However, the main act was Bellowhead, and it was clear that most people were there for them. The hall got busier and busier as the time for Bellowhead to appear drew closer, with the dance floor full of people standing, and many seats occupied as well.

Now Bellowhead are an unusual band. Spiers and Boden are a long-established duo with a reputation for a certain level of eccentricity. In Bellowhead, they take that tendency to extremes with nine other talented musicians playing a variety of instruments: trumpet, saxophones, bass clarinet, trombone, ‘cello, fiddles, oboe, bagpipes, whistles, accordions, concertina and a wide variety of percussion (including a frying pan).

The cheer as Bellowhead came on stage was extremely loud, and the band launched immediately into Jordan, a song from their first full album. Things got much louder after that.

This is something to criticise – after a while it became apparent that the band were too loud, to the point where the speakers or something in the chain couldn’t quite cope and so there were hints of distortion around the edges, and the soprano saxophone came over way too strongly a few times. The overall quality was good, but if it was just a little bit quieter it would’ve been far more enjoyable.

I’m not going to go through everything they played, although there were quite a few things that aren’t on either of their albums. Some I suppose could be from their original EP which I don’t have, but I suspect some of them just aren’t on any recordings which bodes well for future album repertoire. I do feel though that Bellowhead’s strength is in live performance. While listening to one of their albums is a pleasure, seeing them live is a completely different experience where the energy and enthusiasm really gets you.

And of course, nobody sings quite like John Boden.

The atmosphere prior to the start of the concert was absolutely incredible. I’m going to keep comparing it to Loreena McKennitt at the Barbican, because there was the same sense of being part of a group of really dedicated fans, and of extreme anticipation. In her case it was because she’d not toured at all for nine years. In JoCo’s case, it’s because he’s never been here at all.

With a group of people from JoCo’s forum, I was right near the front of the queue. The doors didn’t even open until the advertised start time, which is not how I usually understand these things to work — the time on the ticket is usually the show’s intended start time. Therefore the concert started later than expected, and the whole transport situation became rather more stressful than it should have been.

However, the show itself was worth waiting for. After Over There — complete with derisory boos during the ‘saved their asses in World War Two’ line — we were treated to a good cross-section of JoCo’s music, although unfortunately not including the new Lady Aberlin’s Muumuu. Particular highlights included Skullcrusher Mountain with virtually everyone singing every single word and the last chorus as an audience solo; Re: Your Brains as a concert-ender with audience participation (as if we hadn’t been participating already, as he acknowledged) where we had to learn to sing it like a mob of zombies, not like a Viennese children’s choir which has been turned into zombies. ‘Perhaps your mouths don’t work properly since you became zombies’.

I can’t recount all the wonderful moments as I’ll be here all day and I need to go shopping and do some cooking, but we did get the world premiere of Code Monkey sung with the accompaniment of JoCo’s new Tenori-On.

What do you mean, you don’t know what a Tenori-On is? Get thee to Google! Away, away!

That’s changed.

I’m now playing in two recorder groups, the SRP, a viol group, the University early music group (who’re short on members) and the office band. Yes, the office band – there is a band, and they seem to think a recorder player is a useful asset. I’ve been figuring out some parts for the office party at the end of November, and I’m gradually getting there. A completely different style of music, so it’s extremely interesting. The most important thing is that everybody seems to be having a lot of fun with it.

Work itself is generally going well, but I’m not going to write about it because it’s not going to win any awards for interestingness.

National Novel Writing Month is approaching once again. This year Hannah and I are the only MLs for our region, so we’ve got a bit more work to do. We need to sort out what’s going in the survival kits this year. The rest will probably organise itself – people have got into the habit of coming to meets now. We realised yesterday that we may be a fairly unique region in that we’ve been having monthly meets for two years now without missing a single one. What’s more, we have an extra meet at the end of October, weekly meets through November, and also weekly meets through June for Script Frenzy (not that Script Frenzy was at all popular with our Wrimos) and other June-time events like NaNoManGo and our own mini-Nano. Our Wrimos really are a fantastic group of people, and I’m honoured to be involved.

Unfortunately with NaNoWriMo looming I’m thinking up plots but also wondering when I’m going to find the time to write anything. Three performances in November and one in December mean a lot of rehearsal time, as well as the usual recorder and viol lessons and groups. I’m going to have to stop reading and just write write write write write I think.

