Zombie Steps

I apologise if the arrival of this latest blog entry is inadvertently interrupting the international ubiquitous carnival of kitsch that Hallowe’en seems to engulf surrounding October 31^st. As you read on, I can only express my sincerest wishes that the content of my character, details of my latest experiences and tone of my prose abhors you all sufficiently enough to grab your attention away from the special edition Haribo bags, fake-blood induced dry cleaning visits and ‘is-there-facepaint-left-on-my-face-or-am-I-really-this-hungover’ visages that may greet you all over the coming week without breaking your ghoulish moods. Unless of course, like me, you don’t really do Hallowe’en, in which case I’ll try not to sound like too much of an arse. In the inevitable words of some anonymous, but sadly inevitable, vacuous TV-series life coach: it’s important that everybody can come here, take what they want from it and feel free to enjoy themselves.

I had my first master-class last week with a Danish man called Claus Olesen (not to be confused with the shop on Northumberland Street). I was pretty sure, before even speaking to him, that I would like Claus and back this first impression up with two facts: 

-He's called Claus.
- He had a nice, full, ginger beard.

The lesson itself was good, and being taught in front of other people was not as intimidating as I feared. I also found Claus’ (did I mention, his name was Claus) appearance as encouraging as his playing. Maybe one day, if I practise really hard, my disappointing ginger chin fuzz can develop into a robust, glowing facial border to rival his! This evening was filled with a concert of Turkish music, in which my teacher was playing. The concert was really enjoyable and approximately 50% of the audience particularly appreciated the dress elected by the singer. I’d have been more impressed if she had a ginger beard, though.

This week has been a ‘week off’ of sorts. There were no official classes at the Conservatorium and a couple of rehearsals that had been booked in weeks ago were cancelled with more or less exactly the smallest amount of notice to make booking any mode of transport home for a couple of days unviable. The inverted commas are present as a means to express the abundance of activities that have gone on in the place of normal classes. I did manage some time off, which included a trip to Amsterdam during the massive Amsterdam Dance Event, in venues all over the city. Last year, my landlady put up a Chicago-based DJ (called Sadar Bahar, if anybody is interested) who was playing in a small record shop. He was a soul DJ and it was awesome. After his set I was allowed to goggle at the vinyl being swapped between him and the shop owner and listen to 1970’s Nigerian jazz. It was awesome. After that, the shop owner put on some unreleased Sun Ra live tapes. They were also awesome. I quite enjoyed myself, in case I haven’t successfully put that impression across.

Things have got a little darker, colder and wintrier. This is actually incredibly welcome, as it has temporary alleviated my on-going battle with bike riding and temperature control! The changeable, arguably slightly crappy, weather is something that the Dutch seem to almost proud of! A regular point of conversation relates to asking how you’re coping with the conditions, asked as some sort of friendly test of manliness. I tend to smile politely and reply with something along the lines of ‘fine thanks’ (out of character for me, I know) but one of these days I should really explain to the Dutch that us hardy Brits are relatively untouched by the meteorological challenges that their country poses as we have a more or less an IDENTICAL climate. That said, our weather is probably slightly better in the sense that it enables you to never run out of conversation with relatively uninteresting people.

I was going to end on that upbeat and positive note. I feel, however, as if I can’t start with a Hallowe’en oriented paragraph without coming full circle and mentioning a further seasonal event which I witnessed on my way into study today.

They put the Christmas lights up.

In October.

Jesus Christ. (…Coming Soon.)

Milestones

Hello! It’s me again, in case you have forgotten who I am. For those of you who spend most of their days on Facebook, obsessively checking my wall and searching desperately for any trace of a blog update (and let’s face it, you are only human), I apologise! It’s been a relatively busy month and, by the time I cycled home in the evening, my motivation only extended as far as watching Danish crime drama or sitting on Facebook waiting for other people to update their blogs with images and a genuine sense of enthusiasm about almost everything that they do. Bewildering.

