Another great musical evening

In late July we held another enjoyable musical night, this time the theme was "The Beatles", so some classic 60s & 70s hits were trotted out and performed by Margaret (organ), Michele (keyboard) and myself (keyboard). That's us above, from left to right.

Many thanks go to Margaret's helpers on the night, Venette, Graham and Ben, and to all 20+ guests who sang and laughed, and to the wonderful Gina, whose sponge-cake disappeared within a few seconds of it appearing on the table!!

We are now looking forward to the ABBA night next year but before that we will have another Christmas repertoire to practise.

December - Rounding out the year.

The last activities for the year......which were certainly more pleasant than what happened on November 7th.!

CHRISTMAS DAY
December the 25th. was hot and steamy so a planned luncheon of cold turkey, ham and salads, finished with a traditional plum pudding, was right on the ball.

Venette was the hostess and we each brought part of the meal, so the responsibility for catering was shared amongst we five.

The afternoon kicked off at midday with drinks and nibbles and by 3:30 PM, when we were relaxing after clearing the table, an approaching storm-front, and a warning from the bureau of possible hail, brought the festivities to an end.

 

It was a lovely Christmas Day.

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AN EVENING OF CHRISTMAS CAROLS

On the 10th. of December we had a musical evening, under the "baton" of Michele (of Michele Saunders Music Studio - my teacher), with three of us on keyboards & organ and vocalist Connor Wilmore leading the singing.

It was a great night, with everyone joining in and was capped off by the service of drinks, a delicious buffet served up by Venette, Ben and Graham and a dessert of the lightest creamy sponge cakes in the world provided by Gina.

Music! Music! Music!

Margaret, Me and Michele, our patient music teacher!

What a wonderful night we had on Saturday (9th. September) when we had a "Fifties" musical evening at the home of very good friend, Margaret, here in Yamba.

Twenty guests were invited by our hostess and a selection of Fifties pops were performed by both our ensemble (Marg on organ, Michele and I on Yamaha keyboards) and also individual presentations by Margaret and myself.
The musical "menu" consisted of the following classic pop-music items:-

• Theme from "A Summer Place" (Margaret)
• Love Is A Many-Splendoured Thing (Margaret)
• Medley of Mona Lisa, Bluberry Hill & The Twelfth Of Never (Bruce)
• A "sing-along" of Rock Around The Clock & Rockin' Robin (Michele on organ))
• Fly Me To The Moon (Margaret)
• Ensemble performance of Singin' The Blues, Love Me Tender & Music! Music! Music!
• Bye, Bye Love (Bruce)
• Diana (Bruce)
• Chanson d'Amour (Bruce)
• Catch A Falling Star (Margaret)
• A "sing-along" of See You Later, Alligator (Michele on organ).

The musical evening was rounded out with a menu of "Fifties-style" dishes which included such delights as cheese cubes & cocktail onions on sticks, bacon & prune delicacies on sticks, beef stroganoff & rice and finished off with desserts of bread-and-butter pudding and ginger & fig pudding with cream.

Excellent! Thanks go to Venette, Graham and Ben.

It was a really fun evening and I am delighted that just over a year-and-a-half ago I had the opportunity to become one of Michele's students.

I love being able to "make music". 😃

Trying to be a kool-kat! (Fifties-speak!). Keyboard is Yamaha PSR E443

An Evening of Christmas Music

I was invited to perform a piece of Christmassy music at a recent gathering of friends and acquaintances at the home of the same lady who hosted a similar evening last September.

So armed with my Yamaha PSR E-443 electronic keyboard and the song  - Handel's "Joy To The World" - firmly locked down in my head I duly presented my arrangement of the classic piece.
(Note that it is ascribed to Handel; there is no clear evidence that he actually composed it.)

Back: Michele & Conner. Front: Bruce & Margaret.

Michele is my teacher, Connor is a young man (last year of high school next year) with an amazing voice and Margaret is a good friend, a fellow music (electronic organ) student of Michele and our wonderful hostess for the evening.

A great time and I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I continue to obtain a huge amount of pleasure and satisfaction from my music and the lessons, which now total 40 since February of this year.