Why the silence? Well, it’s largely because things of great interest have been happening. I know that’s not the traditional reason not to blog, but when searching for a job one doesn’t really wish to shout about it too much on the Internet in a form which will be easy for one’s prospective employers to find – not that I have a moment’s doubt that there’s already a whole pile of incriminating information out there about me. Evidently none of it was really serious, because I got a job and have been working full time for three weeks now. It’s not my dream job, I shall be honest, but it’s a job and it’s a pretty good one really. The pay’s entirely reasonable, the office environment is fantastic, and the people are also nice. The commute could only be better if it was a short walk down the road (rather than a short walk, a reasonable tram ride and another short walk after that).

The major problem is that, as with all software development which takes place against a background of established code, there’s established code. A lot of it. Ten years and more of it. Much of it is poorly documented (by which I mean not documented in any way whatsoever). Quite a bit of it is poorly written, having suffered from the many demons associated with haste, neglect and modification by other people (hint: documentation helps with that). It seems intentions are changing. My team have generally agreed that code should be documented and so forth. Unfortunately we’re now arguing about how it should be documented, but at least it’s a start.

Music things have been on a bit of a hiatus. As it’s the summer, many groups and lessons have been disrupted. I’ve not had any viol or recorder lessons for ages, and my only outlet is playing Telemann sonatas all afternoon at the weekend (I’m sure my neighbours are simply delighted…) and going to SRP once a month, which is an absolute lifesaver. I can’t wait for the start of the school year to return groups and lessons to normality, although I will miss playing with the University early music group.

Still, you can’t have everything.

Nonetheless, it’s all good fun. Last year I played with the university early music group and a solo which was taken from the pieces I was at the time preparing for grade 4 descant. I was terrified, played moderately poorly and vacated the stage as soon as was humanly possible.

What a difference a year’s extra lessons makes. Having passed grade 4 and grade 5 (the latter on treble recorder) since then, and played in a few more lunchtime concerts, I’ve become rather more confident and capable. Again the university group played – one piece by our viol players, and one piece combined strings and recorders, repeating the Telemann sonata for six melody instruments in A minor from our last lunchtime concert, which was a resounding success then and almost a resounding success last night. The audience liked it, but we know how it was supposed to go…

I also played with the Mundy Consort, which was much much easier music that we played better than we’ve ever played it before. Terribly pleased with that, because Rachel at least isn’t at all used to group playing or performance, being only ten. She played very well though, and so did Nadia and Patsy who completed that group for the evening (oh and thanks to Christine Ransom for filling in the fifth part in All In A Garden Green for us in the absence of a fifth member of the consort actually being able to attend).

And so there was my solo. This time it was an unnamed movement from Jacques Paisible’s Sonata 8 in C minor. A nice piece, not too challenging except to actually play well, accompanied by Phillip Weller on harpsichord, and Sarah Cook on baroque ‘cello. They’re both wonderful musicians, and it was a joy to play with them even through the performance nerves.

I actually got what I think might have been some genuine applause, and people told me afterwards I played very well, although they could have just been being polite I suppose. Still, definitely much better than last year. I could get to like this sort of thing.

Then the final pieces were stupendous amounts of fun. We were joined by Sinfonia Chorale, who provided the vocals, and Phillip on the pipe organ, one choir of twenty-ish recorder players and everyone who had a stringed instrument playing that in the other choir. We belted out some South American baroque music, and it’s still going through my head now.

Well, alternating with the UK’s Eurovision entry from last night anyway.

The other evening I was fortunate enough to go to the second of two performances by Kate Rusby and her band at the Playhouse in Nottingham. I’ve not been to the venue before, but it could hardly be more conveniently located and it was very nice indeed. Not awe-inspiring like the Barbican, but considerably smaller and on what might be termed a more realistic scale. The seat was comfortable, although a bit low — but most seats are a bit low for me so this can’t really be levelled as a serious criticism!

Kate Rusby herself has lost none of her on-stage charm. When she walks out into the spotlights and says ‘hello’ she’s like your next door neighbour, although probably prettier and a great deal more musically talented, something she proved immediately by singing The Playing Of Ball. As usual with a Kate Rusby Band gig, there was a lot of talking, joking and laughing going on. It’s often said that if the performers are having fun the audience probably will as well, and it held out here. The band were enjoying themselves, we were laughing and smiling and tapping our feet, and singing the chorus in appropriate places.

