00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600
giving both me and Paul a platform for some kind
00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:06.860
of artistic expression and just the general belief
00:00:06.860 --> 00:00:12.820
that anyone should be able to access, not just
00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:16.199
kind of creativity and making, but the act of
00:00:16.199 --> 00:00:18.260
putting something out into the world is a way
00:00:18.260 --> 00:00:20.579
of saying that you are here, right, that you
00:00:20.579 --> 00:00:25.739
exist. And so art became a very kind of clear
00:00:25.739 --> 00:00:31.510
way. for mum to advocate and champion people's
00:00:31.510 --> 00:00:38.189
personhood and agency. Hi, you're listening to
00:00:38.189 --> 00:00:41.130
Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman,
00:00:41.270 --> 00:00:43.829
which I hope inspires you through the personal
00:00:43.829 --> 00:00:46.149
stories of a fascinating diversity of musical
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guests. I'm so happy to bring you this episode
00:00:49.210 --> 00:00:53.250
with the British Ivor -nominated composer, violinist
00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:56.549
and sound artist, Ruby Colley. She grew up with
00:00:56.549 --> 00:00:58.969
her artist parents and her brother Paul, who
00:00:58.969 --> 00:01:02.609
is neurodivergent and non -speaking. This conversation
00:01:02.609 --> 00:01:05.170
shines a light on her beautiful album, Hello
00:01:05.170 --> 00:01:08.209
Halo, with the brilliant, exotic vocal ensemble.
00:01:08.870 --> 00:01:12.390
She composed this alongside her brother, transcribing
00:01:12.390 --> 00:01:15.409
Paul's sounds and using recordings of his voice
00:01:15.409 --> 00:01:18.430
to make a vocal map of his life and relationships.
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You'll be hearing music from this work, as well
00:01:21.890 --> 00:01:25.209
as her project, Overheard. Ruby spoke to me about
00:01:25.209 --> 00:01:27.890
the influence of Breton folk music and JS Bach
00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:30.829
and how she uses field recordings. You'll also
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hear about how she's collaborated in some of
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her audiovisual projects with her mother, the
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artist Kate Adams, who founded Project Artworks,
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a visual arts organization that collaborates
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with neurodiverse individuals and those with
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cognitive impairment and high support needs.
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We talked about navigating music education, stepping
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away from competitive environments, the joy of
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improvisation, and Ruby's upcoming project, inspired
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by the beauty of Swifts. You'll find the track
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information for the musical excerpts in the timestamps,
00:02:05.530 --> 00:02:07.950
and everything is linked in the show notes on
00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:11.069
my website. You can watch the video on my YouTube,
00:02:11.289 --> 00:02:13.650
or listen to the podcast on your preferred platform,
00:02:13.889 --> 00:02:17.409
and I've also linked the transcript. It's a joy
00:02:17.409 --> 00:02:20.039
to bring these inspiring episodes to you. and
00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:22.500
I do all the many jobs of research, production,
00:02:22.699 --> 00:02:25.159
and publicity. Have a look at the show notes
00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:27.520
of this episode on my website, where you'll find
00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:30.199
all the links, including different ways to support
00:02:30.199 --> 00:02:33.180
this podcast and other episodes you'll enjoy.
00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:35.960
Hi, Ruby. Thanks so much for joining me here
00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:41.919
today. Thanks for having me. I have so enjoyed
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:45.099
discovering your music and creative work, and
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I listened the most to Hello, Hello, So I'm hoping
00:02:50.969 --> 00:02:53.150
we can do a deep dive into both those projects
00:02:53.150 --> 00:02:57.550
and creative life. So the Axati Ensemble, this
00:02:57.550 --> 00:03:00.650
chamber choir, did you know their work before?
00:03:01.810 --> 00:03:07.090
Yeah, I was aware of them, but I wasn't aware
00:03:07.090 --> 00:03:13.270
of just the full scope of what they worked with.
00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:17.939
you know and they were recommended to me when
00:03:17.939 --> 00:03:23.580
I was kind of first R &Ding this idea I was looking
00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:28.479
for a very specific vocal ensemble who would
00:03:28.479 --> 00:03:34.560
give this project the kind of fearless kind of
00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:39.340
respect that I felt it needed and so they came
00:03:39.340 --> 00:03:43.800
recommended and they absolutely kind of And yeah,
00:03:43.939 --> 00:03:48.740
met the day with that one. Yeah, I really, really
00:03:48.740 --> 00:03:51.599
love the album. I've listened to it many times.
00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:53.840
I find it, you know, it's beautiful and inspiring
00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:57.860
and moving and kind of fun. It's definitely fun.
00:03:58.000 --> 00:03:59.939
So I was hoping we'll be able to highlight several
00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:02.919
tracks. Although if you want to talk about every
00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.419
single track, we can have little clips and I
00:04:05.419 --> 00:04:07.659
can intersperse that with our conversation as
00:04:07.659 --> 00:04:10.520
well. So it's up to you, but I selected a few.
00:04:10.659 --> 00:04:15.599
Take it as it comes. Okay. So this was developed
00:04:15.599 --> 00:04:18.560
alongside your brother, Paul, who is neurodivergent
00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:21.300
and is non -speaking. So do you want to first
00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:23.720
speak to us about his rich repertoire of sounds
00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:26.379
and gestures and how that works? Yeah, as you
00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:29.379
mentioned, he's non -speaking, but he does have
00:04:29.379 --> 00:04:35.800
a kind of a toolkit. um of words um i guess they're
00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:39.279
kind of limited so he will use certain words
00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:41.740
for multiple contexts so context is everything
00:04:41.740 --> 00:04:47.040
with paul um and also how he says certain things
00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:49.980
so the the main kind of hook of this project
00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:55.220
hello halo is that his main totem word is hello
00:04:55.220 --> 00:05:00.980
so um how he says it and to whom has a lot of
00:05:00.980 --> 00:05:04.399
kind of contextual meaning. And so it can be
00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:07.699
whispered, it can be shouted, it can have a kind
00:05:07.699 --> 00:05:11.639
of genial upward inflection, and that all has
00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:15.129
its own meaning. Over the years, you get to know
00:05:15.129 --> 00:05:18.009
Paul intimately and you get to know all of these
00:05:18.009 --> 00:05:20.290
different words with their context so you can
00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:25.490
understand what he means. And I wanted to give
00:05:25.490 --> 00:05:30.290
that its full colour in the form of music. So
00:05:30.290 --> 00:05:32.149
I'll play an excerpt of the very first track,
00:05:32.189 --> 00:06:01.060
which is Hello, Halo. And I'm curious, with you
00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:03.600
and your mom and his carers and his friends,
00:06:03.779 --> 00:06:06.180
have you discussed over the years the meanings
00:06:06.180 --> 00:06:09.480
that you each interpret from his various vocalizations?
00:06:10.579 --> 00:06:16.199
Yeah. So, well, for example, just the other day,
00:06:16.220 --> 00:06:19.720
one of his support workers was leaving and he
00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:21.779
kind of leaned over and he said hello to her.
00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.879
And we immediately knew that that meant he meant
00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:30.540
goodbye. But, you know, he has his toolkit and
00:06:30.540 --> 00:06:33.959
that's what he's got to use. And so in that context,
00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:36.220
we all agreed that that's actually what he meant
00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:39.779
because of the way he said it and the context.
