Author: James (Page 2 of 2)

I’ve just come back from the most fantastic ukulele-oriented weekend of my life (yes it was better than the time I accidentally got shut in a ukulele shop armed with nothing but a song book and a torch, it was all I could do to play ‘Wagon wheel’ loudly until someone came to rescue/silence me…*)
I’m talking about the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain which takes place each year in a little town known as Cheltenham in the Cotswolds. I’d not been to a uke festival before and so when we finally rolled up to the pub late on Friday night, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer uke-ness of it all. Never before had I seen so many awesome people squeezed into the same space. Dotted around were groups of people just jamming to themselves, which gave the amazing effect of the world’s most interesting mash-up. (I’m sure I heard a mixture Fat-Bottomed Girls and Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 at one point…) But the absolute best part was that everyone was having such a great time, loads of people had dressed up as fairies and everyone was being just generally very Jolly.
But the best was yet to come. Saturday was the day of the main gig itself in the town hall. There were so many performers on and off the stage that it would take all day to list them all so here are some of my personal favourites:

• Ben Rouse– A player of ferocious speed and skill with his roots in rock. Does a lovely cover of ‘Highway to Hell’.
• Zoe Bestel- A singer-songwriter with the kind of voice that makes you want to cry in a good way.
• Les Poupees Gonflees– Cheeky humour with a vintage French sound and amazingly inventive percussion
• Tobias Elof– A master of both Danish folk music and dreadlocks. A strong combination
• Ryo Natoyama– Pure virtuoso genius.
• Hot Potato Syncopators– Like the March Hare at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Only British-er.
• Barada Street– Ukulele playing acrobats. Yes, actual acrobats!
• Ukulele Bartt– An eccentric writer of witty songs and an awesome fingerstyle player. Has lots of friends.
• James Hill– One of the biggest names in the ukulele world, who found fame playing Billie Jean on one uke.

The sunday was pretty laid back with a massive busk (over 600 people at once!) and then lunch at the pub with an open mic. A perfect end to a great weekend. Will take the train next time though…
Looking back at the line-up we come to the title question, is it the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain? I would argue not, but in a good way. Whilst some of the very best of our home-grown talent were represented, there were also performers from Japan, Canada, USA, Denmark, France, Spain and even Kyrgyzstan! I think that actually it represents some of the best of the world’s uke players. Maybe they should go for International Ukulele Festival next year? I’m pretty sure that there isn’t one of those yet- at least in name.
Anyway, if you’re fairly new to the uke and and sure where to start apart from Formby and the UOGB** this is sort of like my own recommended listening list for you. These guys are awesome and it was great to hear them live. I thoroughly recommend it!
Oh, and I bought a Banjolele. Grand Southern Festival anyone?
Peace and love,
James
*True story. Probably.
**Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Dear all,
Ta-da!

This is the video response to anyone who has ever asked me, ‘What instrument to you play?’
I’ve been working on this project for a few months and have recorded and filmed all of it in my room with just my laptop and a few mics, which means it is a little rough around the edges. This was an exercise in learning and understanding band instruments, rather than achieving technical perfection. I certainly appreciate now how hard it is to play the tuba and the percussion parts in general still baffle me a bit, but overall I think I got there in the end. Sort of.
I’d like to thank Darent Valley Youth Music and Mr Rupert Bond for the kind loan of some of the featured instruments. Large percussion like timps were recorded off-site (couldn’t get them up the stairs).
And yes, I have seen the disappearing clarinet at 03:52. I really have no idea why, so I’m just gonna let him do his thing.
My concert band (in the audio) features a few more instruments than I managed to squeeze into the video, so here is the full run-down:
2 Flutes
2 Flutes pretending to be Oboes
9 Clarinets
4 Alto Saxes
2 Tenor Saxes
2 Bari Saxes
6 Trumpets
4 Horns
6 Trombones
2 Tuba
1 String Bass
1 Ukulele
1 Snare Drum
1 Floor Tom
1 Cymbal
1 Triangle
3 Timps
1 Bass Drum
(Apologies for omitting the double reeds, they’re expensive)
It’s been a long couple of months, but now it is done. Hurrah!
Thanks for watching
James
🙂
Music by John Powell
Arranged by Sean O’Loughlin.
Performed by James Drake.

Hi all,
Just a note to say that I’ve put some serious work into my website over the summer, so that it’s even better and more user-friendly than before!
As well as my new online shop for ukulele music, I’ve updated the structure and content of my pages and even written some advice pages to help anyone looking to learn an instrument, buy an instrument, look after an instrument and I’ve even included some practice tips!
New pupils can now enrol by entering their information into an easy online form and all my tuition terms and conditions can now be viewed at any time online.
I also have listings for any instruments that I have for sale, a page of testimonials from clients past and present and a full online syllabus for my Ukurate scheme!
And there’s more to come! Keep an eye out for more ukulele music, more multi-track recordings and many more blog posts as I share some of my insights into all things musical.
Thanks for subscribing,
James
p.s. For those who haven’t seen it, I leave you with this…

Make ready the sail and keep a weather eye on the horizon!
I’ve been a busy bee this summer and have really got stuck in with some new multi-track recording projects. Like my How To Train Your Dragon video, I’ve recorded some famous film music on a fantastic array of wind, string and percussion instruments.
I won’t give away any more spoilers just yet, but I’ve spent quite a while re-jigging my home recording set-up for some vastly improved sound quality. The next ones are also more difficult (tee hee)! I plan to release the first at the beginning of September and the second just before Hallowe’en.
But to keep you going until I release the big ones, here is a little recording of one of my favourite songs by Sara Bareilles. I just love the sound of the (very close) harmonies all crunching together. Thanks for watching!

Dearest Subscribers,
I’ve been locked away in my room all summer and here is the result! Long live the Clones!

Earlier this year, I was lucky to get a place in the latest project by the Doctor Who Fan Orchestra. Now, first I should explain: These chaps are not like your regular, Saturday-morning orchestra however, the scale is breathtaking.
They are an online collaboration of fans across the world who submit self-recorded audio and video to the production team in the US (all fans!), who then edit all the tracks and videos together to form one giant patchwork masterpiece. Now whilst that is in itself, very impressive, I must bring you back to the scale.
Bearing in mind that most symphony orchestras number about 50, its then incredible to think that the DWFO numbers up to 500 in every project. As well as traditional orchestral instruments, they add a full range of percussion, guitar, bass, keys and even a choir to capture the epic scale of Murray Gold’s music for the show.
But perhaps most importantly, it’s clear that the love is really there: many performers dress up to record their video submissions and they seem to compete for the most creative costume! It’s wonderful to see community music making on such an international scale- long may it continue!
Their latest project, ‘Donna’s Suite’ celebrates the music written about the companion, Donna (immortalised by Catherine Tate) and includes a lot of Latin-American inspired tunes and rhythms, which is what makes it stand out from the rest of the score.
I was lucky enough to get to play Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, and Alto Sax on this recording. See if you can see me pop up anywhere! I’m most proud of my clarinet slide at 2:37. Enjoy!

Click here to learn more about the DWFO.

I recently went to a conference for music teachers and they featured this great little video to explain just exactly what goes on inside our brains when we play music. It turns out that we really do use almost every little bit of grey matter available when we process written music into sound through our instruments.
Not only that, but musicians have more grey matter in the corpus callosum (the bit that joins our two hemispheres) allowing greater connectivity between the linguistic left and logical right parts of the brain. No wonder that music is said to be excellent brain training and that musicians also tend to score higher in other academic subjects; you can even see how it might be beneficial in staving off dementia!
Aren’t we fab!