Two compositions

At some stage I will probably stop thinking of my life in terms of "since I finished at Trinity", but for now it's still such a change that I'm quite regularly struck by how different life is.

One of the joys of having more control over my time is that I have been doing more composing. I have half a dozen things unfinished at the moment, but I've also written three pieces since December. One of them is not quite finished, though it was performed on the occasion it was written for; there are some harmonic issues I'd like to sit down and sort out properly before posting it here.

The first of the others is A Marriage Blessing. It's the first time in many years that someone has asked me to write a piece of music, and the last time, I was about fourteen years old, so I was a bit worried that this would miss the mark. It's based on traditional Celtic texts, and meant to be sung unaccompanied, though I don't see why an accompaniment on appropriate instruments couldn't be improvised if desired. I wasn't at the wedding, but I'm told it was performed con lacrime and went down very well.

The second piece, Crux fidelis, is a setting of the English translation of the text of the same name. In thinking about music for Holy Week at St Andrew's, Leytonstone, I happened across the King John of Portugal setting, which beautiful -- but which we do not have the resources to sing. I thought a simpler work for soprano and organ might be welcome, perhaps with an optional alto part, and this is what I ended up with. There is a MIDI file of this, but as with most MIDI files, it sounds like R2D2. It's the first time I've done any writing for the organ: all of my choral music before now has been SATB or TBB a cappella.

Both works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

Improvable.

Good rehearsal today with the other members of the Brigantia Consort -- we looked at some new repertoire, rehearsed stuff we've been working on for performance probably this summer, and did some improvisation.

We recorded some of the rehearsal, and it was interesting to hear the results. Two things, to my mind, really stood out.

The first is that we do talk rather a lot between playing. Of course this is necessary to an extent and good conversations about the music now can make for much less work later on.

Some of the talking, I think, is because we don't have fixed repertoire, very tight limits on rehearsal time or any concrete engagement to work toward. We have some idea where we're going, but because there isn't a huge amount of urgency in getting there we have the flexibility to take the time to discuss things properly. Another factor is that as our instrumentation is non-standard (various combinations of voice/recorder, violin/recorder, horn/serpent/voice) and our repertoire rather eclectic we do have to approach each work from a few different angles. Baroque bow or modern? Vibrato or not? Should that line be played on the recorder, or sung on a relevant syllable? Do we need to scratch this arrangement and write our own, or can we swap the voices around to make it work better? Are the instruments being faithful to the stresses of the language if there are words? That does take a lot of talking through!

It's a great luxury to have rehearsals that are laid back enough that we can burst out laughing, explain things in detail or go off on the occasional tangent; on the whole I think we are reasonably focused. But listening to a recording, it's amazing just how much chattering we do, and how little playing. Perhaps we would be better off making more notes and fewer words.

The second thing, and one we all noticed, is that the improvisation was superior to playing from sheet music in just about every way. It wasn't just that we had warmed up by then; if anything I was getting tired, mentally if not physically, from lots and lots of C basso transposition. It is partly that improvising freely as we did today gives us the option to play to our strengths and avoid technically challenging passages. The biggest difference, though, is that without the dots in front of us we are forced to listen. Intonation and timing immediately improve, because we're not worried about playing or singing a "wrong" note, but instead listening to one another and really playing together, really creating something that none of us could create on our own.

We are learning what we need to do to rehearse better. As far as focus and use of time are concerned, we've started jotting down a rehearsal plan at the beginning of every session. That sounds like an obvious thing, but most of my chamber rehearsals have had such a limited repertoire that the schedule would sort itself out quite simply, and most larger ensembles have been led and planned by someone other than me. In this group we do need to spend time surveying repertoire together, sight-reading together, and improvising. Each having more than one possible instrument, and having to adapt our repertoire accordingly, also requires a different sort of rehearsal than just going in and learning the music. There are also administrative tasks, and we're still figuring out who is best in which role as far as paperwork is concerned. In order to keep track of all this I think the best thing is going to be to start a notebook, much as I have for each of my music students, and jot down not only a plan for each rehearsal but any comments on pieces and secretarial tasks.

The other thing I think will be useful is to start each rehearsal differently. Today we started by singing a piece we know reasonably well, then launched straight into sight-reading. It was useful, but given how much the improvisation changed our playing, I think it would be good to incorporate that into the beginning of the rehearsal. I know that with choirs and other larger ensembles, some sort of warm-up routine does seem to make a difference not only with the quality of each individual's playing and singing but with people's ability to listen to one another. It would make sense, then, rather than just doing our individual instrumental warm-ups (if any) and having a quick tune, to do some kind of communal warm-up. I think this will need to be fairly flexible but it would make sense for it to include some sort of improvisation.

