Transcript of Nick Cody interview with Phil Doleman
nick cody: Hi, this is Nick, and I’m here with the mighty Phil Doleman
Phil Doleman: Hello, nice to see you, Nick.
nick cody: Good to see you, Phil. Down in Belper. I thought, seeing as I have the opportunity to talk to Phil, I’d talk to him about the very many things that he’s involved in, starting off with the new book, which has been out for how long?
Phil Doleman: It was released at the end of August.
nick cody: Okay.
Phil Doleman: How Music Works On The Ukulele, yeah.
nick cody: What inspired you to write How Music Works On The Ukulele?
Phil Doleman: Well, at workshops lots of people were asking me, “Can you recommend a music theory book? Because I want to learn a bit more about this theory, but I don’t want to have to learn to play the piano or read music.” And I couldn’t recommend anything. There was just nothing that talked about theory and how all this stuff worked together, but was mainly aimed at chords, which is what ukulele players are playing most of the time, and didn’t involve having to learn all of the sort O level music stuff. That’s where it came from really, more of an accessible version of the music theory.
nick cody: What sort of interest have you had since you’ve launched it?
Phil Doleman: It’s gone crazy. I think I’ve sold almost 700 copies with no advertising, and the only other places it’s been available is through World Of Uke shop, the rest of it has sold direct from me. No budget, no nothing. Just Facebook posts and that’s it, yeah.
nick cody: Well, clearly people are enthused.
Phil Doleman: Yeah.
nick cody: I know that with the uke, we’ve talked a lot about this, a lot of the time people have this idea that it’s an easy instrument to play.
Phil Doleman: Yeah, well, the funny thing about playing an instrument is, there’s two aspects to it. There’s the physical thing of playing an instrument and then there’s music. Music is the same whether you’re playing a tenor guitar or a banjo or a ukulele or whatever. Music is the same. The rest of it is taking what’s in your brain or what you hear, and turning it into music via whatever medium you choose, whatever instrument you choose. Yeah, it’s pretty easy to pick up a uke and show someone a couple of chords, and unlike the violin, if I strum a C chord or anyone I’ve just shown strums a C chord, they’ll sound like anybody else strumming a C chord. Whereas, a violin, you go through that screechy phase of producing a tone. Beyond that, it’s just as hard to play music on any instrument, because it’s much more about music than it is about the instrument. People know me as a ukulele player, but they’ve just seen me playing … And you as a ukulele player and you’re playing a tenor guitar and I’m playing a tenor banjo.
nick cody: I’ll be lynched. He’s moved over to the Dark Side.
Phil Doleman: But these are not tuned like ukuleles, these are completely different instruments. But if you understand how notes work together to make chords and how chords work together to make song it’s actually quite easy to get to grips with another instrument and fit those same notes together in the same way. If you’ve got an understand of how music works. That’s the title!
nick cody: So for people watching this, and they’ve got that ukulele, they’re happily playing their certain number of cords and may be part of a ukulele club, but they want to progress and develop. What would your core advice be for people like that?
Phil Doleman: I think you’ve got to develop your ear, and I think people concentrate far too much on this aspect and this aspect. So you’ve got develop your ear, and the only way to do that is to listen a lot, and really listen, not just have music on, but listen to it and think to yourself while listening, “What’s happening? Can I do that? Or if I’m playing that song already, do I do it like that? Or is there something different from what I’m hearing to what I’m playing?”
That’s how you develop the ability to jam with other people. Like, we were just playing together then, I mean, that’s not something we’ve played together before other than just quickly going, “How does it go?”
nick cody: About an hour ago.
Phil Doleman: Yeah, it’s that. So, it’s the idea of listening, and hearing it in your head, and then being able to… I think the easiest way to develop your ear is to sing.
nick cody: Yeah.
Phil Doleman: And a lot of people who play are a bit frightened of singing, because maybe they’ve been told that they can’t sing, or they’ve just never done it with any, it takes a certain amount of confidence. But if you can hear something, and then sing it, then it’s in there, it’s got as far as there and this apparatus, we’ve already had a lifetime to learn how to use to turn something we can hear there to something here. So, that’s quite easy.
The hard bit is turning something that you hear there to something coming out to your instrument.
nick cody: Yeah.
