Author Archives: fiddlerintheloft

Music exams: just for kids?

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I got sidetracked. I haven’t stopped playing (though my performance in the orchestra’s summer concert wasn’t my finest hour) but the summer’s events did shove the blog aside for a long time. But now that the customary surge of September enthusiasm has kicked in I’m back in the saddle. Years back, a new uniform and sharpened pencils brought with them the hope of homework completed and submitted on time, and of being a bit less bad at sport. The aspirations have changed but I haven’t lost that annual burst of energy and drive. And I do love a goal. So, at the grand old age of 34, I’m thinking of working towards my Grade 8 viola.

I have absolutely no idea how long this will take or how far off that level I am (I took my grade 7 a staggering 19 years ago). And I’ve been variously told that music exams are ‘for children’, ‘pointless unless you’re at school’ and ‘stressful’. It’s true that no future employer or institution that I apply to will give a monkeys what instrument I play. I may curse myself months hence when I’m sat in a dingy school hall sick with nerves and surrounded by jittery teenagers. But the prospect of playing alone in front of an examiner, and the potential shame of admitting to failing a music exam as an adult might be just what I need to ratchet things up a notch.

What I would love to know is, does anyone else do this? A quick google search turned up a few brief references to over-18s being able to enter themselves in these exams but otherwise nada. Have you taken a music exam as an adult? Or considered working towards one? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

The dictaphone never lies: part 2

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Back in the dim and distant past, I carried out the first half of an experiment that I’ve thus far failed to complete. Depressed about my apparent lack of progress, I recorded myself playing a piece and promised to record the same piece a month later, compare the two, and report back. For six months I failed to do this because:
(a) I was afraid I wouldn’t have improved
(b) Listening to a recording of yourself playing an instrument is almost as bad as listening to a recording of yourself speaking, and
(c)  I’m not very good at following things up

Then moment of truth finally came last night when I did the second recording, then listened to both in quick succession.

The original November recording was absurdly bad, like the audio from some awful St Trinian’s music lesson sketch: terrible tuning, erratic timing, no redeeming features whatsoever. Tonight’s attempt was only slightly less bad, I did notice a significant difference in tone and vibrato but the tuning with still really off in places. So, there has been improvement but rather less than I’d hoped for. Thank goodness I dithered for six months, the results after one month would have been crushing.

Moral of the story: listening to a recording of yourself, however painful, is a useful exercise, – it’s been a timely reminder that my tuning needs some work, and that if I want to make a better sound any time soon I’ll need to practice a bit more regularly and a bit more efficiently (more on that soon).

Know your composer: Jean Sibelius

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The key to understanding new music, I’m reliably informed, is to know a bit about the person who wrote it. With that in mind, I’ve done some background research on Sibelius prior to tonight’s rehearsal of his Symphony No 1 in E Minor.

The Sibelius monument in Helsinki, Finland

Jean Sibelius (1865 – 1957) was a Finnish composer whose love of nature and the Finnish landscape inspired much of his work. Here are nine other facts about him and his work:

–   He was christened Johan but later followed in the footsteps of an uncle in changing his name to Jean

–  He wrote prolifically but is best known for his seven symphonies (which reflect the evolution of his compositional style) and for Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor and The Swan of Tuonela

–  He had six daughters one of whom, Kirsti, died of typhoid in 1900. Shortly after her death he wrote the poignant ‘Malinconia’ for Cello and Piano

–  As of 2011, Finland celebrates a national Day of Finnish Music on the 8th December, Sibelius’ birthday

–  He was a freemason and one of the founding members of the Finnish Suomi Lodge

–  In 1908 he was operated on for suspected throat cancer, an experience reflected in his dramatic Fourth Symphony

–  He is thought to have written (and subsequently burnt) an eight symphony

–  Unusually for a 20th-century composer, he was something of a celebrity in his own lifetime though he didn’t write (or at least release) any large-scale works in the last 30 years of his life

–  Critics are famously divided about his work: René Leibowitz wrote an essay in 1955 declaring him “the worst composer in the world”

