I think it’s a sign of confidence when people give away advice on their trade, in a limited marketplace. That’s why I was particularly impressed with Writing Sketches by Richard Herring, David Mitchell & Robert Webb and Honing a Joke by Richard Herring. This latter one, and it’s insistence of mastery of language, struck me as particularly relevant to recent thoughts, as I’ve been captivated to the point of a couple of thousand words of participation in a debate on literacy, in the widest sense, on John Connell’s excellent blog.

Other interesting pieces in this Guardian series include Wendy Cope on poetry, Simon Jenkins on journalism and Ronald Harwood on stage and screenplay.

Never fear – Audacity is here – and free. As a precursor to shortening the file to just under 40 minutes – we will also amplify it to avoid having to turn up the volume of the in-car entertainment system, which might invite hiss into an otherwise perfect world – in addition to taxing your car battery a little more. Who needs that in this approaching winter of discontent?

• Open the folder where the multitudinous files are hoarded

• Choose one and Right-click the name of the mp3 file

• Left-click Open With

• Left-click Audacity

• From the Edit menu choose Select all (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A)

• Go to Effects menu and choose Amplify (Alt+C then A)

• The optimum amount will be offered, so simply click OK (or press Enter)

• Ensuring that the Select All situation is still in place (the continued darkening of the image of the sound wave should confirm this) – return to the Effects menu and choose Change Tempo (Alt+C then C,C,C). The word tempo is essential because, should you choose, Change Speed, the pitch of the voices (or notes) will rise – this adds little to a serious documentary – unless its a biography of the element Helium.

• Drag the slider to the right until percentage increase is 6% - to some this moment seems counter-intuitive because we hope to shorten the file but we appear to be adding 6% to the original. Remember we are increasing the tempo – not the length

• Go the File menu and Export the file as an mp3. Audacity saves in its own file format (ogg) so be sure to Export as opposed to saving – otherwise you will be unable to open the file in another program. The very first time you Export as an mp3 in Audacity, a message will appear explaining that you need to hunt down a supplementary application entitled Lame from the Internet. This is quite straightforward, and has to be done only once. If you feel in any way uneasy about this, the alternative is to Export as a wav. This, at first seems an unnecessary waste of your hard drive (an mp3 is 1/10^th the size of its wav version). Remember that as you intend to create CDs you needn’t keep the files on your computer.

• The exporting process should aim your file at the folder from which it was taken – and its original name will be offered. Rather than dreaming up a new one, creating an expanding universe of confusion, I tend to use that name, adding the suffix dim (for diminished). That way both files will appear together in the folder. You might choose to delete both which is easier when they are neighbours.

• When your have diminished two programmes, it’s time to open them in iTunes (other Media Players are available)

• Create a New Playlist (Ctrl+N) and give it a name which combines both programmes. Drag both files into the folder. This new folder/playlist can also be deleted once the CD has successfully been burned.

• With this new playlist selected (you’ll know this has successfully happened because only the two chosen programmes will appear in the right pane. Insert a blank CD into the drive and choose Burn Disc – depending on which version of iTunes you have, the location of this command varies

• You now have just under 80 minutes of mind-improving audio material to brighten up the most routine journey. There’s no better condition in which to arrive at your work than fascination.

• If you are truly in planet saving mode then pass the CDs onto your friends or form a group of like friends to share the conversion.

Also of interest to me is the posture of Horacio Castillo in the very first video of this sizeable collection. I have found myself intuitively using this posture – which contravenes classical orthodoxy - over the last few years. However, I do not pass it on as standard to pupils for the simple reason that I’d already been playing for more than 30 years before falling into it and I remain unconvinced that it would offer enough stability to allow a beginner truly to relax the shoulders, arms and hands. Is this simply an untenable case of do as I say, not as I do?

Right at the bottom of the page you can hear a cheerful audio file of the puzzingly entitled milonga, Y no entendieron nada (And they didn’t understand anything) by Eduardo “Toto” Mendez (interestingly put together, trilingual website). If you’ve ever wondered what a Uruguayan accent sounds like, there is a short video of him enthusing about the first ever Festival de Cuerdas de América. I’d never come across Eduardo Mendez before and a little research on YouTube threw up this short, comical video of a recording session with some pals. I tried embedding the video twice and while it had all the appearances of success, pressing Play elicited the message “Sorry, this video is no longer available.”

