Robbie Ellis

Looking east onto North Pender Island from the Gulf of Georgia, taken as I write this post.

I write from the ferry between Victoria and Vancouver, in the territorial waters of British Columbia/Washington State/British Columbia. It’s Wednesday 20 February here in North America, but en Nouvelle-Zélande it’s a Thursday at a particular time of the month. This means Song Sale is on in Dunedin!

Now, it is a little odd and a little superfluous for me still to be spruiking for this monthly gig. Yes, I founded it in Dunedin and it was my baby, but now that Daddy has moved to a new city some foster parents have taken responsibility for the rambunctious toddler. Or something. I’m not good at parent-and-guardian analogies.

Regardless, I look from afar wishing all the best for this year’s gigs. I know it will thrive under new management: Corwin Newall is a fantastic writer and performer, and even though he’s young I can see him developing into a really good teacher and director of talent. Gabby Golding is one of the most enthusiastic and organised people I know in the Dunedin arts scene, and late last year she enthusiastically took the reins to organise this mother. (Told you my family member analogies weren’t good.)

They’ve secured funding from both Creative Communities and the Dunedin Fringe Festival, so they must be doing something right – importantly, this means the gigs remain free entry. They’ve also engaged Angus McBryde, a professional, to do their graphics. This is instead of retaining my, uhh, ‘idiosyncratic’ design principles of textual overload. Compare December 2012 and February 2013:

But beyond who manages it, Song Sale is not only an entertaining show for an audience, it’s a valuable vehicle for many different types of creatives.

For a songwriter in the generally-popular-music world, it’s a chance to submit one’s self to a deliberately constrained process: writing something in a hurry. If the song is no good, it can die after its first outing. If it’s great, all the better. If you write enough songs in a hurry, you develop good instincts about which is which and this helps you early in the writing process.

For composers – those trained in a classical, dots-on-paper tradition – Song Sale teaches timing, audience interaction, and Seeing What Works. So many composers are nervous wallflowers, afraid to put themselves out there. While the gig may look terrifying to total introverts, the vibe of the show means The Audience is On Your Side. Even if you try and fail, the audience will still love and support you.

That’s a precept of improv theatre as well – worth mentioning since many Song Salers are members of Improsaurus. The audience doesn’t come to a show to see the perfect response to any situation, they go along to see what on earth the response ends up being. There’s always a little thrill for an individual audience member when that person’s own suggestion is picked up and turned into a scene (for improv) or a song (for Song Sale), but even if the suggestion didn’t come out of your own mouth, you still feel like you have a stake in it: it came from the room and You Were There.

Added to this, many improvisers are also stand-up comedians and many stand-up comedians incorporate music. Song Sale is a pretty sweet song development laboratory, and it bubbles up musically comedic moments that don’t occur when you deliberately craft songs on your own. After a year-and-a-half of Song Sales in both Wellington and Dunedin, I have a heeeap of songs that have had several outings, become more refined and cogent, and could be turned into a solo show and/or an album.

If you’re reading this from Dunedin, do turn up tonight: 7pm at The Church, 50 Dundas St. The gig has a new structure (or a structure full stop): an established act performs for the first half – tonight it’s Reed Street Posse from Oamaru – and the commissions come after the interval. As always – and with gracious thanks to Creative Communities funding – entry is free and commissions are $5 per song. Here’s the Facebook event – go forth and spread.

Radio New Zealand last week, and Television New Zealand this week. All I need to do is resurrect NZPA from the dead and I’d have the trifecta.

Megan Martin and Ross The Cameraman from TVNZ’s Dunedin bureau came along to the most recent Song Sale at The Church. She filed this report for Close Up in which we sing of blenders, root vegetables, the onset of Spring, spiteful inheritances, and Mark Sainsbury.

Next Song Sale is Thursday 25 October, btw.

Singing up a storm

Last week I was in Wellington and I had the opportunity to play He Kōrero Pūrākau mo te Awanui o Te Motu, that bright red piano ornately carved by Michael Parekowhai. I had a friend video some of the performances at Te Papa.

Here’s the YouTube playlist. It contains attempted Maori strum in Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi (yes, bajingajink on piano), a singalong on Poi E, a New Zealand music lesson on Pōkarekare Ana, the Split Enz classic Message to My Girl, and Beyoncé’s Single Ladies.

And as a bonus, here’s Trubie-Dylan Smith’s Das kraftwerkische Blenderlied performed at the last Song Sale:

Last of all, a quick notice: on Friday, Improsaurus performs their first ever long-form improvised musical. It’s called Improv: The Musical. We’ve been working really hard to get this up and running, I’m looking forward to it.

