Thingies that happen to Steve in his other job

[SteveHopwood]

We had our second and final full Sunday Blood Brothers rehearsal today. Spectacular amounts of rubbish were consumed by the kids in the band.

I had thrown a packet of chocolate mini-eggs across to Billy. Jeremy undertook to open the packet and did so with such violence that half the contents spilled out across the floor.

Once on the floor, food is supposed to be thrown away. Every child in the band looked at one another. The unspoken message flashed from one to another - "What the hell" and said mini-eggs were re-captured and subsequently eaten.

Hugh and Lois were soooooo sweet. Hugh was seated behind Lois. Each had a bag of something that the other wanted. Imagine reaching behind you; your palm would face upwards. Every time Lois wanted something that Hugh had in his bag, she would reach her hand out behind her and Hugh would carefully place the required sweetie in her hand.

Every time Hugh wanted something that Lois had, he would reach out beside her and she would place said item equally carefully into his upturned palm. It was wonderful to watch.

The only major hitch was one song. The boy singing it was not even coming close to what the rest of us had in front of us. Musical director and producer were cutting this bit here, adding this bit there, then moving another bit to try to make a match. Nothing worked, to my utter lack of surprise.

I kept on telling them that the boy was not singing anything that the rest of us could recognise. They kept on insisting that the boy was correct. I kept on telling them that he was not singing anything the rest of us could recognise.

I snapped eventually. "You two may not be able to read music, but I damn well can. I am not playing another note in this blasted song until you provide a score that bears at least a passing resemblance to what is being sung. I am astonished that you are unable to do this two days before the first performance." Mr Softy Steve had not snapped at them before, so it gave the two of them pause for thought.

Major hit musicals spawn a variety of different short-form editions so that people can sing the songs without needing the 'official' score. They are invariable shortened forms of the original. They all come with a recorded sound track that the kid gets used to. It turned out eventually that the boy had learned the song from one of those and was able to provide it, so we now all have the same material.

Why should the producer and MD bother to make sure that their cast are learning the correct material?

Hey ho. It is the only major hitch so far. We are doing well.

[SteveHopwood]

The show kicks off tomorrow, so today was our full Monday pre-show rehearsal day. Some lovely stuff happened.

One little boy brought the house down. He had some centre stage lines to deliver. All the kids have microphones linked to a broadcaster the size of a mobile phone, strapped somewhere about their person. The broadcaster sends the speech/singing to the mixer technician who takes care of making sure that what the audience hears makes sense.

This little boy's broadcaster became detached and he tried to retrieve it. He failed and scrabbled around for a few seconds, then forgot his lines and got lost. Finally the poor child buried his head in his hands and came this across the sound system clear as a bell, "Friggin' hell. I don't know what to do." Brought the house down.

The producer called out from the back of the hall, "Not to worry. Things like this happen. It is up to the rest of the cast to move along and cover it up. Keep going."

So the kids on stage moved along to the next section of dialogue. Subsequently, pretty much every member of the cast went to this child and gave him a hug and offered words of encouragement. 15 minutes later her was looking much happier.

Drummer Ruth needed the loo, so she asked MD for permission. Unable to resist a tease he replied, "Of course Ruth. Off you go. You have 50 seconds. One, two......"

Later on, Lois stood up and wandered slowly out of the hall. She was gone for a few minutes. Ruth asked, "Where is Lois?" "Off on a comfort break" replied Miss.

Complained Ruth, "You didn't give her 50 seconds."

As I often ask, how am I supposed to resist? I came out with, "That is because we like Lois."

"Aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee".

Most of the kids were eating lunch in the hall. We in the band wanted to iron out a few points of difficulty and so worked on them. I have noticed before that this acts on the kids as does light upon a moth. Within seconds of us starting up, we would be joined by members of the cast involved in the song, even though they were supposed to be eating lunch. It is a beautiful characteristic of children taking part in this sort of event. Start playing their tune and they cannot resist joining in.

The amplifying equipment does not always cooperate fully on these occasions. Anyone who has ever had to deal with this blasted equipment will be familiar with 'feedback', when the system explodes into intolerable life and deafens anyone within 100 miles radius. We had one of these episodes today. After we had climbed out from our underground shelters Billy intoned plaintively, "I used to quite like my ears."

[SteveHopwood]

Tonight was the second evening performance of Blood Brothers. The kids' confidence is increasing and tonight was a superb high school performance. There was some really good acting on stage, and much of the singing was good to listen to given that it was children singing. There was nothing to make the rest of us cringe.

