Tweeting is easier!

I realise I have been rather slack on the blogging front.  I have to say, Tweeting is so much easier; I think micro-blogging is much more my style!  However, I will now attempt to condense the last 6 months into a sensibly sized blog post.

So, after a quiet January, February wasn’t much of an improvement.  Aside from my regular teaching work I had two function band gigs and a handful of rehearsals for The Bombshellettes and T.Mandrake.  On a positive note, I did have a couple of lessons with an old teacher of mine, Andy Mitchell.  Andy is principal trumpet with the English National Ballet and professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Junior Department (where he used to teach me).  I was put back in contact with him by one of my former RAM tutors, Mark David, who’d been working with Andy and suggested I get back in touch.  I’d not seen him in ten years, so obviously there had been quite a change in my playing since he’d last taught me!  We had a couple of lessons working on a recital programme I had coming up and it was so useful to get a new perspective from an old tutor.

Things started picking up a bit in March.  I had my recital – one of the highly coveted lunchtime concerts at Chichester Cathedral which went very well indeed.  The venue was full, there were literally hundreds of people there to see the concert, including my mother – my number one fan!  I also had a photo shoot with Cavendish Brass which was a really fun day and we got some great shots for our new website (http://www.cavendishbrass.com).  I played with Zone One Brass (ZOB) at the Regional contest and we failed to qualify for the National Finals – very disappointing indeed considering how well we felt we’d played and especially after listening to the recording of our performance.  Oh well, the politics of the brass band world are far too ridiculous to get into now.

April was a rather average month, although I did play a fun charity gig at The Parish Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch.  The concert was a fundraiser for the church, with many actors and singers involved, and I was booked to open the show with a performance of Let The Bright Seraphim along with soprano Eli Rolfe Johnson and organist Olly Lallement. 

The month of May was ZOB madness.  The band played in two contests that were two weeks apart; the first in Blackpool and the second at the All England Masters in Kettering .  The rehearsing paid off and the band did rather well – 2^nd in Blackpool and 5^th at the Masters.

In June I launched my new Live Music Night at a bar in Soho called El Camion (formerly El Camino).  The night runs every Tuesday and I book four acts to play a 30 minute slot each.  So far it’s all been going really well, and I’m trying to build up the reputation of the venue and the night as a respectable one to play on the London circuit for those looking for an intimate performance space. 

July was a very busy month – spent a couple of days up north with Oompah Brass doing some outreach work with them which was great fun.  The Bombshellettes opened the main stage at the Lovebox festival which was a big step forwards for the band.  I then spent 3 weeks in France for the Opera de Bauge festival, which was a great experience.  3 operas in 3 weeks (Mozart – Magic Flute, Verdi – Rigoletto, Handel – Julius Caesar), I met some great people, enjoyed the operas and in general had a wonderful time. 

So, that took me into August, and then it’s been all about the function band scene since then.  I had some Bombshellettes gigs too; a wedding that was basically a 3-day festival, as you do, and a fun gig at Floridita.  I’ve been Oomping again, with Oompah Brass at Katzenjammers in London Bridge for a couple of Friday nights, which is always great fun.  I saw their new show up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last month – “The A-Z of Oompah” – which was excellent.  I had a fun few days at the Fringe actually, saw a few shows, played a jazz quartet gig, and it was sunny for a change!

Now it’s September, the schools are back which means I’m back to many hours of teaching and driving, but it’s good for paying the rent.  I’m off to Poland on Friday to see my boyfriend singing in a concert or two out there, and then back to London in time to run another night at El Camion.  I will, of course, attempt to blog more regularly, but life’s busy and I’m promising nothing!

New Year, New Start

Since I last wrote a blog entry I have quite literally taken my life apart and put it back together again.  Still, it’s a new year, “time for a new start” and all of those other impossibly optimistic New Year cliches.Anyway, the start of this year was not looking so good for me on the diary front.  The run up to Christmas and New Year was pretty busy, as it always is, but what with the credit crunch in full effect, this January has seen a decline in the function band work I have relied on in the past to get me through the lean months – no more corporate award ceremonies for “salesperson of the year” or Christmas parties in January (even though the venues are cheaper).

January was going to be a really tight month until I got a call offering me a gig – The Lifeline Gig – with a week’s notice.  It’s great when that happens.  One minute you’re looking at your budget for the rest of the month and wondering how you’re going to live on £1.52 for food and petrol (because it has snowed too much, so your teaching keeps getting canceled and therefore you don’t get paid), to breathing that huge sigh of relief when you get off the phone knowing that you are actually going to make it through to see February without having to beg (although I did have to buy cheap baked beans, and they were horrible).

