Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Finale

The last night of CoLab was a big event. There were multiple projects going on in Blackheath Halls in three different locations at once, between 7 and 11pm. We weren’t performing until 9.15, so it was really nice to get a chance to see what everyone else had been working on for the past week or two.

The night was running slightly late (due to the multiple stage changes), but once we got on we had a fair amount of audience. I was really pleased with our performance. I thought that we really gelled and worked with the acoustics that the room gave us.

Here is a video clip of part of the performance.

I was particularly pleased with the string improvisation section and thought we worked well together and managed to create some really interesting sounds and shapes. It was also interesting performing with our sound amplified. I couldn’t hear a difference from where I was sitting, but after talking to the audience and listening to recordings I can hear that it made a big difference to the performance and we were far more prominent in the mix.

Overall I thought we grew as a group and managed to put our own stamp on ‘Lifecycles’. It was really great being able to work with the composer Phil as it really put the music into context and gave us a much deeper understanding of the piece. I’ve really enjoyed this project and hope that I’ll get the chance to do something similar in the future!

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Day five

We didn’t rehearse at all in Trinity Laban today. Instead, we had an afternoon rehearsal in the Recital Room where we could get used to the new space and also get used to the amplification. When we arrived all of the string players had small microphones that we place next to our bridges. We had a monitor in front of us so that we could hear ourselves too.

As we started rehearsing we discovered that we couldn’t have the monitor on loud at all because otherwise the mics on our instruments would start to feed back. This resulted on the audience being able to hear us, but we still couldn’t really hear ourselves. Luckily we had got used to playing like this during the week so I don’t think it hindered us too much.

Rehearsing for the final performance.

I was pleased with how the rehearsal went and both Phil and Nic said that we sounded good from the audience, so I’m excited for the performance tonight!

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Day 4

Today’s rehearsal began with just the strings. We needed to work on the improvisation movement, and talk about how we are going to structure it.  We started by being given an order to come up with the ‘idea’ and then as each player voiced their idea we had to mimic them, and weren’t allowed to move onto the next player until everyone had taken up the idea. This felt too structured, so we then began to work in pairs to have more than one idea on the go at once. This worked far better an allowed us to create more complex textures, however this was still too structured and limited us to who we could share ideas with. We finally came up with  an arching structure that was completely free. Through eye contact we passed ideas and motifs around, but were also free to play our own thing if we wished to. Through using these techniques I feel that we have come up with an effective and exciting improvisatory movement and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens on the night of the performance.

Later, when the full ensemble arrived we worked on all of the movements in order. I think they are all starting to sound really tight, and we should put on a great performance tomorrow night! We also had our first chance to rehearse with the vocalist, which made those movements make far more sense!

I’m very excited for tomorrow night now!

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Day 3

We started todays rehearsal by playing through one of the shorter interlude movements. I really enjoyed this as it gave us a nice warm up before moving on to rehearse all of the bigger movements from the piece.

Here is an excerpt of us rehearsing one of the trickier passages from the movement ‘Intoxicated Delirium’.

To get the rhythms tighter we looped the difficult sections, starting from the bottom. We’d loop the bassline and rhythm section a couple of times, then add the first melody and after getting that right we’d add the next. By working like this we made sure that we had solid foundations to build on, resulting in a neat performance.

We also slowed things down and made sure everything slotted well together and gradually sped them up until they were at the proper tempo. By doing this we could hear all of the parts clearly and I found it really helpful, particularly in the sections that felt like different parts were in different time signatures.

Tomorrow we are doing one of the few movements we haven’t covered yet. It’s an improvisation for the strings, so I’m interested to see what sort of things we get to do.

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Day 2

Today was the second day of our CoLab project. We arrived and began rehearsals at 10 and used our time looking at the rest of the pieces that involved the whole band (as some of them are smaller group improvisations).

Here is a video of us rehearsing a movement called ‘Rememberance’. It starts off with some really eerie string glissandi with an improvised piano solo over the top, before the flute and clarinet join in with the strings.

One of my favourite movements that we played today is called ‘Intoxicated Delirium’. It’s all about how you think and feel when you are intoxicated. It begins with a cool Cuban style beat and then has a folky tune over the top. The folk tune is first in 18/8 and comes back later in the piece in 4/4. I love this movement because it’s very rhythmic and exciting. Some of the rhythms are pretty complicated though and took some time to get right. I think it’s almost there though!

