Category: life

Jazz Festival, more mixing, and a Swede

I’ll be playing a set in the Festival Club at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival this October 30th. The time isn’t confirmed as yet, but I’ll update some more about that when I know later on. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually played a gig in Cork before, now that I think about it. I’m looking forward to showcasing some of the tracks from the record along with some of the other songs that didn’t make it on to this record, but are being held over for a later date.

I’ve also been writing again recently, reworking older unfinished songs, polishing off mostly finished song, and writing some brand new ones too. I’m really happy with some of the newer material and a little part of me wishes I could just jump right back into the studio and knock out a second record this winter, as I have enough songs that I’m happy with to go and do that. But I still have work to do to finish off this one first. And who knows what other songs I’ll write in the meantime.

I was back in the studio for a day a week or two ago to do some tweaks to the album mixes, but I think I now have mixes that I’m happy with of the record. Some little things niggling at me about the track sequencing at the moment, but I took a break from listening to the record to go back at it with fresh ears and sort out the part of the sequencing that I’m not happy with. The next stage will be to get the record mastered.

I’ve been spending a lot of time playing piano again – the digital piano is set up in my room, and I’ve been able to play away on headphones. However, I’ve been snatching time at the acoustic piano too – though it is in dire need of tuning and some minor repairs. Hopefully that’ll all be sorted out next week when the piano tuner comes to call!

One of my best friends is visiting from Sweden for a few days next week too. Last time she was here I had just bought my first little protools recording setup, and we had a ball recording some covers and little things on that same piano that I’m getting tuned next week. Nika plays in two wonderful Swedish traditional folk groups, Sheik and JONI, and as well as having her own solo output, and studied classical piano with me in Maynooth a number of years ago. If you’ve never listened to any Swedish traditional folk, any of those three links wouldn’t be a bad introduction, in my opinion. One of the songs I learned from her, Vargsången, I ended up arranging for SATB choir and performing with the NUIG Choralsoc last year, and is one of my favourites of my own arrangements.

Here’s Annika singing a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Conversation” on my piano a long time ago now. It’s quite quiet, but I had just one microphone that was on loan from a friend, and the actual recording session itself is lost, and we just have mp3 copies of those tracks left. But she did a really lovely version of this song:

annika hammer – conversation by misterebby

I’m a sucker for songs with choirs.

Seriously, it’s like crack to me. I think I can probably blame my parents for this one quite successfully: my dad has always sung in the local church choir, and my mother introduced us all to the wonderful songwriter Melanie, and this song in particular:

It can seem cliché to throw in a choir for some extra emotion, but there’s something really rousing about a group of different voices coming together as one. The combination of all those different vocal timbres creates something very special indeed. Even if they’re just singing in unison, there’s so much power in a group of voices.

I’ve been in choirs since I was really young, and have a major soft spot for choral music as a result. Last year I was conducting a choir for the first time properly – previously I’d set up a mini choir for an amateur production of Sister Act that I arranged all the music for. That’s a long story for another time. But, it was my first experience of properly arranging music for a group of other people to sing, and I was completely hooked. I think I arranged about half of the material I got the NUIG choir to sing last year – stuff that varied from Elvis songs to Swedish folksongs.

Speaking of Swedish music, one of my favourite guilty pleasure songs with choirs is by the Swedish band The Ark, who some people probably remember mostly for their Eurovision entry in 2007. However, I remember them mostly for a Swedish friend of mine who was rather obsessed with them and introduced me to their music. This particular song is one that has stayed with me since, mostly for the choir entry in it. The song itself is pretty straight forward and quite emo lyrically, but the interplay between the choir and the lead singer in the last section of the song is absolutely stellar.

And I must take a moment to thank @donalmulligan, who reminded me of this great track that I first heard on the Pet Shop Boys “Back To Mine” compilation. Incidentally, you may also have heard it recently on the Channel 4 show “Sirens”, which I recommend watching btw. I lost that PSB compilation in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2011, but I’m glad that youtube is there so I can still find these tracks to listen to. Try not to dance in your seat as you listen to it.

I had a playlist on my old iTunes that was dedicated to “Choral Awesomeness”, as I put it, but alas it’s something I’ll have to rebuild from scratch again now. Not all the selections had such bombastic choirs – some were more serene, like Kate Bush’s “Hello Earth” which quotes the Georgian folk song “Tsintsharo”, featured in the Werner Herzog film “Nosferatu”. Or Thea Gilmore’s amazing “Sol Invictus”, which quickly became one of my favourite midwinter songs ever. I’ve also previously posted about one of my favourite choirs, Scala, who do gorgeous choral versions of popular music.

But it seems pretty obvious that the love of choral music, and the years spent either singing in or conducting choirs, would have some effect on the kind of music that I write. That certainly does seem to be the case, listening back to the mixes. I realised that I have 10-part harmony at one point in one of the songs, and there’s a definite choral feel to that particular song. However, it’s definitely a different thing to be layering up different vocal lines with your own voice, and working with a choir. Maybe I’ll put together a little choral group to sing live with me so I can really get those vocal textures live that are on the record.

Death of a hard drive

Never the most enjoyable experience, but that is indeed what happened, and my backups weren’t as often as they should have been, so I’ve lost a bucket load of stuff, and I’m currently filling my lovely empty new hard disc up again. I had a lovely moment when the first album I added to my iTunes was the mixes of my own record. That was rather deadly, I gotta say.

