Examination Reportage

It is always good fun jamming with people and every now and again I get chance to play with people that as a boy I listened to and admired.
Yesterday I was jamming with Chas Hodges and was able to sit and interview him for the Bluescampuk website. Chas has been down to us for the last three years and every year is an event because he brings something special to the time that he is there.
What I like about Chaz is his ability to just get stuck in and play and that is so refreshing, no pretence just play and have some fun which is something I cannot say about some of the things that I have to do for music and music teaching!
After a day of enjoyable playing I come back to check my emails to see that I have to correct a number of reports that I wrote for the last batch of examinations, however within the errors were some that included words deemed to be subjective like ‘good’ where I needed to use the words ‘secure’ or ‘effective’ I am not sure about this but where I have written ‘good’ it was because I was fed up with ‘secure’ and I think those things are also subjective because it is still my opinion.
I have done less and less examining over the years and when I do some I then realise why I generally do not bother agreeing to do them in the first place. In my mind candidates are only taking guitar exams as a target for their practise nothing more; really for a musician it is about going out and playing because walking out on stage saying ‘hey look at how clever I am’ and waving a certificate, whether that is for grade one or for a licentiate diploma will illicit the response once shouted at Frank Zappa of ‘shut up and play your guitar’.
Chaz does not have a single certificate for his playing but he does have an allotment.

Vic

 check out Bluescampuk for next year


www.bluescampuk.co.uk

This week I am preparing for Bluescampuk which is now in its seventh year.

We have learnt much over that time and each year brings new challenges and thoughts about how we can improve and adapt.

Due to returners we have to rethink the structure so that the ones who have been before do not know what is coming next as stepping outside the comfort zone is what we need to truly learn.

Over the year I have spent time listening to players that you could call ‘world musicians’ I have trained with dancers, spoken and listened to philosophers, scientists, peace campaigners and ecologists all in an attempt to view life (and to me that is music through a different lens of experience) in a different way.

I have often found great ideas from spinning someone’s way of thinking into my own musical thinking by using various lateral thinking tools. For instance using the concept of opposites that I picked up from Tai Chi I have explored the jazz concept of playing ‘outside’ from the NLP I have created speed learning techniques for scales, licks etc. and from ecology the idea of reusing and recycling for songwriting.

Everything that we do comes through the mind and body therefore the way we think and ‘are’ permeates everything that we do, therefore it underlies ways of thinking and acting in every discipline so something that you do in mathematics can be expressed in music and something that you do in music can be expressed in politics.

I was drawn to this by a quote attributed to the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu that the way to govern people is the same as cooking a small fish, lightly. I thought that this humorous but deeply profound statement which is as true today but equally as unobserved in this surveillance micromanaged age had at its heart cookery as the philosopher’s touchstone.

So if you want to come and join the fun there are two places left but it is next weekend…………

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

The Elephant of Death

I have been interested in the work of Stephan Jenkinson about death and dying; the process is something that this society has tried to sanitise and professionalise to the detriment of ourselves.

His point of view is that it leads to serious problems for society and us as individuals because it is the elephant in the room that will eventually sit on you.

When it does everyone will be surprised, especially you but that is what this particular elephant does and it will not be unfair when it does.

What I find personally interesting is the state of mind that develops when you embrace your mortality, it does paradoxically give your life value and beauty because it will end.

The Homeric statement that the gods envy us because we are mortal just like a beautiful flower that is more beautiful because it will not last comes to mind. The ancient stories and some modern stories deal with the idea of death whether to face of it or the becoming of it as the important aspect of the story. Death acting as a catalyst or doorway is integral in the ancient initiations of the Greeks, Egyptians and the Romans.

This post is not meant to be morbid on the contrary it is life affirming it is a wakeup call to get to it and live.

I believe that musicians who feel their mortality are much greater for it, remember that Hendrix foretold his own death as did John Lennon; we do not need to be able to do that we just need to make friends with the elephant.

