Category Archives: Music

Posts on musical topics

Movies & TV, Music

Airwolf Themes Finally on iTunes

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Over two years ago, I blogged about the Airwolf Themes album, the soundtrack CD that holds the record for the most expensive soundtrack album ever – and indeed regularly breaks it’s own record whenever a copy comes up on eBay.

I said back then that as the only soundtrack album related to the series, indeed the only recording of the theme actually conducted by the original composer, Sylvester Levay, it deserved a wider distribution. The people making money off the soar-away prices on eBay weren’t the original producers of the album, and with the crazy prices copies of the music were available on the file sharing networks however much the producers tried to get them removed.

When you went to the Airwolf Themes site the most commonly asked question on the forums seemed to be whether there would ever be a re-release of the album.

Eventually last year, Mark J Cairns, the person behind the album relented and started taking opinions about a release online. After multiple delays, today the album finally appeared on iTunes, at a cost of £15.99 – somewhat less than the cost of an original CD.

The majority of the tracks are Mark’s recreations of the original episode soundtracks and some of the variations of the themes, all done on synths. However the real stand out tracks from my point of view are the last three, which are a new arrangement of the main theme, and two medleys conducted by Sylvester Levay himself, along with a full orchestra, streaks ahead of any of the other arrangements of the theme that are available. One point to note when listening to the music that is worth mentioning is that if you’re only ever used to seeing the show on reruns in the UK, the tempo of the main theme especially will seem a bit slow, this is what it is supposed to be, but thanks to the conversion process that the episodes go through to be shown in the UK, we’re all used to hearing it slightly differently!

You can read more about how the original Airwolf Themes project came about here.

Church, Music

St James’ Handbells – Take it From Here

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Cheque Presentation

Yesterday night I was up at the Church for a musical event where for once I didn’t have to do anything at all!

The event was the launch of the St James’ Handbell Ringers “Take it From Hereâ€? initiative – where they are planning to take their music into a variety of the local care homes, doing various activities related to music therapy with the residents. The video below includes a demonstration of the kind of things they are planning to do by Sandra Winter, Secretary of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain, who already does this kind of work.

This is quite an impressive level of progress as it is less than two years ago that the team were absolute beginners – as one of the representatives of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain said during her presentation, when she first heard them, they were a group of people all ringing their bells individually, now they are a team.

Initially, the team had no bells of their own, and were borrowing a set. A full set costs over £7000, so they raised some money, and the PCC provided about £3000 to get the bells. From there they have now obtained grants from various local bodies, and grant of over £8000 from the National Lottery to enable them to launch their initiative, and this was a special concert, attended by the local mayor, to launch the initiative to the public, and officially receive the cheque from the lottery.

I have to say, that I’m not the greatest fan of handbells – although I suspect that is mainly having sat through a number of really bad handbell renditions where the timing goes off as the team struggle to keep in time – probably the hardest thing to get right with a group of handbell ringers I’m sure. However, with all their hard work, the St James team really don’t seem to have any of the timing issues that usually bug me about other groups that I’ve heard in the past. All in all it was a really enjoyable evening of great music.

I’ve uploaded a load of pictures to Flickr, which can also be found in our photo gallery.

I also tried out the video recording on the new camera, the results of which can be seen below – although I will say it’s slightly more fiddly to work with video off the new camera as it seems to be producing movie clips in a non-iMovie friendly format…

Update: A few related items that might be of interest:

Press release from the local Borough Council about the same event. Some nice quotes from both the mayor, and from Meg.

Wokingham’s Valuable Volunteers includes another mention of the group.

Handbell Ringers’ Ministry – short article from the Diocesan newspaper about the group.

Movies & TV, Music

Can a Choir Make a Difference?

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choir_360.jpg

Back at the tail end of 2006, the BBC showed a programme called The Choir, where Gareth Malone, who runs two choirs for the London Symphony Orchestra, went into Northolt High School and started a choir that he took to the World Choir Games in China. The programme was obviously a success, as starting next Friday he’s taking on a somewhat bigger challenge, in that he’s trying to get a choir together in The Lancaster School in Leicester – an all boys school for The Schools Prom at the Albert Hall. The subtitle for the second series, which is “Boys Don’t Singâ€? sort of gives you an impression of the struggle he’s got.

However, before the new series starts next week, we had a one off retrospective programme last night, that looked back over Gareth’s time with Northolt High School, and also asked the same question that I asked in my post about the programme when it was first shown – what happened next?

