Tag: Falmouth
Quantum Penguin Blog – September Update
Well these last few months have been a roller-coaster of a ride! I have completed my first year of my music degree at Falmouth University, played at Parklive in Falmouth with Lunacci (AKA Chris Baker) and Emilio Ayto, had two of my pieces played on BBC Shropshire Introducing, gone to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival (which I have been going to since it was the Bridgnorth Folk Festival, about 15 years ago!) and then had a very unexpected interview on BBC Shropshire Introducing at the festival!
It has been a real jumble of experiences and has given me more confidence in my music – when I uploaded my first track on Introducing, which was Nohambo Iphengwini, I really didn’t expect it to be played since it is just very different to the kind of music that is usually played.
To have that played gave me confidence to submit a second track, Synergy. I again wasn’t expecting it to be played but was overjoyed to have Synergy played as well. Both Nohambo and Synergy represent different sides of my music; with Nohambo I can imagine it on a soundtrack to a film set in a desert or nature documentary exploring the animal kingdom of a rainforest while with Synergy this represented the side of me that likes to experiment with Synths and effects. Both of these are almost a world apart from my Folk music background but I think that breaking out of a particular genre is incredibly important as a musician.
Genres tend to have rules which tell you what you can and can’t have in your music. Pop tends to stick to what is “in” at the time and unfortunately often creates music that sounds almost identical – certainly at this moment you would not expect a full blown set of Folk tunes played on the Fiddle. Likewise you would have a very good chance of being lynched if you played Synths, used heavy effects or sang in a Pop music accent at more traditional Folk clubs and festivals. However, I think that some of the best music is created when the genres are mixed. Take Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran, if someone had told you a week before that song came out that a Pop song with an Irish Folk Fiddle and band in would make the charts you just wouldn’t have been able to imagine it – now almost everyone I’ve met has loved that song and it has been in the top position of many of the Pop charts.
Phil Beer from the Folk band Show of Hands is another example as he uses many different effects on his Fiddle to achieve an amazing sound. The Afro Celt Sound System combine Bagpipes, Synths, samples, African Drums and Electric Guitar to create a powerful experience. In 1986 when Paul Simon collaborated with African vocal group Ladysmith Black Mambazo they created such incredible music by combining Singer-Songwriter with African vocals and proved that music really doesn’t have to be limited. I feel 
that making music this way brings the best out of you and that is how I want my approach to be.
Lately I have been doing some research (on Bing) about compression in music, which is the practice of making all the parts of your music the same volume. The reason behind this is because producers and labels believe that it makes the piece louder and research has concluded that loudness sells more. The problem is that when you make a recording louder than the volume it was recorded at the quality is degraded. You also lose any quiet-to-loud build up or Timbre in your piece because the volume is the same throughout. It is called “The Loudness War” and I really recommend you do some research on it because it is really interesting and in my view it creates poor music because you’re trading quality for quantity.
Looking forward, I am doing a free gig on the 21st of September at Jacobs Ladder in Falmouth, Cornwall along with Emilio Ayto and Lunacci. We are each doing our own 15 minute sets and then Emilio and I are playing with Lunacci in his set. It’s going to be a really fun evening and I will be premiering a new song! It is very relaxed and in a pub so you can come in and out as you want. If you can make it then pop over and say hi!
I will also be starting my second year at University, which is really exciting. There are several modules that I am really looking forward to including Film music, which is definitely an area I want to experiment in and Timbre, which will give me a load of skills in combining different sounds and instruments.
I have to say I am very lucky to have such inspiring tutors and course mates and I have learnt so much already, not just from my tutors but also from my fellow music students. I am really excited to find out new ways to make music this year.
Matt
QP Artist’s Spotlight – Emilio Ayto
Hello there! My name is Emilio Ayto and I’m an English Guitarist, Composer, and multi-instrumentalist. I have been based in South-West Cornwall for most of my life, despite being born in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
I first started playing Classical Guitar at Secondary School 
under the guidance of tutors Ben Salfield and Rick Martin, but gradually began to play Electric Guitar and Electric Bass in school bands, productions, ensembles; and also singing in the school choir.
Since 2015 I’ve been learning to play an 8 course tenor Lute, and more recently a 5 string tenor Banjo and also a 12 string Guitar. Since September 2016 I’ve been studying BA Hons Music at Falmouth University, Cornwall. In this time I have been taught by Guitar tutor Douglas McClure at the university. During just the first few months I composed my first piece for solo Classical Guitar titled “Red River”, 
performing it at my debut solo concert in March 2017 at the weekly AMATA lunchtime concert series. In May 2017 I recorded a four track demo, which will soon be available to download for free on online music stores. This summer I am set to perform my first solo festival date in August 2017, at “Hellys International Guitar Festival” in Helston, Cornwall.
Currently I regularly participate in both the Falmouth University Guitar Ensemble, but also in the Cornwall Youth Classical Guitar Ensemble. I also play lead Electric Guitar and joint lead vocals in rock band Rogue Nation (founding member since September 2015), Electric Bass Guitar and backing vocals in acoustic folk rock band Another Coffee Please (founding member since February 2017), Electric Bass Guitar in Lunacci’s backing band, and Classical Guitar in The Faure Quartet (since May 2017).
Despite this wide variety of performing in different scenarios, my primary instrument has always been the Classical Guitar. My most recent repertoire includes Classical Guitar standards such as “Asturias” and “Cavatina”, the works of Francisco Tarrega, Spanish Guitar, South American Guitar, and also Guitar arrangements of popular songs (currently including Mason Williams, Pink Floyd, Carlos Santana, and many others). However, I have also been adding to my Classical Guitar repertoire with my own original compositions; drawing upon a wide variety of influences from Classical, Rock, Minimalism, Renaissance, Folk, and Blues genres.
