music
victorian piano
esther needed some photos of this victorian upright piano for a school project
i enjoyed helping her gather the evidence
esther’s orchestra
whilst jane was out running esther was out orchestrating reading for a concert late afternoon. it was most excellent.
cheap cello
There was a stringless violin for £9.99 in an Oxfam shop yesterday – guaranteed no wrong notes.
the great concert
planning the repertoire
upping sticks
the grande finale. fantastic stuff.
kate conducts, lynda plays
here is kate conducting the singers at church yesterday morning to keep them in time with the organ at the other end of the church. she’s using a flashing fairy wand. make of that what you will.
nothing changes
hawkwind and new model army on the bill at the astoria. that’s been going on for years hasn’t it ?
sing up to kyoto
london guitar town
there are a load of 10 foot high gibson guitars on the southbank near city hall and the tower of london (and tower bridge). they are very smart. go and see them
the guitar in the cage is signed by bruce dickinson – obviously too dangerous to leave roaming like the others
they are ten feet tall
the photo at the top was an attempt to use fill-in flash with a teeny weeny aperture to get the sun effect. not sure if it worked. i’d forgotten my remote trigger otherwise i could have had even more fun
the blue peter prom
Our friend John asked if we would like to join his family for a trip to the Blue Peter Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday. it was most excellent
the weather even stayed good long enough for us to have a speedy picnic before dropping on our car at great strength seconds after we started driving home. the weather has been a bit bonkers recently.
jools holland at kew garden
work outing to jools holland on tuesday night
and our landfill picnic
double basses (bassii?)
there were various orchestras playing at esther’s music concert yesterday. at one point 8 double bass players lined themselves up along the front of the stage and did their double bass thing. although, being cool bass types, they waited for the main orchestra to play an intro for them for a bit first.
however, when you see 8 double basses (bassii?) in a row like this, it does funny things to your brain (at least it did to mine). it was rather like repeating the a word to yourself over and over until the word changes from being a word in to a collection of sounds and loses its meaning temporary. do you know what i mean ? say ‘chicken’ to yourself for a minute and see what happens [experiment best tried in solitude to avoid people thinking you are mad].
anyway, seeing all those double bassii (8 double makes a 16th), which are essentially giant violins, suddenly seemed really surreal and quite funny to my brain.
so there you go. an insight in to the funkypancake brain there.
monday night jam
monday night was music night, as i was invited by a work colleague for a musical jam in acton. much blues ensued.
julian cope
i went to see julian cope last friday evening. bit weird. musically excellent as ever, but some of his rants seemed a little more aggressive than usual and the audience reaction was polarised leading to tension. still, a great night out, but a dreadful sneaky picture !
last time
my new favourite live band
i saw this band two nights in a row when i was in edinburgh. i’ve not done that since a julian cope double bill back in 91 (or something). anyway, go see actiongroup live (much better than their recorded stuff i think)