I’ve needed to go as far back as my childhood to explore and establish the roots of my musical journey so far.

My parents were very fond of music, whether listening to it, singing or playing the piano or organ, albeit with differing levels of competency between them. Perhaps it may have had something to do with their respective parents, who had pianos in their houses, went to church and sang hymns with the congregation, which could have had some influence on my parent’s love of music and the social aspects associated with it. 

It is likely there was an early subconscious development and appreciation of music for me. There was always music in the home and as one of four children, it was clear that music was a part of our everyday family life, ever present and always encouraged but never forced, and although my parent’s disposable income was non-existent, each of us was somehow afforded the opportunity of attending paid music lessons at some stage in our early lives. 

As a teenager I was sent for classical guitar lessons because I was developing a strong interest in this instrument. However, this was during the late 60s and sadly the lessons didn’t last long because the pull of playing electric guitar to music by the Beatles, the Stones, the Shadows etc was far and above more exciting than anything taught by a classical style of guitar playing by old man in a dingy old sitting room. 

As far as singing was concerned, I became a choir boy, then head chorister at the local church and as my boy’s voice changed there was progression to alto and finally bass parts and was something that just happened. I took part in chorus lines in Gilbert and Sullivan productions in my later teens at school and was involved in two bands, one pop and one folk music. 

There were clearly very happy memories associated with music. However actively participating in it diminished during the 70s where it seemed the norm to find girlfriends, buy homes, get married and start families and at a ridiculously young age. The result being that other than listening to records and tapes, anything else musical became largely dormant for many, many years.

On reflection playing the guitar in pop and folk bands, singing in the church choir and as part of the school’s operas clearly left deep rooted memories which became aspirations that ‘one day’ a musical interest might revive itself and become a reality with more spare time.

Adult-life was accompanied by the absolute joys of two young children and followed a period of deep sadness and crisis where solace was very often found in listening to the right sort of music depending on my mood. 

Having been blessed with a practical hand, an opportunity presented itself in the 90s to build a Mandola, an eight stringed instrument that provided a creative mental diversion which was also musical. During its construction I was interested in and was able to see in reality the relationship between maths and notes associated whilst setting the frets in the finger board to achieve as perfect a tuning as possible whatever the length of the finger board. Subsequently this instrument was used for a time by a folk band and continues to be treated with respect by me.

I have always ‘picked up’ music when needed and found it comforting in times of sadness and joy. Almost two generations on, I knew I could sing in tune, strum (not play) a guitar, sing harmonies in tunes, sight read music (in a rusty fashion) and know the treble and bass clef, but was largely inactive musically and that could only be described as an unfulfilled gap in my life.

What was lacking was the need to understand the theory associated with music and combine it with the practical aspects such as singing and playing it. 

I am fortunate to live in Felton with my wife where over the recent years there are opportunities to participate in an increasingly diverse range of musical and music learning activities provided by talented and motivated musicians within the village. This has been the catalyst in motivating me to attempt to fulfil earlier aspirations associated with learning in later adulthood and filling that gap. 

The emotions evoked with music and music learning are many. I am convinced that being able to draw on past experiences and long dormant years of basic music knowledge has undoubtedly helped in the learning process as an adult. However the inevitable and usual adverse memory changes can be both irritating and frustrating at times. 

Singing once again with different people or being part of a choir is incredibly enjoyable both socially and musically. It can be highly stimulating when experiencing sadness or joy, or those wonderful spine tingling moments in a particular piece of music. It can be challenging when learning a new piece, can be frustrating and can be irritating should someone hit a wrong note. 

There are many rewarding and interesting moments as the learning is improving confidence in my knowledge of music and is enabling me to sing more confidently, which aren’t the same thing. It also allows me to completely wind down and relax both physically and mentally from busy and stressful days.

Other members of my family have expressed a wish for a similar experience having seen the benefits music learning has given me.

I feel very privileged to have been to a state primary school where music was a priority subject. We were taught to read scores and rhythm via percussion bands, and notation through recorder playing, so by the age of seven I was conducting the percussion band and recorder ensembles in local festivals. We also had, I now realise, a remarkable school choir.

However, although my main instrument was voice, we had a piano at home which my sister played, and by watching her, I was soon playing it to a recognisable standard. Music gives me great joy and since my retirement has brought me wonderful friendships.

I began to play the flute when I retired and later brought my violin out of the cupboard. A few minutes every day playing the violin gave me enough confidence to join a folk fiddle group, and with it an improvement in my ability to keep with the group, or sometimes to mime until I’d had time to sort it in my mind. Never be afraid to mime just as long as you sort it out later.

