All posts by Jay

Musician, aesthete, lover of concord.
busking

Busking (start of a new category, methinks…)

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When I started busking in Melbourne, I went straight for Swanston Street. It’s the main boulevard leading from the main railway station, Flinders Street. (My using ‘boulevard’ is not mere poetic hyperbole – one of Melbourne’s early planners admirably insisted that the main streets be ninety-nine feet wide.) More footfall, I reasoned, would be better for my purposes.

Swanston Street shops

Not so. I don’t have an amplifier or a dog (two things that seem to be viable options for the ambitious minstrel with expansive notions). My aunt, who has long suffered and enjoyed (I hope, in unequal measure) the buskers of London, gave me a few tips. Buskers regularly position themselves at the bottom of escalators in the underground tube stations, thereby taking full advantage of the wonderful acoustic properties of the porcelain-tiled caverns.

Melbourne’s main train station, Flinders Street, is off limits for buskers, but there are two wonderful subways that are outside the ticket zone which share the same architecture as London’s subterranean network.

I quickly found that singing on the main streets was just too much effort. People tend to be more hurried on busy pavements and would only hear me for a brief window of time as they passed by. Traffic noise – and there is a tram system in Melbourne, too – is always going to win.

Centre Place

Thankfully, Melbourne is renowned for its smaller streets and laneways, which are often closed to vehicles. They also tend to be between tall buildings, and so you get a great acoustic. Another good thing about the lanes is that people are more at their leisure – they aren’t rushing past with the crowd. I’ve found about a dozen spots around the city now where I like to go and sing.

beautiful minds, reviews and reports, what I'm up to

Cruciverbalism

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My subscription to the New York Times crossword app expired today so, rather than furrowing my brow over that on the train today, I thought I’d use the time to blog. The NYT crossword is published every day – Monday is the easiest and they get more difficult each day until Sunday’s larger, themed puzzle. I can usually do Monday and Tuesday without help, but the later part of the week usually leads to a good deal of head-scratching on my part. Couldn’t recommend it highly enough. After all, who doesn’t like having their head scratched?!

So, if you enjoy crosswords and have an iSomething, go get the app. And when you get stuck, go and find Rex Parker – a terribly clever person whose blog about the crossword is what I turn to in times of extreme trichotilomania.

beautiful minds

“…just purse your lips and whistle, that’s the thing…”

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I saw ‘West Side Story’ a few weeks ago here in Sydney. I first experienced the show, enthralled, from the orchestra pit in the 2000 Edinburgh University Footlights show. At one point in the Sydney production, members of ‘The Sharks’ exit whistling a tune that I recognised as the British national anthem. I thought that this was a satirical reminder of Australia’s colonial heritage, perhaps to get a laugh from the home audience, but that seemed out of place in the play’s New York setting. I felt I was missing a vital part of the joke. Today I finally got it.

I have just finished reading Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, ‘Hitch-22′. It’s difficult not to be impressed by his remarkable intellect and riveting ability to recount some of the fascinating journeys he’s undertaken, both physical and idealogical. (He recalls Oscar Wilde’s pronouncement that unless one’s map has Utopia marked on it, it is not worth navigating by. Hitchens declares himself unconvinced of the wisdom of this idea now, having seen some of the shipwrecks and prison islands.)

Hitchens describes himself as unmusical, as opposed to some of his good friends, whose ability to discuss music he finds enviable. His observation that it is those friends who possess this faculty who also compose the finest poetry and fiction is intriguing.

I was delighted, then, to find music dominating the first few pages of Hitchens’ 2006 book on Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’. Doubly satisfying was finding the answer to my West Side Story conundrum, which was of course that the tune I recognised as ‘God Save The Queen’ is taught to every American school child to the words of the hymn ‘My Country, ’tis of thee’.

My Country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing
Land where my fathers died
Land of the Pilgrims’ pride
From every mountainside –
Let freedom ring!

The disparity between the sentiment of those words and the reality faced by many of those who came in search of liberty is what gives The Sharks’ ironic choice of tune its bite.

composers, what I'm up to

Pride, Prejudice, Piano, Perfect

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I found the big music shop in Sydney – Allan’s on Pitt Street. Downstairs: guitars, drums and such (I got three sets of Martin guitar strings for the price of two PLUS a very compressed t-shirt!). Upstairs is sheet music, orchestral instruments, keyboards, and…pianos.

