Social distancing and back to blogging

This is a gentle edge back into blogging. For those of you new to my blogs they are generally about my experiences past and present as a musician…I would have said ‘experiences on the road’ but that description doesn’t fit with the current climate very well. However, in this current case it did actually involve a very recent three and a half hour journey there and back.

I thought, particularly for those of you who weren’t there, I’d talk about delivering a face to face workshop, last weekend 16^th – 18^th Oct 2020, at Halsway manor with 4 band colleagues and a room full of people.

As the summer progressed it seemed that the workshop might happen despite that fact that almost everything had disappeared from the diary by then right up to the end of the year. The summer seemed to present a little rainbow of optimism and Halsway were keen to keep things on the program until such time as they couldn’t be however, then things began to get dodgy again. So much had been cancelled, work wise, that really my expectation was that anything left in would be too. I had wanted to go to France to visit my house too as I haven’t been there since March but the only two weeks I could have gone were immediately before Halsway and with the government regulation on sheltering for two weeks after coming back from France I couldn’t do that and do Halsway as well. A catch twenty two where neither might be possible.

That then put even more pressure on the ‘I really want this to happen’ bubble in my head. As it got closer and the infection levels began to rise and the government developed its tier system I was then slightly torn. I had mostly reconciled myself to wanting to take calculated risks and how best to keep myself as safe as possible but the spiral felt like it was conspiring against me. My nearest and dearest was also pointing out that this one weekend was the greatest risk either of us had taken up to this point. No pressure then!

Within that there was also the recognition from both of us that our mental health is at risk from various aspects of the corona virus situation and a break with a change of scene can work wonders.

When I have talked about my lymphoma cancer in Vlogs and such I have talked about healthy paranoia. That’s the type of paranoia that keeps you vigilant to what is going on in your body. Well I have the same attitude towards COVID in the sense that I live relatively normally but I am intensely conscious about people’s abilities or wishes to socially distance or indeed understand who is protecting whom. So, I only mention that as a setting the scene type comment before my journey down to Halsway.

I had my flu jab in that morning, whilst trying to avoid people in Boots who were paying no attention to me. I then headed straight off on my journey South to the beautiful Quantocks. Yes, I did ridiculous things like not drinking too much because I didn’t want to stop before getting there. I have been in some service stations in the last few months and they’re not all brilliant so I didn’t want to stop for the loo.

That all worked perfectly and I arrived at the beautiful Halsway Manor. Linda, fellow band member and I, had a walk round and a chat with Rachel who is Halsway’s educational manager and we saw the very impressive new dining rooms. I’ve run courses many times at Halsway and quite often my groups have been the ones working in the space that’s called the long room. As this used to also double as a dining room anyone working in there used to have to finish their workshop sessions early, if the session was immediately before meal times, so the tables could be laid out. Not anymore. How fantastic to have added space. 

I loaded gear into my bedroom, ensuite, and had a meeting with the band before dinner.

The manor had plenty of hand gel everywhere and anyone walking about needed to wear a mask. Dinner and all beverages were table service including the bar. What was interesting about the ‘masks while moving around rule’ was that I realised at the end of the weekend that I had moved around far less than I would have done in a normal workshop and in fact remained sat down for most of it. My early morning walks up the steep hill nearby were essential to combat an over sedentary life style.

One of the lovely things they had done in the long room was to mark out the floor into 2 meter square boxes. This meant we could encourage everyone to go into a box or share if they were there with a partner or someone they were in a bubble with. All participants were asked to use their own ensuite bathrooms where possible, rather that the public loos near the bar, and everyone’s temperature was taken every morning. I probably should point out that there was nothing wrong with the public loos and they were cleaned constantly. It was just for the extra safety aspect.

All Fabulous. We managed to arrange the long room so that no-one was sitting directly in front of the 3 reed blowing players and there was plenty of space around the flautists. I sat in front of an open window to keep the place and myself ventilated and in many ways I felt there wasn’t much more that could have been done.

Yes, there were the odd moments when individuals began to move around to leave the room and someone would shout ‘mask’ and they’d go, ‘oh god yes!’ and turn around and pick it up. All with great good humour and a lot of laughter. Really nice that everyone was trying to help everyone else. You become very conscious of the smallest of things. Who is going to hand out the photocopying? You didn’t want everyone coming up and riffling through the papers. In an ideal world, had we been able to plan everything in advance, they would have had copies by email and been encouraged to bring their own. The participants were encouraged to keep the copies given to them so that no more needed handing out. I suppose for absolute safety they should have hand gelled their hands again after taking them. 

So much more to think about than just delivering workshops eh?

……and then there was the music.

The standard of playing was good and we had a room full of a good variety of instruments. Everyone was game to have a go at everything and they made some truly joyful sounds. The point of these workshops is to take you through a ‘Token Women’ experience. That’s the name of the band and the experience I am talking about is how we put our music together and to give a true flavour of how it sounds. I have been lucky to be in a few bands that really sound quite different from everything else around them and Token Women is one of those. Hard to analyse but it’s something to do with the breadth of repertoire..anything goes as long as it’s fit for purpose and arrangements that are unusual because of the way the brass and horn parts are layered over and the use of rhythmic patterns. Most bands use rhythm in an approach to arrangement it’s just that it seems to come out with a different end product with us. The workshop shared this process looking firstly at what we do then progressing through workshops looking at rhythms and cross rhythms and potential harmony until you apply those to new tunes..and if you listen to the musicians around you, you get some interesting results and so it proved. We had some small breakout sessions for people to explore how to develop something and there were lovely pieces developed. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. My group were looking at a tune the band already played but what they came up with in terms of chords and feel was completely different. I always find that so refreshing.

I had pointed out my ‘vulnerable’ status before going and so had a dining room table to myself. That was a little lonely at times but necessary I felt. I also went back to my room in breaks as ‘hanging around chatting’ was not encouraged. You could sit in the bar of course and have table service if the bar was open or just sit in the bar and play about when not involved in the workshops or evening activities I need a break.

The first night we just had a session and due to the numbers stayed in the long room and the second night we had a kind of ‘over to you’ event where people could put their name down and do a turn which was really nice, again in the long room to allow for social distancing and whilst it’s not as intimate as the bar it still has a lovely atmosphere. Drinks were served until 10pm as Halsway’s bar has the same rules as are applied to all other bars and pubs. You wouldn’t say it was the same as being in the bar. Nothing is the same but where you need to work around things, provided you are willing to accept alternatives, it allowed the evening event to happen in a way that could include everyone. The bar isn’t big enough for all so that would have been more difficult.

I only got weepy once and that was near the end. One of the things Rachel had said on arrival was, “be kind to yourselves and take it steady as none of us have done this for a long time”. Sound advice and for her it had taken her the best part of two weeks not to feel exhausted after coming into work. A weekend like this was tiring not only on a work and concentration level but for other reasons s too. That was the first time I had been constantly around anymore than one person for months. The new dining rooms don’t have curtains yet so the acoustics are bright and lively and make it difficult to hear. Especially difficult for me as due to my ‘vulnerable’ status I was on a table on my own (my request) so ear wigging other people’s conversations wasn’t easy. Then there’s the physicality of blowing down various saxes and clarinets all day and then contributing to the evenings too. So, my weepy moment was probably affected by a little fatigue when I was thinking the participants and saying what a lovely time I had had and hoped they had too and how important these types of events were to me. No-one minded the wobbly voice and watery eyes.