The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 87 - 'Storytelling, Poetry and Music' - Ed Boxall
In this episode Chris chats with Ed Boxall https://edboxall.co.uk/ about music education and Storytelling. This podcast is brought to you by Charanga.
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by Charanga. In this episode, I chat with musician, storyteller, poet, and educator Ed Boxel. The conversation focuses mainly around storytelling and music and sort of bringing those two things together and the incredible benefits that come from that, beyond just the amazing entertainment value. We talk a lot about how blending storytelling with music can bring emotion, images, and sound to life, and actually help make sense of those things for a lot of young people. Now you'll join our conversation as Ed is delving into the different tunings he uses on his guitar, which I assure you is fascinating for guitarists and non-guitarists alike. And for those of you who really have never ever picked up a guitar or have no idea of how the instrument is even tuned, then just to give you a brief intro, the guitar is usually tuned E A D G B E. So Ed regularly tunes his guitar in a completely different way, which means he has to play completely intuitively. So all those chord shapes or ways of playing that he's learned before don't necessarily work in the same way. So he ends up discovering completely new things. Which also makes the instrument more accessible to young people and I guess more effective in his storytelling. It's a really enlightening conversation, and I know you'll enjoy it. And one last thing before we get stuck in, if you're inspired by the storytelling conversation in this episode, then don't forget Charanga has a wealth of resources that bring the art of musical storytelling to life. Their partnership with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is particularly popular at the moment, featuring the story Yo-Yo and the Little Orc with accompanying music performed by the orchestra. Is it a 12-string guitar or is it something else? Because I can only sit ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Me neither.
SPEAKER_04:But because I've got different because I use the guitar in different tunings, I've got two guitars just for speed, so I'm not faffing around tuning.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, nice. Well, well, I mean you really can faff around a tuning though. This is the ideal opportunity, in fact, in some ways. What tunings do you use out of interest?
SPEAKER_04:What do you um I'm not sure if they're sort of um established tunings or me remembering things I've been taught wrong. So I use this tuning where I've um where this one is uh it's it's basically the are the same and then the two highest strings are D. So it's just like so it kind of gets that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01:That sounds magical, but you you just you said something so magnificent right there. Uh you said, I'm not sure if these are established tunings or whether I'm just um remembering uh tunings that I've been taught wrong. Yes. Which I just are so uh I love that um well I I've I've m mishap sort of thing, you know?
SPEAKER_04:Well, I played with this, I know that that's happened because I played in the past I played with this amazing musician from Hastings, Tim Hoyt, who taught me um various tune-ins, and then I so he taught me a tune-in. Um I thought I'd remembered it right, went back to him like a couple of weeks later and said, Oh, I'm playing that tuning you taught me, and it was completely different. I'd remembered it completely wrong. So I have this tune-in that I use all the time where every string is B or E. That's it, isn't it? Yes, that's right. So if so it's very drony. It's very kind of um uh see I've gotta I've gotta check that now. I've gotta check if I've remembered that now. Um because I have my tunings there. Oh yeah, I've just remembered I've just remembered this is an audio. It is indeed. You gotta do a sort of an audio description. It goes E, I've got E, one of my tunings is low string E, E, B, B, E, B, B, Eb, Eb. Is that uh, you know, and I'm not uh I can't read music, I don't have that kind of musical knowledge of of that wasn't done for any reason. That's the tuning that I remember Tim teaching me, but it wasn't that at all. Uh and I remembered it as that, and it works for me. It's very uh it's very drony, I can play low, I can kind of noodle on it, and it just always works. And then I've got what I call my G tuning, G B D G B E, which is kind of like uh quite a bright, cheerful, a really bright, kind of cheerful tuning. Um and then the one I was just the way I've got it tuned. Well I've done it slightly differently, um, but it should be D A Dad. So yeah, it's dad G D. D A D G D D. But with this I haven't bothered to tune the low E down to a D. Um so it's kinda if that makes sense. So there they're kind of so I use those three tunings and normal tuning. And I use the I use the the Eb Ebb tune in, the EBB EBB tune in, particularly when I'm storytelling or doing uh something quite dreamy, and I just want to kind of uh improvise some notes um while I'm talking, and I want to have something just quite dreamy going on in the background while I'm talking. I'll often use the E B B E B B tune in.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, because 'cause you've got that sort of drone underpinning to sort of yeah so yeah. Um I just I just it's just such a nice uh place to start uh at risk of it becoming you know an episode of two guitarists talking about tunings. But it's just that that music education journey, um for want of a better phrase, that was you attempting to learn something or attempting to emulate something and you got it wrong, but you found something new and you found something better, and you found something that was Ed rather than Tim. And that's so cool, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and uh with the with the open tune-ins, they're very good for working with kids. The Eb Eb tune-in. Um, I will uh when I'm in a group sort of messing around being creative with children, I will um put the guitar uh flat so people are playing, so completely non-musicians are playing it on their lap, and children can create a wonderful drone by just strumming or even um kind of playing with paintbrushes and playing it like a drum, and you get a nice drone coming out that other people can kind of play instruments over the top. So um it's quite cool.
