24 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in creativity, days out, weekly photo challenge
A local Jazz Festival has been running all week, with free twilight concerts at various parks and a foreshore boardwalk.
Due to predicted inclement weather, the weekend events were moved to a marquee. We spent the afternoon and evening listening to three different bands, with differing music styles and sounds. We joined others to be faces in the crowd.
03 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in creativity, weekly photo challenge
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It’s always a joy to experience live music, whatever the location, whatever the genre of music.
This evening, we attended the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s – TSO Live Session. The string section of the orchestra plus percussion, played a global programme in an outdoor setting.
It was a relaxed atmosphere, bring your own deck chair, or sit on bean bag,s bar stools. In typical Tasmanian style, anything worked from suits, smart casual, jeans and work boots to board shorts and thongs (flip flops). There was beer, wine, soft drinks available, food vans offering pizza, burgers, fish and chips, chicken wraps.
Individual musicians performed before and during intervals of the TSO sets. A sell-out crowd of all ages enjoyed the live music. A band playing 1920’s music entertained the after-party. It was as fabulous five hours of varying music for a mere A$35.
09 Sunday Jul 2017
Posted in creativity, days out
Tasmania is enjoying the annual celebration of song, music, spoken word.
A highlight of the festival is the Big Sing & Bonfire. An open air, free family event, a fun sing-a-long, attended by a few thousand people.
A selection of choirs and singers led the crowd in a variety of well known songs, from “Over the rainbow” to David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”.
As well as formal, organised concerts covering multiple music genres, there are also pop-up events around the city.
Another fascinating event was a walking tour, led by this actress, who shared some of Hobart’s history through the eyes and colourful lives of early female convicts.
“The Founding Fathers may have found things but it was the Founding Mothers who filled this place with life, culture and made a lot of money.”
08 Friday Jul 2016
Posted in creativity
There is always something going on in Hobart. At the moment it is the Festival of Voices, an eighteen day programme of singing, story telling, workshops and entertainment.
Tonight was the “Big Sing and bonfire”, a free friendly family affair. People from all generations stood around the bonfire and watched the singers on the stage. Kids on shoulders, or in buggies, family dogs on leads. Everyone was welcome.
The Aboriginal Women’s Choir were enchanting in costumes made from bright traditional designs. They sang a memorable version of “Waltzing Matilda” in their native language.
A Maori Quartet lead the crowd in singing the Beatle’s “Let it Be. A male a cappella group sang Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
Images of singers were projected on to the ten storey high “Salamanca Silo” buildings.
Light projections played on the old warehouses of Salamanca Place. The rain, highlighted in the spot lights, didn’t dampen the atmosphere.
25 Wednesday Nov 2015
Posted in days out
It is one month away so I really should start thinking about Christmas.
Last weekend Hobart held it’s annual Christmas Parade. The city centre came to a stand still as twenty thousand people lined the streets. The parade was a fun collection of bands and community groups, music and dance, closing with Santa on a giant sleigh.
This will be my first Christmas in the southern hemisphere and my head knows that it is summer. But it still seems odd to me to see tinsel and decorations amongst people wearing short sleeves and shorts, shop displays alongside beach wear.
Christmas lights are not a big thing here, which I guess is logical with long days and short nights. There are traditional decorations in shopping malls and on public buildings. A new modern tree sculpture in Salamanca Square is prompting lots of opinions and conversation.
04 Saturday Oct 2014
Posted in all about me, remembering / musing
I have been sorting out old records today. Old vinyl records, LP’s and 45’s. Remember those? Oh the places I have been inside my head today!
Just looking at the album covers trigger tunes and overtures in my mind. There are fascinating subconscious connections from visual and audio prompts. How can I remember so many lyrics from decades ago, yet struggle to remember what I am shopping for, without a list?
Music in my family was all classical, choral, a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan played on a radiogram or the wireless. I broke the mould when I insisted on buying pop singles at age five and six – The Monkees, The Beatles.
Tamla Motown was a strong influence in my early teens, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder, to name a few. David Cassidy and The Partridge Family, but not the Osmonds. There was a phase of reggae long before Bob Marley made it popular.
I remember my first transistor radio, that I’d listen to under the bed covers after bedtime. I don’t remember the pirate stations such as Radio Caroline, initially there was just the BBC with Radio 1 playing my generations music, but I do remember the launch of early independent stations in London, such as Capital Radio in 1973.
Musical taste extended into prog rock as well as the music of the pop charts. Genesis, Yes, Rick Wakeman, Hawkwind and others. The new instrumentals, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells that launched Virgin Records also in 1973, also Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene.
The big names of the time, Queen, David Bowie, Elton John, plus new 1980’s bands culminated in the amazing Band Aid Christmas single, followed by Live Aid in 1985.
Classic albums are in my vinyl collection, Carole King Tapestry, Fleetwood Mac Rumours, Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, Simon and Garfunkel Bridge over Troubled Water. It is unnerving as such albums have 35th or 40th anniversary re-releases. Oh I feel old. Music defines our youth, our twenties.
Cassettes came and went along with the Sony Walkman, but music became portable. CD’s in the mid 80’s and Sony Discman of the 90’s were superseded in the new millennium with ipod’s and Itunes and now we all have a huge music collection in our pockets.
As my daughters got into their teens and developed their own musical tastes, I enjoyed picking up new music through them. The Script and Ed Sheeran are such examples.
I have the dilemma of deciding what to do with this vinyl collection. I have not owned an actual turntable for fifteen years, so why hang on to them? Should I sell them? Are they worth anything? I’ll make some enquiries. Or do I store them for another decade and have more nostalgic days when I look at them all again on a future date?
What is your musical journey?
