I dropped daughters numbers one (Shona)
and two (Blase) at the airport early the other morning. Really early.
Tired early.
I watched a movie the other night. I
rarely watch movies. it was Hollywood Ben Schtiller schlock – about
a guy who 'zones out' and goes into crazy fugues and fantasies.
Eventually (over many months) he comes around to his senses, achieves
'something important' and (presumably) gets the girl.
Apparently I do that (zone out. I
already got the girl), or so my girls tell me.
“Dad! Shona is talking to you!”.
Oh yeah. But the car needs to be parked
here at the airport, and the woman in the car in front is dicking
around, and I'm blocking traffic, and Shona is telling me a story,
and …. and …. there's a favourite song in my head. So I start
singing it, apparently whilst trying to achieve the parking and the
talking.
It was a bit of a wakeup call to me -
to be more present; not to zone out inappropriately; not to be
inappropriate.
Which reminds me. When I am playing
music and teaching uke in the hospitals, people are down, or up, or
up set. Generally just not mentally well. Perhaps they are all
Schtiller's character - Walter Mitty?
But when they play uke, or sing, or
listen to someone else singing beautifully. Then they zone in. And
often exclaim – “that's the best I've felt all day!”.
We are on the train to Waikiki, via
Sydney. It's a long way. Jane is meditating in the seat beside me.
I dunno if it is funny or sad. But here I am, up at 6am, trying to find warmth and electricity and somewhere to write. You can't do that in a tent that is fractured by frost.
I can feel inadequate on so many levels at the National Folk Festival here in Canberra. I don't drink anywhere near enough. I don't have the stamina to stay up late. I get to bed before 11pm, get up at 5, and am here in the Session Bar, ready to write, when I should have been up all night, playing and drinking.
Session Bar - 5:30am, Good Friday 2014
It's Easter Monday and the remnants are still still here. The sun is tinging the sky but they are craicing on. They do eventually wander off to bed (I presume), ignoring what must be an awful impending reality of significant headaches.
A mere shadow of a musician
Of all the shameful inadequacies I display at the Nash, my association with the uke seems the one that condemns me the most amongst my folkie peers. I am able to redeem myself occasionally, a bit of pathetic trumpet, or a traditional song on the guitar. But when acquaintances of musical stature introduce me to their enormously talented friends, there is a vague condescension, a whiff of inferiority, maybe a taint of disreputable musicianship about my UCV (ukulele curriculum vitae).
From the personal to the political
I am sure my personal feelings reflect what is happening with the ukulele community. It's great to see the Ukulele Republic of Canberra (UROC) integrated into the program at the Nash, even though their allocated presence is kept to 8:30 to the 10. Not pm. But am. That's in the morning. Unheard of for REAL musicians.
But it suits all the uke-toting retirees who keep reasonable hours, bed at 9:30pm, up at 7:00am. Showered, breakfasted and reading chords from the projector screen and playing their baby boomer repertoire with so much joy and satisfaction by 8:30.
8:30am.
UROC leading the uke-jam 2014 National Folk Festival
As great as the offering is, I feel uncomfortable about the folk-uke union at the Nash. I feel it in my own inadequacies, but I am sure that my antennae for making broader observations are well tuned. These personal and general observations speak to me of a quandary.
How do we harness this amazing revival in music-making that the ukulele has wrought?
Is there some bridge that needs to be crossed?
What sort of overtures and work needs to happen from and between both the experienced musicians and organisers of the folk movement, and the nascent musicians and organisers of the ukulele movement?
What UROC and the National Folk Festival have come up with is great, and it is clearly catering for a demand from the new musicians of the ukulele world. But much more needs to happen, which I suspect comes down to leadership, education and tolerance.
For as happy as ukers are in playing their sofa repertoire, musical leadership – which the Nash displays in buckets - means one thing. Education. Ukulele players need educating. I don't think there is any question about that. They need educating about musical skills other than just the chord shapes necessary to play songs together. They need scales for melody playing, and they need exposure to the vast swathes of musical culture beyond latest hits and greatest memories. That not only includes repertoire, but an openness and curiosity about all of the other instruments that are out there beyond the four nylon strings that has fleas.
Ukestral Voices - 2014 National Folk Festival in Canberra
That has been achieved to a small degree here at the Nash. We can see it amongst our Newcastle ukulele mob who came to be a part of the street choir program with Ukestral Voices. They have explored singing, various instrument workshops, and seen some of the world's best musicians performing, from cultures from all over the world, and displaying virtuosity on a bewildering array of instruments. Just being here is a wonderful education.