SPEAKER_01:Um I mean, are are any of those tunings kind of established tunings that other people use, or are they things that I've just uh I've never ever heard of the Ebb Ebb one and then having two D's next to each other? I I haven't heard of that. But uh Ed, I uh I and we really do have to you know not turning into a guitar podcast, but uh my my my experience of uh using alter tuning, so I use auto-tunings for pretty much every single track I play, and even though I have a theoretical knowledge of music, my reason for using alter tunings is partially to to um is partially to not know what I'm doing because I became so formulaic of playing Jimi Hendrix lick number four, followed by whatever thing I had learned, Eric Clapton lick number followed by this riff, and then when I tuned it differently, I you know I all of a sudden I had to use my ear and engage with music basically by the the unknown sort of thing. Um so so my approach to it is kind of kind of like yours, um, and but um so I don't tend to learn all the shapes in that tuning or whatever, because there's a lot of that, isn't there? His how to play everything in Dadgad. I'm sort of like, well, why would you want to do that? Because you won't find anything new.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then it's just gonna sound like you're in normal tuning, so maybe so yeah. And it's like you you find a new tuning, and the moment you use the new tuning, I you know, I I'll come up with something new. I'll I'll I'll write a new piece of music just from exploring that new tuning. So it's completely exciting when you uh um when you do that. I mean the frustrating thing is because I'm quite slow at tuning. If you're playing live and things, um it can really slow things down. Um and then you go to your guitar and you you're desperate to play it because you want to play a particular song, and then you've left it in the different tuning, it's oh, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I've I I've I've launched into performances in the wrong tuning where they're they're sort of close enough to sound like, oh yeah, it works, but hold on a minute, there's something just slightly off. Wonderful. But I like I like that drone thing of you sort of bringing it into the story because I I remember what I've enjoyed about your um performances of poetry and stories for um for children was that uh what in the festival situation of you sort of bringing people in um with that just sort of strumming, playing, and it just seemed that you were you know, not like an indifference is in you didn't care if anyone engaged, but it just have this lovely, relaxed that there wasn't any expectation of um it felt like you didn't have an expectation of anyone coming in or an expectation of yourself almost. You were just I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, just just enjoying it, just kind of um get yeah, it's it's interesting because in that situation in a festival, um how you start I think is really important and it's about me getting into the right frame of mind for it and just really enjoying uh the journey of it as well. So I'll sit down and just start enjoying playing and um yeah, hopefully having people slowly gather round, perhaps pick up instruments and join in, um and then hopefully sort of depending on the story, um kind of just quite naturally drift into telling the story. Um but that's that's you know one one way of starting a story.