Yesterday was the busiest of the school musical calendar, with a full run through in the morning, a performance of act 1 for the feeder primary schools in the afternoon, and a full first performance in the evening.

I saw Lois move quickly for the first time, at the start of the morning - she is a relaxed child. I had taken in a couple of bags of chocolate mini-eggs and put them on the end of the piano. “Help yourselves folks,” I called out. Quick as a shot, Lois leaped to her feet, grabbed a packet, opened it and popped one into her mouth. She placed the bag in her blazer pocket and grinned triumphantly at the the rest of the Motley Crew. She ate her way through the packet during the course of the morning. It would be a close run contest if Lois and Little Sweetie Sarah were the finalists in a Miss Cute competition, so nobody objected.

She munched her way through a bag of Cadburys Buttons during the afternoon performance for the primary school kiddies. Insatiable.

One of the four main characters, Mickey, has an older brother called Sam. Sam is supposed to be a bit of a wild child. He is being played by a young girl of about 13 in this production. She clearly has not a wild bone in her body. “Not entirely convincing as a wild child, is she?” I remarked to the Motley Crew. Billy quipped, “Nope. Not all aspects of the casting have been thoroughly thought through.”

There is a scene where Mickey has just met the boy he did not realise was the twin he was separated from soon after birth. They immediately became besties, then becoming "blood brothers" with the usual ritual, hence the name of the musical. Mickey is describing some the the mischief that Sam gets up to. There is one line where he announces that, “He sometimes pisses through next doors' letter box. I tried, but I had to stand on a box.”

A ripple of excited giggles greeted this line whilst the primary kiddies were listening. I can just imagine what the hot topic of conversation was when they got home.

Come the first evening performance yesterday and the cast started singing on incorrect entries umpteen times. The Motley Crew stuck to them like glue, making impressively fast adjustments to the chords they were playing. They are an unusually talented group.

[SteveHopwood]

I have mentioned before that events such as performing is a school musical can change the course of peoples' lives. Something similar did mine, albeit more classical. The same is true of taking part in a play or taking advantage of other non-academic activities offered by schools - sports, for example. Kids cannot discover what their passion is unless they have the chance to try something.

The character with the biggest part in Blood Brothers is Mrs Johnstone. It is a huge part; I reckon that the player has more to learn than the rest of the cast put together.

Georgi, of the brilliant smile that I hope never to see leave her face. played the character. She did so brilliantly. Georgi is in her final year at school and is off to study music theatre at university next September.

Georgi has taken part in every musical for the last six years, being given increasingly significant roles as she became older and more experienced. I found out that she had to be bullied into taking part in her first one at the age of 12. There was a character in the musical that was ideal for her but Georgi did not want to take part. She was effectively bullied into taking on the role by the head of performing arts, a lady it is difficult to say, "No" to, such is her persistence and determination to get her own way.

Having finally been persuaded on stage, Georgi loved every second of the preparation and performances. Here she is six years later, heading for a career on the stage. Brilliant.

I am returning again to the need to expose kids to a wide variety of different activities to help them discover their passion - and they will have one, however daft it may seem to the rest of us.

The value of performing arts is being massively scorned in the UK these days. Do a Google search for, "Performing arts gdp" to discover how much the contribute to the economy. It is an eye opener. That is only talking about cash and completely ignores the transferable skills that performing arts students acquire through their studies.

Hey ho. Rant over. More lovely stuff to come about the kids and their musical in the coming days.

[SteveHopwood]

I have two more stories from the musical, but I am saving the best for tomorrow; it is outstanding.

This one for now. Come the final night of the show and all the photos of the cast are taken. That bit I understand. These photos are plastered all over the school and the cast are the sort of kiddies to revel in the attention.

For reasons best known to the producer, she insists on taking photos of the band. Now, there are musicians who love the camera and are loved by it.

The band are not amongst that number. We would have become actors, not musicians, had we enjoyed being in front of a camera. I am at least used to the attention given to a professional soloist, yet even I want to rip the camera from a photographers hand and shove it where the sun does not shine. No one else in the band is used to my level of attention, so imagine how much they hate it.

So we stand and snarl and hiss at the photographer. To my total lack of anything remotely resembling astonishment, these photos never see the light of day. I have no idea why the producer still insists on taking the damn thingies. We submit to it because nobody wants to make an unpleasant scene at a time that should be happy. I might tell her to piss off next time, even so.