00:06:41.230 --> 00:06:43.810
I really enjoyed watching the beautiful documentary
00:06:43.810 --> 00:06:46.850
film you made about this. So I'll link that on
00:06:46.850 --> 00:06:49.290
YouTube for people in the show notes. And there
00:06:49.290 --> 00:06:51.189
was that scene where you're, I think he's listening
00:06:51.189 --> 00:06:53.050
for the first time to some of the music with
00:06:53.050 --> 00:06:55.310
the singers. Maybe not the first time, but a
00:06:55.310 --> 00:06:57.449
time that you, and it was so beautiful seeing
00:06:57.449 --> 00:07:01.709
that. Okay. He was so enthusiastic and on board
00:07:01.709 --> 00:07:06.920
with it. Absolutely. Yeah, it was just a very
00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:10.120
clear moment of recognition, I think. And that's
00:07:10.120 --> 00:07:13.259
why I wanted to play it to him because, you know,
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:16.459
a lot of the process was about involving him
00:07:16.459 --> 00:07:22.120
as much as possible. Also having his consensual
00:07:22.120 --> 00:07:27.399
involvement as well. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm really
00:07:27.399 --> 00:07:31.560
glad that he got to be part of that and understand,
00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:36.420
really understand what it was. about yeah so
00:07:36.420 --> 00:07:39.319
he used to have more words and that he's lost
00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:41.300
with aging and i gather that's kind of common
00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:45.600
right i mean i don't think he had more words
00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:48.379
it's just he had different words i guess and
00:07:48.379 --> 00:07:53.060
um one of our personal theories is that simply
00:07:53.060 --> 00:07:56.480
there's only so much information that he can
00:07:56.480 --> 00:08:01.519
hold and sometimes if certain words become superfluous
00:08:02.089 --> 00:08:04.149
then they will get lost you know it's a kind
00:08:04.149 --> 00:08:08.149
of use it or lose it situation and um yeah there's
00:08:08.149 --> 00:08:12.490
a lot of words that he no longer uses um and
00:08:12.490 --> 00:08:16.269
so yeah one of the movements is dedicated to
00:08:16.269 --> 00:08:19.910
those lost words um one of those words was the
00:08:19.910 --> 00:08:25.449
word hop so it was like up but with a an h and
00:08:25.449 --> 00:08:30.560
he as a boy was very kind of transfixed with
00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.940
the sky and the stars. And so he would use that
00:08:33.940 --> 00:08:37.620
word to bring attention to the sky. But within
00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:43.600
that would be birds, stars and other meanings
00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:47.779
as well. So he would use that word again in different
00:08:47.779 --> 00:08:54.039
contexts. And so one day he started singing Twinkle
00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:56.820
Twinkle. in the back of the car, but with the
00:08:56.820 --> 00:09:02.519
word hop. And, you know, we're all pretty flawed
00:09:02.519 --> 00:09:04.539
because it was pitch perfect, like a choir boy.
00:09:05.379 --> 00:09:09.879
And so I brought that into this movement as a
00:09:09.879 --> 00:09:14.460
kind of quotation. Which movement is that? Echoes.
00:09:41.230 --> 00:09:46.870
I was also wondering about the track Cosmology
00:09:46.870 --> 00:09:51.710
where they're reciting the letters. Right. So
00:09:51.710 --> 00:09:57.029
that movement is a little bit more kind of cerebral
00:09:57.029 --> 00:10:01.289
in the sense that it's um specifically inspired
00:10:01.289 --> 00:10:04.250
from a drawing that my mum did called the cosmology
00:10:04.250 --> 00:10:08.450
of care oh i saw that um yeah so they're all
00:10:08.450 --> 00:10:13.309
the acronyms for the systems of care within the
00:10:13.309 --> 00:10:19.009
uk um and as a caregiver you get to know all
00:10:19.009 --> 00:10:21.250
of these systems a lot and they all get reduced
00:10:21.250 --> 00:10:24.879
to their acronyms which can be quite overwhelming
00:10:24.879 --> 00:10:29.259
sometimes because there's a lot of them. So I
00:10:29.259 --> 00:10:32.759
started to kind of list them all from this drawing
00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:37.320
that my mum had done. And, you know, I thought
00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:40.240
this could be rhythmic, this could turn into
00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:45.879
something. And I deliberately started from a
00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:51.090
place of spatial kind of introduction. to the
00:10:51.090 --> 00:10:54.169
letters but then for it to kind of gain momentum
00:10:54.169 --> 00:10:57.970
and fall into a bit of chaos as you know more
00:10:57.970 --> 00:11:02.110
and more acronyms are introduced until it eventually
00:11:02.110 --> 00:11:05.789
just gives way to the other things within the
00:11:05.789 --> 00:11:11.509
cosmology drawing that give a person's life meaning
00:11:11.509 --> 00:11:15.690
beyond these bureaucratic systems which is you
00:11:15.690 --> 00:11:19.129
know choice of who to spend time with being close
00:11:19.129 --> 00:11:22.370
to the sea, you know, being in wild spaces. So
00:11:22.370 --> 00:11:24.090
that's on your Instagram. That's where I saw
00:11:24.090 --> 00:11:27.629
it. Yeah, I found it very moving. I was going
00:11:27.629 --> 00:11:30.690
to ask about that if you'd drawn it. If you'd
00:11:30.690 --> 00:11:32.929
like, like in the show notes, I could put that
00:11:32.929 --> 00:11:35.850
image if your mom would be interested because
00:11:35.850 --> 00:11:39.389
it's very meaningful. Absolutely. Yeah, you're
00:11:39.389 --> 00:11:43.610
very welcome to. Yes. I can send it to you if
00:11:43.610 --> 00:11:46.750
you need to. Yeah, so it's this beautiful graphic
00:11:46.750 --> 00:11:50.149
with circles. You know, I think some of it, it's
00:11:50.149 --> 00:11:53.029
definitely for everybody, this quality of life.
00:11:53.330 --> 00:11:55.009
So if you want to speak to that a little bit
00:11:55.009 --> 00:11:59.529
more, it's so painful. Yeah, and I think this
00:11:59.529 --> 00:12:02.269
is what points to the overarching meaning of
00:12:02.269 --> 00:12:07.450
the entire work is that it's meant to fly the
00:12:07.450 --> 00:12:11.830
flag for his humanity and the breadth and depth
00:12:11.830 --> 00:12:16.940
of his personhood. That's what this cosmology
00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:20.179
drawing points towards as well, that these are
00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:23.620
all things that we as humans all need in our
00:12:23.620 --> 00:12:27.539
lives to live fulfilling, meaningful existences,
00:12:27.659 --> 00:12:51.879
you know. Did you experience some negative attention
00:12:51.879 --> 00:12:55.799
when you were growing up as a sibling? For certain,
00:12:55.919 --> 00:12:59.220
yeah. And it was the 80s. Yeah, it was like a
00:12:59.220 --> 00:13:05.690
different time. Yeah, there was a lot of unwelcome
00:13:05.690 --> 00:13:10.110
visibility, I guess. And I found that quite painful.
