Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - Finale! Friday

Well, while the title says Friday, it is definitely Saturday that I write this. Last night was an absolute success, but maybe I should do a brief recap of the day.

The problem with finale day is that there are so many acts that rehearsal time is extremely brief. Luckily we could use the recital room 10-12 and we made the most of the time. We warmed up, yes that has been going on all week, no none of the musicians can touch their toes or plank yet, and set to work. We split up to do detailed rehearsal before regrouping to top and tail the performance.

Mid-rehearsal disscusion

 We then had a massive gap before our sound check at 3:15 where we focused on ironing out the transitions. All that remained was to wait for the performance. Our slot was 8:15 and boys and girls:

Yeah we did. Everything went really well, couple of minor slip ups but this is what happens when you have 4 and a bit days to pull together a performance of dancers, singers and musicians. I don't have any pictures of the performance but I will update this post with some if I get hold of any. It's been a fun ride and I'm so proud of the entire group. It has been an interesting experience contrasting modern and baroque aspects of performance and I am quite interested in the potential for further development along these lines. Anyway, enough of that for now.

Be back in a bizzle xx


UPDATE: I found some of the professional pictures! (Today is 01/03/16 in case the examiner is wondering if this is before the deadline, it is, promise) Enjoy!

Musicians                                    Dancers

Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - Thursday? Really? You sure?

I mean, there is one thing about this project, time is vanishing out from under us. Today we have once again been hard at the grindstone scrambling, in a completely organised manner of course, to get the 30min performance finalised. Unfortunately, as we grow closer the stress is starting to seep through in some places. Lyrics that people can't remember, dynamics ignored, a miss step here and there but the frustration comes out of the passion for the project rather than from any other source.

Endless Pleasure, Endless Love

Today was spent jumping around from piece to piece, fixing, altering, perfecting and working through a rough estimate of staging changes. Yesterday was the only time, apart from the sound check tomorrow, that we had in the performance space. It has made some of the planning a bit awkward but hopefully there will only be small adjustments needed tomorrow.

We finished the day with a run which came out at only slightly over 30 mins. With less faffing around everything is pretty solid. The changes are the main things that need practice and they need to be done in the hall tomorrow.

Orchestral Rehearsal

Everybody has been really involved today and the work put in by every single member of the group is of the highest standard. The outcome of the project is a 30min performance we should all be proud of. I am very much looking forward to tomorrow's performance but that's enough for now.

Goodnight world xx

Colab - Baroque Music Vs Contemporary Dance - We're already half way through the week Wednesday

Happy hump day! Today has been a hive of activity in the recital room at Blackheath. After a brief discussion with Lucy and a warm up courtesy of our dancer comrades we moved into a dedicated musical rehearsal. People were a lot more forthcoming with ideas today and the members of the group with experience of playing baroque music helped those who were unsure. We got a lot of things done and towards the end of the morning the music was starting to sound more stylistically accurate as well as having 20% more right notes in!

Orchestral Rehearsal

We all came together to share ideas and run through the ideas thus far. As I wasn't involved in some of the pieces I took a step outside the orchestra for some of it. The choreography provided by the dancers is already shaping up well and perfectly offsets the music. The music sounds a lot more together and balanced and the singers even got to have a go at their choreography as well.

Singers trying out their choreography

The afternoon was spent in the performance space. There change of acoustic and position caused the expected problems with regard to timing and balance but these were overcome rather quickly. A number of small alterations were made but otherwise everything worked as predicted. We finished the afternoon by running through but it was a bit of stopping and starting so it was around 5mins over time.

Rehearsal in situ

A lot of today's process was led by the group rather than requiring hints or direction which is a huge improvement on previous days. The slot is really coming together and the limits of everyone in the project are being pushed by the demands. Everyone is stepping up and the fun light atmosphere is really good to work in. Looking forward to tomorrow

Back soon xx

P.s. Have a bonus gif

BassoonTube - Uptown Funk vs Beethoven

Track number three is here, check it out, I'm very proud of it. It's been a difficult couple of months but working on this project has been an absolute joy. I've fallen back in love with playing the bassoon and it has really opened my eyes to the possibilities for the future of this idea. However I am a little bit sick of looking at screens like this haha.

The only problem today with this track was that I recorded in Trinity Laban. Whoever told me the percussion pods were sound proof definitely lied haha. There were a few problems trying to do takes without excess background noise but dedication and an extra half hour got the job done. Also, wandering college with all the recording stuff has been a drag, when they designed this building people obviously carried less things. This is part of the pile I had with me.

With regards to the future, I plan to carry on arranging and recording so if you've enjoyed the ones so far then make sure to keep an eye out cos there will be more on the way.

