Singing – Clare's many threads

March in March – week 1

I’ve completed my week of walking mornings. Each walk is marked on the map in a different colour. Everyday I made, or found a symbol of my Five Directions. Next week I’ll be walking all day from Monday to Friday raising money for The Cheyne Gang www.thecheynegang.com/

Here is the link to my fundraising page https://localgiving.org/claresmanythreads

**My made and found Five directions logos**

The first walk I considered to be a warm up for the rest of the week. It was a brightly shining day and heading over familiar fields I allowed myself to be lead by tracks into the woods. I found several and also deer prints. In my head I called these tracks “The Deer Wood Ways.” (Mmmm I think I can hear a poem on its way.) Before stopping by the Eden Water for my hot drink, I came across what I first thought were deer and then realised were plastic models! There were lots of them, all different animals. Part of an archery course but kind of Crazy!!!

On Day Two I started by marching cheerily down the road on another glorious day of sunshine. I got tired pretty quickly, but there was something about walking along a lane that pressured me to keep going forward fast. I made myself slow down. Then my gaze was drawn to the left and I saw an opening into a stubble field which seemed to be inviting me in. As soon as I was off the track I felt better. Nearing the line of woodland ahead of me I saw a herd of deer racing through (their Deer Wood Way.) A couple of them stopped to have a good look at me and then raced on.

**On top of Lurgie Craigs (Black Hill and Eildons in far distance to right and left)**

Day 3 was special because I planned to go to Lurgie Craigs. Several years ago I spent many days there studying the landscape to create a piece of solo theatre. There aren’t any paths, so I went cross-country fearing barbed wire and other hazards. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. I went past the quarry, through fields and up to the craigs. It was like coming home and I didn’t want to leave.

**Blinkbonny Quarry which I could hear from all my different directions**

Day 4 was my longest walk at about seven miles. Again it was sunny and when I sat in the corner of a ploughed field drinking my coffee, the sun burnt my face.

The last day of the week it was grey. Also fairly cold. I planned to go to Smailholm. As it wasn’t very far I took the long way, down into the valley to Eden Water. I had swimming things with me. A friend had promised to donate if I swam in the water. They were heavy so I hid them under a gorse bush to retrieve on my way back.

Walking from Smailholm to the Eden Water valley I was intrigued to see it from very different perspective.

I got to the stream, retrieved my towel, undressed and got into the water ( I was wearing a swimming costume under my clothes.) It was hardly above my knees so I lay down for a few seconds. I’m hoping my friend will think that equates to swimming. Then I went home, passing Hundy Mundy on the way.

Many thanks to all those who have donated so far. I’m now just over half way to my target.

March in March – Intro

Introducing my walk to raise money for The Cheyne Gang – Singing for Breathing

It’s a catchy phrase but I’m not actually envisaging a march. There’s too much of a relentless forward motion implied and militaristic overtones. More of an interested amble. Taking in the scenery and seeing how far I can get, in a gentle kind of way, on the ten days I have in mind. Those days are definitely in March and starting on Monday 15th.

**The road near my house on a beautiful evening**

I am going to walk to RAISE MONEY for The Cheyne Gang, an organisation that works with singing for breathing LINK. I have been involved with them for a year now and they are a very inspiring bunch of women.

Each day I will walk from my front door. The first week will be five half days, the next week five full days. Each of the five days, a different direction.

The photos give an idea of the landscape I’ll be walking through. Although, probably not the snow. But you never know. A bit of unintentional rhyming there.

**The same road** **at the beginning of February**

I don’t know if I can do it because of my energy issues but it will be interesting to try. The Cheyne Gang are intending to include Long Covid sufferers in their work. I’m interested in Long Covid because, in my mind, it bears a relationship to other post viral syndromes like Chronic Fatigue and M.E. I have a mild form of Chronic Fatigue and like so many others I feel under the radar, so manage it in my own way. I’m hoping that research into Long Covid will also throw a light on Chronic Fatigue.