00:13:11.149 --> 00:13:16.549
And I also understood, you know, my brother in
00:13:16.549 --> 00:13:19.830
a more nonverbal way anyway. You know, as siblings,
00:13:19.929 --> 00:13:24.309
we had a, yeah, an energetic connection, I guess,
00:13:24.330 --> 00:13:29.169
that wasn't typical of siblings. So I think as
00:13:29.169 --> 00:13:34.799
an adult. I wanted to be able to have that visible,
00:13:34.919 --> 00:13:38.080
but, you know, in a way that had more agency
00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:43.039
and self -determination, you know. And I was
00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:46.019
curious about the notation for the singers. Were
00:13:46.019 --> 00:13:47.779
you using traditional notation or were there
00:13:47.779 --> 00:13:53.899
some different? Yeah, mostly. That took some
00:13:53.899 --> 00:13:59.279
time to develop. And I worked with a scoring.
00:13:59.789 --> 00:14:02.870
assistant to help develop that because there
00:14:02.870 --> 00:14:08.330
were a lot of kind of sounds that I needed to
00:14:08.330 --> 00:14:11.490
be kind of quite exacting you know so we developed
00:14:11.490 --> 00:14:18.009
a key for a lot of the performance markers within
00:14:18.009 --> 00:14:21.690
the score. And we spent some time at a residency
00:14:21.690 --> 00:14:25.549
to work over those. And, you know, honestly,
00:14:25.789 --> 00:14:29.889
Ixaldi was so exemplary at, you know, just immediately
00:14:29.889 --> 00:14:33.029
understanding the score anyway. It really didn't
00:14:33.029 --> 00:14:38.019
take too much time. yeah there's certain sounds
00:14:38.019 --> 00:14:41.240
that uh required a little bit more kind of graphic
00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:44.059
interpretation and two of the movements the duets
00:14:44.059 --> 00:14:48.299
were a little bit more open um in those terms
00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:15.570
In many of your other works, and we'll get into
00:15:15.570 --> 00:15:18.909
it, you do use field recordings, ambient nature
00:15:18.909 --> 00:15:21.110
sounds particularly. And I was curious if you
00:15:21.110 --> 00:15:25.830
know the composer Karen Power. I do, yeah. I
00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:28.509
love Karen Power's work. Okay. Yeah, I had her
00:15:28.509 --> 00:15:30.929
on the podcast last year, and I was curious if
00:15:30.929 --> 00:15:34.649
you'd made that connection. Oh, okay. That's
00:15:34.649 --> 00:15:36.889
awesome. I haven't seen that, but I'd love to
00:15:36.889 --> 00:15:40.250
look that up and watch it. So this album was
00:15:40.250 --> 00:15:44.129
nominated for an Ivor Novello Award, which the
00:15:44.129 --> 00:15:47.730
UK is a great honour, for the best choral composition.
00:15:48.190 --> 00:15:50.990
And getting that nomination, has that helped
00:15:50.990 --> 00:15:54.029
with visibility, getting more people to listen
00:15:54.029 --> 00:16:01.250
to it? I think it becomes a calling card and,
00:16:01.309 --> 00:16:06.029
you know, a kind of flag of legitimacy, I guess.
00:16:06.940 --> 00:16:08.960
I mean, I don't know if other composers feel
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:13.519
this, but I'm always kind of questioning my validity
00:16:13.519 --> 00:16:17.620
as a musician all the time. You know, self -doubt
00:16:17.620 --> 00:16:20.659
abounds all the time, you know. So having those
00:16:20.659 --> 00:16:25.419
little moments of recognition means everything,
00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:30.899
really. And yeah, it was a real honour to be
00:16:30.899 --> 00:16:36.429
nominated. And the documentary. Has it been in
00:16:36.429 --> 00:16:38.350
film festivals? Are you going that route with
00:16:38.350 --> 00:16:46.029
it? Right. So it recently showed at a conference
00:16:46.029 --> 00:16:50.309
called Classical Next in Budapest. And that sat
00:16:50.309 --> 00:16:54.409
alongside some beautiful films, including films
00:16:54.409 --> 00:16:56.850
from the LSO, the London Symphony Orchestra.
00:16:57.370 --> 00:17:01.519
And it specifically focused on inclusion. in
00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:04.720
classical music so i showcased the film there
00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:08.579
and yeah got to represent the project as a whole
00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:11.680
wonderful just in that film which i encourage
00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:13.660
people to see it's not that long it's what about
00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:17.920
15 minutes if i remember yeah max yeah 13 to
00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:21.160
15 minutes so you highlight paul's creativity
00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:26.259
and photography and painting through his um support
00:17:26.259 --> 00:17:29.319
artists so this kind of creative expression did
00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:31.400
that come early like in your family that you
00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:34.279
knew this and you were able to help him well
00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:38.380
both my parents are artists and um the studio
00:17:38.380 --> 00:17:40.880
that you see pauline is part of a wider organization
00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.700
called project artworks which is the organization
00:17:43.700 --> 00:17:50.819
that my mother founded and so the organization
00:17:50.819 --> 00:17:55.319
was founded on the back of you know both my parents
00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:58.809
being artists and both of them giving both me
00:17:58.809 --> 00:18:01.809
and Paul a platform for some kind of artistic
00:18:01.809 --> 00:18:06.329
expression and just the general belief that anyone
00:18:06.329 --> 00:18:11.509
should be able to access not just kind of creativity
00:18:11.509 --> 00:18:17.650
in making but I think the the act of putting
00:18:17.650 --> 00:18:19.789
something out into the world is is a way of saying
00:18:19.789 --> 00:18:22.589
that you you are here right that you you exist
00:18:22.589 --> 00:18:28.670
and so our became a very kind of clear way for
00:18:28.670 --> 00:18:33.910
mum to advocate and champion people's personhood
00:18:33.910 --> 00:18:41.269
and agency through art. And so I guess the philosophy
00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:49.930
of approach is to essentially allow or bring
00:18:49.930 --> 00:18:53.609
about the circumstances and environment where
00:18:53.609 --> 00:18:58.200
people have the opportunity to express themselves
00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:01.559
on their own terms rather than being kind of
00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:04.839
herded or managed in any kind of creative ways
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:09.779
is you know and because we know Paul very intimately
00:19:09.779 --> 00:19:11.900
we know that he loves people and that he loves
00:19:11.900 --> 00:19:14.539
studying faces so the photography came about
00:19:14.539 --> 00:19:18.759
that you know and his support artists Georgia
00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:24.059
in particular really helped develop his you know
00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:28.519
uh practice through um yeah having all of these
00:19:28.519 --> 00:19:33.579
inclusive means of him to photograph people yeah
00:19:33.579 --> 00:19:36.880
that's so interesting to me I was also wondering
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.700
I have a special interest in sign language and
00:19:39.700 --> 00:19:42.299
I was curious if Paul's some of his gestures
00:19:42.299 --> 00:19:44.240
are British sign language or if they're all just
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:49.660
his own gestures Some of it will be Makaton.
00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:53.299
So Makaton is an accessible form of sign language
00:19:53.299 --> 00:19:58.980
here in the UK. It's kind of like a simplified
00:19:58.980 --> 00:20:03.700
BSL. Yeah, just in terms of the fine motor skills,
00:20:03.819 --> 00:20:07.500
it's less complex. So people who struggle with
00:20:07.500 --> 00:20:09.440
fine motor skills like my brother can access
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:13.099
it a bit more. So he has very particular signs
00:20:13.099 --> 00:20:17.500
like plane. And so sometimes he will just kind
00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:22.220
of approximate the gesture, but he'll lift his
00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:24.839
hand, you know, and we'll know what that means.
