Preserved Ginger.
The ramblings of a retired orchestral musician
by Barry Johnstone.
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Barry Johnstone
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Edited by Rebecca Freeman.Foreword by Lewis Scott
Dedicated with love to my entire family
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Foreword
by Lewis Scott
If you saw Barry Johnstone walking down the street, the word enigmatic would come to mind even if you knew nothing about him. He has the air of a man whose mind is engaged with things and who quietly observes all that is around him.
If you know of Barry Johnstone, you will know that he is a professional classical musician, his instrument being the double-bass. But if you actually know Barry Johnstone, you will know that he is much more than a classical musician – he is a man of music. He is classical, he is jazz, he is blues, he is folk. He is a man who is always in search of the purest musical note with which to reflect humankind’s experience in sound.
And now Barry has taken up the medium of words and he plays this medium with the same clarity and ability to make his audience see and feel and hear as he brings to music. His autobiography describes a full and many-faceted life and we see it from all sides, from upright and upside down.
So we see his agony at the death of his daughter; a father struggling not to suffocate in the anguish of a young life of such promise being taken. But we also see how the tragic death of this gifted young women builds a bridge for Barry to make peace with his first wife, the mother of his daughter. And standing beside him through all of this is his soul mate, his partner, his wife, Val.
As well as his personal story, we are given an insight to Barry’s world-view. Barry does not believe in race – he believes in human-kind. In the people who traverse his life he sees either good or bad, and sometimes shades in between. He is adamant that humanity needs to stop defining itself by race. And he is equally impatient of the duplicitous behaviour of politicians who seek to manipulate those they are supposed to represent and of a system in which money is more honoured than life.
Barry Johnstone’s autobiography is as full of sound and colour and nuance as the life it portrays. It represents the rainbow of life, the quest for knowledge, the jagged edge of mis-steps, the deep hue of pain and the unshakeable belief that having been given the gift of life, we should cherish it, protect it, celebrate it and live it as honestly and compassionately as we can. This is a message and indeed a life that is real and honourable.
As his friend and as a poet, I give these words to Barry and his
readers:
To spend one’s left-over life
unmolested by friends
and dreams
come for a moment to the playground
and remember
yourself
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Introduction
‘Preserved Ginger’ is a kind of loose biography, being the life stuff of a retired orchestral musician. I have a go at most things - sometimes right, sometimes wrong. Old enough to know better and too old to give a s…! I’ve developed some reasonably firm views over the years, and being utterly unknown, I enjoy the complete freedom to have a stab at anything I feel like! Right or wrong, I can write completely for myself and not aim for a particular target.
But a target in particular I can aim at is the love of my life - my wife Val, who is the best friend I’ve ever had, and is my favourite person in the entire world! Our highly esteemed grand-kids, April and Nathan, my step-son Scott and his wonderful partner Sarah-Lee, (aka Slee) my son Nathaniel and his awesome wife Anna (our daughter-in-law), our grand-daughter Olive – these are the people in our family who keep me on-track and (reasonably) well focussed! Their love and support cannot be quantified. Also my deep appreciation goes to Rebecca Freeman for her editing skills.
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Preserved Ginger
In these writings I have tried to be as accurate and honest as I can. It will cover a few of the most important events that have happened to me over the past few years. It is an unskilled manuscript, but most of the essential events that have happened to me will be here.
All kinds of reading, people, situations etc have contributed to this, and being in a fairly full ‘burble’ mode at the present stage of this offering I have absolutely no idea how or when it will end. Furthermore I don’t really know why I’ve done this, because it will just evolve without any regard for form or content.
There doesn’t seem to be a ‘right’ time to do just about anything, but in this instance, it just so happened that this particular time was it. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time – but not badly enough to start, so when Val and I got a computer which obviously included a word-processor, I started.
The only ‘rule’ that I’m following is (for the purposes of this) that there are no rules. It is important to remember that throughout it is essentially a bunch of random thoughts, opinions, prejudices, the occasional sweeping generalization and I will quite often go off on tangents! In more than a few instances I will be quite wrong and sometimes quite right…
We are all the result of our upbringing, and consequently there is an old saying that one can choose friends, but can’t choose family. I now tend to disagree with some of these implications - which is not to say that I don’t approve wholeheartedly of my family!
To my descendants who might read this, stay with it, because it may get a little better the more I get into it and as an historical piece for the Johnstone family of the future, it might be quite interesting.
At some stage about the middle of the 20th Century, western societies seemed to move from the ‘us’ to the ‘me’ culture doing a complete 180° turnaround, in part probably caused by WW ll and the need for self-protection to a much larger extent than was previously needed.
It appears that the 1950s was a decade of post-war disbelief. A bloodied, bombed and bullet-riddled world settling down and consolidating after the extremely shattering traumas of WW ll. The 60s a decade of transition and deep social unrest in preparation for the decade of tastelessness in almost everything - the 70s.
The 80s a start of some big technological advances and new directions leading into the nasty 90s, the hurried and rushed decade that almost prepared us for this still new century.
However, to me that is what appears to have happened. That wonderful statement ‘all generalizations are false’ could apply.
I left school in August 1959, and started working with spare parts at Lewis Motors (a Ford dealership, which later became Lyon Motors) in Hurstmere Road, Takapuna.
After the Lewis Motors experience, (for which I was paid three pounds seventeen and six per week) I had various jobs in spite of my father wanting me to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force, which for us, was a strong family tradition.
Aside from my father (Bruce), his two brothers (Neil and Alan), my older brother (Tony), my mothers’ sister (Gilda) had all served in the RNZAF. In rebelling against my fathers wish, I joined the NZ Army instead – for five years in October, 1961.
