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*MUSIC, Musician, School

orchestral manoeuvres in the …

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(Post by John Allan from Bridgetown, Western Australia – April 2022.)

I know on this 70s blog I’ve gone on and on about my musical ‘prowess’. How I was a legend in my own lunch time gigging around the west of Scotland in my late teens. I feel I must now fill you in on the early years.

My first roar of the paint, smell of the crowd moment was at an end of  term concert at Castlehill Primary School. There I was in front of the pupils and parents, first descant recorder in the Primary 7 ensemble belting out the theme tune to Dr Finlay’s Casebook. It’s a delicate little ditty ideally played at a steady pace and moderate volume. I call it the Flower of Scotland effect, in it’s original form a lilting ballad.

But when you start to feel the vibe of the audience the hair stands up on the back of your neck and things inevitably go up a notch. Before you know it there’s foot stomping and fists punching the air. I’m sure I even heard a and it’s hi ho silver lining. And these were the parents !

Bitten by the performing bug, I was soon brought down to earth when I went to orchestral practice at the Secondary school. By now I had moved on to flute, an instrument easily concealed in a duffel bag alongside your football kit so that you didn’t look like a real wally. Unfortunately in the rehearsal room you were fully exposed as it jutted out into the playing fields and had windows on all 3 sides. You were at the merciless gaze of the sporty knuckle draggers as they pressed their broken noses against the glass.

Undeterred, conductor Mrs. McIntosh and the orchestra carried on. I say orchestra but at best it was a dozen or more students of varying musical abilities.

The leader was a very accomplished young lass who was also a bit of a looker which in itself probably boosted numbers. She also attracted the attention of the Chemistry teacher who was dating her at the time. There’s a smutty pun in their somewhere with fiddles, elements, G strings or periodic but it’s not coming to me. Innuendos on a postcard to  ……………

There were a few more violins, a cello or two and a viola player who I brought to tears with my what’s the difference between a trampoline and a viola ? – It’s more fun to jump up and down on a viola ! joke.

I think the woodwind outnumbered the strings. I was one of 3 flutes one of whom was much better than me and one that was not. Spotty Di believed that integral to the flautist’s armoury was a constant supply of confectionery. She had squares of chocolate lined up on her music stand and would devour one or two at a bars rest. She once had to borrow the tutor’s instrument and stripped it bare of it’s silver plate with the ooze bubbling out of her pores. Takes Willy Wonka’s toot sweet to a whole new level (or was that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ?).

Clarinets seem to outnumber every one with their dry reed squeaks. The musical equivalent to nails on the blackboard.

The oboist did very good water bird impressions. I’m sure I spotted a few duck hunters and their spaniels hiding in the bushes.

The brass had 2 trumpets (or maybe one was the klaxon coming from the athletics field) and a kid who could barely stand up because of the weight of his trombone. He formed a triangle.

The most annoying individual was the percussionist. I called him ‘Tool’ partly because he was but mainly as he was always Too Loud and Too Late.

His miscued cymbal crashes were like an inebriated ironmongers’ stocktake and his timpani rolls were like Morse code and certainly less thrilling than Johnson’s at Firhill (Partick Thistle in-joke there !)

Come to think of it, I don’t ever remember the orchestra playing at a public concert. Maybe I was too mortified to turn up.

I do remember being in a flute trio and being pimped out by Mrs. Mac to various churches. The acoustics were always quite good as your final notes were still ringing out when you had packed up and were half way to the bus stop.

I was also in a flute quintet. That’s flute plus a string quartet not 5 flutes. That’s the Orange Walk !

I think I made sporadic appearances at orchestral rehearsals so I could get two weeks off, twice a year, to attend the County Schools Orchestra music courses at Pirniehall in the wilds of Croftamie. Now that band could really baroque !

And of course be with the lovely first violin leader away from Mr Bunsen Burner !

She was quite a specimen who hit all the high notes.

Got one !!

*MUSIC, Hobbies, School

all about that flute

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(Post by John Allan, from Bridgetown, Western Australia – March 2021)

I clearly remember the day my big brother brought home ‘the beast’. He was at ‘big’ school and had recently ditched the violin. And here it was. The double bass. Six mighty feet of curved sensuous shiny dark wood like the entrance to Narnia with strings. Bro would draw the bow across the lowest string and I would marvel at the deep sonorous rumble, the vibrations reaching down to the pit of my stomach. ‘Pluck’ like a stone in a well. I was mesmerised. This was the instrument for me.

Like anything in life there were drawbacks. It was 6 foot and I was barely 5. My brother strictly forbade me anywhere near it and I’d get a dead arm just for loitering outside his bedroom door.

Of course the problem’s in the name. Double. Twice as much. Double trouble. Try lugging that thing on and off a corporation bus ? In the mid 70s I would be standing at the bus stop with 2 saxophone cases in my hand. The skinny guy next to me had his guitar in a canvas bag. We were both going to our respective band practices. His was with Orange Juice. When the bus came, I would struggle on and deposit my cargo on the shelf at the front of the bus and sit in front of it only to be shooed away by some pensioner. The whole journey I’d be sitting at the back in a hot sweat staring at my cases thinking ‘some bastard’s going to half inch ma saxes!’

Try this. Put your left thumb in your left ear. Put your 2nd finger on the tip of your nose. Your 1st finger on your brow. 3rd on your lips and your pinky on your chin. That’s the basic first position of the bass. Has your hand cramped up yet?  

I’d really have to think this through.

I played a descent descant recorder in primary, (which was compulsory in all non- denominational schools in the west of Scotland) well enough to get an audition for a ‘real’ instrument. Clarinet or flute was on offer. All I knew of the clarinet was ‘Strangler On The Shore’ by Aker Boke which I thought pretty lame. Did you know Mr Bilk took out his false teeth to play – a big no no for reed players apparently. It buggers up the embouchure – and that is not a euphemism !

Flute was OK. Hadn’t Canned Heat being ‘Going Down The Country’, The Moody Blues been lamenting about ‘Knights In White Satin’ and Jethro Tull ‘Living In The Past’ with the help of the flute ? Flute it was then.

I passed the audition and so began 5 years of weekly flute lessons with a wonderful and patient teacher.

Playing an instrument in primary had a certain credibility about. Secondary ? Nah, not so much. It was now I realised that I had made the wise decision.

The flute fitted neatly into my canvas duffel bag and I thought about the humiliation my fellow musos were about to endure. You might be able to pass off a trumpet case as a small suitcase or trombone case as containing a bazooka but string players were doomed from the off. Which was probably a sort of natural selection thing as a certain number would have had to be culled anyway !

I persevered. Sometimes trying to emulate Jethro standing on one leg swinging the flute like a baton only to scuff the axminster and maim the Capodimonte figurines.

I even got into the Dunbartonshire Schools County Senior Orchestra. From The Vale of Leven to Lenzie, musical teens from across the county were let loose in a large Scottish baronial mansion near Drymen once or twice a year and were expected to make beautiful music together (and that’s not a euphemism though there were some Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark!)

Playing the flute led me to play the soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, piccolo and various whistles (if you can’t be good be versatile) in part-time bands touring Scotland from the mid 70s onwards. Occasionally, I will still try and attempt ‘Syrinx’ by Debussy. One of the most hauntingly beautiful solo flute pieces ever written.

Do I wait eagerly for the double bass solo in the late night jazz club or hanker for the slap of the rockabilly or bluegrass bass fiddle ? You bet I do.