00:20:25.079 --> 00:20:29.779
And yeah, and he'll use this sign a lot, which
00:20:29.779 --> 00:20:33.839
is friends. But again, like his words, it'll
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:37.019
have multiple meanings and contexts, you know,
00:20:37.019 --> 00:20:42.180
so he'll use this a lot. Okay. Yeah, that's interesting
00:20:42.180 --> 00:20:45.839
because that relates to married in. um asl in
00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:48.099
american sign language which we use here in canada
00:20:48.099 --> 00:20:52.680
i yeah it's always interesting yeah a lot of
00:20:52.680 --> 00:20:54.400
the signs are really intuitive and make complete
00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:58.460
sense right yeah so have you connected to other
00:20:58.460 --> 00:21:02.980
families through this project with similar yeah
00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:09.700
that was one of um you know the the reasons why
00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:14.380
i wanted to make it is um to reach other people
00:21:14.380 --> 00:21:19.859
who have non -speaking family members, because
00:21:19.859 --> 00:21:23.720
it's such a particular way of being in a family,
00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:27.200
to have someone who's never spoken a full sentence
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:29.819
to you in their whole lives, you know, it's profound.
00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:33.900
And I know that it's a particular experience
00:21:33.900 --> 00:21:37.579
that other people with non -speaking family members
00:21:37.579 --> 00:21:43.329
will immediately understand. and so with the
00:21:43.329 --> 00:21:46.789
premieres I did a lot of kind of audience development
00:21:46.789 --> 00:21:51.869
and outreach to let those people know about it
00:21:51.869 --> 00:21:56.150
and we had a lot of people come and it was really
00:21:56.150 --> 00:21:59.369
moving like ridiculously moving at times you
00:21:59.369 --> 00:22:02.390
know because I got to hear a lot of these people's
00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:05.829
stories you know there was a particular woman
00:22:05.829 --> 00:22:08.609
who also had a brother called Paul, and, you
00:22:08.609 --> 00:22:10.369
know, she came and spoke to me after the show.
00:22:10.569 --> 00:22:15.190
And, yeah, it was just so wonderful hearing everyone's,
00:22:15.190 --> 00:22:21.190
yeah, different, but the same experience, basically.
00:22:21.190 --> 00:22:25.589
And everyone, their family member all has their
00:22:25.589 --> 00:22:29.289
own unique means of communication, you know.
00:22:30.450 --> 00:22:34.730
It's a little kind of microcosm of connection
00:22:34.730 --> 00:22:38.849
within these, you know, small spaces that you
00:22:38.849 --> 00:22:40.569
know i just yeah i feel like there's another
00:22:40.569 --> 00:22:44.410
project so i was curious about your interest
00:22:44.410 --> 00:22:47.529
in filmmaking because for your uh previous album
00:22:47.529 --> 00:22:52.529
overheard you also made some film so right i
00:22:52.529 --> 00:22:56.410
mean to to clarify the hello halo documentary
00:22:56.410 --> 00:23:00.809
was made by rod morris um and he did a fantastic
00:23:00.809 --> 00:23:06.539
job but um yeah i I made, for the album Overheard,
00:23:06.779 --> 00:23:13.880
I made The Sea Wrote It. And I worked with my
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:15.700
mother on that as well. She kind of came along
00:23:15.700 --> 00:23:21.440
with me and did some filming with me. And I also
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:26.819
made audiovisual work called Edgeland to accompany
00:23:26.819 --> 00:23:31.140
the album, which became its own audiovisual installation.
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:37.900
And I feel like the way I compose is kind of
00:23:37.900 --> 00:23:43.180
like a film without any visuals. That's how I
00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:48.759
think about when I'm composing. It's so time
00:23:48.759 --> 00:23:53.400
and place specific in my mind that I just automatically
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:57.609
want to give. the music, some visual representation.
00:23:57.730 --> 00:24:01.630
It just feels very instinctive to me. Ruby, on
00:24:01.630 --> 00:24:03.849
your YouTube, you have Paul's Garden, which is
00:24:03.849 --> 00:24:07.250
part of Edgeland. There's excerpts. I really
00:24:07.250 --> 00:24:09.190
enjoyed watching those. They're really beautiful
00:24:09.190 --> 00:24:13.650
and evocative. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I
00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:17.569
mean, those four little mini films, I guess,
00:24:17.789 --> 00:24:23.069
are like an audiovisual map of this particular
00:24:23.069 --> 00:24:27.000
area near our home. which is an edgeland, which
00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:30.640
is the intersection between urban and rural spaces.
00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:35.740
So this particular edgeland sits between an industrial
00:24:35.740 --> 00:24:42.339
estate, houses and the sea. And what separates
00:24:42.339 --> 00:24:46.299
it is a railway line. And what interested me
00:24:46.299 --> 00:24:50.049
is I wanted to trace a journey from... my brother's
00:24:50.049 --> 00:24:53.289
home which happened to be right by the railway
00:24:53.289 --> 00:24:56.250
line because he loves trains so perfect home
00:24:56.250 --> 00:25:02.029
for him through the train shed where there's
00:25:02.029 --> 00:25:04.809
a lot of nature as well birds roost there across
00:25:04.809 --> 00:25:06.829
the bridge which is literally the bridge that
00:25:06.829 --> 00:25:10.069
in you know between these intersectional spaces
00:25:10.069 --> 00:25:14.250
to the beach and the walkway and so they all
00:25:14.250 --> 00:25:18.400
have their own visual and sound placeholders
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:51.789
basically within the work. So some of this was
00:25:51.789 --> 00:25:54.609
a pandemic lockdown project in terms of like
00:25:54.609 --> 00:25:57.950
your garden. And I was thinking about that intimacy
00:25:57.950 --> 00:26:00.609
of a place, you know, getting to know place so
00:26:00.609 --> 00:26:05.210
well. Absolutely. Yeah. So Springs Eternal was
00:26:05.210 --> 00:26:10.589
born from me field recording in my own garden
00:26:10.589 --> 00:26:14.269
at dawn in the spring, just before the first
00:26:14.269 --> 00:26:17.009
major lockdown. Yeah, obviously one's limited
00:26:17.009 --> 00:26:20.549
by where you can go. I don't know whether you
00:26:20.549 --> 00:26:23.289
had this in the US, but something that was a
00:26:23.289 --> 00:26:25.930
kind of a universal experience when I ask audiences
00:26:25.930 --> 00:26:30.109
this in shows about this particular time is that
00:26:30.109 --> 00:26:34.369
when lockdown happened, all the birds suddenly
00:26:34.369 --> 00:26:41.109
got really loud. And I just assumed it was because
00:26:41.109 --> 00:26:45.309
we could hear them better because we had all
00:26:45.309 --> 00:26:49.109
got out of their way. I since found out, I read
00:26:49.109 --> 00:26:52.190
that scientists had been studying this and because
00:26:52.190 --> 00:26:57.849
of the industrial hum that human activity produces,
00:26:57.990 --> 00:27:04.589
like cars, factories, we're really noisy. In
00:27:04.589 --> 00:27:06.890
order for birds to communicate with one another,
00:27:07.009 --> 00:27:09.730
they would have to raise the range of their bird
00:27:09.730 --> 00:27:12.470
song in order to lift above that industrial.