Several Saturdays ago, I hopped on a double-decker Intercity train for my first excursion to Amsterdam. This it itself is not a particularly weird thing, the train ride is only half an hour and I am sure that many Utrechters, indulge in a similar pastime. There is, however, a slightly peculiar twist when you get off the train in a new city to find your brother waiting in the foyer having already had a walk around (‘I don’t like it much’) after a gig in Den Haag the previous evening. It was nice that this change of scenery could coincide with an opportunity to reflect on the previous three weeks with one of the people best equipped to empathise with the contrast from my home life and it was very refreshing to be walking around somewhere alongside somebody with an equally confident grasp of basic map reading. After spending much of the day just walking around and absorbing atmosphere of the place (tinged with a slight smell of Cannabis), it was a great pleasure to join the rest of Out of the Blue for an awesome steak and a trip to a Whisky café with the largest menu of single malt I have ever seen!

Daily life has continued in a relatively firm routine. I am in the Conservatorium seven days a week (apart from today, when the ‘really-quite-serious-okay?’ ailment of manflu has got the better of me), practising, going to classes and rehearsals, or drinking copious amounts of 40p ‘espressochoc’. I feel lucky that I have managed to manoeuvre myself into a relatively varied timetable, flicking between chamber music lessons, jazz theory classes, classical saxophone concerts and free improvisation rehearsals. Meanwhile, TDS/BDS (see previous posts) has become less of a novelty and more a necessity of life. The main problem I am experiencing whilst cycling is the ‘menopause simulation effect’ (or MSE), resulting in annoying fluctuations in temperature. As the winter draws ever nearer, I need to wrap up warm; wrapping up inevitably results in overheating within ten minutes, removing layers and becoming annoyingly cold for another five minutes! The problem is exacerbated by the deadly ‘Dutch gust’ - an inevitable side-effect of such an obscenely flat country - or by having to stop for traffic and stand there panting and perspiring in a big black coat just as the sun decides to peek it’s head round the corner of a bank of grey cloud for the first time in three days. Alas! I’m getting there though – on a good day you arrive feeling (and looking, obviously) pretty damn fine. If you get it wrong, you turn up covered in sweat and freezing cold.

The extremes of weather can also make the journey more interesting. Cycling in a downpour last week was a particularly unpleasant, yet oddly enjoyable experience; after about ten minutes of furious pedaling, with one’s jeans becoming insistent on clinging to the legs as affectionately as possible, it just become quite funny. Whether in a storm, a swimming pool or victim to a foul prank, there is only so wet you can actually get.  When you’ve managed it, someone else’s daily dose of schadenfreude.

The weather has slowly begun to turn more autumnal. I always enjoy this time of year - colours start to become more interesting and the weather more entertainingly unpredictable. The wind is always accompanied by a background rustling sound, and the canals look particularly idyllic when half coated with floating orange and yellow leaves. I apologise for my lack of photography, I’ve always been useless at it and feel particularly inferior to my friends from far reaches posting similarly beautiful pictures of amazing places. You can probably Google ‘Utrecht, Autumn’ and you’ll get the idea.  Failing that, Google ‘Utrecht’ and ‘Autumn’ separately and use your glorious imaginations to amalgamate the two. Delightful, don’t you agree?

If you’ve stuck with this long, and particularly disjointed, blog post to the end then well done! I’ll try and be a little more regular from now on, so you don’t have to go a whole month with the burden of ‘Oh god, how’s Jamie? I hope he’s alright. Jees.’ weighing heavily on your minds. Thanks anyway though – you kind, kind people.

I called this blog post 'Milestones' as it's the first one I've posted since being here for over a month. I've been trying to have a jazz-album theme to my titles but have realised how little I actually know about music...at all! Don't be at all surprised if, by the time the year is out, I've resorted to 'Greatest Hits, Vol. 5' or something similar. My godfather would be very disappointed.

Space is the Plaats

My second weekend in, or near, Utrecht has drawn to a close and I am delighted to announce that I am still alive! That said, there is some confusion as to whether it’s my pulse I’m hearing or the seemingly endless high-pitched thud of a metronome endeavouring to take over as much of my life as it possibly can. To those other music nerd types out there: my weekly routine consists of a major and minor scale in thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths, five studies and a repertoire list that sees me set for the whole year! Quite a mountain to climb, and one which is proving to take a great deal of determination and focus.

