To Cornwall!

I have just returned from a really pleasant trip to Cornwall. I was invited by the Cornwall music service to talk to their woodwind and brass teachers. It was lovely.

The trip down was inspiring in itself with the four hour train journey from London going a beautiful coastal route with quaint stations where you imagined Rupert bear to get off with his bucket and spade!.

I did a two session workshop talking about some ideas from my writing, and also a practical session of "on the spot ensemble" where we ( forty woodwind and brass teachers) wrote a piece on the spot and included some improvisation.

It was interesting (but not totally surprising) how many of the teachers were really scared of any form of improvisation, but we used "no fail recipes" to experiment and gain confidence.

In Razzamajazz two there are many pieces with a pattern formula that you can easily turn into ensemble with no music and simply learning accompaniment patterns.

This was the first of five workshops throughout the country in the next six weeks!( all about different things!!!!!!!!!). I was quite pleased to finally get into the twenty first century and amazed myself by a fully working PowerPoint presentation!! Onto the next!!!