Alan Coady’s Musical Blog

This morning saw the band call for North Berwick High School’s forthcoming production of Fiddler On The Roof (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein). By the time this pic of the band was taken

our drummer, debonair Dave Swanson, hungry for CPD as ever, had raced off to a drum clinic by Omar Hakim.

The show runs from Thu 18 - Sat 20 at 19:30 in North Berwick High School. Tickets are available on the door but, to avoid disappointment, you can call the school on 01620 894661, reserve tickets and pay on the night.

Why not visit the production’s Facebook page?

Last night I attended an astonishing event in Haddington’s Corn Exchange organised by Mike Cullen and a host of talented and generous friends  in aid of the victims of Haiti’s earthquake. I’m sure Mike won’t mind my mentioning here that the amount raised is already over £5,000 and rising. Perhaps Mike could let us know the final figure and the names of all those involved in putting on such an excellent night.

The Corn Exchange was transformed into a TOTP studio:

The quality of the bands was outstanding - including State Freed, featuring some Knox lads:

The audience were invited to dress up and many really pushed the boat out. I was keen to do my bit with this barely noticeable tweak to standard school dress code:

All 500 tickets were sold and the atmosphere was fantastic. I found this quite a moving event - not least because I had the chance to catch up with some old friends - including school friends. The dynamic between music, geography and emotion is a strange one. I lived in Haddington until I moved away to study in 1979 - quite a while ago. Yet last night, I’d never felt more part of, nor proud of, the place.

Well done to everyone involved!

Last night saw another successful Campie Musical Evening in Musselburgh Grammar School (bigger hall - more parents can fit in). The enthusiasm of so many brave, smiling young people taking to the stage was infectious. The evening comprised Guitars, Brass, Recorders, Choir, Scottish Country Dance, Jazz Dance. Guitar and Brass being timetabled, class-time lessons, it’s not possible to play both - but very many pupils took part in more than one group and several were in four!

This is really an effortless Transition event. Pupils in P5-P7 mix with peers already attending MGS and get to know the layout of the Music Department, school hall etc. What strikes me as valuable is for young pupils to see e.g. an S6 pupil perform a short solo. No amount of description of the road ahead could get the message across like this - and provide the inspiration to continue practising.

Such an evening also strikes me as Curriculum of Excellence in action. All four capacities are present in abundance - the stage was graced with:

• successful learners
• confident individuals
• responsible citizens
• effective contributors

With particular regard to the last two on this list, many thanks to Gavin and Jamie in S6 who put in a long shift (from 4:00 - 9:15 setting up and operating sound and lights). Thanks also to Callum in S6 and Hayley in S3 who helped me out with tuning and re-tuning 25 guitars in addition to playing along with the group.

I found myself wishing that councillors from neighbouring authorities, currently considering cutting primary instrumental provision, had been present, to get a real sense of the sadness and the loss that this will inevitably bring about. I can’t imagine a bigger dent being put in the 3-18 continuity to which CfE aspires.

Later in the year, when Campie’s P5-P7 guitarists put on a concert for P4s (next session’s new players) I will record the group pieces we played last night - in addition to the solos, which many will offer. This smaller event will take place in the cathedral-like acoustic of Campie’s Gym Hall.

Philip Ball discusses his new book, The Music Instinct, on Start The Week - available on here on iPlayer until Monday 15th. Scroll forward to 12:13 (or play from the beginning if you want to hear John Adams discuss his new work City Noir).

The Music Instinct seeks to explore the effects of music on the brain and emotions.  At one point in the interview he describes music as a gymnasium for the mind and goes on to outline how music engages language and motor centres in the brain. From the point of view of evolution, our skill in detecting patterns, predicting outcomes and enjoying the violation of these expectations resonates with me and with what I see in pupils’ developing experience and skills.