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:16.160
white noise essentially which is essentially
00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:21.660
like asking a mezzo to sing soprano which is
00:27:21.660 --> 00:27:24.539
not natural or comfortable for their range so
00:27:24.539 --> 00:27:29.000
when we essentially kind of went inside and went
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:31.630
quiet and got out of their way, they were able
00:27:31.630 --> 00:27:34.750
to sing at a range that was more natural to them
00:27:34.750 --> 00:27:37.130
and therefore louder. That's very interesting.
00:27:37.329 --> 00:27:40.069
I mean, this came up with the media scholar Mac
00:27:40.069 --> 00:27:41.730
Haygood. Actually, we're talking about the bird
00:27:41.730 --> 00:27:44.390
song. To be clear, I'm not in the US. I'm a Canadian.
00:27:44.490 --> 00:27:47.549
I'm in Ottawa, Canada. Oh, that's okay. But we
00:27:47.549 --> 00:27:50.730
had, I mean, yeah, nature. I remember seeing
00:27:50.730 --> 00:27:55.130
animals I never normally saw in the city. Yeah.
00:27:56.190 --> 00:27:59.049
That happened, didn't it? And it's just extraordinary
00:27:59.049 --> 00:28:03.730
to think of that now. And so inadvertently Springs
00:28:03.730 --> 00:28:07.789
Eternal became a record of that time, of that
00:28:07.789 --> 00:28:10.829
moment in time where these birds just got crazy
00:28:10.829 --> 00:28:14.269
loud. And we don't know if we'll hear that again,
00:28:14.450 --> 00:28:20.670
you know? Yeah. So I'll be editing in some clips
00:28:20.670 --> 00:28:24.640
from this beautiful album, Overheard. And it
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:26.759
will be linked in the show notes for people to
00:28:26.759 --> 00:29:00.690
check out the whole thing. So you have these
00:29:00.690 --> 00:29:03.509
wonderful collaborators. Do you want to talk
00:29:03.509 --> 00:29:08.829
about the other musicians? Yeah, for sure. So
00:29:08.829 --> 00:29:12.849
I got to work with some really wonderful people.
00:29:14.269 --> 00:29:18.829
Lucy Mulgan on bass and Frank Moon on oud in
00:29:18.829 --> 00:29:24.369
some tracks. And yeah, myself on all the violins.
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.460
and yeah a lot of those pieces were the more
00:29:30.460 --> 00:29:33.059
kind of folk leaning compositions the more structured
00:29:33.059 --> 00:29:37.640
ones were developed you know socially distanced
00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:40.720
in a kind of a warehouse space or a studio space
00:29:40.720 --> 00:29:45.200
in the middle of January I think or like winter
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.720
it wasn't it wasn't warm time I can't so we were
00:29:49.720 --> 00:29:51.980
all kind of like multi -layered kind of thing
00:29:51.980 --> 00:29:58.630
and Yeah, a couple of the works I knew what I
00:29:58.630 --> 00:30:01.650
wanted to do and then some of them were really
00:30:01.650 --> 00:30:05.130
unformed as well. So, you know, I just had textual
00:30:05.130 --> 00:30:07.250
ideas that I wanted to try out and we kind of
00:30:07.250 --> 00:30:10.990
jammed it out a little bit and then I recorded
00:30:10.990 --> 00:30:15.289
it and then I would take it home and formulate
00:30:15.289 --> 00:30:59.460
it into a structured composition. And then the
00:30:59.460 --> 00:31:02.960
other pieces were developed in a residency where
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:05.960
I had a very particular idea of what I wanted
00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:07.980
to do. And they were born out of those field
00:31:07.980 --> 00:31:11.299
recordings specifically. And they were more kind
00:31:11.299 --> 00:31:16.740
of like structured kind of sound scapes where
00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:21.539
I then built the instrumentation around the sounds.
00:31:21.900 --> 00:31:26.460
Can you tell us more about that residency? Hi,
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:29.180
please take this mini -pause to hear about some
00:31:29.180 --> 00:31:31.880
other episodes I've linked directly to this one,
00:31:32.019 --> 00:31:35.019
which I think may interest you, with Karen Power,
00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:40.240
Galen Lee, Ian Brennan, Mac Haygood, Mark Groudon,
00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:43.660
and Tegan Farran. In the show notes, you'll also
00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:45.759
find a link to sign up for my newsletter where
00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:48.240
you'll get exclusive information about upcoming
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.059
guests, a link for my Ko -fi page to support
00:31:51.059 --> 00:31:53.779
this project directly, where you can buy me one
00:31:53.779 --> 00:31:57.150
coffee or every month, and my podcast, Merchandise
00:31:57.150 --> 00:31:59.509
Store, with a design commission from artist Steffi
00:31:59.509 --> 00:32:02.970
Kelly. You can also review this podcast, share
00:32:02.970 --> 00:32:05.490
it with your friends, and follow on your podcast
00:32:05.490 --> 00:32:09.950
app, YouTube, and social media. All this does
00:32:09.950 --> 00:32:13.589
help. Thanks. Now, back to my conversation with
00:32:13.589 --> 00:32:20.089
Ruby. Yeah, so that was developed at Britain
00:32:20.089 --> 00:32:22.549
Piers, at the same place where I did Hello Halo
00:32:22.549 --> 00:32:26.809
as well. And yeah, I spent a week there where
00:32:26.809 --> 00:32:31.589
I just went out into the field and recorded.
00:32:31.950 --> 00:32:34.769
Specifically, I was looking for sounds that,
00:32:34.829 --> 00:32:38.970
natural sounds that intersected with human structure
00:32:38.970 --> 00:32:44.029
or human interference, I guess, because one of
00:32:44.029 --> 00:32:46.730
the things of being in the British Isles, it's
00:32:46.730 --> 00:32:51.869
a small island and there aren't many wild spaces
00:32:51.869 --> 00:32:56.500
left. the the most common thing is when you're
00:32:56.500 --> 00:32:59.099
out field recording trying to record nature is
00:32:59.099 --> 00:33:01.660
that you inevitably record human interference
00:33:01.660 --> 00:33:05.180
in some form you know like airplanes cars boats
00:33:05.180 --> 00:33:08.920
you know um and so i thought rather than trying
00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:14.579
to eradicate that um i'll lean into it and and
00:33:14.579 --> 00:33:18.180
give it the kind of honest retrospection that
00:33:18.180 --> 00:33:20.900
it needs you know to to kind of fully document
00:33:20.900 --> 00:33:24.680
the place where we are now in through the lens
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:27.799
of the climate crisis is that we are human beings
00:33:27.799 --> 00:33:35.059
um really shrouding nature in every aspect you
00:33:35.059 --> 00:33:37.380
know and especially you know in this context
00:33:37.380 --> 00:33:41.519
through sound um so we have boat masts in the
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:45.420
wind uh we have uh rain on a thatched roof of
00:33:45.420 --> 00:33:51.779
a church we have um yeah lockdown gardens, you
00:33:51.779 --> 00:33:53.559
know, and it's more kind of, you know, zoning
00:33:53.559 --> 00:33:56.640
into those details in those intersections through
00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:28.769
sand, basically. I was curious, in terms of live
00:34:28.769 --> 00:34:31.809
performances, do you do like a solo version with
00:34:31.809 --> 00:34:35.369
electronics? Because you've recorded some tracks
00:34:35.369 --> 00:34:37.170
with other musicians, but do you do different
00:34:37.170 --> 00:34:41.869
versions? For sure, yeah. So, I mean, I guess
00:34:41.869 --> 00:34:45.250
the touring reality these days is that, you know,
00:34:45.269 --> 00:34:49.030
you will need multiple versions of your work
00:34:49.030 --> 00:34:52.329
because touring with a full band is not cheap.