The pink house in the middle is mine. Cheviot Hills behind.

So why March?

Several reasons: I start feeling more well in March , the cows aren’t in the fields and I like the idea of walking through the Spring Equinox and the changing of the light.

As I am an artist, the whole walk will become part of my practice. Currently I’m working with Life Writing and have been reflecting on my biography, particularly my time as an actor. I’ve been using specific textiles as a prompt into my memories. I also work with paper, textiles and song, so we’ll see what emerges. There is the possibility I’ll get very tired and nothing will emerge but I intend to work with that too. I’ll try to listen to my body and sit or lie down whenever I need to. It’s lovely lying and looking at the sky or up into trees. Possibly not when it’s raining but maybe it’ll stay dry.

I intend to record some of my walking experience so look out for this blog and photos, sound and videos that will also appear on facebook and instagram and consider donating. More information about that will appear shortly.

So … walking from my door and whatever the weather.

Week 1 – Monday 15th March – half a day for five days – each day a different direction

Week 2 – Monday 22nd March – full day for five days – five different directions.

**This stream is the Eden Water and will feature in my walk. I may even swim in it.**

Song Wave – Rehearsals

It’ s now only one and a half weeks until 17th May – Song Wave day! I have been rehearsing with my two singing groups. Just Singing is very small, there are about six of us singing “Stay” so we are doing the tune with two of us on the top part attempting to sound ethereal. We are going to meet at 10.40 at the Natural Crafs shop in Melrose. My friend, the owner, Catherine Bauer, says we are very welcome to go through the song while, Sandra (who manages the shop) is having her coffee. So that will be our warm up then it’s across the road to Marmions for 11 o’clock which, I hope will be packed, to sing and be filmed by my friend Sue Scowcroft. After that, if we feel up to it, we may go and sing outside the Co-op.

Smailholm Village Hall on a grey and damp evening. Often it is all shiny and covered in sunshine but not the day I took my camera!

My other group is The Smailholm Singing Group and I’m absolutely delighted that so many of them are going to sing “Stay”. It was twenty-one at the last count.

Ian and Fin helping with the chairs (thank you both). Fin has got distracted by the books and I think I surprised Ian!

It’s been interesting to see how easy (or otherwise) the groups have found learning the song. It appears that the chorus is very catchy and people pick it up quickly. There has been a bit of a struggle with the top part and also difficulties with the rhythm of the tune.

Here we are going through some of the bottom part.

They are enjoying themselves already and we haven’t even started singing.

Last week during our rehearsal in Smailholm, I got the”tune” people walking out the beat and it really improved thier understanding of the rhythm.

Here is a recording of Smailholm Singing Group trying out the the last bit of the song. Probably only for the second time. The top part haven’t quite got all the right notes at this point.

There are more people than this, the others are standing, inconveniently, in the shadows. (Or possibly on purpose?)

After that we all sang together and it sounded gorgeous with so many of us. I was very pleased. I’m also happy that people like it because you can never know when you are creating something how it will be received. So what a relief!

Two more rehearsals and then we will be singing in Keslo Square on Friday 17th May at 1.30. After that we will move around. Others places suggested by the group are the War Memorial, outside the Fishmongers and outside Lidl.

Do come and see us in Melrose or Kelso and even join in if you wish.

Song Wave – Connected

I mentioned in an earlier post The Scottish Mental Health and Arts Festival’s theme for this year is “Connected” and I would like to relate a couple of stories.

Jake Scott is one of the contributors towards “Stay”. He sings his own blues songs as Stoney Broke. I went to see him at The Barrels in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Tom Sykes, who recorded “Stay” with me came along too. We enjoyed his music. He has a lovely voice.

The basement room at The Barrels is like being in the belly of Berwick. The picture is me with Stoney Broke. Yes, it was a bit dark down there.