Miss Producer called after us as we trooped off stage, "You could always try a smile, you know."

"No chance," I snarled.

"Never going to happen," grumbled Mr P.

Billy was magnificent. He is another of those eternally smiling faces yet he quipped, "Smiling at a camera is not my forte. You want me to smile? Lose that damn camera."

[SteveHopwood]

One final story from the musical. It was one of the outstanding events of my career even though it did not involve me.

There is a little girl called Masie that we all became fond of. 11 years old, petite, hair done in two pig tails and with one of those smiles that would power the national grid. A smile she bestowed upon all and sundry, whatever the circumstances. She was a member of the cast of children, playing the parts of children in act 1 and armed garage-robbing hoodlums in act 2.

They had to be the sweetest bunch of hoodlums the world has ever seen.

Act 1 requires two people to play the brothers aged 7, so we had two young members of the school playing the parts. The lad playing Edward injured himself badly at the end of the second night and could not appear again. He is happily well on the way to a full recovery.

A stand-in was required, and the producer honed in on Masie. Clearly, producer knew something about Masie that the rest of us did not - what she knew became clear later. Nothing about this gorgeous but unassuming little dab suggested that we were in the presence of a star.

Producer announced the cast change to the audience at the start of the evening. She explained that she and other members of the cast had spent the day walking Maisie through her part and that she would be acting with the aid of a script. We were all to forgive anything that was about to go wrong.

Forgive? The hall was instantly full of about 500 people who would cheerfully have murdered anyone daft enough to be critical.

Our MD could see all of the stage. I could see 75% of it. Others in the band could see some of it, and most of what Masie was about to present as most of her action took place at the front of the stage. Most of us could see a lot of what was about to happen.

I could see Masie waiting in the wings to come on for her first entrance. I assumed she would be a bog-standard child actor of 11, overcoming lack of acting ability with charm. "Good luck poppet," I thought to myself, "nobody will blame you for what is about to happen."

We in the band and in the audience watched what unfolded with open mouths. Masie owned the stage from the moment she stepped onto it. Yes, she read from the script but that was irrelevant. It was as though it did not exist. I have never seen acting like it on an amateur stage, anywhere, ever. I have seen a lot of amateur acting.

I have watched the BBC adaptation of, "His Dark Materials" with the extraordinary Dafne Keen playing Lyra. I have mentioned elsewhere that I have watched a few episodes of the dismal, "Game of Thrones." There are some fabulous child actors there.

Masie was right up there with the best of them. OK, so we all know that talented children can be fabulous actors. We just do not expect to meet them in a bog-standard secondary school in the middle of UK nowhere.

We discovered subsequently that Masie is already a professional actor. Netflix needed some dialogue in one of their films dubbed by a child actor with and English accent and Masie was selected for the work. Good on her. With any luck, the fact that she attends a bog-standard sec school in the middle of UK nowhere will keep her grounded and sane. We can only hope.

For now, it was extraordinary to see a star at work in our midst. About 4.6 feet tall, with pigtails and the sort of smile that you would never want to see go away. Fingers crossed for her future.

[SteveHopwood]

I had a wonderful time in school today. It was sooooo good to be back after a couple of weeks away.

I started with Little Sweetie Sarah on her extra lesson because of doubling up on the music class she took last term. Charlie wandered in about half way through, c. 1.00 PM.

"Ehup Sam," I called out.

Charlie sighed patiently and asked, What is my lesson time, please?"

"Listen up you moron. I tell you this every week. It is a fixed time on Thursday - 1.10."

Came the plaintive reply, "I thought it was a fixed time on Tuesday."

"Of course it is not fixed on Tuesday. Tuesday is an extra lesson that I devote to you lot because, for some reason only known to my deepest, darkest, daftest inner psyche, I am fond of you all."

"Yes, but it is you who tells me and we both know what that means."

"Fair point. Now go away and try not to come back in 10 minutes."

Charlie gave me that smile and wandered off. He reappeared a couple of minutes later announcing, "Everywhere else is full of people either in classes or bigger than me, so I am dossing here for the next few minutes."

"No you aren't," I snarled. "Go away." He settled himself comfortably on one of the tables and spent the remaining minutes of LSS's lesson on his phone.

Still a lack of trembling and awe in my presence, I note. Hey ho. This lack of TaA can be helpful sometimes.

Suddenly, my timetable is full. It is only two hours so only six victims, but that is three more than I have had for the whole of this academic year up until now. Miss has been pushing the peri service and her pushing is starting to bear fruit.