After a six-week Basic Training in Waiouru, (which I thoroughly enjoyed) I was initially in the EME, (Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) at Fort Cautley, Devonport, in Auckland.
Then I went down to Burnham Military Camp, near Christchurch. I had joined the 2nd Battalion, New Zealand Infantry Regiment Signals Platoon.
The Regimental Signals Officer was Captain Bryan Wells (a born communicator) and the Battalion Commanding Officer was Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Gurr, (Frank Gurr’s cousin, the NZSO principal clarinet).
Frank’s son David is an excellent photographer, and Tim is an excellent yachty. A family of achievers!
The occasional unfairness of army life fell into two categories. The first was that if some individual erred, the complete platoon was punished. The second was when we had a church parade or function, and if one opted not to attend, the alternative was to work in the kitchen, or something similar.
It was an attitude that reflected the times in the 60s. Not conforming to the norm was considered unacceptable in those times and there was always a massive guilt trip available.
But on balance, life in an Infantry Battalion was excellent. For instance, there was absolute equality between Maori and Pakeha, and we had a very strong sense of identity as one result, which is only proof that any racial division is BS.
As well, the food we were served was excellent on every single occasion. To me, this equates to a 100 % success rate on the part of the Army Catering people!
When the Battalion Band was formed in 1963 I joined and for the rest of the time that I was in the army, I stayed in the band. This turned out to be a hugely influential period of time: a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying experience, making some friendships that have lasted all of my life in the process.
The entire Battalion went to Malaysia in February/March 1964 to Terendak Military Camp, about 14 miles North of Malacca, on the West coast of the Malaysian mainland. We went as 2nd Battalion, New Zealand Infantry Regiment, and on our arrival in Terendak, (in deference to our predecessors) became 1st Battalion, New Zealand Infantry Regiment.
In July that year, the title ‘Royal’ was added, with the inevitable long and hot Trooping of the Colours Battalion parade. We became 1 Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1RNZIR) and part of the 28th Commonwealth Brigade Group.
We were taking an active part against the actions of the final few months of Indonesian President Soekano (of ‘Guided Democracy’ fame) and his policy of ‘Confrontation’ against Malaysia and its then Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman.
It was in the band that the seeds of music – well-sown by this time -- started to really grow! For consolidating, defining and enlarging my attitudes, Les Mooney was of enormous help, and for sheer spectacular musicianship, Graham Hanify was impossible to beat.
I played the double-bass in the Band of the NZ Army Dance Band, and always delighted in it. The drummer in this Dance Band was John Rowe (Jim Crint); the rhythm guitarist was Brian Hanify (Daniel); his brother, Graham, was the trumpet player and the sax player was John Hau (Babalu.
An integral part of the Battalion Band in a non-playing role was Sergeant Bryan Webb, the Band Drum Major. A man of enormous imagination and humour, his ‘Dead Ants’ routine is a part of Battalion history.
Some officers tried their very best not to laugh. Maintaining a ‘stiff upper lip’ was very important in those days. The influences of people like Bryan are absolutely essential to the progress of a young and naïve person like me.
Again, the entire Battalion packed up and in May 1965, went from Terendak to the tiny ‘town’ of Simanggang, in the 2nd Division of the State of Sarawak of Borneo, where we were based for 5 months. John Hau transferred to one of the rifle companies for the time that we were in Sarawak.
I think this division, about 120 miles in length, is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The bush (ulu) can be a very beautiful and friendly place, and one enduring memory is that of watching a small green tree snake very slowly and silently over a period of about an hour stalk and finally catch and eat a smaller frog.
We were on a listening and watching piquet in dense secondary bush and had to remain very quiet, hidden and still for a couple of hours. Leeches and other creepy-crawlies were almost, but not quite, nothings.
The river from Simanggang to Engkilili (a little settlement further upstream) was called the Batang Lupar river, (where the bottom floated on the top) and then at Engkilili, it changed its name to the Batang Ai river.
Despite the beautiful surroundings, a very scary trip of about 4 hours that sticks in my memory was a trip up the middle of the Batang Ai river from Engkilili to ‘A’ Company at Lubok Antu (only about 3,000 metres from the Malaysia/Kalimantan border) by outboard-motored, noisy, smelly long-boats.
Being exposed as we were, I was in a constant nasty, nagging fear of ambush by hostiles – based on the fact that there was absolutely nothing we could have done!
‘B’ Company was at Jambu; ‘C’ Company was at Batu Lintang; ‘D’ Company was at Sungei Tenggan and our home HQs company and the support companies were based in Simanggang (renamed Sri Aman.)
One casualty was our CO – Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Gurr - who accidently fell onto a ‘Punji’ stick – badly injuring himself, and simultaneously demonstrating just how effective they were! These punji sticks are sharpened bamboo spikes that are stuck at an angle into the ground – a simple, horrible, painful but usually non-lethal device that made any advance easy, but retreat impossible.
The only other casualty was Jim Negri, shot in the arm, near Soenpendok, during an ‘A’ Company operation. He had some time off, then returned a few days later to active operations.
The Battalion went back to the Malaysian mainland in late September 1965 on the troopship ‘Auby’ and after 5 months of being limited to two cans of beer per day, we resolutely and enthusiastically drank this ship dry!
Returning to New Zealand at the end of 1965, and during my last year (1966) in the army, I went to Canterbury University where I did ‘Music 1’ with composer/lecturer, John Ritchie whose class of students included Gordon Burt and Ross Harris. John Ritchie’s son, Anthony, has also turned out to be an imaginative and gifted composer.
During this period of time, Gordon told me that ‘If God wanted people in the army, they would have been born with loose green baggy skin.’ The basics were what I was after, and I could not go along with their very conservative approach to harmony - which was essentially 17th century.
After failing the written exam, I now find it very interesting that at no stage did I even contemplate doing anything other than music.
