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Flotsam and Jetsam

The excellent gift

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“The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value”.

Charles Dudley Warner

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Even those gentle readers who have been following these jottings since the get-go would be forgiven for not recalling the various pieces that I posted way back in 2012 concerning my search for – and subsequent purchase of – my first serious(ish) camera – the much appreciated little Fuji x10. This diminutive camera is getting a bit long in the tooth these days and – though I still use it regularly – it has on many occasions been usurped by the sheer convenience of the camera on whatever is my current cell phone. The choice has, of course, been hugely facilitated by the frankly amazing improvements in such phone cameras over the last decade.

I have, however, from time to time mulled over the prospect of upgrading to a better camera – not least on the several occasions during this last year on which The Girl asked me if I had ever contemplated so doing.

“Certainly…” – I reassured her – “but it isn’t something that is on my personal radar at the moment“. Too many other things on which to  focus.

The Girl – however – just loves to surprise me, particularly when she can do so to spectacularly dramatic effect. We had mutually agreed this year that our Christmas gift giving to each other would be restrained to the point of being positively abstemious. The impact was all the greater then – when after the expected exchange had been apparently completed – she completely stunned me by presenting me with a beautiful, shiny new camera.

Ladies and gentlemen – the Olympus OM-D E-M5 mk ii – complete with an Olympus 14-150mm telephoto lens!

For those interested in such things the OM-D E-M5 is a Micro Four Thirds compact mirror-less interchangeable lens camera. It has many of the features of a full DSLR but is smaller and lighter and considerably easier to carry when traveling. From my point of view it has the great benefit of having an electronic viewfinder (I wrote in my original postings on the x10 about my preference for the old-fashioned way of framing images).

The excellence of this gift does indeed lie in its appropriateness and The Girl – being who she is (excellent herself!) – does not do things by halves. She had spent a full three days online researching suitable cameras for me before venturing out to consult several of Victoria’s oldest established photographic outlets. Having finally found an ‘expert’ (hooray!) whose opinion she felt she could trust she made her decision – based on the sort of images that she knows I like to take.

Let us look a little more closely at those two images at the top of this post (you may wish to click on them to get the full effect):

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

These snaps of Mount Baker were taken from the same spot on our deck. The first I posted in the fall of last year. It was taken on full zoom and then cropped out of the resultant image – thus being enlarged further but with concomitant loss of detail. The second is the compete image – taken on the OM-D – at about 90% zoom.

I think that – considering the scale of the land in which we live – the gentle reader will be able easily to discern the benefits of having access to such a splendid device… once I have finished learning how to use it, of course!

Kudos to The Girl for having – as the aphorism goes – “knocked it out of the park!“.

Illustrating the story – 2

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Having described in my last post how we came to be lucky enough to have Martin Springett designing for us the cover of our new album – “Winter Blue and Evergreen” – this post demonstrates how Martin’s design evolved from the draft pencil drawing to the finished artwork.

Martin was generous enough to keep us informed throughout the process and watching the eventual artwork slowly emerge was a fascinating and valuable lesson.

From the draft Martin drew the final outline of cover in a larger form:

He then started to fill in the detailed shading – still working only in monochrome:


…until the final form was complete:


The image was then digitised and coloured on the computer. Doing so has the significant advantage that different colour values can be tried before the final version is settled upon. Martin also added the titling and borders to turn the wonderful image of the Goddess into a CD cover.

 

At this point the artwork was sent to us – in digital form – so that we could submit it to our chosen Digital Music distributor and to work it up into a cover for physical CDs:


Martin is in a position to be able to choose from whom he accepts commissions and we are greatly honoured that agreed to design and create our album artwork for us. Do check out Martin’s splendid website – as well as that of his band – The Gardening Club.

Illustrating the story – 1

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“Album covers are like any other vehicle, they are a means of illustrating a story”.

Peter Blake

The fabulous cover for our new CD – “Winter Blue and Evergreen” was created for us by Toronto-based musician and artist – Martin Springett.

That we ended up with such an excellent and fitting cover is entirely down to the Chanteuse. She describes how it came about:

“How I was connected with Martin is through a friend and work colleague of my husband’s named Joan Steacy.  Joan is an award-winning graphic novelist and instructor at Camosun College’s Comic and Graphic Arts program.  Joan was over one day and I had her listen to a track from the new ‘Anam Danu’ album.  She said the music reminded her of her friend Martin’s music, and then she explained that he was also fabulous graphic artist who had done album covers for his band, and other bands, as well as being a children’s book illustrator“.

