So long, Josie Long / Hello songbird

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The past few mornings I’ve had a set routine. I get up around 0550, feed the cat, make porridge and coffee and then sit down to listen to Josie Long’s All of the Planet’s Wonders, which I taped when it was repeated over Christmas.

I’ve enjoyed every minute of it – not just the funny bits or the insightful bits but the delivery as well. There is a real soft edge to her voice that’s really pleasing to the ear. I particularly like the fact that inspiration for one episode struck in an attic B&B in my home town of Leicester. I wonder where it was, what the view was like, would I recognise it too? (A quick search on Google can send you to many a link to the series for you to listen to too).

I’m going to miss this quiet time. It’s helped remind me of the intimacy of radio. I do intend to write about the radio at some point as it has had a huge influential effect on my life and how I interact act with sound (and other media) that I’ve only begun to realise over the past 5 years. So, thank you, Josie Long, it’s been a pleasure.

But as one thing finishes something else is beginning. I’ve noticed all this week the morning chorus of birds gradually gettng earlier and earlier. As each episode of the above finished I could slowly start to hear the morning unfold outside. True to form a thrush of some sort (it’s either a Mistle Thrush or a Song Thrush) has been calling out, it’s voice central, on top of the all the other sounds. It makes me very happy.

(Warning – there is a lot of mic rumble in the above recording as I didn’t have a windshield on the H4n)

Nottingham / Contemporary / Jack Goldstein

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Had a day out in Nottingham yesterday, the first time I’ve been there during the day time for quite a while. Took the tram in too, another first – it felt strangely European whilst being surrounded by Notts accents. Wandering the town for a bit the things I noticed were –

∙ the trams – they make such a different sound as they rumble around the town in their tracks, the sound of the bell ringing.

∙ the architecture – there seemed to be a much wider mix of old and new and the variants of the new were many and subtle. They contrasted in such a way I’ve never noticed before which made staring out of windows, looking up at the facades interesting.

∙ there were quite a few buskers about and hearing music coming from human beings made a great change to hearing music just blaring out of shops.

∙ single speed count was 4 and I think I only saw around ten bikes in the town all day.

We then went to the Nottingham Contemporary, another first for us. The building itself is great, despite looking thoroughly modern it really sits in with the other buildings around it. Inside, the light in the galleries seemed huge. Walking around the Jack Goldstein exhibition was great. A selection of his films played out across three of walls in one of the galleries whilst on the other wall, loops of some of his 7″ vinyl pieces played through individual headphones. My children found this particularly fascinating – the ability to be taken somewhere else by sound.

Though I’m not in agreement with Goldstein’s comment that “it’s not the sounds I’m interested in, but the images” – I am interested in the sounds – hearing them and looking at the vinyl sitting next to it’s sleeve was oddly engrossing. I don’t like to fetishise audio formats mainly due the often obstructive nature of nostalgia but sound/music is an emotional experience and the whole format argument is an essential part of that – how you physically deal with it (and that includes intangible digital formats) is part of the ritual (for want of a better word) of experiencing sound/music. It certainly made me want to put out some vinyl (again). Maybe I will. We’ll see.

Of his films, I really like The Jump. Makes me think a little of Len Lye and that I want to see the exhibition at the Ikon in Birmingham before it finishes.

It’s also worth me noting that the gallery was really busy with a wide range of different looking people, a really positive thing.

All in all, a grand day out

ephemera-l-ity

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Cloudless moonlit nights give way to cold clear crisp mornings. Frost crayoned onto pavements and the grass, fences, washing lines and roof tops. As the sun rounds the houses the frost gently fades except in the places shaded by trees or houses. It makes me think of those frost works by Andy Goldsworthy – momentary works, existing in that space for just a short while. Documenting it whilst you can.

I like it when music is like this too. That it can only exist for that moments time. That if it happens elsewhere it will be different, only the process or the materials will be the same. That the enviroment will make it something else, will guide it somewhere new. With digital technologies doing this and documenting it is easier than ever. I wonder why we don’t do it more.

secondhand book

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I bought this from the bookshop at Oxburgh
Hall in Norfolk on a bright and breezy summers day in July but didn’t read it until December. It’s an incredible book, one wonders what Hardy must have gone through writing it and then the reaction afterwards.