Enjoyment isn’t banished outright, though, and I guess I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t awaiting the hopeful end result with baited breath! Kicks can be found in less obvious places: I take great pride in my first trip to LIDL, which has enabled culinary sanctuary in the form of daily cheese sandwiches and rather curious rice/cheap sweet & sour sauce dish that is slowly being augmented with different ingredients each day. These little ‘mundanities’ probably don’t make for highly lucrative reading (sorry guys, I should be more like Perez Hilton) but I have genuinely found myself feeling a real sense of achievement for every step I take towards formulating some kind of normality amongst the veritable sea of mild difference that this fortnight has highlighted.

It is the mildness of cultural differences that make living the Netherlands and interesting experience. The shops are similar, the chart music is (regrettably) identical, and people still sit on trains in stony faced silence. However, just as I begin to glide into the delightful mental state of daydream, a ‘Dutchism’ comes along an hits me in the face. In the case of cyclists, I mean this literally (I am surprised that ‘Pedestrianism’ is not an extreme sport) as I begin to understand how the impossibly addictive pixelated blur, Frogger, must have felt trying to get to work. There are also a lot of V signs in conversation, employed simply – and entirely reasonably - to represent the quantity of two. Still, not all bad as it has allowed me to go into several bars and, by all English accounts, swear at barmen in order to attain enough liquid to satisfy a pint-drinker such as myself.

Another lesson today was followed by the purchasing 100g of 50cent Chocolate. It was terrible , so I felt obliged to consume it as swiftly as physically possible in order to prevent it from being unduly shared, and the misery spread, to expectant confectionary fans over the table. Other Dutch culinary experiences thus far have included Bitteballs and Krokets – both deep fried ‘meat’ snacks with a crispy outside. The overall effect isn’t unbearable, but the grey mushiness of the meat filling is a little disconcerting (none of the Dutch people I have asked have a clue what is in them either) and have led me to conclude that they probably using the cuttings that didn’t qualify for the gelatine put in Haribo.

And yes, all this bike riding has made my thighs a true wonder of nature, obviously. So you can all stop thinking about it.

Tales from the Oudegracht

I have no doubt that you have all been dying to know what I’ve been up to. Here is an overview:

It has been a little over a week since arriving here, anxious, clueless and friendless. For somebody as impatient as me, it is still a little frustrating that I still find myself plagued by the first two qualities in this list (the continued wait for a timetable probably isn’t helping) but I am truly glad to say that the latter, friendlessness, is set to be a problem that should soon evaporate.

 

On Wednesday evening, a whole group of us equally-floundering Erasmus types met up and had dinner in the SSH, effectively a halls-of-residence-but-shared-and-not-quite-type-thing where many international students are staying for a semester. Having spent much of my time between practises wandering around Utrecht city centre on my own or reading my book on a secluded bench, it was genuinely lovely to feel part of a group and somewhat more like an actual student again. Wine and jokes flowed in equal measure (British sarcasm is more internationally compatible than I thought) and we all bonded over that paradigm of student culinary adventure: pasta. The group, many of whom I met at the HKU intro day (see the previous post!) are a really relaxed and fun mix of people, whose different cultures, personalities, jokes and mannerisms mean that it is very difficult to run out of conversation!

Yesterday was the ESN (Erasmus Student Network) Introduction, which also seemed like a good way of getting to know some more people. A lot of walking - including a ‘handy’ city-tour to the areas that I had walked around on my own for hours. A game of pool, some beer and boat-trip later and ‘group 1’, to which I belonged  (I believe it more indicative of a common desperation to find people than a genuine accolade), wound up at the house of our guides Edwin and Willem for a barbeque and some “beersch”. Although the day itself was rather disorganised, the boat trip though Utrecht’s historical canals and wharves was as beautiful as riding halfway home sitting side-saddle on the pannier of my bike (well piloted by Timi, from Finland) was hilarious.