But there is something lacking which I'm not sure I can yet identify. Certainly there is disdain for the ukulele from some quarters, and in many respects it is understandable. The hotshot musicians sit with each other in the session bar, swapping tunes, egging each other on, challenging their skills to new heights. Just because the ukulele has offered an enormous cohort of (mostly older) people an opportunity to play music, doesn't mean that the hotshots have to nurse or pander to the inadequately skilled new musicians. But neither should they be dismissive. For many expert musicians (and people in general), tolerance for others less skilled is not one of their strong points.
Learning how to session - is this what we need?
My trumpet playing sessioning is just ok. But it really depends upon the culture or genre, and how sensitively I try to blend in. (yes. Those two words can work together – 'blend' / 'trumpet').
I sat in on a session the other night, of Mediterranean music, lead by a clarinet and accordion. They were brilliant and fast. It was well beyond my skill and knowledge level, but I jammed a mute in the bell, tried to find the key, and fumbled along. I got there on one slow song, and I got a quiet nod of approval and welcome from the session leader. In contrast there was a woman who was drunkenly honking on a euphonium or somesuch. I'm sure she could play well in her right context, but in this context she displayed little sensitivity.
Perhaps this is one thing that is needed at such festivals. An explicit overture to the ukulele community from festival management ...
How can we better help your members skill up?
What do they need?
Perhaps one of the workshops could be specifically aimed at encouraging and integrating ukulele players with other instruments, and introducing them to the complementary ideas of sensitivity, listening and taking turns.
Yes we do need a continual stream of beginner ukulele workshops, but we are now at a point where the burgeoning ukulele playing population needs to take their skills further, and to become better integrated into the general folkie community. They need to start to be able to call themselves 'musicians', and not just 'ukulele players'.
It takes two to tango. And the benefits will be rich. Ukers will expand their musicality, and the folk movement will be able to embrace and grow from a rich seam of new and curious musicians.
I'm napping again. People either get pissed off at me, or they know (and suitably ignore) me.
As some plead - t'is oft better to seek forgiveness than to seek permission. Jane wouldn't have given me permission to lie across seven available chairs during the headline act at the 2014 Melbourne Ukulele Festival's opening night. But it's me, I'm tired, and, Jane, if you want to keep partying and chatting on into the evening, AND you want me to walk you home, then I need a nap.
MUF is the ukulele-once-a-year place to be in Australia. It's a community-focussed festival, with international artists, in the hippest ukulele playing ground zero in Australia – Northcote.
MUF14 is no different. Plenty of nearby peripheral groovster cafe/bar ukulele venues, a traditional Town Hall main place, and Lam Lam - a great well patronised cheap Vietnamese restaurant sitting square and innocent on the inter-venue trail. At Lam Lam, or on the couches next to Ian ZOT, (the historical ukulele expert), all one has to do is sit and wait. The passing parade of Alaskan / Japanese virtuosic jams, or conversations about relevant American visas will come to you. I choose this. And napping.
Jane is vibrantly gregarious, sussing out and being schmoozed by prospective and aspiring Newkulele festival participants, whizzing around the different venues with Elliot (potentially-virtuosic-anything-nephew). It's amazing how having that 'Festival Director Status' gets you noticed by the ukerati.
Me? I recently retired from that committee so I have no responsibilities in that regard. I don't feel I'm that good at chatting about festival stuff anyhow, especially late at night when I want to be asleep. (Besides, I can have those conversations on the pillow some other time with the festival's artistic director - are you awake? Go on ... give me a gig ... please ?).
ButI dolike key strategic conversations, and the couches next to Ian serve me well in that regard. The topic du jour pour moi? US visas and travelling uke oil salesmen. The Lam Lam and couchside conversations really tweak my thinking about sustainability, for even though my geography degree formerly formally equipped me to rabbit on about global ecological sustainability, nowadays I am a ukulele community sustainability expert (who could fall out of his self-appointed academic ivory tower at any time).
Anyone for Used Uke Oil?
You know the ukulele experts?! Those fellas and womenwho wander the globe, dropping in on uke communities, seeking their next hit of income, helping hundreds of us individuals to develop our playing skills, and wowing us with their skills. Well. In the on-the-couch conversations I got to wondering about how theirgood work intersected with ourlocal community, and what that meant for where we are going.
The list is endless …
Jim D'Ville - Play Ukulele by Ear
Manitoba Hal - Blues
Bosko and Honey - CAGFD
AJ Leonard – chord wizardry
Mark Jackson and Jane Jelbart (known at MUF as Helbart. Thank-you typo)– ukestration
The Nukes - secret of the nukes
Ukulollo – ukulele philosophy
Ukulele Russ - Muting
Heartstrings Cabaret – write a song
Rob Weule- Intermediate
James Hill – Any and every bloody thing
L'il Rev – Essential strums
… and it goes on... you see them at uke festivals, in bowling clubs, church halls and lounge rooms, all across the western world where there are cashed up retirees seeking ukulele wisdom, or the eastern world where enthusiastic gorgeous professional twenty-somethings dominate.
