an illustration from the demo video of 'A 1000 Ships'

In the last blog I mentioned that the song about Helen of Troy didn't end up quite like I had intended. Well I did a series of illustrations to go with it when I read the lyrics as a poem for an informal do at Christmas. The drawing above is the characters taking their final bow at the end of the piece. I have animated it against the demo I did of the song and there will be a clip in the 'Work in Progress' section on the web site in due course. I'll probably put the full thing up on the site once we have recorded it for the album with Dave on vocals.

In the same lighter vein as 'A 1000 Ships' I have now finished another song about the exploits of one 'Lucy Anna Martin' and her exploits when kidnapped for ransom by pirates. It has sixteen verses at the moment, so is a bit of a epic piece, lasting some seven minutes. We haven't tried it in rehearsal yet so I don't know how it will change in the transfer from demo to band. Again there will bes a sample in the 'Work in Progress' section.

And Bruce has composed an instrumental piece called 'Warp and Weft' - because the various instrumental lines weave in and out. He composed it on his new iPad whilst on holiday. I'm not sure we'll do it live as Bruce doesn't have that many hands but it will be on the album.

Regards - John

Live at Hunton Village Hall - a gig in aid of the charity gamBLE

Thank you to everyone who came along to the gig at Hunton Village Hall last weekend. It was a great success and I understand the evening raised enough money to pay for another teacher for a year.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and everything went very well apart from the initial scare when Dave manged to fall off stage before a note had been played. Luckily he wasn't hurt and was able to continue. Take more water with it next time, Dave!

Now attention transfers to recording songs for the new CD which we intend will be ready for sale at our next planned gig at St George's on 16th October.

Regards - John

Who says we never look happy? - photo courtesy of Sue Richards

Regular rehearsals now, preparing for our return concert at Hunton Village Hall on May 8th. We are trying out some new material to add to some old favourites for the concert. Once the concert is over we will be starting recording the new songs for the new CD which we intend to have ready for October to coincide with our concert at St George's on the 16th. No pressure!

Once a CD is finished I always think I will never be able to write anything new ever again and that I've used up every piece of inspiration. Then when I'm least expecting it, an idea pops up and there's a germ of a new song that nags away until I have some words and music more or less sorted out. I find the next stage is to record a demo of the song to see how it hangs together. That gets chopped and rearranged to get the overall structure sounding right- verses, chorus, fills etc. The words then get changed once I try and sing them and find out that they don't scan properly or there's nowhere to take a breath! When the demo is reasonably settled it gets sent to the rest of the band and hopefully to rehearsal where it gets refined again in performance.

Usually the music comes first and then the hard work, for me, is writing the words. So it is a surprise to me that I've just finished a new song that, at the moment, runs to sixteen verses - usually I have trouble getting two or three verses together. The rest of the band haven't heard it yet so a lot of it may end up on the cutting room floor before it gets to the CD.

Regards - John

Asleep at my post - caught in mid dream - photo courtesy of Sue Richards

Our first full rehearsal of 2010 coming up next weekend and I am trying to get new things together to work on. We had a 'vocals only' rehearsal a week or so ago and tried out a few new things. When I say 'new' I mean new to the current line up - two of the pieces were done at various times in the band's dim and distant past. The songs I am thinking about are the Agincourt Carol and the Swinton May Song. They are both traditional songs so some might argue that 'new' is a totally the wrong word to use - but you know what I mean. We did the Agincourt Carol back in the 70s as an unaccompanied piece. I picked it up from the Young Tradition 'Galleries' album, although they do it with an early music ensemble behind them. It's got tricky harmonies with staggered timings so it's a challenge and we'll see how it develops. The May Song is a simpler song altogether and was sung by carollers going round the village to various houses in the hope of food, drink and/or money. It's from the singing of the Watersons.

I've needed a rest from writing so I've looked afresh at traditional songs for 'new' material for the band. Another song I am looking at introducing to rehearsal is 'The Blacksmith'. There are various recorded versions of this and several tunes, the most common being the one adapted and used for 'He who would valiant be'. The recording I like the best is by Shirley and Dolly Collins on their 'Anthems in Eden' album. The trouble is that the backing -Dolly playing portative organ - is so distinctive and woven across the melody that using the tune Shirly sings I would feel that one would be obliged to repectfully copy the intricate backing. I therefore decided to use my own tune to avoid such difficult decisions. It is based on a harmony I was singing to 'He who would valiant be' whilst walking round the house. It's sad isn't it? I really must get out more......

Regards - John

Alice on the bowed psaltery at rehearsal - picture courtesy of Sue Richards

A belated happy New Year to everyone. My first blog of 2010. I must start with an apology to all those who have been trying to email us or order things through the website. Apparently our webhosters have screwed things up which resulted in nothing getting through to us at all. Luckily Bob in California alerted me and I am hoping that things are sorted out very shortly.

Moving on to gig news - we can confirm that our annual concert at St. George's will take place on Saturday 16th October 2010. It is my intention that we will have a new CD available by then as well. We are also returning to Hunton in Kent for another concert, hopefully in May, but we have yet to have the date confirmed. As soon as we know I'll post it up on the blog.

We have started rehearsals again after the bad weather and will be working hard on the new material over the coming months and should be starting recording around Easter time.

Bye for now.

Regards - John

another 'in concert' shot courtesy of Ian Gilchrist

Well, first of all I must apologise for the time it has taken for me to get round to adding a new blog. Also being new to this blogging game I hadn't checked back to see if anyone had added comments to previous blogs. So apologies to Duncan Saunders who, back in August, kindly informed us that the site was down. Luckily we had realised ourselves that it was down and it was up again quickly. But thank you Duncan.

Having been a while since I last checked the blog I now notice we have two more followers - so welcome to Frenchy48 and Bob Goolsby - Hello to you both! My New Year's resolution is to try and update the blog every week or two as we start into 2010.

One reason for the lack of attention to the blog is that we are having some buiding work done here at Salomonjay Studios and although it started in March it still isn't finished. Hopefully, it will be early in 2010 and we will then have more space - an additional area with hard surfaces that will give us different options when we are next recording. My intention is to start on the new CD as soon as the builders have gone and that it will be ready in the Autumn of 2010.

I mentioned back in July about writing a song about Helen of Troy. The intention was to write quite a serious song about the futility of war. In the end it morphed into a comic retelling of the legend but in modern times and set to a jazzy nightclub backing. As I've said before you start writing one song and then it takes over and goes its own way. You just have to hang on. I've also finished a piece about a Siren - based on the legend of Lorelei. For some reason it has ended up in 5/4 and 6/4 timing which has got Derek all excited - or is that annoyed?

We've had a couple of rehearsals in the last couple of months to try out the new songs. Luckily, Dave and Bruce have both got over long term hand injuries that stopped them playing and Ed is slowly recovering from a broken ankle from skiing earlier in the year, so we should be entering the New Year fully fit and raring to go.

It just leaves me to wish you all best wishes for Christmas and a happy and musical New Year.

Regards - John

The new term begins

Ed strumming it large at the 2007 charity garden gig - photo by Bruce

Everyone is now back from their holidays and we are starting the new term by taking part in an outdoor charity event organised by Ed's choir group to raise money for the Brigitte Trust.

http://www.brigittetrust.org/

As I write this the summer rain is falling but I hope by the time of the gig in the middle of August that we'll all be basking in the sun and enjoying ourselves and lots of money will be raised for this worthwhile charity.

Best wishes - John