A note from a fairy ...

Shhh ... don't tell Cheryl Beer we have jumped on here while she is out of the room.We are the fairies from The Tethered Fairy Ring. 

Cheryl & Susan have put all their fairy time into making the sheet music happen without being paid just because they think it is important to preserve new folk stories and pieces of folk music for future generations.

As you know, it's a tough time for us fairies at the moment and we can't afford to magic the money to pay for their expenses into their bank account. If we could we would. 

Which is why we are asking you to buy one of Cheryl's magical and very special sheet music booklets for £20 earthly pounds ... this covers the postman's wages, the petrol to the post office, paying the printer and the graphic designer for helping Cheryl get her fairy inspired musical notes into the world.

If you would like to have one of these very special booklets of sheet music in your library and be the owner of a beautifully crafted piece of fairy magic, then email:

cherylbeermusic@gmail.com

Thank you ... 

Quick ... she's coming back

Magie Féerique

As I have mentioned before, the rather lovely Susan Berry very kindly offered to notate my composition The Tethered Fairy Ring: A Symphonic Poem for Ukulele ...

... and to celebrate this somewhat momentus occasion of having a composition of mine published as sheet music, I invited Susan and her husband David over to Lower Normandy to the Artist Gites where I am staying for a month performing sound baths and generally having a rather lovely time.

Susan plays Welsh harp. In fact, she was the resident harpist at Teifi Harps in Llandysul for some time and is also runs Clarsach Harp Society in Wales. 

Wouldn't it be  lovely if Susan learnt The Tethered Fairy Ring and we performed it as a duet ... now there's an idea.

So the pair of us started rehearsing. We had 2 sessions before we left and though we'd have 3 days of rehearsals once she was here.

But as it happens, we had only 1 day before the performance day. But never to worry. In the words of Susan 'It'll be fine' and she was right. It was more than fine, it was fine and dandy.

I filmed the performance in the beautiful space of the old church in the village which I remember as being quite small from my last visit, but in actual fact is quite BIG for a village church and very beautiful indeed.

Alison, the lovely artist that owns the gites, she arranged for us to film in the church with the Mairie who very kindly gave permission.

can not thank Susan enough for bringing her beautiful harp all the way to France. I knew it would be awesome but what I hadn't given credit to was the fairy magic that would happen as a result of us being away together. It was quite honestly like being away with family. Susan and Dave and now on my list of forever fairy friends.

The Sheet Music Photo Shoot

How utterly gorgeous to have the sheet music for my Tethered Fairy Ring! With it tucked under my arm I pootled around the orchard taking photographs of it. And why wouldn't you! This was my favourite shot because a very obliging bumble bee did an unwitting photo bomb!

Here are some of the other shots ... lovely apples

Oh and the swing ... 

Seems that Fairy Sheet Music dances everywhere

Time to sit in the sun and drink ... 

apple juice! Well, we are in an orchard

Tethered Fairy Ring invited to The Ukulele Festival of Wales

What fairies like the most is singing and dancing humming and strumming, giggling and having quite a bit of fun. That's why the ukulele is such a handy little thing to have at your fairy fingertips.

Me and my L'il Ol' ukulele are very excited indeed to have been invited by the organiser of the :-

 Ukulele Festival of Wales 

at Gower Heritage Centre 

... to perform 

The Tethered Fairy Ring 

a Symphonic Poem for Ukulele 

June 25th & 26th 2016

I know it seems like a long way off 

but tickets are selling like fairy cakes! 

So if you'd like to come 

To hum &strum 

Get tickets now

 To join the fun!

Thank you to the lovely  Richi Thomas 

for waving his magic wand and making it so!

Pimp my Fairy Ring

 

Ukuleles are very nifty little instruments especially for fairies with little fingers.

 I know this for sure because, as you know  

I have composed The Tethered Fairy Ring as a poem for the  little strum-tastic with 4 strings. 

So, you can imagine, I was chuffed as fairy cakes when Robert Vi from Men's Sheds sprinkled some of his magic dust on me and gave me my very own ukulele kit to decorate 

so that I could join in with

PIMP MY UKULELE

Now then, I don't want to show off, but I just have to show you what happened when I put on my fairy fingered thinking cap and started paper maché-ing my ukulele kit. It took me a very long time of concentrating very hard to make it ...

T'is rather lovely isn't it.

The music is from the notation that the very lovely Susan Berry did for me.

Me and Susan are winging it over to Lower Normandy in France next week to play the piece and celebrate the publishing of 50 limited edition copies of the sheet music.

