Wednesdays update...

I get up pretty early and usually leave the house around dawn (7am-ish) Here is a pair of shots taken at 60kph with my cameraphone out the window.

Look at that, golden dawn, its incredible here, i thing i may have blogged it before, the whole sunset/sunrise thing, it takes about 20 mins to go from dark to daytime, unlike home which can take a few months........

And here is the usual view of outside the casino as the wednesday matinee crowd arrive for the show, lots of zimmer frames at this one....

Weekend giggery

We played at the christening of a friend of Janes folks the other day, it felt kinda like my own party for some reason.....


And then we went off to a wedding where we did the entire day for them, the ceremony, the reception, the meal and the afters including some dj-ing. I used club dj pro on the laptop to do all our interval music and the tunes later on in the evening, below you can see me getting involved in a game of solitare....

Finn Morris, acryllic on canvas 2008

Finn (1.5 years old now) presented us with his first mounted artwork the other day, here it is displayed in our front room

We are not sure what it is, perhaps an abstract dipiction of contemporary society, perhaps a fish laughing at an exploding helicopter, perhaps a squashed butterfly. If you have any ideas let me know at charliecharlie at gmail dot com.

Tales from the pit week 3

Remember that percussion room i was telling you about, well here it is. Not a very good photo but you get the idea, its basically two people in a cage of pots'npans, at some times they have so many things to hit they dont have time to swap sticks so they have special sticks with two different ends that they have to twirl around. This room is about the size of a hotel bathroom and contains a selection of gongs, tymps, bass drums and other noisy things you only ever get to hear when you switch your casio keyboard to percussion mode and try to figure out what instrument the bbaaaauuuuuuuueeeeeeeee sound is, its pretty loud, so the two lads have to wear aviation graded ear mufflers do deal with the noise. There is a selection of mikes in there that feed the sound to speakers front of house and the guys watch the conductor on a wee telly. So in a way its kinda like the ultimate percusion version of guitar hero.....

If for some reason you decide to quit your dayjob and kick back to do cushy viola gigs then check this out, its the solo from miss saigon. There are a few, but this one is the biggest. Its about 20 mins into the show and its aaaallll viola baby.

I had to blog this, I was pretty starving yesterday at the interval, didn't have a big enough breakfast and had no time for lunch before the show and the munchies kicked in big-time towards the end of act one. Thankfully i am sitting next to the most resourcefull cellist this side of cork and was the gratefull reciepient of the nicest peanutbutter and jam sambo i have ever tasted. Thanks Jennika.

My other office

This is one of the schools where I teach. MLC in claremont, a great school with an absolutely massive music department. I have got my own room now on account of the amount of kids who are learning the violin

When the kids forget their books we have a sightreading lesson, they hate that so they tend to remember the books, today i had them sweating it out to frere jaques.

of course no music room is complete without the obligatory orchestra poster, note how the violas are the core of the orchestra...

and this is my desk complete with attendance forms, instrument hire forms and star wars episode 3 on the new laptop for when the kids dont show up.

Tales from the pit...

So, this is my office. I don't have to put my viola on my lap or the ground when i take a break (which isn't often i this show) and i get to put my laptop there and surf the web during the interval. Other distractions include the newspaper, a pencil for doodling and the guy at the front waving a small white stick...

And here is the latest from the string update. The new strings are worth every cent, the G was soooooooo good i had to replace the rest, the new ones are settling in and just the C to go and I am completed, its like playing a cadillac, i don't think ill ever be able to be happy playing on any other string again, the sound is incredible, so incredible i fact that at one bit of the show (admittedly a loud bit) i shouted "oohh yeeaaahh", as i laid down some mean D string action.

Some gossip from the Pit: nothing, absolutely nothing, its such an intense (reduced orchestra) and busy score that we have no time to mess, hide the casts props, make up limericks or any of the REAL stuff that happens at shows, my longest break is a 28 bar rest (in 1), so Jennika and I have decided that due to the evident lack of shenanigannary in the pit we will have to up the ante and create some tomfoolery we have set a deadline for Saturdays matinée so watch this space...

I am just back from the show now, having a beer, watching Letterman, and on skype for the next 30 mins. Seeya next time readers.

Investing in the business

I needed a new G string for the Saigon show, so i popped into my regular music guys and had a browse and i came across a set of pirastro Evah Pirazzi's. Judging by the price tag they should make my viola solos sound like Orson Wells singing in his bathroom, we'll see at tomorrows show. In my search i came across this handy review of strings which you may find handy.

Saigon-cam

The show has opened, dah da da da daa daa daa daaaaaaaaaaa.

I have figured it out, its all about where your head is at, as a musical its incredibly hard to deal with, but if you consider it an opera and shift your brain up a few gears its a little bit easier to deal with. You have to count every single beat, i was expecting to read a few books and do some crosswords during this show and perhaps circulate a few suggestive limericks about the cast during the extensive dialogue scenes between musical numbers, but nooooooo, this show is continuously sung, no breaks, which is good, coz once you get the downbeat, next thing you know its the interval and you are in serious need of a beer! The above photo is from my view of movement 2 "dreamland".

All in accordance with my renewed interest in aviation this is my viola "cockpit". I'll take a better photo on Tuesday, but here you can see my case is on a chair under my stand which is a useful basetable to put my viola, my phone (in case i get a text about a gig) my laptop (so I can blog to you LIVE from the pit) and perhaps some water and a packet of tim tams. Oh, i have figured out how to be a better viola player..................................MORE ROSIN!

