Music Events

Life just got busy!

Hamer and Isaacs gypsy swing band by Scott Calnon Photography
| Hannah Sterry

Life just got busy!

I haven’t disappeared off the face of the internet, I promise! The past few weeks have been a scrambled mash of work, First Aid at Work courses, rehearsals, Open University deadlines, music lessons, driving lessons, Halloween fundraisers and gigs. I’ve hardly had time to turn around!

Anyway, I just got back from a lovely gig with Hamer & Isaacs gypsy swing band (pictured above).

And thought I’d share their music with you: http://hamerandisaacs.com/discography?id=2673

After this week, hopefully I’ll have a little bit more time for cartooning and recording, but in the mean time, have a good one and enjoy the music! x

Sterry Cartoons: Crotchety!

Crotchety Crotchet - A music joke cartoon by Sterry Cartoons.
| Hannah Sterry

It’s been a productive cartooning day… sorry to end it on such an angry note! 😛

On the subject of notes, I’d really appreciate it if I could have a few more likes on the Sterry Cartoons facebook page. Sorry to ask – I’m hoping to get enough people involved so that we can have some really good competitions and giveaways!

Hope the cartoons keep you smiling!

All the best,

Hannah Sterry x

Sterry Cartoons: Show us your Bass Face!

Show us your Bass Face! - Funny, humorous music photo-cartoon by Hannah Sterry.
| Hannah Sterry

Noticed a face in the boyfriend’s bass and had to share!

Show us your Bass Face! - Funny, humorous music photo-cartoon by Hannah Sterry.

I’d love to do a series of instrument photo-cartoons so if you reckon your instrument would make a good cartoon, send me a photo/link via twitter, facebook or my contact form and I’ll try to turn it in to a character and feature it on the facebook page!

Spread the word and lets see how much of the orchestra we can cover! 🙂

 

Sterry Cartoons have invaded Facebook, Google+ and Twitter too!

Follow us there for the latest news and comics!

“How far do these music jokes go?”

| Hannah Sterry

Pause Paws - Music Cartoon by Hannah Sterry

Bass Clef is Feeling Low - Vector - Music Cartoon By Hannah Sterry

Answer: Too far!

Yes, I have some more music cartoons for you and they’ll be available in my shop shortly (when I get round to it). There are more over on Sterry Cartoons facebook page.

In the meantime, it’s been an exciting few weeks and I haven’t blogged much, so here’s what’s been happening recently:

The Sterrys live music for Tuesday Night is Music Night at The Cottage Hotel have been a great success and we’ve been asked to continue through September! Earlier in August we (Hannah and John Sterry) also played there to raise money for Hope Cove Lifeboat and someone was kind enough to to take this photo:

The Sterrys (flute and piano jazz duo) playing for Hope Cove Lifeboat Fundraiser at The Cottage Hotel.

It was a wonderful place to play, partly because the weather was so amazing and I managed to get a picture of the view from the terrace. It’s really lovely on sunny evenings on the Tuesday nights, because as we’re playing we can watch the sun setting over the sea – it’s beautiful.

Exciting news:

I’m finally learning to drive after years of putting it off because of university and moving!

The Boyfriend Song now has a much better delivery and set of chords and I need to practice it to perfection!

My SketchBook is filling up really quickly and I’ve been talking to a local animator about possibly animating some of my cartoons!

Anyway… that’ll do for today, but I’ll keep you updated as this all progresses (when I find time to blog, that is).

Feel free to ask me any questions or just have a nice chat in the comments! 🙂

Music Cartoon: Minimalism

| Hannah Sterry

Minimalism - Silly music cartoon/joke by Hannah Sterry

Less is more is a phrase that was repeated to me from a very early age, although this may have been because toddler-me was extremely messy and seemed to think that no wall should be free from gigantic crayon scribbles!

Now, I generally manage to keep my scribbles on paper, but I’m trying my luck with vector graphics in a futile attempt to clean up my act (and my cartoons). “Minimalism” is my very simple first attempt at drawing in Inkscape.

What do you reckon?

 

 

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THIS WEEK: Upcoming Gigs & Fluid Pianos

Fading Notes II - Flute Keys Version
| Hannah Sterry

Here’s what’s happening this week:

Tuesday Night is Music Night at the Cottage Hotel. I’ll be playing flute as part of The Sterrys and watching the sun setting over the water at Hope Cove. Feel free to relax with a cocktail and enjoy the music! Starts at 6:45pm.

