Xmas Charity Gig @ The Bedford, Balham

Last night, the annual event organised by bands Caliko, Kohiba & Jazzbomb also featured three tunes from recent Orpheus Centre concerts. Of course, I had to get involved, the Hofner archtop made it's first public appearance & ticket sales enabled a donation of £1500 to Jo's home charity, Great Ormond Street.

Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer

To complement the Hofner and make for some warm blues tones by the Rob-Tay duo, I picked up a second hand Tube Screamer from Ebay. I seriously can't wait for the Xmas Charity gig at The Bedford, taking a rock solo with this thing could be fun...

Hofner J5 Archtop

Months & months I've been looking. Months I tell ya! Here's what I finally found. It's not the Gibson Le Grande which would surely have set me back several Le Grande in sterling. It's my brand new Hofner J5f Archtop which also features the floating pick-up, the cutaway and the gorgeous figured woods but at around one tenth of the price.

The spruce top is really bright & the whole guitar has a slightly weird acoustic tone, just what I was looking for. So far the pickup has pleased. Turning the tone knob up keeps the sound bright & acoustic-ish, roll it all the way down & it sounds like Wes Montgomery (badly played!).

Choir Crashing

My flux capacitor has been working overtime of late. Visits to the Surrey University campus in Guildford for late night jams in the practice rooms with Tay have been taking my mind back in time to my student years. Tight deadlines for spoken assignments have kept Tay too busy to play piano this week but if possible she wouldn't miss out on choir practice. So neither did I!

Heavy rains fell all morning drenching the entire chorus of students on their way to Studio 1. So wide had the heavens opened that the regular conductor Russell Keable spent his time stuck on the M40 behind an accident. A shame for Choir Crashers like me as his eccentric warm-up routines are apparently great fun; 1... takita 1 2... takita 1 2 3... takita 1 2 3 4... takita tah! (All complete with stretching exercises and loose-limb movements!)

Once inside I did my best to blend in with the educational crowd. In true student style I too had forgotten my sheet music. Standing with the Bass register I marked myself at a B+ for picking up the bottom line of I'm Getting Married In The Morning followed by I Could Have Danced All Night. Choir Maths Level 1: Basses + Baritones + Tenors 1 & 2 + Altos 1 & 2 + Sopranos 1 & 2 = 8 lines of harmony. When all our voices came together the sound in the studio was awesome. A shorter than usual session unfortunately meant cutting Auf-fer-stehn out of the reportoire. Damn, I could have done with the German lesson so close to our trip to Berlin on Monday.

Coming back to the future we travelled via the scenic route and stopped to take a gander at the rainbow-coloured views over the Albury Downs at Newlands Corner. Fantastic.

Spitz Fest #2 - The Masque of Moments

Arriving slightly late due to an erroneous location map I was much more immediately impressed by Shoreditch Church than the venue for Space Between Words at Wilton's Music Hall. Perhaps the grandeur of an ever-so-slightly roughened stone church mixed with the title of the show combined well in my mind.

Ushered in whilst the crowd applauded I was yet again faced with classical music organisational rules. I'm late, I'm not allowed to take a seat in the centre, I take a few seconds to locate a free seat from where I can see the stage, a second too long I fear as I'm reminded to please take a seat. Slightly rushed I park myself behind a large pillar, wide enough to hold the church aloft by itself. Eyes rolling I then wonder if I have checked in under-dressed for this scene. Apparently Shoreditch Church is kind enough to double as a temporary shelter for the homeless during events. Worries of scruffiness are promptly quashed.

It's now I notice the 'no standing during the performance' notice on every stone column. Leaning at forty-five degrees to my right I aquire a cropped panorama of the amazing 17th century instruments which all this time have been producing an authentic, period backing track to my initial concert woes.

Struck at first by the design of the tools in their laps I then tumbled into the mood of the night. I imagined myself a visitor to the kingdom, taken to the market place where peasants and Court officials gathered to sell wares, eat meat wrapped around sticks cooked on large barbeques under earth-coloured, leather tents. A cat finds some rich pickings amongst discarded vegetable leaves and performers entertain the crowd with tales of rich and poor, treasure and gout, knights drinking and peasants in Wapping pissing out fires.

Superb playing of instruments new to me (like the Theorbo, with it's unfeasably long fretboard and massive range) and top-class singing with voices also new to me, a counter tenor's sound is like no other vocal.

Sitting the the gallery through the second set my view was improved tenfold and the acoustic character of the venue revealed it's clarity & wonderful, natural reverb. It's the storytelling & feeling that I most enjoy in English Folk music. Here I was witness to a virtuoso execution of how it was done in the 1600s, with enough feel & ambience to immerse myself in another world.

Crafter TRV23/N Guitar

After wondering whether I should really buy yet another guitar, the latest addition to my studio finally got the better of me. I spied the Crafter TRV23/N travel-sized guitar in Denmark street about a month ago & have been using it mainly to create Gypsy Swing comps as it's tone is slightly hollow like the Selmer style guitars Django Reinhardt used through his entire career.

At £170 it's cheaper than the Little Martin guitars (sorry Jon & Mike, the early bird catches the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese!) with a solid spruce top, arched back for extra volume & a cutaway. Also included in the price are a gig bag & a free setup any time within one year of purchase.

Vocal Range

Whilst looking up the standard vocal ranges of classical singers for a side project, I chanced across some fairly exaggerated human beings who sing at extreme ends of the scale. Here's some interesting examples of both high and low natural phenomena:

Jazz Guitar Lessons

After five years of self-taught discipline I have finaly sought the help of another human being in my quest to take over the world with my axe. A quick search on Gumtree.com found me a jazz gutar teacher who lives only a three minute walk away, bonus!

Beginning with an introduction to the CAGED system - something I had previously only heard of, not practised - through some arpeggio and pick techniques and ending with a quick study of walking basslines over The Mills Brothers' 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love' it was a fast-paced first lesson.

Next up, the search for the perfect archtop... If I felt at all worthy here's what I would ideally play; The LeGrande, Gibson's take on Johnny Smith's original guitar design for Heritage in 1989.

Aside from Gibson's lovely build quality I like the idea of the floating pickup. This means the top of the guitar vibrates more freely creating a richer acoustic sound.

The Thumb Piano

The first Xmas present I opened this year was this beautiful, half-coconut Thumb Piano from Lou. I'm not entirely sure where she found it but it's great!

The Snare & Brushes

After having spent a week playing so many different instruments at The Orpheus Centre I have realised how much fun it is to play the simple snare drum with brushes. With a kind donation from Ma & Pa for my birthday I went to Lavender Hill's Drum Shack and bought this second-hand Gretsch for a cool £100. So far it's seen one short jam before we headed off to Fruitstock. Russ's chilled acoustic guitar playing definitely suits that jazzy shuffle touch.