It was good to meet Stoney Broke and it will be great if he works on a blues version of “Stay”. That is the first CONNECTION. The other is of a more coincidental nature (if you believe in coincidence, which, actually, I don’t).

http://www.stoneybrokemusic.co.uk

Both Tom and I were paid for our work on “Stay” and Tom was keen to plough the money back into music. He came across a guitar that was exactly the amount he had earned. It was privately owned so he went to pick it up from the musician who’d put it up for sale. They got chatting and Tom mentioned Song Wave. It turned out that friends of the musician had known Scott Hutchison very well and were, understandably, very upset about his suicide last year. I hope and expect there to be more Song Wave CONNECTIONS. I also hope that lots of people will sing “Stay” on 17th May and think about how poor mental health impacts on people’s lives. But also reflect on the joy that comes from singing and CONNECTING through song.

Song Wave 3 – How to write a song?

There must be so many ways and maybe not all of them as exhausting as I found mine. I was two weeks in and fully focused in the late afternoon when suddenly I felt the energy drain right out of me.

I knew then that I had to stop for that day and take things carefully. I do have problems with energy conservation but this had taken me by surprise.

Fortunately, tune and harmonies were finished and I had just started recording the learning tracks. My friend Tom Sykes was doing this with me. I had planned for us to do it together but he suggested we try it remotely. This was fine except that it meant I needed to learn a new system and my brain wasn’t letting anything more in.

Some people call this tiredness Chronic Fatigue, others M.E. and yet others think it’s all made up. I don’t like the term M.E. because it sounds too much like an identification of oneself. Really, I don’t know what this tiredness is, I just experience it.

In order to carry on and be able to finish my task by the beginning of March, I had to have some time off and then go slowly. My tiredness was persistent and I could only do small amounts of work at a time. The other difficulty was that I couldn’t sing very well and I kept making mistakes in the recordings.

The process was, I’d record a track and send it to Tom. He would then learn it, record it and send his part back to me.

We managed to complete them last weekend and I spent most of Monday doing some of mine again as my voice was a little better and then mixing them together. It’s the sort of thing that you could go on doing for ever. Eventually I had to tell myself that, although it wasn’t quite right, it was good enough.

Once I’d decided that, oh what sweet relief!!

This is the link to the learning tracks on this website. https://claresmanythreads.com/song-wave-audio-tracks-and-lyrics/

Song Wave 2 – How to write a song?

What a week it’s been and oh the ups and downs of song writing. It’s not just song writing, of course. Any creation has waves going in and out and often long periods of feeling all washed up or washed away. So there I was on day two, surrounded by words and feeling hopeful. I read through everything and got myself a piece of A3 paper and a nice chunky pen. I walked along the line of hanging papers, picking up phrases and splurging it onto the A3.

I wrote it again in a way that started to make sense. And again, several times. My phone made it’s little ting-a-ling. It was a message from Rachel Hunter saying she had just emailed me her contribution. As I read and wrote down her words a tune popped into my head. (I don’t know how this happens. I just know that it will if I give myself time). I then surprised myself by suddenly singing “Open your eyes, open your heart wide”. Catchy, I thought, let’s follow it through and see where it goes.

By the end of day two I had part of a tune for a verse and the beginning of a chorus. I recorded everything that came into my head with my trusty Zoom R8. I didn’t want to lose any of the work. I had been singing without reference to any instruments until late afternoon when I decided to check which key I’d been singing in. It turned out to be Db!! If you don’t know anything about music that’s all the black notes on the piano, a little awkward when written out. If I see a piece of music with that many flats I tend to want to run away. So I put it down to C.

And then came day three. I got up feeling pretty ill so not a good start. Unlike the day before where I was able to focus for hours, I found myself drifting away constantly. I went through all the previous days recordings. What a mixture! I’d started with the fairly avant garde and gradually moved on to what sounded like 70’s pop. (Well, I like 70’s pop). I treated myself by getting out the keyboard. It didn’t help much. Dragging myself miserably through that day I ended up with several lines that were pure Disney and had me in hysterics! It was nice to be able to laugh at myself like that. I hasten to say that Disney has now disappeared.

