March 5, 2024 • 42 mins
Welcome to 'The Art of Percussion: Lessons from My Car Trunk to the Stage'
In this latest episode, we are thrilled to present our special guest, Jamie - a charming percussionist with a wealth of experiences. Jamie enthralls us with his tales of playing in numerous bands, moving to Melbourne in search of opportunities, as well as the challenges he faced, and much more. His inspiring story is an amalgamation of comedic narratives, insightful reflections and personal victories.
Besides Jamie's captivating journey, the episode also delves into detailed discussions about the impending Australian National Band Championships and notable composers. There's much to learn and enjoy in this musical odyssey that goes beyond just numbers and tunes.
So, whether you're a fellow percussionist, an avid listener, or someone curious about the world of music, this episode is sure to pique your interest. Tune in for laughter, inspiration and the raw power of music in its most organic form.
Tune in now and catch 'The Art of Percussion: Lessons from My Car Trunk to the Stage'
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, loyal viewers. Hello, loyal listeners. Hello, everyone all over the internet.
Great to have your company here. This is Brass Bandcast, the podcast about life,
love, music, bands, food, and drink. Great to have your company.
Robin, how are you? I am good, and we have to apologize to our loyal listeners
for being gone for two weeks.
(00:23):
Yeah, I'm really sorry. It's all my fault. I was in another country and the
internet wasn't what I thought it was going to be and it didn't work.
And then I was sick last week.
But now we're back. It was very sad. We were all lined up, I promise.
We were there with our guests and we all had our computers ready to go and Tim
just couldn't connect and it was pretty sad.
I couldn't connect. We should have just done a phone call. It was terrible.
(00:45):
Never let perfect get in the way of good. I remembered that phrase before.
Did we let perfect get in the way of anything? Is that the phrase of Harmony Brass?
Oh, yeah, maybe. Never let perfect get in the way of good. Well,
we're back now. Now we're here and we're going to do a bonus episode for you this week.
We're going to try to get out too because I had people complaining.
I had loyal listeners writing about our lack of an episode.
(01:10):
There's been disquiet, I think, definitely. A lot of loyal listeners have been very disappointed.
There was more than one person. To not have the insights into Australian banding.
Mortified. It's terrible.
People like listening to us on the way to rehearsal.
People like listening on the way to rehearsal. We're joined by Jamie today.
Jamie, how are you? Hi, I'm good. That's great. Great to have your company.
What do you think of the podcast set up so far?
(01:30):
It's so professional. There's so many fancy microphones and screens.
Yeah. Yeah. But do you want to tell everyone where we actually are?
Yeah. We're in the storage room in the Footscray Band Hall.
And it's quite soundproofed back here. Yeah. All the brass is doing well.
It's blocking everything.
That's good. And we've got Robin joining us on Zoom. Robin. Yeah,
(01:52):
I can see some yellow jackets behind you. That's fun.
Yeah, this is season three of
Yellow Jackets. We're coming out in yellow jackets, western brass returns.
It's quite late at night, actually, guys. It's like 10 p.m. at night,
past my bedtime. Is it past your bedtime, you guys? You look tired, Jamie.
I'm usually on the way home now, but I probably won't be home for another hour normally.
(02:14):
Where do you live? Clifton Hill. I'll give you a lift. Thanks.
Clifton Hill's not that far away. You'll be fine. Vanilla drives from Wodonga to Bright.
That's far. Yeah, that's a long drive for us. Yeah, I don't have a car.
Oh, okay. So I had to tram into the city and then train out again. Oh.
It's very inconvenient. As a percussionist not having a car,
(02:36):
does it hold you back from the gigs that you can do?
Not especially. And it means that the responsibility of the gear is never on
me, which I'm a big fan of.
So for the loyal listeners who are listening who have no idea who you are,
would you like to just introduce yourself just a little bit?
Yeah, I'm a percussionist. I play with Footscray.
I've dabbled with Darabin. Thank you.
(02:57):
But I started in Tassie. I'm from Tassie. I started playing percussion in high
school. No, primary school. Wow.
Which primary school? Friends. The Friends School.
Oh. I don't know it. Yeah. That's a fancy one, isn't it? It's Tassie.
No one does. I don't know anything about Tassie.
That's why you're here to teach us about Tassie. Jamie, tell us about,
so you started playing in primary school.
(03:19):
Is there like a strong primary school music program going on in Tassie or you
were just lucky to have a good school going on?
Yeah, there's a really strong primary school music program. my
primary school wasn't part of it i went to a different
school that just had its own good music program but a lot of the the public
schools down there have really really good teachers and they're all bandies
(03:40):
yeah and so they they teach these kids and they have these combined concerts
with all the primary schools and they funnel them into the brass and the concert bands,
and it's a really nice little ecosystem and then they become teachers and it keeps It keeps going.
Yeah, awesome. I always feel like when I go down to stream like Tassie States
or get down there, I feel like there are so many bands for the population size of Tassie.
(04:03):
It just seems like everyone's playing music all the time, which is really, really cool. Yeah.
All right. No stress, John. Hey. We had John walk in on our recording.
John Cornish, the superstar life member of the Footscray Arrival City Band. We like John.
All right, yeah. So, Robyn, I think we start off with just reflecting on the
week. Reflecting on the week. Well, we've had two weeks.
I've got lots of things to reflect on these two weeks.
(04:25):
Jamie, what's gone on for you musically in the last two weeks?
The last two weeks, I mean, I've had Footscray rehearsals. Yes.
That's been fun. I just started.
I had my technically not my first day, but my first day at ANAM today, which was fun.
Tell people what ANAM is. What's ANAM? It's the Australian National Academy of Music.
(04:46):
So it's orchestral and chamber music focused and quite high standard of performers.
So there's a couple of Raspandis in there. Only superstars get into NM. Yeah.
No. Only superstar. And me. He's a superstar for sure. There's a couple of Raspandis
in there. So Harrison, first trombone of Darabin's in there.
Isabella Thomas, who I think is on flubel with Darabin at the moment.
(05:09):
They still let her into NM. Amazing.
And Tim O'Malley, I want to say his surname is.
He's in NM on piano, but he plays tenor horn in one of the bands around town.
That's for Indira, he's in Brunei. Because most piano players like to dabble in tenor horn. Yeah.
And first date NM. Congratulations. Thanks. Hey, was it scary? Was it fun?
(05:31):
Was people mean to you or nice to you? No, they were nice.
Oh, yeah. It was just percussion class was all I had. So it was nice.
I got to see all the people that I'm going to be working with all year and played
a little bit of Mozart with them. It was fun.
Oh, that's fun. Tell us about Mozart on percussion.
We steal other instruments' music. So this was a string quartet on marimbas
(05:52):
and vibraphones. Ah, cool.
I love a marimba. Which is really fun. When it stops falling over.
Tim said a marimba could fall over. We talked about percussion instruments crashing.
But they're normally on pretty good wheels. I've never seen a marimba fall over.
Interesting. I've seen tubular bells fall over. Ooh, like in concert?
Not in concert. I've heard recordings of my friends having tubular bells fall over. Wow.
(06:17):
Yeah, one of my friends was doing a concert in Queensland and they forgot to
put a kick rail on the riser they were on. Yeah.
And the tubular bell didn't have brakes on and just fell off the riser. Rolled down.
That would have been awesome to see, but also terrifying.
It's noisy and expensive. Expensive fall.
(06:38):
Expensive, yeah. That's what makes it. Can you, like, straighten out the bells
after they fall over? Or is it? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't tried.
Yeah, take it to a pedal beater. I'm sure you could.
We're getting off topic. Robin, can you tell us, I'd love to know about your week fortnight.
I think we're on, like, a two-second delay, Robin. I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's okay. No, it's fine. We'll edit this out. I'll tell you what,
(07:00):
it was a bad thing. I got a speeding ticket on the way home from band the other week.
I might hardly ever get speeding tickets. I must have been like so amped up
from like being so excited. This is wind banned.
And I was like, yeah, that's pretty naughty of me, isn't it?
Just really wanted to get away from it as fast as possible. I'm normally a very
safe driver and I got a speeding ticket.
What else? Oh, we had rehearsal tonight. It was awesome. Like you get these
(07:23):
last few rehearsals before nationals and everyone rocks up.
Have you found that too? Like you're getting pretty good attendance.
So it's like the vibe's really good. Yeah.
You're looking at me like that. Yeah, I think if we had a Footscray rehearsal
tonight and the vibe is really good, I reckon a lot of bands right around the
country would be like hitting their stride with lots of everyone in all the
seats getting excited for the Australian National Band Championships happening
(07:44):
in about three and a half weeks' time.
We had five percussionists for the first time this week. And so Harmony was
the same. Five percussionists at Footscray. Yeah.
Yeah, when you get all your percussion there, everyone's there in the same place
and it's just like it just solves 75% of your problems, doesn't it,
when you've actually got all the pums on all the seats and you're like,
yeah, this is starting to really cook and it's good.
I feel like we've got to the point now where, like, the rehearsal,
(08:08):
the journey is really what it's about, correct?
So we've had an awesome journey, even if, like, I don't know,
we'll all play really well on stage, but we've got there and we've had these
great rehearsals and we've really improved and so it's like that's it.
That's the whole point. Now we just go for the performance for the gravy,
really, at the end. So that's good.
(08:28):
I've got a question for you, Robyn. Yeah. What's the favourite piece that your
band's playing? What's your band's favourite piece? In which band? Oh, in Harmony.
It's got to be the… In Harmony. Oh, it depends what instrument you ask.
So our own choice, most of the band were like, yeah, but the poor front row
would like almost faces falling off by the end and then they're crying and they say, we hate this piece.
(08:50):
Poor guys, they're going to work very hard.
The own choice is always your favourite, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have picked it.
Does anyone ever have the testicle? I don't know. I always like the hymn. I like him a lot.
Because I can play all the notes. This is my second nationals in a row without
playing a hymn or a march.
Really? Do you still have to go on stage, though, and just be around?
(09:11):
No. I sit in the wings. You sit in the wings. Yeah.
