Sound and vision blog

By Sarah Coggrave, Data Protection and Rights Clearance Officer, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) Project.

In 1988, jazz author, radio host and journalist Max Jones (1917–1993) interviewed jazz singer Adelaide Hall (1901–1993) for the British Library project Oral History of Jazz in Britain (British Library ref. C122). The audio recording of this interview has recently been cleared for online release as part of our National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) project. Previous blogs about this collection focused on Kathy Stobart, Major James Howe and Champion Jack Dupree.

Adelaide Hall was born in 1901, in Brooklyn, New York, where her father, a piano teacher, introduced her to music from an early age. Hall describes an upbringing filled with musicians, instruments and music. Sadly she lost both her father and sister at a young age, and sought out work to support her mother. Her early successes in theatre enabled her to do this, and more.

In her interview with Max Jones, Hall describes three of the professional jobs that kick-started her career. The first, Shuffle Along, was a hit Broadway musical by Noble Sissie and Eubie Blake, which according to Hall, involved some dancing and a few leading parts. This was performed in New York in 1921. She later became part of an all-black revue called Chocolate Kiddies, and the group toured Europe in 1925. Some of the songs were written by Duke Ellington, with whom she would later collaborate on a career-defining recording of the song Creole Love Call in 1927. In this excerpt from the interview, she describes how this came about.

Adelaide Hall - excerpt 1

Download Adelaide Hall and Max Jones transcript - excerpt 1

The third show that helped to cement Hall’s reputation as a performer was the Blackbirds production of 1928. Based on a production staged in London in 1926, starring Florence Mills, Blackbirds was created by Lew Leslie, who planned to develop the show on Broadway. However, his main star, Mills, died in 1927, aged just 31. Adelaide Hall took her place and became one of the show’s biggest stars in 1928, along with Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, who she is pictured with below.

Adelaide Hall with Bill Robinson. Image from the Richmond Planet, 15 November 1930, sourced via Wikimedia Commons and licensed by CC-SA 4.0.

Blackbirds, like Chocolate Kiddies, took Hall back to Europe. This time her destination was the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris, France, where the show was a great success. She then spent much of the early 1930s on tour, both in Europe and in the U.S.A. on the RKO circuit. During this period Hall performed at the renowned Cotton Club, as well as being accompanied by a young Art Tatum on the piano, before he found fame. She recalls encouraging Tatum to accept his first big offer, in spite of knowing that she would lose a fine accompanist in the process.

Hall's accompanists also included Francis Carter and Bernard Edison, and the piano, as an object, became an important stage prop, when Hall began to request not one, but two pianos on stage when she performed.

Adelaide Hall - excerpt 2

Download Adelaide Hall and Max Jones transcript - excerpt 2

Adelaide Hall cites her husband Bert Hicks (1924-1963), a British sailor born in Trinidad and Tobago, as a major support and collaborator in her career. Together they devised clever, creative ways to present her performances, and thanks to his language skills (which included French), they were able to buy and run a club called the Big Apple (La Grosse Pomme) in France. Between 1935 and 1938 the couple made this venue into a success with visitors and locals alike. Hall was the resident star, performing a cabaret show nightly. Here she describes making a dramatic entrance, from a spiral staircase repurposed by her husband:

Adelaide Hall - excerpt 3

Download Adelaide Hall and Max Jones transcript - excerpt 3

Such was Hall's popularity, it would not have been practical to keep the club open without her, so when she decided to take up performance opportunities in the U.K., her husband came with her and they closed the club in 1938. They soon found a new home in the Old Havana Club in London, which they took over and renamed the Florida Club.

However, this new life in the UK had a turbulent start, and coincided with the start of the Second World War. The couple’s club was destroyed by a landmine in 1939, and Hall remembers an eerie premonition before the event, which earned her the nickname 'Miss Ouija Board'. Feeling somehow that something bad was about to happen, she told everyone to leave the club. Her husband Bert was in the cellar when the explosion occurred, although miraculously survived.