Book advance tickets here, or passively hit attending on Facebook and risk there being no door sales.

I’m in Auckland until this afternoon. I came up on Wednesday to see my former composition lecturer’s new piece LEN LYE the opera, and to review it for Theatreview. (Actually there are more like four of my old teachers among the core creative team…)

It’s “a major statement of advocacy for the overlooked genius and forward-thinking artistry of Len Lye”. My review’s here. The NBR and the Herald carry shorter write-ups.

Today I meet with Penny Ashton, Thomas Sainsbury and James Wenley about musicals in various stages of development.

Next week I sing as a “baritone” on the stage of Marama Hall in Dunedin and play with the Court Jesters in Christchurch.

The week after I get to play Michael Parekowhai’s red carved piano at Te Papa in Wellington, and I do my first gig in Invercargill.

Life’s pretty good.

Dear world,

A while ago I contributed some backing tracks to a book project. Instant Songwriting is written by Chicago actor/teacher Nancy Howland Walker. It’s a series of exercises designed for improvisers who want to acquire that magic skill of song construction in the moment.

Through the first half of this year, its four parts (Dunce, Decent, Distinguished and Diva) were published as individual ebooks on Smashwords. Now the whole thing has been printed in paperback.

BUY IT FROM AMAZON NOW NOW NOW! It’s US$15.95 and eligible for free Super Saver Shipping, as they say.

If you need further inducement, many many tracks from the book (possibly all?) are freely available on the Instant Songwriting website. I’m in the company of amazing musos from around the world like Michael Pollock (Second City Los Angeles & Improv Olympic West), Mike Descoteaux (Boston ex Chicago), Jeff Bouthiette (Second City Chicago), Kris Anderson (Brisbane) and Joe Samuel (London). Tracks by me include a cheesy bossa, a big pub waltz, and a metal thing without much of a consistent key centre.

Next week, Improsaurus begins training for their first ever long-form musical. Instant Songwriting will be an important teaching text for me.

BUY IT NOW NOW NOW.

Song Sale is on tonight – 7:30pm at The Church on Dundas St.

Here’s the Facebook event, and we’re on dunedinmusic.com for the next 12 hours or so.

Enjoy a song from one of the Fringe Festival gigs:

And tonight’s poster:

The University of Otago Music Department has some recording studios at Albany Street. Because I’m technically staff there, this great facility is available to me from time to time.

I was too lazy to walk there and photograph it myself, so I got Google to do it for me.

The building was constructed in the 1960s as the Dunedin headquarters of Radio New Zealand for stations such as 4YA, 4YC, 4ZB and 4ZM (now known by other names). There’s a distinct Glide Time public servant vibe to the place – squat postwar modernist layout, unpainted wooden doors, blue parquet floors, pre-yellowed net curtains, and behind those perforated ceiling and wall tiles there’s probably a crapload of asbestos.

Public radio moved out in the 1990s when the government forced them to radically downsize their South Island presence, but the sold-off commercial arm (now TRN) stayed on until the university acquired the building outright a few years ago and kitted it out with that renowned (allegedly million-dollar) SSL mixer.

However, even the flashest gear is compromised without a good room to record in. Building large studios from scratch with all the right acoustic treatment and isolation is hideously expensive. That’s why it’s such a shame that so much of New Zealand’s postwar investment in music broadcasting has gone to waste: Auckland’s Helen Young Studios, Wellington’s Broadcasting House and Christchurch’s Radio New Zealand House are out of action through sale, demolition and act of God respectively.

Dunedin is lucky indeed to have retained their main studio, even if (as I understand) it lay fallow for many years. It’s not quite big enough for a Mahler 8 or an Alpine Symphony, but it’ll fit a decent-sized orchestra. 4YC/the Concert Programme made lots of studio recordings there back in the day, mostly chamber music. Here, for instance, is Terence Dennis playing David Griffiths’ Sonata in C in 1988:

So when I went in to record some tunes of my own that I’d written at Song Sale, I felt a bit of a connection to the past, given my employment history 2008-2012.

The short of it: here’s a romantic pop ballad called Love is a Four-Letter Word. I’m playing on a Bechstein grand piano, and Mike Holland is the sound engineer. Watch it below or listen on SoundCloud.

Love is a Four-Letter Word on SoundCloud

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Coming soon from the same session: A Song About Wees, The Racist Grandma Blues, How Many Legs Is Too Many Legs, Dolphins & Porpoises Rape & Pillage, and A Blues Song About Beards.