music

The Secret Peripatetic… episode 2

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Sep 022012
 

Where did it go? Have we really had 6 weeks?! Surely not! I think there is a conspiracy to shorten the days during ALL holidays! It must be in order that children don’t get too used to being free, bored and get up to mischief! Must be!

So, all that time I had planned to read, sort out the house, decorate the bathroom, write my book, catch up with my friends and remember what my hobbies are! The summer holidays are now at an end!!  All good intentions out of the window.  But I haven’t started to relax yet!
Having a husband who is self employed does put the dampeners on things a little. I mean shopping and lunching out every day? Who can sustain such hardship? Let alone the guilt of  breakfasting in bed. . . . not every day mind! (There are only so many repeats of ‘Heir Hunters’ that one can take on a daily basis!).

So what have I seriously been doing that has maliciously taken up all of my holiday time? I suppose I did manage a family break, over all too quickly. But there was still the constant driving here and there delivering one child or another to their various social events. And the cries of ‘mum you’re not at work now’ totally uncalled for . . . . . . . . . . after all, did they want to arrive on time? There is however a slight irony here in that I spend all my working life having to be at the next school like 10 minutes before I set off then embark on my summer holidays only to achieve a fine and 3 penalty points during my 1st week!  Apparently it’s not just the children who get up to mischief!

Roll on term time a safer and more productive use of time! . . . . . . . . . . . No, I don’t really mean that!

Briefing – Episode 58, The JamHub

 Ideas, Personal Productivity, Technology  No Responses »
Aug 142012
 

My experience of rehearsal rooms when I was young was that the equipment would be ropey, your ears bled afterwards and would ring for days, and that you shouted so much that your throat was ruined for at least a week.  Oh, and there was always a disgusting old sofa in the room somewhere.

I think those days might thankfully be over.  This means you can rehearse with headphones on and control the mix you get without ruining everyone else’s experience.  And no shouting, talk through the microphones at all times.  That way you need never take them off while you rehearse.

The secret is “headphone busses”, normal mixing desks will provide you with one, maybe two or three headphone outs, which have their own controllable mixing sections.  This device designs that feature up front.  Each headphone out, has it’s own mini-mixer section allowing individuals to set exactly what they want to hear. without changing anyone else’s mix.  These individual busses, yes, that is the word, give the JamHub its USP.  Each feature is colour coded as well, meaning that if you are plugged into green, your sound will be on green right the way through the unit.  Once you see the colour coding, it speaks for itself, not that the manual isn’t pretty good as well.

I’m guessing that cheaper versions will crop up soon, but I would council against trying to save money on these devices and urge you to teach how to use them safely and carefully before you let anyone rip them to shreds. They are solidly built, but tape two of them together any you’ve got a frisbee.  As I’ve said elsewhere before, run a little course that trains people how to use them and rewards the right to have access to the equipment in lessons, breaks and lunchtimes.  Having clued up and trained learners in the classroom will repay itself in no time.

Have a look at the JamHub website here for ideas on how they can be used in the classroom and experiment yourself. I much preferred using the JamHub to my Behringer mixer for practicing and I would be very interested to hear how you do use these in the classroom.

No money has changed hands and no promises made to JamHub or its distributors, but I would  like to thank Steve, Andrew and Tony for the loan of the equipment.

The Secret Peripatetic…

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Jul 202012
 

A guest post from a mystery correspondent. It made me smile…

 

The Summer Term. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Once upon a time, in the days when summer was a blaze of musical activity, the local church fete bathed in hazy sunshine, a brass band confidently punching the air with a rousing march. Or maybe it was a pleasant gentle evening, glass of wine in hand, birds tweeting a counterpoint melody that enhances the luscious, sonorous tones of the string quartet playing in the courtyard of that stately house situated in the idyllic vale by the river. Days gone by when that Summer term, longed for, awaited with excitement of holidays to come, ambled to a satisfying close. WHAT HAPPENED?!. . . . . . . . . . THE STRESS!   Dashing from school to school to fit in extra lesson for that exam, planned for, talked about, accommodated and suddenly HERE already! THE STRESS!    Finding extra rehearsal time to practise moving soloists neatly off the stage to make way for the never ending line of showcase performers, proving to the establishment that another 2 hours of ‘Wider Ops’ will hopefully, ‘follow on’, individual lessons are a must for next year. Afterall look how talented, happy and confident the children have become since embarking upon the wonderful journey of MUSIC EDUCATION!

THE STRESS!

Not only have the road works sabotaged the already very tight journey to get from 1 lesson  in school No. 1 ( down the extremely long – getting longer every week – corridor, across the carpark, out of the fully automatic geriatric electric gate ) to the next lesson in school No.2. We now have to contend with the massive flooding, (that now seem to have been slotted into the  timetable of a peri and become a common Summer Term feature) closing side roads that would have helped to eleviate the city centre congestion and provided a satisfying short cut with a vitriolic air punch or smug hand gesture to the not so successful traffic jam. Why peripatetics haven’t got a fist full of parking fines in their glove compartments I don’t know. . . . . . . .  . . . or have they?!?

THE STRESS!

Why children just won’t stop growing these days, I really don’t know! So apart form getting kitted out with a new school uniform and PE kit that is’ cool’ enough to hang out both in and out of school. Converse . . . .  .need I say more?……… they so grow out of their instruments as well! What once used to be a relatively easy task of finding an instrument in the store cupboard that works, that fits, that has a case and indeed looks ‘cool’ enough to carry into school, has turned into an absolute nightmare treasure hunt! Due to sudden relocation, frantic pleas from staff of ‘can we store these instruments in your building until it’s proposed demolition on the second week of the Autumn Term?’  Who on earth knows where everything went??AND will that night watchman unlock said store when I have to get into it after the long showcase concert. AND wait for me to ‘ have a go ‘ on them all to identify a suitable, reasonably playable instrument, allowing the child to try to fit in some practice during the 6 weeks holidays. . . . . . before it all starts again!!

It’s all part of life now. . . . . . . . . . .the life of the secret peripatetic . . . . . . . .