New play-along files of our Showcase repertoire have been posted on the Guitar Group Midis page. They are in the same order as they will be on our programme. Begin with the slow ones (low numbers) and build up to the faster ones (highter numbers).
Check the Dates For Your Diary page for rehearsal details.
Tickets (£5) are now on sale from the Queen’s Hall Box Office 0131 668 2019; http://www.thequeenshall.net/about/the-box-office;
85 – 89 Clerk Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9JG (map).
On Friday 9 March Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall (map here) is hosting an International Guitar Night, featuring Brian Gore , Lulo Reinhardt (great-nephew of Django Reinhardt) and Adrian Legg.
My lifelong friend, Mike McGeary, Principal Officer Instrumental Music for City of Edinburgh Council, has managed to arrange an free, one-hour concert for pupils – and has extended this offer to pupils in East Lothian Schools. This will also take place in the Queen’s Hall (soon to be scene of our annual Showcase Concert) and will run from 4:00-5:00.
I should stress that this is not an organised school trip. Pupils are expected to organise their own transport – either with parents of friends. Once there, I can vouch for their being instrumental pupils in our schools. Pupils can ask me for more details in the two lessons which remain before that date.
Click on the hyper links for each player to take you to their individual websites – or visit YouTube for more idea of their styles.
Dates for rehearsals and performance of our annual Showcase Concert have been added to the Dates for your diary page. Please note the radical departure from our normal 6 x Fridays plan.
Many thanks to all who participated in the East Lothian Showcase Concert last night in Edinburgh’s Queens Hall. The pupils really enjoyed the venue and the performance. Thanks to James Leslie for the use of his video-camera tripod and to Don Ledingham for agreeing to operate the video camera:
Rondo:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/tz9xJdYeQg8?rel=0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Birdland:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/oB8muigtSaU?rel=0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Bohemian Rhapsody
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/w0CSGhuSWEo?rel=0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Thanks to David Gilmour for making the audio recordings featured below. Perhaps pupils – especially those for whom this was the final Showcase – would like to download these mp3s as an iPod memento.
Rondo Birdland Bohemian Rhapsody
Many thanks, also, to Julia Wilson of NBHS who supplied the group with 20 clip-on tuners. Holding the tuning of 34 guitars (204 strings) under the glare of stage lights is a nightmare and these were a great help.
Thanks, finally, to David Ryan (S6 @ Knox Academy) for agreeing to lead the group. You’ll see this particularly in Bohemian Rhapsody, where a nod helps the group navigate some severe changes of tempo and time signature.
Well done to all involved.
p.s. bereft of software to divide the original video into three separate ones, I downloaded some nifty, free software here.
Congratulations to my colleague, Liz Woodsend, for identifying the snag which had prevented 4 out of 5 midi files of Bohemian Rhapsody from playing. The problem lay in having the character “%” in the file name e.g. Bohemian Rhapsody – Performance Speed – 10%. The names have now been changed and “%” has been replaced by “percent.”
If you’re wondering why the usual formula e.g. Rondo 80, Rondo 90 etc. was not used, it was simply becuase the metronome speed changes several times in this piece. That’ll teach me to be pedantic 🙂
The fixed files can be found here.
Tickets for the Showcase are selling fast. Make sure not to miss out by contacting the Queens Hall asap.
Last rehearsal this Friday (18th) in NBHS from 13:15 to 15:15
Tickets can be bought on-line, over the phone, or in person from the Queens Hall Box Office for our annual Showcase Concert – Tue 22 Mar at 19:30. Details here.
The magical blend of youth and experience, normally associated with football, is to be experienced in Edinburgh’s Queens Hall this Saturday (18 July) when one of the UK’s leading jazz guitarist/composers, Mike Walker, teams up with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland (NYJOS) to perform Walker’s debut album Madhouse and The Whole Thing There (audio samples in this link).
This unusual title comes (I’ll bet my bottom dollar) from the final line of William Empson‘s poem Let It Go. You can hear hear Empson reading two of his other poems – Missing Dates and Aubade here.