Gromit - a present for Raef (but he's not getting my uke!)

We all seem to have gone mad over our ukes. Gromit here is for my friend Marion’s little boy, Raef. They live in San Diego, so I thought I’d take a photo of him to get Raef excited about his present – although I’ve made it VERY clear that pink ukulele called Erich stays here!

I’ve just received this from Cornelius. I thought you would like to share it.

Thankyou so much. It was fun.

I leave you with this thought:

We live in a world where all of the major earth shattering challenges have been met.
Everest has been conquered, the moon reached, the 4 minute mile left in tatters and the Pacific Ocean crossed solo by a man on a chilly bin lid.
Given that there just isn’t anything meaningful left for the rest of us to attempt, we’ve been forced to downsize and make more personal our versions of these mammoth and unlikely tasks, to seek less obvious rewards.
The challenge of making complex and listenable music with just 1.5 metres of nylon strings, 550 grams of wood and glue and a musical range of 1.5 octaves may not be earth shattering but it is just as unlikely.

Your next challenge (should you wish to accept it) is to take up the UKULELE

We are back at Ovingdean - Hurrah!

It was great to be back at Ovingdean. It’s a year since the last course there. I do like going there – I like all of the venues we use, but I am particularly fond of Ovingdean. I think it’s because I don’t have to drive very far, it’s near the sea and the countryside. I’d like to live in Ovingdean village, except it has a dreadful mobile phone signal, so it’s completely out of the question.

It wasn’t a very big course this time, I think I chose the wrong dates because schools are on different half terms all over the country. It does make planning hard. I thought everyone had the same week off – you can’t trust searching the internet always – so I had the idea that it would be easier on parents if we started on Saturday rather than having a mad dash after school ended on Friday. I doubt I’ll do that again.

So we all arrived on Saturday afternoon. One of the first things we did was play through a few very straightforward ensemble pieces and then everyone was divided into teams and sent away to work to produce an ‘interesting performance’. The results were very amusing thanks to our regular course members helping out and directing the new people. Everyone was happy with their roommates and enjoyed a good evening meal. I then gave everyone his or her early Christmas present – a ukulele. I was pleased they went down so well. Andy had suggested that I labelled them beforehand so there was no argument over who wanted which colour.  I think I got it right. We ended the evening with a screening of ‘Coraline’ in the theatre. I had watched it a few days before and thought it ok. A few of the older folks – Vicki!- said they found it a bit scary!! Good for Halloween week. It is a PG.

Everyone went to bed happily and I had a very quiet night, plus an extra hour.

Cornelius the uke man

Sunday arrived and Alison and Vicki offered to take the warm up. It was great! We then had flute choir, workshops on tuning with Abbie, exam preparation with Liz W and – the most important one of course – ukulele decorating and Flutewise chat with me. Just before Cornelius the Ukulele man arrived we had small ensembles and then we spent a fun filled afternoon learning a new skill.

Uke players

After Cornelius left, it was time for me to cook dinner – well, heat up the soup. It takes great skill that. I had plenty of help, Andy to light the stove, Abbie to stir the tomato and basil and Liz W to stir the chicken. I managed to cut the cakes up to almost the correct number of servings.

After an afternoon of mainly uke playing we thought we ought to blow our flutes. Abbie had brought us a new ensemble piece by Ian Clarke which she had bought from his website. It was called – oh, can’t remember – it went like – oh, can’t remember – it was a bit like  – oh, can’t remember – oh, well, never mind, not everything can be a winner. Maybe we were uked out.

Evening came and what better way to spend it was a nice little game of ‘Murder’ in the theatre. Andy dimmed the lights while Abbie and Liz W dressed appropriately and then led the proceedings. It was quite a mad game, with no rules from what I could tell. Everyone loved it.

Ukuleles were banned from being played between the hours of night time and 9.00 am as Vicki, Alison, Kirstin and Joleigh had been woken up much too early to plunking chords. Except of course staff can’t keep to rules. They were caught having a jamming session at 11.30 pm.

A warm up?????

Monday morning came and the weather was beautiful so warm-ups with Alison and Vicki again were held outside. Flute players really do improve their playing if they know how to be a shoal of fish – I bet that would make a good American research doctoral program.

Liz Wrighton - our new member of staff

We followed this by Liz W rehearsing Colonel Bogey for flute choir. Then it was time for a piccolo class from guest teacher Clare Jefferis. We had managed to organise enough piccolos for everyone. The class was great, very informative and fun. I liked the warm up to Eastenders.

Abbie and Clare Jefferis perform for us.

After lunch we had our final rehearsal for the short concert for the parents. In the concert we played Brian Boru with everyone on piccolo (ok, painful I know, but it was short and rather lovely), the piece by Ian Clarke which I can’t remember, Colonel Bogey and then the curtains opened on stage to reveal our big secret – the ukuleles. We all strummed along to Noah and the Whale (impressive, eh?) and then we divided into two groups, some on flute (with a guest appearance of Gareth) and played a very pretty Valse Venezuelinne, which was arranged for us by Cornelius Bruinsma.

After the concert we had a lovely cake, made by Alison, of course. Thanks Alison.

Alison's magic cake

It was a really lovely course, I felt totally relaxed at the end of it and nowhere near as exhausted as I normally do. Thanks to all of you who made it so special. Andy put the video camera on for the concert; I’ll try and work out how to get it on the computer today. But before that I need to go and learn a few more chords on my ukulele, as Andy knows more than me now!