Sunday 28th October - what I meant to say was...

The past few weeks have taught me a valuable lesson in communication - how meaning changes between what is written and what is read.

I knew that, of course. No-one, who has spent time in writing detailed instructions and comprehensive procedures, can fail to be aware that what one person writes can mean something entirely different to the reader.

There are lots of humorous examples; I enjoyed a running gag in one of Catherine Fox's novels, where two character share a love of ridiculous instructions. They would save them up, and mutter to each other when they passed in the corridor:

"Caution, this door is alarmed"

"Assistants will cut cabbages in half on request" (sign in a greengrocer)

"Pierce with a pin and push off"

Sometimes these unintentional double meanings can have unforeseen consequences:

"Wait here while red light shows"

This used to be a common road sign. It seems clear enough, until you learn that in parts of Yorkshire, people routinely use "while" to mean "until". You would often hear people say things like "Wait here while the bus comes", or "I'll be in the cafe while you get here". Once this regional meaning of "while" was understood, the signs suddenly disappeared, replaced with "When red light shows wait here".

Recently, I received a fairly formal email requesting me to attend a meeting. Because of the surrounding circumstances, I read all sorts of dire and drastic consequences into the purpose of the meeting. I spent the intervening days feeling sick, apprehensive, and panicky and turned my world upside down, getting piles of paperwork together, and even planning whether I needed to, and could afford, to resign.

In the event, the request was just that. A request to attend a friendly, business-like, useful, productive, encouraging, meeting. No more, no less.




 
 

A month of weather - 18/10/12 Blessed are the peacemakers

The week just gone has been a real up-and-down-and-up-and downer. With a lot of downer, to be truthful.

When I took this photograph, it was first thing in the morning, I was emerging from a "downer". The sky seemed to speak to me of renewed hope for the day. Although the black rain clouds were massed on the low horizon, the sky above was bright blue, and criss-crossed with white aeroplane trails. It made me think of journeying away from the dark times into a new, bright place.

As I drove about, the sky changed in appearance as I changed direction. At one moment I would be facing ominous grey clouds, threatening rain and storm and floods. Then I would turn a corner, and the sky would be a uniform, clear, luminous, deep blue, like a summer's day. Turn again, and there would be pale, thin, fluffy white clouds traced against the blue.

It made me consider how one's point of view changes one's perception of a situation. It's the same situation, but it can be interpreted in so many different ways. If I had only faced one way, I would have set off with umbrella, waterproofs, wellington boots. Looking in a different direction, a light jacket and sandals would have been fine.

This has became an important thought to hold on to. When black clouds of doom are coming towards me with what seems to be a scary inevitability, (which, at the moment, they are), remembering that we all see things from different points of view, and with different perspectives is vital. It is all too easy to be overcome by a rising tide of blind, sick panic. Finding an honest, truthful, sincere, humble way through the approaching storm, respecting other people's views and keeping unhelpful emotions in check is the only sensible way forward.

He who sows the wind, will reap the whirlwind...

Blessed are the peacemakers......

Sunday 21st October - In Deep Trouble (of the paperwork kind)

I'm currently up to my neck in paperwork of the worst possible kind, and I don't mean my tax return - that is a treat for another day!

No, this kind of paperwork is to do with tracking back through my records of instrument allocations, as part of my work as a peri music teacher.

Notes and spreadsheets and annotations that seemed fine at the time suddenly become a morass of strange numbers, cryptic comments and indecipherable abbreviations. Normally the process of recording, and reconciling the instrument numbers slides through unchallenged; the year ends, everything gets thrust into document wallets, shoved into a box and I start over again with the new year. 

This year has been different. I have spent hours and hours tracking back through old emails, drawing charts plotting the journey of clarinets through the year from child to repair to child, trying to find and understand all the paper trails snarling around the computer, my notebooks, various ring binders...

It is not helped when instrument number 424 suddenly morphs into number 429 - that baffled me for a while until I realised that the numbers 4 and 9, handwritten on the instrument cases, could easily be mistaken for each other. And were there 5, or 6, or 7 instruments sent for repair from that school? Did they get put on "the van"? Why have they not turned up at "the stores"? Why are the numbers so mis-matched? Closer inspection of  the paper work reveals that I may well have slipped a row when reading off the numbers from one spreadsheet and entering them onto another...

Why can't I do something as simple as write down the the numbers, and the children they were allocated to, and keep track?

This kind of accuracy is not in my training. As a performer, you do spend a lot of time in the early stages of learning a piece getting everything - notes, rhythm, phrasing, dynamics, fingering - I really do mean everything - exactly correct, and the first phase of my record keeping has, as far as I know, always been accurate.

But then, the exact edges of this perfectionism need to give way to artistic interpretation. A "Digital" exactitude becomes an infinitely variable "Analogue" reproduction of the score, as the human interface between score and instrument breathes life into what was mere mechanical obedience to the instructions on the page. You only have to listen to the difference between a synthesised play through (for example, using music-writing software such as "sibelius" or "finale") and a live performance to see what I mean. The live performance may well have slips and wrong notes, but it will also have that quality of "Life" which gives it real meaning and beauty.