In the afternoon we broke off into sectional rehearsals. We had a string sectional, led by Nic Pendelbury and went over the exposed and tricky bits. We started off by playing one of the sections where we were providing the harmony and worked on our tuning as a section. We then moved onto some of the more complicated rhythmic sections. With Nic keeping time we played the interlocking cross rhythms, slowly at first, gradually speeding them up until we could play them completely in time. We also clapped and sung our parts (when we were playing across each other) to ensure we 100% know where we were supposed to play.

I’m looking forward to putting all of the sectional work together tomorrow and beginning to get a sense of what the completed work will sound like.

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016 – Day one

Today was the first day of my Colab project. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am doing a project where we work towards performing ‘Lifecycles’ by Phil Meadows. The project is being led by him, and he is conducting at the moment, but eventually he hopes that some of the members of the ensemble will conduct the piece.

We all arrived for rehearsal this morning and after setting up we got straight into it. Over the course of the day we worked on three separate movements. They each have their own challenges, ranging from complicated cross rhythms, improvisatory passages and balance issues. After the work we put in today however, I think we’ll be able to pull it off by our performance on Friday.

The biggest issue for me is that there are only single strings (one player on each part) and having to compete against one flute, two clarinets, one French Horn, one Trumpet, two Saxophones, one Piano, Upright Bass and a Drum Kit! Safe to say we’re having to work very hard to be heard! I think we’ll be amplified on the night so that will mean we can concentrate on being fully in the music, and not worrying about being heard.

When I first heard this piece I was completely drawn in and couldn’t wait to have a go at playing it. Here is an example of the sort of music we are rehearsing.

I’m really excited to play through some more of the tracks tomorrow and I’m looking forward to keep working with everyone in the group.

Grace Notes: COLAB 2016

Welcome to Colab 2016! This is my fourth year of Colab, and I’m excited to start my new project tomorrow. Once again, I’m doing something completely different! I’m taking part in a project where we are playing, developing and performing the work ‘Lifecycles’ by Phil Meadows. After listening to the recording of the piece on Spotify I was hooked and I’m so glad I get to take part in this project.

Last year I was part of a Ceilidh band, and got to play in the performance night at the end of the first week. I love this sort of music and it was great to devote a whole week to this. I wrote a post about it here.

Our Ceilidh band!

In my second year I took part in a string quartet and jazz ensemble crossover. This was an interesting project as we were given music to start with (that was created in a collaboration from a previous year) and we had to learn it by the performance date, but still put our own stamp on it. I enjoyed this project a lot and it was great to be able to work closely with jazz musicians, as I don’t get to do that often. I wrote a full account of this on my old tumbler blog here.

A string quartet rehearsal separate from the jazz musicians

In my first year I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had heard a bit about it, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the way everything in Trinity Laban stops for Colab. My project was called ‘Lost in Translation’ and it involved telling stories and conveying emotions through the medium of music. I enjoyed this project as I got to meet a lot of new people and experience a new way of using music. I wrote more about it here.

The final performance of my first year project

 

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with my latest project, and I’ll be keeping a daily record of what we get up on this blog.

Grace Notes: Putting together a CoLab Ceilidh

Every year in Trinity Laban, there are two weeks where timetables are suspended and anything could happen… This fortnight is called CoLab. There are over 100 projects taking place over the two weeks ranging from a Ceilidh band, Bollywood Brass, Strictly Come Dancing and a project where anything and everything was allowed – except talking.

My project was the Ceilidh band. We first met last Monday. Once our mentor, Steve Blake, had arrived we talked through what we wanted out of the project. We were originally performing on the Thursday night Pub Crawl, with an impromptu Ceilidh in Greenwich Market, but due to a Hollywood blockbuster filming there we were moved to the Friday night showcase at Creekside. This was, in fact, far better for us. Not only did we have another day to rehearse but the performance space was bigger (it also wasn’t cobbled so there were no injuries should people got too carried away…..).

The band in rehearsal.

We learnt all of our music by ear, very similar to what I do in my Jazz lessons, which meant the performance could be far freer as we weren’t tied to the page. Steve taught us a few of his sets, and we also shared our own tunes when he wasn’t there. We went about learning them with a ‘looping’ method. This involved the person teaching the tune slowly playing short passages over and over while everybody else listened and gradually joined in until we could all play it. This continued until the entire tune was learnt. I found it a great way to memorise things and I’m definitely going to use it again in the future (I know for a fact it worked because I’m still singing all the jig and reel sets and the performance was over 4 days ago!)