You don't sit there. Look. Interesting. Awkward. I've never thought about that.
So after we play, after Footscray plays No Choice, you just walk off stage? Yep. Oh. Yeah.
I'm kind of jealous. Yeah, it's awesome. Percussion life. Oh,
you've got a little chair. Sometimes you have a little chair back there,
don't you? Yeah, I could sit back there.
(09:33):
I have to worry more about how I present myself when I sit there.
I can sit side stage and really get into the music if I'm not.
Bit of a mosh pit? Yeah, if I'm not on screen.
But in an orchestra, you sit like, if you've done some orchestra,
like they sit in little chairs, don't they?
They can't just walk off like halfway through there. It's a funetta, can they?
(09:54):
Actually, I think that's a really, really good question. Is there like at NM
or when you're training to be like an orchestral,
you know very good percussionist do you get like taught a
little bit about percussion etiquette how you should be sitting or how you present
yourself on stage how you come on and off because there's a lot more moving
in percussion than any other instrument not especially it's something you learn
from example i'm glad you didn't say by mistakes i mean that too yeah but no you you see,
(10:20):
you you sit in like anam does side by sides with sso and mso and a lot of the
other orchestras and And you sit in with them and you see how they are holding
themselves and you hold yourself the way that they are.
And then as you get more comfortable with them, they'll relax more and then
you'll relax more and then you're on your phone every rehearsal.
Do you have any tips for people who are playing percussion for the first time
(10:41):
at nationals and are like, oh my gosh, I've got like two whole movements of rests.
What do I do with myself? Just enjoy it.
Enjoy the music. Some of my favourite concerts, I played Shrike 4 two years
ago, which is a massive symphony, but percussion is only in the fourth movement.
But you sit there for 25 minutes and just enjoy the music from the best seat in the house.
(11:06):
I can't do that without making faces. I make stupid faces all the time. They're terrible.
That's why they always zoom in on me. I've got another percussion-specific technical question.
Is it correct procedure if you're playing a tam-tam and you want to stop the note to use your bum?
Absolutely. Okay, great. Robin, there you go. You're doing the right thing.
I did get taught that by a real percussionist to use your bottom.
(11:27):
The more, you know, voluminous your bottom, the better the dampening effect.
Who's correct? What was the correct method? Body percussion.
How about you, Tim? You had a crazy week and not.
Oh, yeah. I've had a busy week in review. I was in another country at a conference
thing and I didn't have enough internet to do a good stream and I had to talk
about broadcasting and everyone listened and they clapped when I finished talking.
(11:50):
So I was like, yay, they all like me, new friends, new friends.
And I came back and then I was sick. But now I'm healthy and here I am.
It's perfect, perfect fortnight, except missing out on the podcast.
I reckon, Robyn, we can do three episodes this week if we're clever. Yeah.
We'll have nothing to reflect on in two days' time, but that's okay.
I'll think of things I forgot to reflect on now.
(12:11):
We can pretend it's the future. Great idea Alright, future Ruben Oh.
What a week, what a two weeks So we're nearly there, it's so exciting But we've
got to hear more from Jamie about What life is like in Tassie And bands are
like in Tassie Yeah, percussion and Tassie So there's a strong primary school
program Your school wasn't part of it, but there's lots of good teachers around,
(12:33):
What's your musical pathway That led you to Melbourne, I guess,
Big question Yeah, I mean I just did my bachelors down there,
And then got to the end of it and went, there's not a lot to do in Tassie.
Musically you run out very quickly. Yep.
And so I just went, I, I asked around and I went, where do I go?
(12:54):
So I did my honors in Melbourne last year. I just asked around and went,
where do I, where do I go? Where's the place to be at the moment?
When I was toying up between WA and here and everyone I spoke to went,
go to Melbourne, um, yeah, and it was great.
I don't regret it for a second. There was so many percussionists.
(13:15):
I was the only percussionist that, uh, there was one other percussionist at the the Tassie Con.
And when I came here, there was 17 of us. Wow. And it was, it was fantastic.
I could bounce ideas off people. I could play percussion music with other people.
Yeah. And new bands to play with. Fantastic. And have you always played with
like concert bands and brass bands all the way through?
(13:36):
No, I started brass bands later than most people, but I, I skipped a couple
of steps like i didn't do any of the junior band things but my my dad worked with,
the youth player in glenorchy community for us okay and so is that i'm gonna
butcher his surname oh that's fine rolf rolf matitas rolf hi rolf he's gonna
(14:02):
get mad at me but it's fine,
but yeah and so he knew that i played and told my dad that they needed another
percussionist And so I came along and at the time Nathaniel Griffiths was conducting. Yep.
And it would have been in my second year of playing in the community band,
Nathaniel, who was also conducting the A-grade band in the same organization,
(14:25):
went, we need an extra percussionist for our end of year show.
Do you want to come along and play? And so I did. And we finished the gig and
he went, cool, I'll see you Monday. And I was like, what?
I was not prepared for this. Arm twisted. Yeah. And so I rocked up and they
were starting preparation for nationals.
And so I got roped into that. Which year was this? 2019.
(14:48):
So my first Nationals, we played PAG. It was fantastic.
It's still my favourite Russ band piece. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful piece
to listen to and so much fun to play as well.
We've played Paganini variations on stage together, haven't we,
Robin? Yeah, it's great.
That, like, slow bit in the middle.
(15:11):
Yeah, that thing's good. Love it.
Love anything that starts with euphonium solid. So anything that starts with
euphonium solid is pretty good.
It also has two snare drums in unison at the end, which is just.
With one player or two players? Two players. Oh, that makes more sense.
Which is excessive and fantastic.
Like, are they next to each other on the stage or like antiphonal off to the
(15:33):
side? I think when we did it, we were next to each other. Yeah.
Because I was in high school and I don't think we particularly trusted me to
be in time if we were. Far apart. Yeah.
But yeah, I'm sure it'd be really effective if you split them.
So, do you prefer playing in concert bands, brass bands, orchestras,
or percussion ensembles playing Mozart string quartets?
(15:53):
I love a brass band. If there was a full-time career in brass banding,
I would do it, which I know a lot of classical percussionists do not agree with
me. Why do you love the brass bands so much?
Can you pinpoint it? It's really weird, because the thing I like about them
is not anything to do with percussion.
(16:15):
But there's something so powerful of sitting behind a group of people where
it's like an organ in front of you yeah but each pipe has its own like character
and color and i like that yeah it's the same reason i like a lot of coral stuff
as well yeah but i can't sing to save my life,
it's just everyone sounds the same but it's so different and then i'm up the
(16:38):
back making a completely different sound have you ever tried playing in like
a highland pipe band Speaking of pipes. No.
I'm always impressed by the big twirly sticks. The twirly sticks,
right? Yeah. Isn't it cool?
Tenor drummers. I did a Christmas gig last year where they did,
they had a Highland Pipe band just in the middle of the, like I was in the orchestra
and they had a Highland Pipe band just in the middle of it.
(17:00):
And they marched through the middle of the cathedral. That's cool.
It was so cool. But a cathedral is not a space for a pipe band.
No. When they're walking in between the audience as well, it was a lot of earplugs distributed.
They're really loud. Hello, pipe bands. Hello, pipe bands.
I'm heading to New Zealand next week with the New Zealand Pipe Band Championships to stream that.
(17:22):
So it's super fun, but they are very, very, very loud. Luckily,
they play outside. Yeah.
It's not deafening. Not in a boomy cathedral, yeah. That would be a sight to behold.
But have you done much marching with the thing? Yeah. I did a little bit with Glenorchy. Yeah.
Glenorchy is a band that doesn't particularly enjoy marching.
So there wasn't a lot of practice at it.
(17:42):
So they've, I think there was a very quick choice to not march now that it's
optional. Optional marching, yes.
But yeah, I did the Anzac days and the Christmas pageants. Yeah.
And it was always fun. I was stuck on bass drum, which I, I had no problems with. That's fun. Yeah.
I always had a hard time because I was short, shorter at the time.
(18:05):
And we had Damo, who is so tall, directly in front of me on Basebone.
And I was just leaning around him to see the stick.
Marching. So much fun.
At the nationals coming up how many bands are you playing with three which three
i'm playing with footscray and glenorky a a a grade and the hobart winsive so
(18:33):
you could come first second and first,
hypothetically i could in theory and is it do you find it's like tricky now
that you're living in melbourne and you're playing with a lot of melbourne ensembles
and melbourne bands do are Are you always getting a call from the Tassie band
saying, hey, can you help out? Hey.
I mean, I don't know. This is only my second time. I guess second, yeah.
(18:53):
Last year, the conductor picked the piece because he thought I was going to
be in the band. And then I was like, hey, I'm going to Melbourne.
And he was like, okay, but can you play anyway?
And so I did, which was really stressful. And I walked off stage exhausted because
there was a big xylophone solo in the middle of it that he had picked the piece
for me to play. Do you know, do you remember the piece? His name was?
(19:14):
Brussels Requiem. Did you have to go to Hobart to rehearse that?
Did you do any rehearsals or did you just do it on stage?
That's actually incredibly stressful. I did some before I moved to Melbourne.
And then I did one or two in Newcastle, but they didn't have a xylophone.
(19:34):
They had a digital keyboard.
Really? And so I just plonked away with my fingers. Oh, God.
Were you happy with how the performance went on stage? Yeah.
I practiced the hell out of that solo I bet you do,
and you know I rarely walk off stage exhausted because I usually pretty solid
(19:56):
with what's going on and I don't need to put all of my,
brain power into focusing on every little detail because I trust that it'll
happen I walked off stage and just about collapsed because there was so much
that I had to pay attention to that is normally just ingrained from the weeks
of rehearsals. Very nice.
(20:17):
Anything else you'd like to say about bands?
Do you love bands? I love bands. Yeah. Bands are great. Bands are great.
That's great. Robyn, what do you think about bands?
I like bands. Bands are good. Bands are fun. I like bands. Bands are good. Yeah, there you go.
Someone asked me, I was telling people I'm doing this band podcast,
and this guy's like, oh, so is it like a female perspective?
