The blabberings of a member of a musical trio. Enter the wonderful world of weddings, motherhood, weddings, fashion, weddings, pets, songwriting and weddings.
It's very fair to say that our most requested piece of music EVER is Canon in D by Pachelbel. I decided to have a little 'dig around' into the history of the piece and discovered that it's not only Key Largo Trio that get asked for it a lot. It has been the most popular and requested piece of music for a wedding since 1680! Wow. And it's officially the best known piece of classical music ever.
Mr Pachelbel
Not to detract from it's enduring popularity and elegant beauty, but when analysed, the piece is actually eight bars of music repeated 28 times! Kind of cool really. Anyway, to entertain ourselves we thought it might be fun to play around with it and we found that we could 'blend in' (a very good friend of mine has informed me I can only use the term 'mash up' if I am under the age of 21!) the pop song 'True Colours' written by Billy Steinberg (lyrics) and Tom Kelly (music). Apparently Billy wrote the lyrics for his mother!
'True Colours,' made famous by Cyndi Lauper
So we had a little play, and a little practise and this is what we came up with. Hope you like this lovely little Key Largo Trio 'mash up'. Sorry. Can't help it. I never did intend to grow old(er) gracefully!
What a wonderful week it's been. First of all, the kids have gone back to school (woohoo!) and I do apologise about sounding so excited about that. I absolutely love and adore my little divas, but jeez - I am more than happy to get back to work with a vengeance.
And on Sunday, an unfeasibly and most welcome warm day Key Largo Trio were excited to be at the Bedern Hall Wedding Fair which was put together by the Chief of Bedern, Mr Roger Lee and the lovely people of York Wedding Deals.
Here's some promo shots that featured in the York Evening Press.
How cool are these?
Nice to be part of something creative and different. After all, we've seen plenty of ethereal, romantically beautiful brides so how fun to see this rather theatrical twist!
Here's some little pics I managed to take whilst everyone was getting set up:
Rachel doing groovy hand thing!
Catherine looking sophisticated!
It turned out to be both a strange and fantastic day. Now I say
strange, because I didn't actually play much flute. That was in some large
part down to the fact that I had a dreaded lurgy and had a cough attack half
way through Pachelbel's Canon. But also due to the fact that I decided to
chat to all the lovely soon-to-be married people instead.
I often get little chance to do this as I'm so involved in playing the music, and
it was a lovely change. After all, I do like a good old natter about weddings.
Who doesn't?
And I think the highlight of the day was talking to
a fab ukelele-loving couple who are hoping to have an unusual wedding,
perhaps even a Mad Hatters Tea Party style.
Awesome. I want to be there.
Catherine and I doing our 'Casually Looking At The Music' Look
But we're going to add some bass flute and cello and then along with some beautiful wedding photographs by Nikki Bowling we're going to make a little promo video with it too.
And as a little bit of an adventure and fun task we're 'mashing up' Macklemore's massive chart hit 'Thrift Shopping' with Palladio.
This will feature eggs (the musical kind) and a little booty shaking. It will however, be a Sweary-Rap-Free zone.
We have limits x
I'd quite like to work that faux fur coat look though! Hee hee x
It's been an interesting week. And not in a good way. It went something like this...
Last Wednesday
The sky was blue, the sun was shining. It was a day of possibilities and things to be achieved. So with a spring in my step I set out on the school run:
8.45am Drop off a happy and healthy daughter to school.
9.15 Arrive home.
9.20 School phones to say daughter is most unwell and in a 'dreadful state'! WHAT? '
OK, I'll be right there' I answer calmly.
9.21 Panic. Panic. Stress. Panic.
Got a million things planned for the day ahead, and am mentally running the checklist. What can I rearrange? What do I need to cancel? And what on earth is wrong with my girl?
9.22 Hurrying to the door; brain is still buzzing with my kyboshed day, feet are moving down a step. Brain and body do not connect and O.U.C.H - I've gone over on my ankle. And it doesn't feel good.
At all.