It was during this time that Ashley Heenan, son of Sir Joseph Heenan - a former Director General of Broadcasting in NZ, recruited me for the National Youth Orchestra. Any decisions surrounding my choice of future direction were made much easier and clearer.
From the very first rehearsal of the NYO, I knew instinctively that playing in a symphony orchestra was the only direction that I could possibly go in. The lower part of the frequency spectrum always appealed to me, the bass-trombone or the double-bass fulfilling that particular appeal.
Amongst the pieces for the NYO audition was a wonderful excerpt from ‘Petrushka’ by Igor Stravinsky: ‘Dance of the Coachmen’ No. 240 and on. Playing bass-trombone, I later joined the ‘Training’ orchestra, then run by Ashley Heenan.
This scheme – whatever its alleged faults were, was probably the best way to study and play the orchestral repertoire in NZ, because at that time, it was virtually the only intensive grounding available here. None of the alternatives were as intensive as the then NZ Broadcasting Corporation scheme.
After about 4 years of playing trombone in the band of the NZ Army, I had the embouchure endurance that seemingly knew no bounds. Shortly after I joined the scheme in 1967, I gave myself the self inflicted task of changing from the trombone to the Double Bass, with much more chance of employment than as a trombonist.
During the day in the training orchestra, I would play bass-trombone (an ‘Olds’ Imperial Bass, with a Bb/F trigger, nine and a half inch bell, and a Vincent Bach One-and-a-half G mouthpiece), grab a hamburger or something, go to one of the NZBC studios at night, and practice the Double Bass until about a million o’clock. The studios then were free, and for a while, I kept on running out of breath on the Double Bass.
At that stage, I was doing numerous gigs, and consequently, I was sometimes earning more money than some of the members of the Symphony Orchestra of the NZBC, which back then, caused a few ructions! (Igor Stravinsky was alleged to have said, ‘If I want to talk about music, I go and talk to my bank manager, and if I want to talk about money, I go and talk to a musician.’
Life in the training orchestra was interesting, to say the least. My double-bass teacher was Benjamin (Benny) Dick, and my teacher for the bass-trombone was Neil Dixon, an excellent teacher from who I gained quite a lot.
I had some embouchure problems – such as changing my mouthpiece position according to the register I was in, but Neil was able to fix that to the extent that I was able to maintain a stable and unchanging embouchure position through-out my entire register. I also had a slight problem in holding the slide.
Neil's premise was that I shouldn't have the slide-stay between two fingers (as Stan Holland had taught), but that the slide-stay should be lightly held with several fingers.
The conductor for the Training Orchestra, Ashley Heenan, was a very colourful character, and he seemed to know the repertoire inside out. If one could survive Ashley, one could survive just about any conductor.
I then spent a year in the National Orchestra of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service before going to Australia and joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Training Orchestra in Sydney, then run by Bob Millar, a retired Sydney Symphony Orchestra Concert-master, and a keen and good fly fisherman.
Australia was a very different country, with much better beer available than in New Zealand during the late 60s to early 70s. But why is ‘Waltzing Matilda’ not in triple time? And when one stands on the truly ancient Australian soil, it is ‘cooked’ as opposed to the geologically young New Zealand soil, which hasn’t yet finished cooking.
It was in Sydney that I met my first wife, Sheila, who was a violinist in the Training orchestra. After being in the ABC Training orchestra for a few months, I was sent to the ABC Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra to temporarily replace Mick Davis, the Principal Bass, who had had a heart attack and needed some recovery time.
I was met at the Hobart Airport by Tommy Meyer, the then conductor of the TSO. Being met and welcomed was so nice for a young musician, and amongst the first people I ran into were two friends of mine from NZ, Joan Wallace and Phillipa Gunze – both of whom were working in the TSO, respectively cello and flute.
At one stage in NZ, I was engaged to Joan. She later married Graham Evans, a French horn player in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
I managed a fair amount of trout fishing with Ian Owens - (aka ‘Bones’- a French Horn player in the TSO) When all else failed, we used the ‘Yeti’ wet fly, because generally, it would have some results.
But Australian trout tended to be small and rare, so I think I gave up on Australian trout fishing when I read one of their recipe books for two that said, ‘Take six trout.’ That is about my only complaint.
I like Australia and Australians. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Tasmania – it was like living in New Zealand, but with the Australian economy!
In 1972, I successfully auditioned for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I did enjoy my time in the MSO Bass Section. The people in the MSO were fine.
In the main, I hung out with Vernon Hill, (Flute) Lach Easton (Bass) and Eugene Danilov (Bass Clarinet) – who, being as Russian as he was, insisted that vodka was always kept in the freezer. The Concert-Master was Len Dommet and 2nd violin principal was Bill Glassford. The viola principal was Paul O'Brien, the cello principal was Phil Green and horn principal was Roy White. The flute principal was Arnost Bourek, principal oboe was Norman Wiener, principal bassoon was Harold Evans and the principal clarinet was Phillip Miechel.
The double-bass section was John Mowson, (principal), Tony Hofman, Imre Pallos, Marijan Brysher, Lachlan Easton, me, Stephen Martin and Sam Shiffron. Chief Conductor was Fritz Rieger, Orchestra Manager was Graham Wraith, and his assistant was Judy Lorimer.
At this stage, I have to tell about one night we were in the Melbourne Town Hall and waiting for the conductor to come out and start the concert. After a delay of several minutes, his entrance broke the silence that had gradually crept over the hall.
The principal bass, John Mowson – a tense and nervous individual at the best of times, imagined he heard a noise and quite loudly went ‘Shssssh!’ Marijan Brysher was so surprised by this that he dropped his bow – loudly. (A sequence of events?)