This appears to be what has happened to my record keeping. The initial phase of recording instruments and names, way back last September (I'm talking 2011 here!) seems fine - neat, accurate, clear. As the year has progressed, these careful rows and columns have been overlaid by layers of human interpretation, and now nothing makes sense any more.

The good news is that I may have solved one conundrum, represented by the picture at the top. The missing instrument may well be a phantom instrument that I added the inventory as an error back in January. I'm not sure if I can actually PROVE this, however. I thought I had solved the other problem, but then I had a glass of sherry and the solution just evaporated into thin air. Back to the paper piles!

A month of weather - sometime last weekl

I really haven't enjoyed most of the last week.

It has been too full of difficulty and hard words and a fair amount of grumpiness. I actually got as far as checking the fine details of my work contract and thinking about what other ways I could earn my daily bread.

Some of the tough parts have been to do with recognising my own failings; there are so many things I should have done, or done better, and then there are things I maybe shouldn't have done at all!

Oh well. Time runs forwards, not backwards. I have to start each day from where I am, not where I would like to be.

Two things have cheered me on my way. Every day I have been enjoying the beauty of this rose. It is right next to the car, so it watches over my goings out and my comings home.

And my last lessons on Fridays all last year have been really hard work; large classes of beginner recorder players where I needed to use every trick I knew to keep them focused. It's a bit like lion-taming, except that if I lose control they all just tootle and lark about rather than eat me.

This week I had the first lesson with the new year group. Their behaviour was exemplary, with barely a sound out of place. Then, to round off the day, there was a glorious double rainbow right across the playground. The colours were glowing as bright as electric lights against the dark skies. It seemed to be a promise for better times to come.  

Saturday 7th October - So this is what it is all about

I've gone off the weather theme for a couple of days - there's really not much to say, weather-wise, as we have been enjoying a couple of sunny, warm(ish) days recently.

Saturday was our Harvest Supper at church. It was a fund-raiser for the youth of the parish who are going out to South Africa in the Summer for a couple of weeks to work in a township, and "see how the other half lives".

Djembe from Mali
(wikipedia)

As well as the meal (my word, that was a good meal) - a variety of African dishes - there was "entertainment". This comprised face-painting, making huge tissue paper flowers to form the harvest decoration in the church, and African drumming, which is where I came in, using about a dozen djembes which someone had brought from their school.

After supper, some people gravitated to the church and we started. I was slightly at a loss: I TEACH djembe, and this was NOT a lesson! I showed people the way to play the drums, and demonstrated a couple of rhythms, and wondered where this was all going to go.

The drummers were a mixture of children, people who were used to playing instruments, and people who were NOT used to playing instruments. To my delight, the drumming settled into a real "groove" - everyone playing along, maybe using the rhythms that I had taught, maybe experimenting with their own ideas, maybe switching from one thing to another.

It was such a lovely, companiable, group, family, community, togetherness feeling. Like a ceildh, but less hectic. We were all watching each other, smiling, encouraging each other.

What's that word - "chillax"? Nah, that word is too hectic for what we were experiencing together. Just cool, man. Really cool. I could have kept going all night - just like they do in Africa.

Here's a "youtube" that I found of a djembe group in London:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bh0Uk26BMQ

and here is a beautiful video of what it is all about; whoah, they work hard in Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPLIuBy9CY&feature=related


Friday 5th October - Autumnal Album Leaves



 I've played a number of piano pieces with names like "Album Leaves". I can think of one each by Schumann and Grieg for a start. They usually have a plaintive, nostalgic melody, in a minor key. I think of yellowed, faded photographs, days gone by, times past....




It's been very apposite just recently. Moving house means tripping over all sorts of photograph albums, ornaments, cups, clothes, that trigger memories that have been buried for many, many years.





Like this one, of me, and my grandmother, back in 1960 something.


 

Where was this, I wonder? I vaguely remember the day: I am wearing my "party dress"; grey Liberty silk, with little white daisies all over, and a little grey bow at the waist made from a couple of loops of grey and red silk. Everyone still wore gloves; I went to a convent prep school, and we all wore white gloves to school in summer (and straw hats, and blazers). I might be smiling for the camera, but inside, I was feeling mortified because I had spilt something on my dress.

Whose wedding was this? I remember a river nearby - the Thames? Was it in Henley? I have a picture of the bride and groom and best man and bridesmaids, but I have no idea who they are.





What should I do with the photographs? It seems rude to throw the bridal party into the bin, even though I don't know them. I wonder if they are still together, if they have been happy, these past forty or fifty years? 

Autumn leaves in the afternoon sunshine. The weather all last week was very kind to housemovers.

I have enjoyed looking through family photograph albums. There they all are, my parents, aunts and uncles, friends and family, at weddings, night clubs, parties... They all so look so incredibly glamorous, as though they are on the set of a James Bond film. "Oh, I remember that dress," says my mother. "It was beautiful, I loved that dress..."

A month of weather - 3/10/12

Wednesday - my busiest teaching day at the moment.