SPEAKER_01:Is that that you you mentioned getting into the right frame of mind, and that really rarely gets said in in conversations that I've had with music educators. Um but that is that a really crucial thing to this of actually sort of tapping in in the self-like um absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:I mean I do different things, and if we're talking about storytelling, then um absolutely it's about yeah, get getting into that absolute focus um to tell the story, that one wonderful state of concentration where you're just focusing on one thing, just absolutely communicating this story, and it's like the rest of the world disappears and finding ways to do that, which is very, very important. And what are those ways to do it? What are the what are the sort of protocols? Uh that's interesting. I mean um so I start stories in different ways. Sometimes I'll do what I just said and um I'll kind of what I call kind of noodling away on the guitar, kind of people coming in, gathering around, curious about the sound, and I'm talking and introducing the story, and then I kind of slip into kind of telling the story quite organically. Um but then also I'll start it in a slightly more um definite way, where I'll have an introduction song and I'll get everybody joining in. And I'm sure you've been at you you I do this a lot, so I you may well have been at one where I did this, where I'll I'll sing um a song that is a going on a journey, that is a starting a story kind of song. Um uh so I do a song called We the Wild Ones, which is all about kind of opening yourself to a story. Um I mean, would you like me to do a bit? Yeah, man, of course I would, yeah. So um so I'll um I feel like I should invite my kids up and um get them to So you this is so I'm back in normal tuning, back on planet Earth with the normal tuner. Um and what's interesting, another well it's interesting to me is there's two versions of this song. So you might we'll do it as a call and respond do it as a call and response where it's like We the Wild Ones are on the run, and then the audience sing, We the Wild Ones are on the run. So it's almost like uh um what is it, uh a uh army kind of you know getting.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Jugging through the woods kind of yeah.
SPEAKER_04:We the wild ones are on the run. We better do the backing vocals, we better do the call and response together.
SPEAKER_01:I I did it, yeah. I I I would love to, but I'm gonna be I'm gonna be out of synchead, that's the only problem, isn't it? I'll be like two seconds after you. Yeah, no worries. I won't do the whole song though.
SPEAKER_03:We the wild ones are on the run. We the wild ones are on the run. From walls and moves and electric light. From walls and moves and electric light. We don't need school of shots of colours. We don't need school of shots of the colours. Because we are not civilized. Because we are not civilized. We don't wear shoes and feel it.
SPEAKER_02:We don't wear shoes and feel it.
SPEAKER_03:We will wear everything Away forever far and free.
SPEAKER_02:Away forever for and free. We the wild ones, you and me. We the wild ones, you and me. Oh yeah.
unknown:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So that's kind of saying, you know, we're ready to l we're ready to leave the civilized world behind, you know.
SPEAKER_01:We're getting in the right frame of mind to uh And and throughout that you're sort of Because obviously the kids don't usually uh well when I've seen you, you don't know those children, yeah, and you don't those children don't know anything. There's no sort of okay, children, you're going to sing this and this is just a sort of through animation and you moving and sort of saying, Come on, join me.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. And uh, you know, and so they don't need to learn that song because it's called in response. Um it's uh But then I have a I won't then have a different version depending on the mood, which is much dreamier.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. We the world ones run the run. We don't need school shots on because we are shooting with a jambo jambo.
SPEAKER_00:Love it, man. Strong Pink Floyd vibes there, as well.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, a kind of much gentle yeah, it's sort of so same words, but uh, you know, a so it kind of has the same message of kind of we're ready to go away forever, far and free. But it you know, depending on the mood and who it might just feel like a group that don't really want to do a big call and response song, or it might be that I want to have a much gentler, softer atmosphere to start with. So I'll quite often um start with that um can't find it now.
SPEAKER_00:That kind of mystical, sparkly, lovely something intriguing, basically, I guess.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah, to kind of um you know that that kind of uncertainty, yeah, absolutely intriguing uncertainty, not settled kind of oh what's happening kind of feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Um Yeah, that there's there's a real um interesting thing in stories and something that I've picked up on lately with my own children, actually, when they're watching um theatrical things that there's this is this complex sort of magical mystery uncertainty feeling that really seems to engage kids. It's not it's not it's not fear, it's not being scared, it's not like about it being a sort of a scary story or that sort of um Hansel and Gretel, you know, grim, like grim tales or whatever, but it's it's there's this magic place where it's it's not quite uncomfortable, but it's we don't know really what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. It's kind of unresolved kind of uh and it's something that uh I feel yeah, absolutely. And again, because I I know that in music it's kind of about maybe a particular interval uh that is a kind of unsettled sort of dreamy kind of chord or dreamy sort of interval between notes. But I don't know what it is, or there's probably various ones, and then it kind of settles into a nice at the end of the story, you know, it settles into a nice major chord kind of you know, you go from the sort of sense of um uh resolve at the beginning into a place kind of un where things are unresolved and are exciting and what are we gonna discover, and then they kind of come back to a nice comfortable resolution, which is kind of like the change between uh I don't know, minor seven and um sevenths and uh you know, weird chords, and you know, there's a parallel between a story reaching its um resolution and uh music kind of reaching its resolution going from um those kind of um that kind of uh I mean when I play a chord like that The kids just look at you like Yeah Well you know we you know I don't know we're kind of going through a a wood and um maybe you're looking to your left and right and you're seeing something flitting around and you're not quite sure what it is. When I play a chord like that, I kind of um I kind of hear somebody playing a flute as well. I I hear like a a fawn. I was guessing you got that and then you're gonna have Mr. Tumnus kind of appearing, yeah, playing a flute. But it's also for me from where I'm coming from growing up in the 80s, um that's like a Cocteau twins chord. It's like my you know my my um my kind of musical one of my musical heroes is like um Robin Guthrie, uh guitarist from the Copteau Twins. Um these are very Cocteau Twins kind of chords.