In the bad old early days of the MSO, apparently someone in the ABC management had a weakness for exotic-sounding European names (not the fault of the MSO management!) Some not-particularly-good players were hired as a result.
Needless to say, these were the days of national insecurity. ‘If it sounds like it is from overseas – it must be good’ was a mode of thought not just confined to Australia then!
While I was in the MSO, we occasionally had a Swedish conductor by the name of Sixten Ehrling, who gave the impression of being dull and dry - and was anything but. He was a friend of Jean Sibelius and used to go and see him every time he went to Finland.
He would wander up the Sibelius cottage path and knock on the door, whereupon they would give each other a cursory grunt of acknowledgement and retire to the lounge.
There, they would each drink a bottle of Aquavit and start playing a game. One would go and hide, and the other would have to try to guess who was missing.
Another story of Sibelius and drink is that once he went to a pub – and stayed for a couple of days. Naturally enough, his wife got worried and went looking for him at the pub.
“Jean, Jean, when are you coming home?" she asked.
“How would I know?" he replied. “I’m a composer, not a fortune-teller."
One of the fascinating things about Jean Sibelius is that he wrote essentially for a Beethoven sized orchestra, but he got an enormous sound, due to his orchestration, what he wrote – all of those factors, plus of course his qualities as a composer. For instance, his ability to finally let a theme go is absolutely stunning.
I make no apologies at all for my political stance because it’s not an extreme position, and in fact, I know that it’s quite a moderate and reasonable one. I just think that people are more important than anything - without having any particular political stance or dogma, aside from quite slowly but quite thoroughly over the years becoming quite Left.
I wrongly assumed that I would veer to the Right as I got older, but I’ve become more liberal in my outlooks - wanting our society to ‘grow up’ and become more tolerant than at the present somewhat intolerant and divisive state.
I maintain that the theoretical layout of the political spectrum is incorrect, because I do think that the ‘Right’ and the ‘Left’ (given their respective similarities - as well as their vast differences) should be at one end with anarchy at the other, instead of the current thinking of having anarchy in the middle with Left and Right at each end.
I’m now starting to think that one would have to be a bit Left, because the Right Wing of the political spectrum, when one gets down to it doesn’t make any real sense.
On one completely superficial level it would seem that the Right Wing deals with what ‘should be’, according to their dictates. One of them is looking after the economy before looking after society, which I consider unrealistic and divisive.
My arguments against this way of thinking are based on my belief that society is the driver of the economy - with the economy being secondary in importance.
The Left Wing of the political spectrum seems to be dealing with ‘what is’ - according to their beliefs, which to me, is much more realistic and inclusive. Looking after society before looking after the economy.
To consider it the other way round I think is very limiting and makes money more important than people. ‘The ‘what should be’ never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no ‘what should be,’ there is only what is.’ (Lenny Bruce)
Whatever Party is in power, society seems basically to be driven by consumerism and fear. The present Labor Party Government is not very left - more ‘Centrist’ than anything else, but its appeal to me as an individual rests in the fact that I think it is well lead, and philosophically it is in the Left.
In politics, the separation of Church and State - along with freedom of speech I do consider to be some of the more important dictates to evolve in this western democratic system that we have, whether it’s the RW or the LW of the spectrum.
NZ now (the end of the 20th Century, and the beginning of the 21st Century) has the rise of nasty, loud and little gatherings like Brian Tamaki and his ‘Destiny’ church and its very conservative and narrow Right Wing Christian fundamentalist neo-fascist existence, built on guilt, subservience and fear just like any other cult, which I think basically is what it is. It’s a cult that is much noisier than its fairly small size.
With the Destiny Church’s political arm (Destiny NZ) trying to become officially political, the existence of the basic tenant of separation of Church and State will hopefully doom it to failure. But this important separation of Church and State seems to be becoming less and less, particularly with countries like the US and Australia wielding their political and religious influences in this country - as they do.
Should Destiny NZ win a seat or two in the House, the mind truly boggles at the prospect of a fundamentalist religious presence in government which I for one definitely do not want. I most certainly do not want a Brian Tamaki or anyone else ‘religious’ representing me.
I like the concept of a secular government, even though it is impossible to avoid having religious influences in any Government. But the fact that democracy has room for organizations like the Destiny Church is cause for celebration – whether one agrees or disagrees with their existence!
Before any parliamentary session, there is a ‘prayer’ to look good, I suppose. In my view, this is an act that alarmingly weakens the gap between church and state!
I do try to be magnanimous about these political things, but sometimes I can’t. I tend to have a refusal to disbelieve anything and to be open-minded about everything, but not to the extent that my brains fall out.
A right-wing agenda as proposed by the National Party – amongst others, is I think for everybody to be the same, and this I consider to be right-wing social engineering. I don’t think that this is very healthy or ‘normal’ at all. ‘Celebrating Differences’ makes a lot more sense to me.
The subject of ‘social engineering’ is something that the left-wing of the political spectrum frequently gets accused of, but I tend to think that the right-wing agenda is more extreme, but much quieter. In my opinion, sameness in anything is a matter of chance, but the right-wing seems to consider that sameness can be legislated into existence.
I’ve probably become some kind of Socialist or vaguely Left Wing, but aside from the usual passing interest I’m not a political person. My party vote goes to Labor, and my list vote tends to go to the Greens. I would like to see a Labor/Green coalition as the next government.
Some years ago in Nelson, someone made the pithy, but rather accurate observation that ‘Under capitalism, man suppresses man, and under communism, it’s the other way round’
There is only one politician in NZ (not counting Parties) ‘Woman’s Affairs’ Minister Laila Harre (Alliance) trying to get paid maternity leave in NZ, as many first world countries have. The stink that this is causing is amazing and speaks very clearly about the nature of the opposition to this piece of proposed legislation.