Jane and I learned a few years ago - if we wanted to hang overseas with people and earn a quid, then we couldn't just offer to sing them a song. Another cute mildly skilled duo couple was just not gunna cut it, especially if we wanted to offset our flights and travel expenseswith some foreign income (unless of course we were James Hill and Anne Janelle - which we're not).
But finding the workshop wellspring changed the whole game plan, for it allows us mediocre performers to sorta 'perform', to earn a dollar, to get free accommodation, to eat BBQs, and generally have the privilege and opportunity to meet and hang with nice people.
As one of the aforementioned workshoppers said rather colourfully to me at the conversation couch…
… people wouldn't piss in a jar for me to sing them a song, but for a workshop they will gladly fork over $25 …
I remember when our growing community had one of its first international workshop visitors. The marketing and attraction power of the big man was biiiig, and where we might earn hundreds of dollars in a week doing what we love, said expert earned one or two thousand dollars in just a couple of hours! and free accommodation! and us organising it for him!
Needless to say, that got us on a path of thinking how we could tap into this generous wellspring of goodwill, and do a bit more travel. The ukestration workshops have become our uke oil.
But like all wellsprings, no matter how deep, or how old, they need a feeder, they need sustainability. In the ukulele community the juice of sustainability is leadership. At least that's how it seems to me.
Two visitors, abrogated leadership and what not to do
Just last week I heard a rather apocryphal tale. I was out at LakeMacUkestra when two strangers turned up. Of course there are no strangers here, only those “with whom we have not yet uked”.
These guys were even more welcome, for they were refugees, from another group in Sydney.
'Welcome! Butwhat are you doing here!!? On holidays?'I ask.
'No', they say, 'Our leader just shut shop. Just seemed to have got bored and wanted to do something else. Just left. Left us all in the lurch. We don't really know what to do … '.
Indeed, upon checking, the old website seems as dead as the sense of community that this income generating 'leader' didn't appear to have. Not a sign of anything. No-one home.
And, of course, it gets me thinking (my Mum thinks I get the occasional headache from thinking too much) … if there is no leadership, then there are no venues for all of us uke oil sales people. For if 'leadership' is solely about making a self-serving income, with no broader sense of obligation to the wider community, then it may all be for nought.
Ukulele Sustainability = Education + Leadership
We aim to help people play music together, and for me that requires two ways of working –teaching music AND connecting people and creating communities of players/aficionados. But if we don't get the leadership balance right, then it just ain't gunna work out right.
Another international ukulele-god recently said that he had had little interest from Asia until the ukulele sales boom started to plateau. It was only THEN that a concerned uke-manufacturer realised that the key to sustaining the boom was EDUCATION, and approached him to help sustain the boom. Praise the Ukulele Gods!
But in this contemporary adult world of ukulele earnestness there is an additional ingredient that must be mixed in with education to create true sustainability.
... leadership ...
And so we are currently planning running Ukulele Leadership Workshops. Almost an oxymoron, going into communities to try to boost local leadership, and then leaving! But we have learned a lot here in Newcastle, and are working on figuring out what and why we have done so well, and what and how we can best convey to others. Part of our success, I am sure, is the fact that we have run it as a business.
Some people don't see it this way, but I do. For as contrary as it might seem, taking a business approach may well be one really viable and important means of going about helping creating and sustaining community music-making. It's certainly been our experience, with a very conscious focus upon a tripartite conception of what we do – music, community, and making a living.
One day we'll be too old to effectively do what we do. At that stage I would hope that our business is of value to someone who would pay us good money to take over the community building / music-making making reins of The Sum of the Parts (music).
That'll be a while yet, but when the time comes, you better be the right person, coz we ain't gunna sell the farm to just any ol' cowperson! We've got responsibilities you know!
Go on. This is a dialogue. Make a comment. Am interested to know your thoughts!
It's nearly midnight. Half the audience have now bailed, but we are on, second last in the last set. It'll be after one by the time we get on. It is easy to be pissed off, but I am over that. Besides. Do you know how difficult it is to sing (as the audience does here) whilst typing on this noisy machine (keys tap tap tap). I think I'm a bit weird, and this perhaps confirms it, a performer, who is engaged, yet illicitly typing on a computer at the back of the room in breaks. The girls around me (aged 9-26) are intrigued. No. You cannot read it. Only when it is online.
