An eventful/Creative Partnerships project saw me back at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School, (they let girls in for A’ level),  I didn’t enjoy my time there to be honest, but working on this project gave me a new perspective on the place (some of the teachers are still there!! That’s 14 years!! WTF!!) I ran social media sessions documenting a survival skills project, think Ray Mears meets web 2.0. Highlights were toasting marshmallows, firemen coming to Sutton Park – even though we informed them in advance about making fires (they were quite cute however) and working with some bright, lovely young people. I really miss my group.(Sniffle).

Also ran social media (and music sessions) for Paganel School – to help document their Scalextric project which was fun. I also created music for the final competition hosted at the Hippodrome.

Blogging hiccups throughout though, posterous doesn’t have user hierarchies like wordpress and blogger, and wordpress is utter shite rubbish at embedding content it doesn’t approve of, so no to easy embedding of audioboo.fm, dipity.com etc. There were ways around it but still…. We also did some live streaming in Sutton Park – which you can watch here.

Now, after being outdoors and working mainly in schools, I am chained to my mac typing up evaluation forms for the soon to be no more Creative Partnerships. This is my procrastination, a happy one.

We faced several drawbacks, people not understanding the ideas of our transformed space, (especially older groups), some said there was not enough seating, some didn’t like it, but we quickly we addressed their concerns, and resolved any issues.

We had a lot of positive feedback on the whole.

The making and design had little input from me, I enjoyed hearing young people’s ideas and being on the panel to choose the best designs.

I was brought in to to do social media and music sessions. I had around 3 and half hours with each group (year 8s) to make 8bit inspired, pacman-esque sounds. We used school equipment, macs with garageband, no midi controllers as budget was tight (music teacher was using them), I bought some 8bit computer samples and we made beats.

Here are two of my faves. I think the young people did really well considering it was their first time using the software, had little knowledge of musical arrangement.

Fizza Although it’s not very pacman, it followed students’criteria of being relaxing for waiting room users, there are subtle retro game sounds incorporated.

khaleel – well this one certainly has pacman vibes! Upbeat and cheeky!

“”You’ll think it’s silly but” is one of the most common phrases I hear from clients when they describe their working habits. Lucky gonks, magic pens, warmup rituals and bizarre superstitions are remarkably, and among creative people – and for good reason. The neuroscientists are now confirming what we creatives knew all along – that these things act as ‘triggers’ for the emotional state in which we do our best creative work.”

Thank you Mark!

Had a few months off due to dislocating my finger, but back on the wagon even if my finger is misshappen.
Really enjoying this jazz course by Monsieur Richards, had a couple of lessons with him too! An ace teacher, learnt loads

Finger is still dodgy and finally got referred to an orthopaedic clinic! My swollen joint will be inspected tomorrow! Yay!

In this age of austerity I fear for  the future of participatory arts and creative learning programmes in schools, those who rely on subsidised music provision will suffer. There is no way a love child of New Labour is going to survive the coalition’s cuts – I thought, but then I read this, (a repeat call for a music manifesto-esque study into music provision for young people, so I’ve been told). Maybe there is a glimmer of hope after all. We shall see.

Here’s some audio: SafariLife
Safari Life: written in a day, based on a drum ostinato played in an improvised ostinato exercise I always use.
Summer Time
Our version of Summer Time, I led the rhythm section, or they led me lol! Huw lead horns, Shereece led the singers.

Thanks to Katy G and Jan P for their assistance and support!

………….Only a few more days to go before I get some time off to develop my own creativity, yay!

Hmmmm…

Day 1: Practiced for two hours
Day 2: Practiced for an hour
Day 3: Back in Birmingham, no practice
Day 4: Nada
Day 5: Nada
Day 6: Nada
Day 7: Nada

Hmmm think I failed there. I did read up on stuff but… few ebonies and ivories were tinkled last week! On the plus side, whenever I am home I practice. I asked a local Birmingham church whether I could practice there, thanks to Clare Edwards, but the times available clashed. Gonna do more Brum based piano hunting.

I was soo impressed with the young people at Watville, Wilkes Green and St. James primary schools over the year. This term, we (Steve and I repping Birmingham Jazz) were given such a tall order yet I feel we delivered the goods; I learnt that most of the other primary schools in the music hub (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Sound It Out, CBSO, THSH) were able to give their schools weekly and some around 8 sessions per term, to develop ensemble and music making skills. In total I had 5 sessions in the spring term, and 3 in the summer, yes 3, which meant we had a mammoth job to do, devise, rehearse and perform at the Town Hall after 4.5 hours, minus ice-breakers, and packing away and you’re left with little time I tell thee, yet we managed to do it. I was proud of the fact the young people devised lyrics before the project, rehearsed outside of lessons, and after a scary sound check on the day after a week’s break, pulled it off!! Go gang!! There were tears, I got told off, necessary hugs were given and received.

