While away on tour I often write little travelogues to friends and family as a way of staying in touch. They are meant to be slightly flippant in tone and meant to entertain as much as anything else. I hope you enjoy it.
This was written in Tokyo, Japan with a production of Singin’ in the Rain. What an amazing trip, a great band to work with and a wonderful country to see.
Tokyo. October 2014
Dear All
We are into the second day of tech and they’re just doing a 'spacing call' for the ballet. This means that the dancers are getting told where to stand on the new stage and everyone else sits around drinking coffee. It's all going rather smoothly. The cast and crew know what they're doing and they are supplemented by an army of local crew, dressers, techies etc.
Of course the real reason it's going so well is the Shinto blessing we had yesterday before the technical rehearsals started. We were all there, as requested and saw a little shrine type thing set up on the stage with a bottle of sake, what looked like some gherkins, and some branches of some sort. I include a picture below.
The chap with his back to me is the Shinto priest and I'm sure we all expected a little, wizened Japanese fellow to turn around, or at least a young, wizened Japanese fellow. I felt a little cheated to find a young spritely European, I think German, doing the ceremony. Frankly it did lessen the experience a little for me. What could have been a magical experience was in fact a man doing a lot of bowing, clapping, wafting of branches, impressions of a police siren, blessing the four corners of the stage with petals (not the band platform so we're buggered) and shuffling too and fro in the blingiest pair of clogs I've seen. We all stood, sat, clapped as directed and finished off with a rousing chorus of All Creatures Great and Small (we didn't). And that was that. Perhaps if the Church of England did that with a few more shows there would be fewer flops. Or more....
Due to getting over the jet lag (which I'm pretty much recovered from) and work I haven't done a huge amount of exploration. Ikebukuro, where we are staying is a little quieter (in relative terms) but still stuffed with 20-30 + storey buildings. It's a busy station interchange and there are plenty of shops and restaurants, cafes, bars etc. It's not always easy to tell what a particular venue is from the picture and the writing is in Kanji, the Japanese characters. Restaurants or shops can be on the 6th, 7th, 8th storey (like in Hong Kong) and they can turn out (and have done so) to be anything from a karaoke bar or a dog hotel. The food is hugely variable. Italian is very popular here but obviously with a difference. The oddest thing so far is what we have named Toffee Tatties. We thought we were ordering chips (most ordering is done from pointing at pictures on the menus) but what arrived was potatoes covered in caramel which you had to dip into ice water before eating. So make of that what you will. I won't be bringing the recipe back.
Shibuya, the downtown area where the theatre is located, is a much busier place. This is only my second day here so not explored at all although will have a drink with Louis, our lead trumpeter, and some of the band after we finish this evening. Shibuya is the place of the famous zebra crossing where all the traffic stops and at least 200-1000 people cross in all sorts of directions in 30 odd seconds. That perhaps gives a flavour of the area. There are plenty of shops and places to eat. It'll be where I get your lens from Rachel [my sister]. Probably Camera Bic, the well-known electronics chain store. Although not just electronics... The second floor has the cameras next to the wine section. The third has hi-fis next to the toilet cleaning. No doubt some serious customer research has gone into the placement of these.
So how are the band? They are without fail a lovely bunch of people but there are some clear and obvious differences with the way they approach and think about their work. Some speak limited English. Louis, our Cuban lead trumpet, speaks Spanish and Atsuki, our translator bridges the gaps. She probably has the hardest job of all trying to understand our musical director’s accent and I'd be really interested to know if she mollifies any of his fruitier comments.
To give you an idea of the overall attitude, by the time we arrived on Monday morning, a couple of hours before the rehearsal began, there was already team of people setting up sound equipment, the drum kit, my percussion, even conductor monitor video equipment. This was in a fantastic rehearsal space in the concert hall next to our apartments. Beautiful vibraphone, lovely timps and then as for all the little bits, Mr Percussion (not his real name) had brought along a few choices for me. A choice of 3 cowbells, two cabasas, 3 vibraslaps, 6 cymbals, 3 buckets (!) and then when it came to the car horn - which is used just once as a comedy effect. I was greeted with a box of about thirty different horns of all sizes, pitches and in some cases colours. Obviously I tried every one.
This preparation continued with some of the band arriving over an hour before the rehearsal and all being there half an hour before. They had all listened to the recording, had practiced the parts etc etc. And when when it came to playing they were good. Especially the reeds. There's a nasty bit for the clarinet which this guy has nailed it ever since the 2nd attempt. But... there are many differences from UK players. There is little swing at the moment (or bounce as they translate it as), the bass player follows rather than drives (although that could be more down to his youth) and they need to be told or instructed more, even down to how much time they have in between numbers. Misprinted notes aren't corrected unless pointed out and if someone comes in a bar early they will stubbornly stay there until we stop. They know the notes very well but just not in the right (all together now).... Of course, it got better as the day wore on. I reckon if we put a page of Boulez in front of them they'd eat it up. They are all lovely guys and I can see happy days ahead!
So we've finished the afternoon tech session so I think I should finish this rather rambled email.
Love to all
M