The Chanteuse investigated Martin’s website and found that the style of his artwork fitted with thoughts that she already had in mind for the CD cover. Joan put the Chanteuse in touch with Martin – she called him and introduced us and asked if he might be prepared to take on a commission for us. Having listened to some of the tracks from our first release – “Winds of Change” – Martin most kindly and generously agreed to take on the project.

Martin and the Chanteuse engaged in an email exchange to determine the elements that the cover should include. Martin sent her examples of previous works in similar styles to those that they were discussing and the Chanteuse sent him images of Celtic designs that she had sourced.

Common ground having been agreed upon, Martin quickly came up with some initial ideas as to the form that the cover might eventually take. These lovely drawings show how it rapidly evolved. (Note that we had clearly at that point not settled on a final title for the album!).

 

 

 

Martin wrote of making the figure “more lively“; of creating “a big gesture that would flow across the square shape“. This is what he came up with:

 

We loved it and immediately gave it the thumbs up. We loved the flow and movement of the Goddess herself – we loved the elements of the circle of life that have been incorporated and we loved the way that Martin had pulled into the image ideas and themes that we had addressed in the songs on the album.

We eagerly anticipating seeing the finished cover. The process by which Martin turned his draft into the finished artwork will be the subject of my next post.

Every picture…

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…tells a story.

 

Well – part of one, at least!

So – what might be going in this particular picture then?

(You might wish to click on the image to see it in greater detail!)

I wrote in this forum a little earlier in the year about the wonderful live-streamed performance that we had enjoyed from the Old Vic in London of the late Brian Friel’s ‘Faith Healer‘ – one of my favourite plays.

Now – The Girl and I usually treat ourselves to a visit to the theatre at around this time of year, usually to take in something of a festive nature and very much as a prelude to the Christmas season itself.

This year, of course, there is not much on offer in this line – for the obvious reasons. The splendid Old Vic has – however – re-staged for live streaming Matthew Warchus’s production of Dickens’ immortal classic – ‘A Christmas Carol‘ – as adapted by Jack Thorne. We eagerly signed up to experience the production this Monday just past.

So – to the right of the picture above you can see our TV, showing the opening scenes of ‘A Christmas Carol‘. This is streaming live from London over Zoom. It is 7:00pm in London – 11:00am in Victoria.

To the left of the picture is our Christmas tree. That in itself has a tale behind it, which may be told in another post.

Through the windows one can see that the crisp morning air is filled with something else. Snow!

It is true that we don’t get much snow in Victoria – certainly when compared to other parts of Canada – but we do occasionally get things like this – a sudden, sharp and highly unpleasant snow storm with vigorous winds.

Now – the temperature outside on Monday was not particularly cold and, as a result, this snow was very wet. It came down hard and the gusting wind blew it into thick drifts covering everything in a short space of time. The snow froze on the branches of the many pine and fir tress in the surrounding areas and – assailed by the accompanying winds – brought down many sizeable branches, not least in our own garden.

At around midday – just as ‘A Christmas Carol’ had paused for its intermission – the power went out! This of course not only deprived us of the TV but also of our Internet connection. After some frantic scrabbling about we were able to watch the second half of the show – huddled closely together – on The Girl’s cell phone. Not quite the experience we had imagined, but we still gleaned enough to be moved anew by this excellent production.

The power was out for some four hours, as crews from BC Hydro struggled to fix the trail of faults that the storm left in its wake as it crossed the peninsula. The power finally came back on at around 4:00pm and – as it was by then getting dark – we breathed a sigh of relief.

Fifteen minutes later we heard a loud ‘bang’ from somewhere down the street. A transformer had blown and we were plunged once again into darkness. It is at a such times that we are extremely glad that we had gas installed in the house when we moved in. Our fire in the drawing room kept us warm and we were able to cook our supper on our gas range – by the light of the new LED headlamps that The Girl had thoughtfully and recently provided for just such occasions.

By the time the power came back on some three hours later the impetus to seize the day had somewhat evaporated, so it was not that long before we headed for bed.

Rather more ‘excitement’ for one day than we had anticipated!

Flying the nest

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Artwork by Martin SpringettSince my last update on the subject of the eagerly awaited new Anam Danu album – “Winter Blue and Evergreen” – much has occurred.

The tracks have passed through the mastering process described in my last update and have been assembled into an album. Final tweaks were made and all is now as good as we can get it.

We now have a splendid and beautiful cover for the CD – the which you can see at the top of this post. This lovely piece of work was created specially for us and I will pass on the full story of how it came to be in a subsequent post.

All of this goodness has been bundled up in the approved fashion and shipped off to our Digital Music Distributor of choice. All we can do now is to sit back and wait, because the process normally takes around three to four weeks. With Christmas looming it may even take a little longer – but as you all know: “All good things…”

Once all has been through the approval mill the album will become available through all the usual digital channels.

