It’s time to bring my readers up to date on one very important aspect of my retirement and, as it happens, staying at home, namely my musical activities. You’d be forgiven for thinking there won’t be much to update you on, given the current restrictions and all that jazz. Or rather not much jazz.
But there is some. In the case of my jazz, it’s taken the form of our tutors Dan and Eirik (no, not a spelling mistake, he’s from Norway, they do things differently there including spelling a name like Eric) posting on-line tutorials. I know they’re finding it hard to decide what the topic of each tutorial should be. I know from hard experience that it’s fairly pointless asking people what they want. We want something but either don’t know what or can’t be bothered to think what it might be. Still this form of jazz tuition will be fine until, you know, this is all over.
The other wing of my musical strategy, at least there were just the two wings (usually the way with wings I suppose), until recently, but I’m racing ahead. My other musical activity has been the folk fiddle group. Despite the rather traditional aspect to this kind of music, they’ve gone even more high tech.
The fiddle group are using Zoom every Thursday night to ‘get together’. What together means in this case is our leader, Iveta, setting up a Zoom meeting which she then invites us to join. We sign on and scowl at our self in a tiny box, along with all the rest of the group in their tiny boxes and Iveta in a bigger box in the middle telling us what to do.
So far so very sensible but, after that, it falls away a little, at least in my opinion. The trouble is we can only hear her and not the rest of the group because we all have our microphones turned off. Nor can she hear us, she can see us but not hear us. Imagine showing up for a concert where you can see the musician but not hear them. A slight exaggeration, but not much. These are of course challenging times. Well consider me challenged. I’d happily miss this digital get together but one has to be supportive.
I said earlier that musically I had more than these two wings to my bow. I mentioned in a previous blog that I have bought a drum amp / loudspeaker. So, in order to justify spending £250 in a moment of madness, I’ve been playing the drums along to a few of my jazz CDs. How very low tech you say. And so it is but, apart from missing the face (mask) to face (mask) interaction, it’s oddly the most satisfying bit of my musical ambitions. You can’t beat the old ways.
What the drums have done is add to my musical repertoire, 3 instruments I can play badly. Why only yesterday morning I spent a couple of happy hours in the attic making music. I kicked off on the drums playing along to a Horace Silver CD. Not bad.
Then I switched seamlessly to keyboard, or keys to be modern, piano to be old-fashioned. I played some tunes with Theo, that’s Theolonious Monk to you. My favourite, all-time, jazz piano player. Described by one ignorant critic as ‘an elephant at the piano’. That’s my kind of piano player. I’m allocating the photo at the start of this blog to Theo. Pride of place you might say.
While sat at the piano, to demonstrate my incredible versatility in these dark times, I switched to a different kind of piano music altogether. A few days ago I was listening to Classic FM in bed while drinking my tea, sharing a digestive (or 3) biscuit with the dogs, when they played Farewell to Stromness. I thought that doesn’t sound too hard, I bet if I practised I could play that.
Then I did something really wild, the kind of thing that social isolation makes OK. I sent off for the actual sheet music. Cost me £8 something and, here’s the thing, it is the first actual proper sheet music for the piano that I’ve bought for many, many years. You’ll have to take my word for this if you’re not musically inclined, but ‘proper’ sheet music is very unlike the lead sheets we get handed out at our jazz sessions. It’s altogether much harder.
Anyway this morning in question was the first time I picked up this sheet and attempted to play it. I’m not going to lie to you, although I could, I was pretty ropey but I got through the first few bars following the notes just like a proper pianist. Well not like a proper, proper, pianist but similar and full marks for effort.
There is a possible background to this aspect of my music apart from using lock-down as an excuse to try different things. Before all this madness came along I was on the point of signing up for a second summer school. This one at Leeds College of Music and it was a week’s worth of big band music. Incidentally it was expensive.
Now I’ve always wanted to be in a big band. Problem is, it’s hard. There are aspects of it that do not suit my style / skill level, like keeping time and being very disciplined, for instance. Theolonious Monk would never have played in a big band. No room for elephants in the room in big band music.
The other challenge, and this brings me back to buying Farewell to Stromness, you have to read proper music. I was definitely nervous about this level of challenge but then that, as you know, is what I see my retirement as being about. Providing of course the challenge is not a guaranteed set-up for failure and all the damage to self-esteem that goes with it. I talked to one of the tutors and decided what the heck I’d give it a go.
But by now I assume it’s been cancelled. Funny how you don’t realise how much you want something until you can’t have it. A bit like freedom to move around I suppose. But then again, maybe not.
Oh and finally on my musical day, I finished by playing a little country music with Merle Haggard. Like digging out old clothes to give variety to my days, I’ve been selecting a different electric guitar to play. I have quite a few to choose from. This morning I played my Gretsch. Just thought you should know and that this is how I make my lockdown life more interesting. I introduce as much variety into my activities as is possible. Top tip for coping while at home.
PS. Just one other musical thing to add to this retirement blog, I found Transatlantic Sessions on Youtube. We used to watch them on a Friday night in the old days. What a joy they were and still are.