The three new victims are all Y7 i.e. 11/12 years old. They are all sized small to tiny. It is strange how often an entire year group can have a similar size/personality/intelligence. This Y7 appear to be staggeringly bright and physically small.

Julia is tiny. She makes Sarah look large. Despite my jokes about TaA, I do not actually want children trembling in my presence. I prefer them to be happy and smiling, even though they are enduring my teaching. Abusive parents do not book their kids in for piano lessons, so the ones that come to me are confident in the love and total protection offered to them by all the adults in their lives. It is easy to win their trust.

My three new victims settled down quickly and bought into my line of lunacy rapidly. We were banished again to The Dungeon and as usual I had the door open so we would not fry in our own sweat. I sit with my back to the open door and sensed a movement behind me. Latest victim Louis looked up and it was clear from his body language that there was someone standing behind me.

This was around about the time that I had arranged an aural practise session with Lexie before we broke up for the holiday and the school suddenly filled up my infinitesimally tiny timetable. I guessed it was her standing behind me.

I asked, "Louis, is there A Victim standing behind me?"

Louis had bought into my lunacy very quickly. "Yes" he replied.

"Is it trembling with fear?"

"No. It is smiling."

"Tell it to tremble with terror and go away before I strike it down."

Louis looked up at Lexie. "What he said." We cannot expect a verbatim quote under these circumstances.

<Brief pause> "Has it gone away?"

"No Sir."

I rearranged with happy and smiling Lexie for her to come to me on Tuesday.

There is more to come from today. Next post.

[SteveHopwood]

Some more from yesterday. There is a Younger Motley Crew of Musical Reprobates forming; these are a year younger the the Older Motley Crew, so I am guessing that they are year 9 GCSE music students. They are a sweet bunch of friendly girls often to be found "chilling" in 146 or 149 during their lunch break.

I was teaching Sarah when they wandered in - about 7 of them. "Ehup angels," I called out. "Ehup Sir" they chorused back sweetly.

I do not mind the girls being in the room whilst I am teaching. In fact, I rather like having them there. Sarah does not mind either, so we continued with the lesson. The corridor is effectively a self-contained expressive arts block and the kids studying the subjects on offer are of like minds. They tend to form close-knit groups. No doubt there are tensions and bust ups, but that is just kids being kids. A bit like adults but quicker to forgive and a lot less likely to be lethal.

The noise level started to rise to intrusive proportions so I called out, "I am trying to teach here folks, so could you keep the din down to a dull roar, please?"

"Sorry Sir," chorused the cute reply and they did indeed lower the din to a tolerable dull roar.

15 year old Amy had wandered in by the time 11 year old elfin LSS and I had finished and Sarah was making her way out of the room. "Amyyyyyeeeee," cried Sarah. "Saraaaaah," cried Amy and they threw themselves into a hug. This was quite a comical sight as Amy is now taller than me and Sarah comes up to my chest.

Amy used to look up at me out of those loving, trusting eyes. Now she looks down at me out of those loving, trusting eyes.

----

Charlie managed a belter. I am sooooo proud of him.

We all know what it is like when a new member joins an organisation; people feel their way around each other whilst they get a feel for what is mutually acceptable. It was the same for me and Miss. I did not know whether she would be brilliant or useless and vice versa.

It takes a while for people to come to trust each other when one of them only spends four hours a week in a school. Miss winning me over was a doddle. I am old enough to be her grandad and so am as fiercely protective of her as I am the kids. Plus, she turns out to be outstanding, so she has my professional respect as well. Being sympathetic when she is enduring the self-doubting crisis that is normal in a young teacher is easy.

Me winning her respect was only going to happen when I had an opportunity to show her how good I am. That did not happen during her first term at the school but Miss, Mr P and I were chatting at the end of the day just before the Christmas break. We were at least on friendly terms by then. Miss mentioned that she was putting on a concert of solo and small ensemble items involving the best of the school's young muzos at the end of the Easter term.

I said, "Sing out if you want a piano accompaniment instead of the usual backing tracks. I am happy to help out. I am rather good." I do not go in for false modesty when describing my skills as a piano accompanist. I am fantastic.

Mr P chipped in with, "He really is, you know. You wait until you hear him."

The opportunity came when we had the band together in the early stages of preparing Blood Brothers. The solo songs demand that the singer uses a lot of rubato. <This is a musical term that describes allowing the music to flow whilst not being in a strict beat. A strict beat would kill the music stone dead. Listen to some of Chopin's piano music if the idea confuses you.> In turn, this demands that the accompanying band listen hard and follow.