Finally – Anam Danu now has its own website, which can be found at:

Anamdanu.com

We are pretty pleased with the way that the website has turned out, but is is conspicuously lacking in any of the usual atmospheric band shots. The reasons for that are sadly obvious; in times of pandemic trying to organise a photo shoot runs that gamut from difficult to downright foolhardy.

The website will be kept up to date with all manner of musical goings-on as things progress. Needless to say one of the first things to look for there will be the firm release dates – once we know them – as well as details as to where to find the album.

The music on this album was very much born out of this most unfortunate year. Our hope is that in this manner (as of course in many others) something good will come from it.

The Lark Ascending

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My tastes in music are distinctly catholic; the same being true of both popular and classical repertoires. With regard to the latter I must admit to being a romantic (actually probably true in many spheres) – the which never quite sat right with more formal classicists like my father whose interests tended toward the mathematical rather than the emotional.

I make no apologies for that…

I have a particular passion for the composers of what might be considered the golden age of British music (contentious, I know – but not the main drift of this post) – the music of Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams all being dear to my heart. Given the relatively low esteem in which English composers are held in general by comparison with the greats of classical music I sometimes wonder just what it is about this music which touches my soul in ways that, say, Mozart and Beethoven – for all their acknowledged genius – do not.

Is there some musical chauvinism at work or could it really be that there is something in the music that captures an essence of (at least part of) the country and of its peoples?

I am – of course – far from alone in my appreciation for these works. The long running British radio program – ‘Desert Island Discs‘ – for which (often celebrity) guests choose the eight recordings with which they would care to be marooned on the fictive island of the title, noted that Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending‘ was one of the most frequently chosen pieces. Indeed – when the program ran a poll of its audience’s all time favourite recordings, ‘The Lark…’ came out on top.

The reason for my musing on this subject in the midst of a British Columbian winter is that I re-watched the other day a short BBC documentary from 2012 – hosted by the late Dame Dianna Rigg – on the subject of ‘The Lark…‘.

Vaughan Williams started work on the piece in 1914 just before the outbreak of the Great War, inspired by George Meredith’s poem of the same name. In the hiatus that ensued Vaughan Williams (who was 41 at the time) served as an ambulance driver in France and Salonika. After the war he re-visited ‘The Lark…‘ with the help of the English violinist, Marie Hall, to whom the piece is dedicated. The original version of the work – scored for solo violin and piano – was premiered in December of 1920 in conjunction with the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society, at Shirehampton Public Hall, not far from Bristol.

The main feature of the 2012 documentary was a re-creation of that first performance of ‘The Lark…‘ at Shirehampton Public Hall, with the young violin virtuoso, Julia Hwang, in the staring role. The audience comprised mainly good folk of what we might call ‘a certain age’ and as the piece progressed the camera lingered on individual faces so that the viewer might best measure the effect the the work has on those with familiar sensibilities. The audience did not disappoint and no British stiff-upper-lip could disguise their emotional response to the piece.

What struck me most was that at the time of the recording, Julia Hwang was a mere fifteen years old. How could one so young give a performance with such intense detail; laden with emotions of which she must a that age surely have been innocent?

Therein – I would humbly suggest – lies the formidable power of music…

 

Distance learning

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I am, as I write the introduction to this post, invigilating the end-of-course exam for some thirty students (mostly of Environmental Science) who have this term been studying Computer Literacy.

I am doing so remotely here in the comfort and safely of my studio, which explains why I can be tapping away at a blog entry on the left-most screen whilst still monitoring progress and responding to any queries on the other two. There is something decidedly surreal about about the process.

Having said that – there is (and has been throughout) something decidedly surreal about the whole undertaking this term.

I feel as though I know some of these students a little, having assisted them a fair bit throughout the course, responding to questions and observations, sharing the odd joke… and, of course, they have listened to me quite a lot – maybe three hours a week.

We have – however – none of us met. I have spoken directly to some whilst trying to help them – but other than the few who have their pictures as avatars, I do not even know what most of them look like. Students prefer to communicate with lecturers by chat or email. At the most they may enable audio so that we can talk – but they don’t do video with staff (unless prevailed upon so to do) and frankly I don’t blame them. They do get to see me (should they so choose) as they voted at the start of the course for my camera to be on.

It is the lot of the teacher – of course – to meet transiently and then to wish good and prosperous lives to a constant succession of new faces. I guess it is one of the things that attracts people to teaching – the opportunity to make human contacts (and to give something useful and meaningful in return). Doing so without ever meeting face to face, however, seems somehow inadequate.