In spite of the war, Hall’s career continued to go from strength to strength, with recordings, performances, broadcasts and even her own radio show with the BBC. She appeared in an Oscar-winning film (The Thief of Baghdad), and later added television appearances to her credits. The interview also covers her stage performances in the 1950s, including Kiss Me Kate and Love From Judy, as well as the Duke Ellington Memorial and Eubie Blake's 99th birthday. She describes visiting Billie Holiday shortly before the talented singer’s premature death, as well as her friendship with Louis Armstrong and his then wife Lil.

At the time of the interview, conducted in 1988, Hall would have been in her eighties, and was still actively performing, with plans to record an album the following year. She describes having to take more care with health and sleep, but otherwise feeling as fit as a woman in her fifties!

The interview reveals a warm, funny and talented artist, with a great zest for life. In one of many touching moments she sings a song with friend and interviewer Max Jones and suggests they have a drink together.

I would like to thank Nick Jones for help with the rights to this collection (you can read more about Max Jones’s work on the Max Jones Archive web site), and would encourage everyone to check out Adelaide Hall's remarkable career. The British Library’s collections include other interviews, copies of Hall’s many recordings and even some recordings of live performances, as well as Iain Cameron Williams’s book Underneath a Harlem Moon: The Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall (2002). Materials about her life and work can be found in various archives, including Indiana University (U.S.), Yale University Library and Archives (U.S.) and the National Jazz Archives in the U.K.

Robert Cox

By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music

Robert Ferdinand de Lesseps Cox was born into a family of gelatine and glue manufacturers based at Gorgie Mills in Edinburgh where they established their company in 1725.  Robert was born in Edinburgh on 12^th June 1884.

From Whitaker’s Red Book

He was named after his godfather Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894) a friend of his father.  Lesseps was a French diplomat and developer of the Suez Canal and, as head of the Franco-American Union, presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States and attended the dedication ceremony in October 1886.

Robert Cox as a boy at Rossdhu House, Scotland

Robert’s father, Robert J. Cox (1845-1899) was Liberal Unionist MP for South Edinburgh from 1895 to 1899.  However, his son Robert did not enter the family business or politics but spent time as a musician, primarily a conductor and composer for the musical stage.  He made his London debut at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Emmerich Kallman’s hugely successful operetta The Gypsy Princess (Die Csárdásfürstin) in May 1921.  It had premiered in Vienna in 1915 and on Broadway in 1917.  Cox’s wife was a niece of the great singer Dame Nellie Melba who wanted to attend Robert’s debut, but she was performing in Paris at the time.

Poster of Gypsy Princess (Victoria & Albert Museum)

Cox began to compose at the age of fifteen when he was at Winchester College and whilst at St John’s College, Oxford, he wrote the music for a student dramatic society’s production of Measure for Measure.  Further musical studies took him to Dresden, Rome and the Royal College of Music in London.

Cox composed a Quartet in E flat, and between 1907 and 1919 wrote a handful of light piano pieces and a few songs.  Most of his output was for the musical theatre including The Love Girl, The Purple Lady, which toured the provinces for thirteen weeks, and The Magic Sword.  In 1923 Cox published a musical play in two acts, The Rose and the Ring, based on the book by William Makepeace Thackeray.  It is rather confusing as two previous works with the same title based on the same Thackeray work exist – by Walter Slaughter from 1891 (‘founded on Thackeray’s fireside pantomime’), and by American Caryl B. Rich in 1914.  There was also a light opera by Christabel Marrillier from 1928.

Title page of The Rose and the Ring (BL Collections)

Cox spoke many languages including Swedish and German and spent time in Sweden during the Second World War.  He was a member of the Bath Club during the 1930s, but it was bombed by the Germans in 1941.

From his first marriage Cox had three children - Robert Charles an aeronautical engineer, Susanna Winifred, a dancer, and Elizabeth Nicholas, a reporter and travel writer whose most well-known book is Death be not Proud about seven young women who served with the French Section of the Special Operations Executive who were betrayed to the Germans and eventually captured and murdered.

