FinishMySong Blog

TFF will be appearing this evening at The New Beehive on Haworth Road in Bradford's city centre. Contact the venue for further details.

On the Gramaphone forum, user Quiddler asks :

"...if we're going to do so much to the recordings that great orchestras make with human playing, altering them by technological means, aren't we coming closer and closer to using computers to play music? Something that I hope we all fear?"

(see the whole entry by clicking here)

I've got to admit that this whole line of enquiry strikes me as odd : whether recording an orchestra is unethical on account of it failing to give a true respresentation of a given performance. It seems to me that, by it's very nature, a recording of anything can only ever give one impression of the original acoustic environment and it is the task of the production team to decide what impression they wish to give.

For example, the positioning of the microphones for the recording of an orchestral composition is vital to how the finished piece will sound - to provide more space on the recording, and so to give the listener a greater impression of being part of the audience, it is possible to place the mics further back from the musicians and compensate as required with filtering and volume control etc. As far as I can tell, this practise is some way from having computers play the music themselves - simply a method of presenting a real acoustic environment through the medium of electrically powered loud-speakers.

As far as ethics are concerned, the only real question would be if in presenting a recording one is attempting to mislead the listener in some way, for example in the heavy editing of bad performances to give the impression that they weren't out of tune etc. But, we know that this is common practise in studios around the world, especially those dealing with pop and rock music - a little tweaking here and there can make the most awful performance quite passable.

As for computers playing music themselves... well, many very able scientists and musicians have tried to pull this one off and generally failed to replicate the humanity of music and I don't think there's any fear of that changing just yet!

At last, the full finishmysong website is live and online!
Please visit soon and let your friends and family know all about it...

The First Few have been booked to play at one of Bradford's freshest live music venues : The Gasworks Bar, on Duke Street.

They will be supporting a touring band there on the evening of Saturday 8th April. More information is available by contacting the band : www.thefirstfew.com or visit The Gasworks website.

As I left the historic Quaker Meeting House in Rawdon (Leeds) this evening, the air and sky were dominated by a huge jet making it's final approach into LBA, landing gear down, engine seemingly groaning with fatigue and headlights slicing beams through the overcast, evening sky. And, while I stood there, awestruck, it occurred to me that this moment also summed up my feelings about the concert I had just attended - a fantastic coming together of the old and the new.

Musicians of all experience and confidence levels are welcomed to perform at the monthly Bradford Music Clubs, organised by Ann Perry and compered by Don Edbury. Naturally, this allows the audience to hear a whole array of music from past and present that perhaps would not have seen the light of day had it not been for the efforts of those involved in putting these evenings together. These days it's a rare pleasure to hear truly live performances made even by many professional musicians, so it is especially worthwhile to note that most performers at the Bradford Music Club give up their evening to entertain for the sheer enjoyment of being involved in musical pursuits.

The evening started and ended with a series of vocal pieces of a rather melancholy nature; compositions that somehow seemed ideally suited to the context of a Sunday evening in a building that has stood watching the seasons change for over 300 years. Remarkable, too, was the similarity in the sentiments expressed in songs written over a comparable expanse of time, from the duet 'A Lover and his Lass' by Thomas Morley to the perhaps more commonly known Rogers & Hammerstein melody 'This nearly was mine'.

Other vocal performances punctuated this evening's concert, including a series of songs performed by Tony and Rahel Otra. Accompanied by Tony on guitar, Rahel's voice was striking : her Northern English accent seeped through a tone that could be likened to that of Joan Baez, complete with downward glissando ornamentation at the ends of phrases.

Another notable performance was that of pianist David Holden who played a self-penned improvisation of sorts. This marvellous piece was clearly produced with the utmost attention on pianistic colour, leaping from delicately arpeggiated sections at the top of the keyboard to moments where David seemed to be physically fighting being dragged into the depth of the keyboard by domineering cluster chords full of unusual rhythm and tonality.

The next Bradford Music Club meeting will take place at the same venue on Sunday 23rd April at 7pm. Please contact me if you want any further information about participating, either as a member of the audience or by contributing a performance, so that I can pass your details onto the organisers.

Marching through the streets of London yesterday with others who oppose the war against Iraq and feel strongly that the British government should not pursue a similar conflict with Iran, I was really pleased to hear so many using the medium of music to get their message across.

As well as marching rhythm provided by groups of drummers and the inevitable whistle-blowers, a number of socialist choirs and singing groups were present protesting literally in chorus. Among these I noticed a number of groups from the Bradford and West Yorkshire areas, one of which I heard singing the classic "Internationale" song.

Fantastic to hear music being used to genuinely communicate the message of peace and brotherhood.














Picture taken from BBC Online's coverage of the event.

The First Few were due to appear at Bradford's Beehive venue on the 1st of April but this event will be brought forward by 24 hours to the evening of Friday 31st March instead. There's been some controversy over which bands were due to play on which evenings and it seems that the 1st of April was double booked. But, TFF will appear nevertheless, just bringing their unique sound to The Beehive a day sooner than expected.

For further details and to see the TFF website (it should be launching in full within hours or days) please visit www.thefirstfew.com ..

West Yorkshire based band 'The First Few' have been invited to play in more Leeds venues over the coming weeks.

Made up of Jamie Bridge, Fintan & Liam Grant, Damian Oxborough and Richard Szustakowski, The First Few have been gigging around the Leeds and Bradford area now for nearly three years. They made a very successful appearance at The Vine on Leeds' Headrow last Friday night and can announce today that they have planned two further appearances at that venue over the coming weeks : on 7th April & 6th May. In addition to this, TFF will be playing The Mixing Tin (also in Leeds) on 3rd June and at Bradford's Beehive Pub on the 1st of April.

For further details, please visit their website : www.thefirstfew.com

The FinishMySong.com holding page is launched - click here to visit.

Over the coming days and weeks I plan to build this site to attract visitors interested in music, particularly those in the West Yorkshire area.

As well as an advertising space for the services I offer (teaching and playing etc), I hope that the site will become a place where musicians of all ability and experience can visit to share their thoughts and ideas. In addition to this blogspot, I am planning to include a forum for open musical discussion.

Watch this space!!