00:34:52.889 --> 00:34:56.510
But also that's a lot of how the work was developed
00:34:56.510 --> 00:35:01.190
anyway in its first instance was solo. So it's
00:35:01.190 --> 00:35:07.469
nice to rethink those works as electronics and
00:35:07.469 --> 00:35:12.889
multi -layered kind of effects and weaving in
00:35:12.889 --> 00:35:15.909
the field recordings within that. And it becomes
00:35:15.909 --> 00:35:18.969
its own thing, but it's still very much tied
00:35:18.969 --> 00:35:23.269
to how the album sounds. And then, yeah, when
00:35:23.269 --> 00:35:25.730
I get to take the quartet out on the road, it
00:35:25.730 --> 00:35:27.969
becomes a whole other experience as well. It
00:35:27.969 --> 00:35:29.610
was strange, like the first time I heard you,
00:35:29.650 --> 00:35:32.510
because I'm a violinist and I do do some improvisation.
00:35:32.510 --> 00:35:36.550
And it was like very much my language of improvisation.
00:35:36.550 --> 00:35:39.250
It was almost like hearing a little bit a cousin
00:35:39.250 --> 00:35:44.030
player being reflected back. It's cool. Oh, that's
00:35:44.030 --> 00:35:47.400
awesome. Yeah, I mean, I feel like when I hear
00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:49.840
other violinists who improvise as well, I feel
00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:52.380
the same way. I was like, oh, yeah, I recognize
00:35:52.380 --> 00:35:54.760
that as a language in and of itself. So your
00:35:54.760 --> 00:36:01.500
first love was Bach? Yeah. Although I guess I
00:36:01.500 --> 00:36:03.619
wasn't conscious of that as a kid, but my dad
00:36:03.619 --> 00:36:07.440
would play the solo cello suites and the violin
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:11.019
partitas and sonatas a lot in the house. So it
00:36:11.019 --> 00:36:14.539
was just like going in, you know. And I think
00:36:14.539 --> 00:36:17.780
I was a Suzuki kid as well. So I think before
00:36:17.780 --> 00:36:20.239
I could learn how to read music, I was kind of
00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:25.860
learning those by ear. And I think inadvertently,
00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:28.440
I kind of created a mishmash between the Sarabande
00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:35.360
and the Chaconne, without meaning to. And I think
00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:38.639
it's just his voicing and the way he threads.
00:36:41.410 --> 00:36:44.110
motifs and you know with his fugues for example
00:36:44.110 --> 00:36:47.309
it's definitely had an influence in how I compose
00:36:47.309 --> 00:36:51.429
and in terms of your folk like the folk influences
00:36:51.429 --> 00:36:54.389
in your music did that come from any kind of
00:36:54.389 --> 00:36:59.730
active involvement in folk scene yeah so I spent
00:36:59.730 --> 00:37:02.530
um seven years living in Belfast Northern Ireland
00:37:02.530 --> 00:37:07.730
and um obviously the folk scene there is incredibly
00:37:07.730 --> 00:37:13.280
vibrant and um But rather than just simply kind
00:37:13.280 --> 00:37:17.000
of learning the Irish traditional tunes, they
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:19.079
also had some brilliant festivals where they
00:37:19.079 --> 00:37:24.500
had musicians from all over Europe and America
00:37:24.500 --> 00:37:28.719
come to play. And it was there that I actually
00:37:28.719 --> 00:37:35.969
really got into Breton music. You know, when
00:37:35.969 --> 00:37:37.969
you speak of like that sense of familiarity,
00:37:38.010 --> 00:37:40.829
when I heard Breton playing a special fiddle
00:37:40.829 --> 00:37:42.809
playing, I was just like, this feels so familiar
00:37:42.809 --> 00:37:47.389
to me. Like, I absolutely adore it. For me, it
00:37:47.389 --> 00:37:50.469
sounds like a perfect mix between Renaissance
00:37:50.469 --> 00:37:54.030
court music and more Eastern European folk, you
00:37:54.030 --> 00:37:56.949
know, that has those wonky time signatures of
00:37:56.949 --> 00:38:02.199
sevens and nines and fives and, you know. in
00:38:02.199 --> 00:38:05.139
terms of your music education was it pretty traditional
00:38:05.139 --> 00:38:11.400
classical for most of it um probably not i mean
00:38:11.400 --> 00:38:15.639
i i wove in and out of of the canon i guess so
00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:19.320
um suzuki method when i was a kid was not necessarily
00:38:19.320 --> 00:38:24.760
considered the way you learn um but yeah i did
00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:29.340
that for a long time and then i went to the Conservatoires
00:38:29.340 --> 00:38:34.539
as a teenager, the Royal Academy of Music, on
00:38:34.539 --> 00:38:38.659
weekends. And then rather than continuing that
00:38:38.659 --> 00:38:41.239
into my degree, I decided to go to Dartington
00:38:41.239 --> 00:38:44.980
College of Arts, which is, you know, the more
00:38:44.980 --> 00:38:48.840
kind of contemporary, experimental end of the
00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:52.829
stick. And that's where I started to explore
00:38:52.829 --> 00:38:56.030
improvisation, but also audiovisual installation
00:38:56.030 --> 00:39:02.010
and, you know, cross media. What was that college
00:39:02.010 --> 00:39:04.250
experience like in terms of the people you met
00:39:04.250 --> 00:39:09.670
and mentors? Oh, absolutely amazing. Like some
00:39:09.670 --> 00:39:14.769
of the happiest times of my life. Yeah, my tutors
00:39:14.769 --> 00:39:18.050
were wonderful. One of my composition tutors
00:39:18.050 --> 00:39:22.730
was Frank Denier. A lovely man called Bob Gilmore,
00:39:22.849 --> 00:39:25.789
who's no longer with us. He was a musicologist.
00:39:26.989 --> 00:39:31.690
And yeah, it was an opportunity to, I think being
00:39:31.690 --> 00:39:34.849
there was one of those experiences of knowing
00:39:34.849 --> 00:39:38.170
that I really belonged there, which is not a
00:39:38.170 --> 00:39:42.670
common feeling I'd had up until that point. Yeah,
00:39:42.769 --> 00:39:46.590
it felt like I'd found a home. And did you find...
00:39:46.829 --> 00:39:48.789
when you were a teenager and you're going to
00:39:48.789 --> 00:39:51.409
the conservatoire, that there was this competitive
00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:59.789
atmosphere? Yeah. Yeah, really. And I didn't
00:39:59.789 --> 00:40:03.710
know what to do with that, actually. I think,
00:40:03.710 --> 00:40:07.510
you know, I remember watching the other students
00:40:07.510 --> 00:40:12.869
really kind of jump into that, the competitiveness.
