In This Moment

Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart Club band CD, sheet music - guitar, voice and piano

2009-07-18T23:13:00.012+01:00

Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Hearing the Beatles album 'Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' for the first time is something I will always remember with great affection. I remember getting my first copy of the Beatles Sergeant Peppers album near my birthday. I had remembered hearing the album with a friend the day before and being immediately taken by 'With a Little Help From My Friends'.

I was fascinated with the fact that musicians could record on different layers of a tape machine and so were able to produce music that a 4 or 5 piece band would find it impossible to do normally. For better or worse it also relieved composers from having to write their music down on a score. For some people this could be incredibly tedious and for non-reading musicians it would have been impossible.

As a guitar player and 'try to be' songwriter I set about studying the Sergeant Pepper album by listening to the whole album once a day during my 6 week school holidays. From the amazing songwriting and incredible arrangements of the Beatles and George Martin this gave me a wonderful musical education in songwriting and arranging.

After getting over 'With A Little help From My Friends' I soon discovered that there were many more fascinating tracks on Sergeant Pepper. One of my favourites even to this day is the seemingly simple song 'Fixing A Hole'. Listen to how the bass guitar has its own strong melody and how this acts as a wonderful counterpoint against Paul McCartney's vocal.

All the tracks grew on me in time but I still think 'Lovely Rita' and 'For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite' are so incredibly original. George Harrisons indian influenced track 'Within You Without You' takes you on another journey as well as the classical sounding 'She's Leaving Home' with the beautiful arpeggiated harp introduction.

To round it off comes the epic 'Day In The Life' which seems to be a John Lennon song and a Paul McCartney song cleverly sown together. Strangely this is the only song on the album with a full orchestra. The orchestra has the incredible building crescendo at the end which give the album a definite end to a journey through many musical styles and emotions.

Guitar Tuning a New Revolutionary Device

2007-01-18T16:30:00.001Z

Tuning Made Easy - a new revolutionary device that does all the work for you.

StringMaster Robotic Guitar Tuner

Advantages:

Easy for beginners to get their guitar in tune without a teacher.

Make a great sound on your guitar every time.

More time to concentrate on learning new techniques - so less frustration just enjoy learning.

Get to play all your favourites and hopefully get that professional sound - tuning makes all the difference.

Show off to friends and family.

Learn more about the StringMaster Robotic Guitar Tuner at http://www.squidoo.com/TuneYourGuitarAutomatically/

All Star Cup 2006

2006-08-28T18:33:00.000+01:00

Fun Golf Event: All Star Cup 2006, Celtic Manor, Wales, U.K.

The All Star Cup is becoming the popular Golf event in Wales. It was held on the U.K.'s Bank Holiday August 26th to the 28th 2006 and this year was sponsored by Northern Rock.

The All Star Golfing cup is a charity competition between Entertainment stars of America and Europe and is played at the Celtic Manor Golf course near Newport, Wales, U.K. This is to be the home of the Ryder Cup in 2010.

The All Star Cup is a fun event, though the celebrities can take it quite seriously at times as it is played out on live T.V. This year ITV was the host and commentators such as comedian Ronnie Corbett helped to make the event fun and entertaining.

This year the American All Star Golf team consisted of famous Rock stars such as the mildy spoken Alice Cooper who is very good at the game and plays golf every day. Also in the team were characters such as Meatloaf who brought his inimitable tough humourous style to the golf course.

The European All Star Golf team had famous pop singers such as Ronan Keating (in the competition last year) and the always popular and still entertaining T.V. presenter Bruce Forsythe (now in his seventies) of Generation Game fame.

A crowd of thirty five thousand attended Monday's play which demonstrates the popularity of the event which adds some light humour to a sometimes predictable Bank Holiday. The event helps popularise the game of golf in Wales which is becoming the game to play amongst all ages and backgrounds. This can be seen by the opening of the new prestigious golf course at Machynys, SouthWales supported by the legendary Jack Nicklaus.

An example of a humorous moment in the game was when Meatloaf managed to land his golf ball in a ladies shopping bag full of mini scotch eggs. Another time Meatloaf kicked the golf ball in the hole for the opposing team's Chris Evans.
On the 18th hole Meatloaf was driven in a Mini Hummer which played out his thirty five million selling song 'Bat Out Of Hell'.

Here are some of the players who took part. Sorry this is not a complete list. Some spellings might be wrong.

The American All Star Team:

Alice Cooper
Meatloaf
Jane Seymour
Aidan Quinn
Chris Baldwin
Michael Johnson
James Keach

European All Star Team:

Bruce Forsythe
Ronan Keating
Chris Evans
Ross Kemp
Jodi Kidd
James Nesbitt
Bradley Walsh
Damien Lewis
Ian Wright
Ruud Guillet

Man Of The Match: Bruce Forsythe

Winners in 2005: Europe by one point

Winners in 2006: Europe

Presenters: Ant and Dec, Ronnie Corbett, Andrew Castle, and Renton Laidlaw.

I hope that this great family entertainment event continues for year's to come.

MyStoryNow.

