap,
whatever you want.
*Start the piece and let it go as long as it goes.
*Listen! Do you hear the rhythms coming out of the texture? What about melodies?
*Stop.
Emma put the lid of the piano down over and over again and I thought that worked very well. I tapped my tuning pegs with a pen. Medium loud is best, too quiet and it might get lost. Actually... super quiet sounds could be an interesting thing to play with-- are you listening enough to be able to work with large variations in volume and still make something coherent?
It's a great activity because you can't do it wrong. Because you can only make one sound and that sound is so short silence is built in and the only thing you can be concerned with is where you are going to put the sound. Does it sound like you should make your noise? Then put it in. How many times? With a pulse? Without any sort of pulse? Are you making a rhythm with someone else? Is it repeating? Can you start the piece over and make it completely different even though the super simple components haven't changed at all?
I could do this for hours. Or at least an hour.
Tuesday Goodness
Today was an open day for the school so there were prospective students all over the place. Our afternoon class today was an open workshop for the three people checking out the programme. Once again it was a very international bunch- South Korea, Columbia, and Japan.
John Miles led the workshop and I just love being in workshops that he leads because he is so high energy and excited about his material- it's nice having classes where everyone in the class is giggling.
We did some work based on an Indian rhythm that goes like this 1 12 123 1234 12345 1234 123 12 . It is the same rhythm that we used the first time I worked with John way back last year during a CPD (continuing professional development) workshop. In fact, not only was it the same rhythm, it was actually the same tune that we had made up with the kids too-- only it was very slightly different which meant I kept singing it wrong.
BUT! Eventually I was singing it correctly and playing the chords along with it on my bass and singing at the same time which I've never done before and was super excited about.
That is really the whole point of this entry. I sang and played at the same time, Yay!
John Miles led the workshop and I just love being in workshops that he leads because he is so high energy and excited about his material- it's nice having classes where everyone in the class is giggling.
We did some work based on an Indian rhythm that goes like this 1 12 123 1234 12345 1234 123 12 . It is the same rhythm that we used the first time I worked with John way back last year during a CPD (continuing professional development) workshop. In fact, not only was it the same rhythm, it was actually the same tune that we had made up with the kids too-- only it was very slightly different which meant I kept singing it wrong.
BUT! Eventually I was singing it correctly and playing the chords along with it on my bass and singing at the same time which I've never done before and was super excited about.
That is really the whole point of this entry. I sang and played at the same time, Yay!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
because I'm vain
Henrikke and Meredith and I went to the Columbia Road Flower market today, and it was gorgeous. Full of amazing flowers and cool antiques and remarkably sparkley cupcakes. (Seriously, can you eat glitter?) Henrikke is a demon with her camera and took bunches of lovely shots of everyone and everything in the market. This is my favorite one of me (see title).
We later had our first dinner party in our new house which was a rousing success. The food took a while to prepare, but everyone was lovely about that and the whole kitchen was giggling pretty much the entire time people were over.
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