(20:40):
Not a female perspective. Yeah.
Two people, but yeah, I was like, I was asking Fenella about issues bringing her baby to nationals.
But also whoever you are, loyal listeners, it's great to have you listening
in. Hey. Hearing all the perspectives.
Ladies, gentlemen, I don't know. Internet people.
We're going to go to a gay bar on the Saturday night, nationals.
There's one called Mary's Poppin' and we're going there on Saturday if anyone wants to join.
(21:04):
Saturday night. Yeah, okay. See you there. After windbound results.
Except we're playing at 9am the next day. David. Anyway, all right.
That's what Nationals is, though. It's what Nationals is.
So, do you have questions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll ask my questions.
I've got a new question this week.
We're now on to the question and comment, Jamie, but have you listened?
(21:28):
See, I hope you haven't listened because you might know some of the answers
you might have thought. The best answers come organically, correct?
But this is a new question just in case you hadn't listened.
Oh, forget everything. All right. Now, I've been thinking, on the way home from
rehearsal, well, you say you take public transport.
You're going through a few hubs. Have you got a, like, post-band snack?
What's your post-band go-to snack?
(21:50):
Do you get a cheeky kebab on the way home from rehearsal?
Have you ever? I don't. I don't have a post-band snack.
When I was in Tassie, I used to drive home and have a bowl of ice cream after
about every rehearsal. I like that. Chocolate?
Vanilla? Usually, like, choc-chip. Choc-chip? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, good.
But yeah, now I'm up here, it's just kind of get home and collapse because I
(22:13):
start early the next day.
Don't you go past then? Sometimes I have to be like, I'm going to bed tonight,
but on the way home, getting an ice cream.
That's what gets you out the door. Whatever gets you out the door,
right? I've been getting those veggie pancakes from one of the restaurants in
Flinders that I get on the way to band that are really good and they're really cheap.
(22:34):
That's my pre-band dinner. Vegetables and pancakes all in one. I think that's genius.
Followed maybe by an ice cream if you're in Tassie. Yeah. Yeah. Diet of champions.
Do you put some, I put some dimmies in the air sometimes when I get home.
We're actually a bit spoiled at Footscray because we have dimsims and sausage
(22:55):
rolls and party pies at the end of every rehearsal. At the end of every rehearsal?
For a fee. 70 cents for a dimsim. You can tap your phone or tap your card.
Oh, they make you pay for it? That's a bit weird.
Like, so they cook them. But then if you don't... Yeah.
John Cornish, amazing life member of Footscray, Apple City Band,
puts on some dimsims and party pies.
(23:16):
Dimmsims too, but like for the last half an hour of rehearsal,
It's not like you're smelling the being heated up.
Yeah, and we know if we play really, really well, we might get to finish early. Thank you, Lisa.
Yeah, it's salivating over these dimmies today. Have you got a pie warmer or
what? They're just in the oven or what?
I think he just puts them in the oven. Yeah. I think there's a pie warmer.
It's just in the oven. Master of his craft. That's amazing.
(23:39):
You're going to be having people running out the door for you,
dimmies after. Yeah, you leave early.
Yeah, the tram times are awkward, which is unfortunate. isn't it?
But I do sometimes just grab one on the way out. High quality band snacks.
That's amazing. I had another question. This one might be more related to,
like, people who play blowy instruments.
(24:01):
But, like, what's your take? All right. Say, because I was debating this tonight,
the conductor says we're going from band bar 71 and you've got,
like, a minimum there, but then seven bars rest.
What do you do? Do you play it or do you, like, nah, can't be bothered?
It depends where I am. In band, I'll play it because it's a bit of fun.
(24:22):
I did that several times today. day i'm sure tim heard sitting directly in front
just a single note and run to my next instrument,
in band as well i have to practice running to instruments moving between
where you've been when so if if it's the last note of something on an instrument
i will hit it and then run to the next one to practice even if it's just a quaver
you just play it yeah yeah and when you're running the next instrument are you
(24:44):
do you take the music with you or you know that the music's going to be in the
music stand that you're running to or you don't even need it because you're
just going bang It depends.
If I have like a single gong note, I don't need music. I just count and hit.
But like for most of the stuff, for our own choice, I have an iPad on one stand and music on the other.
And then still a little bit of shifting is needed because I'm playing three instruments.
(25:09):
Logistics. Yeah. Things we people who sit down don't think about.
That's very organized. What do you do, Tim? When you've got like how much of
a note do you have to have to actually make you lift your tuba up and play it? Quaver?
Well, Robin, I think that as long as I can play the note and I sound really good, I'll play it.
If it's a note that's a bit higher, I'm like, ooh, that might be out of tune. I'll try to not play it.
(25:34):
Is that a good answer? Oh, man. Yeah. I had, like, a whole bar that I was like,
nah, I'm not going to be able to play that. And if it looks bad,
like, didn't you have a bar? I'm like, nah, man.
It requires you, like. I thought we were going for the next bar.
It's fine. It's fine. Oh, man. Get it on the run for you.
I was like, yeah, that's not worth me putting my phone down to play the thing.
That's an interesting, I'm not sure if that one will stay in.
(25:55):
I like my band snack question. That one might stay in.
You'll have to think of a question. You know, we're asking these random questions,
Jamie. If you can think of a good question, we can ask the next guy.
Because Jared McCartney had a great one, not the pedal note one.
This one, in your house, do you have any like stolen or what's in your house
that belongs to a band that shouldn't be there?
Have you got something? think i don't think i have anything at the moment great
(26:19):
answer that's a really good answer yeah,
have you still got like a hobart uniform or something yeah i've got i don't
have a hobart uniform i think they just wear blacks i think it's from memory
yeah i have my glenorky uniform but i'm still playing with them so i i'll hold
on to that until they that's legal ask for it again.
No, I think I gave her everything back when I moved up here.
(26:43):
What about triangle beaters? And I haven't taken anything from Flitz Gray.
But since we're in the Flitz Gray store, is there anything that you like the look of?
There's a nice Glock back there. I could walk out with that.
No, I don't miss it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, take that. Triangle beaters.
I mean, I technically have triangle beaters that I didn't pay for and a triangle.
But it's weird and I need to follow it up because it's been like three years.
(27:06):
No, don't follow it up. It's yours now. But no, I'm pretty sure they were a
gift and he just didn't want to say it because Dan Brown walked into rehearsal
and went, I have a spare triangle that I don't particularly enjoy and a spare set of beaters.
I'll let you know how much I want for them. And I followed up about three times
over three months and it's been two years and I assume they're just mine now.
(27:29):
Yeah. Well, maybe they're really, really expensive and he hasn't told you yet.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll get an invoice. Yeah, exactly. With interest.
Cause don't you always end up with like sticks, like other people's sticks and
stuff and, or maybe like actual professional percussion players don't steal
each other's sticks like I do.
I'm really anxious about my sticks.
(27:51):
So when I, when I pack up after things, I'm always, I grab my stuff first and
then I worry about what's left, which I think everyone should do.
I think that's the best way to do it.
Where's my tuba? Oh my gosh. Oh, I dropped that.
But yeah i've i've had times where people have
just thrown things like there are some people who just want to throw everything in
(28:12):
one bag and then we have to fight over it
at the end and it's just a mess yep that would be stressful i feel like logistics
of like percussion movements and instruments like especially i remember the
anzac day street march last year and it's like well who's getting the percussion
there where's percussion what's going to be where is it and it just all ended
up in the back of my car i was like okay good drop it back at the band hall Okay.
(28:33):
And you're a best percussionist, so good to answer this.
What's the noisiest thing that's fallen over? And we touched on it before.
So you had your tubular bells fall over. Has anything else? Like,
have you ever made something fall over?
Crash cymbal. A stick. What have I made fall over? Wind chimes.
I've knocked over wind chimes. Yeah. They're pretty noisy. I've dropped cymbals.
(28:54):
I don't think I've had anything bad happen in performances, like dropping-wise. Mm-hmm.
Have you had the end of a stick fly off yet? No, I had a rehearsal, and it went through.
It was one of those stands with the holes in them, and it went through it. Really? Wow!
And it just hit the guy in front of me. That was really upsetting. That's amazing. Yeah.
Like a jack stick. I think he thought I meant to do it.
(29:16):
Couldn't have meant to do it if you tried, yeah. That's amazing.
But yeah, I suck at gripping my sticks.
So there's a lot of drop sticks and I always forget that band rooms are always
carpeted and then you go on stage and it's not and it makes a lot of noise,
which is an issue when sometimes I plan to just drop sticks and then I get there
(29:37):
and it's wood and I'm like, I can't do that anymore.
Yeah, that must be stressful. You go, Tim. Do you look like you were going to
ask a question? No, no, I was waiting for you to ask an intelligent question.
Oh, that's so rude. What's your favorite instrument, Jamie?
Or what instrument do you think is the best instrument? You can pick from percussion.
(29:57):
Normally we say you're not allowed to pick your own, but you've got a lot.
So that's an interesting, what's your best, what's your favourite one?
I think trombone. Trombone! You could have picked like a triangle.
Anyway, but no, trombone. Yeah, all right.
No, trombone I think is actually my favourite instrument. If I could play trombone, I would.
It's not very hard. I've seen trombone played out there. Yeah,
never too late to learn. No, I have one and I can't. Oh, really?
(30:19):
Yeah, not in Melbourne, but there's videos of me just going,
and that's about the end of it.
Yeah, I picked up a crappy one for like $60. Yeah, cool. And it is a trombone.
I want to get somewhere with percussion and then pick it up and join a community band, I think.
Yeah, well, you should degrade a brass band called Harmony.
(30:41):
What do you think, Robin? You have to read Treble Clef. Yeah,
I mean, enough people go the other, enough hacks are like, I could just play
percussion and go back there and bang away at stuff that you should go the other
way and show them how it feels, right?
I could. If you love the sound of an instrument, you should go for it.
Well, that's what Steve Semelafar did. He was playing in Footscrayon Percussion.
(31:01):
Then now he's playing flugel.
Over the course of like 10 years of learning how to play. Yeah.