In just 8 sessions I found that the young people’s time keeping, ability to improvise and create grooves improved exponentially, I was also impressed with how a teacher got stuck in the project and played recorder on stage with the kids!! How supportive is that!

Areas of improvement: I need to work more on varying my signalling, I wish I had the funds to go on a ensemble leading course, yes, another one, for intermediate workshoppers, I also need to think about using different time signatures, I’ve been using compound time more recently, but haven’t written many pieces in 3/4, I did use 5/4 with some secondary kids last term…. anyho! Onwards and upwards!

Highlights of the project for me were: working with amazing individuals at the aforementioned schools! Thanks young peeps, you rocked my world!

What would have made my life easier on this project: less emailing and more tete a tete (please), meetings with admins and the whole of the team so we could there could be greater consistency across the cluster, more efforts made to incorporate workshop leaders who don’t read music in CPD sessions too, some of my team felt a bit left out.

Here is some media for ya from our rehearsals,courtesy of my iPhone,  you can hear me shouting, teachers getting stuck in lol! I think you can hear an improvement in each school’s pieces.

First piece St. James composed: StJamesfirstpiece

Second piece by St. James, with some recorder playing by Ms. Hanson: StJamesJohnLennonPiece

Watville’s first composition: watvillefirstpiece

Second piece by Watville (second rehearsal): Rainforestpractice

Banded About ‘the first year’ from Mathew Beckett on Vimeo.

Find more photos like this on ‘Banded About’

Today’s session was good, fast paced, pressurised and exceptionally creative. It was our last session and we invited musicians Steve (djembe) and Michael (sax/flute). With year 3 we were able to put the finishes touches on the performance, move it over to the stage (which was something we were hoping to avoid initially but can’t). The year 3s were really good at instructing the musicians to fill out the accompanying music. It was great to see their compositional skills begin to blossom.

Year 4′s session, for me was more stressful, not because the young people weren’t great, they were and always have been, but because I was disappointed I couldn’t recall the piano part for the dog song – should have written it down, and that we still have some finishing touches to add next week, I hoped that like the year 3 session we could make more headways, but alas was not meant to be. Last minute dot.com so it is! I also felt guilty that I wasn’t able to utilise the musicians enough in that session, as we spent most the time devising last bits and bobs.

As Chris and Michael pointed out, the year 4 session itself was successful for a number of reasons,  the interminable enthusiasm from Mr. Harwood, who has volunteered to help us with the last drama part of the performance, the young people’s song writing, lyric writing skills getting stronger and the fact that everyone is committed to being a part of it all!

Michael, noted that the session had a huge emphasis on the young people’s creativity, which is great, because I’d rather more ideas from the young people and a slightly less polished performance, than me writing it all, and it appearing glossy, but less input from the children.

Fingers and toes crossed for our memory banks next week!

A groove we made up with year 4, it’s all about clouds: Metalophone

Steve and I singing the year 3 song, so they can have it memorised for next week, there’s a reason why Steve and I aren’t singers, obvious in the recording, but someone has to do it!! HomeSweetHome Here you go year 3!!

I found a lonely looking metallophone in the store room, tuned it to a minor scale so we could create dream like sounds. Has a really sonorous sound, really mellow, perfect for our opening scene.

Both year 3 and 4 teachers said they enjoyed the sessions, Ms. Wilson said she liked seeing how we made headways and I sense more comfortable about what the performance will look like. I tried loads to get Mr. Harwood leading the musicians, but due to time limitations and the complexity of the kids ideas, had to take over leading. I am really keen to play piano as well as getting the young people playing, but the need a strong pulse, maybe with the addition of musicians on Thursday it will allow for this. Highlight was writing a chorus and verse in 15 mins, it went well, Chris has displayed some excellent lyric writing skills. (A published poet didn’t you know?).

In terms of working in partnership with Chris, I feel it’s going really well, both have similar tricks up the sleeve and give one another space to lead, as well as opportunities to jump in with suggestions.

The sessions were both successful, we were limited again in time as we had two assemblies that took off half an hour of time, but we got the backbone of devising drama and music performances; we always share at the end. I really enjoyed facilitating the dog song sketch; written in just 10 mins inspired by a tale of being unfortunate with pets (Chris and I became interviewees in the afternoon, I spoke about accidentally killing goldfish as a child, rottweilers etc). Props to Mr Harwood for the conducting and counting in! It’s great to see our year 4 teacher is gaining more confidence in leading, it would be great to work with staff and develop their ensemble leading, I think they are naturals!!  woofwoof

Some of the notes didn’t work, but it still helped me to tinkle away. I feel loads more confident about modes, I over intellectualised something quite simple. I played through several modes in each key, mainly dorian and lydian, it helped a lot. Apparently every scale can be made into a series of chords.