Still ticking.

What have I been up to?

I'm learning to play the organ. This is a lot of fun, but rather difficult. I try to play the right hand line with my right hand, the left hand line with my left hand, and the pedal line with my other left hand. It's going well, though; I've played at a few services, and a funeral, and I have a few more lined up.

I'm also rehearsing a lot with the Brigantia Consort. No, we haven't a website just yet, but soon, hopefully!

I'm still playing serpent with the London Gallery Quire, and enjoying both the metrical psalmody and the camaraderie.

I'm still teaching piano, and I still love it. I'm finding I do notice the commute much more than I used to, partly because it's a little further but also because there are days when I don't have to leave Leytonstone at all, so the days when I travel across London seem very long indeed.

Longer-term, I'm writing some bits and pieces of music, some for competitions and some for specific performance situations. It's mostly choral, mostly liturgical. I love doing this, but I lack confidence; I'm never quite sure whether what I have written will turn out to be very good, or a bit naff. I guess that comes with experience.

I'm also planning a series of workshops on psalmody. I want to start with the origins of psalmody and then explore how the psalms would have been said, sung or chanted in different liturgical traditions. I know that I won't be able to do a full treatment in the four to six sessions that would make this a manageable project... at this point I'm just reading a lot and letting ideas slosh around in my brain.

External validation

Yesterday was my graduation ceremony: I got to dress up in very silly clothes and was given a piece of paper confirming that I have done the work and can put letters after my name. It was a happy occasion, and a slightly surreal experience.

I have observed, as have many other graduates, that I couldn't have finished the degree without the help and support I received from family, friends, and Trinity staff. But it has also been pointed out that while I have had some help, it was me who actually did the work in the end, and that deserves recognition. Yes, it was a lot of work: but I think it's very difficult to separate my part of that from that of the people who helped me along the way.

Yesterday was happy for another reason, too: I got the results back for my students' most recent round of exams. I had four piano students take a TrinityGuildhall 'Initial' level exam this term. I'm extremely pleased that all four of them passed, as I thought they would. I'm delighted that three of them not only passed but were awarded Distinctions! But as a teacher, I am acutely aware that I turn up and teach for a half hour or so a week and my students are the ones who put in the time and effort to practise. I try to make music interesting, I try to show that learning is worthwhile, but no matter what else happens, I cannot practise for them. So while I'm pleased for and proud of my students, I mostly feel very fortunate to have students who work hard and do well.

Clearly there's some attitude adjustment to be done there, given the gap between how I feel about my students' achievements and how I feel about my own. Am I to take credit for anything?

But what I told my students going into the exam, and what I told their parents, still holds: it's only an exam. It's very useful and can be highly motivating to have an external measurement of how you are doing, to compare your skills to someone else's, but that isn't the end point of what we're doing in piano lessons. It's good for me to know how I'm doing in teaching basic skills like sight-reading as well as accuracy, technical facility and communication and interpretation, but that isn't the point.

Likewise, the piece of paper I received yesterday is a good marker of what I have done and how I developed musical skills over the time I was at Trinity, but the piece of paper was not why I was there. I was there to become a better musician, and I am not a musician because I get shiny pieces of paper to frame -- or the other sort of piece of paper for that matter, the ones that can be exchanged for goods and services in a lawful market.

I am a performer and a teacher of music because music brings me deep and lasting joy and fulfillment, and I wish to share that with others.

Back to Bach

Yesterday I went to the Early Music Festival in Greenwich.

It was a little strange being in the area again. Attending a concert in St Alfege church as a member of the public was a little odd but not hugely so, despite the fact that the last time I was there was for my final recital. It was good to hear the Trinity recorders play as I've been doing some playing with recorders myself recently after almost no contact with them for decades.

Stranger was going to the Old Royal Naval College Chapel and hearing Susan Sheppard play the first two Bach 'cello suites.

The Chapel, especially in my final year at Trinity, was somewhere I went to collect my thoughts, to sit in silence and regain some calm when the bustle and noise of a music college all got a bit much for me. I went just to sit and think at least as often as I attended concerts there, probably more. If the weather was good and I had time I'd go to the park, but if I only had a few minutes and it was pouring with rain I went to the Chapel.

The repertoire was even more significant, though. In autumn 2007 I returned to my studies after taking time out for injury and illness. It was still a bit touch and go whether I'd be able to continue. Playing for very long was painful and I knew it would take time and patience to regain my former endurance. For most of the autumn it was all I could do to keep up with various ensemble performances and I really wasn't keeping up with any personal practising.