You've got your whole life ahead of you to learn a new skill, right?
Never too young. Yeah. What? The other one.
The one that means you can learn anything. Great question, Robyn.
That's why I want to inspire everyone. If you're listening on the podcast,
you're like, I would love to play the blah.
(31:23):
Go and just do it. Be inspired by me. It's really, I think it's pretty straightforward to pick one up.
Robin, as someone who's conducting a D-grade band and who has taught a bit of
music, how many months do you reckon you'd need to be learning for from zero
to playing a concert or playing at a competition?
If you're an adult beginner and you're going to practice twice a week for half an hour a week.
(31:50):
Well, just come along. Like the best time to start would be even if you knew nothing about it.
As long as you're not on a part by yourself, a trombone is the one you could
sit next to someone and you just copy their slide, right?
Yeah. Because it's very obvious. It's pretty easy, right? Yeah,
because like they're moving and you're moving and if you're not moving at the
same time, you're probably not right.
I mean, that's how people used to learn like none of this like fancy instrumental teacher stuff.
(32:13):
Like they'd just chuck a kid in the back and you'd just kind of watch and learn and listen.
If you can read music, because I used to teach like, really beginners,
if you can read music, that's like three quarters of the battle.
You kind of know how it's supposed to sound. It's just training your actual
lips to make the sounds really.
And if you do that by sitting next to someone, copying their slide,
there you go, it's pretty easy. We take all sorts.
(32:35):
So if someone's out there listening and wants to learn an instrument,
six months tops, you'd be on stage.
Get on stage, yeah. Get on stage whenever you want. Go for broke.
There you go. We had a guy, yeah, he played the piano and his son was conducting
conducting our band, his name's Mark, and he was like, I need more tenor horns.
And he just got his dad in. His dad had never played a brass instrument before and just made him play.
(32:58):
And now he's also now he's moved on to tuba because then his son said,
now we need a tuba and we've got enough horns.
He's been in the band like 15 years. He's a great man. And I think you've just
got to go thrown in the deep end.
It's very difficult to just learn an instrument of your own volition, right?
Like there's all these people that say, I'm going to learn the guitar.
But you have to force yourself to go to a rehearsal and have that accountability, right?
(33:21):
That's my rant. Accountability. If you've got to look up to a rehearsal and
you can't play your part, yeah, not a good feeling. Just go.
Yeah, love it. Yeah, I've had bad experiences with that. I've heard it's not a good feeling. Jamie.
Have you ever played You're a Dragon? I did. I did the wind band version last year.
(33:43):
We love the wind band version, don't we, Tim? We love the wind band version.
I mean, we played it last year too.
The saxophone solo in the second movement, I'm like, it should be a trombone, but I do love it.
I did the middle movement with
Darabin for one of their, I think it was a concert with the Welsh choir.
Oh, cool. And they did the middle movement of Hero of the Dragon with Harrison
(34:03):
playing the bone solo. Very nice. It was amazing.
That could actually, if you had like a good choir, that could sound cool as
a choral arrangement, I reckon.
Yeah. I don't know who would. We can try it out at the end of this episode Oh
no I can't remember Is that a disclaimer I should put up?
(34:23):
A lot of bands played Year of the Dragon last year It's like why didn't you
play it this year? Guys, everyone missed this great opportunity Didn't they?
It's terrible, we'll have to get in touch with Philip Spark.
We should have done a like- Hi, Philip. We're Facebook friends. We did a mass ban.
Could we get everyone to play it at the same time and get like 1,000 people
(34:45):
playing Year of the Dragon?
1,000 people. Could we ban Adam Brathwaite at the same time?
And it'll just sound like awful. That'd be really together.
Year of the Dragon. What's your very, very favorite piece, Jamie?
I'm going off script. Sorry. I think it's Peg. Yep. I'm torn between like this.
(35:06):
I could go for a Tchaikovsky symphony or I could go for PAG.
And I think it's PAG. I have the PAG score.
That's good. Yeah. Take that, Tchaikovsky. Yeah.
Well, he's a free. That's a free thing now. Yeah.
But yeah, it's, I don't know. It just, it's so.
It's a beautiful piece of music. It also just has good, good memories.
(35:26):
Like my first nationals and i was the youngest in the band by a long shot yeah and i just kind of,
got absorbed into this group of people of banding
people i think that's a big thing in
bands and like when because you know i've played at a lot of nationals
now and if i hear the test
(35:47):
piece from a from a certain year i'm like ah that piece of music was i was playing
with these people and we went to that place and all of these fun stuff happened
and then i couldn't play that note but it's like oh it's it's the music that
ends the memories as well with it so yeah yeah i think you're spot on and there's
pieces like no i've come titan's progress that's the name of it that i.
(36:07):
I got absolutely demolished in rehearsal because i was a a kid who thought he
could get away without practicing not that piece yeah and there was about four
weeks in a row that i I just couldn't play this one bit.
And Simon, the conductor at the end, Simon Reid,
gave this big speech to the band, but it was very much to me,
(36:31):
about how we needed to know our notes and listen to it, and if we can't play
a passage, we need to be able to practice it.
And since then, I have never not known my notes before I walk into a rehearsal.
Thank you, Simon. Yeah, thanks, Simon. And now he trusts me to come into his
bands with no rehearsal.
Okay. Okay, have you got any questions? What should we ask the next person?
(36:54):
Oh, yeah, do you have a question that you would like people to answer?
Sums up, Brian. This is just my own curiosity, but when you see percussionists
play, what do you think of as a hard part?
That's interesting. When I see percussionists play, I think percussionists can
be, like, really obviously physically expressive when they're playing because,
(37:16):
like, they're the only people really moving on the stage. so that I think that
you can add, percussionists can add a lot of drama to what goes on.
What looks hard, I don't know, it depends on the player. Sometimes you can tell
someone's playing something hard.
And often it's like that's a mallet thing where there's like a lot of stress
and reading going through.
(37:36):
And that's, I think a lot of the difficulty can be taken out by just not making it look like it's hard.
Yeah. That's what I do in Footscray. And I've had a couple of people come up
to me and ask me, you just like, you just look so relaxed and you play all the
notes. And I'm like, yes, if I don't worry about hitting the right notes and
just trust that they're going to happen, I'm more likely to hit them.
Yes. So I just stand there and do my thing and move on and fix anything if it didn't work. Yep.
(38:02):
No, I think that's right. Like you need to care sometimes before you get to
rehearsal and care enough to put the work in and then hopefully you get to rehearsal,
you get to a performance and you just know that you've done the work.
So you just can do your regular thing and it's going to be really good.
It's a good way to be. That's how you are, Robin, isn't it? When you play,
you just know it's going to be really good. Yeah.
I like it when they hold more than two sticks. That impresses me.
(38:26):
Is that what you're asking? That is very impressive. They're like Edward Scissorhands.
They're in their little crevices.
There's nothing quite like double sticking and double fisting in the crevices all at once, Robyn.
When I see percussionists with more than two sticks, I always go,
ooh, that's like, that's next level, guys. That's pretty exciting.
Oh, I like it when they make the drumsticks sound cool. That's nice. Nice.
(38:49):
I think the shaker, the egg shakers. Oh, yeah. Like that's, yeah.
They are so difficult. Like, I'm not even kidding.
Vibrato in the air. Like when they just get that perfect triangle thing. I don't know.
Yeah. And you've got to like let the sound go out. Yeah.
Yeah. You see me do that a lot in Foursquare. There's a lot of me just getting bored and just.
(39:13):
Manipulating the air, like the last airbender. Is that what the airbender does?
Sound travels through air.
It does. Masters of the air. It does make a difference when you're next to it.
But to most people, the sound, they don't hear the decay.
So, like, it's not that big of a thing, but also you get laughs from the people
facing the right direction.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's entertaining and it adds to the drama, I think.
(39:36):
All right. Well, you guys look very tired and it's, like, getting pretty late now.
So, maybe we should move on to what's happening in the next week.
How's your week looking ahead? Yeah, do you, what's happening next?
I guess you've got your second date, Annem. Second date, Annem!
Yeah, there's not a whole lot on.
There's not a whole lot on. It's just a lot of practice, really.
(39:57):
There's a couple of, like, welcome to the school things, but it's mainly just...
And the campus is at, like, the Abbotsford Convent, is it?
Yeah, so there's one at the convent, and there's one about a five-minute walk away on Marine Parade.
And the one on Marine Parade is where all the nice percussion gear is,
and it has all the percussion practice rooms. Great. What's happening for you this week, Robin?
(40:19):
I'm supposed to go to a Granger rehearsal if you're going, I'll go too.
Yeah, I'll go if you go. Hi, Roland. There was a bit of a like,
you know, the guy was like, can you fill in for me in wind band?
I said, fine, but also can you play my wind band at Nationals?
It's like that's a way bigger favourite for me, so now I feel bad,
so I better go to his rehearsal in Ashley. Quid pro quo.
(40:42):
Yeah. What about you guys? Are you guys on two rehearsals a week?
Pretty smashing it. it yeah i think i think i
wasn't really paying attention at the end of rehearsal i'm pretty sure i've got to come
to like a low-end section on thursday night i think that's
i think that's what's going on yeah so i haven't been to a thursday at
all this monday mondays are sort of yeah so i think this week for me i've got
(41:02):
to do a maybe a rehearsal wednesday night robin then maybe a low-end on thursday
night so by by thursday i should be sounding really good because i'll have like
played a few times this week but i am practicing this year i'm practicing i
took my my mouthpiece to Indonesia with me and I was buzzing over there,
even without the internet.
Good for you. I'm still not. It's a plastic mouthpiece. I still need to practice.
I'll do like maybe one session before Nationalist. That'll be fine.
(41:24):
That's enough, right? I think Granger's playing Holst's first suite in E flat,
so you better. I can do that. Yeah, I saved that in high school. That's all right.
I'll play that from memory. Sweet.
She's still got it. She's still got it. Yeah. Yeah, it's in E-flat.
Musical genius. I think it starts on an E-flat.
(41:45):
I think we'll be all right. Yeah. Root.