The Turramurra Folk Music Camp Sunday night concert is legendary. Packed, literally to the rafters, tables and benches stacked into raked seating all along the walls in this small homestead. Jane and I are here, guest visitors after two years ago being formal ukulele tutors. We got a raincheck on the guest tickets from last year (Beela the cat was dying. Priorities). But we are back with a vengeance this year: participating in the New Orleans style parade on trumpet and banjo; joining the basses (pffffttt) and altos in the amaaazing choir; doing the Americana guitar workshop; helping the eminently equable, legendary and sublime Dani Rocca tune the beginner ukulele group's ukuleles; conducting a guerilla ukestration workshop then performance; and playing / reading music for the intermediate ukulele group performance. Jane banjos, sings and ukes her way through the evening, getting voyeuristic pleasure from peering over the shoulder of an acquaintance audient who compulsively doodles every act in quirky detail, next to the acquaintances who knit, or weave. Maybe the guy at the back on the computer isn't too weird after all.
The room is full for two of the three sets. Maybe 200 men, women and children, crushed in, OH&S be damned. Each participant is generally only allowed to contribute one song. Regardless, each set takes an hour or more, and so, at midnight after the second set, half the people leave.
And then, almost as a coda. Jane and I. Second last. Until the MC (self interest uppermost in mind) decides to bump us ignominiously to last - just before the limbo. Our performance of one of my songs to a captive attentive audience proves its immediate gut-wrenching quality just for a moment. The applause is preceded by a barely audible grunt or groan of self-acknowledged pain from the audience, one that only comes from lyrical self-recognition. Success.
The concert is composed of the results of all the weekend's workshops, plus much some. It is the plus much some which floors me occasionally, and that gives me so much hope for the future of music. At least in this tight little valley.
Turra is my idea of family. For a weekend it is my idea of heaven. So many aspects are heavenly, idyllic and idealistic. The music, the environment (masses of finches, cockatoos, dawn raucous), the all-in-family atmosphere, the acknowledgment of death, to the circle of life that is in your face, if only over decades of watching. This is my third time here. But I have known this community for maybe 15 years. In Australia I'm sure that this thing can only happen in Victoria. Damn Victoria. Damn Victoria and your compassionately diverse and creatively wonderful social consciousness. Damn you and your increasingly insufferable climate. How I wish you were in NSW and next to our beaches. Alas. You are not.
If only we NSW no-necks could forsake our jet-skis and do and be something like this. If only.
What makes Turra so?
This. These.
The two girls at tonight's concert, frail in their age and confidence, almost tweenies, the youngest maybe 11, the eldest? 14/15?. A song, delicate, probably original, slight celtic affectations (so popular at these folk festivally-type events), perfect barely audible harmonies. The girls, frail in their reluctant acceptance of the uproar that follows. I smash my aluminium drinking bottle on the timber floor for a full minute, unable to stop bashing out my delight and approval. The MC restrains them from leaving, at least until the applause has ceased. Now. Now you can go.
The New Orelans style street band parade - 4 trombones, 4 trumpets, umpteen ukuleles, myriad other instruments, saxes, guitars, voices, clarinets, innumerable dancers, jiving their way through the tall trees
of this narrow north-south valley down near the Victorian west coast. We stop near the memorial tree planting which is accompanied by a vegetated mural. The mural will blow away in the wind, as did Ebenezer - a refugee 11 year old boy whose family was sponsored to be included at Turra last year and then he was killed a few weeks later in a car accident. His mother leads an Ethiopian drumming grieving dance, us whities trying to help join and salve her pain by poorly emulating the passion of her home culture. We are so not-Ethiopian at that, but at least we are here, a year later, a community still including and acknowledging her in her/our grief. Tears. Lumps in throat. Some success must be there if we are feeling such emotions.
The inter-generational baton passing is the most impressive thing about Turra. It has been going maybe 30 years, and people born over the life of this camp are now taking responsibility for its spirit. Not so much taking responsibility, for they are glad for it, they own it. It is a natural consquence of their life in this community, of this place. 12,000 trees have been planted out of a culture has been nurtured by a few families of note in the Victorian and Australian folk music scenes. The names Rigby, Gruner, Vadiveloo and Wise are replete. Stars have come out of this place, younguns who still deliver, make Turra acoustic music offerings here, but are the core of the funk, rock and electronic youth scenes in Melbourne. Folks cross over don't you know?
Early on in the concert three-quarters of the audience leave. The choir has to get ready for their two songs, to become reacquainted with their unorthodox musical parts that have been put together over two days by idiot choir savant leader Stephen Taberner. He is utterly brilliant, and is no idiot. But 'idiot savant' conveys so much more than 'eccentric savant'. The songs he wrote, only possible from him, cross rhythms that I didn't think I could do. But I did, as did all of us other singing novitiates. Brilliant. whada we do now, whada we do? … where do we go, what do we do now? what do we do …
It is hard to distinguish between audience and performer. This is as it should be.