I cycled in today to try and get some more practise done. It is apparent that us saxophonists are a dreadfully ungodly lot, as it transpired than most of second floor was fully with the sound of saxophones diligently practising scales and studies. This led to the final social surprise of this week – cycling out to a reservoir to eat crisps and relax in the ridiculously warm weather with a few fellow Saxophone nerds. It was once again reassuring to meet people with similar interests and I was able to ask lots of questions about working with Johan, and how the course works here in general. As helpful and relaxing as this lakeside sun-burning session was, I also feel a little intimidated – the saxophonists here appear to have a far greater focus on classical saxophone that I do, and I hope that I will be able to keep up with expectations of the course whilst still managing to become the musician that I want to be at the end of it.

Still, enough about worthwhile intentions and other such financially-unrewarding rubbish! Tomorrow is the first Saxophone Orchestra rehearsal and I hope to find out my timetable. It really does feel now like things are about to get going properly. Whether I will be able to fulfil the expectations of an environment like this whilst still trying to adjust to my new surroundings remains to be seen, and it certainly a source of apprehension. However, this whole year is a challenge that I have bestowed upon myself and, in the undying vernacular of Hitchin Boys’ School, I will have to “man up" and get on with it - preferably without complaining through a self-indulgent public medium. Like a blog.


Oh.

Ah... Um..?

THE SEQUEL: Insert film tagline here, followed by a name of someone relatively famous who could play me (perhaps Robert de Niro, Cate Blanchett or Frankie Muniz.)

Two days appear to have passed and things are looking somewhat more chaotic than before. Still, a bagful of questions and guesses about actually getting on with stuff is, so far, proving to be far preferable to the worry and suspense that was distracting me so much in the metaphorical ‘doldrums’ over the weekend.

 Yesterday was an official International Student Orientation day; this was not so much a case of helping people to find their way around their own buildings of study, locate north, or face Mecca, but actually a bit of an excuse to photocopy a lot of passports and wander around the town in the sun trying awkwardly to get to know people. It turned out to be quite good fun. Following a presentation from quirkily-named ‘Buddy Go Dutch’ and ESN (essentially a sort of ‘buy some friends’ organisation, which suits me down to the ground) we had a tour of the city and got to know each other by moaning about how painful it is climbing the Dom tower. Several free beers, although continentally small, helped to lubricate the most international conversation I have ever been a part of. Within the group, we had representatives from Australia, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Slovakia. Think of it as a meet-and-greet in a world where the Eurovision song contest got WAY out of hand.

Today was my first lesson at the Conservatorium. My teacher, who bears the profoundly Dutch name Johan van der Linden, seems a nice enough man who has clearly devoted his entire life to studying, writing about, performing, composing for and teaching the Saxophone. This reassures me that I am in a safe pair of hands, and that any musically-induced suffering is probably with a view to ensuring that I am kept on an upward trajectory. Most of the lesson was spent uncovering various fundamental flaws in my playing, usually following this pattern:

“Can you do technique X/play note Y/scale Z for me please?”

The request is then fulfilled, resulting in a rather underwhelmed expression.

“Hmm. Okay. Well, now try this aswell.”

‘This’ then fails to happen.

“I think you should work on just doing these three things for the week.”

It turns out that ‘these three things’ include a piece I already thought I could play, a C major scale (once again, I thought I had that down) and a whole load of long notes. I guess it’s a challenge that I knew was probably coming my way and it certainly gives me something to do, or would if the Conservatorium has actually updated the computer system so exchange students can book rooms.

In general, the feeling is more positive. Although still a little sore from a mixture of Saxophone lessons and bike rides (which I am debating whether to re-christen BDS, or Bottom Destruction Scheme), it certainly feels better to have things to be trying to get on with and problems to solve. Tonight will involve me re-choosing most of my other modules (I was rather optimistic about being able to have Piano and Clarinet lessons on top of Sax practise hours) before heading in tomorrow to try and get hold of some kind of timetable, practise booking and, if I feel like paying for them, a few more friends. (Thanks, ESN!)