All right. Okay, I think, how are we going to finish this one,
Robyn? We need to sing something.
Well, we should sing Paganini. I should sing Paganini. We could sing some Pag. Which bit?
I mean, the openings. Okay. Big and loud and dramatic. Yeah. Yeah.
(42:07):
Well, thanks everyone for listening. Catch us again soon. Here we go.
Okay. That hasn't happened yet.
(42:34):
Music.
Repeat. Bye everyone. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Bye.
Hello, loyal viewers. Hello, loyal listeners. Hello, everyone all over the internet.
Great to have your company here. This is Brass Bandcast, the podcast about life,
love, music, bands, food, and drink. Great to have your company.
Robin, how are you? I am good, and we have to apologize to our loyal listeners
for being gone for two weeks.
(00:23):
Yeah, I'm really sorry. It's all my fault. I was in another country and the
internet wasn't what I thought it was going to be and it didn't work.
And then I was sick last week.
But now we're back. It was very sad. We were all lined up, I promise.
We were there with our guests and we all had our computers ready to go and Tim
just couldn't connect and it was pretty sad.
I couldn't connect. We should have just done a phone call. It was terrible.
(00:45):
Never let perfect get in the way of good. I remembered that phrase before.
Did we let perfect get in the way of anything? Is that the phrase of Harmony Brass?
Oh, yeah, maybe. Never let perfect get in the way of good. Well,
we're back now. Now we're here and we're going to do a bonus episode for you this week.
We're going to try to get out too because I had people complaining.
I had loyal listeners writing about our lack of an episode.
(01:10):
There's been disquiet, I think, definitely. A lot of loyal listeners have been very disappointed.
There was more than one person. To not have the insights into Australian banding.
Mortified. It's terrible.
People like listening to us on the way to rehearsal.
People like listening on the way to rehearsal. We're joined by Jamie today.
Jamie, how are you? Hi, I'm good. That's great. Great to have your company.
What do you think of the podcast set up so far?
(01:30):
It's so professional. There's so many fancy microphones and screens.
Yeah. Yeah. But do you want to tell everyone where we actually are?
Yeah. We're in the storage room in the Footscray Band Hall.
And it's quite soundproofed back here. Yeah. All the brass is doing well.
It's blocking everything.
That's good. And we've got Robin joining us on Zoom. Robin. Yeah,
(01:52):
I can see some yellow jackets behind you. That's fun.
Yeah, this is season three of
Yellow Jackets. We're coming out in yellow jackets, western brass returns.
It's quite late at night, actually, guys. It's like 10 p.m. at night,
past my bedtime. Is it past your bedtime, you guys? You look tired, Jamie.
I'm usually on the way home now, but I probably won't be home for another hour normally.
(02:14):
Where do you live? Clifton Hill. I'll give you a lift. Thanks.
Clifton Hill's not that far away. You'll be fine. Vanilla drives from Wodonga to Bright.
That's far. Yeah, that's a long drive for us. Yeah, I don't have a car.
Oh, okay. So I had to tram into the city and then train out again. Oh.
It's very inconvenient. As a percussionist not having a car,
(02:36):
does it hold you back from the gigs that you can do?
Not especially. And it means that the responsibility of the gear is never on
me, which I'm a big fan of.
So for the loyal listeners who are listening who have no idea who you are,
would you like to just introduce yourself just a little bit?
Yeah, I'm a percussionist. I play with Footscray.
I've dabbled with Darabin. Thank you.
(02:57):
But I started in Tassie. I'm from Tassie. I started playing percussion in high
school. No, primary school. Wow.
Which primary school? Friends. The Friends School.
Oh. I don't know it. Yeah. That's a fancy one, isn't it? It's Tassie.
No one does. I don't know anything about Tassie.
That's why you're here to teach us about Tassie. Jamie, tell us about,
so you started playing in primary school.
(03:19):
Is there like a strong primary school music program going on in Tassie or you
were just lucky to have a good school going on?
Yeah, there's a really strong primary school music program. my
primary school wasn't part of it i went to a different
school that just had its own good music program but a lot of the the public
schools down there have really really good teachers and they're all bandies
(03:40):
yeah and so they they teach these kids and they have these combined concerts
with all the primary schools and they funnel them into the brass and the concert bands,
and it's a really nice little ecosystem and then they become teachers and it keeps It keeps going.
Yeah, awesome. I always feel like when I go down to stream like Tassie States
or get down there, I feel like there are so many bands for the population size of Tassie.
(04:03):
It just seems like everyone's playing music all the time, which is really, really cool. Yeah.
All right. No stress, John. Hey. We had John walk in on our recording.
John Cornish, the superstar life member of the Footscray Arrival City Band. We like John.
All right, yeah. So, Robyn, I think we start off with just reflecting on the
week. Reflecting on the week. Well, we've had two weeks.
I've got lots of things to reflect on these two weeks.
(04:25):
Jamie, what's gone on for you musically in the last two weeks?
The last two weeks, I mean, I've had Footscray rehearsals. Yes.
That's been fun. I just started.
I had my technically not my first day, but my first day at ANAM today, which was fun.
Tell people what ANAM is. What's ANAM? It's the Australian National Academy of Music.
(04:46):
So it's orchestral and chamber music focused and quite high standard of performers.
So there's a couple of Raspandis in there. Only superstars get into NM. Yeah.
No. Only superstar. And me. He's a superstar for sure. There's a couple of Raspandis
in there. So Harrison, first trombone of Darabin's in there.
Isabella Thomas, who I think is on flubel with Darabin at the moment.
(05:09):
They still let her into NM. Amazing.
And Tim O'Malley, I want to say his surname is.
He's in NM on piano, but he plays tenor horn in one of the bands around town.
That's for Indira, he's in Brunei. Because most piano players like to dabble in tenor horn. Yeah.
And first date NM. Congratulations. Thanks. Hey, was it scary? Was it fun?
(05:31):
Was people mean to you or nice to you? No, they were nice.
Oh, yeah. It was just percussion class was all I had. So it was nice.
I got to see all the people that I'm going to be working with all year and played
a little bit of Mozart with them. It was fun.
Oh, that's fun. Tell us about Mozart on percussion.
We steal other instruments' music. So this was a string quartet on marimbas
(05:52):
and vibraphones. Ah, cool.
I love a marimba. Which is really fun. When it stops falling over.
Tim said a marimba could fall over. We talked about percussion instruments crashing.
But they're normally on pretty good wheels. I've never seen a marimba fall over.
Interesting. I've seen tubular bells fall over. Ooh, like in concert?
Not in concert. I've heard recordings of my friends having tubular bells fall over. Wow.
(06:17):
Yeah, one of my friends was doing a concert in Queensland and they forgot to
put a kick rail on the riser they were on. Yeah.
And the tubular bell didn't have brakes on and just fell off the riser. Rolled down.
That would have been awesome to see, but also terrifying.
It's noisy and expensive. Expensive fall.
(06:38):
Expensive, yeah. That's what makes it. Can you, like, straighten out the bells
after they fall over? Or is it? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't tried.
Yeah, take it to a pedal beater. I'm sure you could.
We're getting off topic. Robin, can you tell us, I'd love to know about your week fortnight.
I think we're on, like, a two-second delay, Robin. I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's okay. No, it's fine. We'll edit this out. I'll tell you what,
(07:00):
it was a bad thing. I got a speeding ticket on the way home from band the other week.
I might hardly ever get speeding tickets. I must have been like so amped up
from like being so excited. This is wind banned.
And I was like, yeah, that's pretty naughty of me, isn't it?
Just really wanted to get away from it as fast as possible. I'm normally a very
safe driver and I got a speeding ticket.
What else? Oh, we had rehearsal tonight. It was awesome. Like you get these
(07:23):
last few rehearsals before nationals and everyone rocks up.
Have you found that too? Like you're getting pretty good attendance.
So it's like the vibe's really good. Yeah.
You're looking at me like that. Yeah, I think if we had a Footscray rehearsal
tonight and the vibe is really good, I reckon a lot of bands right around the
country would be like hitting their stride with lots of everyone in all the
seats getting excited for the Australian National Band Championships happening
(07:44):
in about three and a half weeks' time.
We had five percussionists for the first time this week. And so Harmony was
the same. Five percussionists at Footscray. Yeah.
Yeah, when you get all your percussion there, everyone's there in the same place
and it's just like it just solves 75% of your problems, doesn't it,
when you've actually got all the pums on all the seats and you're like,
yeah, this is starting to really cook and it's good.
I feel like we've got to the point now where, like, the rehearsal,
(08:08):
the journey is really what it's about, correct?
So we've had an awesome journey, even if, like, I don't know,
we'll all play really well on stage, but we've got there and we've had these
great rehearsals and we've really improved and so it's like that's it.
That's the whole point. Now we just go for the performance for the gravy,
really, at the end. So that's good.
(08:28):
I've got a question for you, Robyn. Yeah. What's the favourite piece that your
band's playing? What's your band's favourite piece? In which band? Oh, in Harmony.
It's got to be the… In Harmony. Oh, it depends what instrument you ask.
So our own choice, most of the band were like, yeah, but the poor front row
would like almost faces falling off by the end and then they're crying and they say, we hate this piece.
(08:50):
Poor guys, they're going to work very hard.
The own choice is always your favourite, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have picked it.
Does anyone ever have the testicle? I don't know. I always like the hymn. I like him a lot.
Because I can play all the notes. This is my second nationals in a row without
playing a hymn or a march.
Really? Do you still have to go on stage, though, and just be around?
(09:11):
No. I sit in the wings. You sit in the wings. Yeah.
You don't sit there. Look. Interesting. Awkward. I've never thought about that.
So after we play, after Footscray plays No Choice, you just walk off stage? Yep. Oh. Yeah.
I'm kind of jealous. Yeah, it's awesome. Percussion life. Oh,
you've got a little chair. Sometimes you have a little chair back there,
don't you? Yeah, I could sit back there.
(09:33):
I have to worry more about how I present myself when I sit there.
I can sit side stage and really get into the music if I'm not.
Bit of a mosh pit? Yeah, if I'm not on screen.