A passing remark from a fellow flute player in ABO, our Felton wind ensemble, took me to U3A’s ukulele group and more friends. The ukulele is a very fun instrument to learn and one that can be played in the garden without annoying neighbours. Most books have the chord formations indicated at the top of the page, so finding a way round the music is made much simpler. Never believe that playing an instrument is an impossibility… the ukulele would prove otherwise.

Another stray remark caused me to borrow one of my son’s saxophones. It is not so dissimilar to a flute, and therefore quite like a recorder fingering. I am finding 10 to 15 minutes a day enough for now as the embouchure is so different from my flute and causes my face to ache.! But I have found that the more one plays, each little improvement awakes the desire to play a little more. Success breeds success, and gives such a sense of achievement. I know I will never play in the Albert Hall or give an acclaimed recital, but I am doing this for ME.

Since school I have wanted to play the ‘cello and last year decided if not now, when? I was fortunate to hear of a cello being sold reasonably cheaply and so bought it. The bowing action is totally different from the violin, and initially made my arm ache, but that is getting better now too, It is a little more of a trial to get it ready to play when the violin is a get-out-of-the case and go, but once I am prepared it is a joy to aim for the right note, and magic when the tone of just one note is beautiful.

I find a little every day sees huge improvement. I think starting with the scale of the piece is helpful, and ending a practice session with a short piece you know and play well gives a sense of satisfaction.

In my experience, when life gets hard, or quiet (as now with this lock down), music is there to calm the mind. I have come to know many lovely people who I think of as my friends, and am playing in different groups so am never at a loose end wondering what to do.

Wendy Williams
April 2020

Learning to play the recorder was initially terrifying

In the first group session I seemed to be the only person who could merely produce squeaks out of the instrument and, as I also seemed to be the only person who could barely read music, the idea that I would ever be able to master even a simple tune seemed fairly ludicrous. This made me anxious, which made me tense, and this made the squeaks worse. It would have been easy to abandon the idea at this point but as I told myself – four and five year olds can get a tune out of a recorder so I should be able to do it!

I hoped with some practice on my own I would eventually be able to stop squeaking. I also realised that it was important to find a time to practise when I felt relaxed. This turned out to be early in the morning and just before I went to bed. However I also tensed up while practising – especially when things didn’t go well - so the sessions had to be short – a maximum of ten minutes seemed to work best. 

But it took a couple of weeks before I could produce notes instead of squeaks most of the time. Some days were better than others and on days when I could only produce squeaks I abandoned practising completely.

The next group session was almost as difficult as the first. Squeaks returned with the anxiety of trying to get the right notes with others listening. But the group support, and the laughter, meant that the session wasn’t quite as terrifying as the first.

Afterwards I continued to practise morning and evening but tried to extend the attempts to fifteen or twenty minutes if I had the time and if things were going well. The problem now wasn’t so much the squeaking as trying to play the correct notes of simple tunes whilst reading the music. My brain was trying to work out what each note was then send a message to my fingers so that they could put themselves over the correct holes – the process was slow and frustrating! However the reality was that I didn’t actually have to know what the notes were written down - I just had to connect each dot on the page with the correct fingering. I found the easiest way to gain this ability, and to consolidate it, was to play scales.  

Once I started to get the hang of putting fingers over the correct holes, I found it helpful (and less boring) to play simple tunes that I already knew so I could tell immediately if I was playing the wrong note. 

But the group sessions were still a problem. Anxiety not ‘to mess things up’ for everyone else meant that my ‘jumpy eyes’ (a life-long problem as my eyes seem unable to follow a line and instead jump around the page) behaved even more badly than normal and I continually followed the wrong line of music and played all the wrong notes. And of course the squeaks returned.   

Communicating the problem brought help. The solution was written music in a larger font, printed on yellow paper and with only the notes that I needed to play. 

This came at about the same time as the suggestion that the group perform a couple of tunes for a dance a few months into the future.  This idea was again fairly scary but I knew that I could drop out if I felt I couldn’t cope and in the meantime having a couple of tunes to perfect would help to focus practice time. But I knew I would need a lot of practice so the suggestion that some members of the group get together informally to practise was a welcome one.

These informal sessions turned out to be great fun and we spent as much time laughing as playing. This helped the learning process enormously – probably because the laughter kept the anxiety at bay. Any problems I voiced were often shared by others and sometimes solved by others too. I also realised that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t play particularly well! 

When it came to performing the two tunes we had learnt, it wasn’t actually as terrifying as I thought. Everyone tried their hardest, any mistakes were not too obvious (as no-one was actually listening too closely as they were trying to dance) and several experienced players propped us up! This gave a huge boost to my confidence and to my determination to continue learning. 

So practice began again – fifteen or twenty minutes most mornings and evenings – consolidating tunes I had learnt and challenging myself by trying out new ones. Sometimes I got them entirely right and my sense of achievement knew no bounds! 