 

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it. – Albert Einstein

I would like to paraphrase this quote by saying  ‘I like to think that the music is there even though I am not listening for it’.
Sometimes when I am playing the guitar I get the feeling that the most incredible ideas are there just out of reach and occasionally like some celestial butterfly it lands on me. The more I try to catch this butterfly the more it eludes me.
Over the years I have reflected on the Taoist idea of going with the flow, the idea that if one is soft therein lies the strength, if one just follows the wave you can ride the surf and the surfing analogy of the wave is good here; there is no surfing without catching the wave, you do not make the wave by trying hard.
Einstein’s idea that our consciousness effects ‘reality’ may hold something that the sages and mystics of the past have stated about the nature of reality, and that I feel gives us a doorway to these musical ideas that are floating about in the ether.
I have found it more effective to put myself into a space where the ideas move freely without my conscious ‘trying’ but more my ‘dreaming’ and that seems to take me somewhere very different, like sitting under a bush of flowers covered in butterflies whilst wearing a floral shirt. Suddenly the butterfly ideas seem to want to land.
So whether you want to ideas to just exist or whether you want them to flow though you then you have to hold them in your awareness. So one extra thought here, what about the fearful, negative thoughts that we hold so firmly, what are they doing to us?

Vic


www.bluescampuk.co.uk

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery."James Joyce

Break the patterns and play outside of the key, listen to the new ideas and see what happens.
You will not do anything new without breaking the patterns of behaviour; you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Because of the system we are now turning out clones of the Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Slash, Hendrix and other icons instead of breaking them and making new ones; how do you find your uniqueness? Through your mistakes errors and inadequacies, Django was not great in spite of his loss of fingers but because of them. Hendrix was great because he could not read music and therefore developed an awesome musical ear and like last week’s blog the reason why we have so many great players from the 60’s is because we were poor!
So get out there and mess things up and make something new, so instead of ‘one dire erection’ start ‘a new direction’
Vic

Change coming from adversity

It is said that every time a friend reported enthusiastically, 'I have just been promoted' Jung would say, 'I am very sorry to hear that: but if we all stick together we will get through it'. If a friend arrived depressed saying 'I have just been fired. ‘Jung would say, 'Let's open a bottle of wine, this is wonderful news, something good will happen now.' - Robert Bly 'Iron John'

 

Apart from this being classic reframing it actually goes much deeper into the myths of change coming from adversity. What do we learn from things going well? I would say very little if anything, life keeps plodding down a rutted road into a ditch, then wham! Something comes and lays waste to your dream and you wake up.

The ability to look and learn from the event is what makes us adapt. It is the moment in the music when something goes into the unplanned that real musical and spiritual brilliance happens; true improvisation.

As a society we are heading, I would say sleep walking into such a place. We have been told the problems are someone else's, it is the immigration, it is the fuel crisis, it is the global warming, it is Islamists etc. BUT have we changed our habits and life styles or are we thinking that we are right are we just playing the same tune over and over again?

We consume three times what we should in the West and that is the real problem, if a political party said this it would make them unelectable so they carry on saying we need to grow and consume more, like eating more is a way to deal with obesity.

Fracking is their answer to energy problems but this will lead to a catastrophe both economically and ecologically because they are both linked. Economists have in the Cartesian view separated ecology and economy as if there is no way that environment has anything to do with making money but what worth is the money when you have poisoned the water table and the air is spoiled and global warming is making the environment unsuitable for us to live.

Time for a new tune based on listening to the other players on the stage and maybe the answer is when opportunity comes dressed as the devil; frightening, shocking but unstoppable.

 

 

Vic

 

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

Poverty and Music

“Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”
Shaw

One of my drivers when I was younger was lack of money. It made me creative and focused and although I did not know this at the time because that was life I can see now that the people who have it all do not have the passion and the commitment to take the knocks. Also they may not have anything to say, a little like a Phil Collins song about how difficult it is making ends meet.
The idea that riches cause a problem is something that you need to consider not necessarily for you because you probably would not be aiming to be a jobbing musician if you had the cash already; but for the people that you might meet in your work either as clients or punters. There are many people out there who have more than enough money for all of us put together.
Finding a keenness that drives people to practise and sweat over their art is rather difficult and if they cannot find out, because it took me a while and I was looking, then some help may be required.