But in an orchestra, you sit like, if you've done some orchestra,
like they sit in little chairs, don't they?
They can't just walk off like halfway through there. It's a funetta, can they?
(09:54):
Actually, I think that's a really, really good question. Is there like at NM
or when you're training to be like an orchestral,
you know very good percussionist do you get like taught a
little bit about percussion etiquette how you should be sitting or how you present
yourself on stage how you come on and off because there's a lot more moving
in percussion than any other instrument not especially it's something you learn
from example i'm glad you didn't say by mistakes i mean that too yeah but no you you see,
(10:20):
you you sit in like anam does side by sides with sso and mso and a lot of the
other orchestras and And you sit in with them and you see how they are holding
themselves and you hold yourself the way that they are.
And then as you get more comfortable with them, they'll relax more and then
you'll relax more and then you're on your phone every rehearsal.
Do you have any tips for people who are playing percussion for the first time
(10:41):
at nationals and are like, oh my gosh, I've got like two whole movements of rests.
What do I do with myself? Just enjoy it.
Enjoy the music. Some of my favourite concerts, I played Shrike 4 two years
ago, which is a massive symphony, but percussion is only in the fourth movement.
But you sit there for 25 minutes and just enjoy the music from the best seat in the house.
(11:06):
I can't do that without making faces. I make stupid faces all the time. They're terrible.
That's why they always zoom in on me. I've got another percussion-specific technical question.
Is it correct procedure if you're playing a tam-tam and you want to stop the note to use your bum?
Absolutely. Okay, great. Robin, there you go. You're doing the right thing.
I did get taught that by a real percussionist to use your bottom.
(11:27):
The more, you know, voluminous your bottom, the better the dampening effect.
Who's correct? What was the correct method? Body percussion.
How about you, Tim? You had a crazy week and not.
Oh, yeah. I've had a busy week in review. I was in another country at a conference
thing and I didn't have enough internet to do a good stream and I had to talk
about broadcasting and everyone listened and they clapped when I finished talking.
(11:50):
So I was like, yay, they all like me, new friends, new friends.
And I came back and then I was sick. But now I'm healthy and here I am.
It's perfect, perfect fortnight, except missing out on the podcast.
I reckon, Robyn, we can do three episodes this week if we're clever. Yeah.
We'll have nothing to reflect on in two days' time, but that's okay.
I'll think of things I forgot to reflect on now.
(12:11):
We can pretend it's the future. Great idea Alright, future Ruben Oh.
What a week, what a two weeks So we're nearly there, it's so exciting But we've
got to hear more from Jamie about What life is like in Tassie And bands are
like in Tassie Yeah, percussion and Tassie So there's a strong primary school
program Your school wasn't part of it, but there's lots of good teachers around,
(12:33):
What's your musical pathway That led you to Melbourne, I guess,
Big question Yeah, I mean I just did my bachelors down there,
And then got to the end of it and went, there's not a lot to do in Tassie.
Musically you run out very quickly. Yep.
And so I just went, I, I asked around and I went, where do I go?
(12:54):
So I did my honors in Melbourne last year. I just asked around and went,
where do I, where do I go? Where's the place to be at the moment?
When I was toying up between WA and here and everyone I spoke to went,
go to Melbourne, um, yeah, and it was great.
I don't regret it for a second. There was so many percussionists.
(13:15):
I was the only percussionist that, uh, there was one other percussionist at the the Tassie Con.
And when I came here, there was 17 of us. Wow. And it was, it was fantastic.
I could bounce ideas off people. I could play percussion music with other people.
Yeah. And new bands to play with. Fantastic. And have you always played with
like concert bands and brass bands all the way through?
(13:36):
No, I started brass bands later than most people, but I, I skipped a couple
of steps like i didn't do any of the junior band things but my my dad worked with,
the youth player in glenorchy community for us okay and so is that i'm gonna
butcher his surname oh that's fine rolf rolf matitas rolf hi rolf he's gonna
(14:02):
get mad at me but it's fine,
but yeah and so he knew that i played and told my dad that they needed another
percussionist And so I came along and at the time Nathaniel Griffiths was conducting. Yep.
And it would have been in my second year of playing in the community band,
Nathaniel, who was also conducting the A-grade band in the same organization,
(14:25):
went, we need an extra percussionist for our end of year show.
Do you want to come along and play? And so I did. And we finished the gig and
he went, cool, I'll see you Monday. And I was like, what?
I was not prepared for this. Arm twisted. Yeah. And so I rocked up and they
were starting preparation for nationals.
And so I got roped into that. Which year was this? 2019.
(14:48):
So my first Nationals, we played PAG. It was fantastic.
It's still my favourite Russ band piece. Yeah. I think it's a beautiful piece
to listen to and so much fun to play as well.
We've played Paganini variations on stage together, haven't we,
Robin? Yeah, it's great.
That, like, slow bit in the middle.
(15:11):
Yeah, that thing's good. Love it.
Love anything that starts with euphonium solid. So anything that starts with
euphonium solid is pretty good.
It also has two snare drums in unison at the end, which is just.
With one player or two players? Two players. Oh, that makes more sense.
Which is excessive and fantastic.
Like, are they next to each other on the stage or like antiphonal off to the
(15:33):
side? I think when we did it, we were next to each other. Yeah.
Because I was in high school and I don't think we particularly trusted me to
be in time if we were. Far apart. Yeah.
But yeah, I'm sure it'd be really effective if you split them.
So, do you prefer playing in concert bands, brass bands, orchestras,
or percussion ensembles playing Mozart string quartets?
(15:53):
I love a brass band. If there was a full-time career in brass banding,
I would do it, which I know a lot of classical percussionists do not agree with
me. Why do you love the brass bands so much?
Can you pinpoint it? It's really weird, because the thing I like about them
is not anything to do with percussion.
(16:15):
But there's something so powerful of sitting behind a group of people where
it's like an organ in front of you yeah but each pipe has its own like character
and color and i like that yeah it's the same reason i like a lot of coral stuff
as well yeah but i can't sing to save my life,
it's just everyone sounds the same but it's so different and then i'm up the
(16:38):
back making a completely different sound have you ever tried playing in like
a highland pipe band Speaking of pipes. No.
I'm always impressed by the big twirly sticks. The twirly sticks,
right? Yeah. Isn't it cool?
Tenor drummers. I did a Christmas gig last year where they did,
they had a Highland Pipe band just in the middle of the, like I was in the orchestra
and they had a Highland Pipe band just in the middle of it.
(17:00):
And they marched through the middle of the cathedral. That's cool.
It was so cool. But a cathedral is not a space for a pipe band.
No. When they're walking in between the audience as well, it was a lot of earplugs distributed.
They're really loud. Hello, pipe bands. Hello, pipe bands.
I'm heading to New Zealand next week with the New Zealand Pipe Band Championships to stream that.
(17:22):
So it's super fun, but they are very, very, very loud. Luckily,
they play outside. Yeah.
It's not deafening. Not in a boomy cathedral, yeah. That would be a sight to behold.
But have you done much marching with the thing? Yeah. I did a little bit with Glenorchy. Yeah.
Glenorchy is a band that doesn't particularly enjoy marching.
So there wasn't a lot of practice at it.
(17:42):
So they've, I think there was a very quick choice to not march now that it's
optional. Optional marching, yes.
But yeah, I did the Anzac days and the Christmas pageants. Yeah.
And it was always fun. I was stuck on bass drum, which I, I had no problems with. That's fun. Yeah.
I always had a hard time because I was short, shorter at the time.
(18:05):
And we had Damo, who is so tall, directly in front of me on Basebone.
And I was just leaning around him to see the stick.
Marching. So much fun.
At the nationals coming up how many bands are you playing with three which three
i'm playing with footscray and glenorky a a a grade and the hobart winsive so
(18:33):
you could come first second and first,
hypothetically i could in theory and is it do you find it's like tricky now
that you're living in melbourne and you're playing with a lot of melbourne ensembles
and melbourne bands do are Are you always getting a call from the Tassie band
saying, hey, can you help out? Hey.
I mean, I don't know. This is only my second time. I guess second, yeah.
(18:53):
Last year, the conductor picked the piece because he thought I was going to
be in the band. And then I was like, hey, I'm going to Melbourne.
And he was like, okay, but can you play anyway?
And so I did, which was really stressful. And I walked off stage exhausted because
there was a big xylophone solo in the middle of it that he had picked the piece
for me to play. Do you know, do you remember the piece? His name was?
(19:14):
Brussels Requiem. Did you have to go to Hobart to rehearse that?
Did you do any rehearsals or did you just do it on stage?
That's actually incredibly stressful. I did some before I moved to Melbourne.
And then I did one or two in Newcastle, but they didn't have a xylophone.
(19:34):
They had a digital keyboard.
Really? And so I just plonked away with my fingers. Oh, God.
Were you happy with how the performance went on stage? Yeah.
I practiced the hell out of that solo I bet you do,
and you know I rarely walk off stage exhausted because I usually pretty solid
(19:56):
with what's going on and I don't need to put all of my,
brain power into focusing on every little detail because I trust that it'll
happen I walked off stage and just about collapsed because there was so much
that I had to pay attention to that is normally just ingrained from the weeks
of rehearsals. Very nice.
(20:17):
Anything else you'd like to say about bands?
Do you love bands? I love bands. Yeah. Bands are great. Bands are great.
That's great. Robyn, what do you think about bands?
I like bands. Bands are good. Bands are fun. I like bands. Bands are good. Yeah, there you go.
Someone asked me, I was telling people I'm doing this band podcast,
and this guy's like, oh, so is it like a female perspective?
(20:40):
Not a female perspective. Yeah.
Two people, but yeah, I was like, I was asking Fenella about issues bringing her baby to nationals.
But also whoever you are, loyal listeners, it's great to have you listening
in. Hey. Hearing all the perspectives.
Ladies, gentlemen, I don't know. Internet people.
We're going to go to a gay bar on the Saturday night, nationals.
There's one called Mary's Poppin' and we're going there on Saturday if anyone wants to join.