The programme inter-cut highlights (and lowlights) from the first series with interviews with some of the participants filmed almost exactly a year later. Interestingly, the person they focused on probably the most was Chloe Sullivan, who got a lot of attention first time around. To be frank Gareth had to make a real effort with her. She regularly missed rehearsals, and was frequently in trouble at school. What is fantastic though is that the effort he put in to get her into the choir, and to get her to China does seem to have made a real difference, to the point where a girl who admitted to being incredibly shy, and struggled to even sing solo at the beginning is now in a job working in a job for Hillingdon that involves giving presentations, something she is shown doing. She also says during her interview that being in the choir has made a big difference to her.

That is an answer that is repeated again and again through all the interviews. For some it’s as simple as the fact that they now have a broader appreciation of music. Many have continued to sing, joining Church choirs and other local choirs. Disappointingly there is no comment about whether Northolt High School have kept the choir going – certainly the impression given from the fact that many of the choir members are still in the school, but are singing elsewhere implies that they didn’t, which is a great pity.

The programme also provided a good few amusing moments, especially when they asked the choir members what they first thought when they saw him – much the same as the rest of us I think:

“You’re not from around here…â€?

and

“He looked about ten!�

both being thoughts that I had. Certainly the impression that he really didn’t know what he was letting himself in for going from volunteer choirs with the London Symphony Orchestra to trying to organise a choir in a large, ethnically diverse comprehensive school in London was very clear to me.

Interestingly, many of the choir members were cringing looking back on their audition pieces. On of the sixth-formers who was featured hoped that a change in hair colour before the programme was broadcast would make a difference – it didn’t. Another of the girls, who has joined another choir and said that her experience has had a major impact in what she wants to do with her life, but did a memorable rendition (with dancing) of Tainted Love says that it is the thing that most people tend to remember about her on the programme.

Ultimately what the programme really serves to highlight is what a difference being in a choir can make to young people and their confidence – and definitely what an opportunity is missed if that possibility is not available. Whilst it’s true that there are other ways, and music doesn’t work for everybody, there are perhaps a number of young people shown on the programme whose lives have been either fundamentally changed, or they have opened their eyes to new possibilities as a result of their experiences in the choir. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing how Gareth copes when presented with the boys of The Lancaster School, a look at the school website gives some clues, but from the preview we got at the end of the programme this week, it certainly looks like it will be hard work…

The programme is available on iPlayer for the next few days if you missed it.

Music

The Corrs – All The Way Home

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So tonight I finally got around to watching at least part of one of my Christmas presents, The Corrs – All The Way Home / The Story Of The Corrs which is a two DVD set pairing a pretty extensive documentary covering the story of the band, along with one of their last concerts in Geneva in 2005 – significant in that it marked the return of Caroline – at least for part of the gig – following time out to have a baby.

Tonight I watched the documentary – the concert will be saved for a time when the neighbours are out as it really needs the surround sound speakers turned on for the full effect.

I would say that The Corrs are probably the band I’ve been a biggest fan of in my fairly eclectic music tastes – certainly I’ve probably got most of the stuff they’ve released in the UK, and a couple of rarities on import to. Having said that, even I stopped buying CD’s when it got to the multiple greatest hits albums with even more obscure remixes as the record company tried to squeeze money out of a band that weren’t recording any more. They’re also the band I’ve seen most live, from the first time as a support act, where all you could see of Caroline was a pony tail bobbing up and down behind the drum kit, through their major UK tours where I managed to see them at Wembley Arena and also in Birmingham. Ironically the point where their activity started to shift away from performing coincided with the point where I started to lose interest with pop music, hence why I only got the DVD this Christmas!

Anyway, the documentary really was extensive, starting right from the beginning with the Corrs as children, covering their involvement with The Commitments, then their early success in Ireland and Australia, and lack of success in the UK. From there we get their big break UK wise with the Royal Albert Hall Concert on St Patrick’s Day 1998, and then their mainstream success worldwide, leading on to the point where Sharon and Caroline get married, and the band starts to take a back seat to their families. The documentary was made a little before the official decision to go on hiatus that came in 2006, but it’s pretty obvious from the interviews in the documentary that this is the way it is going, with comments that the 2005 tour was probably the last. Having said that, we’ve seen Take That and the Spice Girls return, so who knows whether we’ll see the Corrs back again in the future. Whether or not they do, the music still remains eminently listenable – suffice to say that all their albums are on my iPod…