With lots of money that ‘drive’ diminishes and I see that in pupils they are not hungry enough, if they were they would be blinding players, it is a shame but looking at the poor then they have something to be angry and passionate.

Vic

The change in education is coming through the internet and it could mean the end of school education as we know it.

With the growth of online education sites such as Khan Academy and many university courses which come under the banner of MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) the nature of education is changing where some schools in the USA are using these as the curriculum and the teachers are fewer in number but use the backup from the internet to check and assess the work of the pupils.
If you think this is a problem for individual teachers imagine what this could mean for the institutions of teaching such as the independent schools and universities.
The answer is to be aware of this and use the technology to your advantage, because no one knows where this is going. Use this as an opportunity you will be better off than just sitting back as if nothing is happening which is exactly what I see in the schools as I travel around.

Vic



www.bluescampuk.co.uk

Profits anyone?

The authorities occasionally try to crack down on our right to party. Sex and drugs and rock and roll frighten our leaders. These attempts tellingly stopped when they realised that the club culture was turning into a giant industry which attracted profits for the exchequer. Tom Hodgkinson  

Money makes the world go round into a hole in the ground, follow the paper trail of the money makers and you can see why bankers, CEO’s, lawyers and the like get well paid while nurses, teachers are badly paid. Anything that makes money gets money and anything that does not gets naught.

Musicians fall into this trap and it is worsened by the artist poverty mind-set which says I am not worth much, I do this for fun. Just because you enjoy doing something does not mean that you should not be paid for it but you have to learn how to create value in the minds of those paying for it.

A couple weeks ago I had a pupil complain about the price of the exam fee for grade 6 and I took him to task over it especially as he may become a professional musician in the future. It was a classic case of a young person opening his mouth and the attitudes of his parents coming out.

The attitude of the government of any country is by its very nature protective, of themselves that is as they are the ruling classes; change would mean that they might not stay as they ones in charge. But as the above quote says there is a trade off when it comes to the money, remember the role of the artist is to challenge and present ideas for something different.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

Your mind is full of weeds they too can enrich your path to enlightenment. Shunryu Suzuki

The idea of the problem, the error, the weakness being the very thing that can define your way that can inspire you I find comforting. In an age where we are constantly being told that perfection is the only way I like the idea of the weeds of your personality, consciousness can enrich you and take you forward.

When someone asked Johnny Cash how they got the train like rhythms in their songs he said, ‘That is all we can do’. That might be all that we need, the idea that lack or a technical problem in your playing might be the way forward; I am sure that Django would like to have had four fingers but it defined the player and maybe defined the man.

 

Vic

 

 

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

The road to excess leads to a palace of wisdom - William Blake

Blake was one of this land’s great visionaries and revolutionaries, his mystical paintings and poetry and his above quote is full of ambiguity and intrigue.

The artist often is blamed for excess and profanity either because of life style and life choices of excess in drugs, drink and a life of anarchistic expression. Even the amount one has to practice to become skilled at an instrument is excessive and beyond the capability of ‘ordinary folk’.

A number of years ago my life lead me into an interest in Ayurveda which is the traditional health and wellbeing system of India and in one of the ideas of keeping healthy is based on food and balancing what you eat matched to your body energy. However one thing that was said that every now and again you should shake your body up by not following the routine and doing something VERY different break the rules and then go back and into balance again.  

In times of shaking up that is where we discover ourselves; we learn to be brave, we learn to see the things we missed, and we learn to draw from the deep wells of ourselves.

Where else would our music come from?

 

Vic

 

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

People who are too busy.