See you soon xx

BassoonTube - Begin Again

It's done! Track number two (Begin Again - Taylor Swift) has been recorded, edited and uploaded to SoundCloud. Take a listen here! I've got to be honest and say that I am really proud of the way it has turned out. The arrangement has been done for almost a month now but unfortunately due to my wind quintet going on tour and a number of other activities I haven't had chance to sit down and get it recorded. It was recorded again in The Parnaby Tavern Hunslet after my uncle very kindly allowed me to use the function room for a couple of hours. After that it took a bit of editing and boom, final product. The arrangement for the next track has also been finished and I'm looking forward to recording that in Trinity Laban over the next couple of days, in between competitions and practice of course haha.

BassoonTube - Well Hey There Delilah

Well, finally, after much umming and ahhing I have finally got myself a SoundCloud account and uploaded the cover of Hey There Delilah. It's been recorded for a while now but the sentimental meaning has made it quite difficult to face. That being said, take a listen here. Many thanks to my marvelous brother who threw in some oboe and flute on the track and also allowed me to put it up.

Lots of things are in the pipeline at the minute. Ive got another arrangement to record which has been finished for a couple of weeks and then there is one which I am working on right this very second (well, I was til I got bored and decided to write a blog). Can you guess what it is just from a quick screenshot?

Anyway, I think that's about it for the minute so, TTFN xx

BassoonTube - I have a cunning plan...

Boys and girls, a more cheerful post than last time. This is just a quick update on how things are going. I've been doing a lot of thinking and plotting relating to this project. There have been some absolutely hilarious ideas running through my head but I have now settled it all down and I have a PLAN!

I'll be honest, you know things are bad when I get so excited I start making mind map. So, without further idea, I shal reveal some of the plan. I have two more tracks to do before the end of april. I have already started arranging one (slowly arranging) piece which I hope to have recorded and online by the end of March. The other will probably come out towards the middle of April. I would tell you what they are but that would spoil the suprise.

Also, I have managed to get hold of a tripod which should make recording a lot easier. Or at least I will spend less time trying to balance books to get it the right hight anyway haha.

Thats all for now, byeeeeeeeeee xx

BassoonTube - It's bassoon Jim, but not as we know it

Boys and girls, a very exciting thing is happening. I have, over the last couple of years, become very interested by classical crossover and now, I have the perfect excuse to launch myself into that genre. As part of my degree we have to do a large scale outward facing project and I have been given the go ahead for mine.

The idea is to create arrangements of popular music for bassoon (duets/trios/quartets), include some sneaky/not so sneaky classical music quotes, record it all by my lonesome and record it SoundCloud. I'm then going to start looking at creating videos before uploading to YouTube. Crazy as this all sounds I am really looking forward to getting stuck into it. Currently I'm listening to The Piano Guys, who you should really check out if you haven't listened to them already, for inspiration as they do a very similar thing.


I've already started on an arrangement of Carol of the Bells to come out in December so you probably won't hear from me much about this until then.

Catch you soon xx

First real post - LPO concert and recording shenanigans

Hello world! So, I've finally decided to use my blog as a blog is supposed to be used rather than doing an assessment on it and then hiding it away in the tab fest that is my internet browser (yes I'm one of those people, yes I do judge myself, no I will not change). So, I know how you all want to hear about my life so without further ado, here we go.
So, a quick run down of interesting things that have happened to me recently. I went to watch the London Philharmonic Orchestra concert last Wednesday. It. Was. Awesome! The concert was in their home venue of Royal Festival Hall, a brilliant venue which is a real pleasure to play in, and it was magnificent. I went to the concert not knowing any of the music, I've decided I need to broaden my horizons. The programme was entirely Britten, which is not someone I usually go for, but it was really enjoyable. If any of you get chance to go watch the LPO then go, totally worth it. Also, student tickets are really cheap, especially for the £4 noise concerts. £4 for the best seat available, crazy! But anyway, much fun was had.
Also exciting, today in bassoon class we were working in the recording studio. Bassoonist Alice Lee, who freelances in orchestras and the west end, came in to help us learn about working in a recording environment and to let us know what was expected and so on. It was a realllllllllly fun session. We had a go at recording using click tracks, which is a lot trickier than it sounds, especially when you're sight-reading. Trying to play with headphones on is disorienting, and hearing yourself through them as well as hearing yourself live is bizarre. We also had a go at recording ensemble pieces without a click track but using drop ins to cover any mistakes. A drop in is where you record a small section and replace the original bit with it. All in all a fun and really useful experience .
Well, I think that's enough for now but if you have any feedback/questions leave me a comment (comments are love) and I'll see you all soon :) xx

Check out the LPO at http://www.lpo.org.uk/