The hobbit driven bass marimba. Straight out of a Peter Jackson film, the mere mortal stands on a
chair to play it, assembled from enormous plastic drain piping, structural framing and about ten carved strikers (the notes). Long after I go to bed its tones resonate along the valley, almost rising through my mat on the ground, about 500m away. The younguns still stomping to its insistence. 3am, 4am pass bassfully. Please, go to bed. Please, someone murder the marimba hobbit.
Throughout the camp, long haired barefoot kids whizz, exploring the creek, making and destroying swiftly made bridges, becoming trolls on the main footbridge only letting you pass when you scream like a harridan or speak in a foreign tongue, waking you at dawn with their plotting and playing.
Teens flirt with their trombones and trumpets, sharing music and time with their parents and other musical compadres, saving sly glances for the girl / boy who is their weekend adoration. Collaborating and experimenting musically, and maybe in other ways should parents, and time, allow.
The night ends with a massive limbo competition. The domain of supple youth backs. For 25+ years the limbo has segued out of the finale, probably previously driven by mandolins, fiddle, bodhrans and whistles, now by vigorous 15-25 year old horn players, horns, bass and snare. Jane refuses, she respects her back. I have one token go, and then as the stick gets lower and lower, and the competition fiercer and fiercer I go closer and closer to marvel and cheer. The two left, at less than my knee height, battle it out to chiropractic depths, abs rippling (I didn't know that's what you needed!), ankles floor sliding, heads hanging backwards. I barrack for Alistair Watson, lanky and still growing at 14/16 years old, and upcoming musician, treading the respected steps of his father. He just loses to Dan of the Impossibly Taut and Rippling Abdominals, equally lanky, equally impressive musically
I wake in the morning. Stuffed. Sick. Exhausted. 2 nights of little sleep. No alcohol. That must be it. No alcohol. Maybe if I had drunk I would feel better. I am now insufferable, but Jane persists with her loving and I appreciate this, in packing up the campsite, in driving, in tolerating the whinges.
In the loo (mobile phone in hand) I try to come to terms with the reality - that another world will intercept us when we leave this wireless-free refuge. Vestiges of emails (for the moment disconnected) remind us that tarred roads, wars, supermarkets, jet skis and a job awaits, jaws to hell open at the gates of the valley.
If you are open to them, surprises and serendipity can take you on journeys that are truly lovely. (I guess they can be truly ugly too, but I ain't talkin' bout that right now, or probly eva; why waste my life's breath?).
So with the following testimonial, I doth tangentially protest the current New York furore about giant hotel chains having their profits stolen by little old ladies and their youthful counterparts.
Community linking
Many years ago I was involved in a trading scheme called LETS in which I traded veges and other things. Mostly, though, it helped me make new friends, and catalysed the formation of a band for a dozen years. LETS was an invaluable community connection for me offering numerous surprises and opportunities for serendipity. This was the mid 90s and whilst it helped me make local connections, I was also part of a global research and activist community, courtesy of a new thing called the internet. Remember, it wasn't the www then, just the internet.
The ukulele is doing exactly the same thing for me now, not only locally, but globally.
The www is sooooo developed, it shapes our lives, and shapes our exposure to surprises, serendipity and organised chaos. The peer reviewed social networks are especially niche life changers, whilst the main webbie bits are transforming corporate America (and hence the globe). For capitalism, think Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, iTunes, and on and on.
You gotta spare room? Rent it out to international passers-by – but only if you want, and when it is convenient. You'll meet nice people; or get reviews about people who may not be your type (and hence you can say no). The peer-review mechanism allows you to get a fairly good idea of what sort of people you are getting yourself into.
For instance, in relation to Seattle, our host said …
Wow....I loved these guys....Mark, his wife and a friend stayed for 1 night and they were lovely. Respectful, quiet, clean and best of all great people....thanks you three
And our brief review said… Utterly delightful host and place.
Or...in relation to a defacto suburban, probably illegal sorta hostel thingie in Vancouver, we mechanically said … Good clean central secure place.
They responded in slightly more effusive kind (entirely unwarranted – we really didn't have a 'host', just a poorly paid (probably exploited) 'manager' – we barely met her) … Mark and Jane were delightful, polite and lovely guests. They left our room tidy.
(oh that I'd be tidy at home!)
It is a shame that NYC and other places have banned it.