What it’s like to get it wrong again, and again, and again

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I recently read that Toni Morrison didn’t started writing novels until she was in her late 30s, a single mother with two boys. She got up at 4am every morning to write before work. I find stories like that very inspiring for about 30 seconds or as long as it takes me to remember that I can’t even sacrifice an episode of Homeland to do something life-transforming, let alone two or three hours sleep. Take the past week, I have plenty to do but none of it has imminent deadlines attached, with the result that I spend any available time writing detailed to-do lists and researching things I will never ever need to know about (tips on running a marathon in the rain anyone?), obsessing about how to decorate the spare room in a house in a small rural town that I will never move to, and reading about the life of Joe Strummer (born in Ankara, bet you didn’t know that).

The Easter break was a good opportunity to do some of that practice that I’m always complaining I don’t have time to do. But I had important imaginary house buying to do. Consequently, when I had my first lesson in a number of weeks it was a bit painful. We were looking at Sibelius Symphony Number 1, which I’ll be playing with the orchestra this term. It’s not, on the whole, technically difficult but there were four slightly tricky runs in the section we worked on:

I fluffed them, the teacher and I laughed, we played them very slowly together, I wrote in a couple of fingerings and then I tried to play them back, and that’s when my fingers stopped doing what they were told. I must have tried more than 20 times. At home, alone, I’d probably have sworn a bit, had some leftover Easter egg and come back to it later. Not an option here and by my 10th failed attempt my teacher had run out of encouraging things to say. I don’t know to describe how excruciating it is getting the same thing wrong 20 times in a row while someone is watching you. But imagine someone is standing two metres away and throwing a beach ball at you and you just keep on dropping it – funny the first couple of times.  Still, I wonder if the memory will be enough to motivate me to practice it properly before next time but I guess it depends on how much good TV is coming up over the next couple of weeks.

Fun music practice: a contradiction in terms?

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There’s been a post-concert (I’ll come back to that later) lull in my viola playing, hence no blogging. In the meantime, I’ve been grappling with getting my oldest child to do her music practice. In the early weeks, she was delighted by the newness of it all and practice was still a novelty. Now, inevitably, I’m trying to strike the illusive balance between pushing her enough that she improves (and, in turn, gets more pleasure from playing) and not pushing her so hard that she gets bored and decide it’s all a bit too much like hard work and that she’d actually rather watch Pingu with her little sister.

Her teacher gave me a tip along the lines of: ‘as far as possible, make her feel practice is her choice  – give her ownership of it, offer her options etc…’. He told me how one set of parents had crafted a mini chest of drawers made from matchboxes, filled it with little notes detailing musical activities and left the kids to choose a draw. Worked a treat apparently. So over the holidays I channelled my inner Blue Peter presenter, and my daughter and I created this little beauty:

Enchanting I’m sure you’ll agree, but not complete without these:

Three Blind Mice, the Grand Old Duke of York, Pop Goes the Weasel, One of the Twinkle variations – I’ll leave you to work it out. We keep it really short, 5-10 mins, which is about as much as her concentration span and my patience can take. Seems to be working for now, watch this space.

Tips for writing a musical “mainly driven by wine”

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I’ll come clean, I’m not generally a huge fan of musicals, but for the first time in my adult life I’m really looking forward to seeing one. This Saturday, I’m off to see The Decent Rogues, which is co-written by Dan Lashbrook, an old friend married to an even older friend (neither of them actually old). Dan works as a GP in Bath and has a young family. Baffled by how he (along with his friend Rob Pratt) had managed to write, put on and publicise a real live musical on the side, I sent him a few questions:

The Decent Rogues in a nutshell?
A brand new musical about the contest between friendship, love and revenge.

Tell me about process: whose idea, how long did it take?
Rob and I had played in bands together, colluded on joint music ventures and one day decided to write a musical as we thought musicals should be written, mainly driven by wine.

It took 3.5 years of pre-production, 6 months casting and rehearsal for the premiere, and a further 6 months to complete the second run and get the show to London.