(21:04):
Saturday night. Yeah, okay. See you there. After windbound results.
Except we're playing at 9am the next day. David. Anyway, all right.
That's what Nationals is, though. It's what Nationals is.
So, do you have questions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll ask my questions.
I've got a new question this week.
We're now on to the question and comment, Jamie, but have you listened?
(21:28):
See, I hope you haven't listened because you might know some of the answers
you might have thought. The best answers come organically, correct?
But this is a new question just in case you hadn't listened.
Oh, forget everything. All right. Now, I've been thinking, on the way home from
rehearsal, well, you say you take public transport.
You're going through a few hubs. Have you got a, like, post-band snack?
What's your post-band go-to snack?
(21:50):
Do you get a cheeky kebab on the way home from rehearsal?
Have you ever? I don't. I don't have a post-band snack.
When I was in Tassie, I used to drive home and have a bowl of ice cream after
about every rehearsal. I like that. Chocolate?
Vanilla? Usually, like, choc-chip. Choc-chip? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, good.
But yeah, now I'm up here, it's just kind of get home and collapse because I
(22:13):
start early the next day.
Don't you go past then? Sometimes I have to be like, I'm going to bed tonight,
but on the way home, getting an ice cream.
That's what gets you out the door. Whatever gets you out the door,
right? I've been getting those veggie pancakes from one of the restaurants in
Flinders that I get on the way to band that are really good and they're really cheap.
(22:34):
That's my pre-band dinner. Vegetables and pancakes all in one. I think that's genius.
Followed maybe by an ice cream if you're in Tassie. Yeah. Yeah. Diet of champions.
Do you put some, I put some dimmies in the air sometimes when I get home.
We're actually a bit spoiled at Footscray because we have dimsims and sausage
(22:55):
rolls and party pies at the end of every rehearsal. At the end of every rehearsal?
For a fee. 70 cents for a dimsim. You can tap your phone or tap your card.
Oh, they make you pay for it? That's a bit weird.
Like, so they cook them. But then if you don't... Yeah.
John Cornish, amazing life member of Footscray, Apple City Band,
puts on some dimsims and party pies.
(23:16):
Dimmsims too, but like for the last half an hour of rehearsal,
It's not like you're smelling the being heated up.
Yeah, and we know if we play really, really well, we might get to finish early. Thank you, Lisa.
Yeah, it's salivating over these dimmies today. Have you got a pie warmer or
what? They're just in the oven or what?
I think he just puts them in the oven. Yeah. I think there's a pie warmer.
It's just in the oven. Master of his craft. That's amazing.
(23:39):
You're going to be having people running out the door for you,
dimmies after. Yeah, you leave early.
Yeah, the tram times are awkward, which is unfortunate. isn't it?
But I do sometimes just grab one on the way out. High quality band snacks.
That's amazing. I had another question. This one might be more related to,
like, people who play blowy instruments.
(24:01):
But, like, what's your take? All right. Say, because I was debating this tonight,
the conductor says we're going from band bar 71 and you've got,
like, a minimum there, but then seven bars rest.
What do you do? Do you play it or do you, like, nah, can't be bothered?
It depends where I am. In band, I'll play it because it's a bit of fun.
(24:22):
I did that several times today. day i'm sure tim heard sitting directly in front
just a single note and run to my next instrument,
in band as well i have to practice running to instruments moving between
where you've been when so if if it's the last note of something on an instrument
i will hit it and then run to the next one to practice even if it's just a quaver
you just play it yeah yeah and when you're running the next instrument are you
(24:44):
do you take the music with you or you know that the music's going to be in the
music stand that you're running to or you don't even need it because you're
just going bang It depends.
If I have like a single gong note, I don't need music. I just count and hit.
But like for most of the stuff, for our own choice, I have an iPad on one stand and music on the other.
And then still a little bit of shifting is needed because I'm playing three instruments.
(25:09):
Logistics. Yeah. Things we people who sit down don't think about.
That's very organized. What do you do, Tim? When you've got like how much of
a note do you have to have to actually make you lift your tuba up and play it? Quaver?
Well, Robin, I think that as long as I can play the note and I sound really good, I'll play it.
If it's a note that's a bit higher, I'm like, ooh, that might be out of tune. I'll try to not play it.
(25:34):
Is that a good answer? Oh, man. Yeah. I had, like, a whole bar that I was like,
nah, I'm not going to be able to play that. And if it looks bad,
like, didn't you have a bar? I'm like, nah, man.
It requires you, like. I thought we were going for the next bar.
It's fine. It's fine. Oh, man. Get it on the run for you.
I was like, yeah, that's not worth me putting my phone down to play the thing.
That's an interesting, I'm not sure if that one will stay in.
(25:55):
I like my band snack question. That one might stay in.
You'll have to think of a question. You know, we're asking these random questions,
Jamie. If you can think of a good question, we can ask the next guy.
Because Jared McCartney had a great one, not the pedal note one.
This one, in your house, do you have any like stolen or what's in your house
that belongs to a band that shouldn't be there?
Have you got something? think i don't think i have anything at the moment great
(26:19):
answer that's a really good answer yeah,
have you still got like a hobart uniform or something yeah i've got i don't
have a hobart uniform i think they just wear blacks i think it's from memory
yeah i have my glenorky uniform but i'm still playing with them so i i'll hold
on to that until they that's legal ask for it again.
No, I think I gave her everything back when I moved up here.
(26:43):
What about triangle beaters? And I haven't taken anything from Flitz Gray.
But since we're in the Flitz Gray store, is there anything that you like the look of?
There's a nice Glock back there. I could walk out with that.
No, I don't miss it. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, take that. Triangle beaters.
I mean, I technically have triangle beaters that I didn't pay for and a triangle.
But it's weird and I need to follow it up because it's been like three years.
(27:06):
No, don't follow it up. It's yours now. But no, I'm pretty sure they were a
gift and he just didn't want to say it because Dan Brown walked into rehearsal
and went, I have a spare triangle that I don't particularly enjoy and a spare set of beaters.
I'll let you know how much I want for them. And I followed up about three times
over three months and it's been two years and I assume they're just mine now.
(27:29):
Yeah. Well, maybe they're really, really expensive and he hasn't told you yet.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll get an invoice. Yeah, exactly. With interest.
Cause don't you always end up with like sticks, like other people's sticks and
stuff and, or maybe like actual professional percussion players don't steal
each other's sticks like I do.
I'm really anxious about my sticks.
(27:51):
So when I, when I pack up after things, I'm always, I grab my stuff first and
then I worry about what's left, which I think everyone should do.
I think that's the best way to do it.
Where's my tuba? Oh my gosh. Oh, I dropped that.
But yeah i've i've had times where people have
just thrown things like there are some people who just want to throw everything in
(28:12):
one bag and then we have to fight over it
at the end and it's just a mess yep that would be stressful i feel like logistics
of like percussion movements and instruments like especially i remember the
anzac day street march last year and it's like well who's getting the percussion
there where's percussion what's going to be where is it and it just all ended
up in the back of my car i was like okay good drop it back at the band hall Okay.
(28:33):
And you're a best percussionist, so good to answer this.
What's the noisiest thing that's fallen over? And we touched on it before.
So you had your tubular bells fall over. Has anything else? Like,
have you ever made something fall over?
Crash cymbal. A stick. What have I made fall over? Wind chimes.
I've knocked over wind chimes. Yeah. They're pretty noisy. I've dropped cymbals.
(28:54):
I don't think I've had anything bad happen in performances, like dropping-wise. Mm-hmm.
Have you had the end of a stick fly off yet? No, I had a rehearsal, and it went through.
It was one of those stands with the holes in them, and it went through it. Really? Wow!
And it just hit the guy in front of me. That was really upsetting. That's amazing. Yeah.
Like a jack stick. I think he thought I meant to do it.
(29:16):
Couldn't have meant to do it if you tried, yeah. That's amazing.
But yeah, I suck at gripping my sticks.
So there's a lot of drop sticks and I always forget that band rooms are always
carpeted and then you go on stage and it's not and it makes a lot of noise,
which is an issue when sometimes I plan to just drop sticks and then I get there
(29:37):
and it's wood and I'm like, I can't do that anymore.
Yeah, that must be stressful. You go, Tim. Do you look like you were going to
ask a question? No, no, I was waiting for you to ask an intelligent question.
Oh, that's so rude. What's your favorite instrument, Jamie?
Or what instrument do you think is the best instrument? You can pick from percussion.
(29:57):
Normally we say you're not allowed to pick your own, but you've got a lot.
So that's an interesting, what's your best, what's your favourite one?
I think trombone. Trombone! You could have picked like a triangle.
Anyway, but no, trombone. Yeah, all right.
No, trombone I think is actually my favourite instrument. If I could play trombone, I would.
It's not very hard. I've seen trombone played out there. Yeah,
never too late to learn. No, I have one and I can't. Oh, really?
(30:19):
Yeah, not in Melbourne, but there's videos of me just going,
and that's about the end of it.
Yeah, I picked up a crappy one for like $60. Yeah, cool. And it is a trombone.
I want to get somewhere with percussion and then pick it up and join a community band, I think.
Yeah, well, you should degrade a brass band called Harmony.
(30:41):
What do you think, Robin? You have to read Treble Clef. Yeah,
I mean, enough people go the other, enough hacks are like, I could just play
percussion and go back there and bang away at stuff that you should go the other
way and show them how it feels, right?
I could. If you love the sound of an instrument, you should go for it.
Well, that's what Steve Semelafar did. He was playing in Footscrayon Percussion.
(31:01):
Then now he's playing flugel.
Over the course of like 10 years of learning how to play. Yeah.
You've got your whole life ahead of you to learn a new skill, right?
Never too young. Yeah. What? The other one.
The one that means you can learn anything. Great question, Robyn.
That's why I want to inspire everyone. If you're listening on the podcast,
you're like, I would love to play the blah.
(31:23):
Go and just do it. Be inspired by me. It's really, I think it's pretty straightforward to pick one up.
Robin, as someone who's conducting a D-grade band and who has taught a bit of
music, how many months do you reckon you'd need to be learning for from zero
to playing a concert or playing at a competition?