There are pianos everywhere in Sydney – we saw one in David Jones, a big old-style department store, on our first day; there was one in the hotel where we had (amazing) High Tea on Julija’s birthday; there’s even one in the tattoo parlour we pass on our way home every day! Maybe it’s because I had to leave my lovely Nord at home and I’m just hallucinating. Allan’s is a real treat, though. I spotted the music, composed by Dario Marianelli, from Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice and asked if I could play through it. They kindly obliged (although they put me on an electric piano…I’ll hopefully work my way up to one of the grands with a bit of practice!) and I happily played through the book.

The main theme – ‘Dawn’ – is lovely, with its threes-against-twos, its chromatic urging, and its full, ruffly arpeggios, all culminating in a marvellously long, decorated trill. *sigh*

songs for children, this freelancing business, what I'm up to

Alice in Wonderland

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Before I left Ireland last week, I took part in a school project in Daingean, County Offaly. It was funded by the Arts Council’s ‘Percent for Art’ scheme, which allows schools that have completed a new building to apply for an artwork to commemorate it. Usually this is a piece of visual art or poetry, but on this occasion it was an hour-long musical work devised by Aingeala de Burca and performed by every single child in the school (191 in total, I believe).

The theme was Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll’s grandson, Charles Dodgson, is buried in the town) and my role was to set the children’s words to music and also to play in the final performance. Aingeala and I have worked together on a number of similar projects over the past few years, but always under the auspices of other organisations. This was particularly exciting, as it was the first time I’d worked with Aingeala on something of her own.

It was interesting, too, coming in towards the end of the process. On a bigger budget project it might have been possible to have me come in to the school with Aingeala to help write the lyrics, but my role was more defined and I got the lyrics fully formed and was charged with composing musical settings of them. The lyrics were very well put together and I only made a few, very small changes in a couple of places. I visited the school once I’d written the songs and had the wonderful experience of auditioning them for the lyricists. They loved them and I think it was a moment of great relief for the teachers, too, as they finally began to see how this was all going to come together. It’s quite a tall order to ask teachers to commit to rehearsing a show while it’s being written!

We had songs about Mike the hedgehog (the royal croquet ball), Heather the flamingo (the royal croquet mallet), decapitation, Alice’s lake of frustrated tears after the ‘eat me drink me’ debacle, and the Mad Hatter’s tea party. There was also a refrain that the whole school sang at intervals throughout the show and lots of other music from the younger classes that Aingeala had done. It was a really wonderful show and a great way to finish up my work schedule. The way we did it made me think that I could easily work on something like that from afar, too…

what I'm up to

Sydney

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I am writing this from Sydney, Jen and I having transplanted ourselves for a year(-ish).

The flights were rather good. I was impressed at pretty much everything that they did for us: one of the by-products of being treated tricked like a Ryanair customer in recent years, I suppose. We flew with Etihad (the ‘h’ is pronounced, so I learned) and [sticks tongue out of side of mouth in concentration] I’ll just chop this bit out of Jen’s facebook post to tell you about that…

Anyhoo, the 7 hours flew – really, no pun intended, I just can’t think of another way to say it. When we landed in Abu Dhabi we got off the plane and into a sauna… Oh, I’m sorry, I meant walked to the airport!! 40 degrees (celsius) at 8:30pm? Crazy heat, we couldn’t believe it, especially considering we left Ireland during a heatwave of 18 degrees!
We only had an hour before boarding the next flight so we went straight to the gate and used the free wifi before the gate opened. Chatting to a nice Australian couple, who live in Bahrain, we learned that this 40 degrees was actually not even the hottest it gets – in the height of summer you can expect 50+ in the UAE. We were glad to be going to the “cold” Sydney winter, of 17 degrees.

The flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney was 14 hours. As we trundled down the aisle to our seats, Jay wondered if he might ask he air steward if he could move to an emergency exit so he could stretch his legs but as we got to our designated seats, lo and behold, they were at an emergency exit door! The pure joy of that moment soon waned as we realised it was also the space for every Tom, Dick and overweight Harry to stretch in during the 14 hours – thank God for eyemasks!

…

Finally landed in Sydney at 6:30pm, local time (9:30am body clock!) and made our way through customs. On the plane we had to fill in a landing card, asking details about where we were staying, if we were carrying anything illegal in our bags. Thanks to Joanna, who made us watch ‘Border Control’ before we left Ireland, we were suitably paranoid about everything we were carrying, causing me to check ‘yes’ in the ‘carrying prohibited medicines, weapons of any kind or illicit drugs’ box as I had some Ibuprofen in my bag! (hey, they are restricted in Ireland!) The lady at the customs desk just laughed at me when I told her. Welcome to Australia.

Tad was there to greet us, in a winter coat (seriously, 17 degrees out!), and we got a taxi to Surry Hills. Couldn’t see much of the city as we drove through as it was already dark but, as Tad pointed out, it was similar enough to any other city that was only 200 years old – the road signs, layouts and crosswalks are very similar to what you’d see in the States.

