It's hard to believe that my visit to the US was about a month ago as it's been a very busy time since.NAB in Las Vegas was fantastic and I met lots of my publishers from around the world and made some great new contacts too. I then met up with friends and family and had a few meetings in Los Angeles before returning home. I made the trip with my brother, agent and sometime publisher, Aaron.
Since then, I've written another album for Artful which I'm please to say has been very well received by my publishers around the world. I've also been writing and prepping scores and parts for an orchestral session which is coming up soon. I've been using StaffPad to write the music and then prepping the score and parts in Sibelius. It took a while to work out how detailed I could be before transferring to Sibelius with MusicXML, but I now have a good workflow worked out. I now have the updated version of StaffPad, so I'll enjoy seeing how much more work I can do with it.
One problem I was having with StaffPad was in writing flats. The new version has improved recognition of flats written with two strokes (which is what I have always done), so hopefully this will be a great improvement for me. Sharps were also tricky, until I worked out that StaffPad liked them written flat on, rather than at a jaunty angle as I usually write them on paper. Anyway, I'll be writing more with StaffPad soon and will review the new version when I've given it a good try out.One of the pieces for the orchestral session was inspired by a visit to the Mayday celebrations in Highworth, Wiltshire which we visited a couple of weeks ago.
About one hundred and eighty years ago, my Great Great Great Grandad and Grandma, James and Hannah Judd left the town of Highworth in Wiltshire to try their luck in the City Of London. Unfortunately, they soon found out that the streets weren’t paved with gold, but they began the line of North London Judds, which I am part of.I've always wanted to see a Jack-in-the-Green Mayday parade...This is where someone inside a framework which is covered in leaves and greenery (looking rather like an Xmas tree, see pic above) parades around the town accompanied by characters like Sap-Engro and Copperface. It just happens that Highworth has this very celebration, so what with the family connection, it seemed a must to go.
It was a proper old-fashioned day out, with a Punch and Judy show, Morris dancing, Jack-in-the-Green followed by beating the bounds and a great live band in the square after.
So, 'Highworth Jack-in-the-Green 2015' is one of the pieces which will be recorded in a couple of weeks.