Tips for writing one’s own musical?
- Start with the book – is the story worth telling? A musical needs more than catchy tunes
- The music has to amplify what’s going on on stage. If the scene is too dramatic for speech, sing it!
- It is fairly helpful to be able to play piano, understand music theory and have a basic idea about the difference in writing style between speech and prose
- Get the best production director you can find
- Always be self-critical and listen to other people’s assessments
- Be obsessive about detail
- Never assume anything has reached its end-point

Proudest (musical) moment ?
The standing ovation during the premiere

Lowest point?
When everyone sat down afterwards and wondered if that was the end of the journey.

Will you ever give up the day job?
It would have to be a cast-iron offer of financial stability to drag me out of medicine. The performing arts is certainly no cash point except for the lucky few, so a ‘regular’ job is a must.

A sociological feast

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These days I spend a lot of time thinking, reading and talking about the same things: schools, homes (and their value), country vs city, stay-at-home vs working (mums), career advancement vs work-life balance. I explore these issues mostly with the same sorts of people in the same sorts of environments. This is fine, most of the time, but one of the things that I’m starting to love about playing in an orchestra is that is, once a week, my social interactions become significantly more colourful and varied.

At last week’s rehearsal I was sitting within a foot or so of: a chirpy 20-something trombone player who works in the music industry, lives with his parents and has played in a plethora of ensembles and bands; a sweet, solemn Greek music student, quietly heartbroken about the economic collapse of his homeland; a Swiss banker in his 40s, licking the orchestra’s admin into shape with good-humoured efficiency; a quiet, warm stay-at-home mum to six children, starting to make time for her own interests after 30 years of child-rearing; a male cellist wearing one of a seemingly endless collection of glorious, flamboyant dresses. There are photographers, chemists, lawyers, singers, writers, publicists. I wouldn’t go as far as to say all humanity is there – the vibe is unmistakably middle class – but I can’t think of many other places where you would find so many different ages, nationalities and professions collaborating so enthusiastically. And, having stuck around for a quick pint after last week’s rehearsal, I’m confident it’ll make for some interesting pub trips too.

When retro is not especially cool

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I’m nearing the end of my first full term of a new orchestra. The concert looms, but that’s another story. On the whole it’s been great, both new and familiar. Some things never change – not practising enough, swearing to yourself at each rehearsal that you’ll never come unprepared again and then still not practising enough, not looking at the conductor as often as you should despite constant reminders – but a few things have definitely moved on. The kit has improved significantly for a start.

Take music stands: I remember spindly, unstable metal affairs that toppled over if you breathed near them, and had fiendish screws that lacerated your fingers. These days stands are lighter and yet more stable, they fold up more easily and slide neatly into compact little bags with handles, the screws are either made of plastic or encased in it (altogether more finger-friendly) and, rather charmingly, they come in all the colours of the rainbow.

The cases have changed too. Anyone who has played their instrument regularly in the past decade or so has, very sensibly, invested in something a bit like this:

(with thanks to Caswells Strings)

i.e. something relatively weather-proof, padded and with a strap that can be slung over your shoulder leaving your hands free (and a handy pouch for music). If you enter ‘viola cases’ into google images these days, you have to scroll down quite far before you come across anything that looks like mine, and scanning the orchestra last week, my case was definitely in a class of its own (not in a good way). A fellow viola reassured me that mine was endearingly retro, but quaintness might have to give way to practicality before long, if only so that I can pick up more than one bag of shopping on my way back from rehearsals.

 

Mini musicians

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Little and large

This week is a big week for my daughter for several reasons, one of which is that she will play her first notes on the viola. She’s been attending Suzuki classes since the beginning of January and each week brings one private lesson (shared with another little girl), one group viola lesson, and one musicianship group. Quite a lot of lessons, so why, you might be wondering, has she not played a note yet? Half-way through the last lesson it all became blissfully clear.