But I’ve kinda made a half assed attempt at putting my iTunes music collection back together, as I’ve realised how little I listen to music on my computer anymore. I stick on Lyric FM, or play a vinyl record these days more than finding something on iTunes. I listen to CDs in my car, so for the last year or so, iTunes has been a way to do up mix CDs for the car, and that’s about it. I don’t think I’ll attempt to have the huge bloated music library I used to have, but instead, I’m gonna use this rebirth of my computer to be a bit more careful about what music I have on there, and maybe I’ll find myself actually listening to music on my computer again if I have to hit the skip button less often and value the music that I put on there more too.

This iMac has previously had a dead logic board within the first few weeks of me buying it, and was already named Jean Grey as a result of its miraculous rise from the dead that time. I guess the name is still pretty apt. I had a desktop of Jean as Phoenix for a long time. I guess it’s time I went with that again, or is that tempting fate?

Unabashedly a fan of musical theatre.

The opening chorus of “Bobby” in this clip gets stuck in my head so much. I’m not majorly well versed in Sondheim’s work, to be perfectly honest, but every time I catch something like this I feel like I should try and catch more performances of his musicals.

However, my love of musicals really began when I took a tape of the music from Cats out on loan from the city library as a child. I totally fell in love with those musical numbers as a kid, without ever seeing a production of it.

As a teenager, I ended up performing in school musicals, singing musical theatre pieces with choirs, or playing in the orchestra for various amateur productions, and got to know a wider variety of musicals, from Les Mis and How To Succeed In Business… , to Fiddler On The Roof and The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.

Even now, I make a living doing musical direction for amateur musical productions, or playing piano for them, and I guess it is only natural that a lifelong association with musical theatre in various ways has informed my own music as much as my classical training, or the music I listen to myself for pleasure.

As a performing art, it intrigues me as it covers so much ground musically – from jazz, to Disney, to rock, to country… you name as style of music, and there’s probably a few musicals in that style. One of my favourites of recent years are two movie musicals, with very contrasting styles:

Here’s some folky french chanson from Les Chansons d’Amour. I like that the actors sing quite naturally, and it completely surprised me when I rented it out on a whim from a local video shop a few years ago. The soundtrack is one of my favourite albums to be honest, and I need to find more of Alex Beaupain’s music. This isn’t the strongest song from the movie (that would probably be “Brooklyn Bridge” or “J’ai Cru Entendre” I think), but it’s my favourite this morning:

And this wonderful piece from Were The World Mine, which took inspiration from Shakespeare‘s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and added gays, rugby, and musical theatre. Obviously. And it’s a must-see for any gay guy that ended up getting a lead in their school show which helped change people’s opinion of them. *ahem* I love the transitions between reality and fantasy in the musical number in this movie too.

I could go on and keep posting videos from other more well known musicals, or other favourites of mine, but I won’t. I’ll leave it with what is still perhaps my favourite number from a musical ever. The weaving of the different melodies from other parts of the musical into this one big showstopper never fails to wow me:

Which of course was parodied brilliantly by South Park, Bigger, Longer and Uncut:

Arrangement attempts.

I’ve begun to notice that I have a few little habits that I fall back on when arranging music for strings, and it irked me today. I don’t think I’m very good at writing string parts and I run the risk of being very one-note when I write fuller arrangements for my songs. The piano parts come pretty easily to me, as that’s what I write the songs on, and sometimes other instrument parts or vocal parts are very clear pretty instantly, but other times I have a rough idea of what I want, but am not so successful at putting those parts together. However, I figured a way to get out of this was to start playing violin again, so I joined an amateur string orchestra here in Galway that is aimed at adult beginners, or adults who used to play but haven’t had the chance to play with a group in years.

It’s been really good, actually, and the age range is really diverse. It’s all organised and conducted by one of the string teachers in the new Galway School of Music, and I guess was primarily aimed at their adult string students, who are over the age cut off for the youth orchestra, and don’t have access to an amateur orchestra for learners.

I’m not a good violinist. I took lessons for a year or so, and played in the school orchestra for the six years I was in secondary school, but the experience of playing in an orchestra was invaluable to someone who was used to playing alone mostly as a classical piano student.

When I took on the role of conductor of the NUIG Choral Society this past year, I decided to try and do as much vocal arranging as I could myself, to try and stretch my choral arranging skills. I got to try out whatever I wanted to do, and did arrangements of everything from Swedish folkmusic, to Spirituals, to Beatles and Elvis songs, while also working on classical pieces and traditional Xmas carols. Being able to work in so many different styles with one group was invaluable, and I really learned a lot in the 8 months or so that I’ve had so far working with the group.

I guess I’m hoping that playing in the string orchestra will give me the same broad scope of experience of music arrangements for string instruments and that my own arrangements will benefit as a result. Regardless, it’s nice to be involved in something that I don’t have to be very good at, and I can just enjoy and play music purely for pleasure, and not for work, or an audience, or whatever.

Oh, except they’ve asked me to play the harpsichord part in the Vivaldi piece we’ve been doing, so I guess my piano hands will be coming out in there.

1 2 3 4 5 … 9