Ashford Sinfonia

Reading music is like reading a second language. When you are reading a second language, your brain equates the words you are reading to the words you know from your mother tongue, whether consciously or not. When you are reading music, your brain must equate the symbol on the page to a note or finger position in the same way.

If reading music is like reading a second language, then transcribing music is like translating from one language to another. It is not often the case that the music available for an orchestra is written in the correct key for every instrument. I play a B flat clarinet and sometimes find myself reading music written in A or C. This means that the notes I see on the page are not the notes I must play! To keep it as simple as possible, I imagine I am playing in a different language to that in which I normally play and ‘translate’ the notes as I go.

To go one step further, moving from one second language to another after a long day is like switching gears in your brain. Similarly, moving between transcribing music from A and transcribing music from C from one piece to the next is like switching from French to German – neither of them are my native tongue and I don’t always know all the words, meaning I can get tongue-tied!

Jenni Lock

As has become our norm, the summer concert consisted of lighter, shorter pieces of music. The exception this time was the first movement of a Beethoven piano concerto, which owing to issues with the soloist, had been postponed from our spring concert. As the concert fell on the same day as the World Cup final all the other pieces were loosely associated with football.

A few years ago some orchestra members came up with the idea of playing a piano concerto.  At the time I declined the chance because I don’t do classical piano. A few years later I was up for a challenge and wanting to put my playing to the test. So I began work on the first movement of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. The orchestra really rose to the demands of this piece and played large sections without a conductor. I think the listening skills of the orchestra will have improved a great deal as a result of playing this work. And I developed my piano playing through having to do disciplined practice. I hope the audience enjoyed our combined efforts. I couldn’t resist adding a little football into the cadenza.

I was really pleased that David was able to play Nessun Dorma as a horn solo. David joined the orchestra not long after I took over and his development has been part of his recovery following a stroke. It was obvious to me from day one that David is a fine musician and I was really pleased that he was able to show everyone his musicianship through his playing of this piece.

Capriccio Espagnol (Spain won the World Cup in 2010 and so at the time of playing still held the title) represented some of our best playing and I was especially pleased with our dynamic contrasts. Popular music made up the rest of the programme including a fun piece called Fiesta Tropicale which was a challenge for the orchestra with its variety of Latin rhythms. We had worked hard at this item which was well out of our collective comfort zone and we played it really well. My Mum liked this one.

Finally in the vain hope that England might have made it to the final I had selected We Are the Champions.  Alas, and entirely predictably, England had gone out early so there was no chance of England being champions, but we played it nonetheless.

When I nervously unpacked my violin case at Highworth School in early April, it was the first time I had played in an orchestra or ensemble for nearly forty years. And it was the first time I’d ever sat next to my younger sister – Carole Collins-Biggs – and done it. We reflected how pleased our long dead father, Ken Hillyer (1922-1997), himself an accomplished semi-pro folk fiddler, would have been to see us both there having a go.

My violin had languished in the back of a cupboard for decades until January this year. I once scraped through Grade 7 and Grade 8 but no one hearing and seeing my weak efforts now would believe it. It all ebbed away years ago when I had a young family, a full-time job and got Very Busy.

But I am improving. I made the decision seven months ago to have my instrument restored and to try to play it. I now practise between assignments. The children have long since grown up and gone but I am still Very Busy as a full-time journalist and author. Nonetheless if I keep my fiddle available in my office I find I can do half and hour here and there and it seems to pays off.

I re-awoke my fingers (and ear) via some of my father’s old folk tune books – lots of rapid arpeggios and scales in easy keys. Just what I needed. Then I found a teacher and he’s helping me to learn some of the current Grade 5 pieces – just for practice and fun. I’m not going back to exams at this point in my life. I’m booked on a string course at Benslow in the autumn too,

And I was persuaded by my sister to come along to Ashford Sinfonia. At my first attendance we hammered right the way through the first movement of Beethoven Piano Concerto number 1 in C under wonderful, encouraging Wes Carroll who played the solo line. What an experience. It might well have sounded dreadful (better I hope at the concert on July 13) but I shed a tear at the end. As a life long music lover, concert goer and Radio 3 listener, I know the concerto so well. I never dreamed that I’d be able to be even a tiny part of playing something like that – wrong notes and all – ever again. So exhilarating and moving. I was really quite blown away.

And hooked. So I’ll definitely be back next term for another fix – with like minded people who are warmly welcoming and never judgmental even when I make mistake after mistake.

Susan Elkin