Italy

I was supposed to be going to Italy on the 1st May but two of the musicians there got jobs and didn't want to miss their first day of work. It was as well the tickets had'nt been booked. This is better though as it gives me time to prepare the material recorded in Birmingham and to learn a few Italian words and phrases.

The plan is for me to go to Italy on 11th May and then to Poland and Germany on the 26th May. The other good news is that I can do the Poland and Germany trip by rail. I love travelling by train, much more of an adventure.

I will get a better digital camera for the next stages of the project and aim to get some of the audio up to. I will keep the blog posted on future developments and make additions about music from the various countries the musicians come from.

Birmingham Recording Day.

No problems. It's amazing how these things come together. We recorded the two completed pieces and the extra material for the piece that will involve the other musicians too. Time did feel a bit tight but we set limits on how many takes we would do and moved on when neccessary. Obviously we don't sound like a band that have been together for years but it does sound good. A nice blend of Albanian and African music with a bit of my guitar thrown in.

It was Blerim's birthday on the day we recorded and you can see him here pictured with his birthday cake. I would like to point out to funders that we purchased the cake with our own money and had the birthday party in the tea break time.

This is Isata the coordinator of the transnational project. Isata makes sure everybody knows what's going on and that they are in the right place at the right time. She also deals with endless amounts of forms and paperwork as in the picture above.

This is the sound man Tom doing his thing on the desk at the end of the day when we all sit on the sofa asking things that make his life harder. We recorded at Artisan Studio in Moseley, Birmingham. A nice studio built into the owner Jon Cotton's house.

Birmingham devising day.

All went well. We devised a piece of new music for the project and arranged a traditional piece that Blerim put forward. We also worked on small riffs and motifs for the piece that will involve everybody.The film crew came in the afternoon filmed us and did some interviews. It was very warm in the room and it got warmer when the film lights where on. It is pretty tough devising music in a new group from scratch and it got even tougher when we had the cameras pointed at us. I am a bit worried about doing this in the other countries. I hope we have enough time for seperate filming and devising.

Birmingham musicians

This is Steve, an African percussionist from Cameroon. Steve has been in England for quite a while and is really making it his home. He leads his own band and is studying a degree in international relations at Coventry University. I had worked with Steve before on some education projects and was glad to work with him here. I also hope to work with him again in the future.

The main music of Cameroon is Makossa one of Africa's hottest dance genres. I'll let you know more about it soon after a week of reading and listening.

Birmingham musicians

This is Frederick, he is from Congo and plays bass, keyboards and guitar although on this project he played only bass. Frederick is not long in Britain and his english is just developing. He speaks french and this gave me a chance to practice my Del Boy-esque french. However, Frederick's english was better than my french and Steve speaks french well so translated for us, I did try though.

In this project so far the country with the most musicians put forward has been Congo. And from the audio clips I have heard they are all amazing musicians.

Watch this space and I will find out more about Congalese music.

Birmingham musicians

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This is Blerim, if you haven't already guessed he plays clarinet. Blerim is from Albania and has been in Birmingham about seven years. He is in the Sound It Out Infusion Ensemble and is also in a band playing mainly Greek music at restaurants, weddings and parties. His playing is very sweet and soulful and I suspect he must play in the Southern Albanian style which is gentler than the style of the North.

I will do a bit of research on Albanian music and let you know what I find.

Open Audition in Birmigham

In order to get to know some local refugee musicians and see their suitablity for this project we held an open audition at the CIP centre in Birmingham. It was a very enjoyable couple of hours as we had a jam and then the guys ( there where no women) each did a short performance. There was musicians from Conga, Cameroon, Albania and Iran and there was some beautiful music indeed.

Majit is an Iranian musician who emulates his traditional music and instruments on keyboard. I would normally prefer to hear the original instruments but I found his playing and style very effective. His keyboard had settings that enabled him to play the quarter tones that feature in Iranian music. He had to order the settings on a card from Iran as they are not available here, I am sure some creative musicians here could do some interesting stuff with that.

Unfortunately not everybody could be chosen and I had to choose in such a way to compliment the musicians from the other countries. We had some amazing singers from the Congo at the CIP audition but I couldn't use them as Italy will also be providing Congalese singers. I will be looking to hear these guys in future though as the air became hazy when they sang and I felt my worries melt, beautiful voices singing beautiful music!

A bit of background.

"Home from Home" is a transnational collaboration involving organisations from four European Union countries (Germany, Italy, Poland and Great Britain).

The project involves working with refugee/asylum seeker musicians in each of the four countries and devising tracks to accompany a film/documentary. The approach is quite flexible and I am recording as much music as possible with the musicians I meet. However alongside the individual pieces from each country there will also be a piece that involves every musician in the project. This is a tricky task and I am trying to make it as organic as possible using the musicians improvising skills and then doing a remix of the audio recorded at the end.

This is very exciting for me as a musician as I am meeting and learning about musicians from all over the world. In order to make the most of this oppportunity I decided to keep this blog and document some of the things I learn along the way. I hope you find it interesting.