The Year

"The Year" was the title of a series of radio programmes broadcast on Radio 3 at the turn of the millennium. There were 100 of them, each covering the music of a single year during the twentieth century, describing significant new pieces of music and setting them in a social and historical context. I recorded quite a few on cassette tapes and still dip into them. I look round in horror to discover that more than ten years have gone by since making those recordings and that cassette tapes are defunct and mp3 downloads, iplayers and Kindles rule.  What will it be like ten years from now?

I've been able to witness a gradual change in the Newent Orchestra over that period of time, particularly in recent years when the membership and concert audiences have grown. The growth in membership has reached a point where a long-standing rehearsal venue at Upleadon has become too small and the orchestra will begin its next season by moving rehearsals to a new venue, the Newent Centre, close to the town's main thoroughfare. The orchestra has played there in years before my time so this is a move that means the orchestra is coming home.

Duck! Eggs

It's taken me months to find out how to make the bass line in my Finale music software programme sound like an electric bass and not like a double bass played pizzicato. The way it all went right was thus: I put a couple of duck eggs on to boil in the kitchen then went back to the sofa to continue working on the problem and forgot about the eggs.  Half an hour later, there was a loud eggsplosion as they exited from the saucepan. At the very moment this occurred I discovered how to get that electric bass sound. The two events must surely be connected.