Your Mind Matters – Clive Leighton & Avelia Moisey, Healing Power Of Drama & Music

It was announced in the news today that a top neurologist believes that we can spring clean our minds with music and that it can have mental health benefits. Basically, the balance and arrangement of the musical tone and notes have a healing and therapeutic effect. This particular neurologist was creating sound waves which activate our endorphins. Now I listen to music all the time and I know that the right sound or song gives me comfort. I'm also aware that drama is a means of individual expression. Not only as a cathartic release for the creator and of course hopefully for the audience. Especially if the audience is in large numbers and if they like your work, then your self expression gives you a means of living. Now both Freud and Jung use mythology as a basis of their theories. I'm Dr. Maria Kompinska and this is yous Mind Matters. My guests today to join in the discussion of the healing nature of music and drama are Clive Layton and Avilia Moisey. So let's begin by welcoming you both and thank you for joining in this program. But firstly, ask Clive to introduce yourself and give me a sense of your background and your experience, not only with music, but generally in life. Okay, great. Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you for asking me on board. Thank you. Should be a interesting little conversation. So cheers. Looking forward to it. My background really predominantly is in the music and arts industry. That's what I have been experiencing and developing, practicing. I went to the theatre as a kid and fell in love with the actual atmosphere of people being up on stage and delivering a prepared, sometimes improvised performance. But there it was, it was just my imagination, my dreams, all sort of made real that people were up there talking, playing, performing and I fell in love with it. Shortly into productions I was looking around at the stage and the lights and thinking maybe I don't really want to be on stage, I just want to be a part of it. So I've worked in all sorts of environments, I've worked in theaters and operas and. But my main passion is music. I'm a music festival organizer, I curate, I stage manage, I do publicity, I consult, worked with quite high profile names, I guess. BBC, Manchester United, Ferrari, name drop, name drop, name drop. But my passion is really the ground floor, the entry level, the people, the future, the people that are developing something, the future headliners, the people that are yet to be known. It's great to work with the guys at the top, but I'm always really interested in that sort of conveyor belt of who's coming Next. While I was trying to make my way in the industry, I did all sorts of stuff. Working with young offenders, working at youth clubs, working at sports clubs, getting to know young people. And that's the thing that I always come back to. So my company curates about 450, 500 slots at UK festivals, and most of those are for emerging acts. So I'm not sure how many other companies give that opportunity, but that is something that I love. That's the main part of my job, really, is working with people who hopefully can go further along and realize their dreams. So I think I better abbreviate it because I can hear myself going on and on and on. Nobody's wonderful because you've had so much experience. So your work not only gives people an opportunity, but it eventually, hopefully gives them an opportunity to make a living, because it's still very difficult in the arts to make a living. But coming back to the point of your life, working with young people, young offenders. Yeah. Did you work with them and music, was that part of the work you did? Well, yes, it wasn't the driving force. What it was was when I was working with those people, they were. What became quite apparent was that they'd come to some sort of block. They were, you know, they were progressing along in life and then suddenly there was a block of some sort of. So very often it was using that memory bank of taking them back to a place when they were happy, either a physical place, when they were happier, or a spiritual place. And that's where music and drama and anything that was inspirational and emotional, anything that was a positive connection, that's what we concentrated on. And music is absolutely. That wasn't the intention. The intention was to get to know people, befriend them and. And try and give them a way out. And sometimes the way forward is to look into the past. And very often, like smells people talk about, you know, they can get a reassuring smell. It takes them back to when they were at somebody's house or somebody's place. But music was a thing that was. It wasn't intention, it wasn't intended that way, but it was always a recurring theme. And young people, music and I. That seems to be a pattern throughout my life, right from way back, right up until the future, because we will be back making music and creating new memories. That's the thing that's wonderful. We'll speak further about that. And coming to you, Evelia, could you give us a little bit about your background? Fascinating background and actually quite interesting and totally different yet in the same field as Clive. Yes, it is totally different. Fascinating hearing what you had to say, Clive. Yeah. My name is Avilia Moisey. Thank you, Maria, for inviting me on here. This is fantastic. Fascinating. I'm enjoying every minute so far and all I've been doing is listening. It's great. But, yeah, I'm a trumpet player, essentially, and when I was growing up, my mum was a piano teacher. My dad died when we were really little and so she ended up teaching piano and we happened to go to a house with her one time and I heard somebody playing a trumpet in the background, but I had no idea what it was. I was about 4 or 5 and I just said, mum, what's that? And she said, oh, it's a trumpet, but you'll never be able to play it because I can't make a note out of it. And I was like, right. And it just set my determination. I don't know why at that age, I have no idea. And I didn't get my hands on a trumpet till I was 12 and by that time I wanted to play the oboe, but Mum didn't realize that and they wanted a trumpet at school, so that's what I did. And actually it's brilliant because I love. I love playing trumpet. That's mainly what I've always wanted to do. And I always used to sing as well. And having done things like, obviously went to music college and then I did loads of West End shows and I've done all sorts of stuff like that. But in the last 10 years or so, I've managed to do a lot more combining singing and playing trumpet, which is great for me because I just love doing both. And I've kind of proved to myself that I am a legitimate trumpet player in the sense that, you know, I've worked with loads of the best guys in the country in different guises, whether it's on shows or tours or in the studio or whatever. So that kind of makes. Makes me know I've done that almost and I can do other things. And one of the other things I used to do was I went to Trinidad and did SOCA about three times when they do the whole carnival thing. Up until then. Up until when you show of Tuesday. Yeah. And it was. It was amazing. So I was always the. Often the only girl in the band. Nearly always, actually the only girl in the band or female, whatever. And in those SOCA bands and also Jazz Warriors, I used to do, I was also the only white