Vibraphones and Vivaldi

2006-08-18T17:41:00.001+01:00

Evelyn Glennie performs a Vivaldi Concerto on Vibraphone

(Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg conducted by Bramwell Tovey)

Artsworld Channel 267 Sky TV, U.K:

By chance yesterday afternoon I stumbled across Evelyn Glennie, the Scottish virtuoso percussionist playing a Vivaldi concerto on the vibraphone. Her performance was outstanding. She demonstrated amazing dexterity and breathtaking speed with the vibraphone mallets and her impeccable rhythm and amazing feel for dynamics made for a riveting performance. I for one shall be buying the CD or the DVD if it is available. The concerto was originally Vivaldi's Concerto in C for piccolo RV443.

What of course is incredible is that Evelyn Glennie became deaf as a teenager. On a previous ITV South Bank Show programme introduced by Melvyn Bragg televised a few years ago, Evelyn Glennie explained how she could

‘feel the different frequencies in various parts of her body’.

We think of the Vibraphone as primarily a jazz instrument. To hear it playing the Italian style Baroque music of Vivaldi is unusual especially with the sustain the instrument is capable of. However it brought a new dimension to Vivaldi’s beautiful music.

Recommended listening.

MyStoryNow.

Mont Saint Michel in a thunderstorm

2006-08-16T00:57:00.001+01:00

Saint Michael's Mount

A moment of peace and tranquillity.

The Idea

Summer holidays ? Where can we go by car ? France ?
A trip to Normandy ? Maybe a car trip to Mont Saint Michel.

Destination:

Mont Saint Michel - a tidal island famous for its medieval style village and its Abbey perched five hundred feet above the sea.

The Journey

Because of the very hot weather we take a sticky but very quick crossing on the Eurotunnel from Ashford, (Kent U.K.) and have a relaxing night staying at the Holiday Inn, Coquelle, Calais. After some French Muscadet wine and some food we sleep and wake afresh for our journey down to Omaha beach in Normandy, Northern France.
We’ve booked to stay for four nights at Omaha in a beautiful golf orientated Mercure hotel in the countryside with a wonderful view of the shimmering sea from the restaurant. We do some putting and chipping practise on the greens and practise driving on the golf range.

Some History

The golf course is fascinating as each hole is named after well known military leaders in the Second World War for example Churchill, Paterson, Montgomery. Normandy, and of course Omaha beach is well known for this war-time connection and is a very big tourist attraction. Next day we find ourselves twisting through the narrow roads of the Normandy countryside narrowly dodging tour buses on difficult bends and wondering whether the advice we’ve been given on visiting Mont Saint Michel was a bit overrated. As you’ll find out the visit exceeded our wildest expectations.

Good Timing in the Storm ?

We park our trusty Volvo without too much hassle in the large car park and have a quick sandwich. Baguette again? (Careful if you visit the island as there are warning signs that give the timing of the tides that obviously surround the island twice a day). Then we start to wind our way up through the very tourist-packed medieval village. The cobbled streets are no more than a narrow path that now climbs up through numerous shops selling gifts and books. The air is filled with numerous unusual smells from restaurants and bars with beautiful panoramic views of the sea. There are even hotels here. Could be brilliant in the Winter!!

As we climb higher the view of the sea gets more interesting and awe-inspiring and we stop to take a rest, take a photo and enjoy the wonderful view. Eventually we realise that we have to pay to get right to the top and be able to view the Abbey. We’ve got this far so there’s no going back. We queue for a moment in an outside area with high walls and suddenly it starts to rain slightly. I make a silly comment and say ‘what if we have heavy thundery rain and we’re stuck here without shelter’. The queue moves forward and we get some cover and as we pay the entrance fee the lady receptionist is surprised by the large bang that sounds above us. It’s only when we eventually reach the top and take in the breathtaking view of the sea that we realise we’re in the middle of a large thunderstorm. What a fantastic atmosphere – the beautiful panoramic view of the sea and the stormy weather with heavy rain and thunder bolts cracking all around us five hundred feet above the sea bed.

The Tranquility and Timelessness

Then suddenly and quietly a nun dressed all in white creeps out of a small doorway and make her way down to an alter and commences to pray. We seem to loose all fear of the thunderstorm protected by the solid abbey walls. I can see now why this beautiful isolated place had been built so high. A feeling of being much closer to god – a feeling of being a little closer to heaven. After the thunderstorm of course you get that release of negative ions in the air and this definitely heightens the senses. The whole experience left me in a heightened state of awareness and awe at the power of nature and things we don’t totally understand. As we came out of the cloisters we looked down hundreds of feet to see the channels of sea and sand. I could see through the zoom of my video camera that there were many people who had trekked through the storm and were now laboriously wading through the sand banks like pilgrims. They had come from either the mainland or the surrounding islands trying to cross when the tide was low enough. Some people were on horseback and they were there in case of any difficulties. We were happy to be tucked away in the relative safety of the Abbey.

Worthwhile Holiday

Our trip to Mont Saint Michel was definitely worth it. Whatever the weather I think you can get something from Mont Saint Michel – as long as you keep an open mind and can put up with the many people who can’t help but be attracted to such a beautiful place. Maybe you might eventually find a space for some peace and tranquillity which is so hard to find in these modern times.

Rough Description:

Mont Saint Michel is a tidal island with a medieval style village. It has a church, a museum, and many shops and bars. It is famous for its Benedictine Abbey which is perched five hundred feet above the sea. It is situated on the edge of Normandy with the river Couesnon dividing it from Brittany.