I still find it difficult, especially on my own, to get the rhythms right. The group sessions really help with this. I also find it difficult to know when to ‘come in’ in some music. Here the group sessions – both the ‘organised’ ones and the very informal ones with just a few of us getting together – are helping. Following the written music for the other instruments also helps but for this I have to abandon my large font music with only my part on a page and control my ‘jumpy eyes’. This is my current challenge. I now have both music sheets – the yellow one with large font and the ordinary music sheet with all the parts and mine highlighted in yellow marker - side by side on the music stand. Soon I hope to play in the group sessions using only the sheet with my part highlighted although I think for practice purposes I will still find it easier to use the large font and yellow paper.

The ‘drop-in singing’ sessions have helped - with learning how to read music, with learning rhythms, and giving me some confidence generally about ‘making music’ in a group environment.

The terror and anxiety reduces with each group session (both the organised and the ‘ad hoc’ ones) and the pleasure in producing something akin to ‘proper music’ continues to increase.

Eleanor George
July 2017

Fulfilling Ambitions

I’m in my seventies and a couple of years ago I decided to fulfil an ambition and learn to play the Chapman Stick™. The “Stick” is a stringed and fretted instrument that produces sound by tapping the strings on the fretboard – not by plucking or strumming. It was developed in the early 1970’s by Emmett Chapman, an innovative guitarist and guitar engineer from California. Although some acoustic versions were made, it has settled as a stereo electronic instrument, in 8-string, 10-string and 12-string versions. Each Stick is custom made to order by Emmett’s family-run workshop in California and takes several months to complete. See more on their website www.stick.com.

Chapman Stick on a modified bassoon stand. The coloured dots on the fretboard are temporary learning devices to locate key notes.

The Stick has some features that make it remarkably difficult to play and to learn. My 10-string version is 115cm long by 9cm wide and weighs 3.9kg. It is played in an upright position, the weight being taken by a belt hook, and a shoulder strap to stop it falling to the side. The Stick is worn rather than held. To put it mildly, the Stick is a very challenging instrument to take on, but can produce beautiful sounds in capable hands. I have a long way to go on that front. To see it in action either visit www.Stick.com or search YouTube for Greg Howard or Bob Culbertson to see how two leading players make the Stick sing. If you are interested in the technical side of the Stick, I’ve added a short description of its complexities at the end.

My musical background is pretty modest and does not equip me very well for a new instrument, especially one as complex as the Stick. I went to piano lessons for a couple of years between the ages of 11 and 13, but it was not a success. I bailed out at Grade V thanks to my piano teacher’s ninja speed and accuracy with a size 1 knitting needle to correct my fingering. That period was the summit of my playing and sight-reading, and although I continue to dabble at home, my keyboard skills will stay firmly in the closet. I have sung in choirs and folk groups, and am a self-taught guitarist, preferring to provide backing and accompaniment, now mostly in traditional music and ceilidh bands. My musical ‘level’ could be described as basic, intuitive and dabbling.

Over the years I’ve written and recorded many silly songs and musical adventures for my children and grandchildren, who have been my most forgiving audiences.  At best I’d say I was unconsciously creative and consciously incompetent, but I enjoy playing at my level and listening to music across the whole spectrum of genres. Both of my children are musical – my daughter is a fine singer-songwriter and my son is a very good pianist and guitarist. Both of them are much better musicians than I am. My 3 grandchildren are learning piano, drums, guitar, violin and ukulele. Whatever I may do, or have done in music, their love of, and participation in it will be my greatest satisfaction.

Starting to learn the Stick at my age has prompted me to reflect on how I learn in music. Looking back, my only formal music learning was the unhappy piano lessons mentioned above. I attended a couple of guitar workshops at the Sage in recent years, neither of which resulted in much learning. I experienced something approaching formal learning in music through the rehearsal and performing elements of various choirs and musical theatre groups, for example a period with a Gilbert and Sullivan Society, a couple of village pantomimes, and school productions including Joseph and Godspell. As a self-taught guitarist I have intermittently dipped into books, DVDs and online videos, but I think my approach to learning is primarily through play and experimentation. I can be systematic and organised in some aspects of my life, but when it comes to learning something entirely new, disciplined sequential learning is not my way.

What I have learned through playing the guitar is a cumulative grasp of the structure of music and harmony, thanks to the way guitar chords are built and named. I recently watched Leonard Bernstein’s 5 minute video on the history of tonal music and was smugly pleased with myself for having reached an understanding of most of what he says through my haphazard journey of learning in music. www.classicfm.com/composers/bernstein-l/guides/whole-history-of-music/

The way I learn in music is pretty much the way I learn, or prefer to learn, anything else. I like to rummage around the topic, getting inspired and stimulated, listening, reading, experimenting, always looking for shortcuts, and trying to get a pleasing result without the hard work of 10,000 hours of practice. I know many musicians who have reached a high level of competence through formal teaching and dedicated practice. My very old friend and original climbing partner, the composer Euan Moseley (www.doppiotempo.com) is a fantastic technical and creative pianist who once told me that in his early years of piano lessons he had to play nothing but scales for 2 hours a day.