This opposition is out of all proportion to the proposal which to me seems a perfectly logical and natural thing to do. Don’t all civilized societies look after families?
That it is still a subject for debate is very disappointing, with the various politicians wailing and gnashing their teeth, and the Employers Federation waiting for it to rain blood and the entire world to collapse!
We do not have a ‘Men’s Affairs’ Minister in this country, which I find rather interesting, so instead, we do have a pile of preposterous political platitudes............!
(August 2004). With Don Brash as the leader of the opposition, if the National Party came into power at the next general election, my reading of this hopefully unlikely but possible event would be that we would wind up with a subservient and weak right wing government masquerading as a ‘strong’ government that would do whatever London, Canberra or Washington bid.
Aside from the fact that a National Party government would I think be an absolute disaster for New Zealand in all aspects of life here, it also poses a very real danger of negating any hard-fought independence the Labor government has won. I do consider the overall cost of this independence to be minimal, and well within the bounds of political and social acceptability.
I make no bones about being a Helen Clark fan, as she is an intelligent, strong, independent and realistic person, and is proving to be a highly effective Prime Minister. I consider her to be one of the best PMs that New Zealand has ever had.
Whatever I have achieved, or will achieve, the most wonderful part of my life is that I am a parent. In my view there is nothing to equal this, in spite of the fact that my first wife – Sheila, and I separated in 1986, becoming divorced two years later.
This divorce was a messy, nasty business and terribly painful, and I think we were all emotionally dis-emboweled by all of this, but I have to say that given what I have gained since, in terms of my own outlooks on life generally speaking, I wouldn’t have missed any of that whole period.
As a husband, I wasn’t nearly as good as I should have been, but as a parent I did try my absolute best. Sheila’s outstanding ability at being a mother makes me realize that almost any woman given half a chance will do the parenting part of life superbly.
They say that life is the toughest of teachers, given that one has the experience first, and the lesson second. Like a piece of bad music, my first marriage was finished well before it was over.
The post-divorce period of oat-sewing and general madness was a period of my life that was really good for me in the sense of loosing restrictions and living a completely undisciplined private life, discovering how to live on my own.
There were many women who came into my life, and from each I gained something, especially a woman from Auckland, with whom I had a most wonderful relationship that completely re-focused me. This focus had left me when I started to realize that the marriage that Sheila and I had was terminally ill.
But if I hadn’t met, married and fathered two children with Sheila, then I wouldn’t have eventually met Val. She is now my second wife, and I tend to lose it when I attempt to convey my feelings about this amazing person.
She is a person of great integrity, honesty, creativity, compassion and warmth, my best and closest friend ever, and my favorite person in the world.
This exceptional person and I met on September 11th, 1991 at an ‘Amway’ meeting in the Lower Hutt Town Hall. We met some really fine people in Amway, and had much fun along the way, but in the end we left this organization and opted for having a life that is quieter and not so busy and more importantly, belonged entirely to us.
The Amway experience was on the whole a positive one, and one which we enjoyed immensely. We were with Tony Henderson’s group.
Val and I were introduced to each other by Victoria and Glenn Roberts from Napier, so Val and I fell in love - without any choice in the matter! Eventually we had to get married as we didn’t really have any other option other than to ‘formalize’ our relationship.
Our wedding - on February 7th, 1993, at Old Saint Paul’s, (in Mulgrave Street) was a very special and wonderful day in our lives. The weather was great, the people and the music were fabulous.
Ken Young wrote us a wedding march played by a Brass Choir which he conducted. (Trumpets, French Horns and Trombones) Carolyn Mills (Harp) accompanied Emily singing, (On Wings of Song – Felix Mendelssohn) Dale Gold (Double-bass) played some unaccompanied Bach (Bourree’s from the third Cello suite) and the Paradiso Sicilienne, we also had some Gabrielle Canzona’s, (played by the Brass Choir) in short, everything worked out wonderfully.
With Val, I ‘inherited’ two young people – Lauren and Scott, whom I have come to love and respect very deeply, and like my own two kids Emily and Nathaniel, they are possessed of great character, strength and individuality. As young adults, Lauren and Scott are in the process of earning respect and experience.
‘They’ say that young people today not like they were yesterday. They are absolutely right. I look at young people today and I know that they are so far ahead of where I was at their age it’s a very humbling thing. They still have their hassles and tribulations – even more so, given that life choices are now much more numerous.
If kids don’t know danger, they won’t know fear – if they don’t get to know fear they won’t know courage.
I have noticed that amongst young people, there is a small but ever growing segment to which racism doesn’t mean a thing – and in fact, it doesn’t even enter their consciousness. (I never thought that I would see this in my lifetime). In other words, it is given the consideration it so richly deserves – zilch!
There is a residue of racism (probably hotly denied!) in our minds and it takes a conscious effort on our part to negate this if a situation arises. At most, racism is only ignorance and fear allegedly justified, but it’s not ‘hardwired’ into our psyches. Ignorance and fear will breed – given half a chance.
Bringing these two together will give massive problems. They are bed partners and they both share certain inadequacies and other similarities, and I do not believe it is anything other than totally inadequate attitudes.
Discrimination of any kind seems to revolve around viewing people or things for what they aren’t, (rather that what they are). A few examples being skin color, mental and physical disabilities, culture, homosexuality and economics – all of which provide a never-ending source of loud, easy and immediate material.
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Any type or form of discrimination is incredibly small-minded, completely useless, very divisive, and a totally unnecessary blot on the human landscape. It can have horrific consequences and it always seems to revolve around what a person isn't - rather than what they are.
We aren’t yet a fully tolerant society with the road to integration being very long and may never end, but human nature is human nature, and cannot be factored in for anything, so various obscenities like the KKK and the like will be around for a while yet. It’s also very interesting that children aren’t racist – it is taught to them by adults!
