Ben Folds and Skyfall

Another busy, bizarre week this week! It's been great fun though!

The first thing happened on Wednesday, where following something that Ben Folds posted on twitter, I walked to the Richard Goodall Gallery in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. The post said that he was there opening an exhibition of his photography work and people had the opportunity to meet him! As I am a huge Ben Folds fan, I jumped at the chance and I was not disappointed. Many other people were there with similar plans to myself, namely to meet Ben, and get him to sign something, but I hoped that I would be able to stand out in this case...

Ben Folds Signing my Trainer

Ben Folds performed in Sheffield nearly 20 years ago, a gig which my Dad attended. As a result of a misjudged stage dive, someone stole one of his shoes. He told this story the two times I saw him live in Sheffield (2007, 2010) so I thought it would be funny if I asked him to sign my trainer, he laughed and asked if I was the guy who stole it? I'm not.

On Saturday night I went to Leeds to see Ben play with his band Ben Folds 5 (all personal heroes of mine) on their 20 year reunion tour. They were fantastic. It was definitely a gig that I won't forget, marking the fourth time I've seen Ben live, but the first time I've not been the youngest there. That title was taken by my 16 year old sister Cathy Simpson on this occasion.

 Ben Folds 5 Live in Leeds

(L-R Ben Folds, Darren Jesse, Robert Sledge)

After fangirling over Ben Folds for nearly 4 days straight, I returned to Manchester on the Sunday for another recording session at SSR. This was a different experience for me as it was the first time I had been called upon to arrange parts for a session. For the project, Charles Macdonald, Ollie Harding and I recorded the band parts for Adele's newest song Skyfall for Stuart Armriding's Audio Engineering Degree. So last Saturday I recorded Piano and Bass Guitar, as part of the full band recording.

Sunday, we recorded a 4 piece Brass section and a 4 piece String section. I arranged the parts for the session, marking my first time doing that kind of thing and pretending to be a Musical Director! I really enjoyed myself and it was a great experience to hear the real orchestral instruments playing the music that I'd arranged, as opposed to the MIDI approximations "playing" the score before.

The Brass Ensemble at SSR

The String Quartet at SSR

Another busy day at SSR, but another great experience recording. Yet another busy week. How far away is Christmas again?

Alasdair

Royal Albert Hall

On the 13th of November, I was lucky enough to play in an ensemble at the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of the Music for Youth School Proms. It was quite an experience.

The ensemble in question, "Fourtissimo" Percussion Quartet, played first of all at the Huddersfield regional MFY event. Following that we qualified for the Birmingham National MFY event, where we received an award for outstanding rhythmic ability and musicianship. In August, we were invited to play at the Royal Albert Hall for the final event of the MFY festival.

Fourtissimo at MFY School Proms

(L-R Me, Tom Pritchard, Jake Brown, Sophie Smith)

The event was fantastic, an amazing range of instruments and genres of music, all performed by extremely capable young people of all ages up to 18. We were lucky enough to see a full symphony orchestra, an Indian music trio, a 600 strong massed choir of young people from Huddersfield and many more different acts.

Our performance felt awesome. Everything clicked in such a way that we knew nothing could go wrong... Well, aside from Jake Brown playing his djembe a little too aggressively and puncturing the skin. (See below) But this minor slip happened in the last 5 bars of our first piece, and in a venue as big as the RAH, who was to know?

Jake Brown's Djembe

All in all, the whole experience was one that I won't forget. We only played for 10 minutes, but that doesn't matter. It could have been 10 seconds and it wouldn't have mattered! It seemed bizarre to just go back to RNCM the next day and continue with college work, but life goes on!

Alasdair

Ireland and Ensemble Week

Last week and the weekend before were extremely busy for me, but great fun.

My journey started on the Friday night with a long trek to Cork in Ireland for the Cork Jazz Festival with the New York Brass Band. We stayed for 3 days and in that time were made to feel extremely welcome by the locals. During our time in Cork we did a lot of playing, including some street performances, a couple of on the street stage sets, and a few venues in the evenings! All of our playing was well received by locals, tourists, and visitors to the Festival.

New York Brass Band in Cork

As well as doing a lot of playing in Cork, we were fortunate enough to go and see a couple of the jam session happening on the Saturday and Sunday nights. With such a high number of famous Jazz Musicians in the area all at one time, it was inevitable that we were going to see some of them, it still didn't stop us being shocked by the sheer amount of talent in the room at one time during the jam sessions! Some of the guys we saw play include Roy Hargrove and Chris "Daddy" Dave, yeah, so we were maybe a little bit starstruck.

After the long journey back from Ireland on the Tuesday, it was straight back into stuff at RNCM on the Wednesday. I came back to a week called ensemble week where all of the musicians across the first and second year of my course were split up into 8 bands and told to learn 10 songs in a short period of time. We had to prepare the songs for a performance on the following Friday (a week after receiving the repertoire!) where the songs we would play were selected at random by the Course Directors.

The whole experience was an interesting challenge! Firstly because the 10 songs were contempary pop / dance songs with an extremely high level of production, thus making them notoriously difficult to perform in a live environment. For instance, I had to experiment with bass effects and different playing techniques to recreate the sounds on the recordings! As another part of my role, I had to sing some backing vocal lines.

So following a grand total of 10 hours rehearsal with my band (4 of those to make up for the fact that I was in Ireland for the first 2 days of structured rehearsal of the week itself...) we played on the Friday and all came off stage with a sigh of relief, but in the knowledge that we had done a good job, despite limitations caused by me.

All the other bands' performances were great as well! But it's a standard that I have come to expect of the people on my course who are all extremely talented. I think that the whole ensemble week experience was beneficial in helping us meet the second year students on the course, but also in working hard to prepare a large number of songs in a short space of time effectively from scratch.

A busy week, but a great week.

Alasdair

General Update

I'll start by saying that I have been rather quiet on blogger the past year or so, so here is what I have been up to.

I'm currently studying a BA Honours degree in Popular Music Performance on my main instrument Bass Guitar at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. I can honestly say it is great, I learn new things about the industry that I am looking forward to working in every day! My overall playing standard increases daily, I meet new like minded people every other day, what's not to enjoy?

Some of the things I have been doing out of college in Manchester include going to Jam Sessions at The Salutation Pub near RNCM, which has lead to meeting some of the older students on my course, which is great.

I've also been recording at SSR (School of Sound Recording) Studios in Manchester with students on my course which has been invaluable experience. 

In addition to this I have performed as part of an audition / showcase gig at Dimitri's Tapas Bar on Deansgate in Manchester with a Jazz Quartet. We received some very positive feedback from other people at the gig, and we also enjoyed hearing a variety of other very talented ensembles, mainly comprising of musicians who are on the same degree course as myself.

A picture taken of me recording at SSR Studios Manchester

It's safe to say that I am very happy to be where I am and I am very much looking forward to working in this city and beyond! So with this blog I will be summarising big things that are going on, talking about my career in Manchester and where possible trying to promote my friends and colleagues on the BA Honours degree course at RNCM.

As part of my course, I have created a number of platforms to increase my web presence. If you are an avid twitterer, or facebooker, or bloggerer, I would appreciate it if you followed these things! I tend to link them together as to ensure that everyone hears about what I'm doing. So the links to them are:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/alsimpsonmusic

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/alasdairsimpsonmusic

Blogger: http://www.blogger.com/profile/00889768022580012310

Website: http://www.alasdairsimpsonmusic.weebly.com

Alasdair Simpson