We have a six-week break during the annual summer holidays until the end of January and over that time I will continue to practise and also revise the lessons of the past year.

Learning to play the piano.....properly!

For some years I've been able to play an electronic keyboard by ear and to use the automatic accompaniment, but I've never been able to read music or to play left-hand chords.

This all started to change in February of this year, when I commenced piano lessons with Michele Saunders Music Studio, here in Yamba. In fact, the studio is literally 100 metres from our front gate. How good is that?!

I have a Yamaha E443 electronic keyboard which has lots of bells and whistles but which, at the touch of a button, reverts to what is effectively a 61-key piano.

Lessons are half-an-hour per week and I am now coming up to my 30th. lesson. That's 15 hours of tuition in total over the past eight months and I am enjoying every second of the experience.

I never had the time to do this whilst I was working and helping to raise two children but now, in retirement, I have all the time in the world.

I practice at least an hour a day....not necessarily all in one go; some days I'll have a half-hour session, other days I'll be sitting at the keyboard for a couple of hours.

Last Saturday night I had my first "public" performance - at the home of a very dear friend (Margaret) who plays the organ beautifully and who hosted an evening of light classical music for about twenty or so friends.
There were four musicians - Michele (on guitar...her expertise is boundless), Margaret on her electronic organ, myself on my Yamaha keyboard and a gentleman by the name of Peter who plays a Kawai electronic piano (88 keys). Peter and his wife Claire were visiting for a week...and the stay included  several music sessions with Michele.

Peter is blind, is 83 and Michele is his music teacher.....his remote music teacher, because he lives north of Brisbane and Michele coaches him via the internet.
Yes, that's correct........and we believe it is a unique arrangement.

Here is a photo of three of us....Michele, Margaret and myself...........

 And another which includes Peter...........

I couldn't live happily without music.....and to be able to learn to read and play it from such a lovely and encouraging teacher as Michele is one of life's bonuses.

Digitising LPs and Cassettes

All the images will enlarge when clicked.

 

People of my age were raised on recorded music that was available in two mediums (or 'media', if you are pedantic!): vinyl records and the later cassette tapes.

When CDs came into vogue (circa 1983 here in Australia) the three formats ran side-by side for some years until first vinyl records (45s and LPs) were phased out then, much more recently, the cassette tape disappeared.

So the population gradually changed over to CDs, building up a new library but in the meantime the LPs were rarely played and ended up gathering dust in the corner of the living room and the stereo-system made way for a new system that featured a CD player in place of the turn-table.

Roll the clock forward to the 21st. century and the evolution of computer technology and we now have a situation where those old recordings - vinyl and cassettes - can be played, recorded, converted into digital format and more than 2000 individual songs stored in such a way that they can be carried in a shirt pocket in the form of an eight-gigabyte USB stick.

Over the past few months I've been doing exactly that for people who have dusty LPs and cassettes that have not been played for years.

Those people are now able to listen once again to the favourite music from their younger years and can do so in the home, in the car, when travelling on public transport or when out-and-about cycling, walking, hiking, climbing mountains or jumping off cliffs!

Many folk have asked me how this process is carried out, so I thought I'd give a thumbnail description as follows below.

Firstly, it's necessary to play the record (or cassette) and record the tracks whilst it is playing.

One minute of playing time equates to exactly one minute of recording time; there is no shortcut.

So the record is popped onto the turntable (or the cassette into a special USB-output cassette player).

I prefer to use a Dual 1229 turntable from the 1970s, which had a very good reputation for quality output and accurate speed and mine is fitted with the type of Shure cartridge and stylus recommended by the manufacturer back in the day.

I use the Dual if I am planning on doing something else whilst the record is playing because I can walk away and leave it, knowing that it will shut off (and the recording software on the computer will do likewise) when the record has finished playing.

The output of the turntable is connected to that little black box in the corner......

This device takes the analog signal coming from the record and passes it in digital format to the software used on the computer via a USB outlet in the NAD and a corresponding port on the PC.