And last but not least on this sundays night of bloggery is a photo of my settup as i spoke to mick hally tonight on my new laptop on skype. Mick brought up the issue of the new black look of the site and found it depressing, and made the point that the new look black blog "energy saving background" would save as much energy annually as it would take to illuminate my loo for 1 minute, so welcome back to the new/old look white shiny violacharlie site!

Also, a big hello to a fan of the site Keith Pascoe, conductor, violinist and general legend. Great to hear from you Keith, I like your quote "never refuse champagne", i follow that rule constantly also and am considering it the title of my future biography. Heres one of mine for your quote page: "nothing is difficult, it's just new", which is how i manage to deal with my new life as a professional viola-stuntman-bluffer with 71 students and 9 gigs a week 'till may, which basically means i'll be wearing the same pair of shoes for 3 months straight. Being a musican rocks!

Tune in next week for more Stories from the Pit, some pictures of amusing aussie road signs, and if your lucky (and i can figure it out) a video of me playing one of my many solo's in the show. Adieu bloggers, till next time.

Pit-cam

Here are some photos from the pit earlier on today. I can make out about half the stage so thats good, some of the other players are talking about getting deps in for a night so they can go and see the show. Im taking 2 of the shows off, only because i have higher paying gigs on those days, can you believe i am quintuple booked on the 24th of feb?

And here is the pit populated with fiddlers a-plenty.

My New Laptop

Yup, i treated myself today and got myself a mini laptop. Its basically a laptop with no optical drive. Here it is on top of our other laptop. And this is my first post on the blog with it. Just back from rehearsal, show opens tomorrow night and its gonna rock!

Microsoft Flight X

Inspired by my experience up in the clouds and on the advice of my good friend (Violinist, Guitarist, Technology Guru, Pilot, Mechanic, Biker and Chancer Extraordinare ) Owen Kelly I forked out a few quid for the latest flight simulator, Microsoft Flight Sim 10.

Its not just like the real thing, it pretty much IS the real thing. The cockpit of each plane is identical to its real-life counterpart, and after much searching i did not find the "wings stay on/wings fall off" button i have heard about. Within minutes of installing it I was flying a microlight around cork airport, then i took a boeing over the pyramids. When you are playing online you can experiece weather from real-time weather forecasts and everything, and if thats not enough you can download new planes, and even some space ships, my plan is to land the deathstar in shannon airport.

Here is an external screenshot, so if the game gets a bit boring on a flight from Perth to Vegas, you can check out the scenery.

And to make the affair more involving, and as soon as we build another room onto the house, it can look like this. Also, to really add a sence of realism to the whole experience is to learn a few russian phrases and fly around moscow, joystick in one hand and bottle of vodka in the other, he he he.

Saigon-watch

Last day of rehersals yesterday, off to the pit now for tech/sound fixing then its all gig gig gig. Here is the percussion rig, it looks like a drum shop gone out of control. Word on the street is that on account of the extreme size and general noiseyness of this 2 man percussion outfit they are going to be in a different room to the rest of the band, which really means that they can get their friends in to play half the stuff, have an esky of beer at hand at all times and not have to dress up for the show. I think, that as principle viola, i should also be in that room as a sort of string-liaison officer and eh.. help them with the whole offstage beer thing

Finn Cam

Finn ran into one of his old friends a few days ago. Remember Rooby?

Lately we have been going out for walks and coffee's and stuff and finn has been getting babycino's, which is warm milk with chocolate flakes i think. He likes them.

And here he is in the back of the car the other day with a look of puzzlement as he trys to figure out what a camera is.

Oh, i forgot to tell you all, i went to a caipoera class the other day and joined in on the bongos at the end. Twas interesting but not for me.

Charlie is shooting from the trees....

Some snaps from teh first saigon rehersal. I cant take too many as ill look like a total geek, but you get the idea, we are all in a room in the casino making all sorts of noises. Just there to the left is Pete Jeavons who you may have read about before and that guy on the far right is the MD Guy Simpson who has an answer for everything and its generally the right answer too.

A bit hard to make out but this is one of my many moments to shine in the show. There are loads of solo/exposed viola entries. I kept getting loads of ques off him during rehersal, i have never ever got so many solo's in a show, its great. ALL the violins are jealous

Boo!

This was taken about 10 mins before a gig i did last week, here we see all the crew setting up around the coffin complete with person INSIDE the coffin, who jumped out in the middle of proceedings much to the hilarity of all. Twas a great laugh.

Blast from the past

My mom, in a moment of sheer genius, sent over all my old lego from Ireland, so last saturday afternoon, once all the gigs were done, i sat down in my bar and got busy building.

Several hours/beers and much joviality later here is the finished product, a twin engined commercial space cruiser, with concealed cannons, scout/fighter and race-car. And its great, now that Finn is hanging around the house a lot lately I can tell everone its his toy and get away with it. he he he

Rook 4 to King 3

I have started a game of chess with Paraic, it all started with the idea of having a chess board set up in each house and corrospond the moves via email, then we came across all these chess website so we figures that would be easier. As you can see I am lulling Paraic into a false sense of security with my latest dashing and bold move...... and yes, my login name is The Chessmiester.