Whitianga, New Zealand, has not …
I like to write my blogs almost immediately, but I didn't get the chance after this choice experience. We stayed in this rather functional tourist town on the Coromandel Peninsula just because we wanted to. It was pure speculation. Google Maps suggested it was a hilly location. Nope. Dead flat with obligatory tsunami evacuation route warning signs here and there. We found the cheap accomm – Sarah and Mike's – a rather functional inelegant house with a hallway that would be great for children's winter cricket. Despite initial Jane-like comments (you only take me to the best places darling) we stumbled well.
Sarah (non…non…Saha…possibly a francais pronunciation, possibly unique), our French host, was in the garden. We said hello, midst the strawberry picking frenzy we immediately embarked upon. Moustachioed Mike (for Movember) was suitably hirsute and a bit formidably Maori looking. Both of them the most delightful people ...
... we said ...
Staying with Sarah and Mike was the quintessential Air BnB experience. Absolutely lovely. We connected really well socially with them and they are both impeccable hosts making us so welcome in their humble house. We would have loved to have stayed longer but had to keep moving.
... they said …
It was great to have Mark and Jane staying at our place. We learnt a lot about ukulele, and loved their workshop at our school!
And so, conversations turned, ukes mutually presented, vocations swapped. Mike is the school Maori teacher, 1st year graduate, brimming with 1st year passion and idealism, work a mere leap over the back fence.
Mark: Do they have uke at your school? I wonder if they would be interested in us doing an impromptu workshop?
Mike: Wow! I'll check it out first thing tomorrow, I reckon they would like that!
So it happened, and what a delight.
Into the arms of a loving school
We leapt the back fence into their charming kiwi school, armed with ukes and music, across the field, quizzical eyes on us and them.
What we loved most at first sight was the barefootedness. Kids everywhere with no shoes, running, playing, rejoicing in their childhood. Of course some were shod too. In Australia they would be shot by the principal, and immediately told to be shod.
We were (metaphorically) embraced by the music teacher who herded 25 or so kids ranging from 8 to 15 years old into the music room. Ukes were pulled out of the immense classroom set (Makalas) and after 25 minutes of teaching we had four uke parts, one amazing lead singer and a complete version of Royals by Lorde. Jane and I teach well as a team.We do have some video evidence, but are awaiting school permission.
Mission successful, we head back across the field, only to be waylaid by an enthusiastic prep-teacher who herded 3 classes into her one room to hear the visitors play some songs. (WTF do we play???!!!! We've never done a kids' concert before!). We managed to pull out of our proverbials a terribly played one-chord version of Kookaburra sits (electric wire etc), Hey Soul Sister (I can't believe little kids in late 2013 are aware of this 2010 pop song. I mean, they were three or something! But they sang with gusto), and Pokarekare Ana.
Note the kid on left pulling a face. Not the one in yellow.
That last song was good as we felt that any Maori kids would probably feel affirmed that some white fellas from Orstralia thought their song good enough to sing properly! In turn the kids sang us a song (along with that infernal pre-recorded music that invariably accompanies children in place of the now rare musically literate primary school teacher who can actually wield a piano, guitar or ukulele).
The teacher so loved us that she shared with us the following song advice – Wonky Donkey – a kiwi classic.
After extricating ourselves from endless children's questions we left Whitianga, drove for 40 minutes to reach a place 2 km away and gave a workshop to a grand total of 3 adults – not the greatest highlight of our trip (though our host was, as ever, delightful). It was rather eclipsed by our uplifting AirBnB and school adventure.
Back home ...
A week later, back home in Oz, I did a bit of internet surfing which went something like this. iPad in hand, otherwise occupied, wikipedia Whitianga, ooohhh, a link to the school, click on link ... I wonder if we get a mention in their newsletter? Et voila!
Ukulele workshop and MBAS music opportunities
We had a wonderful opportunity drop into our lap this Wednesday with the impromptu visit of Jane and Mark from NSW. They are in New Zealand to attend the ukulele festival and asked their host Mike Bennett if there was a ukulele group at our school that they could offer a short workshop to. What they didn’t know is that we have 200 students in Y3-6 alone, all of whom are learning the ukulele, and many more in Y7 and above who also have the ukulele as part of their learning programmes. With a bit of quick thinking we were able to find 25 children from Y4-8 to join them for what was an amazing half hour where Jane and Mark taught us to play Lorde’s song “Royals” in three parts. The fact that our students were so quickly able to pull this together with the help of Jane and Mark is testament to the “give it a go” attitude of our students and the excellent foundational music skills we have been able to help them develop.
The music education on offer at our school is extraordinary. There are very few other public schools that offer the same depth and breadth for students that we do from such an early age. I am in the process of collating our itinerant music requests for 2014, and once again we already … etc …
Hubris.
