Music tradition

Unexpectedly, since we moved into our present house, the one on which we have spent so much time and energy transforming it to conform to our tastes, I have been lucky enough to find an outlet for my musical abilities, such as they are. The group of like minded players I have teamed up with are of a broadly similar age and seem to enjoy playing the sort of tunes I feel comfortable with. The music we play is known here in Scotland as 'Traditional' music (although elsewhere it might be called 'Folk' music) and it generally consists of simple tunes, many of which are old, originating in previous centuries, and perhaps having been passed down orally through generations before being recorded as modern day written music.

These are not orchestral symphonies; instead they generally consist of two separate eight bar 'movements' or 'sections' which are referred to amongst musicians as 'A' and 'B'. Typically each of these sections is played twice through, one after the other, an established pattern that encourages participation by other musicians who will always know when the changes occur. This pattern is common to traditional music played throughout the British Isles and Ireland and almost certainly further afield as well. Some variations can arise if there are more sections in the tune, known as 'C' or 'D', but again these will be repeated in sequence following the A and B music. It is the awareness and acceptance of these 'rules' by players that has given rise to the creation of vast libraries of tunes written out in the modern day music language, the lines and dots we are most familiar with. Such tunes can now be accessed through the Internet by anyone interested and performed anywhere, ownership through copyright rarely coming into play.

Also from the world of traditional music is another form of music notation, one that emerged around fifty years ago and in the last ten years has become standardised to make it more accessible and understandable. 'ABC Notation' is a text based system which means that it is far more suitable for use on the smaller computing devices we have come to accept in today's world. And needless to say there are now phone apps available which can transpose music written in ABC, something that can easily be written and amended, into the more conventional form of music, the lines and dots that those of us who grew up with sheets of paper on music stands. For illustration here is an example:

X:1

T:Speed the Plough

M:4/4

C:Trad.

K:G

|:GABc dedB|dedB dedB|c2ec B2dB|c2A2 A2BA|

  GABc dedB|dedB dedB|c2ec B2dB|A2F2 G4:|

|:g2gf gdBd|g2f2 e2d2|c2ec B2dB|c2A2 A2df|

  g2gf g2Bd|g2f2 e2d2|c2ec B2dB|A2F2 G4:|

This is a very simple example but the same code can be used to create far more complex pieces with multiple parts, chords and rhythms, indeed whole orchestral scores can be written in ABC by those clever enough and familiar with the code. For this is what it is, in effect, a computer code which has a set of rules, all of which are managed by letters and symbols found on a standard computer keyboard.

I don't know of anyone who plays directly from ABC notated music (personally I would find this very difficult) but given the world we live in it does not come as a surprise to see the traditional music stand being replaced by a selfie stick supporting a phone or tablet. (I have long ceased to marvel at the abilities of these devices.) However reading music in any form is not important for many performers of traditional music. The tunes themselves often predate written music - they have survived through the ages by being heard and committed to memory then passed on to others - and thankfully for me such tunes do not require great skill to learn and play.

Holiday planning

The strange thoughts that came into our heads after the visit from our Dutch daughter (as we call her) and her boyfriend last year have been rumbling around ever since, each day bringing us closer to a Dutch Cycle Touring Adventure unlike anything we have done before. So here are the latest results from an extended period of thinking and planning for something we are looking forward to more each day.

Of course we could quite easily load our bikes on the rack behind our van then drive to the ferry terminal in Newcastle, drive off the ferry in Holland, unload the bikes and cycle anywhere we wanted from there. But then we stop and think. If Dutch people come here bringing only what they can carry on their bikes then why can't we do the same on a trip to Holland, a place far more suited to bicycle touring.

