1/2 Evelyn Glennie - What Do Artists Do All Day ?

I see myself simply as a musician a sign creator being a musician is this never-ending journey of discovery this was the start of an exploration that really allowed me to take the hearing aids off and use the body as a huge ear I love collecting instruments I've been doing this for so long and I still get really excited about it well I moved to this house about 20 years ago and I was living in London about ten years prior to that and and of course my collection of instruments was growing and growing and I couldn't actually afford to live in London and so the whole operation of functioning as a solo percussionist was really quite tedious I just really liked the character of the house but also this is a really quiet environment so it's a great contrast to my work which is often in busy cities and towns and things like that it's a great kind of creative environment to be in you can see that this new addition and to the instrument collection is something quite special this is called an early in birra and I've got to work out how to play this so that's the fun thing about percussion is that yeah there's always something you know amazing to explore but it's just the barn is where you know a lot of the the physical creativity as the musician happens and you know there I'm the percussionist I'm the musician I'm the sign creator so it's a very creative place to be well this is a studio this is where it all happens all the hard work in the exploration creativity the experimenting all sorts of things and that's one piece that I'm preparing at the moment that uses marimba and vibraphone and I kind of multi set up but it also uses lots of chimes and bits and pieces that I haven't set up partly because of room I love collecting instruments so you can see that even on the windowsills you know I've got instruments kind of stacked between the the two windows you know anything is is relevant to what I do so it isn't just about having a very nice beautiful marimba or an expensive piano or the best snare drum or something like that you know something like a little music box might be really meaningful so I'm always on the lookout for objects if we go over in this direction is my little cupboard here because of course things like sticks and mallets are so important to explore and I've got to be organized so in here you can see is just a minefield if lots of different sticks that may look disorganized but actually I know exactly which tool I want to experiment with piece that I'm preparing at the moment view from Olympus by John Suthers is to be performed in New Zealand actually the pianist and myself will meet up for the first time and hopefully the chemistry will be good and then come together with the orchestra thereafter what I'm trying to achieve here is first of all to detect whether these mallets are right for the piece but in order for me to do that I have to imagine the type of hole that I'll be playing this piece in so I know the hole is going to be extremely reverberant so I'm actually using particularly hard sticks but also I want to see if I can create some dead strokes of non-resonant type strokes in order to get the clarity when I am in a wet acoustic so although I'm actually practicing here within my four walls in my head I actually have the venue the auditorium that will actually be my main instrument that I paint sound on I was born in a farm just north of Aberdeen with two brothers older brothers it was an idyllic childhood and you can imagine we experienced the seasons lot of outdoor activities and I remember in the farmhouse we had a piano that was more of a an ornament than an instrument I think but it was enough to fuel the interest of an infant and of course I would just you know try to climb on this on the stool and go bang bang bang bang that was really the beginning of the musical experience my father before myself my two brothers were born used to play in a dance band you know he played the accordion and but he never played it in front of us at all and I used to pester him and pester him to play but he wouldn't do that so we never had the experience of seeing him perform and my mother on the other hand she could read music and she played in the local church each each Sunday and but she wasn't really musical as such but nevertheless once they realized my interest in music they really encouraged that as much as possible I remember when I was 12 years old and I went to Ellen Academy which is a big secondary school and I saw the school orchestra playing and I was completely inspired and I thought I want to be part of that and and I looked around and I thought maybe not strings not winds not brass but percussion looks quite interesting so I asked to have lessons and I just simply discovered that the chemistry between myself and cushon was was really really good I began losing my hearing from the age of eight and it was all very very gradual indeed and we discovered that the the nerves in the ears were deteriorating but of course when you're that age you don't think you're actually losing your hearing or becoming deaf or something the body just completely adapts it finds other routes to deal with things and when I was about 11 12 years old I then was kitted out with hearing aids but of course at the time I thought everything needed to be louder and as a musician of course when you're striving to hear something through the ear and you think that volume is the answer you lose your sense of touch your sensitivity and you lose your balance you lose any kind of sense of teamwork until eventually my percussion teacher he thought to himself well on a second these instruments that we play really resonate they really resonate they vibrate so if those drums vibrate can the human body also vibrate can it perceive vibration if we pay attention this was the start of an exploration that really allowed me to take the hearing aids off and use the body as a huge ear for me to be in crowds for examples extremely difficult and extremely tiring and quite confusing as well because you've got no sort of realization where the sound is coming from when I'm with an orchestra however if I'm a soloist with an orchestra you might think well that's the same kind of thing the difference is that you've learnt the music from the full score so you're expecting the trumpets to play there or the basses to play there or whatever it is so that's all worked out beforehand when I communicate with my fellow colleagues it's mainly through email through text through Skype and you know everything is is visually done reading me just now yes it's a combination I mean because I'm now familiar with you and I'm expecting you to speak that I'm expecting to hear something as well but it's all down to lip-reading and being familiar with the type of sign that you produce I think it's in my nature to be a fairly focused driven person and for as long as I can remember I've been like that and I think that the only time that I felt the hearing aspect was something that drove me was when I had an issue getting into the Royal Academy of Music Evelyn Glennie from Aberdeen she's 18 is a 2nd year student who logically shouldn't have been here in the first place she was even advised not to apply when her form actually arrived it was taken right to the top to the principal and here as a girl wanted to count two Academy who's actually a deaf and we had I think what can only be described as a row over this because there was a feeling that no it really wouldn't be responsible actually to meet and take her here because she would not be able to make a career as musician because she was dead I felt very strongly and I know lots of my other colleagues did that we should least hear her play meet her and see whether she could fit in all I ever asked for is a chance to prove that I could be a musician when the letter came from the Royal Academy of Music it was certainly the happiest day of my life and it meant that I could I could play my was at 24 hours a day that's all I ever wanted to do when I started percussion and during my teens I wanted to be the best percussion player I could possibly be and I felt well I had to practice many hours a day and you know delve in to as many different styles as possible and I realized that that was just like throwing yourself into a whirlpool it was never-ending and and in my 20s I wanted to be as good a musician as I possibly could be my final guest would be remarkable by any musical standards anyway at 18 she received the highest award of the Royal Academy of Music a majesty's commendation for all around excellence year before she won the shell LSO scholarship for timpani and percussion she's an accomplished pianist and she's been hailed as one of the Royal Academy's outstanding students of all time and since the age of 12 she's been profoundly deaf and we'll talk in a moment the first Maple Leaf Rag is played on the xylophone by the brilliant Evelyn Glennie did you um did you learn any music before you lost your hearing had you you know what music sounds like sure I I began the piano 1 as 8 and percussion when I was 12 and I'm 20 now rally ready I'll stop telling people my age when I'm 21 yeah but I stopped about that as well I stopped doing it about that as well Lily must have been a great while ago I don't have a main instrument my choice as a solo percussionist was to be a multi percussion player so really my philosophy is that whichever instrument is in front of me that's my favorite instrument if I'm striking a cymbal that's my favorite if I'm striking a conga that's my favorite if it's marimba and so on and likewise with the pieces of music whichever piece is in front of me I feel that's the most that's greatest piece of music ever written if I look back in my career it's often hard to pick out certain concerts that are pivotal because you know career is built on building blocks it really is but repertoire wise it's slightly easier to pick the repertoire and I think for me one piece in particular very very manual by James

Channel: Art Documentaries

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Keywords: Evelyn Glennie - What Do Artists Do All Day ?

Id: rEuZ3B9B4HA

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 29 2014