A band went back to real drums, I went back to walking, and only one of us came home with a mandolin story.
BIRMINGHAM, England – I decided to walk to the rehearsal because the bus came with a pushchair, a ladder and a man eating a whole roast chicken, and I am not made for that sort of ambition before ten in the morning.
The walk is two and a half miles, which is almost exactly the length of a bad argument with an editor and about the right length for thinking. I carry a practice pad, a pair of sticks and a bag of carrots I forgot to take out of the tote. This will matter later.
Leaving: The Canal and the Quiet
The towpath at that hour belongs to joggers, herons and people who work from home and wish to be seen working. I walk behind a man talking into his headphones about “deliverables.” A swan watches me from the water with the contempt of a creature that has never been asked to meet a deadline.
I use the time to read on my phone, which is dangerous on a towpath. The first thing I find is an English-language interview with Editors in Il Foglio, in which the band explain that their eighth album, Surface, Echo and Sound, came out on the 30th of October and was recorded with real drums, bass, acoustic guitars and a mandolin. It follows three records, In Dream, Violence and EBM, that leaned towards the electronic.
The same piece says Tom Smith wrote much of it at home in Gloucestershire, with the band staying in the house, and that the group see their music as a form of escapism rather than a direct commentary on world conflict. I find that comforting. I too would like to escape from the world, ideally to a house in Gloucestershire with a mandolin and a toasted sandwich maker.
Mid-Morning: Raymond and the Practice Pad
My first lesson is with Raymond, a retired joiner who took up the drums at an age when most people take up gardening. He is magnificent. He hits the pad with the care of a man hanging a door he knows will be inspected, and every stroke lands exactly where he meant it to.
The trouble is the count. Raymond can hit anything, but he cannot yet hit it at the right moment. “It’s just that the one and the two keep arriving separately,” he says, and I write it down, because it is the truest description of rhythm I have ever heard.
I tell him to imagine a drum machine, which never wobbles, and to do the opposite. He asks whether drum machines can have soul, and I laugh until I realise that is a question I have actually read about this week.
Midday: The Soul of the Machine
It was in the UK Jazz News round-up at the end of October, which links to an interview with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson in theartsdesk. In it, he says, “I personally think that drum machines have soul.” I have been carrying that line around like a pebble in a shoe ever since.
The same newsletter mentions Mark Zandveld, the inventor of a bass and cello hybrid called the Bace, who was interviewed on The Instrument Makers Podcast. I would very much like to hear a Bace. I would also like to hear someone try to carry one onto a bus.
The Il Foglio piece adds that the band use artificial intelligence mainly as a search tool, and do not see it as a replacement for the creative work of writing songs. That seems a sensible place to stand. My own pupils use a chatbot to ask what a key signature is, and then they hum at it, which is the correct response.
Afternoon: The Hall and the Ensemble
I run a beginners’ ensemble in a school hall on the other side of the ring road. It is eleven adults, a caretaker named Alan who has opinions about the radiators, and a piano nobody is allowed to open. Today our goal is to play four bars together and finish at the same time.
That goal has been shrinking all term. When we began, the aim was to win the local community festival. By October the aim was to survive it. I thought of the farm.fm piece about rural America tiring of winning and trying survival instead, which sounds like the motto of every beginners’ band I have ever led.
We play. Raymond keeps time on a cardboard box, because the drum kit is locked in a cupboard that Alan will only open after being asked three times, politely. For the first time ever the ensemble finishes together. The final chord lasts about a second and a half, and there is a silence afterwards, and then somebody drops a flute.
A band with a long career can go back to real drums and call it a bold new direction. A hall full of beginners can go back to a cardboard box and call it Tuesday.
Walking Back: The Carrots
On the towpath again I discover the carrots, still in the bag. The swan is waiting. I give it one, and it eats the carrot with the same face it used on me earlier, and then walks off in a direction that suggests I have been dismissed.
My editors at The London Prat once told me that the best diary entries are the ones where nothing happens and everyone feels something. If you want to know what they mean, the British Onion page and this explanation of what commentary is and is not will tell you better than I can.
I get home as it gets dark, put the practice pad on the table, and play one soft stroke on it. It is not perfect, and I leave it exactly as it is.
You can find more of my daily notes at The London Prat, and not one of them has been delivered by a machine.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/