The glueing on my copy has gone now and the pages are starting to loosen and fall. I don’t want to throw it in the recycling and i’m wondering if I can use it for something else. But to try and do the words justice is a difficult thing….

Improvements not resolutions

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Being ‘time poor’ is a popular modern ailment. What makes it more ironic is it comes in an age where no end of devices exist to free up our time and make us more productive but result in us having less time as we fill it with more stuff. This is a particular problem for me – I work full time and have a family. Weekdays are full of those things, so trying to find time to be creative is really difficult. But I sat back and examined how I spend most of my time, I was pretty shocked.

The internet eats up all of my time! And it does it because I let it!!

So, i’ve decided to free up as much time as possible by totally changing my internet habits. A lot of this has come from reading Christine Bougie‘s blog – which you should read because it’s ace. As a full time working musician – one who is working on many things at one time – she need to be super organised and I’ve adopted two of her ideas.

1) No internet in the mornings – this has made my mornings feel way more positive. Believe me the pull of the computer is strong but I just sit down and listen to recordings of Radio 3 or 4 or watch education programs whilst eating my breakfast rather than ‘page flicking’ on a laptop.

2) Only check email messages once a day – Simple as that. Means I’m not constantly picking up my phone to check Twitter, means break times are made of reading books rather than mobile browsing.

3) Set timer for any evening internet use – Set my phone timer for 20 minutes. Not wholly successful so far but I’m spending much less time staring at a screen looking at bikes / listening to drones / you get the picture.

We’ll see how this goes.

Cambridge, briefly

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I visited Cambridge yesterday, I’ve been a few times before but this time I tried to concentrate a lot more on what was going on around me, mainly because of my interest in how the city works for cyclists.

The place is full of bikes! Living in the midlands, where there ( to me ) seems so few, this seemed so odd – they were everywhere! Bikes of all descriptions – cheap crappy aluminium bikes, knackered old steel bikes, drop bars, hybrids, Dutch style, shoppers. There were quite a few singlespeeds – way more than I’ve ever seen in London – and there were both fancy fakenger / hipster singlespeeds as well as adapted bikes to make the most of singlespeed practicality in a largely flat city.

At first the amount of cyclists working their way around the city really threw me off and made me feel a little worried in places – and remember I am an avid cyclist who commutes everyday on one. But eventually I started to notice how the bulk of the cyclists I saw used the spaces of the city. They were far more aware of what was going on around them than any other road users or pedestrians . When encountering pedestrians – in shared spaces, where they spill out on the road and on the pavements and alley ways – they were much more aware of the potential dangers than we were. Consequently, they acted accordingly, slowing down, being more cautious and generally trying to make people (politely) aware of them. It was the same for road use too – I did wonder how motorists / van drivers / bus drivers thought of it. Were they used to it an acted accordingly? Or do they treat them with the same sort of disdain I encounter daily on my rural commute?

Either way – it was great to see so many people on bikes.

End of 2010 type thing

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When the year commenced my two aims (artistically) were to do less gigs and concentrate on getting more recording done. These aims were accomplished but no way near as succecfully as I would have wanted to, so here are my thoughts on this.

RECORDING

I did two studio sessions and two village hall sessions as well as trying loads of different recordings set ups at home. And I learnt this. When going into a studio, if after half an hour you feel that the engineer’s overall attitude is not to your liking – you should maybe mention the 40 mile round trip you’ve had to use the facilities he’s marketed as being ‘unique’ are somewhere short of the mark and that if he expects to be paid £20 an hour for these he should maybe rethink his operating procedures.

I ditched analogue recording (again – give me 6 months before I go out and buy a cassette recorder again) and bought a Zoom H4n. It’s a great machine. Not quite small enough to make field recordings for me (i’m still using my phone for this) but it has lent itself very well to everything else. Now I’ve discovered it will work as an audio I/O with the ipad, I’m pretty much over joyed with it!!

The experimenting I’ve done with recording this year has laid out the possibilities for me, so, once again, I hope to be able to record something properly in the first part of the New Year.