Given the alternatives in this horrid year I am not complaining. I can scarcely imagine how any of this (and a gazillion other things that we maybe take a little too much for granted) might have been effected at all some fifteen or twenty years ago – let alone back in the mists of time (as when I was a student, for example).

It may be going a little far to suggest that we are the fortunate ones.

“Tell that to the young people of today. They won’t believe you…”

A sweeter sound

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“Recording studios are interesting; a lot of people say – and I agree – that you should have a lot of wood in a recording studio. It gets a kind of a sweeter sound”.

Paul Allen

I find that I am spending a great deal of time in my little studio these days. There is the music – of course; we are very busy trying to get our album finished and out into the world. I also use the studio for my teaching (and the preparation thereof) – which is all done over the Internet at the moment for COVID-19 reasons. To accommodate these multiple tasks the studio has slowly evolved since the days when it was first set up back in 2016 and I posted the first pictures of it to this forum.

This is what it used to look like:

And this is how it is now:

Nice new rug, don’t you think?

Now – you might think that having three screens is simply overkill. When I’m teaching, however, the conferencing/chat software that we use runs on the centre screen – the presentation (or any other resource) that I am teaching from runs on the left one and the third one is used for looking ahead in the materials, for trying things out or checking details in answer to student queries that come up during the class. A lot of multi-tasking goes on! During Lab sessions this third screen runs a remote desktop session on an machine in one of the College’s computer labs so that I can assist any students who are working there.

It is quite a juggling act – and towards the end of term it all gets pretty tiring.

Roll on Christmas, say I…

Milestone

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The very lovely Lexus GX470 (which goes by the name of Lorelai) first made its appearance in these posts back in July 2015, when The Girl and I purchased her from a kind soul who lived not far from us here on the Saanich peninsula. She has appeared many times since then in postings, often in the background of photos and usually tirelessly performing one of the many tasks for which she was purchased. I love her to bits and she has been an inspired choice for this part of the world.

When we acquired her she had a little less than 168,000 miles on the clock (miles rather than kilometers because she had originally been registered in Portland, Oregon). Now – that is a reasonably high mileage for many vehicles on the road today – but for the Lexus  (which is basically a Toyota 4Runner with a fancier skin) it counts as next to nothing. If looked after 300,000+ miles should be quite do-able. As she dates from 2003 this means that for the first twelve years of her life she averaged some 14,000 miles a year.

The reason for my posting this now – of course – is that we have just passed a major milestone. We were down in town the other day and when we arrived home the odometer revealed that we had just passed the 200,000 mile mark. The mathematicians amongst you will already have done the calculations: since she came to stay with us the Lexus has done another 32,000 miles in about five years and four months – at an average of just over 6,000 miles a year.

Well – I am supposed to be retired!

Back in the day when I used to commute into London every day in my little city car (Pearl, my much loved Mercedes SL300, only came out of the garage on sunny days) I would regularly clock up around 14,000 miles a year myself and I am absolutely delighted not to have to do that any more.

Now – at the current rate it will take more than another eight years for the Lexus to reach 250,000 miles, by which time she would be twenty five years old and I would be in my middle 70s.

As for 300,000…? Not sure either of us will last that long!

 

His Master’s Voice

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My last update on the topic of the new music shortly to appear from Anam Danu (my now two year collaboration with The Chanteuse) hit the streets (ie – appeared on this blog) about a month ago now. We had – at the time – just sent out copies of all of the tracks in our burgeoning collection to a small number of trusted individuals with the request that they give us their unvarnished opinions thereof.

This they duly did – and lessons were learned!

As a result – and after a certain amount of horse-trading – we ended up with a mutually acceptable running order. Final mixes followed rapidly, exported as 24 bit WAV files (that is in decently high quality versions) and the package completed with a guide MP3 file of the whole album with timed inter-track gaps, fades and suchlike. Accompanied by the necessary documentation – band name, album title, track names and numbers, track times and ISRC numbers for each track – everything was transferred to our chosen mastering company (CPS Mastering of Vancouver) and left in the care of the estimable Brock McFarlane.

Now – for those who have no idea what audio mastering entails, Wikipedia has this helpful explanation:

“Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via methods such as pressing, duplication or replication).

One of the key reasons for getting your mastering done professionally is that – being effected in a suitable acoustically-neutral mastering environment –  the end result can be guaranteed to play successfully on pretty much all systems and in all spaces.

Yesterday we received from CPS the first mastered draft of the whole collection. We must now spend much time listening to it on different devices and in different environments to figure out if anything needs tweaking or whether we are good to go.

Then we just need to wait for album artwork (that’s another story!) and the whole can be dispatched to our chosen digital distributor to be sent to the various streaming/digital music providers – and CDs burned as required.

I will – of course – keep you informed of (inevitably slow) progress…

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