A quick pause to look outside and find something to photograph;

 

 

So how long will this promising weather last? I loaded samba equipment, a djembe, a Roland mini-cube (like a small guitar amplifier) and a ukulele into the car, and remembered to add my packed lunch.

 

The first stop is a small village school, where I teach all of year 3 and year 4 to play the ukulele. I enjoy this one immensely, all the more because I work alongside a colleague, sharing the teaching, sparking off each other, getting ideas from each other. A lesson in which I haven't learnt anything is a wasted lesson in my opinion, and that's just as a teacher!

 

 

 

After a hectic hour trying to help the children work out which finger is which, and where it should go on the ukulele to make a "C" chord, I meandered back to the car.

 The best place to park is in a narrow lane down alongside the church. The sun was hot on my back, the leaves and berries in the hedgerow gleaming in the Autumn sun. A blackbird was singing nearby, and there were roses in the churchyard. 

 

What an idyllic place. 

Once, a few weeks ago, when I was standing in the lane, I heard an eerie creaking sound, and church bells ringing as though in the distance. Intrigued, I went into the church, thinking that maybe someone was playing a recording of church bells for some unguessable reason. It turned out that the bell ringers were up in the bell chamber (reached by the usual small, low door and narrow twisting stairway) and were either practising, or ringing for some other event. They had closed the louvres at the top of the bell tower in order to reduce the noise levels for the rest of the village, or perhaps just for the school next door.

 

 

The rest of the day lived up to the promise of the start. After taking some time to appreciate the peace of the little lane, I zoomed over to teach samba to an enthusiastic crowd of year 5 and 6 children. Back into the car, and a twenty mile journey to the last school. There is a bit of time to fill over lunch, so I investigated a new tea room (very promising) where I wrote some letters and looked round the village. Two more lessons, djembe and samba again, and home to teach piano for a couple of hours.

That would have been plenty of activity for one day, but my parents are moving house more or less as I type, so we dropped round to help with the final cleaning and clearing, and then, too tired to face cooking, all went out for a meal together.

The only food for tired carnivores is steak, so that's what most of us had. I have a feeling I shall sleep like a log tonight.

A month of weather - 2/10/12

There was a pale golden light this morning at around 8 am. In order to get a view of the garden from upstairs, I had to open the bathroom window and stand in the bath.

 

 

The russian vine is tumbling over the roof and side (and all over the inside) of the garage, and behind that is the smoke bush, rather a strange shade of blue in the photograph. The two sinister "eyes" in the right hand corner of the garden are actually roses.

 

The mobile phone camera is not really coping with the conditions! I could see that the golden effect of the light was not being captured, and it was also fading fast, and everything beginning to look rather ordinary.

 

 

At the front of the house, facing east, there was stunning spider's web, hung with dew around the outer strands.   

 

 

The morning sun seemed to promise so much, so I was surprised to find myself succumbing to an increasingly black mood as the morning drew on. Tiredness, maybe. There are days when the future looks bleak and fearful, and days when optimism will carry me through. This was not an optimistic day.

 

Towards lunchtime I went in to town to do some errands, and parked at the top of the multi-storey car park. Looking out across the to the North Downs, the view was like a mirror of my state of mind; grey clouds and blue sky battling for supremacy.

 

 

In the end I managed clear the clouds from my mind using an old trick I first discovered back at university - window shopping. This isn't the same as retail therapy, as there is never any intention of wanting to buy anything.



Back at York, I would browse in a china and glass shop in a street near the cathedral called The Shambles. It was full of beautiful objects, Minton, Crown Derby, a pattern called "Haddon Hall",                                 

        

                                                                            

and Caithness Glass are some of the names I remember. In London, it would be the fabric department of Liberty's - wools, silks, velvets, embroidered cottons.

 

 

Today I spent a few minutes in the wool shop in the company of all kinds of different yarns and textures.

 

Rowan Yarns (picture from their website)

When I emerged, the weather was, if anything, darker and more ominous, but my spirits had lifted and I was back to my sunny self again.    

A Month of Weather 1/10/12

On twitter, someone posted a picture of the view from their window this morning.

I wondered about the view from my window. Days can go past, and I don't really take a proper look.

One way, all you can see is a  great thicket of weeds, consuming half the paved area outside the french windows. It's a depressing tangle of that fiendish mare's tail, creeping lianas of rampant russian vine, and any other plants that take root.

So I look the other way, and am quite pleased with what I see. It's all about how you look at things - is your glass half full, or half empty? Is your patio half full of weeds, or half clear of weeds? Have you half started mending the fence, or half finished it?

It was raining, which is why there are some strange reflections on the glass. I wasn't prepared to go out and get wet.



the back garden, 1st October, 8am

It's hard to remember what it was like, sitting on those benches under the apple tree on long, hot, sunny days, eating olives, drinking chilled sherry and pretending that we were in Spain, just a couple of weeks ago.

The various plant pots are in a very untended state. That's rosemary in one of the pots, and weeds (or a hand fork, how long has that been there?) in the others. All the colour in the garden, apart from every shade of green, is provided by three pink roses.

When I got home in the afternoon, the weather had changed to lovely sunshine.