Score of the Overture to The Golden Fleece (BL Collections)

I received a donation last year from Susannah Baker, a relative of Robert Cox’s second wife, the artist, Ethelwyn Baker, via Cox’s granddaughter Jacqueline Shaun Cox Nervegna.  A hand written score of his composition Overture and Suite to The Golden Fleece was accompanied by an off-air recording of the only broadcast of the Overture given on 28^th November 1937 by the BBC Orchestra under Joseph Lewis (1878-1954).  The Suite of four movements was broadcast on 23^rd September 1938 by the same forces.  The Overture is a fine, well-crafted work, reminiscent of Elgar and Vaughan Williams.

Disc label (BL Collections)

Listing in the Radio Times for 28th November 1937

Here is the off-air recording made more than eighty years ago.

Overture to The Golden Fleece

Robert Cox died 30^th December 1951.  

Thanks to Jacqueline Shaun Cox Nervegna for information and the use of family photographs.

For all the latest news follow @BL_Classical

This week's selection comes from Sarah Coggrave, Rights Clearance Officer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage.

In 1978, Roger Waldron was staying at an elephant camp in Chitwan, Nepal. One night, two musicians emerged from the darkness and began to play.

The two unnamed musicians, photographed by Roger Waldron on 23 November 1978

Without a translator Mr. Waldron was unable to understand the meaning of the words the musicians sang. However, he was able to record three of the Nepali folk songs they performed, and later donated the resulting collection to the British Library. The recordings have recently been cleared for online access as part of Unlocking Our Sound Heritage, and in this blog, you can listen to a few highlights.

C30/1 excerpt 1

The first excerpt features a folk song in the Nepali language, performed by the two Gaine musicians singing in octaves, accompanied by the Nepali sarangi, and a rattle with metal bells. The sarangi is a stringed instrument used throughout South Asia, including by the Gaine (or Gandarbha) of central Nepal who are known for their music making and distinctive folk songs.

C30/1 excerpt 2

In this second excerpt, a different song can be heard, accompanied once again on the sarangi.

C30/1 excerpt 3

Although the sarangi is typically made of wood, with strings played using a bow, the musicians in these recordings create a range of sounds and effects to accompany their songs, including using metal bells, which in the third excerpt (above) are attached to the bow to mark the rhythm of the melody.

Most of the recordings I work with don’t come with photographs taken in situ, so it is a rare privilege to be able to see and appreciate the musicians and their work in this way. I would love to know what the songs are about, and whether they are still performed today.

I am incredibly grateful both to the musicians and to Roger Waldron for making this post possible, and for enabling us to share the performances with new audiences. You can learn more about these three recordings by reading their corresponding catalogue entries on the Sound and Moving Image catalogue.

This week's selection comes from Catherine Smith, Audio Project Cataloguer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage.

"20121113-Nepal-trekking-5-Pokhara-ARZH5002E" by zhushman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Tihar (also called Diwali) is a five day Hindu festival celebrated in Nepal. It usually takes place in the Nepali month, Kartik (end of October to November). The festival is in honour of Laksmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Good Fortune. Animals including crows, dogs, cows are also worshipped. Tihar is known as the festival of lights, as diyas (oil lamps) and festive lanterns are lit, illuminating homes and temples.

In this recording, we hear a group of campus students and staff in the small Nepali town of Gorkha Bajar, performing a Deusire song. They are singing and playing instruments including harmonium, madal and kartal. Deusire (or Deusi Re), are traditional call-and-response songs that are sung during the Tihar festival celebrations in Nepal. Traditionally, troupes of children and teenagers sing the songs and dance as they visit homes in their community, giving blessings for prosperity and collecting money, sweets and food.

Tihar git (deusire) (BL REF C1465/44)

This recording was made October 29th 1987 and is part of the Carol Tingey Collection (C1465/44). You can listen to more recordings from this collection on British Library Sounds.

Follow @BL_WorldTrad, @BLSoundHeritage and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

This week's selection comes from Yrja Thorsdottir, Digital Learning Content Developer for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage.

I love singing to myself at my desk as I’m working from home but you will never catch me singing anywhere someone can hear me. Pining for karaoke parties? Absolutely not! Why? I don’t have confidence in the quality of my own singing voice. I think that is the reason why this recording of Danny Brazil (1913-2003) singing ‘If I were a Blackbird’ appeals to me so much. He sings with evident pleasure and confidence even though his voice isn’t the clear tenor of his former days.

