Bye bye sabbatical

Today is the final day of my sabbatical. It has been a remarkable experience and one I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who feels able to do so. I have learnt many new skills, made lots of new acquaintances and I’ve discovered much about myself, which has been central to defining what I plan to do for the next 10 years or so…at which point I plan to take my next sabbatical.

 
The ups and downs
Here’s a quick list of what I see as my most major achievements to come out of my sabbatical:

ORE
To go from just starting to play tuba as my sabbatical began to playing our debut gig at Supersonic 2011, and all which has followed thereafter, makes me extremely happy. I am also delighted that my collaboration with Stuart Estell, which can only result in good things!

MortonUnderwood
Likewise, to go from having started work on our first commission together in November 2011 to delivering a highly successful sound art piece at BEAM Festival recently is great progress. Again, I am delighted with my collaboration with David Morton.

PRSF New Music Incubator
To be selected as one of the ten UK artists to partake in the PRSF New Music Incubator programme 2011-12 was fantastic. A great experience, which boosted my confidence and has led us all to have a group of open-minded performers (and friends) I can rely on to deliver future projects.

Collaborations, in general
These three achievements (above) have led me to view collaboration as a great thing. I am no longer a solitary soul where my art is concerned.

Sonic Graffiti
My Sonic Graffiti project has developed greatly over the past months. In particular the work I did to deliver sound objects as part of a commission for VIVID and Capsule drove this on greatly. I will definitely be doing more!

Malvern Hills District Brass Band
I recently joined Malvern Hills District Brass Band. I did so in order to gain more focus in terms of my playing and sight-reading. I also rather like much brass band music and I see it in some way as a dedication to my granddad who loved brass bands. In many ways there could be no greater endorsement of the progress I have made on tuba than this. Yes, I have loads to learn still but the fact a band is happy to have me on board when they would naturally have a very matter-of-fact view of players is great. Chuffed.

There are a number of really exciting things bubbling under at present, which I am sadly not quite in a position to announce. These include potential projects with organisations and artists I admire greatly. Hugely exciting stuff…which I will be sure to let you know about as it is announced.

 
Here’s a list of the things that didn’t go as originally planned:

Studio build
What a nightmare. This was just like you see on the telly box. Too much time, money and effort expended by half. BUT at least it is nearly done there. This was the reason my sabbatical was extended by three months.

Still not enough time
Yes, despite taking a sabbatical some projects still never came to fruition. I think in some ways what you unnaturally want to concentrate on comes to the fore. In my case this meant some specific projects didn’t get done and in general I didn’t do as much recoding and production of music as I had hoped. Onwards!

 
What’s next?
Now my sabbatical is over, everything changes. Well, not quite. Much of what I have been developing will continue to be developed. The change is in the focus of what I am doing. Essentially, I will be spending less time on projects that fall at the fringes of my interest (such as helping to organise The End Festival) and more time focussing on developing my core areas of interest… and yes, making some money.

The main areas I plan to concentrate on in order to both get better at them and to make some money from them are:

  • Tuba playing with ORE, and in other contexts
  • Musical instrument design, build and sale
  • Electronic and (ultimately) acoustic instrument building workshops
  • Sound art installations – in particular my Sonic Graffiti and acoustic gallery installations based around my instrument building
  • Concerts – with an emphasis on bass and exploring cavernous acoustic spaces
  • Recordings – where possible physical beautiful physical releases
  • Short-runs of hand-finished merchandise
  • Lectures

More details on these as they develop but for now, if anyone wishes to commission me to build a musical instrument, play at your festival or deliver a workshop or lecture, please get in touch.

 
Finally, a note to (not from) my sponsors
To those of you who very kindly sponsored me at the start of my sabbatical, I have three things to say to you:

  1. The funds raised are still kept entirely separate from other monies and will go into funding some cool stuff very soon
  2. Your Sabbatical Credits are safe and you will be able to spend them on anything I produce
  3. I have not forgotten that I promised to run a draw amongst you for a piece that I worked on throughout my sabbatical. This hasn’t quite transpired as I intended. Rather than being a piece that was added to daily, I will now run a draw using something that has been one year in the development as the prize. More on this soon!

Oh, and a huge thank you for your support!! It helps not only in terms of providing some funds towards making cool stuff happen but also in terms of my knowing that people care about what I get up to. Thanks.

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Thanks for reading!

And…for anyone out there thinking of taking a sabbatical, here is part of what convinced me to do so. I can now highly recommend it myself but the master frames it rather well.

Sagmeister: The Power of Time Off

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Sonic Week(end) 8

I’m just back from Sonic Weekend 8, my sixth to date. Despite the obvious contradiction, this one was a week long and was held somewhere in rural France.

Much fantastic music was made, as were many friendships. I can’t speak highly enough of Sonic Weekend. It’s always a beautifully creative and smiley time. Keep an ear open for the sounds produced in the not too distant.

