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The feelings of futile annoyance upon discovering a mistake I've made with something are only slightly allayed by finding that I can fix it! 1 week ago
Still a week left to get 10% off our signed limited edition Touchable Dreams CD by pre-ordering with code "dreamer" - http://bit.ly/9hWnbI1 week ago
After many months of work, initially recording, then editing and mixing – plus a tremendous amount of time spent contacting poets and their publishers in order to get copyright permissions – my CD with Jeremy Harmer entitled “Touchable Dreams” is finally at the pressing plant ready for a September 1st release.
Because of the amount of time it took to get all the poetry permissions sorted – and we really only managed it due to some superb help from professional permissions person (what would be the correct title I wonder?) Rachel Thorne – and also due to a last minute refusal for what would have been our closing poem, we have been able not only to get the CD pretty well exactly as we would like, but were also able, while trying to find a replacement final track (and with some excellent inspiration from Jeremy!), to end the CD in a really (we hope) inspiring way.
I asked my son Chris to do the CD artwork and design for us, and he’s also taken some excellent photos at our most recent live show, some of which are now online on a new “Touchable Dreams” blog site – http://touchabledreams.posterous.com. Do take a look at it.
It’s now just over a year since we first did the show live, and it’s hard to stand back from it and view it objectively, but we feel that the CD is an exciting and fairly unique recording, mixing words and music in a way that we haven’t come across before. We certainly hope that others feel the same about it!
You can buy the signed, numbered limited edition “Touchable Dreams” CD from my online store. It will also be available for download from iTunes and other stores very soon (with just two poems missing where download permission was not forthcoming!).
Our next live “Touchable Dreams” show in the UK is in Ely on September 10th (details here), but we’re also doing it in Bucharest on September 4th!
Plans are also now afoot for a new show featuring the words of Charles Dickens. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…” (A Tale of Two Cities)
I realised today – as I was taking some (I think well deserved) time out sitting in the sunshine in our back garden – that I had not written a new post on my site for nearly four months!
After an initial pang of guilt I went on to think “What’s the problem?” – I’m realistic enough to realise that a lack of posts does not constitute an international crisis. How many people are out there on tenderhooks waiting for my next snippet of news?
And here’s the nub: I know several people who seem to run their lives around website and social media interaction, but (and maybe it’s an age thing) I can’t build up either that level of enthusiasm or the time needed for it!
Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy updating my website and using Facebook and Twitter, but there are many more demands on my time – both in terms of work and leisure – and my priorities often don’t stretch to the virtual realm.
Maybe, you might be thinking, if I changed my priorities and spent more time on blog posts and tweets I would get more online interest which would translate into more music sales and more concerts. That sounds good, but we all have to strike a balance we’re comfortable with….
Right now I’m comfortable sitting in my garden chair listening to birdsong and the drumming of a great spotted woodpecker whilst writing this post on the WordPress app I’ve just installed on my iPhone!!
If you’re lucky this may be the advent of many new posts detailing my activities; concerts, recordings, birding trips and so on. Or maybe you don’t care, or have your own priorities, which don’t include reading my blog posts!
Or maybe no-one will read this and I’m just satisfying my own need to justify my existence publicly….Hello…..Is anyone there?……Hello……Hello……
For my first post of 2010 I’ve got a new video release: It’s part of the “Touchable Dreams” performance which I did with Jeremy Harmer in December 2009 in Cambridge. This clip is just me doing a looped version of the famous “Canon in D” by Pachelbel. I worked out the programming needed in order to perform it properly in it’s original form – bass line and three canonical violin lines – a while ago: It involves a straight loop for the bass line and then lots of careful loop/replace functions for the canon. I was delighted it proved possible to do; and it proves popular in live performances.
This particular concert was the first outing for my new Bridge 5-string electric violin: More about the superb Bridge instruments soon…..
Thursday 10th December sees Jeremy Harmer and I presenting our show “Touchable Dreams” in Cambridge, at the Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Trumpington Street.
Subtitled “Words and Music in the Key of Love” the show has had great success so far this year, and lots of our friends and colleagues in the Cambridge area were asking when we’d do it locally: So here it is.
This show blends my playing, using my usual blend of looping, electric violin, pedals and acoustic violin; with Jeremy’s expressive readings from poets as diverse as Shakespeare and Carol Ann Duffy (with a little singing thrown in!). The words frame the music, the music illuminates the words. And when they happen together, the effect is spellbinding….
If you’re anywhere near Cambridge do come along! Tickets will be available on the door, but can also be purchased online from http://www.stevebingham.co.uk/shop/. Just click the “ticket” link.
The weekend of the 7th/8th of November saw me playing in two very different situations. On the Saturday I travelled to Thame in Oxfordshire, to Lord Williams’ School, which I attended for the first two years of my secondary education from 1974 – 1976. I had been asked to play in a concert celebrating the Schools’ 450th Anniversary – along the way I also got roped into sorting out the sound system for the other performers and singing in an ad hoc chamber choir! Oddly the last time I had sung in a choir was when I was at the school, before my voice broke…..!
Rehearsing with Howard Goodall at LWS in 1975 (I'm the 2nd boy from the right!)
The day started with a real nostalgia trip as I joined a group being given a tour of the school: There were two old schoolmates in the group and we also visited the room which had been my dormitory for two years (now a conference room). It was smaller than I remembered!!
In my old dormitory at LWS!
The concert went well; a fun evening with lots of variety. I even managed to get around the choir pieces (a selection of madrigals and other short pieces conducted by my old head of music, Robin Nelson) fairly well. My violin contributions went down well, and there was the premiere of a choral piece written specially for the occasion by ex-pupil (in the 6th form when I was there) Howard Goodall.
But enough of nostalgia……
On the Sunday I had to get to the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey for 8.30am in order to setup my electric violin and looping gear for the European String Teachers Association annual conference! I gave a short recital to the delegates, and then a 90 minute presentation of a variety of electric violin and looping techniques. The Hall at the school is excellent, and it was a most enjoyable morning. There was a lot of interest in what I was doing, and lots of positive networking, which I hope will lead to some more concerts and demonstrations.
Performing in the Menuhin Hall for the ESTA conference (photo: Geraint Tellem)
I also had a chance to try out some Bridge electric violins (they had a display stand at the conference), and was instantly impressed, in particular with their octave bass violin. I feel that the number of electric violins in my house may soon be increasing! Watch this space….