Danny Brazil sings 'If I were a blackbird' (BL REF C742/22)

Download Transcript -'If I was a blackbird' sung by Danny Brazil

Danny Brazil (pronounced to rhyme with razzle) was born in Ireland in 1913, one of 13 siblings in a travelling family. His family moved around Ireland, working as horse dealers and living in two horse-drawn wagons for 27 years before relocating to Gloucestershire and becoming scrap iron dealers. The family was very musical; they all sang and played at least one instrument, and several, including Danny, were talented step dancers. Danny could not read so instead he developed an astonishing memory for a vast repertoire of traditional folk songs as well as some country and western songs.

During a strawberry-picking trip, Danny and his brother Harry had a disagreement. In the resulting fight, a blow to his throat caused Danny’s voice box to rupture. The damage left him with the harsh, hoarse voice you can hear in this recording. Nevertheless, Danny continued to sing for his own pleasure for the rest of his life, although he lamented the loss of paid public performance opportunities. He was anxious to work with field recordists to ensure his extensive repertoire of traditional songs was preserved.

This recording is one of several made in 1978 by folk music collector and scholar Gwilym Davies in Danny’s traveller caravan in Steverton, Gloucestershire, when Danny was 65 years old.

This recording is part of the Gwilym Davies Collection which consists of folk music field recordings made by Davies from the 1970s onward. The recordings document folk music mainly in and around Hampshire, Devon, Gloucestershire and New York state. Gwilym Davies has recently published the book 'Catch it, Bottle it and Paint it Green' which details his extensive folk music collecting activities. 

To discover more sounds from our homes and explore domestic life as you have never heard it before go to the British Library’s If Homes Had Ears website.

Follow @BLSoundHeritage and @soundarchive for all the latest news.

By Sarah Coggrave, Data Protection and Rights Clearance Officer, Unlocking Our Sound Heritage Project.

In 1996, Les Back (Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London), interviewed Major James Howe, MBE (1917- 2005), a musician and bandleader who led a dance band in a German POW (prisoner of war) camp during the Second World War.

Above: Major Howe (centre, kneeling) with his band in Berlin, 1943. Used with permission from Alan Howe (photographer unknown).

The audio recording of this interview is  now part of the British Library collection, Oral history of Jazz in Britain. It has recently been cleared for online release as part of the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project.

The interview brings to life a fascinating tale of creativity and survival against the odds. This blog post features selected excerpts.

Above: James Howe in London, November 1943. Used with permission from Alan Howe (photographer unknown).

James Howe was born in County Durham, UK on November 11, 1917 - exactly one year before Armistice Day. The son of a brass band conductor and miner, Howe grew up in a musical family. He and his brothers played in his father’s band, and his mother taught him the piano at the age of nine.

He left school at fifteen to become band boy in the Royal Scots Regiment. He was among the first UK soldiers to be sent abroad in 1939 when the Second World War broke out, and he served as a stretcher bearer in Belgium and then France. His duties were cut short in Le Paradis, Northern France when his regiment came under fire from German soldiers in May 1940. He was lucky to escape alive – many soldiers were killed or wounded here during the Battle of Le Paradis and the subsequent massacre.

Howe and his fellow captives were marched through France, Belgium and Holland to reach a prison camp in Lamsdorf (then in Germany but now in Poland), which is now known as Łambinowice. In the following excerpt from the interview he describes this harrowing journey.

James Howe describes his journey to Lamsdorf

Download A transcript of excerpt one

Camp life in Lamsdorf was initially very difficult for Howe and his fellow POWs. In the interview he talks about sleeping on straw, problems with lice and an insubstantial diet (a bowl of soup and five black potatoes per day). Salvation eventually came when the Red Cross started sending parcels to the camp. First food, and then materials for recreation, including books, sports equipment, and, miraculously, instruments. In this next interview excerpt Howe describes what a difference these deliveries made to camp life.

James Howe describes Red Cross deliveries to the camp

Download A transcript of excerpt two

Thanks to the arrival of instruments, and records to transcribe music from, Howe ended up conducting his very own dance band in the camp. This, and the evolution of camp entertainment, was a testament to the ingenuity of all concerned. In the camp were individuals with backgrounds in stage work, carpentry and music. They built their own camp theatre, created a ticketing system and had concert parties. Prisoners danced foxtrots and waltzes with one another, and found solace in music that reminded them of home.

