This Month

As it's getting towards the end of the second term at RNCM, I thought I'd better summarise what has happened in the month of March!

March started with a gig to celebrate St David's Day at RNCM! A very enjoyable gig playing with some members of the RNCM Session Orchestra, and some ex course members of the Pop Course! We played a set of Pop Covers that got people dancing, we were well received! It was a fun evening.

The next day, I went on a train to London with my friend and fellow bass player Frank Morgan. We went to Kensington Olympia to visit the "London Bass Guitar Show." This was a great day and a great opportunity to play some lovely basses and amps. Session Legen Guy Pratt gave a very informative masterclass and we were also fortunate enough to see a performance by Stevie Wonder's Bassist Nate Watts.

Me playing a Conklin 7 String Bass at the London Bass Guitar Show

Following this was the RNCM Revue, where I played as part of The Danny Ryan Jazz Quartet. It was a fantastic event with lots of impressive and varied music. The night held everything from Jazz to Classical, Percussion Duos to Rock Bands. It was in all a great showcase of all the fantastic talent at the RNCM.

Me playing at the RNCM Revue with the Danny Ryan Quartet

Within March we had our second "Ensemble Week" task of the first year of the course. Another busy week, this time with the challenging task of rearranging jazz standards. Everyone handled this task in an extremely creative manner, some using chords from the originals, others using melodies and lyrics in order to create completely different songs. The whole week was a true test of everyone's ability to arrange and create rather than merely learn songs.

The final element took place tonight! I've just got back from playing a gig with the RNCM Gospel Choir at Matt and Phreds in Manchester. What a gig! The energy was absolutely electric. Everyone sang well, everyone played well and it was a great laugh putting the tunes together and eventually performing them.

What a month.

Alasdair

James Christy

A project that I've been involved in since the start of this year is playing in the backing band of up and coming singer songwriter James Christy. So I thought I'd tell you all about that...

James is a middle of the road singer songwriter from the north of England who plays original material in an acoustic pop kind of vein. His music has been likened to Ed Sheeran, Paolo Nutini and Joe Brooks; his love of story telling lyrics and 3 or 4 part harmonies comes across in his recorded material. James' previous performing experience involves playing at many venues from Cardiff to Edinburgh.

The band are: James Christy (Guitar and Vocals), Andrew Bauckham (Keyboards and Vocals)... and Sessions Collective of course! Charles Macdonald (Guitar), Me (Bass and Vocals) and Ollie Harding (Drums and Vocals). In January, we rehearsed material from James' most recent album "Man Made of Glass" extensively to prepare for upcoming gigs in Manchester.

 (L-R: Ollie Harding, Charles Macdonald, James Christy, Andrew Bauckham and Me)

Our first gig was at Retro Bar on the 3rd of February where we supported Unsung Lily; also on the bill were The Ragamuffins and Alex Louise. Following this gig, we supported a band called Nude at Night and Day on the 6th of February. Nude are a band who comprise of RNCM Pop Course Students as well.

Our plans for the future include gigging James' material to different audiences in different places. In the immediate future, we will be learning more of James' older songs to augment the set. We also hope to write and record new material with a view to creating a live album later this year.

You can check out James at http://www.jameschristymusic.com

He's also on Facebook and Twitter.

Me onstage with the James Christy band at Retro Bar Manchester

Alasdair

RNCM Session Orchestra

Happy New Year! And welcome to my first blog of 2013!

My 2013 has been fairly action packed so far, my first week back at college contained various rehearsals and a performance with the Royal Northern College of Music Session Orchestra! As well as this, a gig in Dimitri's Tapas Bar with an Acoustic Pop Band, but the Session Orchestra project was in the forefront of my mind.

After a Christmas holiday of learning songs written by such bands as Jamiroquai, Amy Winehouse, The Jackson 5 and Michael Buble, rehearsals began with the Session Orchestra, comprising of a rhythm section (Guitars, Keyboards, Bass, Drums and Percussion) a 15 piece string section, a 5 piece horn section and 5 singers for the gig. The 32 strong ensemble rehearsed a 45 minute set of 10 songs ready for performing in the RNCM Theatre as part of the Lunchtime Concert Series.

Andy Stott and the Royal Northern College of Music Session Orchestra

The whole experience was fantastic. From rehearsing my own parts, to putting the songs together with the orchestra, soundchecking the equipment and doing the concert I loved every minute. The response from the 750 person audience was incredible. Standing on stage made me feel proud to be part of a project that united all of the schools of teaching and all ages of students at RNCM in one ensemble.

Another factor that helped the event's success was the addition of a live video link to the concert for all the people who couldn't make it to the gig. The concert can be seen here...

http://new.livestream.com/accounts/2465314/rncm

In other news, over Christmas my sister Catherine took some professional pictures of me. I've now added them to my website and updated it. If you would like to take a look, the address has now changed to http://www.alsimpsonmusic.co.uk

And finally, check out James Christy! http://www.jameschristymusic.com I'm playing Bass in his live band. His album "Man Made of Glass" is now out, and our first gig together is the 3rd of February.

So yeah, that's it for now.

Alasdair

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