Miss explained this to the kids, who were looking slightly blank so I said, "You sing it, Miss. Use some outrageous rubato and I will show them what you mean by 'following'."

So she did. Her rubato was indeed outrageous - almost as outrageous as Georgi's. I stuck with her as if coated by superglue. The kids got the point - they are brilliant after all. Miss will have endured some dreadful 'accompanists' during her music college days and instantly understood what I am all about. "Can I ask you to play some accompaniments in that concert were were talking about? Much better than backing tracks."

That was a few weeks ago. Yesterday is when Charlie stepped in. Miss had some piano parts for me and asked Charlie if he had seen me. The evil little toad replied, "Haven't you heard Miss? He has left the school and is not coming back." I knew nothing of all this.

I wandered along to Mr P at the end of the day. Miss came out of 149 and yelled, "Steve, you are still here. I just spent the afternoon melting down because I am sick to death of backing tracks and thought I was going to have to go back to them."

I had no idea what she was wittering about and looked blank. Mr P heard all this. Charlie walked up, sniggering. Miss explained, looked at him and said, "You were winding me up, weren't you?"

"Yep."

"You sadist," I said to him and we high-fived. Mr P called out from his little room, "He is learning from you Steve. He is learning from you."

Yet another young mind that I am corrupting nicely. It is a mind fertile for corruption.

[SteveHopwood]

One more from Thursday that I forgot to tell you. It concerns our little violinist, Lois. I had followed Miss in to receive the piano parts she had for me and there was an elfin little girl in my way. "Can I sneak past you please, poppet?" I asked.

There was no response so I gently picked her up and sat her on the piano stool so I could get around her. I realised it was Lois and said, "Sorry angel. I did not recognise you. Your hair is done differently and you are wearing glasses. You look completely different. It is wonderful to see you again. How are you."

Lois smiled sweetly and replied, "Very well, thank you Sir. How are you?"

"All the better for seeing you."

Lois smiled sweetly again , wheeled around on the piano stool and launched into a vicious massacre of Fur Elise. This child knows how to gain revenge on errant music teachers.

Miss and I gave each other a shrug that said, "Hey ho. What can we do?" and left Lois to it whilst we sorted out our thingies. I will try to find a few minutes one day to show her how to play it well.

[SteveHopwood]

I wandered into 146 today to find Miss seated at her desk working at her computer, and several members of both the Younger and Older Motley Crews doing various musical thingies.

That Miss adores the kids is plain to see. I have said before that if you adore a child, it will adore you right back. Having said that, Miss is not the sort of 'soft touch' that I am. She has a code of discipline and detentions await children who flout it.

Miss is blissfully happy to have kids in the room at lunchtime, but they must be doing something related to their musical studies. This can be as loosely related as merely listening to some songs through their headphones, but music related it has to be. Merely sitting and gossiping is not allowed.

She had another song for me to accompany so we were about to head to the photocopier when more members of the YMC erupted loudly into the room. "I shall throw out any not doing something music-related when we get back," Miss muttered as we walked towards the copier.

On our return, Miss singled out three girls in succession announcing, "You, you and you are doing nothing musical. Out. Now." The girls fought back - these are Y9 - with, "Awwwwe Miss. You do not throw the Y10's out when they are doing nothing musical."

"That is changing as well." The Y10 MC members doubled their efforts.

I could not resist. I chimed in with, "Besides, Miss doesn't like you and I cannot blame her."

Quick as a flash Miss joined in. "Besides, I do not like you. Go away."

"Awwwweee Miss."

"Detentions looming." They fled.

One of the boys had so far escaped attention. He was quietly eating his lunch and eating outside of the school canteen is a hanging offence.

Miss rounded on him and said, "You are eating. Were I not in such a good mood I would give you the detention I am supposed to give you."

He tried. He came back with, "But Miss, you eat in here."

A feeble attempt, but at least he tried. "That is because I am working through my lunch break. You have 5 seconds to vanish."

He disappeared quicker than a Cheshire Cat.

Miss gave it a couple of minutes and then said, "Some of them have taken to going to 149 after being thrown out of here. I will just go and give them detentions."

She returned a few minutes later. I asked, "How many?" "Three. They will learn eventually."

These are sweet children learning how the world works under the kindest possible circumstances. It is fun to be a part of their development, even tangentially.