00:40:15.690 --> 00:40:21.610
It wasn't in my bones to do that. And so I struggled
00:40:21.610 --> 00:40:24.710
to know how to place myself within that environment
00:40:24.710 --> 00:40:27.050
if I wasn't kind of scrambling with all the others,
00:40:27.170 --> 00:40:31.769
you know. And yeah, I'd often get told off for
00:40:31.769 --> 00:40:39.389
playing that wasn't on the page. But it was still
00:40:39.389 --> 00:40:44.070
a really formative time. And I had a violin tutor
00:40:44.070 --> 00:40:49.590
who, really tightened up the nuts and bolts of
00:40:49.590 --> 00:40:52.110
my technique, which has lasted me till today,
00:40:52.269 --> 00:40:54.789
you know, so I'm forever grateful for that. And,
00:40:54.809 --> 00:40:56.730
you know, the opportunity to play in chamber
00:40:56.730 --> 00:41:00.369
groups and orchestras, you know, there's nothing
00:41:00.369 --> 00:41:03.610
like that as an experience. So, yeah. And in
00:41:03.610 --> 00:41:06.710
terms of, I was just curious, I mean, you talked
00:41:06.710 --> 00:41:08.570
a little bit about growing up with parents who
00:41:08.570 --> 00:41:10.789
are artists, but what do you think you gained
00:41:10.789 --> 00:41:17.119
from that? A kind of a symbiotic approach to
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:23.980
music making, I guess. Yeah. The boundaries between
00:41:23.980 --> 00:41:29.699
art, music, film, sound, drawing, painting, they're
00:41:29.699 --> 00:41:34.820
pretty blurred for me. And in another interview,
00:41:34.900 --> 00:41:38.760
you had talked about growing up undiagnosed neurodivergent.
00:41:38.780 --> 00:41:42.340
Are you comfortable talking about that? Yeah.
00:41:42.860 --> 00:41:44.800
how did that affect you and how has it changed
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:49.039
as an adult to understand yourself better oh
00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:53.760
yeah i mean i understand myself far better now
00:41:53.760 --> 00:41:57.480
um and i think that is the main argument for
00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:01.719
diagnosis i think is is giving yourself a framework
00:42:01.719 --> 00:42:06.360
of understanding you know um that's been affirming
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:09.739
more than anything else um and not feeling like
00:42:09.739 --> 00:42:14.730
you're somehow doing life or music wrong um but
00:42:14.730 --> 00:42:18.329
I was simply trying to find a way to work with
00:42:18.329 --> 00:42:25.190
it in in a way that worked for me um and so yeah
00:42:25.190 --> 00:42:28.750
and now I'm at a place where I can kind of forgive
00:42:28.750 --> 00:42:31.889
past Ruby for a lot of you know mistakes and
00:42:31.889 --> 00:42:37.250
things like that and um I have built into my
00:42:37.250 --> 00:42:41.530
life a robust framework to support myself and
00:42:42.159 --> 00:42:45.039
to know what I'm good at and to really lean into
00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:49.539
those things and to know what I find more challenging
00:42:49.539 --> 00:42:52.719
and to know that's the area that I'll get some
00:42:52.719 --> 00:42:56.360
support with or, you know, not do that thing.
00:42:56.599 --> 00:43:01.420
That's great. And in terms of becoming a parent
00:43:01.420 --> 00:43:03.880
and navigating a music career as a mum, do you
00:43:03.880 --> 00:43:07.940
want to talk about that? Yeah, sure. I mean,
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:11.960
God, it's an ever -evolving picture. I would
00:43:11.960 --> 00:43:16.059
say in the early days, it was extraordinarily
00:43:16.059 --> 00:43:24.320
hard. But it also, becoming a mum, for me anyway,
00:43:24.539 --> 00:43:28.960
it was the spark that lit a fire under my butt.
00:43:29.320 --> 00:43:36.980
I feel like the... process of of you know growing
00:43:36.980 --> 00:43:41.360
and birthing a human really kind of uh ignited
00:43:41.360 --> 00:43:44.559
a level of creativity in me that i didn't know
00:43:44.559 --> 00:43:49.679
i had before um and it it ignited an urgency
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:53.360
with that as well it felt really urgent if i
00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:59.300
don't do this now then i'll die um and so that's
00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:02.519
what's motivated me through the other elements
00:44:02.519 --> 00:44:07.500
which are very challenging. And I think the main
00:44:07.500 --> 00:44:09.500
challenging elements of it is that motherhood
00:44:09.500 --> 00:44:12.900
is not adequately supported within the music
00:44:12.900 --> 00:44:16.480
industry, within society generally, I'd say.
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:22.780
So yeah, that's what helps me withstand those
00:44:22.780 --> 00:44:27.940
bits is this huge amount of galvanisation that
00:44:27.940 --> 00:44:30.480
got woken up in me. In terms of interdisciplinary
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:33.719
projects, do you think that can help broaden
00:44:33.719 --> 00:44:40.179
audiences for music and for art too? Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:40.340 --> 00:44:45.559
I mean, you can get... access to a whole new
00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:48.699
set of audience members through doing that I
00:44:48.699 --> 00:44:53.440
think there is a natural a broader kind of movement
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:58.039
of involving cross -disciplinary and kind of
00:44:58.039 --> 00:45:02.440
approaches to concerts these days I'm going to
00:45:02.440 --> 00:45:04.800
get really deep now but it just it feels like
00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:09.139
a kind of in evolving instinct within people,
00:45:09.260 --> 00:45:11.599
you know, with certain cultural movements that
00:45:11.599 --> 00:45:14.199
happen over the decades. I feel like we're in
00:45:14.199 --> 00:45:16.820
one of those at the moment where it feels really
00:45:16.820 --> 00:45:21.000
widely understood that that's what needs to happen.
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:24.079
You know, like the minimalist movement in the
00:45:24.079 --> 00:45:26.119
60s, you know, it feels like one of those kind
00:45:26.119 --> 00:45:30.260
of times where the cross collaboration and the
00:45:30.260 --> 00:45:33.659
understanding that we're not separate. as artists
00:45:33.659 --> 00:45:36.260
but we're also not separate as humans and so
00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:41.619
bringing each other together in these forms of
00:45:41.619 --> 00:45:45.159
uh expression and connection feels uh really
00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:48.360
necessary at this time you know i'm a big fan
00:45:48.360 --> 00:45:52.519
but not i know many colleagues certainly in the
00:45:52.519 --> 00:45:54.360
classical music world who don't feel that way
00:45:54.360 --> 00:45:58.960
that they want things to stand on their own in
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:03.639
a traditional way For sure. And, you know, that
00:46:03.639 --> 00:46:06.920
will always be there. You know, it's not as if
00:46:06.920 --> 00:46:09.880
this current, you know, moment that's happening
00:46:09.880 --> 00:46:16.039
replaces that. I think it's just finding additional
00:46:16.039 --> 00:46:22.599
ways to reimagine how we do this as classical
00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:28.739
musicians. That's the very nature of what art
00:46:28.739 --> 00:46:34.460
is, you know, it's evolve or die. And without
00:46:34.460 --> 00:46:40.940
it, I think, you know, it ceases to be what its
00:46:40.940 --> 00:46:46.519
original intention was, which is to be a holding
00:46:46.519 --> 00:46:51.260
place for what it is to be human. And they must
00:46:51.260 --> 00:46:53.119
reflect the times and the times we're living
00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:58.400
through at the moment are pretty hardcore. So
00:46:58.400 --> 00:47:00.619
I was curious about next creative projects. Do
00:47:00.619 --> 00:47:01.980
you have things you're working on right now?
