Author: Hannah Sterry

Music Cartoon: Musical Compliments

Musical Compliments: A music cartoon by Hannah Sterry of Sterry Cartoons.
| Hannah Sterry

I got a tablet yesterday, so I’ve been trying to re-draw my old cartoons and had a few new ideas along the way. Anyway… here’s the new digital version of the Musical Compliments cartoon. Hope it makes a few of you music teachers and students chuckle! 😀

Musical Compliments - Music Cartoon by Hannah Sterry. Comic shows some music notes complimenting each other. Text reads: "Liking the natural look!" "Thanks! You're looking pretty sharp yourself!" Great joke for music teachers and students.
Musical Compliments
“Liking the natural look!”
“Thanks! You’re looking pretty sharp yourself!”
Image © Hannah Sterry 2012. All rights reserved.

 

The cartoons reads:

“Liking the natural look!”

“Thanks! You’re looking pretty sharp yourself!”

Gift Ideas for Musicians:

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M.A.D. Pantomime a massive success!

| Hannah Sterry
Cartoon by Hannah Sterry

Pantomime is over and I’m still trying to refrain from shouting things like “It’s behind you… Oh yes it is!” at confused strangers. My favourite part happened on the Saturday night, when one of the props broke and resulted in some rude (but very funny) improvised lines from the cast, involving flying baubles and rather squeaky voices.

Overall, it was a massive success – The tickets were almost completely sold out and I enjoyed the whole week, despite having seen the pantomime more than 8 times, which says a lot about the quality of the script and the community atmosphere. It was nice to see so many of the actors/chorus helping out with the costumes too and as a result, the costumes this year were stunning.

It’s a shame it’s all over, but I’m really looking forward to next year and hoping it’ll be even better!

On a completely unrelated note, if you’re interested in experimental music, this look like a great idea: Here’s a record player that has been modified to translate tree rings into music.

Malborough Pantomime is On!

| Hannah Sterry

Yes! This week (starting tonight!) I’ll be playing flute for the Malborough Amateur Dramatics group (MAD group), who are putting on a new version of Sleeping Beauty that has been especially written and directed by Felicity Goodall. It’s on at Malborough Village hall from the 18th – 21st January and you can buy tickets from the Kingsbridge Tourist Information Centre and Malborough Post Office. There are a few more details over on malboroughvillage.org.uk.

Anyway, we’ve got a great cast this year and the audience dress rehearsal yesterday went amazingly well, so it looks like it’s going to be a good year.

Lots of thanks to the cast, T. Electrics for sorting out the sound (they do a brilliant job and always manage to make the band and cast sound amazing), Andy Morgan on lighting and the hundreds of people have volunteered to help with everything from costumes and stage direction to providing tea and coffee (we all need a nice cup of tea now and again)! It’s great fun to be involved with such an enthusiastic, supportive and hard working group of people.

Free Classical Sheet Music from the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

| Hannah Sterry

I’ve just found out about the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). They provide a brilliant website for finding free classical music scores and seem to just generally have a really good collaborative/community attitude. Here’s what they have to say on their website:

“We at the IMSLP believe that music should be something that is easily accessible for everyone. For this purpose we have created a music library to provide music scores free of charge to anyone with internet access, with several other projects in planning. IMSLP is also entirely collaborative, and all contributions are greatly welcome.”
 
I just thought it was a great project that you might like to know about. If you’re really keen you can even follow them on twitter (@imslp). Hope you find it helpful!
 
Featured image by Horia Varlan (CC BY 2.0)

Happy New Year!

| Hannah Sterry

It’s been a fun but hectic few days.

New year was brilliant. Catching up with old friends, dressing as a victorian just for fun, playing games with ridiculous additional rules…

I’ve just got back from playing jazz flute at The Cottage Hotel. Tonight it went really well, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and (despite my lack of sleep over the past 24 hours) I was full of energy and it was really good fun. I usually play flute as part of “The Sterry Family” and we seem to play at The Cottage reasonably often. Here are a few tracks we’ve recorded together:

Just out of interest – Have any of you done anything wild or different to celebrate New Year? Any strange/bizarre New Year’s resolutions?

My resolution is to do at least 1 hour of exercise every day, whether that’s going for a walk or playing games on the Wii against my little sister. I’m also aiming to increase my repertoire of harp music, learn to drive and take my Grade 8 flute exam this year – we’ll see what happens.

Hope you’ve all had a brilliant Christmas and New Year! And let this year be a good one!

Live Music at The Cottage Hotel

| Hannah Sterry

On the 1st January I’ll be in Hope Cove at The Cottage Hotel playing jazz flute with John (keyboard) and Joe (sax) as part of “The Sterry Family”.

If you’ve not been to The Cottage before, it’s a hotel with a stunning sea view, really good food and the people running it are lovely (they’re even nice to musicians!!!). I chose to go there for my birthday meal because the atmosphere and food is so good (the puddings are delicious too).

Picture from http://www.hopecove.com

Another day, another instrument…

Yesterday I played harp at The Cottage and it went down really well! I got to speak to some wonderful people afterwards about  and brought my dad and sister along to listen.

People tend to ask quite a few questions about the harp, because it’s a fairly modern design. This particular model is a Smartwood Harp and is much lighter than some of the more traditional designs, which makes it much more convenient for travelling with. Most importantly, I enjoy playing it and it sounds good (the low notes in particular have a wonderful warm rich sound). I’m tempted to add levers soon, as I am finding the standard modes a bit restrictive, but overall I’m very happy with it.

Dusk: New tune uploaded on bandcamp!

| Hannah Sterry

I’ve had this tune sitting on my hard drive for a while now, but haven’t known what to do with it, so I thought I might as well post it and then anyone can have a listen if they feel like it.

I’m a bit of a cynical flautist, so I really really enjoyed improvising on this big dark tune. All of it is my work, it’s just that the flute part was the most fun to play. The photo above is mine too and is called “Hope at Sunset”.

Ollie – New Kitten

| Hannah Sterry

Here’s Ollie – the newest member of the Sterry household!

A few funny things have happened since he came to live with us and he’s shown himself to have quite a bit of character!

5 Things he really seems to like:

  • Rubbing his face on everything and purring madly. Sometimes he does this to wake me up.
  • Hiding in the bath. He loves trying to attack water, but seemed a bit shocked once when he jumped in the bath, only to find that it was full of water. Here he is hiding in the sink:

    Ollie hiding in the sink.
    Sink Cat
  • Playfully biting toes. He’s fairly gentle and doesn’t use claws, but it tickles!
  • Annoying the other cats until they get mad and hiss and growl at him or take a swipe. He nibbles their tails if he’s in a really irritating mood.
  • Weird Sleeping Positions…
Ollie's Crazy Sleeping Pose

He’s a bit mad, but I love him to pieces.

Malborough Cycle Path

A morning view of the cycle track between Malborough and Salcombe in Devon.
| Hannah Sterry

Another of my photos has been published in the Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette. This week it was my shot of Malborough Cycle Path.

A morning view of the cycle track between Malborough and Salcombe in Devon.
The path provides a great car-free way to travel between Salcombe and Malborough and apparently there are plans for it to eventually reach Plymouth too [source], although I’m not convinced that’ll be happening for quite a while.