9.23 Involuntary tears shooting out of my eyes with the pain, (rather like a cartoon character or my aforementioned five year old in fact) I crawl on hands and knees back to freezer to grab ice packs. (FYI - best piece of First Aid kit you could ever buy!)
9.24 Crawl back to phone to alert husband to the unfolding trauma. Of course he's engaged. So I keep pressing redial like a woman demented till he picks up. Finally. Now his day is more jam packed than mine. I can almost hear his brain whirring down the phone line as he thinks about his scheduled appointments, meetings, phone calls etc. and with a very restrained super sigh he's gone.
And then I just have to wait.
Sadly, the day didn't really get any better. After waiting for husband and sick daughter to return and a lengthy wait at A&E, turns out I'd broken a small bone in my foot. Nice.
To add insult to injury, the husband came down with a killer lurgy, the kids are taking it in turns to have days off school with various ailments and all the while, I'm hobbling around with ice strapped to my leg looking like some kind of escapee!
Talking of which, as an aside, and going back to the Hollywood Glamour of my last blog, how did Marilyn Monroe manage to look so good with a broken foot? Here I am shuffling around with a tatty old slipper thing on my good foot; and a bandage, ice and a scarf wrapped most inelegantly round the other. I must take heed indeed. And dig out a sassy heel for the non injured foot. (Might give the bikini a miss though. Probably best. For everyone.)
I have to confess the worry about when I can wear heels again has crossed my mind a few times. I mean, of course I have bigger concerns. Like when can I drive? When can I run up and down the stairs carrying armloads of laundry? When can I do sport? (Ahem! Getting Fit is still on my list!) But seriously - what about heels???
But enough with the misery. There's been some happier moments. And this week I hooked up with my fellow Key Largo Ladies and managed to record a new piece for You Tube. 'Match of the Day'. Now normally Ilike to dance around a bit whilst playing flute, but as you can see, due to recent events, in this video I have been forced to sit on a stool. Here's us having some fun:
Still smiling
Catherine having a cello moment
Rehearsal fun
So, what, you may ask, brings us to play a football theme?
Well one of our future brides-to-be has requested it so we thought we'd get creative with an arrangement of our own. And my Elephant Foot is nicely out of shot. Phew!
(Another recent request is a medley of CBeebies theme tunes which Rachel is going to arrange, so one for the kiddies coming your way soon x)
So from Foot Trauma to Foot Ball. Life is certainly never dull.
Now that song came about because our dear old Glaswegian nan used to sing us little songs and rhymes from her childhood. She was brought up in the Gorbals, a rather undesirable area of Glasgow to say the least. (And happily demolished in the 60s)
The Gorbals being demolished
How I imagine my nan playing on the street
Now we had such fun writing and creating this song that was have decided we simply can not have another release without including another of nan's old favourites. This time we're going to write 'Murder Murder Polis'. Check out this link for a lovely traditional rendition
Sadly there are very few words in this song so we're having to add a lot of lyrics. On the plus side, this has led to some rather fun moments researching Glaswegian slang. Here's some of my absolute favourites:
Bahookie (bottom)
Banjoed (getting punched)
Bongoed (completely mad drunk)
Blootered (drunk)
Boggin (dirty)
Cheeky Water (alcohol)
Planted (buried)
Grot (derogatory term for boy/girlfriend
Midgie Raker (bin raider)
Crabbit (grumpy)
Class x
The Glasgow Slums 1911
Anyway, so to cut a long story short (ish) that's why I'm mentally in Glasgow right now.
So after a six year break during which I've survived Toddlerdom I am finally working on a new album with sister Catherine under our band name Vesper Walk. Now hats off to the Earth Mothers out there who 'cope' during these testing times, even (OMG) 'enjoy it'. You are Super Heroes. Personally, I refer to those years as the 'Black Years' or the 'Lost Years'. Oh dear.