Most of the world's troubles seem to come from people who are too busy. If only politicians and scientists were lazier how much happier we would be. - Evelyn Waugh


Politicians have to prove why they are needed by changing things like the education syllabus and the NHS. These changes cost millions and for no real benefit because if they worked they would only make one change but this is not the case it is a constant happening.
The belief in religion is now the belief in science and to question it is a modern heresy but nothing in the philosophy and thinking of man has taken us to the edge of destruction in the way that science has.
The philosophy of economic growth needs to change; perhaps we need other markers like happiness and wellbeing. Here is the point that all artists know, happiness comes from expressing what is within not by acquiring stuff. Unfortunately that does not fit well on a balance sheet or a flow chart and as the society is ruled by the markers of the accountant we carry on in the same old way with the politicians being busy changing things and the scientists finding new ways of making us busy often paid by big business because at the end of the day he who pays the piper calls the tune.
All truths start as a blasphemy.

Vic

Business training from music

Music is the perfect way of exploring team building and creative ideas that are either contained within parameters such as in blues or not, as in jazz or simplistic as in pop music or complex as in classical music.

 

For ideas to flourish in business we need to be able to explore these areas to innovate but also to be able to see how structure can be applied to the ideas as we do in musical genres for them to be contained and be functional. Also music projects emotional values and this is an aspect that business has toyed with but often failed to accomplish such as ‘the caring bank....’

 

Great music has emotional resonance and it lasts for decades speaking to different generations because it is still relevant emotionally. Music is inherent because it is language and therefore it is a metaphor for many things such as creative thinking, generating ideas and team work.

Putting a band together is an exercise in social engineering and much can be learnt by the business world from the world of music in how to blend egos and creative temperaments.

 

 

Vic

 

I have to entertain the children

This is a quote from a mother about her own children; I have to entertain the children. It made me reflect on my parents and the idea that they had to entertain me was ridiculous, they expected me to entertain myself which I did and that became a lifelong skill and I can honestly say that I have never had a day in my life where I was bored. A skill was imparted by my parents by them not doing any entertaining!

The laid back Taoists of ancient China had a philosophy of letting the world turn and then all one does is ride the wave, if you need to, and if you don’t need to you just watch the wave!

I have made a career out of the opening quote and for that I am grateful but I believe it reflects a strange aspect in society that we have to be doing something and it is going to get a lot worse because the next generation of children will be parented by the children who need entertaining, where the hell are we going? What about people learning to be their own bosses following their own intuition?

Society has made everyone believe that they know nothing; a mass of people who need guidance. We are in a very strange place and that will develop very clearly that we are becoming mindless sheep. Maybe a glimmer of hope is that people are getting more connected and therefore there is a rise of a counterculture that might present an answer.

With music we have the chance to make something happen like in the days of Punk or the days of Skiffle where you did it for yourself there were no experts you just made it up as you went along rather like improvising. The test for improvising is simple, does it sound good?

So entertain yourself and listen to yourself and ask does it sound good and do I feel good? Oh and let the children play...

Vic



.www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

The point about life is about living not working; we did not have children to make money for the ruling classes.

The reality is that many of us do have children for the above reason, ok not intentionally but if we consider the check list mentality that goes on in our culture where the young are literally going through their version of the bucket-list of life. The car, the house, the children, the holidays, the pets, the new job, we are doing this because it is the checklist given to us by the media passed through what our friends are doing; the living in London, the moving out of London etc.
As I get older the only thing that becomes clear to me is I realise how much I really do not know. When I was younger I knew it all and as each year went by the less I knew until now I am completely stupid BUT I have also in that time have become to realise that no one else knows anything either and all the points put across are flawed including the advice given to us by the experts
I my life time butter has been bad and now it is good, margarine was good and now it is bad, wine was good, bad, good and now bad, tea and coffee likewise fluctuate. So with that experience I ask myself who is paying for the research and who is getting the money for our fears?
In the past music and health treatments were free and you could heal yourself by eating the herbs that were outside your door.  Now we are told this is rubbish and we are encouraged to take drugs that cost lots of money only to discover later that A, they do not work. B they are more dangerous to either us or the environment than the good they do or C they are making someone who happens to be part of the ruling elite either here or in Washington lots of money, or all three of the above.
I suggest that we do what the troubadours did in times past become the channels of information through our music and bring our music to the people in such a way that avoids the big companies, that establishes the small i.e. you and your friends, and all things that you do you do for yourself and those around you disregarding the tick box culture propagated by the media
Be true to yourself, you are your best judge.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