Contrition. Neither word really grabs me. The first reeks, not only
of its meaning, but of John Howard. It seemed to be his favourite
word. That and the inappropriately used 'fulsomeness'.
The second reeks of insincere regret
and apology. And my regrettable behaviour sometimes. And of
apologetically insincere governments. And of ... “I'm sorry you feel
that way about what I said”. Not a real apology at all.
But we'll look up the dictionary.com
meanings of the words after a short word from our sponsor.
Rant of Contrition in a room full of
mentors In the fulsomeness (dictionary.com – later) of time
I do wonder if I will feel more contrite. I guess I could feel no
worse than I regretfully did yesterday arvo, for my hubris was in
full flight during our workshop. We were the support act for James
Hill's teacher training session at the New Zealand Ukulele Festival.
In attendance at our session was James Himself, still my favourite
ukulele player in the world, still my favourite teacher. Such style,
skill, grace, expertise, humility, humour, dry wit, compassion. He is
the Dalai Lama of ukulele. Genuine, deep. James! I love you!
Also
there was Dave Parker, from New Zealand's favourite original ukuleletrio. Everywhere we gave a uke workshop in NZ, or stuck even a small
part of an ukulele above the public parapet, the phrase was "have
you heard of The Nukes?", … or … “The Nukes were here this
year and they had 85 people at their workshop". (Thanks for
that. Thanks for reminding me that we only had 3 people at our
Flaxmill Bay ukestration workshop, and that I lost it (internally)
with a woman who refused to acknowledge that her fingers who doing
things her brain refused to let her believe that they were doing).
But back to Dave (ever so briefly).
Dave is the awkward thin edge of the wedge – how does one coin a
term that no-one seems to have yet used? – ukestration – and then
talk comfortably with someone who also seems to have coined the term?
Tell me that Mr Trademark Lawyer! (probably rightfully so, we were
told by the powers that be that we could not use the word 'ukestra'
to describe what we do, at least not in any exclusive way. Oh the
hubris).
And then there were other god/mentors.
Age (yes – his name), and Steve (that too). Both from the
Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. Oh my. They were the
first ukulele band to inspire our ukestra – probably moreso than
the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. They were at OUR workshop!
Wow. What a privilege, that people of their stature and history in
our own nascent development were coming along (albeit scheduled as an
afterthought to the James Hill workshop) to see what we do!
Well you blew that, didn't you Mark
Jackson? Possibly for the millionth time in your own professional
history.
The Act of Hubris
So this is what happened.
In introducing ourselves, and our
workshop, I had to contextualise. (and so I continue to tangentialise
in order to further contextualise. Go on – look up dictionary.com
you unrepresentative swill – and while you're at it – look up
some other Paul Keating classics).
You see. We are getting lots of
affirmations that we are really quite good (I wanted to say REALLY
good, but I didn't want to display too much hubris). In 2011 the
Ukastle Ukestra were awarded the Melbourne Ukulele Festival's 'Golden
Ukulele'. It was our first big ukulele festival debut. Whoa. And yes.
I get all the wry humour around a cheap plastic ukulele being spray
painted gold, and having scrawled on it in texta “Golden Ukulele”.
But peer acknowledgement is peer acknowledgement. Man that was an ego
expander. Thank-you, thank-you very much. “I'd like to thank God,
my family, and my Attorney”, (as Bob Slacks once so famously said).
And if I needed any further ego embellishment, I only had to stumble
across this video (starts at the relevant bit).
And then the ukulele teaching business
in Newcastle just keeps growing and growing, until there are two of
us making a reasonable living out of it. Not heaps, mind you, just
reasonable.
And then we are able to go overseas a
bit. And someone holds the ukulele pa back home. (look it up. It's a
maori word – it means 'fort').
And then we have groups in other
nations say to us – “What you do is really different. It's really
good!”
And then two Vietnamese television
stations vie over rights to interview us, once again proving that
Mark has far more hubris than dear Jane (not to mention a subtle
condescending racist undertone in his interview technique with
Vietnamese audiences).
And back home people come up to us
heaps and tell us how the ukulele has changed their lives and
thank-you so much for introducing it to me and my husband etc. etc.
And then our own press releases start
to tell us how good we are.
And then, and then. And then we are
supporting our own mentor – James Hill – in New Zealand.
And then – back to the WIUO, and the
presence of Age and Steve.
So back in 2011, back at the Melbourne
Ukulele Festival, after our debut performance, a highly esteemed
elder of the Australian Ukulele Community (I can't help myself – it
was Rose), came up to us and said “you guys are fabulous, I reckon
you are better than the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra”.