She and her lesson partner are now handling their violas and bows comfortably, landing the correct part of the bow on the string, and then taking it off again. They’ve been told if their positioning is perfect next week they’ll be able to start playing. The two of them stood side-by-side, violas in position, teeny tiny bows resting on strings, quivering with barely contained excitement and exchanging conspiratorial glances. My daughter moved her bow a cm on her A-string and swung around wide-eyed to see my reaction.  And suddenly, I could see all the benefits of the protracted process. It’s obviously important that they get the basics right from the start – and in the meantime, they’re also learning rhythms, getting to know the parts of the instrument and watching others play – but it has the desirable side-effect of building their anticipation to dizzying heights.

Watching two four-year-olds wriggle and giggle in their little chairs made me realise I could learn a lot from their attitude to music. The novelty of just making a sound with the instrument is still fresh and exciting to them, and it’s very sweet to watch.

Running and rehearsals, stews and scales (plus some musical advice from Charles Hazlewood)

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I often find myself drawing parallels between playing the viola and other things I like doing: running and orchestra rehearsals (you always feel significantly better afterwards even if you start out with very little enthusiasm); cooking and practice (sometimes fun, creative and rewarding, sometimes mind-numbingly pedestrian and functional).

Today’s parallel is with blogging: I’m about as good at that as I am at playing the viola, by which I mean that I’m only able to focus on one very small area at a time and I haven’t even really nailed that area. So, I can just about play the notes these days but thinking about posture, dynamics, vibrato, watching the conductor, turning the pages etc at the same time makes my head spin. And while I manage to squeeze in a blog post each week, two if I’m being ambitious – plankton-scale fry in the blogosphere – I struggle to simultaneously exchange witty soundbites with other musicians and bloggers via twitter, get people to ‘like me’ on facebook and keep abreast of all the other blogs I follow (they have a vortex-like power over me, once I start browsing I’m there for hours).

Most importantly though, I often miss out on really interesting content elsewhere online. Yesterday was a classic(al) example, I found out, too late, that Mumsnet had hosted a live webchat with award-winning conductor Charles Hazlewood about children and music. I’ve since seen the transcript and it’s definitely worth a read when you have a few minutes but in the meantime, I’ve posted a few of the points he made that particularly resonated with me.

Charles Hazlewood

The role of group playing:
“The issue of practice is… difficult because you want music making to be a joyous thing for your kids. BUT, you also know that if they put some graft in, they’ll get even more pleasure from it… really the best thing is to create opportunities for your kid to make music with other people. That will raise their game, remind them what an absolutely amazing thing music is, and cause them to learn stuff from the others…”

What makes a musician:
“Excellent musicianship comes about for a multitude of reasons. Some people just have the right genetic mix, and find music naturally easy. Others achieve brilliance through sheer hard graft, and many others are probably somewhere in between!

It’s very important though not to treat music like alchemy, or a kind of deep magic which only anointed people can access. We ALL have music in us, it’s just that most of us are unconfident about it.

The only important thing is to have extreme hunger for music. If you have that ‘burn’, you’ll become a great musician come what may.”

Classical music for a wider audience:
“I think more people would love orchestral music if it felt more open to them. Sitting in an arid concert hall staring at a full page in the programme which tells you all the things you’re not allowed to do, like cough, eat sweets, talk (and by extension, DON’T EVEN THING ABOUT BRINGING SMALL CHILDREN etc etc), surrounded by mildly smug people who ‘know’ how to be, this is their world, not yours. I hate all that. Music is for everyone… which is why I have throughout my career tried to create different kind of models…so the gig at the Festival Hall this Saturday is a great big hootenanny: a bloody amazing orchestra, some amazing young performers from Southwark, lots of chat, demonstrations, getting under the surface of what makes a great piece of music great.”

I’ll be taking my brood along to the Festival Hall in a couple of days time and am also tempted by the Orchestra in a Field event that he’s running this summer. The website promises an extraordinary line-up from Mussorgsky and Bizet to Rap Slam and a guitar orchestra led by Portishead’s Adrian Utley.