If you're an adult beginner and you're going to practice twice a week for half an hour a week.
(31:50):
Well, just come along. Like the best time to start would be even if you knew nothing about it.
As long as you're not on a part by yourself, a trombone is the one you could
sit next to someone and you just copy their slide, right?
Yeah. Because it's very obvious. It's pretty easy, right? Yeah,
because like they're moving and you're moving and if you're not moving at the
same time, you're probably not right.
I mean, that's how people used to learn like none of this like fancy instrumental teacher stuff.
(32:13):
Like they'd just chuck a kid in the back and you'd just kind of watch and learn and listen.
If you can read music, because I used to teach like, really beginners,
if you can read music, that's like three quarters of the battle.
You kind of know how it's supposed to sound. It's just training your actual
lips to make the sounds really.
And if you do that by sitting next to someone, copying their slide,
there you go, it's pretty easy. We take all sorts.
(32:35):
So if someone's out there listening and wants to learn an instrument,
six months tops, you'd be on stage.
Get on stage, yeah. Get on stage whenever you want. Go for broke.
There you go. We had a guy, yeah, he played the piano and his son was conducting
conducting our band, his name's Mark, and he was like, I need more tenor horns.
And he just got his dad in. His dad had never played a brass instrument before and just made him play.
(32:58):
And now he's also now he's moved on to tuba because then his son said,
now we need a tuba and we've got enough horns.
He's been in the band like 15 years. He's a great man. And I think you've just
got to go thrown in the deep end.
It's very difficult to just learn an instrument of your own volition, right?
Like there's all these people that say, I'm going to learn the guitar.
But you have to force yourself to go to a rehearsal and have that accountability, right?
(33:21):
That's my rant. Accountability. If you've got to look up to a rehearsal and
you can't play your part, yeah, not a good feeling. Just go.
Yeah, love it. Yeah, I've had bad experiences with that. I've heard it's not a good feeling. Jamie.
Have you ever played You're a Dragon? I did. I did the wind band version last year.
(33:43):
We love the wind band version, don't we, Tim? We love the wind band version.
I mean, we played it last year too.
The saxophone solo in the second movement, I'm like, it should be a trombone, but I do love it.
I did the middle movement with
Darabin for one of their, I think it was a concert with the Welsh choir.
Oh, cool. And they did the middle movement of Hero of the Dragon with Harrison
(34:03):
playing the bone solo. Very nice. It was amazing.
That could actually, if you had like a good choir, that could sound cool as
a choral arrangement, I reckon.
Yeah. I don't know who would. We can try it out at the end of this episode Oh
no I can't remember Is that a disclaimer I should put up?
(34:23):
A lot of bands played Year of the Dragon last year It's like why didn't you
play it this year? Guys, everyone missed this great opportunity Didn't they?
It's terrible, we'll have to get in touch with Philip Spark.
We should have done a like- Hi, Philip. We're Facebook friends. We did a mass ban.
Could we get everyone to play it at the same time and get like 1,000 people
(34:45):
playing Year of the Dragon?
1,000 people. Could we ban Adam Brathwaite at the same time?
And it'll just sound like awful. That'd be really together.
Year of the Dragon. What's your very, very favorite piece, Jamie?
I'm going off script. Sorry. I think it's Peg. Yep. I'm torn between like this.
(35:06):
I could go for a Tchaikovsky symphony or I could go for PAG.
And I think it's PAG. I have the PAG score.
That's good. Yeah. Take that, Tchaikovsky. Yeah.
Well, he's a free. That's a free thing now. Yeah.
But yeah, it's, I don't know. It just, it's so.
It's a beautiful piece of music. It also just has good, good memories.
(35:26):
Like my first nationals and i was the youngest in the band by a long shot yeah and i just kind of,
got absorbed into this group of people of banding
people i think that's a big thing in
bands and like when because you know i've played at a lot of nationals
now and if i hear the test
(35:47):
piece from a from a certain year i'm like ah that piece of music was i was playing
with these people and we went to that place and all of these fun stuff happened
and then i couldn't play that note but it's like oh it's it's the music that
ends the memories as well with it so yeah yeah i think you're spot on and there's
pieces like no i've come titan's progress that's the name of it that i.
(36:07):
I got absolutely demolished in rehearsal because i was a a kid who thought he
could get away without practicing not that piece yeah and there was about four
weeks in a row that i I just couldn't play this one bit.
And Simon, the conductor at the end, Simon Reid,
gave this big speech to the band, but it was very much to me,
(36:31):
about how we needed to know our notes and listen to it, and if we can't play
a passage, we need to be able to practice it.
And since then, I have never not known my notes before I walk into a rehearsal.
Thank you, Simon. Yeah, thanks, Simon. And now he trusts me to come into his
bands with no rehearsal.
Okay. Okay, have you got any questions? What should we ask the next person?
(36:54):
Oh, yeah, do you have a question that you would like people to answer?
Sums up, Brian. This is just my own curiosity, but when you see percussionists
play, what do you think of as a hard part?
That's interesting. When I see percussionists play, I think percussionists can
be, like, really obviously physically expressive when they're playing because,
(37:16):
like, they're the only people really moving on the stage. so that I think that
you can add, percussionists can add a lot of drama to what goes on.
What looks hard, I don't know, it depends on the player. Sometimes you can tell
someone's playing something hard.
And often it's like that's a mallet thing where there's like a lot of stress
and reading going through.
(37:36):
And that's, I think a lot of the difficulty can be taken out by just not making it look like it's hard.
Yeah. That's what I do in Footscray. And I've had a couple of people come up
to me and ask me, you just like, you just look so relaxed and you play all the
notes. And I'm like, yes, if I don't worry about hitting the right notes and
just trust that they're going to happen, I'm more likely to hit them.
Yes. So I just stand there and do my thing and move on and fix anything if it didn't work. Yep.
(38:02):
No, I think that's right. Like you need to care sometimes before you get to
rehearsal and care enough to put the work in and then hopefully you get to rehearsal,
you get to a performance and you just know that you've done the work.
So you just can do your regular thing and it's going to be really good.
It's a good way to be. That's how you are, Robin, isn't it? When you play,
you just know it's going to be really good. Yeah.
I like it when they hold more than two sticks. That impresses me.
(38:26):
Is that what you're asking? That is very impressive. They're like Edward Scissorhands.
They're in their little crevices.
There's nothing quite like double sticking and double fisting in the crevices all at once, Robyn.
When I see percussionists with more than two sticks, I always go,
ooh, that's like, that's next level, guys. That's pretty exciting.
Oh, I like it when they make the drumsticks sound cool. That's nice. Nice.
(38:49):
I think the shaker, the egg shakers. Oh, yeah. Like that's, yeah.
They are so difficult. Like, I'm not even kidding.
Vibrato in the air. Like when they just get that perfect triangle thing. I don't know.
Yeah. And you've got to like let the sound go out. Yeah.
Yeah. You see me do that a lot in Foursquare. There's a lot of me just getting bored and just.
(39:13):
Manipulating the air, like the last airbender. Is that what the airbender does?
Sound travels through air.
It does. Masters of the air. It does make a difference when you're next to it.
But to most people, the sound, they don't hear the decay.
So, like, it's not that big of a thing, but also you get laughs from the people
facing the right direction.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's entertaining and it adds to the drama, I think.
(39:36):
All right. Well, you guys look very tired and it's, like, getting pretty late now.
So, maybe we should move on to what's happening in the next week.
How's your week looking ahead? Yeah, do you, what's happening next?
I guess you've got your second date, Annem. Second date, Annem!
Yeah, there's not a whole lot on.
There's not a whole lot on. It's just a lot of practice, really.
(39:57):
There's a couple of, like, welcome to the school things, but it's mainly just...
And the campus is at, like, the Abbotsford Convent, is it?
Yeah, so there's one at the convent, and there's one about a five-minute walk away on Marine Parade.
And the one on Marine Parade is where all the nice percussion gear is,
and it has all the percussion practice rooms. Great. What's happening for you this week, Robin?
(40:19):
I'm supposed to go to a Granger rehearsal if you're going, I'll go too.
Yeah, I'll go if you go. Hi, Roland. There was a bit of a like,
you know, the guy was like, can you fill in for me in wind band?
I said, fine, but also can you play my wind band at Nationals?
It's like that's a way bigger favourite for me, so now I feel bad,
so I better go to his rehearsal in Ashley. Quid pro quo.
(40:42):
Yeah. What about you guys? Are you guys on two rehearsals a week?
Pretty smashing it. it yeah i think i think i
wasn't really paying attention at the end of rehearsal i'm pretty sure i've got to come
to like a low-end section on thursday night i think that's
i think that's what's going on yeah so i haven't been to a thursday at
all this monday mondays are sort of yeah so i think this week for me i've got
(41:02):
to do a maybe a rehearsal wednesday night robin then maybe a low-end on thursday
night so by by thursday i should be sounding really good because i'll have like
played a few times this week but i am practicing this year i'm practicing i
took my my mouthpiece to Indonesia with me and I was buzzing over there,
even without the internet.
Good for you. I'm still not. It's a plastic mouthpiece. I still need to practice.
I'll do like maybe one session before Nationalist. That'll be fine.
(41:24):
That's enough, right? I think Granger's playing Holst's first suite in E flat,
so you better. I can do that. Yeah, I saved that in high school. That's all right.
I'll play that from memory. Sweet.
She's still got it. She's still got it. Yeah. Yeah, it's in E-flat.
Musical genius. I think it starts on an E-flat.
(41:45):
I think we'll be all right. Yeah. Root.
All right. Okay, I think, how are we going to finish this one,
Robyn? We need to sing something.
Well, we should sing Paganini. I should sing Paganini. We could sing some Pag. Which bit?
I mean, the openings. Okay. Big and loud and dramatic. Yeah. Yeah.
(42:07):
Well, thanks everyone for listening. Catch us again soon. Here we go.
Okay. That hasn't happened yet.
(42:34):
Music.
Repeat. Bye everyone. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Bye.
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