ALL STOPS HARTLEPOOL
Is someone trying to tell me something or is it just the law of averages? I have done quite a few miles this last year going up and down the A19 from Newcastle to Hartlepool so I suppose it’s no surprise I had to get a puncture one day. Pain in the proverbial though, especially when you realise there isn’t a spare tyre. No spare comes as standard apparently. Hmm I lost interest in lifting up bonnets and such stuff once cars went electronic, maybe I should have checked.
I was on my way to see Gavin – one of the keyboard players with Musicians Unlimited. My idea of just writing a song for a bigband and travelling hopefully has been a bit of a learning curve. I have had another musician ,Karl, working on the arrangement with me and he has been putting in lots of work to get us this far, but he is used to writing vocal harmonies and has never attempted something as complex as this before so we keep batting it back and forth. Having got something now that sounds pretty authentic to the period I’m referencing, I thought it would be advisable to have it checked through by Gavin as he has the experience of working with the full band.
So I got to his eventually, flat tyre and all.
Gavin listens to the MIDI recording and then ponders the sheets of music I have printed out for the various instruments. Seems he really needs to see it in long form.. which basically means laying out all the instruments underneath each other so he can check them bar for bar. Makes sense now he shows me. But I went to art college, not a music academy, so I’m learning all the time. I’m more used to turning up with a guitar, plugging it in, and suggesting ‘it’s in D, goes to G then E minor’… then everybody jumps in and just goes for it. Creating a full musical score is nothing I have attempted before. I am aware I am walking a thin line between enthusiasm and ignorance. Still, if art college teaches you one thing, it’s that you’ve got to have the balls to take risks. Luckily, anybody I’ve asked for help, has eventually given it to me.
I will get there eventually – but it’s a good job I started this particular strand of the piece a while back as it certainly aint a quick process.
Got a text the other day from my eldest daughter who lives in London. She and her co-conspirator Rhiannon run a popular blog called the Vagenda. Turns out Rhiannon’s great grandparent’s were from Hartlepool and one of their children got into the local news for getting a Cambridge degree at the time. It’s quite remarkable… such an out of the way place… so many connections, but as it was for me before this project, for a relocated generation it’s a twilight town .