That’s all folks, thanks for reading, and a big thank you to Matthew Woolley (aka The Quantum Penguin) for asking me to do this on his new blog!
(To find out more about Emilio Ayto visit his YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/channel/UCiLbeN6E6eSKjpGI8aaObUQ)
First year at Uni
My first year studying music at Falmouth University has been a rollercoaster of an experience. In half a year I have learnt skills that will last a lifetime and met people that have inspired and taught me so much.
Within a month of starting the course I was playing with three of my fellow course mates – Emilio Ayto, an amazing guitarist who seamlessly hops from one style to another, Lewis Arscott who is an incredible piano and keyboard player and Chris Baker, aka Lunacci, an amazing singer-songwriter guitarist who blends genres and uses technology to create his own Sound World. The venue was the open mic at Jacob’s Ladder in Falmouth, which is such a friendly and relaxing place and was really fun to play in.
One principle that seems to be at the heart of Falmouth’s music courses is that by the end of the degree you should be able to not only be very good at music but also be able to make a living out of it. To accomplish this they have incorporated a large amount of practical aspects to the course. I remember one of our course leaders saying at the start of the course that while we were here he didn’t want us to be in just one band, he wanted us to be in loads of bands. Following in this principle, one of our first term modules was based around you performing, not just as a solo act but also with other musicians in a band. As part of this I played the Vaughan Williams song Wither Music I Wander with fellow course mates Louisa Hygate, Liv Reynolds and Mollie Harman, all truly incredible singers, instrumentalists and composers, Dali Diaconeasa, a truly very talented piano player and Nathan Cole, who is an amazing Banjo player. It seemed to work really well and I have to say I was pretty proud of the end result.
Another module in the first term was to write your own composition and this was combined with the performance module in that you would have to perform it in front of your course mates and tutors – no pressure or anything! I have been composing my own music for about 10 years and know the commonly used notation but the Uni really encouraged us to use advanced notation. This was a real learning curve for me since, apart from the Violin-specific notation, the music I played and composed didn’t really have a need for a lot of this notation.
The next term was even more of a kaleidoscope of experiences. In the next five months I played several times at the Uni’s Stannary Open Mic Night, both on my own and with Nathan and Mollie, which was really fun.
(QP and Nathan at Stannary Open Mic Night)
Thanks to Sophie Rooke, another course mate and brilliant Saxophone and Clarinet player, who passed my name on, I played with amazing band Propeller at the Stannary’s St Patricks Night, which was an incredible experience that I’ll never forget. That night also gave me the opportunity to write and record some Violin for the upcoming experimental film Memoirs, created by film students Lauren Dallas and Zara Denver, who were a joy to work with. This was a really new and useful experience as it showed me that writing music to film is definitely an area that I want to experiment with and I will get a chance to do
Harry Glasson Project practice (I’m taking the picture)
that in my second year. I also had the chance to be part of the Harry Glasson Project, which is a project run by singer-songwriter Will (or Dave) Keating to promote the songs written and composed by Cornish singer-songwriter Harry Glasson by recording and playing them live around Cornwall. His songs are very powerful and although I’m not a Cornishman myself, I know how important it is that these songs are shared and heard throughout the county.
Another few experiences I had was when I was asked by Saulius Jegelevičius, a brilliant second year student singer-songwriter from Lithuania, to play Violin on a few of his songs with him and his band for the Falmouth Concourse Festival 2017. The only catch? The festival was the next day! After a couple of hours practice the night before we’d managed to come up with something and it worked out well. Pearl Love, a very talented second year student and singer songwriter who was also playing with Saulius, then asked me to record some Chin-Cello (a 5-string Viola with Cello tuning) for her EP Shuddering Trains and play the song for the EP’s launch. This was really good fun and enabled me to not only get my Chin-Cello out and playing again but also my playing on a track that would be uploaded to iTunes.
Although all of these were not directly linked to my year of the course, I feel that the way the course is structured encourages collaboration with other students, similar and different courses alike. For example, as part of one of our second term modules we had to join one of the course’s ensembles, with first and second year students, with a performance at the end of the term. I chose to join the vocal ensemble since I wanted to work on my singing and thought that, tied in with having singing lessons as part of the 
module, this would be the perfect opportunity. This worked really well and with a few weeks of starting the lessons and ensemble I was performing and singing one of my songs at the Uni’s AMATA Lunchtime Concert for the first time. I really enjoyed being able to sing my songs and it seems that the combination of the lessons and ensemble had really paid off.
My first year has been really fun and it was rounded off by one of our modules which was to compose a piece and perform at AMATA for the first year’s Showcase. Together with Nathan, Mollie, Emilio, Lewis and Sian Wiggin, an amazingly talented Flute player, we decided to form a band for the Showcase, called Another Coffee Please, that would combine elements from each of our backgrounds, creating a Folk/Rock/Pop feel to our music. Composing, practicing and playing with these people was a real joy and together we created music that I think we were all really pleased with. I also have to give a shout out to Lewis who, in addition to playing Synth in the songs, actually learnt the Drums for this, which he hadn’t even played before! The result was truly amazing and without them the songs would have lost a huge amount of their power.
I’ve met such talented and friendly people while doing my first year who have taught me so much and I’m really grateful to all of them. It really is incredible how full of music Falmouth is. A few weeks ago Louisa, Liv and I watched Chris, Emilio and Sian play together at the pub Jacobs Ladder. It was really nice to see everybody and I realised what the most important and valuable aspect of my course mates was – we all supported each other.
Here’s to the next year!
You must be logged in to post a comment.