The profound stupidity and complete inadequacy of subjectively discriminating against only one particular facet is absolutely mind boggling. But discrimination is still an integral part of human nature, and therefore cannot be completely eliminated yet.
It does beg the question ‘Isn’t a person the sum of all the parts that go to make up that individual person?’ To take one part out of context is – at best, stupid, shallow and inadequate, at worst, a truly barbaric cruelty.
Discrimination based on what isn’t falls completely apart revealing its innate weaknesses, compared to any discrimination based on what is. Politics and the various religions are by far the worst offenders at discriminating on the basis of what isn’t, and to extent societies (which will always reflect politics and religion) going hand in hand with prejudices.
Because every religion is divisive - they have to be, in order for them to exist, no religion will tolerate any dissenting viewpoint. All religions always assume that they alone possess absolute truth seeing only what they believe, whereas the sciences seem to believe only what they see, and to view people and things for what they are - always assuming provisional truth.
In other words, religion rather arrogantly assumes that it alone has the ‘truth’, but science has a vast knowledge of ignorance as its driving force. (Science could not exist without ignorance. In this context, ignorance becomes a very large positive!
The world of reality desperately needs the (objective) sciences to help stop the human species from stagnating. The sciences have something that no religion has – ‘peer’ review!
If an opinion is shaken hard enough, it will cease being a mere wrapping for a hidden attitude/dogma of some kind and this attitude will then eventually fall out and reveal itself.
The human species has many dualities in existence – among them that of good/bad, (with a very exploitable gap between the two) and the continuing evolving of the human species may eventually see that it is a permanent aspect of humanity. The human species has been around for a couple of million years, and I consider that we (the human species) made a god(s) in our image!
An interesting thing is that a common rhetoric by religionists and politicians etc is that of the concept of ‘unity’ which is laudably fine, but hand-in-hand with that is the one thing that is rarely, if ever mentioned, and it is the concept of ‘equality’!
There is much rhetoric by economists, politicians and religionists about ‘thinking big’ an idea that can’t really happen properly because it is too divisive, merely clarifying and more clearly defining barriers, however, in my opinion if there was genuine equality, then the reality of ‘thinking big’ would become far easier and much more possible.
Socialism had the ethos of equality right, but the political machine couldn’t hack it with too many individual egos (just like capitalism) so the basic revolution was just that – a revolution! (A revolving mass returning to the same point)
I’m still a musician – through the medium of the Double Bass. I’ve now been with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years and in general I cannot speak highly enough of the people in this orchestra.
They are an extremely interesting, skilled and collectively motivated group of people, and they have seen me through my darkest hours. Naturally enough, there are there are a few people within this orchestra with whom I don’t see eye to eye, but in the overall scheme of things, this is not important.
When my daughter Emily accidentally drowned, the way they closed around Val, Nathaniel and myself was completely unforgettable, and in so doing they have shown me that I am surrounded by, and work with absolutely wonderful people. I have also had very many lighter hours.
I don’t really understand its implications, but I certainly won’t question them. When it is all boiled down I am very fortunate. My family, my friends, my work, and my life in general – all of these things add up to something rather wonderful that is not known to me.
I think that being a musician means that one can go to the absolute limit of intellectual and physical capabilities of ‘self’ and still try to be a balanced person.
There are still some people who think that being in tow with, or the partner of a musician is a joke – not something to be taken seriously at all.
The musician is to be ‘worn’ and this is perceived to perhaps increase the standing in the community of the wearer. There is nothing guaranteed to wreck a relationship of any kind faster than this.
Understanding is required, but the fact remains that music – above all else – is a human activity. Maintaining a ‘balance’ also means that life priorities must be clearly established. Being a musician is possibly the easier part, but balance is essential.
The ‘intelligent organization of sound’ as one definition of music, also means that being in balance is an integral part of the whole, and yet, to be a balanced musician is difficult.
Perhaps this difficulty is part of it, with this balance not something I feel I have achieved consistently. Obviously there are exceptions to a balanced persona, but it does pay to have a close and careful look at those people concerned – there isn’t a person anywhere that can’t learn something from somebody somewhere.
Everybody is good for something – even if only to provide a bad example. For me, it’s a bit like smoke – one can see and smell it – but to actually grasp it is difficult.
On November 30th, 1997, was the last of three Brahms concerts in Auckland with Herr Doctor Franz-Paul Decker. (The programme was the Academic Festival Overture, second Piano Concerto and Symphony number one).
Franz-Paul Decker and Brahms is a very good combination which results in clear, strong ‘in-your-face’ Brahms that is both relatively easy and very satisfying to play. If Brahms becomes difficult, then almost invariably it is the conductor.
Having played the symphonies, the overtures and the piano concertos in isolation a number of times, I’d arrived very early on at the conclusion that all of the Brahms orchestral works need a first rate conductor. Brahms is so incredibly sophisticated rhythmically as well as all the other strengths that he has in abundance that he needs someone who is an outstanding musician to conduct.
Brahms wrote big swingy tunes that have muscle and purpose, like the last movement of the First Symphony, from measure no. 391 - ‘piu allegro’ on, (which I think is one of the most exciting moments in all music) as well as beautifully delicate and wispy melodies, with a good example of that delicacy being in the first movement of the second symphony, letter ‘A’ in the first violins.
Otherwise, it just becomes ‘boring old Brahms’ (the nemesis of all orchestral players and bad conductors). On too many occasions over the years, we’ve had to hack through a Brahms symphony with a mediocre conductor and been thoroughly beaten artistically. In the main, the NZSO still relies on conductor’s to have their musical successes.
