How to describe music summercamp? It was a week filled with music classes, concerts and performances, eating together, drinking together and enjoying the company of friendly people who share the same interests.
We were 170 people of all ages between 16 and 92, although the average age was probably above 50. This was one reason for me to sign up - this wouldn't be a knocking shop, and people would be quite relaxed about musical skills. I could just relax and not worry about singing or playing poorly, or impressing boys. The musical focus was on folk music, jazz music, and a little bit of classical music as well. The tutors were high-caliber professional musicians, most of them also teaching music at university.
Most people were staying in the school which was more like a small village. I had a little room to myself under the roof with a sink and a mirror, and a shared bathroom in the hall. Food was excellent, and it was served to a strict schedule in a dining hall. I sat with different people for each meal, and everyone was friendly.
I was probably most nervous about my jazz voice class. This was about performing jazz songs solo in front of people. We did a couple of songs together, and each student had also prepared a song to rehearse and then perform at a student concert. We sang the first song together, Have You Met Ms. Jones, and then each of us sang 8 bars on their own. Once that was out of the way and I felt that I was doing ok, I relaxed a bit and started to enjoy the class.
My Ukulele class turned out to be a bit too slow-paced for my taste. I did learn new things, but too few of them, and too slowly. I dropped it and took up Dixieland instead. Dixieland was great. We had a tuba, banjos, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, guitar, and a tutor who had a huge smile on his face, handed out the music, and wasn't precious about the outcome. He made everyone play an improvised solo - and then everyone at the same time. The outcome was loud and fun and chaotic, and much more musical than expected. The tutor told me later in the bar that he had never taught adults before - he was filling in for someone else on short notice.
And finally, my First Steps In Improvisation class was very surreal, hugely entertaining and impossible to describe.
I ended up playing my trumpet much more than expected - after seven years of not playing it at all. It all came back quickly, and I remembered that I once quite liked it.
There were student concerts at night after dinner, and there was a bar and cheap drinking. People were playing their instruments everywhere, rehearsing for one of the many performances, or just jamming. I joined a bunch of recorder players for a session of recorder playing. On my birthday, I joined a jam session with my trumpet. I sang a jazz song to an audience of maybe fifty people, accompanied by piano. At the dance after the gala dinner I danced a quickstep with the only man at the camp who could ballroom dance, 92-year-old Norman. And for the last day, I rejoined the ukulele class to perform with them in the big final all-day student concert. At the ceilidh at night, I showed the mostly English crowd how they dance in Scotland.
It was indeed all very lovely.
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| School grounds - I stayed in the house on the left |
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| A Giggleswick house |
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| Gala dinner |
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| Late night drinking with boys from Ipswich and Doncaster |