A photo from Pinterest depicting Despair
Perhaps I should clarify. I don't mean that that time in my life didn't bring it's pleasures. Of course it did. But creatively it was a wilderness! I was uninspired. I didn't have any creative energy. Scrap that, I didn't have ANY energy. It's all a bit of a blur really. Those seemingly endless years of nappies, tantrums and being tied to nap times, meal times, bed times and the million other relentless, unceasing demands small children make on your time. But phew; breathe... my little ones are at school now. And school - How I Love Thee.
Now B.K (Before kids - oh yes, those heady, long forgotten days) Vesper Walk released an EP 'Someone Else' https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/someone-else-ep/id207075034 and I have been re-acquainting myself with it. One of my favourite tracks 'Hollywood' was inspired by something that happened when I was a teenager.
I had been offered a permanent job at Burger King (gulp!) as a children's entertainer (double gulp!!) but was due to start university at the end of the summer holidays. I guess you could say I took the job under false pretences in that I omitted to mention this fact. However, fast forward through that heady summer of crates of chicken nuggets, gallons of fizzy tooth rot, tons of fat infested fries and vomiting, excitable children and suddenly it was time for me to make my exit.
So do I come out with the truth? Explain simply and calmly that I am going to university? Er...almost.
What I actually said was something like this: "So sorry, but I need to hand my notice in. I'm going to ...Hollywood!"
Yes - I really did. I didn't see it as a 'lie' as such; more just a slight exaggeration of the truth. A little embellishment! A Tall Tale if you like. Besides, I wanted to go to Hollywood, wasn't that enough? (And indeed, I did go the following year, armed with just my guitar and best friend! But that's another blog entirely!)
So fast forward back to 2006 and Catherine and I were brain storming about song lyrics and that particular rather hilarious incident came back to me. So we wrote a song entitled, yes you guessed it - 'Hollywood'.
The song, whilst being a break-up song is evocative of old Hollywood glamour, and the actresses who both Catherine and I had been inspired by and watched avidly as children.
The amazing (albeit slightly crazy) Bette Davis
The lovely Judy Garland
The ultimate Hollywood Icon - Marilyn Monroe
And here's our little piece of Hollywood. Get out the red lipstick, put on your best pout and languish on a chaise longue somewhere. (A sofa will do if necessary!)
Before Christmas I was in a most ethereal mood. And it was in that mood that inspiration struck for a new song - Man on the Moon.
It was the end of a long day and I was lying in bed imagining myself reposing upon a rather beautiful, fairy tale type bed on a mattress of hand teased horse hair. The mattress also contained real Shetland Isle wool, cashmere and mohair (oh sorry, getting a bit carried away with the mattress thing but there's a slight issue going on about that in my life at the moment. You see I'm hoping for a nice new mattress and have been sourcing all these natural, really luxurious, decadent ones. However the husband says our basic synthetic Bensons Beds model is perfectly fine! What!)
But ahem, anyway, there I am on this bed of pure luxury, wearing acres of voile and tulle; (got to be in something romantically fabulous, M&S pyjamas really don't evoke the right mood!) and long diaphanous, gauzy curtains are blowing in the gentle breeze that dances in through the open window. In the dramatic, cloudless sky I can see the most amazing full moon that seems to have a face etched in it's surface so lifelike that it is silently beckoning me.
Suddenly, I am flying through the air. In the song that is. Not real life. Just to clarify. I don't want you to think I'm 'on' anything, although I can confess to a sherry too many over the festive period!)
But back to the song. So as well as all that ethereal, other worldly magic in my head, I also remembered a more real incident in my life. It was a story my Nan told me many years ago. Her husband, my grandfather had died that very day and we were walking with her that dark winters night to visit some other relatives. 'Don't worry' she said to me, pointing at the moon. 'Your papa is up there on the moon. Look - you can see his face.'
And I could. I swear I could.
So there you are. That's where my head was at when this song floated into my brain and into my fingers.
And here it is. Man On The Moon. I hope you like it and I can't tell you how excited I am about recording it this year for a new EP Catherine and I will be releasing under the band name Vesper Walk.
Happy New Year everyone and let it be great. Let it be the year we are creatively inspired, prolifically writing and hey, please let it be the year that I get my new horse hair mattress. Hand teased don't forget.