Early in 2008 I realised that I needed to find a way to relate to the instrument again, to play music I love for the sake of playing it. It wasn't a very conscious process at the time, but somehow I fell into playing Bach again: the third 'cello suite, and the second and first which I had studied before. For around three months I played little else, or that's how I remember it now. I would turn up, do a warm-up, play some Bach. Here was something that would challenge me musically as well as technically, something that I could come back to day after day after day. Here was the spiritual sustenance I needed to learn, again and yet for the first time, to do the work of making music. My long-suffering teacher didn't scold me when I turned up lesson after lesson with yet more music written for an instrument neither of us play. He waited until I was ready to learn new repertoire, and in the meantime we worked on Bach. It worked. 

That isn't the only time I've used Bach to get myself playing. When I was busking on the London Underground I also used to play Bach, and in some ways it was that, rather than the prospect of people literally throwing money at me, which got me out of the house on sluggish days. But that wasn't as profound as the transformation in 2008, not as necessary. 

I've been struggling to practise the horn a little, lately; it seems I'm awfully busy, and much of my work right now is on other instruments. Yet lack of time alone doesn't explain it. Surely it was sensible to have a brief rest from horn playing after the end of my degree, but surely it is time to get past that, to move on, to keep playing. Something feels not quite right, something I know I need to play through rather than avoid, but which also makes me reluctant to start playing.

The recital in the Chapel yesterday, the juxtaposition of that repertoire and that space, reminded me that the Bach suites, for me, will always be partly about healing. 

I think I know what I need to do differently.

Busy...

I do seem to be having something of a dry spell, in terms of blogging here. I have been quite busy!

I composed an anthem; it was sung during a church service on 27th September. The sheet music is available here and a MIDI file here; I don't yet have a suitable recording. The piece is dedicated to Rev Dr Catherine Dowland-Pillinger, on the occasion of her ordination to the priesthood of the Church of England, and the church service was the first Eucharist at which she presided. I'm very grateful to the vicar, music director and choir at St Mary's, Addington for allowing me to contribute in this way.

Closer to home, I've been rehearsing with a couple of other ex-Trinity students. Between us we play an eclectic variety of instruments and it has been good fun finding and adapting repertoire to suit our sound. We'll be playing this Sunday at the launch of the Roots and Remembrance exhibition at St Andrew's Church, Colworth Road, London, E11 1JD. The launch begins at 11.30am, after the annual Rememberance Sunday service.

Also at St Andrew's, I've been learning a bit of how to play the organ. It's a lot of fun, this making notes with my feet, but really very difficult to co-ordinate with my hands! I've also been doing some singing in the choir there. We will be having a Lessons & Carols service on 13th December, and welcome anyone interested in singing in our Community Choir to join us for rehearsals on Friday nights from 7pm.

On December 9th will be the annual London Gallery Quire Christmas concert, held as last year at St George's German Lutheran Church, 55 Alie Street, London E1 8EB. Do arrive 6.30pm for the 7pm start; tickets are £5 on the door. As well as the rare treat of listening to West Gallery music this is a good chance to see the inside of the oldest German church in Britain.

I almost forgot to mention the London Performance Collective lunchtime concert at St John's Notting Hill at 1pm this coming Thursday, 12th November. This concert of "Known, Visible Music" will include works by Bassi, Piazzolla and Whitlock, as well as yours truly playing the Haydn Divertimento a tre for horn, violin and 'cello.

It would be great to see some familiar faces!

Finding the right words

One of the things I didn't have much time to do while I was doing my music degree was write music.

The majority of my composing so far has been choral work. It isn't a particularly vast majority, a handful of songs and anthems really. Sometime soon I'll get more of it up on a website.

Usually, I find a text that, on some level, seems to speak to me, and then set it, and then it sits in a drawer until I get it onto the computer, and then it doesn't get any further (really need to get that website sorted). But sometimes I have a specific occasion or person to write for, and need to find the right words.

At that point I really struggle. My knowledge of English poetry, particularly English poetry that is in the public domain, is rather poor. There's an awful lot of it to get through and I'll never manage to read it all. At one time I might have written the words myself, but it's been a long time since I wrote any poetry and I don't think I would be able to write something acceptable these days.

I'm dealing with this problem now. I keep going to the few poetry books I have and reading through them, searching for the right poem. The result? I bookmark tens or hundreds of pages as things I'd like to set someday but none of what I've found is appropriate for this particular project.

I think I probably need to do some sort of survey course in English poetry, or even choose a century per month and use my commuting time to get familiar with the major poets.

In the meantime, if you could have one text set as a choral work, what would it be?