person. So I used to be kind of. I Used to be the one who was the. The separate one. So it's always a bit. It was kind of good for me because I went to a girls school and I never really liked that idea. So it's quite nice to be the only girl occasionally. Although these days I appreciate women a bit more. You'll be glad to hear. Maria, you have put on shows, haven't you? You know, sort of just talking about women's stories and women's issues and not issues, because. Why is it an issue? Because we talk about the world of women. Let's change that term. You know, it started off when I was running the comedy clubs, it was always women's issues. As soon as women started talking about being a person, the world can change. But, yes, you put on a show focusing on some of the dramas in lives of women. Yeah. A friend of mine in the village, Jill Neenan and I, we both had our oldest children are. They were born within four days of each other. We didn't know each other when they were born, but they were the same age. So when we were sort of taking them to infant school, we met and we discovered we were both musicians. And it was one of those things you sort of chatter, you know, when you sort of talk to somebody, you go, you could write a song about that. And we've already said that in this show, haven't we? You know, you try something, you go, you could write a song about that. And we looked at each other. Why don't we try? And we'd never really done that much writing before. We'd done bits on our own, but nothing together. And we started writing a song, and I think the first one we did was She's Got It Made, which is looking at everybody else and going, oh, she's all right, she's got this. Or she's, you know, she looks amazing, or she's got a great house, or she's got a lovely husband and, you know, why is it rubbish for me and all that? So that's where that one started, and we liked that. And then we added a few more songs and we kept. We kept saying we'd have coffee mornings with other friends just to see what their take on it was, but actually, we never needed to because we never stopped talking and we never stopped having ideas. And sometimes we put ourselves in other people's place, you know, the people we know and what we knew of them, and sort of took that aspect as well. And we ended up writing a load of songs and we thought, hey, we could try and make this into a show. And then we. We decided we should put motherhood on trial. And we wanted to write something about mother, you know, being guilty because people always feel guilty about everything, apparently. And we couldn't really work out how to do a song, so we ended up making that a scene. So then we ended up writing more scenes and in the end it turned out to be a whole show, which we called Ifs Buts and Babies. And we kind of, you know, we took it around the country and performed it in various places. And we had some fantastic responses. Everybody laughed. Right. The very first one we did, I'd never really done any acting except a bit at school. And the very first scene was both us putting our children to bed. We were both like separate people in, like, having a half of the stage each. And Jill came on all kind of pristine and, you know, oh, just got the child to bed, just, you know, making. Making dinner for my husband. And it's all really, really. Everything's, you know, it's just so. And she's putting the mat straight or something like that. And, you know, so that starts it off and then I come in and flop on the beanbag and go. As I look at all the chaos and everybody laughed and it frightened the life out of me. I was actually like, oh, my goodness. I was really. I had to stare at the floor and will myself to keep a straight face because obviously it was never going to work if I started laughing. But from then on, and that was the very first show, everybody laughed their socks off, which was brilliant and, you know, much better response than we could have hoped for, really. So, yeah, that was one thing I've done. And then since in the last few years, I've actually been doing a lot more writing as well. So I'm sort of beginning to do. I'm sort of calling myself a trumpeter, singer, songwriter now, if there is such a thing. There is now. I just want to sort of, from my knowledge of the trumpet, you've got the term blowing your own trumpet, which, in fact, people started blowing. That term comes from when the king was entering into a village or a town, the trumpet would be blown for him. So it was an announcement. Yeah. Also in Krakow, my background being polished. In St. Mary's Church tower in the center of Krakow, in the old Square, there was a trumpeter that used to. At a certain time of the day, something tells me it was three o' clock in the afternoon. But I might be wrong. People might get hold of me and tell me the time it represented. A trumpeter who was warning everybody in 1241 that the Mongols were going to invade. So it was a warning that this was going to happen. And he was shot in the throat. So now when the trumpeter plays in the square, it's abruptly cut short. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's quite a wonderful piece of knowledge. But the trumpet, of course, was not only a warning, it was. Most castles had them or most towns had them at the opening of the gates of the castle gates, you'd have a trumpeter at the closing. And of course, now we have the bugle when people died. So there's so much history around the trumpet, it's so deep and so fascinating. So I'm very excited to know the work you're doing and we can't wait to hear more of it. It's really nice to have it. That's one of the reasons I like playing trumpet, actually, because you can do anything with it. You know, you can have complete power, aside from when, you know, obviously electric instruments turn themselves right up. But you can basically rule a band if you want to. But you can also play really quietly and really gently if you want to do that. And like you say, you have that. The whole trumpet call thing. I have been known to wake my kids up once or twice with Revali, just out of pure frustration, I suppose. You have the bagpipes up there, do you? Your answer to the trumpet, is that right, Clive? Absolutely, Absolutely. When we were kids, we couldn't quite understand why people were wrestling with a cat to making a sound out of it to realise it was actually an official instrument. We just thought it was a national pastime, some light entertainment. But it's interesting because they're interesting. I was interested to find out that the bagpipes were. They were used during war times. In particular, that the. Send the Scottish guys send the piper in first just to basically freak out the opposition. When you've got two armies about to head off, it's like there's the guy with the loud noise with his kilt, nothing else. Him and his coat and his bagpipe and just walk, you know, walking towards the enemy. That's so incredibly brave. And making sure you're disarming your opponent. So it was always used in war times, the bagpipes. There you go. Absolutely fascinating. The whole area of music is so rich. There's a man called Giorgio Constantini. Do you know him? No. No, no. But I was impressed. That was good. Has created his first solo album called Universe Sound. And this contains Alba Mundi and it's an orbital frequency of the solar system. Now, he says, this is so interesting, and I've heard this before, that the Earth and planets have a musical note. The Earth, C sharp. Mars is D, Jupiter is F, Saturn, D, Uranus, D, G sharp. And I'm sure there's a lot more. And of course, in the early days of putting music together, Archimedes, the ancient Greek, as we know, philosopher, and also he is the one that discovered the water, the bath, you know, sort of the whole physics of water and, you know, that type of thing. When you go into the water, it expels all the water and when you go into the path, it expels the water. But he associated musical intervals with wandering stars. So the richness of music and the depth is quite fascinating. So have you managed, both of you, and let's start with you, Clive, have you managed to keep music alive at this time for yourself and for others? Yeah, I guess my emotional advice during this time is don't be flat. Yes, I will get anybody's coat. I don't know why I had the urge to say that. And hearing it out loud, I regret it immediately. In the absence of humour, have one of my jokes. Yeah, it's a bit of a sideways thing, the production of music. I work with musicians all the time, that's what I do. And people who make noises, who are aspiring to put it into some sort of format. And because of the pandemic, it was interesting to watch musicians, it's interesting to watch everybody, particularly myself, how we dealt with it. But so many performers are saying to me, I'm going to retire. I can't go on, you know, woe is me. Poor me, poor me. There's a lot. I'm not tiring a lot of people or everybody with that brush, but a lot of people obviously had. We've all had different reactions, but they quickly came around to the fact of, well, you either write stuff, you record stuff or you perform stuff. So these doors are open or closing at different times. So basically, the idea of performing in front of a live audience, that door is closed. So there's a lot of people now that I work with that are writing and rehearsing and performing via streaming, via another outlet. And when we do get back to, or we do get back to, when we do reach a different level and a different way of communicating the music and the audience, put them in touch with each other. I think that using this technology, a bit like radio was bypassed, TV came along so quickly, the radio was just pushed into the background that the use of virtual Concerts has just been sort of negated. Nobody's really embraced it, but they've had to now. They've had to now. There's so many venues, so many theaters, so many ways you can perform that nobody really concentrated on the virtual options until this last year, give or take. So when we do have live, interactive, physical performances again, there is going to be a market for this virtual. I think it will still continue. So it's a bit like one step back to go however many steps forward. And I know loads of people that have got their own. I don't want to use any trade names, but it's people that are using different platforms out there to offer their music and get paid for it. And I know quite a few entrepreneurs and producers that are creating an umbrella of some sort. Whether it's a program or whether it's. And I have a few colleagues. We work on something at the moment and everybody I know is working on something to try and get that and to get their music out. To have new ways of reaching people. Just like the audiences are trying to find new ways to find the music. It's created a different. I hate to be sort of, sort of general about it, but it's end up getting too specific and can end up getting some dead ends here. But there's so many people looking for music and so many people trying to look for an audience. So the. The virtual world has introduced performers and the public to each other in a way that really wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for this pandemic that I'm not grateful has happened, but it certainly has given another string to the bow, pardon the pun. So it's interesting. It's really interesting. What about yourself? Do you listen to music? Does it soothe you non stop? It inspires me. I used to run heavy metal festivals, which isn't really my bag man, but I. But that was really interesting because when I. Because I don't have a passion for metal music, I was more interested in being organized. And then I realized when I got more and more involved with the metal stuff, I really found it quite soothing and quite relaxing. And when I started working on these vessels and then they happened and then I'm backstage with these guys who have got, you know, tattoos saying I want to slaughter your family and whatever. And then they're all crying over photographs of kittens backstage. And I realized that the more the loud and I used to work quite a lot with folk music and lighter sort of sounds. The more aggressive the music is, the more chilled in my experience, the louder and more and faster, more beats per minute, the more aggressive the music, the more chilled the performer seemed to be and the slower the music. People singing about, you know, we're in the tank tops and singing that the fisherman's net was dry. A lot of these people seemed to have some sort of inherent tension that didn't seem to go away. And it was interesting. There was an electric vibe. There always is, backstage and on stage. But backstage, I say the guys who get all their anxiety out, it's a bit like dealing with boxers. They all seem to be quite. They all seem to be how general. An awful lot of boxers seem to be quite relaxed people. So it's that thing of getting frustration can be a good thing. So I listen to loud music to calm me down. It's great. Which I never realized until I got into metal, which, strangely enough, I'm not really into, but I'm into the effect of it. Yeah, the effect of it is amazing. And I know that now. I think some councils are using music to disperse crowds. Yeah, they use it in some of the Arab states. I've heard lots of stories how they were sort of blasting Britney Spears to people on the other side of the fence. So it's that thing of basically trying to alarm people as well, so it can be used negatively for what they regard as a positive effect. Poor Britney. Is that meant to be detrimental? Yeah, absolutely. Something offensive. Oh, dear. So what's your experience been there? Well, that was another fascinating bit of conversation. Hello. Thank you. Yeah, well, ever since lockdown started, I mean, last year, I'd had the thought in my head I needed to start doing some live Facebook live things. And I'd never done it. And I kept thinking, oh, I should do it. There's always something else going on. And like, three days before lockdown, I went screaming down to London to get my daughter out. She literally just started college, like, six months before, and I thought, she can't be just left down there with this weird situation we've got. So I dived down to get her. And then Monday night lockdown was finally announced. And two days later, I did my first Facebook Live. I don't quite know how that happened in those few days, but I did. And then I did one a week for 10 weeks, which was great. I actually loved it. The first couple were obviously a bit nervy because we didn't know what we were doing. Unfortunately, my husband's been helping by doing the backside of it, sort of doing the recording bit. So I don't have to, which is great. And he loves getting into tech stuff, so he's just going, right, we need a new mic, we need a new this. So we've gradually got a few extra bits and pieces over the 10 weeks we did. And then by 10 weeks, my family got a bit fed up because I'd sort of do, okay, we've done it. We've done a live the next day I'm going to chill and then I'm on to what am I doing for the next live. You know, I've got to start thinking what I'm doing. I've got a lot of backing tracks because obviously trumpet and singing, I've got to do it with backing tracks. There's no other way of doing it. I've got quite a lot, but I kept putting new things in. So I've been building my backing tracks, which is great, because I do go out as a solo artist doing care homes and things like that, quite a lot. Well, I was. So I'm hoping I can go back to that soon. So I've got more tracks, which is great. But I've also been. I've also sort of developed what I've been doing because I had been doing a lot of that solo stuff in care homes, as I say, which is great. And I was doing sort of 20s, 30s, sort of jazz and various different things up, you know, going gradually forward, but not much further than about the 50s. And they were gradually saying, well, there's younger and younger people coming into care homes, you know, do some younger stuff. Anyway, so I was right, okay. And I was. Since I've been doing these lives, I've gradually started adding more. More different tunes, like things. Like various sort of pop tunes that I knew when I was growing up or that people knew, or just things that I like, you know, sort of adding it and trying to make it fit vaguely within my general genre, if there is one. I'm still trying to work that one out. And then after 10 weeks and say, the family started going a bit crazy because I was literally just putting myself into that and I was beginning to realize I wasn't doing anything else. So we stopped it for a while and then I did one a couple of months later, and then I did a few in the autumn and I've got another one coming up on Thursday, which is my first one since Christmas, actually. I did a whole Christmas one because I decided I would a week before Christmas with all kind of carols and Christmas songs, which was kind of fun. But, yeah. So I'VE got one on Thursday and then I'm not sure how often I'm going to do them because I do want to keep doing it and it is definitely a good way of beginning to reach people. And one of the things, like you said, Clive, I'm trying to reach out and meet and reach to more people and get more people involved in what I'm doing and interested in what I'm doing. But I've also been writing a load of songs because since I stopped the 10 week run, I started working on more songs and I want to get some of those out. You know, I've been trying to. I've been learning to record here. I've got logic on a MacBook and I can record to a certain level. And I'm thinking I probably just need to send tracks off to somebody to sort of finish them off. And I need to actually just finalise them myself because so far I've just got my version of a demo which is. So I know how it goes. But there was one thing that captured me completely in October last year when There was about 400 musicians went and played in Parliament Square to highlight the fact that musicians were just, you know, there was no work and nobody could do anything. And actually, you know, well, just to highlight at how music was missed, how people did miss it. And what they did was. I've completely forgotten what it was about. It was one of the Holst Planet Suites, I think it was Jupiter they did and it was. The thing about it was also because the Chancellor decided to lessen how much he was paying out to self employ people. And it was. Had been 80% of previous earnings, net earnings and then it had gone to 20% and so they played 20% of Jupiter and stopped dead. And it's like all the violinists are just, you know, the bow in the air and everybody's just standing. They were all completely distanced in this place and they all play together and I mean I'd love to have joined them, but they had, you know, it was one of those things. You had a certain amount of people, they couldn't have more because it would have been too many and not being able to distance. So they did that and I just thought, wow, how brilliant. And then I started trying to think, what could I do? And I just came up with this song called A Musician's Plight. And it's all exactly about what you know. We're just trying to make music. We want to be able to. We can help people with our music. That's Part of the words, you know, and actually, we just want to be able to do what we do. This is what we do. And there was that whole thing at the same time about Rishi Sunak had said about retraining. Everybody should just go and retrain. And it kind of hit musicians quite badly. Certainly the ones I know, we just sort of think, well, we have been training for years to do what we do. We've literally never stopped. We've already, you know, I mean, I know everybody was doing it, but we were all learning Zoom and Microsoft Teams and Google Meet and stuff to do, to give lessons online. And we were doing so many different things as much as we could. And you don't want to. I mean, it's not that we would. I mean, there are. I know a lot of musicians have gone and done other jobs. They've literally just given up and gone and done other jobs, or they've not been able to get any financial help from the government, so they've had to go and do something just to keep themselves going at all. But it kind of grates when you've spent your whole life, you know, constantly working on what you do. And, you know, they always say doctors and lawyers train for seven years or whatever. Musicians never stop. I mean, they've done seven years by the time they left school, at least, you know, and you just keep going. And you can't not be a musician if that's what you are. It's what you. I mean, I've always found that anyway, it's like part of me. They told me at school I could have been an architect or something. And at the time I was like, yeah, but I want to be a musician these days. Partly goes, yeah, it could have been quite interesting, but I'm a musician, I can't help that. It's just who I am. Can't not identify with that. So. So, yeah, I probably rabbited on a bit too long, so I'll shut up now because it gives us an insight to the reality of a musician's life. And I think it is a compulsion. It's almost a mission. It is part of your DNA. Yeah. What music do you listen to? Avelia? Do you know what? It's funny, I. I don't always listen to loads of music. If I'm. If I'm listening for something, I'm researching something I'm trying to find at the moment. My big thing at the moment is with Spotify, trying to find playlists I might be able to fit on. So I'm listening To quite a lot and you suddenly go, oh, that's really good, I haven't heard that. Or somebody else happens to mention something and you listen to it. I think I've spent so long. Well, partly is if, if I'm working, if I'm doing anything like at my computer or whatever, I always do it in silence because if I have music on it will distract me because I'm. I can't help but listen to the music. So I tend to do a lot of stuff in silence. And then also most of my working life I have been playing. So whatever I've been playing in is what I'm listening to because that's what I'm doing. And then a lot of musicians as well. When we'd go, if we're on a tour or something like that, you'd go, you know, we finish a gig and go out to the pub and we'd always go for the pubs that didn't have music as a point because the last thing we wanted is to hear that. And I remember doing a tour with called Magic the Musicals with Marty Webb a long time ago and we were touring around the country doing one nighters and stuff and you'd walk into a shopping center for something in the middle of the day and they're playing all the tunes we're doing anyway and you're like, just shut up a minute, you know. But half the time we were thinking we were doing better versions anyway. But it was the bus holiday. Yeah, exactly. You just sort of think, I'm just coming into the shops, you know, I don't really want to hear this stuff, you know, it's like. Because it becomes musical wallpaper as well when they put it in shopping centers or other things. Either it's too loud or it's just irritating. And it's, it is like musical wallpaper. It's there and nobody notices because most people probably don't notice as much. I'm sure a few people do. And I'm sure it does boost people's mood, presumably, or they wouldn't do it. But there are some of us who just stand there and just go, this is irritating. So how important, I'll ask you this first, Clive. How important is an audience to theatre work, drama, music? Is it a means of expression? If you didn't, if you couldn't organize the shows and you couldn't get an audience in, how important? What would happen to your life? I don't have to use my imagination. I can just tell you from memory over the last year because I've been. It's really interesting what Avelia was saying, because I'm the other side of the coin, because you produce the music and I might promote it, I might under produce it by offering a platform to sort of promote it, a production platform. But you produce it and I hear it. So for the last year, I've been starved of working with musicians. And what I've been doing is organizing festivals, then postponing them, then rearranging them, then unorganizing them, tweaking them. So I've worked twice as hard for far less money. And I'm not complaining because I'm still in the game and I need to look to the future, otherwise there isn't one. But it's been really interesting because I've really needed music. Like when you say Evilia that it's the opposite when I. Spike Milligan always talked about that Muzak as being elevator music. And he always, when he walked into an elevator and you'd get. The song would start halfway through and in the elevator for 30 seconds, in a minute you'd walk out again. And I remember, not that I knew him, but he would. I've got lots of little clips of him saying, you don't look at 10% of a painting, you don't look at 46% of a painting. And someone suggests which part of the painting you're looking at and how much you can see of it. And then he went off on this obviously wonderful rant. But it's that thing. So you either. But when I was at school, when I was doing my homework, I couldn't stand the silence because I can't. I can't produce music. I just can't do it. I've tried and I can't do it to the standard that's needed. It doesn't stop other people do some other people doing it. But, you know, I've realized that I just. I haven't got it. I just haven't got it. So when I. When I was doing my homework, I would always have the music. I'd always have music on. I couldn't stand the silence because I had bad music in my head. I was humming tunes and I was tone deaf or flat in my head, trying to remember the lyrics and trying to remember how the songs went. So I needed the music to concentrate so I could do my homework. And then after a while I stopped doing the homework and just turned the music up and I thought, something's not quite right here. It's almost the Billy Cornley thing. When he Kept telling gags in between the tunes and they went off and did the gags. And it's. Yeah, and that's what I'm like. So when there's no. When there's no music out there, I need to. So I've listened to more music, but I've organized more and seen less attended less obviously. But there's been more music in my life in the last year because I'm also taking the time out to talk to musicians instead of saying, can you send me something? And I'm saying, yes, no, maybe. And I said, look, you know, don't be rude. I've got. Yeah. 3,000 bands have applied to play some of these festivals, so don't think I'm abrupt, but. Bye. But now it's like, how's your family? What you been up to? What are you doing? And I'm having these. I'm getting up earlier to fit in more conversations. So I'm learning about the people behind the music. Yeah, and that's so interesting because the people behind the music is quite fascinating. So, couple of questions I want to sort of join in as one. One is, are we outsourcing our own creativity? Has it got to that point? So that has to stop to some extent. And secondly, when I was in Ireland, I remember, and I was saying, Dr. Morland Castle, which was a fabulous place to stay, they started doing. All the Irish would get up on the chairs and each one by one would do a turn that is something they call the Noble Cord. And in their families, it was a Christmas tradition. And I'm sure it's a tradition outside Christmas where in the wee small hours, the family gathering begins to sing or tell a story. Now, that's wonderful, but have we apart from you, Evelia, because you do it at home, have we generally outsourced our own creativity by virtue of having access via Zoom or SoundCloud or a record label, all our own creativity into somebody else. What do you think, Clive? Well, I have come to some sort of conclusion, as I often do, that creative people, because of this situation last year, an awful lot of musicians have said, well, I just can't put my music out. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. All this negativity, whether it's real or not, or real in their world, temporarily or otherwise. But there's been an element of people are now being creative about their creativity. They're having to think just what really was saying about, you know, the Zoom stuff and bang. Different Microphones and all the rest of it. It's people. And I'm the same because normally, yeah, because I've got my format. I've been a. Maybe abusing rather than using some sort of pattern. I've just been. It's just been. I've just been doing the same old, same old. It's been a routine, but there's been a format. And now it's a case of. Well, I bet. I mean, for me, people say think outside the box. I've never quite understood that because there is no box. That's just a marketing nonsense. You know, I'm going to create something for everybody to get in, and then someone else is going to take away the thing I've just created. There is no box. Everything is how it is. So I think people have been a bit freaked out their own potential because it's that things. Very often you might compare yourself to other people or compare yourself to your past or compare your. You know, compare, compare. And I think people are now starting to realize that they have to compete with their own potential. And suddenly they don't. They started off relying on other people. There isn't the standard platforms I'm used to. For me to get my music or myself, my name, my product, my band, whatever out there, I'm going to have to think about something. I'm going to have to do something. In other words, take some sort of responsibility. But I do think that it's freeing people up. I have felt far now, not initially, initially, I was staring into the abyss and like, you know, jerking and whimpering and yelping in the distance. But for me, I'm at a place now that I'm far more confident about my creativity and I'm far more confident in the people I'm working with, because people are realizing just what is out there and what's wrong with what's out there or what's right with it or what they can do to make it better. People are starting to. Actually, there is, you know, there has been avenues that are closed, but not permanently. And I think there's been an opening up of people's minds. So I think that, as Avilia said, sorry, I'm going off various tangents, as usual, but that. That thing about the chancellor not supporting the very, very aspect that's underpinned an awful lot of keeping us more sane. In other words, people have been turning to movies and to drama and to comedy into music. They've been turning to the arts to get them through. If they turned off YouTube, if they turned off Spotify and itunes if there was no entertainment, and Netflix if there was no entertainment in inverted commas, whatever it is. So I mean, so Richie Sunak is basically, and I'm not criticizing anybody politically here, I'm just basically pointing out that the very, the very fallback that everybody's relying on is not being rewarded or not being recognized to the expectation of those people who create it. And that's interesting. In inverted numbers work quite a lot I think with them. They say they're funding the organizations, but they're not necessarily funding the people who actually create the music or the art or the drama. It's like, you know, I mean, it happened a few years ago even with some of the local authorities. They decided they were going to fund like the office really for the local area. But the music teachers, they weren't going to fund. You're like, well, how are you going to get any music lessons without the actual teachers? And then the teachers have, in a lot of places have got their own little kind of volunteer, not voluntary, sort of like their own self run co op and they have to do everything themselves. There is a sort of office background, but whereas it used to be the office employed all those people, it's suddenly the people who are at the core of it, without which there would be nothing, are taken away from it. So how does that actually work? You know, I do agree that I mean the buildings have got to be maintained, the organizations have got to be maintained or there's nothing to employ the people or to give them outlets for their work. But if there is no work, then there's nothing. It's like record companies, isn't it? I mean there's no, there's no record without the musician who wrote it and the musician who sang it, played it, whatever they did. There is no record. But then again there isn't any outlet for the music if there isn't the record company. So it's trying to keep the balance, I think, so that everybody gets what they need and allow it to happen. Yeah, I think if this situation is not. It's become political because it has to be to a great extent. I know I've got a little bit of naivety going on here, but I think it's first and foremost it's a humanitarian situation we're in and that individuals should be supported. All this thing I need to be really reigning myself in. I'm biting my tongue here as I'm talking. It's 1 foot in the gas and 2ft on the brake, which isn't a good look. But I just, you know, all the things about, you know, mortgages and rents to pay and, you know, gas and electric bills. And I thought, wow, we're just going to get with, like, the wartime effort that our leader refers to. I think there should have been an emotional support system going on. There's so much money going all over the place. There's a lot of magic money trees sprouting up all over the place. I really think that entertainers should have been more supported and to encourage them because there's so many of them that now are totally disheartened and I'm not quite sure. And it's, It's. I had somebody actually on radio a couple of weeks saying, well, you know, it's. It's good for me. I need to find out who. I remember who it was. But it's so good for musicians to have some sort of adverse experiences because that's where some great songs come from. And I don't remember his names. I turned it off. That was. That was enough. That was enough. That was enough for me. If you don't eat for three weeks, you'll appreciate your next meal. You know, what are you on about? So I am. I think we have enough adverse experiences in life without the thing. I haven't over the last few years, because for all musicians and all performers, at some point, there's always a struggle. And I think, as you say, there's so many adverse experiences that something like this lockdown has just given everybody an impetus to look in a different direction, to do things. We do have an example with everybody going to music college, with so much being out there provided for musicians and talent to be developed, there's also become a plethora of performers. If you look at Spotify and now when I listen, it's like you used to buy an album of somebody that used to watch and experience their development. Now if you go on something like Spotify, you don't know who you're listening to, but you'd like a genre of music and they just pump out a genre. But coming back to the essence of culture and what it does for the mental health which you touched upon there. And I do believe that we must make it. And one of my questions was going to be, and I want you to include this in your answer, should it be law, a law that we have culture on our curriculum and past, that we have culture as a part of who we are, as an undercurrent to our general state and mental health and, wellbeing, so that's part of my question. But also music and drama and that world gives us an opportunity to self reflect. It's also a means to motivate and can be a distraction. But also it's wonderful for self reflection. And I know having gone to the theater a number of times, I see a play and it gives you an opportunity to discuss. Whereas at the moment, if you're sitting in front of a tv, very rarely do people discuss. And when they do discuss, they have something like Gogglebox, which is not quite what I'm talking about. So do you think that a law should be made? Do you think it should be that emphatic? Because otherwise they won't notice. And also, are there just too many people that want to make a living out of something that should really be just a part of our lives? What do you think of Iria? Well, that's an interesting one. I definitely think culture should be, you know, various aspects of culture should be definitely part of school curriculums, whatever. And we've gone through phases over years, decades, whatever, where it depends who's in government and whether there's any musicians anywhere near the top and that kind of thing, whether it's taken into account or not. And there are so many studies that show how learning an instrument can help with your concentration in general because you have to concentrate like mad to do anything. You know, it's, it's. So it actually has major benefits in so many ways. And like you say, it's obviously things like self reflecting, motivating, you know, all those kind of distractions, all those kind of things, but they actually have benefits to all sorts of things. You look at some of the, the top science type universities and legal people and stuff. A lot of them play instruments as well because they've got, because they can and they've got that kind of mind that means they can do all of those kind of things. And I just, it just gets. Sometimes with schools it seems that it's all so focused on those particular exams and you know, it gets even more focused bit by bit as far as I can see. It's like we used to have exams and they go learn all this stuff and then you've got an exam. These days the kids are being told, well, learn this specific bit because you're having an exam on that. Well, aren't we supposed to be getting a gradual amount of knowledge that increases as we go, just in general? And yeah, I mean, I think everybody needs to be allowed to express themselves through the arts and you know, I mean, I love teaching adults. I teach some adults at the moment. They're fabulous because they're so motivated. Some of them learnt a bit when they were at school and they've come back to it. Some of them have never learnt and they get so much out of playing, whether it's piano or trumpet or whatever. And I think that is valuable in itself. And we also need people who listen. But sometimes people who play because they know, they understand what goes into it more. You know, you get people who've never played an instrument who don't get any of it. They don't think any of it is what they'd call work. They think you're just messing around and having some fun. And yes, we are having fun, but even equally, we work really hard because you have to, to be able to master your instrument. So I think everything's just so tight together. I mean, everything works to each other. I do think music is really important and I know some people are completely not into it or not into learning, so I don't think they should necessarily be forced into learning an instrument. But having some appreciation of music, for music, for musicians, for artists, dramatists, whatever it comes up with, I think really helps. It helps enhance your own life. I mean, you then go on to read things, or you go to see plays, or you go to see musicals or watch music, listen to musicians or whatever it happens to be. And that most, most people, I would say, enjoy that. I mean, I know I said I like to go in silence, but I do like going out to gigs and I love going to shows and I love going to all these kind of things when I can, so. And I do love music. I mean, I go to various bits of music myself. If I'm sort of stressed about something, there's certain things I will go and play because it helps me. And, you know, sometimes I'll play it myself, sometimes I go listen. So. But yeah, this thing about there. There should be a law that can't be changed, no matter who the government is. Exactly. That would be nice. I just think before you come in and say what you're thinking, Clive, I do think that the experience of learning an instrument, I must say I've always wanted to play an instrument. And whether I'm just too impatient or. Or I just haven't found the right teacher, but. Or never gone down that road. I've not quite mastered sort of an instrument and it would always be a guitar, I think, because it's easy for me to take around. And I used to write Songs that when I was a teenager, that some guys in my college used to perform. And so I love that whole expression and that ability to do it. But I do think, as you say, it's becoming sidelined. We're outsourcing, we're doing all the wrong things. And I think unless you make it emphatic, unless you make it part of the culture where they appreciate it, we are going to lose it. And I think that it's going to be a big tragedy for our psychological health and for our means of expression as an individual. And, you know, I'm a big fan, as you know, of comedy and the individual and how to make people laugh is very much part of the composite of the arts. And I think if you express yourself through music, it's you, your individuality, your soul speaking. And I think it's got to be made much more in our lives that we cannot take it away. It's got to be part of our DNA and our political and social DNA. And do you think that should be emphatic in that way, Clive, without getting political, but just as a part of our. The subtext of our culture? Yes, is the short answer. There you go. I think it should just be a second nature thing. Like you just. From. From, like from school, you just know you're going to be taught English and you're going to be taught arithmetic, and you're going to be taught whatever it is, you know, basic math. There's going to be certain things that are just on the curriculum. They're just, as a matter of fact, a way of life. And for whatever reasons or excuses or blaming, I never embraced an instrument either. It might be the system, the school. It could have been me. It could have been whatever it was, poverty, it could have been anything. Disinclination, embarrassment, whatever. But I just really believe from a very early age that everybody should be given the opportunity to either to learn an instrument or try and learn, or at least understand that it comes naturally to them to play an instrument or just how difficult it is when you see somebody. You know, that's that thing of you eat a piece of music and it'll act like a piece of commercial music. You hear a single, and it lasts for whatever, two and a half, three, three and a half minutes. All right? And it's over. The amount of work that's gone into that little piece of music, the writing, the rewriting, the blood, sweat, tears, the arrangements, the rearrangements, the sacking of somebody, the. The list goes on. Just to create something. Absolutely. I Don't think so. I just think it should be a. It's not something that, you know, we can sort of shoehorn it in now, but I just think an easier way is to have it sort of ground floor level. Because when we pass away, people don't say, oh, like, here's a. Here's this person's favorite painting or their favorite pair of shoes. What they tend to do is. But they tend to. No matter how wonderful and artistic they are, they say, you know, let's remember so and so by these songs that he or she really loved. And the pieces of music seem really. I was after, you know, a while back now, and I just thought, wow, this is what we do. This is what we do. It's this piece of music sums up that person. According to that person, it's entirely personal. And that's what it's. That is what it's all about. And I think hearing the words both you are saying about expanding and expressing, and I just think it is absolutely essential. But just one other thing. When I was a kid, I was born into the Gorbos, a really rough area of Glasgow. I don't remember anything about it really, because my parents managed to get their act together through good fortune and hard work and get the hell out of there. But my first couple of years were there and there's a theatre called the Citizens Theatre, which is very famous theater. Oh, it's my favorite theatre on the planet. I love it. 50p tickets and all that sort of stuff. But they had a production of Lady Macbeth. Just bear with me, I'll make it succinct. And they had David Heyman, who had just been fresh from playing the part of Jimmy Boyle, a really notorious Glasgow gangster who went into rehab and all the rest of it, but basically rehabilitation, I should say. But he was my pal, said, do you want to go and see David Heyman? He's a great actor, you know Jimmy Boyle, Glasgow great, all glamorous sort of stuff. He's in Macbeth, brilliant. And he played the part of Lady Macbeth, who did it traditionally. And he came on in a dress and that had so. From this guy who was walking around. The last time I saw him, he was on. On the screen doing all sorts of horrendous things to people. And there he was running around wearing a dress, looking far more menacing. And it really brought it home to me that no matter who you are, you can change your perception, you can change what you do. And I thought, this is a guy who isn't. He comes from a Rough, tough background. And here he, you know, he'll portray really hard men, and then he's going to portray somebody in a dress, you know, and he's not scared. And I thought, wow, you really. And here I am struggling, trying to learn an instrument or struggling to do things. So it really opened the world to me. And I. So for me, my education, school was an interruption for education. For me, that's really how it was. I learned through my family, my friends, my neighbors, but mainly through. Through the arts. That's how I think I have developed into it, whatever I may be now. It's quite interesting. We were talking about, you know, music, and it takes you like smell does. Takes you back to a time. Music is universal. It's a wonderful creative community. If you go to any country, as you were saying, Avelia, when you went to South America and you join in, into the West Indies and you join in a festival, you just walk in and join in. But as a child, I was put into. I had a very serious illness and I was taken away from my mum, from about. Or my parents. I was 18 months and I was in isolation, literally isolation hospital for three months. And at that time, when I came out, I didn't recognize my mother because she couldn't visit me because she was pregnant with my sister. And my parents are Polish. But she told me the story. She's no longer alive, and she was the most wonderful mother in the world. But as she said, it took her weeks and weeks to turn on that switch where I recognized her. And she eventually sat me on her lap and sang a song to me in Polish. And that's when I recognized her. Wow. That gives you the deepest root for the power of music, the power of the words or the power of this something sensory that is beyond the person and beyond our knowledge. And just whoever you are, it can tap into the depths of your soul. So if I'm talking about that. And I have Polish Christmas songs that I absolutely love that remind me of my mother and my parents, three of them are alive. So is there a song that you tap into Ovelia, that actually resonates with you in the depths of who you are? Oh, my goodness, there is. Best of luck. Keep talking. I'm thinking that I. That I really would struggle. There is so much that, you know, I can listen to one thing and go, oh, that's the piece. And then there's something else. And then there's something else. I. There is so much music that I love out there. The one thing that. That came in my mind though, and it's. It's going to sound completely light and ridiculous in one sense but with my mum, when she used to just sing around the house and stuff, always and when she was really happy, I mean, she'd had quite, quite a difficult time because obviously, as I say, my dad died when we were really little and she was left with a 3 and 1 year old on her own but when she was really happy she just starts singing Zippity Doo Dah and I love that song. She never knew the words, she knew the zippity doo dah bit but that was it. The rest of it was just hum, hum, hum and. And I do know the song now because I do sing it quite often when I do gigs and stuff and I started singing that to my kids once, I can't remember again when they were little my mum got Alzheimer's, their dad left and I was left with a 5 and 1 year old on my own trying to think how the heck am I going to go touring and doing all this when I've got two little kids to look after and no help whatsoever? Which obviously wasn't very easy but when things sort of every now and I think we went to Milken shopping centre, which is nearby once and we. We don't live there, we live in the village but we were coming back and I just sat in the car and started singing Zippity Doodah and they looked at me like I'd gone completely mental. But after a while we sort of. Every now and then I do it and then of course they know it now as well so it's kind of. It's one of those happy songs that makes me think of my mum with her lovely smiley face and, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, it's not a deep song at all but it always makes me think of my mum. So that's. That for me is in one sense quite a big song but there's a lot of other music that as I said, I couldn't. How many days have we got? What about you, Clive? What came into your mind? Well, it's weird. I remember when I first saw color TV and I saw Jimi Hendrix all along the Watchtower and Pink Floyd Set the Controls to the Heart of the sun and color TV absolutely amazed and loads of Beatles stuff. I was born in 62 so that's. I was the youngest of four brothers so I got all their music education but I had those really weird sort of recording. I had a great uncle that saw Al Jolson at Radio City Music hall. And. Yeah. And he gave me a 78 shellac version of Al Jolson singing in Yiddish. And that's. It was weird. I was going through YouTube a couple of weeks ago and you know when you start off with something, you go down a wormhole and you think, I was researching something about wallpaper. Now I found out about. About Genghis Khan, what happened there. And then it was just one thing after another and somehow I got onto an Elvis thing and then suddenly I got onto this Al Jolson singing. I think it was Col Nidri. Wow. And I was just absolutely transfixed. I'd never seen a physical version of it because his father used to sing. He was the cantor in a synagogue. Yes. So that's where you learn what you learned. So I think that's my earliest music memory. And I didn't. I didn't remember that until about two weeks ago thing. It was like, wow, that's that thing. And spoke to my mum and she's found the 78 and I'm going to collect it tomorrow. Oh, fantastic. Yep. I did Jolson in the West End. They did a show called about Jolson with Brian Conley starring. And I was planned for that. So that was great. We're coming to the end, sadly, of this wonderful, wonderful discussion. If there is a song or a piece of music that should unite the world, what would yours be? Avalia. Oh, my goodness. What should I. Oh. What should unite the world? Yeah. Is there a song that we think that could actually just resonate with everybody, that just lifts everybody and speaks to everybody? Oh, my goodness. Do you know, again, I'm really struggling now. That's the sort of thing because I can start thinking certain things and I think that's very English, so maybe not. So I'm just gonna go zip a dee doo dah. I'm just gonna do that. I think we have a winner. It's got to be all you need is love because that did unite 50 years ago. So all you need is love. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful song. And I totally agree. I must say that one of the ones I just loved, Pavarotti singing, you know, Nessen Dorman. Oh, man. Don't take me there. Don't take me there. I know. I think if anybody's listening to this, they might have some other wonderful suggestions. But fundamentally, music does do the trick. Music and the arts and everything is self reflective and also welcoming and it creates a lot of heart in our lives. So thank you both for joining me and Clive and until the next time this is Mind Matters. Thank you, thank you, thank you.