So this brings us to the first big question we must resolve which is 'how do we get to our UK port of departure'. Fairly early on in the planning process we rule out cycling across Scotland then southwards into England using roads which we know would be busy and unsuitable for cycling. So we start to think about trains. We discover that the overnight ferries to the Dutch port of Ijmuiden leave Newcastle at five in the afternoon, check-in time being at least an hour before this. A little more research reveals that the ferry terminal is a forty minute bike ride from Newcastle Central station and it turns out that there is a National Cycle Route linking the two! This unexpected bonus gives us a timetable to work to. Newcastle itself is conveniently located on the main Edinburgh to London railway line and they take bikes on trains, if pre-booked. In Edinburgh we would have to change trains and if this involved negotiating a flight of steps to another platform then this could be fun with our heavily loaded bikes. Closer to home, travel with our bikes on a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh is quite straightforward. So this leaves us with just the difficult bit... how do we get us and our bikes to Glasgow?

The reason this is difficult for us is simply because our nearest train station, Arrochar, is around sixty miles away from us. (Clearly building railway lines amongst the hills of Argyll has never been a priority for anyone, possibly because so few people actually live here.) The road journey to Arrochar is along the A83, a busy trunk road heavily used by all traffic coming in and out of mid Argyll. Whilst we do see cyclists using this road we are not happy about being amongst them. We would be terrified with cars and lorries trying to squeeze past us all the time, often on blind corners. So we begin to look for alternative routes to a train station, any station, that might take us into Glasgow. Research soon reveals that any other route involves at least one ferry crossing and then a long ride, albeit on quieter roads. This would be a tough induction ride for us on the first day of our holiday. So this part of the journey still needs some more work.

What we do decide is that any delays we encounter on this journey might put the ferry booking in jeopardy so attempting this in one day would be unwise. An overnight stay somewhere en route would give us a breathing space should anything go wrong. Which brings us neatly to the question of where we would be sleeping overnight after arriving in Holland. We rule out camping - too much gear to carry - but once again the reliable Internet comes to our rescue as we join Vrienden op de Fiets, a connected network of people willing to provide a bed for the night in their own homes, specifically for travelling cyclists. This is something that is almost unique to Holland.

So what about our bikes. Hardly a day goes by when we don't think of something new, some minor modification to our gear, some small tool that might come in handy, tiny steps to an end goal. We know that carrying our own food and water for each day's cycling is important but also we hope that Holland can provide us with street food snacks along the way. What we shall need to carry are clothes, sufficient to provide us with warmth and to keep us dry when it rains, tools to cope with minor repairs, chargers for our bike batteries, etc, etc, and all these things must be contained in bags attached to the bikes in a way that does not impede our cycling. We take an early bus ride into Glasgow to  spend some money on panniers and other bags to hang off the bikes and some lightweight waterproof clothing which we reckon should meet our needs. The day was exhausting given that we had to get up at six in the morning to catch the bus but a late afternoon pizza meal in an Italian restaurant eventually relaxed us enough for the long journey home, something that might have been a little more enjoyable had we not spotted the small assistance dog lying beside one of our fellow passengers discretely emptying his stomach on the floor. But you can't have everything you want, can you.

One of the things taken for granted in cars, buses and trains is the presence of electrical power, the ability to recharge electrical devices like phones and torches. We shall need a source of power for the electric bike batteries as well and our overnight accommodation must be able to provide this. What they cannot provide, however, is the same electrical sockets as we are used to in the UK so we must bring with us an adapter, another addition to the list. When driving we rely upon Google maps to help us navigate around the UK, verbal directions coming out of the dashboard, but can we rely upon our phones for guidance whilst cycling? A bit of technology called Bluetooth comes to our rescue by transmitting the guiding voice into my ears whilst I am cycling, thus avoiding the need for paper maps. Whether I can live with the voice's squeaky American accent remains to be seen.

When we are closer to our departure date I envisage us loading the bikes with all our gear and going on some test rides, covering a good distance locally to see how it all works. Can we balance ourselves on fully loaded machines? How do our electric motors hold out when carrying all that extra weight? These are questions that still await answers.