SPEAKER_01:There's an album called Victoria Land, which is an incredibly dreamy sort of uh album by the Cocteau's and those chords uh to me very kind of Cocteau twins chords, very Victoria Land chords, amazing and that whole album kind of creates this sense of uh uh you know dreamy otherness, but I mustn't make it all about the Cocteau twins so do you um to hear the how how do you um how do you think a music educator who doesn't have doesn't write stories themselves or ha hasn't written stories themselves previously? Um because I think if I if I was listening to this and I hadn't you know done created stories before, um I would now have this insight into uh playing as kids are coming in to sort of set set the scene, to to get myself in the zone, to get the kids in the zone, to sort of set everyone up for going on a bit of a magical journey. When it comes to the actual stories, do you yeah, have you got any tips on creating those themselves or to or borrowing from you know folklore or existing stories that are a really cool place to start?
SPEAKER_04:Um I mean I think I definitely, definitely think it's uh it's not a good idea to overly mystify the art of a storyteller. I haven't really thought about this much before, but I think it's it's like one of the things I do is I'm a storyteller and I've trained as a storyteller. Um so hopefully I've got a few extra skills to share stories with. But you know, absolutely everybody is a storyteller, and absolutely uh and the stories are the main thing. So um uh hopefully if I tell a story, it will it will have I'll bring some of my training and skills to tell it in a particularly exciting way. But if if if just anybody kind of tells that story with a picture book or just in their own words, if it's a good story, the story will communicate and children will still get um, you know, they'll still explore that story and find the meaning that they need to find in that story. Um so I think in terms of tips, uh I'd say just don't overthink it. Just if it's a story that you're excited about, just tell it. Uh and if it's a picture book, then use the picture book, or if it's a story you just want to tell in your own words, or if you feel more comfortable typing it up and reading from a script, um you know the important thing is that the story is communicated. Um so I I think yeah, I definitely think don't overthink it, just let the story speak for itself. And then I really this is hopefully quite an obvious thing, but don't I definitely think don't tell anybody what the story means. I think that's quite important. You sort of let the story land, and I I think it's not you can nudge people towards themes, but I think it's quite important not to say this is what this story means. So um what I do, uh, and I've got to give a storyteller and art therapist called Anna Atkinson a bit of credit for this because I kind of was influenced by her approach, is that you'll tell her you'll tell your story and then you'll just ask the participants to do quite an open activity to find their own meaning in it. So you'll just say something like, um draw, I've told you this story, uh close your eyes and just think of the moment that stays with you. Think of the picture that stays with you from this story. Um and then maybe put your hand up and share what that picture is, or um make a piece of artwork about that picture. So uh so people find the meaning that they want to in that story, the make meaning that they need in that story.