At the same time I also take a feed out of the NAD device to the stereo amplifier seen in the first photograph, in this case a lovely 1970s Pioneer SX-750 which has given me excellent service for the past decade.

I don't need to do this but sometimes I just play a record for the sake of listening to a record, so it's easy to have a permanent connection to the stereo system

If I don't have anything else to do whilst a record is being digitised and if I'm happy to pick up the arm when the record comes to the end, I may use the Pro-Ject Genie turntable seen below............

This is a manual unit, where the arm is picked up and placed on the record and then manually removed when the record comes to the end of the last track, and features the recommended Ortofon cartridge and stylus.

Irrespective of which turntable is used, once a side has been played and recorded the LP is flipped over and the same procedure gets underway for the second side.

This technique also applies to cassettes.

The software program (Vinyl Studio) displays details about the record/cassette, which are input by the user.

 

Once recording is finished the saved digital file is taken into another program (Audacity) for editing.

Many records have accumulated dust and scratches over the years which result in "pops and clicks" being evident in the playback.

With an editing suite it is surprising how many of these extraneous noises can be removed without otherwise affecting the quality of the recording.

The editing program displays the recording as a linear graph........

The start of the record is at the extreme left-hand side, the long "lumps" are the tracks (in this example there are six) and the short, narrow bits are the transitions between one track and the next on the record.

This example also shows that the record (Paul Mauriat's "Mauriat Magic") was in stereo - the top trace is the left channel and the bottom trace is the right channel.

If you look closely you may also see several spikes - single straight lines - which project from the tracks.

These are sharp noises most often due to damage and or dirt in the track and are usually capable of being removed.

I will run the recorded file through a filter, selectable in the software, to remove the noises above a certain level.

Once filtered I then break the recording into its separate tracks, naming each one exactly as they are named on the LP (or cassette), and save them as individual MP3 files.

Then the last step is ready to place in operation and that is burning a CD, for which yet another computer program (Sonic) is used..............

This allows the CD to be created as either a conventional audio CD or one which is played in a computer.

The edited files are taken into the program, a CD placed into the CD drive and ten minutes later out comes a modern recording of an LP last played 30 years ago.

If the owner prefers to have the files stored on a USB stick rather than burned to a CD then the final step is much faster as it then just becomes a simple matter of copying the files across to the stick - in essence, just another minute or so.

To digitise an LP (or cassette) from go to whoa can take around an hour, sometimes longer if there are more than six tracks per side (or more than 30 minutes per side for a cassette).

It's an interest that I enjoy doing; it's very rewarding seeing the smiles when people know that they can once again listen to their favourite recordings.

And it keeps me off the streets.

ANZAC Day - 100th. Commemoration

The 25th. of April 2015 marked a century since the landings in the Dardenelles by British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops.
In commemoration and remembrance of that day, the local theatrical group presented a special one-hundredth anniversary performance at the Maclean Civic Centre.

Below are some photographs taken during that performance.
I don't know the names of the performers, other than that of my sister, but I'm sure that the participants, their family and friends will be able to pick out faces in the cast.

All photos will enlarge when clicked.

The full ensemble.

"Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major"

"I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair", from South Pacific.

Members of the cast in the finale.

 

 

A selection of favourite songs from WW1 and WW2.

The female prisoners' choir.

The finale.

A wonderful performance by a lot of very talented - and dedicated - people.

Returning to broadcasting

UPDATE 14-October-2012
On-air sessions: Mondays 0900 - 1200 and Fridays 1400 - 1700

Back between December 2002 and January 2006 I had a two-hour radio show with local Community Radio station Valley FM 89.5.
The show centred on music from the 1960s, although the edges were fuzzy and included stuff from the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. "Easy Listening" music also formed a part, as did old BBC radio shows such as "Hancock's Half-hour", "Round The Horne", "Take It From Here" and "The Goon Show".

I received a lot of enjoyment from doing my thing and I know, from what feedback I had, that others also enjoyed hearing the type of music that we listened to every day as teenagers and young adults back in the 1960s.

In 2006 I re-entered the conventional "nine-to-five" workforce and dropped the show which at that time was being aired between 3:00 and 5:00 PM.