In the next excerpt from the interview, Howe provides some insights into the mechanics of the camp entertainment system.

James Howe describes camp entertainment

Download A transcript of excerpt three

He also describes some touching moments of shared interests with the German guards at the camp, including one who invited him to his hut to listen to records. Another guard heard Howe playing the accordion, so brought his own violin so that the two could play together in his hut. According to Howe, the guard said:
'If Churchill and Hitler could see you and I now, there wouldn’t be any wars'.

Unusually, Howe’s POW band were even escorted to Berlin, Germany to play for fellow POWs at another camp, and in 1943, Howe, as a stretcher bearer and early arrival at the camp, was fortunate enough to be included in a repatriation agreement, which took him home to the UK via Sweden, with other similarly fortunate POWs. News of the POW band had travelled, and well-known UK band leader Billy Cotton helped to get them featured on BBC Radio.

In his interview, Howe remembers frantically telegraphing all his POW bandmates to reunite them in London for the performance. In 1944 he was sent back to France with his regiment, before finishing the war in Hamburg, Germany in 1945.

After returning home, Howe studied at the Royal Military School of Music in Twickenham, UK, and was appointed Bandmaster of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1949. His military band career took him all over the world, and as a band leader (later Director of Music of the Scots Guards) he travelled as far afield as the US, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong.

After his military career, Howe conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra, featuring on radio programmes such as Friday Night Is Music Night and Melodies For You.

Above: James Howe, pictured towards the end of his life. Used with permission from Alan Howe.

Howe retired to Eastbourne, UK and channelled his musical talents into organ and conducting duties, as well as starting the massed band concerts at Croydon, UK in 1974, and organising POW reunion concerts. He continued to be actively involved with music until very late in his life (in the interview he demonstrates his skills on the cornet) and a plaque dedicated to his memory is installed at Eastbourne bandstand. After Howe passed away in 2005, his ashes were buried in the cemetery in Le Paradis, in accordance with his wishes.

Eddie South in 1946 (The Library of Congress, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music

For Black History Month in previous years I have written about classical musicians such as Dean Dixon and Cullen Maiden who had to leave the United States for Europe in order to get work as classical musicians.  This year I have been investigating the violinist Eddie South who could have had a career as a classical violinist had he been born in a different era.

Edward Otha South was born in Louisiana, Missouri in 1904. He studied at Chicago Music College with Petrovich Bessing from where he graduated in the early 1920s.  Classically trained, South could only get work in the United States as a jazz performer so during the 1920s he earnt his living performing in orchestras and groups in Chicago – with Charles Elgar’s Creole Orchestra and as first violin in Erskine Tate’s Theatre Orchestra.  In the late 1920s South formed his own group, the ‘Alabamians,’ making records for Victor for whom he continued to record in the 1930s with his ‘International Orchestra.’

In 1928 South travelled to Europe where he studied for a while at the Paris Conservatoire, and a visit to Budapest made a great impression on him.  South returned to Depression Era Chicago in 1931 and again could only get work as a jazz violinist.  Obviously drawn to Europe for its musical and work opportunities, on another trip to Paris in 1937 South recorded with Django Reinhardt and one of the most famous jazz violinists Stephane Grappelli but, although he made many recordings, he never made it into the front rank of jazz violinists like Grappelli and Joe Venuti. 

Perhaps this was because South played as much popular music as jazz and even some classical material, albeit lightly swung.  An album he made for Columbia in 1940 titled Eddie South – Dark Angel of the Violin includes the Praeludium and Allegro by Fritz Kreisler and Hejre Kati, a Hungarian melody arranged by violinist and composer Jenő Hubay (1858-1937) published as No. 4 of his Scènes de la czárda Op. 32. 

The influence of gypsy music that South heard in Budapest and the sweet tone of Kreisler, the greatest classical violinist of his day, can be heard in South’s recording of Hejre Kati, even though he only plays the first slow section and not the czardas. Recorded 10^th June 1940, South is accompanied by David Martin on piano, Eddie Gibbs on guitar and Ernest Hill on bass.