Personal highlights of mine (in no particular order):

  • The opportunity to work with so many wonderfully creative musicians
  • Trying out some ideas for tuba and Theremin with Gordon Charlton
  • Playing in a small New Orleans style brass band
  • Twatting around with Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath” for Moog, tuba and drums
  • Natalie Sharp’s amazing face painting
  • Chatting with Aurelia Jaubert about her great art works
  • Deep, meaningful and funny conversations with some delightful friends, both old and new – in particular the journey down with the lovely Ben (SoundHog) and Tim (Mayor of Shaftesbury)

Due to all the other things that kept me busy I didn’t take many photographs to document stuff but here are a few images that I think encapsulate the mood and surroundings pretty well.

Main studio

Main studio : live room

Studio 2

Pedals and hair-straighteners

Wig and musical instruments

Ann, with dog

Mark, pointing at cock

Jesus (self-portrait)

Boy band

Scary doll leg

Odd tomb, with odd people on top

Odd tomb, with odd bloke filming it

Vines on building

Vines in field

Stupid dog

A wonderful time, as ever! If you are a keen musician with an open mind and you want to experience a fresh way of making music with some lovely people I can’t think of a better way than attending a Sonic Weekend. Thank you to Ann and Mark of White Label Music for making this happen, to Ben and Tim for the lifts, to Tim Dorney for his hospitality and production skills, to Steve for running Studio 2 and to everyone that attended for making it such a blast.

Next up, on Tuesday I head to Sweden for the second leg of my time on the PRS New Music Incubator programme. YES!

PRSF New Music Incubator – Initial response

Last week I attended the UK leg of the PRSF New Music Incubator, for which I was selected earlier this year. This was held at Brunel University, the Swedish leg takes place in some remote northern Swedish town in April 2012.

Here is a list of the current participants.

I decided to write an initial response to my time there before memories fade. I have not reflected on stuff in great detail, in fact I just wanted to blurt some stuff out there. I find this a valid part of how I document stuff and also quite cathartic. More measured thoughts to follow…maybe.

The schedule and process was pretty intensive. Each day we’d make our way to the food hall at 8am for breakfast, then to the main hall for 9am to be divided into groups and to be given our theme for the day. Each evening at 8pm we would “perform” whatever we had managed to achieve that day. Days were pretty long, creatively charged and were followed by long sessions to evaluate what had been presented. These were sometimes quite impassioned affairs.

On the first night it became apparent that the people chosen were all really pleasant, as were the people leading the programme. That was a great start and put me immediately at ease.

For me personally it was an emotional time. I had to travel back on the first day to attend a meeting to see whether the studio I had spent all my life savings on having built could be rescued from possible demolition, as it was too tall. I find planning a pretty dull subject area but the potential consequences were substantial for me and had been causing me stress and bouts of depression for months. I was really nervous but I am so pleased to say that it was passed and can now be finished. This is GREAT news but the whole episode left me even more emotionally drained than just the intensity of the programme itself. My instinct was that I wanted to be around people I was already close to that night and the next day but it was actually really nice just getting on with stuff and seeing how happy those who I told were for me. Again, it showed how damn pleasant the people on the programme are.

At times I felt out of my depth. I am clearly at a different stage in my musical development to pretty much everyone else there, which included accomplished composers, players, or experts in their fields. By the last day this feeling got to me a little but overall it was really good to be given an indication of what level I should be looking to achieve. It also meant that I learnt shedloads from everyone else. I hope I was able to give something back but some of the time I just felt I was leaching expertise.

I was reminded how much I want to excel on an instrument or in a given area, rather than as is currently the case, where I am fairly proficient in a number of areas. People demonstrated some amazing work throughout as part of how we got to know each other. On the last day I had demos from Robert Ek, a hugely accomplished clarinet player, and from Mark Fell. I consider both of them to be at the top of their games. This just made me want to concentrate my efforts more than ever.

As ever I didn’t document stuff as well as I’d have liked. We were busy! The best I did was take a few photographs of my group on the last day (below). More material will no doubt surface in due course.

Lina Lapelyte

Robert Ek

Mark Fell

My kit

We all provided feedback about the programme on the last evening. There’s no need to go over that here, other than to stress one thing, I think it could be even more successful given a broader range of people and influences. I don’t really know what sort of music PRS hope the programme will result in but for me the participants were drawn from too narrow a selection of musicians and backgrounds.

I have not stopped thinking about the week we had together. In the shower, on my morning bike ride etc. It has really challenged me and I believe it will focus my efforts greatly. In particular the single-mindedness and expertise demonstrated was just a big kick up the arse for me. I admire so many of the people on the course, it was great to spend time I their company. It was all I could’ve hoped for.

I am really looking forward to Sweden and am confident interesting collaborations and future works will arise.
I’d like to thank everyone involved in the programme and a special thank you to Capsule for nominating me. Your support is hugely appreciated!