Music Events

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”.

Jazz Sketch

| Hannah Sterry

This is just a little idea for a jazz tune. I’ll embed a better video once I’ve recorded it properly, but for now, here’s some real, rough-around-the-edges music:

Let me know if you like the sketch. I still don’t know whether uploading at this stage is a good idea. Most music isn’t seen at this sketchy, made-up-on-the-spot stage.

On another note, does anyone else look like a crazy fool when they’re playing piano? I seem to rock, grin madly and occasionally headbang (all unintentionally).

Advertising and Promoting Music on a Budget (Free)

| Hannah Sterry

Here are a few useful sites I’ve found whilst researching how to start advertising and and selling my music without having to pay anything. Hope it helps!

  • Bandcamp is probably the best website regarding ease and freedom of music sale. You just upload the tracks and album art and name your price. They take 15% commission, and PayPal take a little too, but if you read through their FAQs there’s plenty of information and advice to help you manage your music independently. UPDATE: Bandcamp now have a facebook app, so it’s possible to sell music via facebook pages. Here’s the info: http://bandcamp.com/facebook_app.
  • RouteNote are advertising that they can get your tunes on itunes, and you don’t have to pay anything up front as they take a percentage of the money from sales. If salesincrease you can pay a flat rate each month and keep all of the money from your sales.
  • RootMusic have quite a neat module for playing music on facebook pages. If you want to customise it, you have to pay,but the free version looks quite tidy and does the job. You can also use a facebook app by ReverbNation, but in my opinion it didn’t look so tidy.
  • Get British Businesses Online will give you 2 years worth of free domain name. The only catch that I can see (other than the fact that you have to be based in Britain) is that you have to use google sites to build a website.

If you’ve found any other useful sites like this, please don’t hesitate to comment!

Tips for Learning an Instrument

| Hannah Sterry
Whenever music comes up in conversation, there seems to be an instant divide between people who do and don’t class themselves as musicians. Most of the time the people who don’t class themselves as musicians mumble something along the lines of “I wish I could play an instrument”.
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