The trick is to know that there are going to be days when you think that what you’ve created is really not any good. It always happens and when you accept this you can stand back and say “here we go”. Of course it may well be rubbish but if you stick with it and keep on working at honing and transforming something will come of it. This work of creation is exciting joyful and painful and wonderful to do.

Song Wave 1 – How to write a song?

Yesterday was both a new moon and two days after Candlemas (or Imbolc if you are thinking in terms of Celtic fire festivals – which I often am). So what better time to start writing a song?

This is a special song (I hope). I’m writing it in response to Frightened Rabbits’ “The Loneliness and the Scream” and it will be for people all over the Scottish Borders (an actual county for those who don’t know) to sing on 17th May. It will be inspired by this year’s festival theme “Connected”.

Why this date? Because it is in the middle of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. Song Wave is a project that wants to encourage people to sing. Singing is uplifting and community forming and very good for our mental health.

But how do you write a song? In this case I started with asking for contributions of words, musical phrases, thoughts. I actually received several whole songs, a video and some words.

The next step was to listen repeatedly to all the songs, watch the video many times and take down notes. Notes of some of the words and images that caught my attention. I wrote down everything inspired by each work separately then hung the words around my room.

I walked up and down looking at and repeating the words out loud. Then I sat down and started to write.

This is the ideas phase and anything goes at this stage. In fact it is important to reject nothing that comes up because it is all a necessary part of the process. Bits of tunes slip into my head and I go to my trusty zoom R8 to record what comes.

After a while I felt the need to move so decided to go for a walk before the light went. Yes, walking is also part of my process. The sun was streaming over the valley and everything was looking gorgeous. I was walking back up the hill thinking about rhythm and the heart. I started clapping a heartbeat. I was breathing heavily as I got to the top of the slope. That sounds interesting, I thought, and rushed to get home to record it. As I said, this is the phase of anything goes.

Last Night in Hawick

Singing in Hawick. The last night.

What a long winter! Are we emerging from it at last? Today is April at its most cheery. All sunshine, daffodils, warmth and smiles. Is this only for today? This picture says it all, perhaps. No it isn’t Hawick but the isle of Rumm at sunset several years ago.

Yesterday evening I was in Hawick at the Cornucopia room, the last night of my little singing group. We sang through most of the songs I’d taught this year. Follow the clyp link below to listen to the two songs I recorded.

clyp

Singing at the Brotherstones

I always like to do something “different” with the Smailholm Singing Group in the summer. Last year we had a meet up in my garden. One time we sang to Giant Heads (sculptures, I hasten to add) in Glentress Forest. This year we sang at the Brotherstones at midsummer, a suggestion from one of the group, which I was very happy to take up.

brotherstones 4

There are two Brotherstones and they stand on the top of a hill a short drive from Smailholm Village Hall, our usual meeting place. It was good to walk up the hill and also get a chance to talk to many of the group individually. One of them told me a story that he had found about the stones.

Brothersontes singing 1

“There were two brothers who grew up in the area but moved away as young adults. During their years away one became a catholic and the other a protestant. Many years later they returned. They met up the hill by chance and failed to recognise each other. On discovering that they adhered to different faiths they began a fight which ended in both of their deaths. The stones were erected in memory of them.”

We got to the top and it was windy. Well of course it was. That’s how it often is around here. AND what a view! I thoroughly recommend going up that hill.

We sang some songs in our usual circle, sang in front of the stones and then went to stand on the ridge looking out into the view. A skylark was fluttering above and singing too. The cows in the field below were delighted with the impromptu concert and gathered together against the fence as near to us as they could get.

brotherstones view

Surprising things to accompany you when you are doing an activity in the countryside.

brotherstones