Buses And Conducting

Went to a classical concert by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra the other Friday with the visiting Grandparents to celebrate Ella’s Grandad’s birthday. Singapore has a fantastic concert and theatre venue called the Esplanade which looks a bit like a couple of giant insects. This was my first trip there. The music was ace.

Particularly spellbinding was the conductor, Hubert Soudant. He was a little eccentric, to say the least. He used his hands rather than a baton. At times he looked like he was dancing to house music, doing big fish, little fish, box etc. At others he looked like the Emperor in Return of the Jedi when he zaps Luke with those spark things from his hands. Sometimes he drew his hand across his front, as if playing the strings himself, a bit like the action replays of Alex Ferguson on the touch line heading in the crosses himself. We were sat on the side, above the orchestra, so occasionally, when he twisted himself round, we could see his face. He was smiling, nodding and beckoning constantly. During quiet bits just before the noisy bits (sorry about all these technical terms), we could hear him breathing in on behalf of the wind instruments. I’d never really understood the point of a conductor before as I’m sure that all those talented, well trained musicians can stay awake for long enough to know when to come in. However, this seemed more than him signalling to the musicians when to play. He seemed to be easing and coaxing the music out of the instruments himself. The sound was unbelievable.

Another great thing about the evening was reading the programme. There were mini-biogs of Schubert, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Schubert and Beethoven at least seemed to have been a little unhinged. Schubert was a school teacher who composed when he should have been teaching, and beat children for disturbing his compositions. The Beethoven we listened to was his 6th Symphony which features one “movement” called the Merry Peasant’s Dance. Apparently, he composed it to reflect the growing inebriation of the band that played at his local pub. Within the piece, the oboe is supposed to come in at the wrong time, if that makes sense, and the soloists try to outdo each other as the piece reaches its climax.

I’ve always been a bit of a fan of people who can do things right, but choose to do them wrong on purpose. An extension of this is shooting civilians in computer games when I’m supposed to be rescuing them. Not that I play computer games anymore.

Actually, I think I’m actually quite bad at quite a lot of things that I’d like to be good at. My early attempts at making electronic music were laughable and having just been given a CD by Neil of one of my band’s gigs when I was about 20, my early attempts at guitar music were similarly aurally challenging. I used to do a spot of djing and when both records were playing I often had no idea whether they were in time or not until it was too late. When I play football, I run around a lot to very little effect. I’m even quite bad at teaching some of the time, too. Indeed, I had a dream last night about this. I was trying to teach a lesson in a busy bus station car park. No idea why. I spent the first 20 minutes trying to dig through my bag to find copies of the poem we were studying. The kids couldn’t hear a word I was saying because of the noise of the buses. Passers by kept putting their hands up to answer my questions and I kept nodding at them to answer, not realising until they’d said something sarcastic that they weren’t actually in my class. It was like Heartbreak High in a bus station. Take away the bus station and the passers by and it’s not too far off reality at times.

But, unbelievably, people keep giving me the chance to do these things and I always seem to get away with it. Dave and Joe Onion at Funky Onion in Bristol let me DJ for about four years and possibly never even noticed my general ineptitude. I kept getting picked to play centre midfield for my football team despite the fact that I couldn’t head, tackle or pass. I was asked to play bass guitar at a school concert recently and managed to mess up the entire first chorus to a Monkees tune despite having the notes written down in front of me. And people keep employing me to teach, despite the fact that I’m not always the most organised of people.

Maybe I should take up conducting.