Jaw Drop. Get out! Wow. Oh my. Oh my
hat. Wow. Thank you Rose. I'll keep that under my hat. And then Rose
said “I don't care, put it in your blurbs”. We never did. Until
now. And what a way to release it.
So. At our workshop here – with
James, Age, Steve, Dave (and 50 other people) – all present in the
room, checking us out. I choose now to release that little
snippet. Great. I reserve the word 'dickhead' to apply to myself at
times like these. ... dickhead dickhead dickhead …conceited, boastful dickhead...
The only way to assuage my sins, to
work it out, or perhaps to make things worse, is to write it in a blog.
I'm sorry. I am such a conceited idiot.
And I bet Age and Steve came away from
the workshop going – “well, there goes a dickhead. We won't talk
to him again”.
...but ... but ... but ... I love you guys! You have inspired so much!
Theology . sorrow for and detestation of sin with a true
purpose of amendment, arising from a love of God for His own
perfections (perfect contrition) or from some inferior
motive, as fear of divine punishment (imperfect contrition)
I am certain my
contrition is the latter (2b).
And for good
measure
ful·some adjective
1. offensive
to good taste, especially as being excessive; overdone or gross:
fulsome praise that embarrassed
her deeply; fulsome décor.
2. disgusting;
sickening; repulsive: a table heaped with fulsome mounds of greasy
foods.
4. encompassingall
aspects; comprehensive: a fulsome survey of the political
situation in Central America.
5. abundant orcopious.
And so endeth the fulsome rant (meaning
1 or 2) and the tossed and turned sleeplessness. Back to bed. We have
a rather large day ahead of us with 3000 children, 8 of ours, and burgeoning egos.
Dannie is a ten year old ukulele player, swiftly growing in confidence and skill in singing and uke. And in perspicacity. We both teach her in different classes. She's disconcertingly observant about how Jane and I differ in our approaches to the world.
We are probably an interesting couple to observe. For me this becomes evident when preparing for travel - she stressie and packie before we leave - intejecting with occasional "can't we just stay home?!?!" Me - relaxed, last minute. Have a casual chat to a distant friend on Skype. Get roused on to pack and leave.
I do initiate, plan and communicate the majority of our sojourns. I am
very organised in so many regards. But like all of us (he says hopefully), I do have the rare personal flaw. For instance, I like thinking about cooking dinner, planning, shopping, chopping, creating, doing most of it, but then finding some distraction to waylay completion. Jane will finish it.
The final
ukestration workshop booking in New Zealand only fell into place on the day before we left, and much
of it is rather on spec, swayed by the desires to go here or there, a
familiar place, a free bed, an old acquaintance, an opportunity. It's a
lot of chasing. But someone has to finish serving up the meal. Guess who that is?
And just to add to the last minute mayhem and Jane's stress levels, on the way to Sydney, we get a
call. It's a festival. "We lost most of your application, but we are
interested. Can you get us this, this and this and the names of 22
people who will definitely come, and get it to us in the next few
hours?"
Gee. Thanks. Only have to sleep and then catch a plane.
But Miss Stressie pulls it all together, talks on the phone like the
consummate professional she is, writes stuff, orders me around, calls 20
people, gets up at 2am to deal with something worrying her, and we get
it all back to the festival before we leave for Sydney airport. Gotta
love her. Gotta love the pace of life. You wouldn't do it otherwise would you?!
No guarantees on the festival, but damn! we hope we get in!
We also accepted an offer this week to tutor at a legendary week long
folk music camp in the redwood forests of Northern California. Lark Camp
still needs confirmation, and linking in with other potential
opportunities. In this same week we also committed to performing at the Hawaii Ukulele Festival again (our 4th year). We have a bunch of keen talented ukers and singers
indicating their commitment as well, so that'll be fun. This was after Sunday where we helped coordinate some 200 people to
perform to some 400+ audience. 5 hours with one soft drink and no
breaks.
And so. Do I hear you occasionally ask ... why do these people who are just helping others to play music getting paid?
See the title of this post.
What I really love about our work is that we are paid to be a focus for opportunities. Business 'men' keep their eye out for opportunities to make money. We keep our ears out for opportunities to help others make music. And the opportunities that we find (and create) only arise because we can make a living from it.
And praise be to that!!!
Written from a little standard cabin in a caravan park overlooking hot thermal mineral pools - max temp 39deg. Matamata, New Zealand.
I'm Mark Jackson. In late 2009 I established a business to be a community musician in the Lower Hunter of NSW. My aim is to help people make music together. It is an interesting journey and hopefully my musings may be constructive for others endeavouring to waddle their way to making a living grounded in community and in music.
