hampshire guitar orchestra newsletter

This is a web-archive of the Newsletter we emailed to our subscribers in June 2008

The passage of time may mean that some links to external sites are out of date or broken

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

This free newsletter is a small-scale production to keep you in touch with what's happening in hago - we always include links into our main website where you can read more, see photos and explore still further, so do click when you see a link...

Welcome to the many people who have subscribed since last issue - here's where you find out what we're up to.

If you want a life-changing missive that improves your career, lifts your self-esteem and provides you with an independent income, this ain't it.
If you want to share an insight into a group of enthusiasts who've inadvertently stumbled on something that caught them by surprise, feast on.
It's nigh on impossible to write a little update that will appeal to people from 3 continents, and every conceivable level of guitar playing from "diploma" to "how many strings does it have, exactly?", but if you'll have the good grace to let us try, we'll give it our best shot...

LATEST NEWS

We're delighted to welcome more subscribers, both locally and overseas. Our circulation is still modest, but it's upwardly mobile - about a hundred - and we're circling the globe!
It seems funny that we're halfway through 2008 and we've only played two concerts, because we do have almost a dozen lined up for 2008, and 2009 is starting to look full already too...

So what's the latest news from hago HQ?

Well, the concert floodgates open very soon - more about that in a moment. And we've been rather busy keeping all our plates spinning on all their respective sticks!

Perhaps it's time to say that hago is a community orchestra - a concept that has just about died out in the UK and which we're happy to revive. A community orchestra used to be the de facto standard for any decent community - a group of committed enthusiasts, working in their spare time to make magic happen. Well, that's what we do. There's no pay, there's no contract of employment, there's nothing except a common love of music and a common appreciation that "playing at an audience" and "entertaining our audience" are not the same at all. We don't play guitar, we make music. And laughter. Laughter's good. We like a lot of laughter.

WHAT'S COMING UP?

Check your diaries, and pencil us in!

We are playing at the 3rd Waterlooville Music Festival on June 12th. Fr Mike Sheffield conceived of the idea of bringing live music back into the community 2 years ago, and we had the thrill of sharing a concert with the Havant Clarinet and Saxophone Choir at the inaugural festival. I'm sure "choir" conjures up a resonant, restful image, but they play big-band and are armed with a drum-kit which they're not frightened to beat nine bells out of. Strewth, it was loud.
We're back, so the posters stay "by popular demand", and we're pleased to include a mix of old favourites and new pieces. And no drum-kits in our concert!
Tickets available on the door.

The following week is our "big concert", or it will be if enough people come - our biennial bash with Cambridge Guitar Orchestra, this time part of the Portsmouth Festivities. We're playing on June 21st at the same time as the Opening Concert, so we're hoping our relaxed and quiet sounds will attract an audience as large as the main event. Tonight, here in hago towers, it's "typesetting the programme" - a real cottage industry behind the scenes. Like a swan on the water, hago is all relaxed in concert, and like the swan, there's furious activity just below the surface.
Interested in coming? You can download the Festivities Brochure and be a phone call away for a set of tickets.

We're looking forward to making CGO laugh with our Tornavoz's. CGO have always said our bass sounds good, but because our contra guitars aren't the same physical size as a double bass, they've always been a bit thin sounding. A Tornavoz is a tube that fits in the soundhole like a port in a loudspeaker cabinet, and the effect is dramatic. Our contras sound louder, rounder and deeper, and we're not only expecting CGO to notice, but we're expecting a real laugh when they find out how they're made... I'm afraid we can't reveal the secret right now, but there's an article on our website that is a tantalising decoy to the real story....

We've pencilled in a surprisingly large number of concerts for 2009 now - have a look at our concerts page on our website and see which ones have moved already from pencil to ink. Our MD and Secretary have been driving to Petersfield, Andover and Southampton in the last 2 weeks, armed with camera, clipboard and (more curiously) a tape measure, as we book concerts as far ahead as September 2009.

RECRUITMENT NEWS

We never turn good players away - we have another player dropping in next rehearsal, and we always welcome enquiries about hago and for Derek's adult novice/intermediate group (no audition, no pressure, massive repertoire - established in 1988 - 3 enquiries in the last month alone).

REPERTOIRE

Come along and hear our new killer pieces. Last time we wrote that we were really excited about our new pieces, and my goodness they've gone down well - really exciting and lucky finds!
What is it that makes a killer piece?
Well, if we told you that, we'd be giving away our innermost secret!

WEBSITE NEWS

One of the loveliest things about hago.org.uk is that it attracts so many visitors! We serve over half a million pages a year here at hago.org.uk - yes, we don't believe it either, especially as we're charged per page served.

If you've been to hago.org.uk recently, you might have noticed something - our web pages have much neater address now. So what? I know, it is a bit boring, but memorable addresses (like hago.org.uk/concerts/) is a great way for people to stumble upon the gems in the hago website, and it means that we're now future-proof against changes in ISP, hosting and web languages.

Darn - I've distracted myself.... where was I - oh yes, lots of visitors... What's lovely for all of us in hago is the depth and breadth of the emails we get - a local beginner asking where to buy a guitar, a mother asking for lessons for her daughter, a guitarist 8,000 miles away sending music for us to listen to, an orchestra 12,000 miles away cementing a friendship.
Wouldn't you know it? While typing this, a chap in America mailed to ask me about ensemble music.
Small world, big people.

PUBLICITY

Keep an eye out for us - we're working hard to get as much free publicity as possible - we've been in both local newspapers recently, and Hampshire View (which has led to 3 new concerts) together with coverage on some of the local radio stations too. But as ever, if you can help us with new leads, or with a link, for example, from a website that you run, it will help us in our quest to hear the last of "well, I didn't know there was a guitar orchestra in Hampshire"....