zbd1960 Posted March 21, 2023 Author Share Posted March 21, 2023 I'm sure what I'm going to say won't be a surprise to regular gigging players... I was at my nephew's weddign at the weekend and they had a live function band: singer, guitar, bass, drummer. They were using IEM. I don't know what THEY were hearing, but what WE were hearing was utterly abysmal. The drummer blasted everything else out of sight - it completely dominated the sound to the point thta hearing much else was tricky. A lot of people commented on it, not just me. My guess is they adjusted the IEM to suit what they wanted, but no one checked what it sounded like. We were all moved to a different room whilst they set up so they had a chance to do a sound check. The constant incessant very hard hitting of the drums was just unbearable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waddo Soqable Posted March 21, 2023 Share Posted March 21, 2023 1 hour ago, zbd1960 said: I'm sure what I'm going to say won't be a surprise to regular gigging players... I was at my nephew's weddign at the weekend and they had a live function band: singer, guitar, bass, drummer. They were using IEM. I don't know what THEY were hearing, but what WE were hearing was utterly abysmal. The drummer blasted everything else out of sight - it completely dominated the sound to the point thta hearing much else was tricky. A lot of people commented on it, not just me. My guess is they adjusted the IEM to suit what they wanted, but no one checked what it sounded like. We were all moved to a different room whilst they set up so they had a chance to do a sound check. The constant incessant very hard hitting of the drums was just unbearable. You should have just gone up and "nutted" him.. You'd have been the hero of the party.. 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted March 26, 2023 Author Share Posted March 26, 2023 "Okay, I want good walking bass line...", tick "Improvise bridge passage in style of a Bach fugue.." tick Has to be Nina Simone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted April 14, 2023 Author Share Posted April 14, 2023 One of the thing about being a cellist in several orchestras is you don't usually do that many gigs. Most amateur orchestras follow academic 'terms' with a term of weekly rehearsals and a concert at the end. There are huge problems with this pattern since it means, for example, that most choirs and orchestras in an area have their concerts at more-or-less the same time (one committee I was on liaised with other groups in the area to avoid concert dates clashing). My two orchestras at the moment don't in fact do that many concerts. Both will only have one this year: one at the end of June, and the other in early July. Both will be after I've moved house and I'll be about 150 miles away... What is particularly frustrating is both gigs are much later than you'd expect the 'summer' term concert to be. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted April 22, 2023 Author Share Posted April 22, 2023 (edited) Rehearsals resumed last night. Sight reading of Beethoven's overture 'Coriolan'... fiendish cello part with a lot of very non-standard arpeggios needing an awful lot of shifting. Edited April 23, 2023 by zbd1960 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted May 13, 2023 Author Share Posted May 13, 2023 I submit my final project in the next few days for my BA in Digital Imaging and Photography. The course has taken me in some unusual directions. I regard myself as a landscape photographer primarily, so do street, documentary etc photography has been a challenge and a different tack. I also have ended up making my own photobooks, so I've been getting to grips with bookbinding as well. My final project is a 'Leporello' format book - a concertina folded print. The print is 14 metres long. It's printed on inkjet paper, so folding it has been a major challenge.... The project is based around the the Chester Centurions, a rugby team in Chester and I've worked with both the touch and union teams. The work of my colleagues and I will be exhibited at the Open Eye Gallery at the Pier Head in Liverpool. My book will be 'pasted' to the wall as a single large print 14m long... There is a private viewing from 5pm to 7pm on Wednesday 24th May (all welcome - it's free). It will be on show until the close on Sunday 28th. I expect to be on site some of Sat and Sun as well as the opening. If anyone is around, it would be good to see people. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodwind Posted May 13, 2023 Share Posted May 13, 2023 As someone that has had a very unusual musical journey (and hope it continues to surprise me) I've enjoyed reading through this thread. All the best with your BA show. On a slight tangent - apologies if I missed it if it was mentioned earlier, do you tune your bass guitar in 5ths? When I was looking for a new way to write and wanted to distance myself from the double bass (which I'd been forced to stope due to injury), I started tuning my bass guitar in 5ths an octave below the cello. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted May 13, 2023 Author Share Posted May 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Woodwind said: As someone that has had a very unusual musical journey (and hope it continues to surprise me) I've enjoyed reading through this thread. All the best with your BA show. On a slight tangent - apologies if I missed it if it was mentioned earlier, do you tune your bass guitar in 5ths? When I was looking for a new way to write and wanted to distance myself from the double bass (which I'd been forced to stope due to injury), I started tuning my bass guitar in 5ths an octave below the cello. Thanks for the comments. No, I tune my basses as standard in 4ths and leave the 5ths to the cello. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted June 24, 2023 Author Share Posted June 24, 2023 For anyone who happens to wander into Chester from now until (probably) end of August, I have an exhibition of some images from a project "Being our authentic selves" on display in the Rainbow Tea Rooms, Bridge Street, Chester. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted June 24, 2023 Author Share Posted June 24, 2023 I realised I never put up an image of the exhibition in Liverpool last month. In the end it was a subset of about 20 or so images, printed 600mm high as a single print 10m long... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted June 27, 2023 Author Share Posted June 27, 2023 Covid etc made a huge mess of the amateur orchestra scene, so it was good to have a gig on Sunday afternoon with the small community orchestra I play cello with. We played one of Dvorak's Slavonic dances, an arrangement of Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals, and Schubert symphony #5. The venue was a little C13th church in Shropshire. As bribery to get an audience, orchestra members made cakes. I made lemon drizzle cake.... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted July 12, 2023 Author Share Posted July 12, 2023 (edited) Way back in 1978, I was supposed to go to uni and was being pushed to do a degree in chemistry. I really wanted to do astronomy... but at the time, I wasn't good enough at maths (and an astronomy/astrophysics degree is a lot of maths and some physics). So, I became a bank clerk... I worked on the international side so I was dealing with import/export documents and payments. Nowadays if you were unsure about what you wanted to you would take a gap year, or defer a year or two, but they weren't options back then. Fortunately in the bank a few years later I had a decent boss who recognised I was more 'techie' and didn't really fit in and he pushed me to apply for a role in IT and handed me a leaflet showing internal applicants sought. So, I sat the IBM computer programmer's aptitude test, passed it, and a couple of months later was on the graduate intake course as a trainee programmer. That was 1985 and the start of a 36 year career in IT. At 60 I initially took a sabbatical year for travel, which Covid wrecked, so I retired and became a full-time student. Yesterday, I attended my graduation ceremony where I was awarded a BA (Hons) 1st class. Edited July 23, 2023 by zbd1960 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len_derby Posted July 12, 2023 Share Posted July 12, 2023 Congratulations. Did you finally scratch that astronomy itch, or is your degree in a different subject? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted July 12, 2023 Author Share Posted July 12, 2023 40 minutes ago, Len_derby said: Congratulations. Did you finally scratch that astronomy itch, or is your degree in a different subject? I remained an amateur astronomer, but have been involved in admin of that up to national level... My degree is in digital imaging and photography. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted July 23, 2023 Author Share Posted July 23, 2023 It's been a right busy few weeks. First completion of my degree, then a series of exhibitions, then I graduated, and this week? Let's move house... The removal men arrived Monday to start packing, which continued Tuesday. Wednesday it was move day. Long chain and money didn't drop until 4pm: most of the van unload was on Thursday. Various rooms look like some sort of giant game of Tetris. It took 41 boxes to pack the books in my study and that's probably just over half - that didn't include all the music in the music room... (I live in my own so rooms get assigned labels like 'music room' instead of dining room). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted August 21, 2023 Author Share Posted August 21, 2023 To add to it all, I've been to two music summer schools one last week and one three weeks ago. Last week was fully residential, the first one I commuted in most days (it was near Ambleside). The Ambleside one was a sight-reading fest - there's no end of week concert, just playing a lot of repertoire. Last week I was in six different sessions each day which included chamber music, string orchestra, and orchestra, all on cello, plus wind band and big band playing both tenor and baritone sax. This group does involve recitals/performances. Photo is me playing cello for a Boccherini quartet in the chamber music recital. To say that I'm knackered would be an understatement. Here's the repertoire I played in the first week... Beethoven - overture - Leonora #3 Haydn - Symphony 100 Chabrier - Espana Rossini - ballet suite from William Tell Dvorak - Symphony #8 Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (that's strings only) Saint-Saëns - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Handel - orchestration of something I didn't recognise! Weber - overture - Die Freischutz Weber - overture - Oberon Brahms - Academic Festival Overture Hérold - overture - Zampa Bucalossi - The Grasshopper Dance Brahms - symphony 3 Mendelssohn - Symphony 4 (Italian) Mendelssohn - Symphony 3 (Scottish) Nicolai - overture 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' Auber - overture 'La Muette' Schubert - overture 'Alfonso' (never want to play that again!) Bach - concerto for two violins in D minor Mozart - Symphony 41 Puerner (?) "The Thistle" - Scottish folk songs 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted November 26, 2023 Author Share Posted November 26, 2023 Last night was my first concert since moving to the Lake District - played in Carlisle. It was also my first 'proper' concert with paying audience since 2019. Nothing happened in 2020 or 2021 and once stuff properly restarted the orchestra I was left with doesn't do formal concerts. It was nuts day as I had an all day choir rehearsal from 10.00 until 15.30 for a concert next year. Dashed home, changed into concert togs and out for 17.00. Quick top and tail run through at 18.15 then concert 19.30 until 21.30. Programme was von Suppé 'Poet & Peasant' overture, Bruch violin concerto #2, and Dvorak Symphony #9 (yes, the Hovis advert one). The Dvorak is a serious workout. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted January 8 Author Share Posted January 8 First 'gig' of the year was in fact a string orchestra workshop day on the Wirral. There were over 50 in attendance - I was one of a dozen cellos. There were a couple of DB as well. Main work for the day was Ireland's Downland Suite, which is a 'classic' piece of English string music. The middle two movements are the best known - Elegy and Minuet - but we played all four. It's also known as a brass band work - Ireland arranged it for both. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 It was gig time last night - concert of operatic music. Instrumental items included Wagners prleude to Act 3 of Lohengrin, suite from Carmen by Bizet, the waltz and polonaise from Eugène Onegin by Tchaikovsky, ballet suite from Faust by Gounod. Two soloists singing various items including the Flower Duet (think BA adverts...). Someone caught me at it... 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itu Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Dear @zbd1960, Please keep these coming. Very interesting stuff, including lots of nice side notes. I like your no nonsense type of approach: the century, or style does not matter, only music matters. One question I do have: how do you put the gamba frets to the neck? How is it possible to tighten them? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 3 hours ago, itu said: Dear @zbd1960, Please keep these coming. Very interesting stuff, including lots of nice side notes. I like your no nonsense type of approach: the century, or style does not matter, only music matters. One question I do have: how do you put the gamba frets to the neck? How is it possible to tighten them? Thank you @itu What you do with the frets, except the first (one nearest the nut), is tie them further up the neck i.e. nearer to the nut than where they need to be placed. This means they need stretching to be put into place. The challenge is the first fret. You need to use pliers or similar to pull the ends of the fret gut as tight as you can. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zbd1960 Posted April 20 Author Share Posted April 20 This week has seen orchestra rehearsals resume, so it's out with the cello. One of the works is Tchaikovsky symphony #3. This will be my first Tchaikovsky symphony. OK here's an example of the cello part, sight reading this was entertaining... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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