GIGS

What a bunch of eye openers they’ve been this year. First gig of the year was to a rammed Musician crowd supporting Free Control. I don’t think anyone played the blindest bit of attention to what I did. Or to Free Control. Everyone sat there chatting away, I couldn’t hear myself on stage the ambient noise was that loud. I played Summer Sundae too, which was ace but what I learned from that is that playing outside at a festival is no place for subtlety. You are fighting with generators from food vans and several other stages and as a consequence trying to loop birdsong and delicate finger picking is somewhat lost amongst the general background noise of festival life.

But when it goes right, ahhh.
Playing at The Y with maybeshewill was wonderful. I was afforded the space and the time to explore and reveled in the luxury. I also played as a duo with Misterlee which brought back to me the power of improvisation. We had no rehearsals just a couple of emails and a vague direction of how I would play. Lee turned up 5 minutes before we were due to play and we just played. And it was wonderful. As was making new friends from all over the place, the real joy of doing gigs – making a connection with people.

As for 2011, vague plans are forming. The one definite plan is this – the Myspace account is going to be deleted New Years day. It’s time.

Here’s to the New Year.
Px

A wonderful sound (post no.1)

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I wanted to write about some wonderful sounds. Not the ‘ I remember the first time I heard Joy Division and it totally blew my mind’ type post (though I can do that if you want me to) but the times I’ve heard a sound or noise that’s caught me totally unaware and stops me to try and take it in. And this is the first one.

We were at a roller disco party for one of my eldest daughter’s friends in a large sports hall, like a school/college gymnasium. The basic idea is the kids (and grown ups!) strap on a pair of skates and go round and round in circles whilst some music plays. It finishes, there’s cake, you go home happy. A boy in his late teens doles out the skates to everyone then sits in a plastic chair, texting his mates whilst an ipod plays chart hits through a little portable speaker.

The last time I went to a roller disco, indeed was on rollerskates, was 25 years ago but I was keen to put on a pair and slowly made my way around whilst my eldest and her friends (and their parents) went around with the utmost of skill. There is something to be said about how great skating can make you feel – gliding along inches above the floor with the minimum of effort is somewhat akin to the feeling of flying. And it was whilst I was slowly glding around the periphery of the hall I became aware of the sound around me.

The little speaker and ipod were playing Katy Perry‘s Teenage Dream but I could only just faintly hear it as the sound that was filling the hall was that of twenty or so 8 and 9 year olds singing along to the chorus at the top of their voices. As they were skating around the hall their voices filled up the reverbarent space of the large room and each word took on this incredible air of joy as it was sung out, hanging in the massive space above their heads, their shoulders moving from side to side as they coasted across the floor.

It really was a wonderful sound and I found myself marvelling at it and was caught up in their bliss – you could only smile at how happy, how free it felt. As a parent, you understand that there is no greater sound than that of your children laughing. Thinking about it now, I just feel totally taken away by how incredible it was and I’m not sure why. Whether it was the energy or the power of their joy or just the sound itself.

monorama

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I’m not sure where the idea came from but the other night I decided I’d drag that whammo Behringer Condensor mic from the back of the wardrobe and try recording with it and using some headphones to monitor. I’m not a big fan of monitoring with headphones for many reasons – it’s hard to get the balance right; it shreds my ears pretty quickly; it’s just not the same as playing in a room in front of an amp. In the process of doing this I learnt three things.

Having no decent mic pre to hand I had to use the Zoom H4n as the mic pre then put the signal through the pedals. Then the output of those went through my Samson S-Mix and into a Minidisc (YAY!) to record ‘the action’.

First thing I learned? The mic preamps on the Zoom are pretty rough. They’re really noisy and only slightly better than those on the S-mix (which when using a phantom powered mic are awful). So a dedicated mic pre or a mixer with a decent gain section would have been most useful.

Second thing. All though the sound that came out the other end was quite natural sounding there is, as you’d expect, little movement in the audio field, which makes it a bit dull to listen to. On a psychological note – I did notice that when I heard a picked chord being played, the notes going low to high did feel as if they were moving in the sound field. Here’s how some of it came out.

The third thing? In this modern age, possibly the most important instrument any musician can have is a mixer. Any mixer with a couple of mic inputs, an aux send and a couple of outputs is the most versatile tool you could ever own. If I only I didn’t just sell mine. Doh!