There were a few new songs in the set, including the excellent Awkward Annie and another one which did have a title but which has slipped my mind. This bodes well for the new album, and since Kate mentioned that they had been in the studio between tour dates, it seems likely that we might not have to wait much longer for the followup to 2005′s The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly.

Various favourites of mine were also included — Mary Blaize, The Elfin Knight, Sir Eglamore, Underneath the Stars and Cruel among others. I should admit that there are very few songs Kate can sing live which I won’t like to listen to. In many ways, she’s better live than on recordings, as the atmosphere created by the band is a considerable addition to the performance and there’s just no way for that to come across on a CD.

I can’t write as exhaustively about this as I did about Loreena McKennitt — good though Kate Rusby is, she’s not in the same league as Ms McKennitt by a long way. That’s an extremely select club, but it has by no means diminished my enjoyment of a smaller and much more fun performance. Kate Rusby Band: well worth seeing.

Anticipation couldn’t really be anything but high for Loreena McKennitt’s first tour in nine years. Intended to promote her superb new album An Ancient Muse, the concert at London’s Barbican Hall was the only UK date and was sold out.

The Barbican Centre is a very impressive building. On the outside it looks like an ugly concrete monstrosity, but inside it’s extremely well done with a simple aesthetic and an audacity of scale which is bound to impress. It’s big. Within the centre there appear to be four cinemas, a theatre and the hall itself, and there’s no sense that anything was squeezed in. The bar outside the hall stalls doors is huge, and interval drinks involved much less than the usual horrendous queues.

Of course, it’s something to be impressed by the venue, but something else to be impressed by the performance. Upon entering the stalls to take my seat which was conveniently located half-way up the tiered section of the stalls at the end of a row, the first thing that caught my eye was the stage, which was set with a large array of musical instruments, a golden arch and a backdrop lit in blue which perfectly evoked the blue and gold tent depicted upon the cover of An Ancient Muse and indeed the concert programme. A lot of people seemed to stop and gaze at it for a moment before finding their seats — it was a truly impressive sight.

The seats themselves aren’t the folding kind one usually expects in a concert hall, and were well padded if a little low for my excessively-long legs to be entirely comfortable with. There was, however, ample leg room and my deliberate choosing of an end-row seat was unnecessary — I would have been perfectly comfortable in the middle.

The hall being extremely tall and steeply tiered especially in the circle, it seemed like everyone would have a good view, but from where I was I think I had one of the best views in the house. Not too far off-centre, and a good height and distance from the stage that I could still see everything clearly.

Seats filled rapidly as half past seven approached. The waiting was made easier by the programme, given out for free and containing a great deal of writing about the process of touring, the ethics of flash photography and the cult of celebrity, something which Ms McKennitt feels very strongly about especially given the legal action she was forced to take in the UK after the publication of a book falsely claiming to be by an intimate friend about her private life.

Ultimately the impression gained from the programme is that each concert is viewed as a private gathering of friends — not close friends, but people with a common bond, come to share in a few hours of music and experience. This impression was bourne out by the concert itself.

Finally the time came and the musicians appeared, followed by Loreena McKennitt herself to wild applause. She sat at her harp and the band immediately launched into a new and rather unusual arrangement of She Moved Through The Fair, which those of us who own her first album Elemental thought we knew. This version was quite different, but then she did record the version we’re familiar with quite a few years ago now.

This was blended seamlessly into The Gates Of Istanbul with Ms McKennitt switching to keyboards, and huge applause filled the hall as the song came to an end.

Then one of my favourite songs, The Mummer’s Dance, requiring Ms McKennitt to change instruments again, to the accordion this time. It was in this song that the hurdy gurdy player — Ben Grossman — got an opportunity to shine, but I cannot stress enough the sheer amount of musical talent which was assembled on the stage that night. I single out the hurdy gurdy only because it’s an instrument I’m rather fond of, and it was fascinating to hear one played live.

The end of this song brought even more applause, and it was after sitting at the piano that Ms McKennitt first addressed the audience. She appears rather less confident talking than she does singing, but nobody could hold it against her. Penelope’s Song was the next to be sung, followed by the instrumental Marco Polo where each of the musicians near the front had a chance to show off in a solo section, the spotlights picking each one out as we were passed from violin to guitar to cello to hurdy gurdy, with a driving beat from the three percussionists at the back binding everything together. As each piece ended, the applause seemed to increase.