Denegrators of Twitter, who are invariably non-users, claim that users feel others must be updated on their every meal and bodily function. Those of us living in the real-virtual world know that a great deal of professional connection is to be had there. For example, this morning I was directed to four short films by the Musicians’ Union’s campaign, Music Supported Here. The campaign also has a YouTube channel.

Horace Trubridge, the MU’s Assisstant General Secretary, sets the scene:

One of the ironies of this situation is the use of YouTube in defence of copyright when one draconian outcome of the Digital Economy Bill could be its blocking due to copyright infringements. Can you imagine life without YouTube?

Like many pupils, I’m as fond of science as I am of music, and even fonder of situations where the two connect - such as Rock Guitar in 11 Dimensions - one of the talks in this year’s Edinburgh Science Festival. This promises to be an introduction to Superstring Theory - which reminds me of one of the few science jokes I’ve heard:

A string theorist is confronted by his wife with a photograph of him leaving a hotel with a younger woman. He responds, “Darling, I can explain everything!”

For a musician, timing is everything - but it’s often not as much fun as serendipity. I emerged from the today’s post-work swim just in time to hear a piece on Radio 4’s PM on the links between music and language. This is one of the topics on the agenda of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s forthcoming conference.

You can hear the piece here (approx 5 mins long - scroll forward to 0:44:20) for the next seven days. There is mention (and sometimes demonstration) of:

• how the enhanced audio/language processing skills in musicians are exactly those diminished in certain “clinical populations”
• how the electrical activity in the brain mirrors much more exactly the patterns of music recently heard than would be possible in the case of speech - the corollary being that frequent, active exposure to music can strengthen language processing
• how the eye contact necessary in some music therapy activities can strengthen the social skills of the most withdrawn
• how a stroke patient, struggling to recall the content of an out-of-context lyric, seemed suddenly capable of total recall when asked to sing the same lyric
• the differing opinions of Darwin, Spencer and Rousseau on whether music grew from language, language from music, or whether they emerged as co-dependants

I mentioned this as an aside yesterday but feel it deserves to be highlighted in its own right. A World Science Festival panel, chaired by John Schaeffer and featuring Jamshed Bharucha,  Daniel Levitin,  Lawrence Parsons and Bobby McFerrin discuss whether music is hard wired or culturally determined. The resulting output is five videos (featuring musical illustration) which can be accessed here.

Daniel Levitin (record producer/engineer turned neuroscientist) is the author of a very readable book entitled This Is Your Brain on Music. Both subjects are so jargon-heavy that the accessible writing is nothing short of miraculous.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the universality of the pentatonic scale and “audience expectations” in this entertaining video from the World Science Festival 2009. This was part of a larger event in the festival entitled Notes & Neurons.

If the notion of the universality of the pentatonic scale interest you, may I recommend the first of Leonard Bernstein’s Norton Lectures, in which he relates the pentatonic scale (and varieties of it associated with different cultures) to the harmonic series.

Thanks to Pat Kane for flagging this up in Twitter.

I note that film director, David Lynch, hopes to introduce Transcendental Meditation (TM) to UK schools - details here in Guardian and Telegraph. His belief (described more fully in his own words here) is that it would help attention and behavioural problems. This seems believable. Whether boisterous adolescents would warm to the idea is another question.

TM* is not the style with which I’m most familiar, nor the one I came to know through a course laid on by East Lothian Council’s Healthy Working Lives** team, last term. Those with little experience of meditation tend to focus primarily on the mental/psychological benefits. However, the physiological benefits should not be overlooked and such a perception may move the activity from the possibly presupposed subject area of RME into PE.

With well-being joining literacy and numeracy atop CfE’s global aims, inclusion of some kind of meditation should be, at least, considered.

* one further problem could be one of the apparent unfairness of subscribing and paying into a worldwide foundation/corporation - perhaps a less affiliated style would be preferable.

** while searching for links, I stumbled upon the fact that East Lothian’s Housing Department won a silver award for Healthy Working Lives. Perhaps they could let us in on their secret?