00:47:02.360 --> 00:47:05.719
I do, yeah. I'm at the foothills of a couple
00:47:05.719 --> 00:47:09.460
of ideas. One's a major project that sits by
00:47:09.460 --> 00:47:11.960
itself and then there's another particular piece
00:47:11.960 --> 00:47:17.380
of work that's very specifically about swifts.
00:47:19.539 --> 00:47:22.460
And they're an endangered bird and they're virtually
00:47:22.460 --> 00:47:26.219
disappearing from the UK. It focuses more very
00:47:26.219 --> 00:47:29.420
particularly about the swifts that come to my
00:47:29.420 --> 00:47:33.219
home. Seems really egocentric when I say it out
00:47:33.219 --> 00:47:37.599
loud. But they're an extraordinary ancient bird
00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:40.880
and they travel thousands of miles each year
00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:45.699
to Africa and back. And a lot of them, when they
00:47:45.699 --> 00:47:48.320
first fledged, they spent up to four years in
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:52.179
the air without ever touching ground, which is
00:47:52.179 --> 00:47:56.429
insane. So when they first come to nest, that
00:47:56.429 --> 00:47:58.989
will be the first time that their feet have touched
00:47:58.989 --> 00:48:04.369
anything solid in years. All in the small hole
00:48:04.369 --> 00:48:08.170
of my house. So a lot of the things that I like
00:48:08.170 --> 00:48:11.050
to work with conceptually is the intersection
00:48:11.050 --> 00:48:14.429
between the macro and the micro. And swifts embody
00:48:14.429 --> 00:48:19.469
that, I think, perfectly. This huge macro existence
00:48:19.469 --> 00:48:24.530
with time and space. finding their way to this
00:48:24.530 --> 00:48:28.449
tiny little space in my home are they eating
00:48:28.449 --> 00:48:31.429
flying insects right yeah and they sleep on the
00:48:31.429 --> 00:48:33.949
wing as well so they they uh shut down one half
00:48:33.949 --> 00:48:38.530
of their brain and then they switch wow yeah
00:48:38.530 --> 00:48:41.250
on our walk this morning like i live in an urban
00:48:41.250 --> 00:48:43.190
area but we have access to a lot of nature so
00:48:43.190 --> 00:48:45.789
there's a river very close by and there was a
00:48:45.789 --> 00:48:49.179
large snapping turtle by the path which in 30
00:48:49.179 --> 00:48:51.239
years walking on this path, I've never seen a
00:48:51.239 --> 00:48:52.880
turtle there. They must live there. But I just,
00:48:52.900 --> 00:48:56.340
I was just amazed because they're such ancient,
00:48:56.420 --> 00:48:58.320
like you mentioned about these old birds, but
00:48:58.320 --> 00:49:00.340
I mean, I thought they were here millions of
00:49:00.340 --> 00:49:04.179
years before we were. And it's very, when you
00:49:04.179 --> 00:49:07.679
think of it that way. Yeah, it's extraordinary.
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:12.800
And, you know, I was recording them. And when
00:49:12.800 --> 00:49:17.030
you slow a swift screen, down because they scream
00:49:17.030 --> 00:49:20.610
and they used to be known as devil birds um and
00:49:20.610 --> 00:49:23.610
a bad omen but now they obviously signify something
00:49:23.610 --> 00:49:27.150
else um when you slow it down it sounds like
00:49:27.150 --> 00:49:30.369
a dinosaur you know and they are dinosaurs you
00:49:30.369 --> 00:49:33.449
know they're ancient so yeah that's going in
00:49:33.449 --> 00:49:40.889
there and do you teach violin i do yeah and i'm
00:49:40.889 --> 00:49:45.059
sure your approach is very wide with different
00:49:45.059 --> 00:49:47.079
students i have a feeling you don't do the same
00:49:47.079 --> 00:49:49.699
thing for everybody no i mean i'll have a rough
00:49:49.699 --> 00:49:54.440
framework that i will weave in there um but it
00:49:54.440 --> 00:49:58.000
is very person -centered um and it will collate
00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:01.280
all the good bits hopefully that i've gathered
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:05.260
over the years um you know ironically i'm a stickler
00:50:05.260 --> 00:50:08.980
for technique um but i try and do it in a way
00:50:08.980 --> 00:50:13.039
that's not dry um and makes you want to give
00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:17.880
up entirely yeah and you know it's weird I've
00:50:17.880 --> 00:50:21.840
been teaching for about 20 years now and it's
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:23.599
only in the past five years that I really feel
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:28.599
like I've got good at it yeah yeah well I've
00:50:28.599 --> 00:50:32.780
been teaching for over 30 years and it's interesting
00:50:32.780 --> 00:50:35.739
I mean I often ask people how their teaching
00:50:35.739 --> 00:50:37.400
has changed or how it's different from the way
00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:39.659
they were taught but I do recognize we're always
00:50:39.659 --> 00:50:42.480
evolving and maybe you Don't really remember
00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:46.320
how it was 20 years ago, but it is a challenge
00:50:46.320 --> 00:50:49.119
with violin. I mean, it's so, every instrument
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:52.300
is technical, of course, but it is hard. It's
00:50:52.300 --> 00:50:54.519
very hard to play in tune and hold in a comfortable
00:50:54.519 --> 00:50:57.880
way and all the things. That initial learning
00:50:57.880 --> 00:51:00.960
curve is the steepest one, right? And getting
00:51:00.960 --> 00:51:05.219
people to, or adults especially, but yeah, any
00:51:05.219 --> 00:51:08.360
learner to keep the faith through that particular
00:51:08.360 --> 00:51:13.250
bit is hard. Do you ever improvise with your
00:51:13.250 --> 00:51:17.190
students? I do. You know, if we get to a place
00:51:17.190 --> 00:51:19.909
where that feels natural, like they're wanting
00:51:19.909 --> 00:51:22.190
to do that, you know, some pupils will be wanting
00:51:22.190 --> 00:51:25.070
to have a framework and a goal to work towards.
00:51:25.090 --> 00:51:28.110
And then others will be like I was and wanting
00:51:28.110 --> 00:51:30.929
to kind of go off piste a bit. So, again, it's
00:51:30.929 --> 00:51:34.050
very person centred to what they naturally are
00:51:34.050 --> 00:51:38.039
inclined to do as musicians. Okay, well, thanks
00:51:38.039 --> 00:51:40.940
so much for this. Thank you. Thank you so much
00:51:40.940 --> 00:51:44.119
for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
00:51:44.480 --> 00:51:47.400
Keep in mind, I've also linked directly several
00:51:47.400 --> 00:51:49.539
episodes you'll find interesting in the show
00:51:49.539 --> 00:51:51.880
notes of this one. Please do share this with
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