I have now experienced his four symphonies, both overtures and the two piano concertos presented as a cycle three times – and in each of these events we have been conducted by an outstanding musician.
The first was with Walter Susskind, (early 70s, in the Wellington Show Buildings) the second with Gyorgy Lehel, and this last cycle with Franz-Paul Decker. All beefsteak, red wine, and very European. Now all music critics may go forth and multiply!
I sometimes wonder if smaller bore trombones, (for which Brahms wrote) would be more appropriate to the overall sound of these works, instead of the larger bore instruments currently used today and their sound, which we have gotten used to.
For the Decker cycle, pianist Michael Houston played the second Piano Concerto - standing in for an ‘indisposed’ French pianist. Michael Houston always plays superbly letting the music speak for itself, so he never gets in the way. A prime example of this approach is his playing of the Rachmaninov piano concertos. He makes them sound easy - which they aren’t.
Omar Goldberg, (our neighbor in Weld Street - an elderly woman who had been a WW ll POW in Indonesia) once told me that she really liked Michael's playing because ‘He always speaks the troot.’ (Truth) He has recently recorded, (November, 1993) as a cycle, all of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas. A seriously good musician, his search for excellence seems never-ending.
Michael has occasionally conducted the Wellington Regional Orchestra, (WRO) and what I find interesting about his conducting is that sometimes his integration with the music is total. It seems to me that conducting is something that he should do more of.
Another pianist, Michael Ponti - (mid 1970s) one morning in the Christchurch Town Hall before a rehearsal was asleep under the piano, (we where rehearsing, amongst other things, the Franz Lizt Piano Concerto no. 1 in E flat with him) and when I came into the auditorium to pick up my bass to do some practice in one of the back rooms, he jumped up to the piano, and immediately started to play and sing ‘Oh my God - I missed a few’ to the opening of that particular piano concerto.
Quite mad in a good sort of way, and a brilliant pianist, in that loud but brittle Central European School of thought. One particular Christchurch newspaper music critic described his playing as ‘like coals falling off the back of a truck’ Personally I think that most of the Lizt orchestral works sound a bit like that!
A few days later, back in Wellington, I was walking down Willis Street, and Ponti came the other way. As he passed me, without any eye contact and without breaking his stride, he quietly said ‘All critics are schmucks’ and carried on.
We also had the pianist Ruth Slezenczynska - and in spite of the fact that she was a small person physically she made an enormous sound, and a complaint came from the then Concert Manager Geoff Newson that ‘those damned jazz musicians had been at the studio piano again, and put it all out of tune’. Newson was wrong again.
Ruth Slezenczynska had been practicing. Jazz pianists then got blamed for anything (Ready, Fire, Aim). Terry Crayford or Dave Fraser had been in the studio that particular day - neither of them heavy players.
Then there was the story of Ooper Knocketty, a well-known piano tuner. One day, he was called to tune several pianos in a house on the edge of town. He finished his task, and was about to take his leave and go, when all of a sudden because of very inclement meteorological phenomena, (probably caused by global-warming and the international communist conspiracy controlled by the Jewish bankers in New York) there were violent and very rapid temperature fluctuations causing all of the pianos in the house to go very quickly out of tune The house owners immediately asked Ooper to re-tune these instruments, where-upon Ooper cast them a witheringly haughty look out of suitably clenched eyes, (after all, he was very famous) and famously said in his deeply blistered voice that quietly dribbled total superiority ‘Oh no’ he said, ‘Ooper Knocketty never tunes twice!’ *Here it is, climate change, politics, religion and money – all in the one hit!
Working in a Symphony Orchestra like the NZSO, one becomes used to genius, and their traits (that is to say, if one ever becomes used to genius!) Mr. Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Brahms, amongst all the others, have that extra spark that we as mere mortals don’t.
Tchaikovsky’s diary entry of the 9th of October, 1886, said ‘I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms last night – what a gift-less bastard!’ An interesting observation from a similar mindset of romanticism but a very different culture. From the seamed about the seamless.
Tchaikovsky often talked about the transitions or seams within his compositions – which one can always hear. I think that Russian musical culture on the whole was seamed whereas it wasn’t a part of German musical culture.
An observation was made to me by Herman Backes, (an exchange cellist from Germany) who didn’t particularly like Russian music because it was ‘too shallow’. One of the advantages of living in NZ is that personally not having a specific cultural axe to grind, I have the freedom to sit back and observe.
Giuseppe Rossini said about Richard Wagner ‘He has some wonderful moments, but some dreadful quarter-hours’. Mark Twain, talking about Wagner said that ‘His music is better than it sounds’.
I have always considered the Wagner Opera ‘Parsifal’ as an over-blown 19th Century pseudo-religious wank, but good and challenging to play. I think it was his last opera.
This is one of the Wagner operas that achieved some fascist material for WW ll Nazism! (A knowledge of Norse god Mythology is useful in appreciating these rather large and cumbersome ‘music dramas’ [operas] – of which he wrote 13)
Wagner's music seems to be mainly just four part stuff (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) with loads of doubling.
The famous ‘Tristan’ chord - Bass Clef ‘F’ natural, (a fifth below middle ‘C’) ascending an augmented fourth to ‘B’ natural, ascending a major third to a Treble Clef D# and ascending a perfect fourth to G#, he lifted from a song composed in 1845 by his friend and father-in-law, Franz Lizst. ‘Ich mochte hingehn’ a decade or more before Wagner wrote Tristan and Isolde!
Wagner also had an attempt at re-orchestrating all the Beethoven Symphonies, but in the end, he had to just settle for the occasional wind doubling, and in spite of the fact that eventually Beethoven went deaf; he (Beethoven) remained a master orchestrator.