SPEAKER_01:Rather than having to articulate it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, or and rather than saying rather than telling the people this is what this story means. Because I think like when I did my storytelling training, uh, you know, there was this wonderful idea that there's these kind of if it's I think maybe there's if it people particularly if it's a big story, if it's like a story that's been around for a long time and has really stood the test of time, uh you'll find whatever it sounds a little bit hippie-ish, but you'll find that but you know, we don't We're in the right company. We we we don't uh But you'll find your you'll find the meaning you need from that story. Um the these big stories. And it could be that it's about a picture, that it's not actually about any sort of moral lesson or idea, it's like just a picture that from that story that stays with you, uh, a a place or a character. So I really try and leave it open. Um when you do a more sustained bit of work, so I think when I do a story at a festival, it's you often don't have a chance to do that. You'll just tell a story and it's just a nice experience, and people go away and think what they want to about the story. But if you've got the chance in a class or a library uh to do a bit more work in depth, I think it's really important to do an open activity afterwards, not a kind of closed activity where you say this story is a moral lesson about treating people kindly. Um for me, you say, right, you you explore what picture, what memory, what's important to you in this story. Um that you know, I I I think that's a better way to work, and then you might end up with um 30 children writing a poem that starts from the same story, but you have 30 very different poems come from that. You know, that's that's kind of the way I like to work with stories. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's really wonderful and particularly poignant with w when put next to music as well, because I think so often conversations with children after listening to music or playing music tend to be quite reductive, I suppose, in that. How did that make you feel? And ch children, especially younger children, well, actually, I think adults as well, we can we talk about feelings in an oversimplified way, don't we? Happy happy or sad, for example, are the most you know, almost meaningless, aren't they? You know, that feeling of happiness or sadness is just so complex. And when you attach that to music or or a story, which again, a story and music are kind of the same, one and the same, right? Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:And I I think I mean I find it very hard to kind of often answer directly how I'm feeling. And if you um if somebody asks me how I'm feeling, I sometimes find that quite difficult to answer. And or to someone to say, draw a picture about how you're feeling, it's um it's a really difficult thing. For me anyway, and I think so it's a very simple thing, and this is a very sort of class, I think quite a classic kind of art therapy thing, but it relates to what I was saying about stories. You don't ask a child how they're to draw how they're feeling, perhaps, you ask them to draw a dog, and then the way then you start a conversation about how they've drawn that dog, you know, and then you say, Well, well, who's gonna be with the dog? And then you just and then their feelings, and maybe when you take that quite open approach, they will find what they want to talk about through drawing um a dog. And if you have an interesting open conversation about how they've drawn that dog, um then that's a uh a better way to kind of for them to kind of discover what they want to talk about, they might not necessarily know what they want to talk about straight away. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:It does, it does totally.
SPEAKER_04:Uh I think it's a little bit more, you know, complicated. Uh so we'll I'll I mean going into art, which is this is storytelling and as well. It does relate, um, but um we'll do a thing where I'll draw where I'll get everybody to draw a character, absolutely any character, and then we'll pass the drawings round and I'll ask another child to respond to the character that the first person has drawn. Um and then that creates a kind of story, and then you can talk, then you can have an open chat about what the characters might be saying to each other, and inevitably, every time you do that activity, um things that are on the children's mind come up, you know. They because they've inevitably, without meaning to do it, they've drawn situations where maybe there's a character who's being got at by other characters, or maybe they've drawn in a more positive way, they've drawn a character who is flying through the stars, and someone's drawn a character and they've decided to put them flying through the stars because they're feeling really good and positive about things, you know. So uh sorry that's moving away from music a bit, but it's no, no, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:The parallels are huge though, aren't they? It's just that sort of um absolutely. Um and it's it's cool to I I guess this is talking about the arts in a th in a therapeutic way, um, and I can imagine some educators uh making a distinction saying, well, this is sort of well, you actually mentioned art therapy, this is a therapeutic way of educating, this isn't music education as a whole, where we're giving people musical skills. But uh my argument would be, well, actually, this is sort of bringing it back to what you were talking about at the very beginning when you were saying I liked this chord because it was mystical or magical. This is this therapeutic way of teaching is giving those skills to be able to match emotions and feelings to chords, to pictures, to stories. So it is it is a skill. Whilst it's therapeutic, it is a a direct skill thing, do you think?
SPEAKER_04:Or yeah, absolutely, yes, yeah, because we I mean you uh um yeah, it it yeah, it definitely it's a different way into kind of learning skills because you could uh and I've I've done this, you you know, you've um talked about feelings and and you've done a project like that, and then you come back to uh the music because um well I'm I'm artist in residence for a day a week in a school in Crawley, and we'll have the art over that side of the room, and then we've got the music over this side of the room. So we'll do an activity like the drawing one I just did before, but then you'll go maybe towards the end of the session, you'll go over to the other side of the room and do some music, and uh because we've m been maybe exploring some quite sad things, I'll play a minor chord and I'll talk about, you know, does this feel right for uh maybe we, you know, and I'll talk about how that um how we a minor chord kind of has this sad feeling, and you know, what feeling does this chord have, what feeling does that chord have? So it does, and then we'll talk about um major and minor and seventh and uh how music can feel quite settled and comfortable, and how you can just change it slightly and it can feel unresolved and uh uncomfortable, uh, and then you can go into the minor kind of feeling where it can feel quite straightforwardly sort of sad sometimes, you know. So it does kind of relate back, but you know, I can't say but again, um I suppose maybe I do that in a fairly superficial sort of way in terms of music theory, because I as I keep as I can't read music and that sort of thing, but um but yeah. So you're talking about the sort of idea of if you were making this argument to somebody who like a perhaps a head teacher who wanted to also teach some rigorous musical skill within this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so. I think so because ultimately teachers have to justify every single action that they make. So it's when and it's something that um came up in actually in the last episode, um, and I come up against um in this being music in particular, seeing this is well-being, this is music for well-being, and this is music education. Um but uh but yeah, but ultimately I feel the things that you're talking about are really about um uh learning, not learning to articulate emotion, but learning to to translate from yourself of those you know feelings in into your instrument. I know you're talking in the context of stories and um art as well, but that that's part of it, isn't it? Because we feel those emotions in a in a visual way and a narrative way. They're all so intertwined, aren't they?
SPEAKER_04:I mean, with with school, it does as as always gets said, it comes down to group sizes as well. Uh if you it you can teach in a much you can explore things in a much more organic way if you have, you know, a group of four or five uh people. So say you want to explore the difference between major and minor, if you've got if you want to explore that with 30 children in a class, it's very you know, you kind of I guess you have to have everybody there and right, this is a major chord, this is a minor chord.
SPEAKER_00:If you're it kind of has to be almost more prescribed, and there's got to be more boundaries.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Whereas if you're working in a small group of three or four, um, you know, like I say, you do an activity uh and it feels like, oh right, today's a nice day because it's come up naturally. Today's a nice day to discuss minor the difference between major and minor because it's organically come up, you know, and it it's easier to do that in a small group.
SPEAKER_01:So Ed, we talked about lots and lots of different things. We can we sort of do a plenary or a summary and bring it back to sort of blending that music with storytelling for children. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I mean I um uh I've retuned my guitar and I've put it into the uh my accidental EBB EBB tuning. E B B E B B. Uh and this is my tuning that I use for um often in the background of storytelling, um, and it's also a tuning that is uh very accessible for children because when I tune it like this, children can literally kind of create a lovely drone almost just like that by using the guitar as a drum like that, and picking any note open, and it it just sounds quite nice, and then other instruments can join in. Um yeah, if I was storytelling, I might uh use it like this. And at the end of a story, and we're coming to the end of the podcast, I might say something like. Um, and it seems a nice place to stop as we're coming to the end of our podcast.
SPEAKER_01:It it's perfect. Ed, thanks so much. I uh for me what really stands out is that there's no you well, you're not singing, you're not there's no rhythm, there's ultimately you're just it's textually weaving around things to just lift it up and bring it to life, which is simple simplistic ideas, but game-changing, I think, for a lot of musicians as a way of having a bit of confidence in delivering it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, it's uh right at the beginning, you talked about me kind of misunderstanding things and coming up with creative things by misunderstanding and misremembering how uh Tim Hoyt taught me this tune in. This is kind of looking at how an incredible musician like Robin Williamson from the uh Incredible String Band uses a harp. So he's you know, he's a master at the uh Celtic harp, and he will play his Celtic harp in a masterful way. Um, underneath him, telling a story. And I'm like, uh, I want to find um some kind of playful shortcut where I can do something a bit like that uh as a much um much more DIY self taught musician, and that's how I kind of ended up doing that. So we've kind of gone back to what we talked about at the beginning, which is nice.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. Thank you so much, Ed. Brilliant, thank you.