Last night I played at Sheffield Town Hall with Sarah (of the Molino Duo).  I’d never been to Sheffield before so that was a first for me. Unfortunately we didn’t get any time to go sightseeing as we were only making a flying visit to perform at a corporate function at Sheffield Town Hall.  Sarah’s regular duo partner was unavailable so I had been asked to deputise on this occasion.  It had been a while since I played in a flute and guitar duo, and for the life of me I can’t think why!  I really enjoy playing as part of a flute and guitar duo and I may have to look into setting up a duo of my own.  The last time I performed as with a flautist was at music college in Glasgow with the incredibly talented Lucy Driver.  Lucy has since moved to London and now plays in a new flute/guitar duo.  Well worth checking out if you’re interested in this kind of music (link at the bottom of the page – keep reading!).

Deputising for somebody at a gig is a strange experience.  Kind of like being left alone in somebody else’s house and being told to ‘make yourself at home’.  When you play with somebody regularly you become accustomed to how they work and you establish a familiar working relationship.  You’re aware of how they give cues, which order the pieces will be played in and you’re aware of their expectations of you.  When you deputise, you don’t have any of this.  You have to assume how things are going to be run. In terms of how it affects the performing experience, it means you really have to have your wits about you and not switch off.  One of the trickiest parts of deputising is having to play a whole bunch of new pieces which you probably haven’t seen before. Reading by sight is not as straight forward as it sounds as there are so many tasks you need to be performing simultaneously.  There are all of the basic requirements such as being aware of what you’re playing and listening to your duet partner to make sure you’re playing together properly.  But you also need to perform a host of additional processes.

When sight-reading you need to be aware of what’s coming up in the next two bars at the same time as playing the current bar.  This always reminds me of the protagonist in Haruki Murakami’s ‘Hard Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World’.  The character has the ability to simultaneously count the coins in both his right and left pockets by letting the coins in each pocket slip through his fingers like grains of sand in an hour glass.  When sight-reading you also need to be scanning for any errors you may have made so that you can correct them next time, should you have to play a repeat.  One of the less obvious tasks you need to perform is that of musical editing.  Sometimes, it’s simply not possible to read and play all of the notes at sight.  This leaves you needing to mentally edit the written score in your head, and only play those notes which you deem to be essential to the musical integrity of the piece.  This often means omitting the harmony notes or ornaments, but occasionally you have to be a bit more sly.  For example, you need to be aware of which chord you’re playing so that if you have to omit any of the harmony notes, you can still play the crucial notes to make it sound like to correct chord.  For example.  If the score is asking you to play a D minor chord (notes D, F and A), you can omit the A and just play the D and F.  This will still give you an acceptable D minor sound in the context of the rest of the piece.  The only difficulty you might run into here is where the score is actually incorrect!  Mistakes in the written music do happen.  I’ve read through some publications where there are several mistakes in each piece.  In these situations you need to use your head and make a judgement call.  I tend to favour being more ambiguous in these situations, playing a simpler version of the chord instead of the extended version. There was a misprint in one of the pieces last night.  The score was suggesting a D major chord where as the chord symbol above the music suggested it should be D7.  Now there’s only one note’s difference here (the C in the D7 chord).  So in this case it was an easy decision to omit the C, but there are more difficult decisions to be made in other pieces where the publisher has unknowingly printed a mistake.

Having to sight read pieces in a performance setting is one thing, but when you combine this with performing live with somebody for the first time with no prior rehearsal, you really have to be on your toes.  In a typical performance situation, you’re playing pieces which you and your bandmates know well.  This includes the obvious things such as how many times to play each section (you may have decided to play more/less than indicated on the score), to more subtle things such as who gives the cues.  Wordless communication plays a big part here.  When deputising, it makes sense to follow rather than lead whenever possible.  If you’re playing with a good musician, as I was last night, they’ll give you subtle cues with their eyes which you need to pick up on.  You’ll also get the occasional less than subtle nod of the head if there’s something coming up which you need to be aware of.  Your ability and willingness to follow other musicians is crucial if you’re ever asked to deputise for somebody.

I really enjoyed performing some flute and guitar repertoire last night.  I’ll certainly be looking to set up a regular flute/guitar duo of my own in the near future so watch this space!  In the meantime, don’t forget to scoot on over to Lucy and Maria’s website and have a listen to their music.

p.s. Being in such a rush I didn’t get chance to snap a photo of Sheffield Town Hall before I left.  Fortunately I found a great photo on the internet.  Credit must go to Nige Burton Photography.  Thanks Nige for allowing me to use your photo!