Wednesday… brings the second of Ben Carr’s Music Sessions at The Hideaway. Anyone can come along, bring an instrument and join in (I’ll be there with my flute). The whole evening’s great fun and you’ll meet some really nice people. Starts at 8pm.

Thursday… features An audience with Auntie Pus at B-Bar, Plymouth. I’m really hoping to go to this, but haven’t quite worked out the logistics yet. Either way, I’m sure it’ll be a brilliant evening. Starts at 8:30pm.

Sunday… Gallows Ghost play The Hideaway and have asked me if I’d like to stand in for a few tunes as a guest musician. They’re lovely people and their music is great fun to play, so the answer is always yes!

Today’s discovery is… a new instrument called The Fluid Piano. The strings all have sliders that enable each note to be changed in pitch (by up to a whole tone) as the piano is being played. This also means that the piano can be tuned to the true harmonic series, making it much more compatible with traditional indian  music, which doesn’t use the standard western tuning (twelve note equal temperament) and can often involve fluctuations in pitch.

Anyway, I hope you’re all having a good week and if you happen to be at any of these gigs, feel free to say hi (I’ll be the one with the flute and the long brown hair)!

Jazz Greenhill drew me! She’s a genius armed with pencils.

The Sterrys: Tuesday Nights at The Cottage Hotel

| Hannah Sterry

Tuesday Night is Music Night at The Cottage Hotel has been a great succes, and was particularly lovely today, as we [The Sterrys] arrived to the sun shining and played until we saw it setting over the sea. Here are the photos from the evening:

John and Joe setting up in the sun.

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Taking turns to improvise.

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John suddenly turns in to a giant while Joe and Hannah aren’t looking.

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The evening ended with this…

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…and we couldn’t be happier.

Replacing Piano Bridle Straps

Piano Mechanism - Inside The Piano. Hammers, strings, tapes & keys...
| Hannah Sterry

New Clip-On Piano Tapes!

Today I spent some time replacing a few of the worn out tapes in our upright piano with clip on bridle straps (I found a relatively inexpensive full set of tapes here) after getting fed up with hitting ‘dead’ notes when trying to play.

Replacing the clip-on tapes was fairly simple and went something like this:

  1. Remove the old, worn-out tape.
  2. Clip the new tape on to the post just above the point where the previous tape was attached.
  3. Fiddly bit: twist the clip around so that the tape is coming from underneath the post and push it right to the back (the part furthest from you).
  4. Making sure that the tape isn’t twisted, bring it down to the right of the bridle wire and attach (use other straps in the piano as an example).

This diagram (found here) might help and shows the working parts of an upright piano mechanism. The part that needs replacing is part 20 (the bridle strap), which attaches to parts 18 (bridle wire) and the post between parts 24 and 25 (the back stop and hammer butt).

While the cover was off, I thought it would be nice to share a few pictures. When you see how much time, effort and skill it would take to create these instruments it makes you appreciate them even more.

Piano Mechanism - Inside The Piano. Hammers, strings, tapes & keys...

Upright Piano Mechanism Photography

This Week’s Music Highlights

Ben Carr's First Music Hall & Blues Night at The Hideaway Speakeasy
| Hannah Sterry

It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable, musical week with lots of things happening, but here are the highlights:

Tuesday: John Sterry (pianist for The Sterrys) entertained guests and visitors to The Cottage Hotel with a relaxed evening of jazz piano.

John Sterry (from The Sterrys) playing piano / keyboard at The Cottage Hotel.

Wednesday: Ben Carr hosted his first Blues Session in The Hideaway Speakeasy, which turned out to be an amazing success! The atmosphere was wonderful and it was good to see musicians who’d never met just getting up and joining in (at one point Ian Feetenby jumped in and provided us with some brilliantly spontaneous percussion on acoustic guitar). The next session is on Wednesday 8th August – Feel free to come along and enjoy the music or, better still, bring an instrument and join in! We’re all friendly, I promise!

Ben Carr's First Music Hall & Blues Night at The Hideaway Speakeasy

Friday: Hamer & Isaacs played The B-Bar in Plymouth and were kind enough to ask me to step in as a guest musician on their second set. What followed was a foot-tapping extravaganza of swinging gypsy jazz with one of the liveliest audiences I’ve ever played to! I think everyone left that gig with a huge smile.