(‘9 W’ is the answer that has to come first, and then comes a question that the recipient must then guess. The question being ‘excuse me Herr Wagner – do you spell your name with a V?’)
Gustav Mahler at one stage was the conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and when taken to view the Niagara Falls for the first time, was claimed to have said something along the lines of ‘at last, a real fortissimo!’ (Gustav Mahler = Gus Painter, Giuseppe Verdi = Joe Green)
We won’t ever see the likes of those composers again, they’ve had their time and their place, and they’ve made their immense contribution to humankind - and so it continues. The future of music will be looked after by those to come - and they will be every bit as good, or better, if one accepts the idea that the present is the direct result of the past.
The occasional towering genius will appear, but they will be extremely few and far between as in the past - time being the greatest filter of quality.
What is interesting to me is that the elements of music - melody, harmony and rhythm, will be further explored and it seems to me that we will not see the end of that exploration. In my opinion, there will never be an end, because there is infinity to these elements - with so much yet to discover.
Another way I look at these elements is time and frequency - which leads to many other questions.
My own personal listening trilogy of Mozart, Bach, and Debussy is satisfying to me, and has been for a number of years. When one looks at the 20th Century and sees the magnificence of composers like Shostakovich, Britten, Ravel etc, the future of music is assured, and it is in safe hands.
At the end of the 20th Century, we have such visionary and luminous composers to carry on this amazing and spectacular art of inventing music including Oliver Messiaen, (who NZ composer Edwin Carr rather disparagingly referred to as a ‘candy floss merchant’, in a letter to Jenny McLeod in 1990), Harrison Birtwhistle, Witold Lutoslawski and John Tavanner.
I think that Johann Bach was the first great romantic, and Arnold Schoenberg the last – a ‘something’ that I will argue forever. Schoenberg’s triangle was ‘No Form without Logic: No Logic without Unity’
It would be appropriate at this stage to reverse Schumann’s comment on Chopin and describe Schoenberg’s music as ‘flowers buried in guns’.
I know this is fairly simplistic, but considering tonality as being a kind of perspective evolving from the modes, Stravinsky’s platform was tonality is an inherently human construct, and Schoenberg’s platform was that tonality is an artistic construct.
This being only one of the many reasons for the wonderful ‘conflict’ that supposedly occurred between the two. They still respected each other, in spite of their vast differences.
When asked by a Pope what the Catholic Church could do for music, Igor Stravinsky is reputed to have answered without hesitation: ‘Give us back castrati!’ I think that Stravinsky did for rhythms what Debussy, (who I consider to be the true heir of Wagner) did for harmonies.
That Schoenberg and Stravinsky were poles apart are very obvious – one being extremely German, the other being very Russian. Although separated by the common language of music, they occupied roughly the same part of the 20th century.
The prefix ‘a’, as in ‘atonal’, denotes a state of indifference, but Schoenberg was not indifferent to tonality at all and this word ‘atonal’ frequently used for almost any purpose doesn’t really make sense. ‘Non – tonal’ would to me be much more accurate. He was however, very superstitious about the number 13, and always labeled tone number 13 as ‘12b’.
I think Schoenberg and Stravinsky were probably the 20th Century’s leading composers, closely followed by people like Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Jean Sibelius and Bela Bartok.
Although the gradual breakdown of tonality in the 19th Century was yet another marker in the evolution of music caused by what had happened before, it wasn’t a breakdown in perspective, (which became a separate issue) given that non-tonal music has developed its own perspective.
I think that one of the contributing factors in what became the astonishingly varied 20th Century was the disintegration of tonality (starting with Franz Liszt in the nineteenth Century) Everything prior to Beethoven pointed toward that period of time near the beginning of the nineteenth Century, and afterwards things started to point away.
The direction toward that point was finite, and the direction away from that point is obviously infinite. Hence I consider the music from about the beginning of the 19th Century ‘middle’, instead of using the generic word ‘classical’, (usage giving it meaning, instead of meaning giving it usage) and as one result, easily confused with the ‘classical’ period.
From that ‘middle’ on, it seems to me that every ‘ism’ and ‘neo’ conceivable came into existence – even if only for a short time, however, all music will continue to evolve in its own way and accurately reflect society and it’s many, many attitudes in all of its different guises. This 1992 quote of American composer John Cage goes a long way to summing up the 20th Century.
‘We live in a time I think not of mainstream, but of many streams, or even, if you insist upon a river of time, that we have come to a delta, maybe even beyond delta to an ocean which is going back to the skies’.
Mr. Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb (Amadeus) Mozart. He never did have only a mere spark of genius - it was a raging inferno! He and Ludwig Van Beethoven were the creative giants in the history of music. Personally, I think that Mr. Mozart was one of the most important people within the human experience that ever lived.
In the instant just before the first note, a ‘something’ happens. It’s like a soundless and intense electrical shiver, lasting only a mere micro-second and he is the only composer I ever experience that with, and I’m certain that I’m not the only musician that this happens to.
But in spite of that, I still hold to the premise that he was human, therefore he was subject to all the faults and virtues that that implies and not a part of any religious trip, which is what some people maintain.
I think that if one can play one of Mr. Mozart’s symphonies and a blues properly, then a whole world of music is ready and available. Maybe one of the most important things that we do is provide some sort of framework for silence, which might be one of the mysteries at the heart of music.
Sound is paramount for any musician, and in a symphony orchestra there generally isn’t any form of electrical amplification, and so it becomes a completely different listening experience. It is a sound to be listened into, rather than at, but how much music - any music at all, is now listened to without some form of electrical amplification?
The impact of amplification on music in general would be similar to what the invention of photography in 1834 had on painting, with both of these huge inventions being non-linear advances. By the same criterion, the advent of MP3 players has been responsible for the massive change in listening to music – hugely increasing the accessibility of music to everyone.