Late arrivals came in between almost every piece, and soon I couldn’t see an empty seat anywhere in the stalls. It’s the first sold out performance I’ve been to where it seemed everybody had actually turned up, and given the historical frequency of Ms McKennitt’s UK concerts, I would also have done everything I could to ensure that I didn’t miss it. Who knows how long it will be before we can see her again?

The next song took a darker tone, The Highwayman being a long ballad which ends badly for two lovers, based on a poem by Keats. Dante’s Prayer, which was explained to have been inspired by reading Dante while travelling by train through Siberia in December, was followed by The Bonny Swans, a traditional song which seems to be made up of bits of at least two other songs. Although the story fits together, the daughter who the song is about starts off as the daughter of a farmer who has two sisters, and ends up the daughter of the King with two brothers and one sister. There are many other variants of this song, performed by many artists including Jim Moray, who calls it Two Sisters, and Pentangle, who call it Cruel Sister. Each version is different but the story is essentially the same. A sister, jealous of her (usually younger) sister for some reason (often because someone highly desirable is courting her), pushes her into the river or the sea and leaves her to drown. Her body is eventually washed up near a minstrel (or two minstrels) who for some unknown reason constructs a harp from her breastbone and strings it with her golden hair. He takes this harp to the King’s court, which by this point in the song is described as the hall of her father, and the harp then plays itself, a story of sorrow and woe and the betrayal of a sister.

Fortunately the song which finished the first half, Caravanserai, is a superb piece and rather happier.

The interval seemed short, but nobody minded as, armed with full drinks, we returned to our seats for the second half which opened with a song not on the programme which I had never heard before, so I have no idea of the title. It was good, and I’m wondering how much material she’s already got for the next album.

I remember going to job interviews after I graduated with my BSc and listening to The Mystic’s Dream on the way. It’s a fantastic song, and was performed next in a different arrangement. It had to be different of course, she’s got a differet set of musicians and the album version includes a male voice choir on backing vocals and they of course were not present. Santiago, a tune using the voice as an instrument (the words consist entirely of ‘na’, ‘la’ and ‘da’), was extremely well received, played utterly perfectly and with great energy. It again offered most of the musicians a solo opportunity which they took with relish. Caroline Ravelle on cello plays everything with the appearance of great passion and energy, her long hair flying as she pulls and pushes the bow across the strings, sometimes striking them with shocking amounts of force. Hugh Marsh is no gentler with his violin, and they both displayed astonishing virtuosity.

It would not be right to continue without also mentioning Brian Hughes, playing guitars, celtic bouzouki and oud, who demonstrated irrefutably that the electric guitar solo does have a place outside rock music. The applause after Santiago was thunderous, and we still had Bonny Portmore, Beneath a Phrygian Sky, Kecharitomene (featuring more overwhelming instrumental virtuosity), The Lady of Shallott, The Old Ways and Never-Ending Road (Amhrán Duit) to go before the set was over.

I won’t bore you talking about each song. By this point emotions were running very highly, and I went from noticing details to revelling in the experience and the atmosphere which was being so expertly crafted by those on stage.

A standing ovation was obviously called for, and we clapped until our arms hurt and then clapped some more and were rewarded with an encore — a staggeringly good new arrangement of Huron ‘Beltane’ Fire Dance, another one of Ms McKennitt’s earlier songs, this time from the second album Parallel Dreams. This was actually the first time she’d played the harp all the way through a piece, and it was nice to hear it unfettered although the other instruments on this piece tend to overwhelm it a little.

Not the harp’s fault of course, it’s not the sort of instrument which can easily stand up to an electric guitar, a violin, a cello, a hurdy gurdy, an accordion, a lyre and a big pile of drums all at once.

Another standing ovation followed and, fortunately, a second encore. “We’ll leave the last word to Shakespeare,” Ms McKennitt says, exactly as she does on the live album Live In Paris And Toronto, before playing Cymbeline, the words of which were indeed written by Shakespeare. This was a quiet, intimate moment, with only harp, acoustic guitar and lyre on stage and playing. The house lights came up after the third standing ovation, and it was regretfully time to leave.

Truly this was a concert given by a supremely talented set of musicians. Groups like Flook and Lúnasa will light up a venue and fill it with sound and energy and carry the audience through a field of incredible rhythms. Steeleye Span will come out on stage and have a jolly good time, while Karine Polwart and her band make you feel like you’re having a private party. Loreena McKennitt takes her audience somewhere else entirely, and it’s not the sort of experience you should miss out on.