Hejre Kati played by Eddie South

South continued to record, perform and make radio broadcasts many which have survived.  He died at the age of 58 in 1962.

For all the latest news follow @BL_Classical

Written by AWATE, Artist-in-Residence for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. 

In 2019-20, I was the Artist-in-Residence at the British Library Sound Archive for Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. I was tasked with creatively using the sounds (up to 7 million!) in order to showcase the recordings in the collections. I decided to focus on the topic of migration and over the course of several months, created a conceptual Afrofuturist album spanning three centuries called The Unearthed Odyssey.

Watch the full performance of The Unearthed Odyssey here. 

It’s the story of children on a spaceship being taught the history of Earth. Needing to find another planet, they have been sent out into the unknown for safety like so many people in the story of humanity. It takes place on the one day a year they are awoken for an audio lesson in human migration. The teacher takes the form of an artificial intelligence interface which uses hip-hop production techniques to explain migration using samples from the British Library sound archive.

I used recordings from the World and Traditional Music, Pop Music, Drama and Literature, Oral History, and Wildlife and Environmental departments. The scale and depth of the sound archive made me want to use parts from it all, rather than focusing on one collection, period or location. With more time, I would have used even more!

The narrative structure is laid out with the first song as an introduction. From there, there are three movements or acts. Act I: Original Home. Act II: The Journey. Act III: New Home. Within these acts, the musical style would change significantly, with the first compositions consisting entirely or mostly of layers utilising samples from one recording. As the piece progresses, more additional production and virtual instruments are introduced for a fuller and more modern sound.

Much of this is a step-by-step guide to how the piece was created. Many of the thought processes I had when producing this piece haven’t been included. I am probably still processing them now. For greater detail into the themes and ideas I worked with and was attempting to communicate, please watch the Q&A with Kieran Yates from the premiere.

Above: A screenshot of a Logic Pro X arrangement and sample editor windows showing parts of composition and waveform of sampled recording.

Part I: Listening

After researching the collections I wanted to use and downloading 66 recordings from the sound libraries and servers, the most important task at hand was listening to all of these potential samples! I had run through them all quickly in order to determine whether the audio quality was usable and how interesting they sounded but now had to go through them all - some being 20 seconds and others more than 3 hours.

For every audio file, there was a story and I used the British Library itself as well as online searches for greater context on the subjects in the recordings, the time, geography, politics and the archivists themselves. This was to have an understanding of what I was listening to. To centre my listening and to inform the direction of the new work that I would be turning these recordings into.

With that said, the most important part of the criteria in shortlisting and using these sounds in the first place was how dope they sounded. How cool or interesting they were. Whether they could be manipulated into another sound to evoke emotion with the use of effects. My purpose as the Artist-in-Residence was to entice people into the archive. Stories and context are important but first and foremost, I wanted to make amazing music.

Above: A screenshot of a list of the downloaded recordings labelled by catalogue number.

Part II: Chopping Samples and Beatmaking

The next step after deciding which sounds I would definitely be using would be the part I have always relished - chopping samples and placing them/triggering them. For the uninitiated, this is the audio equivalent of a collage - going through a magazine with a pair of scissors, cutting out bits you find interesting or that would work well together aesthetically or thematically and finding ways they can interact with each other on the page before sticking them down. Making art out of art. Using found material to express how you are feeling. The tools of necessity after public funding for arts has been cut and you cannot afford to play or learn an instrument.

For Unearthed, I used two broad techniques for this. One of them involved using the slice tool in my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) of choice, Logic Pro X, to cut the pieces of the recording I wanted to use and place them on the linear editing window to create loops or patterns based on the BPM (Beats Per Minute) that I had set the project to. This is a fairly straightforward way of placing samples and works well for using slightly longer chops or when you don’t want to go through the next process which is…

Using a sampler. On Logic, my favourite stock sampler is the ESX24. I would chop the parts of the recording I wanted to use, then drag the files into the editor window on the ESX, create a new group, drag them into there and in the groups tab, set the polyphony to one. This meant that the samples could now be triggered using my ‘qwerty’ keyboard or music keyboard via MIDI or drawn on the MIDI file. Setting the polyphony to one meant that each chop would interrupt the other so that no two could be played at the same time. Poly = many. Phono = sound. For this technique, I used my keyboard to create interesting new patterns using the chops and recorded them.