Rather than starting the tunes with a well-rehearsed and conducted introduction, the violinist (either myself or Steve) would just play a short solo introduction. In an actual Ceilidh this gets everyone’s attention (dancers and musicians) and prepares us for the movements to start. I found that doing the introduction was an art in itself as you need to play loudly enough to be heard, but also need to have a very clear perfect cadence (or clear ending) to show exactly when the dance will begin. One person in the group is also in charge of watching the dancers and deciding how many times we play each tune through (there are 2/3 per set) and calling out or making some sort of signal that it’s time to change the track.

My favourite dance was a jig set taught by Steve. There were only two tunes, but the first was played in two different keys (G and D major) before moving onto the second tune. The first tune was just called ‘Jigg’ and the second was called ‘Tom Jones’. Here is Steve playing it with one of his bands.

https://soundcloud.com/steve-blake-5/jigg-g-jigg-d-tom-jones

The performance was great fun. We crafted an introduction to grab everyone’s attention, starting with a slow introduction before jumping into a fast march. We then moved onto the first dance with Joe Townsend calling. He called two dances, and then a 4^th year singer called the third because he wanted to dance ‘Strip the Willow’ (this involved lots of spinning your partners and was great to watch!). After playing these three dances and a few filler pieces to give the dancers a rest, our set was over and we were exhausted.

During the Ceilidh at Creekside

Playing for the dancers at Creekside

The band, exhausted after our performance!

Overall it was a great week and I feel like I learnt lots about how to approach folk music and how to be a part of a Ceilidh band. After spending a week playing this sort of music, it’s increased my love of folk and made me determined to keep expanding my knowledge of this genre and finding people to play it with.

If you happen to be in the Greenwich area check out the CoLab events to see if there’s anything that takes your interest. All of the projects are exciting and different and you might discover something you never thought you were a fan of!

Grace Notes: Experiencing the Whirlwind of a Wedding Fair

On Sunday February 8^th, I attended a Wedding Fair at the beautiful Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire with Horizon String Quartet. We had a stall there and were hoping to make some new contacts. I’d never been to a Wedding Fair before, so I had no idea what to expect.

Horizon String Quartet

Our day started early, meeting at North Greenwich at 7am! We were more than a tad groggy! After travelling across London to Watford and getting a taxi to the hotel we could finally relax and set up. We had a great spot in the Foyer of the hotel which meant we were one of the first things people saw so we grabbed their attention.

We set up so that we were sat in normal quartet formation, with a table alongside us. We had a laptop with our website on it so people could have a look, flyers, business cards, prices, repertoire and a bowl of sweets (these went down particularly well….). I think when we do our next fair, we’ll not have the laptop as it didn’t seem to attract that much attention and took up a fair amount of space.

Having never attended one of these before we weren’t sure whether playing or talking was the best approach. On the one hand, if people could hear us playing, they’d hopefully be impressed and hire us, but because we were playing it meant that we couldn’t answer any questions. On the other however, if we did more talking than playing, we wouldn’t jump out to the visitors as much and so might not attract as many potential customers. After an hour or so, we came to the conclusion that playing short pieces was the best option as we could talk from our seats in between pieces.

I wasn’t prepared for the sheer numbers of people either. They all seemed to come in waves too. One minute we’d be sat or stood around twiddling our thumbs, and then the next all four of us would be talking to someone, describing the ensemble.

We have a fantastic arrangement of ‘Let It Go’ by our first violinist and this proved particularly popular with children. It was requested many many times! Using our list of repertoire, people could request pieces they’d like to hear and this gave us a really good idea of what the public like. Often players like different things to non-musicians. For example, Pachelbel’s Canon was requested a large number of times, but as a string player it doesn’t rank high on my list of favourite tunes! It was a good bit of market research though, so now we know next time which tunes to concentrate on. We also found that although at weddings light classical music is often preferred, the pop arrangements of artists like Coldplay and Clean Bandit caught people’s attention and made them stop at our stand.

One of the function rooms at The Grove (I do not own this image)

I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this Wedding Fair at The Grove. Everyone was really nice, and aside from the early start, it was all pretty relaxed and fun. I’m looking forward to our next one on March 8^th at the Marriot in Regents Park. Would be great to see you if you’re in the area!

On a side note, this week is the start of the annual fortnight of CoLab at Trinity Laban. There is so much going on at both the Laban and Trinity buildings over the next couple of weeks including a pub crawl on Thursday (featuring my project the Ceilidh Band) and a showcase of projects on the Friday night of this week at Laban. If you are in the area and at a loss of what to do, check out the Trinity Laban website to see what events are going on! I can promise that it’ll be something completely different to anything you’ve ever seen before!