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 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: Being plunged into the depths of Jazz solos!

In your third year at Trinity Laban, you can choose two classes to go towards your end of year mark. I decided to do arranging as one and jazz as the other . I knew nothing about jazz and took it because I liked the sound and wanted to know more. Although I find the lessons very hard I feel like I’ve learnt a lot about how jazz pieces are structured in terms of chords. This has also helped with my Arranging course.

One of the jazz assessments was to choose a solo and then transcribe and play it from memory. I chose ‘Tiny’s Tempo’ by Charlie Parker and I used the 3^rd take. I like this solo because it is  upbeat and the saxophone improvisation wasn’t too unrealistic to play on the violin. We were instructed to learn the head  (the unison tune at the start) and then the solo so you had approximately 3 choruses (all 12 bars long).

To aid with the transcription I used a computer program called ‘Transcribe!’ which allows you to slow down the track to hear all the notes more clearly (without altering the pitch). I started by writing out a rough version and then re-wrote it, to make the rhythms more accurate. Then I had to learn it from memory. Memorising isn’t really my strong point, so this was the most challenging task for me.

I started by taking small sections  and playing them slowly along with the recording, repeating over and over. Gradually I made the sections longer and sped them up. By the end I could play it up to speed and without any music. This was a huge achievement for me, as I managed to memorise the piece in only a week and it wasn’t a standard piece of violin music, making it more awkward to play (as saxophones don’t have to deal with string crossings, position changes, a fixed low G…).

I think the assessment went alright. Nerves got the better of me at first, and I ‘fell off’ the recording, but the second time through I got it. After doing this I’m more comfortable with memorising and I’ve been practicing small memory exercises. If you ever have trouble memorising I’d recommend doing this. Like anything, memory improves with practice so if you aim to learn a few bits from memory (script, poetry, revision, music etc…) every week, you’ll gradually build up the skill to do it quickly and efficiently.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the above track and this blog. Hopefully if you need to memorise anything, the above technique might work for you too.