Above: A screenshot of the programme ESX24 and its editor window with imported samples. It features the list of samples and an image of piano keys. Doing this allows the samples to be triggered like keys on a piano.

With my samples placed on the arrangement window, I then build the rest of the tracks using drums, bass, piano, synth and experimental sounds. The extremely talented Gabrial Ryder came in to lend his talents on the keyboard and piano to add additional production on many of the tracks. Many of his parts were integral to the intro and second half of the piece. I used various plugins to create effects and unique sounds such as EQ, reverb, delay, chorus, flanger, bitcrusher, distortion, step editor and compressors. All of the instruments and plugins were stock Logic sounds that I manipulated into one of a kind textures.

Part III: Oral History

Having created eight distinct instrumental songs, the next step was to listen to the various recordings I had collected from the Oral History and Drama and Literature collections. I searched for stories from immigrants and children of immigrants to the UK and elsewhere. Specifically, I wanted anecdotes of people in their countries of origin before migrating, descriptions of the journeys they undertook as well as what it was like for them adapting or growing up in a new place and how they were treated or made to feel.

Listening to these stories was quite emotionally taxing. Some included people describing surviving severe abuse or fleeing the Holocaust and horrific wars, others describing feeling completely alienated in their new countries and some included all of these things. This listening process took longer than I had anticipated, simply because I needed to take the time to properly recover from hearing people talk about such things, even when they had an indefatigable spirit or sense of humour about it. Much of the subject matter, I could relate to or had a connection to through members of my family.

In Logic, I listened and extracted excerpts as loops to my hard drive as separate files labelled by keywords based on who was interviewed and what was mentioned. From there, I could attach colour labels to each recording based on whether I would use it or not. Within the Logic sessions for the beats, I placed the oral history samples and fine-tuned them using EQ, reverb and other tools as well as turning the beat down during some of the stories and cutting the beat out at certain points. I was effectively using the stories as the lyrics on the instrumentals.

Above: A screenshot of bounced audio samples from oral history interviews featuring the interviewee, keywords and colour label.

Part IV: Arrangement

At this point, I had eight songs done with the sample based instrumentals and interwoven spoken parts from the archive and it sounded great! I arranged the tracks based on their subject matter to fit the narrative of the first section after the intro being about the original home, second section being about the journey and third section about the new home. They were also arranged according to the richness and complexity of the music, especially in terms of additional sounds and virtual instruments in Logic. For the most part, after the introduction song, the first section features production taken solely from the archive with the piece progressing into more and more additional instrumentation, while keeping the sound archive samples as the main ingredient.

From here I had to construct the wider narrative with the spaceship premise that had been decided on but did not yet feature. For the voices of the children on the spaceship, I spoke to a group of children from immigrant families in south London a few weeks after taking them on a day trip to the British Library with some wonderful staff. I had a stereo dictaphone which I walked around with while asking them questions after setting the scene for them. Having training in Philosophy for Children with the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education (SAPERE), I allowed them to interrogate their own thoughts and search for connections in what we were speaking about, listening to their own experiences.

In Logic, I chopped this conversation into the parts I wanted to use and arranged them in a window with the 8 finished tracks. Like the oral history samples, I applied processing tools to these samples to make them clearer and added a gated reverb to my voice. For me, the idea of the children today putting themselves into the shoes of futuristic travellers and having a conversation with the oral history parts was important as it reflected the same relationships the instruments and music samples were having.

The final addition were sound effects from the archive which I used to accentuate certain songs and transitions. These included wildlife recordings of birds and lions, the launching of a ship into the harbour, a boat in the ocean and real sounds of tanks and bombs from World War II. I feel these grounded the piece, bringing it back to Earth due to the inclusion of natural sounds that would stand out in such a futuristic narrative.

Above: A screenshot of the final arrangement window featuring the 8 tracks, voice over, children audio and sound effects.

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