Just recently I retired after 48 years as a full-time employee and had the opportunity and desire to return to Valley FM and resurrect what I was presenting six years ago.
With over 200 LPs and a similar number of CDs, the contents of many of which I have converted to MP3s, the resources are capable of providing "Baby Boomer" material for some time to come, and that is the name I've chosen for this current foray into community radio.

We were very fortunate to have been born in what became known as the "Baby-Boom" period, the era usually considered to be between 1943 and 1960, coined by author Landon Jones in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation.
This is an era in which music (amongst other things like fashions and social mores) changed dramatically, in both who was creating it and who was listening to it.
And it was sparked by the invention and mass production of a tiny electronic device - the transistor.

Until radios became portable - and that was only possible with the introduction of transistors, printed circuit boards and small batteries - music was heard on large mantle or console radios or played on gramophones/radiograms - furniture pieces - utilising large 78 rpm bakelite records.
So it was the adults who were not only the producers of popular music (large bands and orchestras with vocalists) but also the buyers of the records and the devices on which they were played.

The transistor changed all that because music became portable (and cheaper) at the same time as younger performers started doing their thing. They go hand-in-hand.
With music now being targeted at the younger generation, who could now listen to it on their transistor radios and play the new smaller and lighter 45rpm records on their portable record players, the Baby-Boomers determined the future of the music industry.
Once a young man by the name of Bill Haley came up with "Shake, Rattle & Roll" (1954) and then "Rock Around The Clock" (1955), popular music and radio became a whole new ball game and our parents coined the term "generation gap"!

We Baby-Boomers can feel very proud of our status.
We have had a profound effect on music and what started over 50 years ago is the basis for popular music today. Wonderful songs and arrangements were composed and written back in those fabulous 1960s and they continue to provide pleasure to our generation.
I like to think that when I am in a nursing home, instead of singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", we will be having sing-songs which include "It's Been A Hard Day's Night"!

My new show - now dubbed "The Baby-Boomer Show" - commenced yesterday, going to air between 9:00 and 12:00 midday, which will be the timeslot until the end of the month, when it will probably start an hour or so later.
I will update this information when that occurs.

Internet streaming is currently being tested by the station management.
Once it becomes established then no matter where you are located, if interested you will be able to listen to the programmes on your home or laptop computer via the internet - both of which, incidentally, were invented by baby-boomers.

My You Tube stuff.

Not everyone's cup of tea, by any stretch of the imagination, but my music tastes tend to lean towards the so-called "Easy Listening" genre (although I do consider myself to have rather eclectic tastes in music).

Being as I am from the Vinyl Age, I do have a large collection of these 12" discs from the 1960's and 1970's - the pre-CD era in the progression of mankind.

I have (and continue to do so as time allows) made digital recordings (MP4's) of many tracks from various LP's and uploaded these to my channel on You Tube, where you will find arrangements from such notables as Dudley Moore and his trio, Andre Previn, Joe Harnell, Percy Faith and others, some well known, some obscure (such as Jonathan & Darlene Edwards).

If this is your thing, then you are welcome to meander into this You Tube address. 

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For those who may be interested in the "how does he do it?" technical stuff associated with the recording:-

The vinyl is played on a conventional turntable (1970s to 1980s versions)...I have a couple.

The analogue signal is then input via a NAD PP3 USB Preamp to my PC and the incoming sound is recorded as a digital WAV file using VinylStudio.

That digital file is then converted to an MP3 file using either GoldWave or Audacity editing suites.

Finally, to create a file format acceptable for You Tube, an MP4 audio/video file is created with VideoPad video editor or Microsoft's "Movie maker" before uploading to You Tube.

A Fine Frenzy, indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I heard a track from this CD a couple of weeks ago (thanks, Tom) and enjoyed it so much that I was prompted to buy the album.
It is not available in Australia over-the-counter, so it had to be ordered in for me from the US of A.

If your music tastes include Dido then you will most likely enjoy the words and music of Alison Sudol, the young lady of the striking red hair and beautiful voice. Great arrangements, backings and accompaniments. Certainly a very Fine Frenzy.