To reach any kind of competence on the Stick I’m sure I would be advised to get professional lessons, do lots and lots of regular basic practice of a similar nature to Euan’s early days, and to practise repeatedly some incrementally difficult pieces, yet my preferred and habit-formed learning style will not make that possible for me. Added to that, there are only a tiny number of Stick players in the UK, mostly in the London area, and no accessible teachers. So I have to examine my motivation, my goals and expectations and find an approach to learning that will satisfy those. At the moment, I’m happy to make pleasing sounds on the instrument for my own consumption and gradually become more at one with the Stick.

I have no ambition at present to perform in public, even though I know that is a great stimulus to improve. Longer term, (to be optimistic) I’d like to be able to offer competent and original accompaniment to another musician – singer or instrumentalist. Playing well with other musicians is when I am most likely to experience a state of flow – either because we get the piece absolutely nailed (as young people and TV chefs will say) or, and this is an important dimension for me, when confidence and familiarity allows improvisations that just simply work and make you smile inside.

Getting older and learning music has presented a few challenges for me. First of all, it was progressive arthritis in the fingers, exacerbated no doubt by over 50 years of rock-climbing, that led me to take up learning the Stick. I assumed that merely tapping the strings would be physically easier than holding down notes and chords on the guitar – I was finding it painful after an hour or two of playing. To some extent that assumption has proved right, but the new and unfamiliar hand positions create entirely new stresses. The playing position also places new strains on the back and particularly the neck, but this is more about inhibiting playing technique than learning.  I find that my short-term memory is less reliable, so I need to repeat new phrases and pieces more often to embed them than in younger days. Eyesight is another problem, as I have to look down the fretboard from close up to locate frets which are increasingly close together as they get further away. These impediments are forcing me to rely much more on muscle memory and spatial familiarity than visual pattern learning, which is not necessarily a bad thing. On the plus side, the older I get the less embarrassed I am about mistakes, and I’m comfortable with my modest ambitions.

The Coronavirus lockdown has given me more time to learn and improve my Stick playing, and I have also been motivated to explore alternative guitar tunings. An interest in continuing to learn in music has proved a valuable antidote to cabin fever. Maybe I will eventually progress from Stuck on the Stick to Slick on the Stick!

Some technical aspects of the Stick.

The musical challenges begin with the way the strings are configured. There are 5 bass strings on one side (nearest the player) and 5 melody strings on the side away from the player. The lowest notes for both bass and melody begin at the centre of the fretboard. In the tuning I use (Raised Matched Reciprocal), the bass strings are tuned in 5ths starting with the lowest note D in the centre rising towards the player, and the melody strings are tuned in 4ths starting with the lowest note F# in the centre rising away from the player. The confusing result is that you can play Middle C in 6 different places across the 24 frets! The tonal range is 6 octaves (a standard guitar has 4). To make progress on the Stick you have to unlearn most of what your fingers are used to doing on the guitar. The dynamic range is satisfyingly wide – soft to loud depends on how hard you tap, strings can be bent, damped, hammered on or off,  vibrato and slides are easy to produce, harmonics are possible but difficult, and the range of chords and their inversions is limited only by the stretch, number and size of your fingers.

Most players play the bass side with their left hand coming round the back of the neck and play the melody side by reaching the right hand across the stick to play melody strings. There is no established canon for the Stick – its repertoire is defined entirely by the people who play, and ranges from Bach to the Beatles, Rock to New Age, Celtic to Jazz. As it is an electronic instrument it can plug in to an array of effects pedals. The sophisticated pickup module gives another sweep of sound options, but I am not techie enough to describe that, and anyway I’m still struggling with the basics. The kinaesthetic challenge is considerable. In the playing position, it is hard to see the frets. Imagine learning to play the piano by laying your head down on the keys at the bottom end and finding the scales and arpeggios from that position. Yet a keyboard background is probably a better starting point than a guitar – left and right-hand independence is an important goal.

There is a limited amount of published written music for the Stick. It combines standard notation using a bass and treble clef, but incorporates a tablature with chords, a marker for which string plays the note, which fret it is played at, and through 4 symbols, which finger plays the note. It’s basically mind-blowing and useful only as an early learning tool. I doubt if any Stick players are fluent readers of the tablature, although some do share their compositions and arrangements in notation.

Dave Hume
April 2020