Tag Archives: Cardiff
I wrote a post for We Are Cardiff
It starts exactly like this:
“A little over a year ago I found myself on a train with a rucksack heading to meet a friend in London. I had decided that I was going to move there.”
You can read the rest here.
Day 289 – Made In Roath
Yesterday I was at the Made In Roath festival in Cardiff doing a songwriting session of some kind. It was straight off the back of a Ukulele Workshop that took place in the garden at Deli Rouge. There was a decent number at the workshop, many total beginners, learning how to play the ukulele. Some people then stuck around and attempted to write my song for Day 289 with me. We managed the first verse and chorus and the first line of the second verse together. It was fun and we got a lot more done than I thought we would in the little time we had and with little idea of how I was going to organise it. Mark and Nick who organise the Uke Nights in Cardiff (and are part of the band the Fflip-Fflops) led the workshop and helped out a great deal with my workshoppy thing. I came up with a chord structure and then passed out paper so people could write certain parts of the lyrics and then we collected them together. It’s obviously not the normal way I go about writing my songs, so it was good to try something new.
I then performed the song on my ukulele last night (in what was my first proper gig) along with 2 of my other tracks on my guitar as part of an evening at The Gower in Roath that closed the festival. It went surprisingly OK. I was nervous, but not as nervous as I thought I’d be. I went with the same tactic as when I spoke at the Oxford event – I tried to ignore that it was even happening until I was up there. It proved quite helpful. I’m pretty pleased I did it, it’s something I would never have thought of doing last year.
To mates that might see this: Sorry I didn’t invite you – I just felt like I’d be less nervous if I didn’t really know anyone there!
Thanks to: Nick Canham, Mark Isaac, Kevin Day, Natalie Healey, Alan Jones, and Lizzy Birchall for writing this with me.
Be a pal – help us out on the 18th of July
IF YOU’RE COMING TO THIS THEN WHY NOT SAY SO ON THE OLD FACEBOOK EVENT?
Are you based in or around Cardiff? Or will you be on the 18th of July? I need your help! That includes you, and you, maybe you, not you, and definitely you. Ok, so here’s the deal. I am in the middle of a project to release 365 original songs across the course of 2011. After I decided on that number I realised that’s exactly how many days there are in a year, so it made sense to release one per day. It’s called the Cooper365 project, and with every second that ticks by I’m edging ever closer to a little milestone – Day 200. The song for Day 200 is based on the chord structure of Heart & Soul (most of my songs are based on any old chords (though generally a bit folky and needlessly whimsical)), and I am looking for a rabble of noise to join me in recording it.
From the 11th – 22nd of July the Great Big Empty Shop Experiment is taking place in the Capitol Shopping centre in the centre of Cardiff, and I shall be heading along on the 18th of July (Day 199) to collect some noise from as many people as possible. The afternoon will largely be devoted to a fantastic skiffle band by the name of Gaudy Orde who will be doing a set and a music workshop, and then they will be helping to try and get this little recording together. The hope is that we’ll have people who’ve just been taught some ukulele/spoons/percussion etc. playing and singing along with us in beautiful rowdiness.
Here’s how the day is likely to pan out:
12:30pm – 1:00pm – Three-piece Gaudy Orde play some songs.
1:00pm – 2:30pm – Informal workshop – ukulele, spoons, bouzouki, percussion.
2:30pm – 3:30pm – Gaudy Orde, plus punters, plus me playing and recording the song for Day 200.
So, here is what I am asking nicely for: people. I need people to sing and play. If you’re shy about singing and stuff (I am cripplingly shy, so I can relate), don’t worry about that – it’ll be singing in a group of folks, and it’s a song that everyone knows and is able to sing along with quite undetected. I also need people to help with recording the sound and perhaps recording some video of the event so I can put together a music video kind of thing, so if anyone wants to help with that, that’d be grand. If it hasn’t become clear from this little blog post, it should be fun!
Come along to see the band play, stick around to learn how to play the spoons, and then join us in recording some lovely. Below is a YouTube video and a Boo (Listen to the Boo for an easier rhythm) where you can hear part of the song and find out what you’ll definitely be coming along to help with on the 18th of July because you’re such a good person. Oh, also, it’s completely free.
Let me know if/how you want to help, or if you have any other ideas (maybe you want to bring a load of other instruments along, that’d be neat). Contact me by pressing the ‘Email Me’ button on my website, or find me on Twitter as @ardiecoll or @coopersounds.
See you on the 18th.
Nice.