The Gospel according to Kellogg

The physical act of crunching cornflakes or other cereals is portrayed as working an amazing alchemy on slothful human beings; the incoherent, unshaven sluggard is magically transformed into a smart and jolly worker full of vigour and purpose by the positive power of cereal. Kellogg himself, tellingly, was a puritanical health nut who never had sex (he preferred enemas). Such are the architects of our daily life. – Tom Hodgkinson

 

When we look at how something is presented through the media it often takes years before you really see what is going on and then after that epiphany everything starts to look stupid.

The book written by Tom Hodgkinson that this quote is taken from, How To Be Idle, is a great read with some lovely insights like this about the madness of the modern world and its fixation on cereals and health when the evidence is to the contrary. Yet as people are making lots of money from a product that has more nutrition in the cardboard packaging than its contents we are entranced into this spell that we should be happy and healthy like the actors in the advert.

Another point raised in this book is of days lost to business because of illness; his point is what happened to people being able to recover without popping a pill? Of course someone is making money out of you. What about life being lost to days of business?

Now we are seeing this with the schools and education. The idea that children cannot have a few days off without the law being broken is ridiculous because we you see what goes on in a school such as when there is a cover teacher taking a class then the pupils would be better to have done work on their own at home BUT we are led to believe that any moment lost at school is a disaster as if every moment of every day is of dire importance; this is rubbish.

Many of the things being taught at school is more about teaching people to conform than to think. A point raised by Matthew Parris in the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives is that it seems that a standard education is an impediment for a ‘great life’ as most of the nominated lives on the programme were either self-educated, late educated or unconventionally educated. May be the very fact that their education is different makes them stand out from the crowd.

I am suggesting that as a great musician and artist you MUST think for yourself and be different because you will not become successful if you believe the way to make it is being on The Voice or X Factor, think about it Adele, Amy Winehouse or Ed Sheeran made it without the talent show circus.

So think for yourself, don’t take what the media gives you and ask yourself why the education system is built the way it is and if you are like most artistic people you will feel uncomfortable with the system, simply because it was not built for people to become musicians it was to make you someone more pliable.

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Much Time?

How much time do you need to spend on artwork before it is finished? When have you not done enough?
For someone like Picasso who could paint a bird on glass in a few minutes or Billy Childish who says that if a piece of work takes more than twenty minutes it really isn’t happening, the idea of spending ‘enough time’ on a piece of work is an interesting concept.
Maybe it all comes down to the vision of the artist that once it reaches that fulfilment it is done but that is a challenging problem for examination work at schools when you are dealing with children. I am just wondering if this is presented to pupils at all in their lessons. I know that it was not for me until I met one of the special teachers that you remember who do more than just teach you the subject they change you and the way that you think. My art teacher did this by asking me ‘why’. Just that simple question, not saying that I was right or wrong but he wanted me to know for myself why and the formulation of the answer made me think about why and what I was doing.
I suspect that for the pupils of art it says more about what the teacher needs to show and what boxes they need to tick than what it says about the pupil. When someone tells you that even though they have spent hours on their work it still ‘is not enough’ you need have the vision of what is required, then do it and it IS finished.

Vic

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

You already know

There is a charming tale of Chekov’s about a man who tried to teach a kitten to catch mice. When it wouldn’t run after them, he beat it, with the result that even as an adult cat, it cowered with terror in the presence of a mouse. ‘This is the man’ Chekov adds, ‘who taught me Latin.’ - Bertrand Russell ’Freedom versus Authority in Education’ 1928

 Nothing new here but have we the bravery to see through what seems the ‘right way’ at the moment; the thing of fashion that we will look back at and think, not only did not work but it was also wrong.