Day 5: No practice, no excuse really, as the lovely Rachel said I could use her piano, but ran out of time to arrange this, however I spent some time learning about self-marketing.  Still a fail!

Day 6: Friday, all day workshops with a 6am start, had a little time to jam on the piano with Chris Bishop (see Paganel project), but failed again as I jumped on a train straight after to London. I saw the amazing blues, ngoni maestro Bassekou Kouyate perform at the Barbican, the music was amazing, crowd were dull – hardly any dancing! Booo! Bassekou’s improvising is amazing, his music show’s the origins of blues music and has an amazing stage presence. His wife has a beautiful voice, such power and playfulness! Loved it.

Day 7: Spent 3 hours practicing which included a chat with composer Sid Peacock about jazz theory. I went through progressions, realised I got some chords wrong, went through 2-5-1s again. I realised I had been confusing myself with trying to work out which scales to use, and relying too much on the key signatures. I’m getting better at spotting 2-5-1s in pieces, which means I know what initial scale to use, although there are plenty more to explore; baby steps.

Some great pointers from Sid were, practice with a metronome accenting beats 2 and 4, play 2-5-1s in a random order, get a teacher, check the improvisation primer and not get to bogged down with theory to start with, noodle. Thank you Sid!

Day 8: Using the advice from Sid, created 12 scraps of paper for each key, picked one randomly and practiced 2-5-1s.

Played through “Tune Up”, chords mainly and worked out how to play chords and melody. Tried to improvise, it sounded okay, but a bit dry. Need me some licks! Then played through some other pieces including yesterdays. All good, the louder I play the more confidence I get, but that’s the problem, I’m worried about disturbing my neighbours, so am quite timid. “Headphones”! I hear you exclaim, yes, I will use ‘em next time. Wounded that I’ll be away from my keys for another week! I must get better at finding a piano in Brum!

As part of a reflection for the project we have to blog about our experiences, I normally reflect during certain milestones of a project,; (beginning, middle, end) so this process is new, but should be fine.

In retrospect, both Chris and I felt the session went well, we were able to create a buzz about the ‘home’ themed project, demonstrating the theme by bringing in realia; my items from home were; a Sainsbury’s shopping bag, photo of my family, and headphones. It was cool to get the young people guessing their significance, especially the shopping bag. We were concerned about the year 3s ability to think in more abstract terms about what ‘home’ signified, but some were able to do this, rather than just getting geographical and literal interpretations, some delved into the emotional side, and some the plain weird; dinosaurs!?! Chris brought in some of his late grandfather’s war medals which was really great for the participants to see, they had lots of curious questions.

We had limited time to get young people making drama and music performances, but in ten mins our 2 groups shared a performance based on their ideas of what home was. My group, explored the sounds of sisters, which included moaning, and chatting, fused with body percussion. I was impressed at how readily my group were to share their work and the feedback both groups gave was good; (initially one word answers), but I reckon once they get used to the process, we’ll get more specifics in their answers.

Chris’ group did freeze frames based on a story one of the young people shared about a dog that nearly got run over.

I think it was a successful start, the theme of the project and aims are known, although we had less time to work on devising performance work/ideas, we were able to produce something.

Year 4s session went really well too! Great answers, energy and was impressed with form tutor Dave leading the musical performance with some excellent conducting skills. He rose to the challenge, although nervous. Feedback was good, looking forward to next week!

This tale is inspired by Mark Mapstone’s recount of a fraudster trying to swindle him of cash….

I’m not as confident as he about copying and pasting emails…. Also, I am stubborn, not massively, but quite, I get this from my dad, I’m not the only stubborn daughter in the fam. It’s fairly important you know this.

What”s this building up to……? I have stupidly got myself into a pickle with the maintenance man where I live. Hmmm. Problematic situation, dull though it is:

• I move to a new yard in Hackney. We need keys for the post box to access mail. None given, okay I can deal with that.
• Agency advise us to ask maintenance man to assist. Done. He says he’ll get it sorted.
• I get locked out my flat. Agency advise me to contact maintenance man, he said he’d be there in 30 mins.
• He lets me in, I am very grateful. The end. No mention of fees.
• Few weeks later, emailed by maintenance man re keys, there will be a £10 charge.
• I reply with a pithy, please bill the agency, as they were supposed to supply the keys.
• He’s reply: I should have charged you £30 for attending your lock out. You can either pay me £30 or £10.
• I said, I’d contact the agency first and get back to him, as I didn’t get any keys in the first place.
• Same day, he sends me through an invoice for £30.
• I didn’t like the tit for tat, arsey nature of his reply. He mentioned nuttin about lock out fees at the time or more importantly prior to it! He could have charged £300!!!
• Since then, the agency have washed their hands of the matter, although prepared to pay him £10 (they subcontract him for work and were the ones to recommend I get in touch with him when locked out).
• There have been some terse email exchanges in between. (Phone would have been easier, but the maintenance man doesn’t pick up, prefers email).
• The maintenance man has assured me he’ll take me to small claims court if I dont’t pay up.