But I’m stuck with her for now, and she does have a habit of being rather wordy, so that’s something good at least.

Now for the other ingredients of the Time Of Panic: obviously I still have to work on PhD things. I won’t go into that, because people’s eyes tend to glaze over when I start talking about it — either that or I get into arguments about the necessity for correct-by-construction programming and dependent types. The other big panic-inducing thing is the concert on Tuesday, in which I’m playing bass recorder. Since I’ve not been playing it very long, this is a problem — not because of the fingering, as it’s the same as the treble/alto, just an octave lower. The problem is that the bass recorder parts are written in bass clef an octave lower than they sound, and I’ve never had to read bass clef before. This has made initial rehearsal of pieces quite tricky, because my bass clef sight reading is very, very slow.

But after Tuesday that will all be over, and I think we’re going to be okay. Whew.

So the next panic is the following week, as I’ve got my ABRSM Grade 5 Treble Recorder exam. The pieces might be okay — with the possible exception of the rather hideous List B piece (I do not like modern recorder music, or at least I don’t like what I’ve encountered of it so far — I’m quite sure that modern composers don’t set out with the idea of making a nice piece of music, but instead prefer to see how they can torture the musicians while pleasing the apparently deaf critics). The scales, though… that could be a different matter.

Add to that the difficulties of sight reading from treble clef onto a treble recorder when your primary sight reading practice has been from bass cleff onto a bass recorder, or from treble clef onto a tenor recorder (which is what I’ve mostly been doing in groups lately) and you have a recipe for more panic.

So got to squeeze some sight reading practice in somewhere after the concert, and not play any other kinds of recorder until the exam.

But on the bright side, my oven is now fixed, and a few other things here should get sorted tomorrow and maybe next week.

Enough of that. I went on holiday to the Lake District. Some photos in the gallery (not many, I’m too busy to muck about with tweaking and uploading lots, and you probably don’t want to look at them anyway. I did pick the best ones though).

I’m still preparing for my ABRSM grade 5 treble recorder exam, which is in early December.

It’s nearly time for National Novel Writing Month to start! This year I’m one of three Municipal Liasons for England::Nottingham region, so there’s more to do on the organisational front. MLs are of course also expected to reach 50,000 words, in order to set a good example. I’m aiming for 60,000 this year, but we’ll see how it goes. I hope I can do it, because if I don’t I suspect Paul will be terribly displeased — more so than he was last year after I completely failed to blow up any planets in my novel, even after we spent an enjoyable afternoon discussing how you could blow up a planet with a ferret (we thought maybe a ferret travelling at 0.99c might do it on impact, but nobody actually sat down and worked out the energy requirement. It’s quite possible you’d need several ferrets).

So this year I have a basis for a plot, I even have a preliminary title, and I’ll be sticking bits of in-progress stuff up on the NaNoWriMo page here from time to time. Maybe even the whole thing like last year, if you’re very, very unlucky.

What else? Oh yes. I’ve started lessons with the Latin, Ballroom and Salsa society at the University — Latin and Ballroom lessons, that is, the Salsa classes are different. It’s fun but quite difficult, and I’ve stepped on far too many toes. I think my feet are too big, and I feel the need to only dance with girls who are wearing steel toecaps for their own protection.

Of course, it’s difficult because quite often we’re both making mistakes, so even if one of us dances perfectly we still end up stepping on each other’s feet. Sort of a lose-lose situation really, but hopefully that will fade with more practice.

It’s a shame I can’t make the practice sessions, but they rather clash with recorders. Recorder lessons are now on Mondays, followed once a fortnight by a Monday consort, nice and small, good people to play with, great music to play.

Wednesdays is Collegium Musicum — first concert this year is in late November, lunchtime again. Nowhere near as scared about it as I was this time last year. I guess that’s what experience will do.

Thursdays is dancing, as mentioned above.

Saturdays throughout November are devoted to NaNoWriMo.

So I’m a bit busy for the foreseeable future. I also have a nifty little software project to write some time, but that’s not really going to be on the map until at least Christmas.

Oh yeah, and an interim report for my PhD. Gotta fit that in somewhere too.

The exam’s not likely to be until the first week of December, but I’m already scared. What with NaNoWriMo and practising for the exam, I think November’s going to be a busy month.

Now to make a chart of scales I need to learn and start playing them all three times a day.