Beating the information into children was the way to teach from ancient Rome to recent times this was thought to be ok and some people would like to see that again. My concern is that authoritarian ways of teaching has now become deeply psychological and very difficult to spot if you are not aware of what is being done. I am sure however that people will look back and count some of today’s strategies as wrong. I would count among these the belief that people are stupid and that someone holds the answers; often the discovering of something happens inside you not from outside and this is so true with music that most of the information is already in there you just need to put a label on it.  

I frequently go on about Mr Gove and Mr Wilshaw but they perpetrate this kind of thinking and all they are doing is breaking the school system because there will be so few teachers left the system will have to change. What we are seeing is the killing of the goose that lays the golden eggs; there will be a very short term increase in eggs and then they will stop.

The way to teach is to find what excites the mind and then start from there, much of the learning will happen from the pupil themselves as they uncover what they already ‘know’ and their interest will make them learn more. 

Vic

 

 

 

Won't get fooled again.

Fear is actually convenient to the smooth functioning of an orderly society. A docile population which is terrified of the authorities in their various forms will more likely depend on objects and institutions to give them guidance, solidity, security and a sense of meaning. If you are fearful, then you are unlikely to riot and very likely to work hard and spend hard. – Tom Hodgkinson

 

Ok this may be a view of someone who is an anarchist but there are some very interesting points here and something that has been acted upon by societies throughout the ages and throughout the world.

When there was a problem in China they have always thrown the poets in jail first as they were the ones that spread dissent, now it is the bloggers. The easiest way of dealing with dissent is to find something or someone to fear who can become the ‘enemy outside’ or as the South Africans say the leopard outside.

The problem here is that without the voices of dissent nothing will change, or should I say nothing will change in a progressive way and the history of grand societies and cultures is they collapse from the inside.

Now the question to ask is ‘does the guitar still hold it rebellious streak?’ Now if the answer to that is yes then maybe this is something that we should look at in our playing and our teaching as this may something for our times like it did in the sixties.

So pick up your guitar and play, just like yesterday and get down on your knees and pray that we won’t get fooled again.

 

Vic

 

 

Revenge is a dish best served cold

My first piano teacher told my parents I was "not teachable because I would only learn by ear/by listening." Today I received a call at school from this unnamed individual (unaware who I was) where we were offered a piano master class but only if they were grade three and above.  It seems that after nearly 15 years this teacher is completely unable to adapt their teaching style to suit students who learn in other ways. The fundamental issue I have with this is that actually a good teacher can teach ANYBODY and can harness their skills.  It felt good telling them that on the telephone.  It felt better telling them that I was the Head of Music at the school and they had told me that some years ago.  "Revenge is a dish best served cold." Tom Knight
 
Tom is a good friend of mine and I was lucky enough to teach him a number of years back. Over the years I watched his development as a singer, guitarist, keyboard player, drummer and bass player and probably a few other instruments as well, but for me this little story tells a deeper message about the Old School of thinking about music and many other things that have written off much of the talent that was inherent in children by people that quite frankly might be good players but are shit teachers and there are still many of these about but fortunately they are not as mainstream as they were.
There is an extraordinary arrogance and ignorance in the belief that skills like music and art come from an intellectual elite so for those who in the past were from a lower class and therefore did not have the breeding to play music, or did not have any formal training because they were unable to afford lessons you were disregarded. This may seem an extreme statement but I can remember a time when the guitar was not considered a ‘serious’ instrument and I had this said to me a few times; my revenge was sweet as I gradually stole pupils from them as they migrated to the guitar.
It has been shown here that the classical pianist who contacted Tom was so totally wrong in his estimation of the young Thomas not only is he now the head of music at a school but because he is such an awesome musician and this was due to his commitment and belief in himself and not due to the pretentions of someone else.
Vic
 


Work with Tom at www.bluescampuk.co.uk