The world is full of fairy folk, you know.

A Fairy List for France

Once the human had pootled off in her car, the house was completely empty, safe enough for the little fairies to scurry around looking for a pen and paper. After all, even fairies need a pen and paper if they are to write a good long list and for sure, they would need a good long list if they were to take enough things & wings with them for a whole month in the sun.

'I can't find my sunglasses,' the little one giggled with glee, 't'will still be warm in France, even in September. Let's borrow hers'. She'll never notice'

Yes, my fairy friends, t'is the hand of good fortune and no doubt a fair sprinkling of fairy magic, that I find myself contemplating my own list for France. 

When I went out earlier this year, I stayed at an orchard of gites owned by an Artist. When I said that I would like to return for a longer length of time, she asked, 

'Do you do chanting?' 

And as luck would have it, chanting is precisely what I do, as I have been working on a collection of Mantra through Music and Mindfulness as part of my qualifying as a Sound Therapist this year.

So, I will be staying at the little gite, in the pear orchard, with the french doors overlooking the trees and pansies growing with glee in the brimming window box outside my window, for a whole month!

I can write and play and compose and 'be'

And just think of all that lovely french cake ...

Music, Mindfulness, Orchard & Cake

Who could want for more ...

                 

But then I remembered the little fairies who dance inside The Tethered Fairy Ring longing for the sound of ukulele strings and humming humans. 

and whilst sat next to Susan Berry as she notated my Symphonic Poem,  I wondered about the church in the village near the orchard in Lower Normandy and the wonderful acoustics in there and how  I had imagined Susan and I filling that little space with my ukulele and her harp.

And then my mind shifted and I visualised Susan and I out on the lawn between the pear trees ...

So, Susan is coming to France too!

And her Welsh Harp ...

Oh, and her husband and her son. 

They will stay in the gite next to mine for a week whilst I will be there for a month. 

We are performing The Tethered Fairy Ring in the beautiful little church with the fabulous acoustics, in the village and will no doubt be playing together in the sunshine on the lawn.

Aren't fairies clever little things making all this happen just because they know the sun in France still shines in September. Now then, has anyone seen my sunglasses, I know I put them down somewhere?

Fairy Timing

I will be flying over the mountain and through Brechfa forest tomorrow to Susan's house, where will be working on a few 'timing issues' with the notated composition of The Tethered Fairy Ring: A Symphonic Poem. 

Thing is, fairies love numbers so much, that just counting to four all the time seems a bit boring, so they have thrown in the odd extra beat here and there. (wink) 

... And who can blame them with their light footsteps and silk-soft wings, for dancing over the harp strings in quick step

Fairy Dust & Wishes: Sheet Music Design Ideas

The design for the front cover of my sheet music for The Tethered Fairy Ring will be based on 'The Daffodil Fairy'. This little book was read to me by my Mother when I was small, filled with flower fairies and rhyming couplets, it captured my imagination. Particularly the Daffodil Fairy, as the National flower of Wales and being that the story is based on the West Wales Coastlin, it seems very apt indeed.

But the colour will be faded/aged and look very old as if it were printed in 1965 the year I was born.

A bit like this version of 'In the Bleak Mid- Winter'

Being as I am Fifty years old next year in July, I will also release 50 vinyl singles of the Ukulele Overture itself. 

When I was small it was my dream to make a record and when I prayed to teh fairies to make it so, I did not have MP3's or CD's in my head, how could I? NO, I had little black 45'' singles in my mind's eye.

Now I can be my own fairy, making my childhood dreams come true in my Fiftieth year, so as to make room for a new set of  dreams for the next 50 years!

Fairy Friends

Hello fellow fairy friends!
So sorry not to have written for a bit but things have been settling here! 

The Tethered Fairy Ring & I packed up and moved to South Wales so that we could go to University in Cardiff. 

My intention is to develop The Tethered Fairy Ring within my MA Drama specifically looking at how to offer depth within my storytelling, rather than linear experiences. 

I also want to build an interactive experience for the audience so that they are transported into the story. 

So, I have put my Fairy Ring to sleep for a bit and am working on my first adult story called 'Mother Moon' and this will be the basis of my first assessment in January. 

If I use The Fairy Ring for the first assessment then I am not able to use it again and I want it to be the all singing, all dancing finalé to my MA in August/September.

For details of how the development of 'Mother Moon' is going, you can pop over to www.fusioninspire.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, my set has become my furniture in my new pad!

The Fabulous Fairy Story Launch