1, 1a, 2, 2a, 3, 3a, 3b

Using Sibelius, I played the score to the pupils at performance speed – which is pretty brisk . In addition to the speed there are two other unusual factors:

• there are 7 beats per bar – grouped as follows 12 12 123

• it is based on a very unusual scale (E Lydian Dominant) – resulting in unusual harmonies - one effect of which can be to make the less confident pupil occasionally doubt that they have landed on the correct note

Before the music began pupils were asked to identify which parts would meet the following criteria for them:

• the part would (eventually*) be manageable

• it would provide some element of challenge and interest

• it might appeal to their natural strengths e.g. by being essentially melodic, harmonic or rhythmic in nature

• it would avoid any feeling of distress

Somewhat to my surprise, every group and individual chose as I would have predicted. This could mean one (or possibly more) of three things:

• that pupils are aware of their current levels

• that they are aware of the likely speed of progress over the remaining months (even although some have not yet played in the East Lothian group)

• that I am unconscious of Derren Brown-style levels of manipulation

Over the holiday, I hope to upload not only play-along midi files but parts of the piece so, if you play the guitar, you could simulate the experiment. For this particular piece, Hungarian Wedding Dance, most of the parts will be in TAB as opposed to traditional notation. This is due to the fact that many of the notes have been relocated onto strings other than the one where they would normally be found. This is done for two reasons:

• increased resonance e.g. using 2^nd string E at fret 5 instead of open E on string 1 – the sound of which is a little thinner

• the note is more easily reached from the previous note than it would be in its normal location

* eventually, in this case, is the Showcase Concert on Friday 27 March at 7:30 in Musselburgh Grammar School

There are currently 21 people in the East Lothian’s Instrumental Service so you can imagine the relative intensification of taking part in a one-day conference of Scotland’s 900 instrumental staff. The conference was the fruit of a partnership between Heads of Instrumental Teaching Scotland (HITS) and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama (RSAMD) – with the generous support of The Scottish Arts Council. The venue was Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall with some of the activities spilling over into the nearby RSAMD and National Piping Centre. 

Fittingly, the day opened not with words, but with music and dance – specifically samba drumming, dance and capoeira performed by Rhythm Wave - a mixture of students and staff of Perth College, led by founder, Ronnie Goodman, a lecturer at the college. It would be difficult to imagine a more rousing beginning to the day. 

This year’s chair of HITS, Mike McGeary, then welcomed us before introducing Adam Ingram, MSP, Minister for Children and Early Years. We were then invited to make our way to the first of our two chosen workshops. Across the day, the choice comprised: 

• ASL – Drake Music Scotland – Making Music Accessible – with Brian Cope

• Bagpipes – with Paul Warren

• Brass – with Steven Mead

• Conducting – with William Conway

• CPD: Online Support – with Sheila Smith

• Curriculum for Excellence – with Alan Armstrong & Aileen Monaghan

• Early Years: Focus on Instruments – with Andrew Cruickshank

• Early Years – with Naheed Cruickshank

• Expanding the Electric Guitar’s Creative Potential – with Jonathan Quinney

• Group Teaching – with Richard Crozier

• Guitar – with Martin Taylor

• IT – Music Notation Another Way? An Introduction to Finale – with Chris Swaffer

• Jazz – with Malcolm Edmonstone

• Kodály: The Relevance of Kodály Musicianship to the Training of Young Instrumentalists – with David Vinden

• Lower Strings – with Elizabeth Harre

• Percussion for All – how orchestral percussion can give access to a range of musical opporunities – with Elspeth Rose

• Piano For All – with Havilland Willshire

• Technology for the Rock & Pop Musician – with Craig Blundell

• Traditional Music – with Josh Dickson

• Upper Strings – with Géza Szilvay

• Voice – with Christopher Underwood

• Woodwind – with Pete Long

• World: Samba, Reggae Brazilian Rhythms – with Ronnie Goodman

• World: The Indonesian Gamelan – Cultural Connections In Scottish Education – with Gamelan Naga Mas

I’ll go into the particulars of the two workshops I chose in subsequent posts, but I’d like simply to sum up here some of the feeling of the day. Naturally I had come along prepared to learn but had not really figured on the inspirational and emotional content of the day. Much of the inspiration came from John Wallace’s keynote speech. Trumpet in hand, he reminded us how music, and the arts in general will allow our students lasting freedom and individuality of expression. In the hurly burly of lessons, rehearsals and concerts it’s all too easy to forget that! Possibly the inspirational nature was due to John being not only a distinguished educator (Prinicipal of RSAMD) but also a world class musician. The old Shavian maxim “he who can does, he who cannot, teaches” was never more resoundingly refuted. 

However, furthering musical youth being our raison d’être, the greater part of the afternoon session was given over to to young talent: Nicola Benedetti (violin); Karen Geoghegin (bassoon); Ian Watt (guitar) and Pure Brass. 

In addition to the expressive performances, there was the additional emotional content of meeting up with old college pals (some of whom I hadn’t seen since 1979) and former colleagues (some of whom I hadn’t seen since the Lothians went their separate ways in 1996).