In a way, the quieter months at the start of the year can be quite relaxing after the manic pre-Christmas workload, and it gives you time to sort out your accounts and file your tax return and generally get your life in order.  It’s also a great time to do some decent practice, rather than only having time to play during gigs.  And I’ve taken on the role of ‘Chief Ironer’ for my mum and sister as I have the time to do it and they have the cash to pay me for it.

And so tomorrow will see my playing for Guildford Philharmonic in a Magical Kingdom children’s concert.  The dress code is “smart casual and loads of bling and a mad hat if you’ve got one” but I’m not complaining, just happy to be out working!

Birthday Blog ~ featuring My First Twitter Gig!

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post but today is my birthday and I’m officially taking a day off from all things work-related so I actually have time to write one!

It’s been a busy month, which is always a good sign, and a good mix of work on.  I played another Verdi Requiem with the Canterbury Choral Society – this was the gig that was tied to the one in Snape Maltings so it also meant I finally got paid for both gigs.  Then of course there’s the usual function band gigs for the summer season weddings.  I particularly enjoyed a gig I did on 18^th July with new function band RubberSoul (they’re new to me, not to each other; they’ve been playing together for about 10 years).  Not only were the guys and gal in the band really friendly and welcoming to me as a dep, they’re an excellent band (very well organised which made a nice change!) and the sets we played were full of energy.  And the best bit about all of this is that this was my first Twitter gig!  I got chatting to Tony from RubberSoul months ago on Twitter about various horn arrangements we were each doing for our function bands, and when they needed a dep he got in touch via Twitter and voila, a new working relationship was formed!  So, he took a bit of a punt in booking me without ever having met me, without hearing me play and without any recommendation, but the gig was a roaring success (despite me falling over on the steps up to the marquee for the first set!) and thus the miracle of Twitter as an effective networking tool becomes a reality.  We even managed to convince the band’s drummer of the benefits of Twitter (and iPhones) in the dressing room that night between sets, and he has recently got an iPhone and joined Twitter – so gradually the word is spreading!

And other work has been going well.  July brought with it more graduation ceremonies than you could shake a stick at (never really understood that phrase, but what the hey, let’s roll with it).  I spent a week and two days in Lancashire playing fanfares (four trumpets and organ) to open and close ceremonies at UCLAN and Edge Hill Universities and to accompany the processionals and recessionals.  We had an unfortunate incident in the first Edge Hill ceremony where one of our trumpet players collapsed and was taken to hospital; she’s ok and feeling much better now, and if you want to see her being carried out of the ceremony check out the first 5 mins of this video!  Please excuse the very unfortunate placing of a microphone directly infront of us, the sound on the video is distorted as a result.

I’m still waiting to hear about the extra teaching I’m trying to secure from September – I’ve played assemblies at two schools and have a meeting about a third, so fingers crossed for getting some more ‘bread-and-butter’ work as I like to think of it.  If I could up my teaching to one full day a week that would be enough for me.  It’s a tricky thing trying to balance the ratio of teaching to other work; teaching is great as it provides a regular income, but take on too much teaching and you have to turn down gigs.  You can see the dilemma I’m sure.

And thus far the birthday celebrations are going well – they started on Friday night with a T.Mandrake gig at The Troubadour followed by trips to Mango Lounge and Bungalow 8 (where Quentin Tarantino was partying following the London premier of his latest film Inglourious Basterds), and have continued through the weekend to tonight when I’m going to Ladies’ Night at Windsor Racecourse with some friends – lucky me (I hope!)

The time has come…

The time has come to share the ins-and-outs of life as a freelance musician with anybody who may take an interest in such things.  Hopefully my posts will prove to be interesting and insightful (as long as I’ve got plenty of work on and therefore plenty to talk about – but we won’t go into that right now!)

Actually, I will go into that right now (how contrary).  Life as a freelancer is particularly tricky when you’re early in your career, pretty fresh out of music college as I am (I graduated in June 2008), and trying to build up your network of contacts and people who  can put work your way.  Sometimes opening the diary fills me with dread as I know there’s just not enough work in it to pay the rent this month; other times you’re so rushed off your feet that you live on 4 hours sleep a night and can’t even remember where your diary is (thank goodness for the iPhone/Google Calendar sync technology!).

Hopefully I’ll have enough fun work to blog about and which will be of interest to anybody other than me (and my landlord and my bank manager).  If this week’s anything to judge by (and I hope it is!) then that shouldn’t be a problem – more on that later…right now, I have to take my dog for a walk.  She’s been listening to trumpet practice and beginner trumpet lessons all afternoon and is now giving me ‘that look’ – the ‘please can we go for a walk now, PLEASE?!’ look.  I’d better take her out!