Arriving at Tad and Julija’s house was surreal – the familiar paintings (all by Julija’s fair hand), furniture and books was a real treat for us, as it made us feel not too far from home.

We’ve done a bit of exploring – one day we walked down Elizabeth Street into town and to the breathtaking Sydney Opera House, yesterday we walked down Oxford Street to the Centennial Parkland. It’s nice not to have to cram our sightseeing in and to just take time to look around and notice things. I read Alain de Botton’s ‘The Art of Travel’ before we set off and was very impressed by the attractive picture that emerges of a person who travels. One of the characters he talks about is John Ruskin, who advocated drawing as a way of learning to see things, and I bought myself a sketch pad. We’ll see…

composition, forthcoming events, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, what I'm up to

World premiere

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At the beginning of this year, NDV were recording some Christmas music for a proposed CD release. In between takes I wandered over to the upright piano in St Ann’s church and quietly played some chords – the first comprised two Bb triads in second inversion either side of middle-C, the second was formed by shifting the lower three notes to an Eb triad in first inversion. The effect was lovely to my ears and I expanded the idea a little before we left and then more when I got home.

I have almost entirely reworked the piece since the choir sang through the first draft in February. I listened to a recording of them singing through it and felt it needed to resonate more: it was too chordy, too blocky.

On Saturday – in the very church where it had its genesis – my finished piece, ‘Confession’, will be performed for the very first time…

composers, New Dublin Voices and other choral singing, reviews and reports

The Mornington Singers

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I went to a concert last night by our choral neighbours, The Mornington Singers. They are conducted by the lovely Orla Flanagan and sang in the marvellous Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.

It was my first time in the cathedral (the Catholic one…not sure why it gets the positivity prefix…) and it really is quite nice indeed. Not too over-the-top in terms of gold and such, but there are two domes in the roof and a large area around the altar that lended itself perfectly to the choir’s arched formation. (Note to self: do I mean ‘arced’? Looks wrong.) The building reminded me of St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh, one of the concert rooms built in Georgian times. Of course, the cathedral is bigger and more, well, ‘churchy’, but it did seem to yearn for ancient Greece or Rome in the way that the Georgian architects favoured.

The programme for the evening was titled ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ but, apart from Veljo Tormis’s ‘St John’s Day Songs’, this was less a theme and more an apt description of the evening’s experience.

The concert opened with two pieces by James MacMillan: ‘A Child’s Prayer’ and ‘The Gallant Weaver’. I wondered about opening with the first of these. It does begin with the word “welcome” but it is an intense piece and I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it straight off. It’s a great sing for the two soprano soloists, whose intertwining lines gracefully float over the sonorous repeated chords of the choir. The middle section flickers with ornamented notes in all parts on the word “joy” and propels the music upward to the final, heart-breaking duet.

composers, links, lyrics and lines I especially admire, what I'm up to

Tonight with Craig Doyle

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On Saturday I was on Craig Doyle’s show, singing with James McMorrow. My fellow backing singers were Jill Deering and Peter Ryan and I did some tambourine, too. We sang a track from James’s album called ‘This Old Dark Machine’ and, unusually for telly, did it completely live and acoustic.

Here’s a link to the lyrics of the song, on James’s website…

It was a great thrill to be part of the show. It’s recorded on Wednesdays and we were shown to a dressing room (with a nice big box of jelly beans to munch on), and had a lovely runner guy who took our dinner order and got us whatever we wanted. We were all too nice to ask for a while, but then I ventured a request for a Diet Coke (rock’n’roll, eh?). Doubtless the guys were summoning all sorts of debauchery after I left and they got a bit more bold 😉

Here’s the clip (the song starts at 03m13s…):

Thankfully the TV people taped our bit first, as I had to rush off to play piano for my girls choir at Loreto Senior Primary in Crumlin. They were doing their Spring show and I had two choirs to play for: the 88-strong group that had taken part in the Hallelujah Chorus project (massed school choirs get together each year to do a concert with a full orchestra), and the younger ‘school choir’. The 88 did an Abba medley and the school choir did two songs I’d been working on with them this term – ‘Colors Of The Wind’ from Pocahontas by the amazing Alan Menken (look him up and marvel at his body of work) and ‘The Peanut Vendor’, a Cuban song about a dude who sells peanuts. I got there with minutes to spare before I was meant to be on…I think the poor head teacher was a little emotionally frayed by the whole experience! Of course, I breeze in with not a bother on me 🙂

Here’s the Abba medley:

And here’s ‘The Peanut Vendor’: