Welcome to “Around the World with Bessy!”
Photo: martincstewart.com
My name is May Halyburton and I am double bass player, teacher, motivator and author! I have always loved music, and as a painfully shy kid, it was my crutch to help get me out of my comfort zone and out into the world! I enjoyed playing piano at primary school but I was desperate to learn an orchestral instrument to play in a group and have an instrument in a case that I could decorate with stickers! Being too impatient to join the waiting list for flute, clarinet and trombone, I jumped at the the chance to have a double bass lesson. I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d signed up for but as I entered the “new music room” out the back of the music department, I knew immediately that I would be spending a lot of my spare time there! The cello teacher there looked rather surprised that I was there for a double bass lesson rather than a cello lesson but he told me all about it and I was hooked. I hurried to my first proper lesson the following Wednesday and learned the open strings and how to play pizzicato. The next week was the bow and as I was about to return to class, my teacher called after me with the following instruction – “The orchestra is on tomorrow. Make sure you are there are 3.55pm!”
I named the bass designated to me (the one with the hole in the shoulder), Bessy. I loved Bessy and together with the help of the lovely 6th year pupil who was an established member of the orchestra, we worked out the first and last note of each piece and on her cue I would proudly make my contribution to the ensemble. Slowly but surely, I filled in the gaps and continue to do so today!
Orchestra was the best thing ever. I made new friends of all ages in school and then as I progressed and got involved in regional and national ensembles, my circle of friends grew ten- fold. All the orchestras toured throughout the UK, Europe and Canada and very soon I realised I had a great love for travel.
The shyness, although still there, started to become much less and my confidence grew. I experienced a bit of bullying as I was quite an easy target. However I had Bessy and with her by my side I learned to stand up to the bullies’ taunts and they soon gave up.
I decided to make music my career and although it wasn’t all plain sailing, with a lot of hard work and the inspiration and help of wonderful teachers and the realisation that it was the only career path I truly wanted to follow. I studied at the RSAMD (now RCS) and in fact I used my idea of performing music with Bessy and accompanying it with a very loose story as I prepared a demonstration piece to introduce the double bass to children for my teacher, Ninian Perry. This worked really well and so, years later, I decided to turn this idea around and write a story with music to accompany it, with the view of providing a resource for my younger pupils.
I wrote the first draft of Part One – Europe when I was living in Mallorca. I played in the symphony orchestra there and at the time, we had quite a lot of free time. I wrote the second draft back in the UK on a train journey home after concerts in Birmingham. I chose some of the tunes I wanted to accompany the story. Then I got stuck. I hid behind the convenience of being busy and shelved the Bessy folder for 9 years.
The unexpected catalyst to get the project up and running was a Dolly Parton concert in Glasgow on the 14th June 2014. I’m not sure exactly how I ended up at the concert as up until then I knew very little about her. However after a colleague said he was going, I booked a couple of tickets for me and a friend and off we went. Wow…what a performer, story teller, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist! I was captivated by her own story and then inspired even further when I learned of her ‘Imagination Library’ project. On June 15th I found the old drafts, started a complete rewrite and called my friend and colleague Lynda Cochrane who immediately agreed to write and arrange the music to go with the story.
The music was originally written for double bass and piano, but the project grew arms and legs and very soon we had music available for all instruments. The wee bedtime story developed so much that now it also has the potential to be a whole nursery/primary school age project!
The second story of Bessy saving up for her next big trip was inspired by our shows in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and our situation of saving up to produce the next suite of books and music. The next big story is being prepared as I write this and so will be available very soon!
Bringing Bessy to life has been a fantastic experience. I have learned many new skills and have met some incredible people, often unexpectedly, and have realised just how important it is to never assume…anything! I have worked hard and am so grateful to friends old and new for their help and support as Bessy has developed from a simple story to a sell-out at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe! This is Bessy’s very first blog and I am so excited to be posting it on our band new website. This new site has been designed as a platform to reach out to kids just like the original Bessy’s young musician (who incidentally covered her bow case with the colourful stickers she had collected!), to encourage them be all they can be through Bessy’s stories and the experience of music.
I strongly feel that every child has the the right to music. It has been proven time and again to be invaluable to our lives. Every milestone we reach involves music, it helps adults and children alike to develop their creativity, boost their confidence, give an outlet to escape from the stress of daily life, help medical conditions such as speech impediments and memory diseases. It soothes the senses and those hard of hearing are still included as they can feel the music. In short it is totally inclusive!
This miracle, wonder drug is also a unifying language. Whatever your nationality, music can be used to communicate and express feelings. I’ll never forget the reaction of one of my pupils, when they discovered that they could play a duet with a new friend made on a school exchange in Malaysia even though neither of them could speak in each other’s language!
In our crazy world today, despite all the research, we have to continually fight to keep music in schools. I feel extremely passionate about this, as without the opportunities made available to me, my life would have been so different. I would probably still be the painfully shy kid but in adult form, feeling as if something is missing. So let’s arm our kids with as much musical knowledge as possible and at as young an age as possible, so that they can demand to continue their education and take a stance themselves. For any politician, I challenge them to witness the excitement in a child’s face when they make their first sounds on their instrument, hear their excitement as they play their first proper piece, receive the text from a happy parent after they take their instrument home and teach the whole family to play the D and E song, then look them in the eye and tell them they can’t do it anymore…
Bessy is not about politics. She is about music. But, she is also about inclusion, kindness and friendship. Do we really need anything else to lead healthy, happy lives?