What would you do? Mum told me off and said I should just pay up, friends reckon the maintenance guy is a ________ (insert profanity) and that I should ignore.

I’m not quite sure. If I’m forced to pay him, he’ll be getting it in a massive bag of copper coins and 5ps, (in weird amounts). Trus!

What would you do?

Dusk, Blackdown and I messing with midi

Trim bustin rhymes and the occasional witty one

Been really loving, as in romancing my afro recently, after 8 years of laziness, braids and natty fros, I’ve been methodical in grooming it. Plaiting it each night, satin wrap, I’ve been making my homemade spritzs to hydrate my tresses, as well as moisturisers using unrefined Shea Butter, they are sooo easy to make! If you are interested in using natural hair products, (because most industry products contain harmful ingredients to cut back on costs), you can check these useful links. British curlies is a great site for those wishing to purchase a lot of US products made specifically for afro textured hair, Leave in the Kinks – a really useful blog for nappturals, hair grooming tips galore and the occasional meet up too!

It’s also faced criticism about the ethnicity of the character, the sensitive issue of HIV, it’s highlighting of a significant number of carriers being black people were discussed on the comments, I’ll need to mull over that one….

Thanks to kiss my black ads for the heads up!

• I loved going to Adornment 365 in Brixton, I’ll be honest it’s the first black hair salon I’ve been to that has the ‘Toni and Guy’ Factor, as in; I was offered a hot drink when I came in, they took my coat, they were polite and smiley, the feel was slick and professional, all the stylists rocked gorgeous natural hair! Now, before you think I am hating on ‘other’ black hair salons I am not, they have a firm place in my heart, I was just pleased with my experience last week!
• I’m regularly inspired by the images over at Le Coil! Chic looking afro weaing beauties!
• I’m in love with the hair and beauty products over at Shea Butter Cottage; check Akua Wood’s products here, her packaging is great, I received some lovely chocolate in my box, her social media presence is great! All over twitter, facebook, blogs… Love it! I’m using these: afro  shampoo bar, cleansing oil and moringa hair pomade which smells amazing!

I’m also learning about the cosmetics industry and the crap rubbish they put in our beauty products, if your hair/skin products contain any of these ingredients:

SODIUM LAURETH/LAURYL SULFATE (SLES/SLS), METHYL/PROPYL PARABEN, DIAZOLIDINYL UREA, BENZOIC ACID, COLOURANTS CI 17200, CI 15510, CI 60730, CI 42053DMDM HYDANTOIN, COCMIDE MEA, PARFUM/FRAGRANCE, PROPYLENE GLYCOL,TETRASODIUM EDTA, COCAMIDOPROPYL BETAINE, SODIUM CHLORIDE…

BIN Them!! I had to chuck quite a few shampoos this weekend! Ah well! The link tells you why, and so does Mana Ashantii.

Hey bobablog readers!

Hope you are well and sun-kissed, the weather has been great! I implore Mother Nature to give us more of the same during the May – August months!! It’s been a wee while since I have blogged and so, here I am. Rather than bore you to death with a long-winded post, I’ll try and keep it succinct, I have:

• composed music for Uchenna Dance – and learnt loads about working with dancers, how many bars they work in, inspiration from movement; still got a ways to go, but onwards and upwards

• two thirds the way through “Banded About project”, developing my ensemble leading skills – highlight was working with ‘Fusion Warriors’ at Wilkes Green primary school, what a cool name they chose! Got some feedback from my lil uns at Watville Primary:

(bored because she wanted to play a different instrument, I asked afterwards…)

• still working on my small business and the marketing side, ideally I want a balanced mix of composing/workshopping and playing work, getting there – marketing c’est roi.

• been enjoying reading Keri Smith books; ‘This is Not a Book‘, is cool, I enjoyed ripping out a page whilst on the bus, at it told me to, the person sat next to me looked scared!

• learning loads about my natural hair – sensitive at times, militant and proud the next. I hated the comment ‘Have you combed your hair today?”, I liked the comment “Go on, empress!” – yes I am a nubian queen, Bobbie, Kemetian queen of Hackney!

• Oh, and, I am looking for any interesting programmes for musicians/composers/artists – I need me some more CPD, if you hear of any lemme know

• I’m going to learn guitar as recommended by Pete Churchill from Balsall Heath to benefit workshopping.

Actually this blog post is still quite long… What can I say? I lied!

What’s been happening then?