Phil Doleman: But if you can sing it, you’ve done the first bit, which is actually quite hard I think. So sing!
nick cody: I think there’s a lot of truth to that. As somebody whose previously was not a singer, and I’ve had my first ukulele lesson years ago with my dear friend and co-performer, Small Change Diaries Jessica, who said in the first lesson, “Let’s sing a song!” And I went, “WOO!” In shock.
But I have to say it absolutely does something in the brain to pay more attention, without fail.
Phil Doleman: And if you think about all of the jazz greats, who are playing instruments that they don’t have to blow, will come along, and sing along, with all of you. If you listen Thelonious Monk play the piano, he’s singing and humming to himself as he’s doing it. If you listen to people like Jim Mullen on guitar or people like that, even if they’re not singing out loud, you kind of see their lips moving a little bit, and that’s because they’re not going, “Oh, that sounded nice.” They’re actually going, “I want to make this sound,” and singing helps to get that idea out of their brain and out into the world.
And you would see other people like George Benson who will play mind-blowing guitar solos and sing them at the same time.
nick cody: Yeah.
Phil Doleman: And you know then that he is completely in control of his instrument, because what’s coming out of here is matching what’s coming out of here.
nick cody: Yeah.
Phil Doleman: It’s all about listening and that’s what music is. People forget that quite often. It’s just vibrations in the air and how you create them is completely up to you, and what instrument you use.
nick cody: I hear you’re back playing with Ian.
Phil Doleman: Absolutely, yes! [crosstalk 00:07:30]
nick cody: Duo gigs all over from what I’ve been seeing.
Phil Doleman: And it’s such great fun to do it again, because most people know Ian as uke player, but for a long time before that he was a guitarist and quite a busy, successful guitarist, and it’s so great to have… we’ve always had that kind of chemistry where we just play and kind of lock in together, and that is something that is actually quite hard to learn. But if you find someone it works with it’s great, and it’s lovely for me because Ian’s just, he is my entire band. So he’s my drummer and my bass player and my guitarist all rolled into one. Which means I can relax, and I can just do stuff over the top of that, and that Ian’s always going to back me up all the time on that. And, he’s also a harmony singer, so it’s lovely to have a little bit of vocal harmony come in, and just lift the vocals a little bit. But yeah, we’re having great fun with it.
And the stuff we play now, it’s so loose that we don’t have to play the same thing every time. We can surprise each other, we can throw little things in as and when we feel like it. Change the tempo of the song, change the feel of the song, and just go with it, which is a lovely thing to be able to do.
nick cody: Well, I didn’t know him so much, I knew him sort of as playing with you, because I saw him play Good Enough last year.
Phil Doleman: Yeah.
nick cody: But I saw some clips on YouTube, and I was like, “Oh my God!” He can play any Jazz stuff. [crosstalk 00:08:54]
Phil Doleman: Oh, absolutely.
nick cody: He can sing! So I was really, not that I was underestimating Ian if you’re watching this, I’m not underestimating you, but I thought, “Oh my God!” I mean, he is solid, solid performer.
Phil Doleman: Oh absolutely, he’s one of those guys. It’s just like we were talking about there. An amazing ear. So, when it comes to rehearsal time for a new song, we don’t ever go through the whole, “Let’s write this, let’s work it out.” It’s like, “What key is it in? Play it.” By the time we’ve around it once, he’s there. By the time we’ve gone around four or five times, he’s got so really some really nice little bass runs or little interesting bits. And, as he will tell anybody, what takes, then it takes six weeks before we can perform it, because I can’t remember words. But if there were no words to remember we could do a song one day and perform the next. And that’s Ian’s trick whether he plays the guitar or the uke, an incredible good ear. I think that’s something that a lot of players, it never occurs to them to think how to listen to stuff, which is important.
nick cody: And I hear you are also doing stuff overseas now as well.
Phil Doleman: Yes, I was lucky enough to go to the West Coast Ukulele Retreat last year, I’m going back again this year. It’s an amazing experience, there’s like anything I’ve been to in the UK. It’s not a festival, it’s truly a retreat for a relatively small number of people, around about a 100 people.
nick cody: Okay.
Phil Doleman: Who stay there for several days, this year there’s actually an extra day for people that want it. So it would be from Tuesday to Sunday, and it’s full time table. You get up in the morning share your meals with all the students. You have breakfast and then you go and teach, and you coffee and then you teach, and then you have lunch together and then you teach, and then by the time you get to the evening they’ll be some kind of evening event, but you will be… if you’re not… not so much performing, more facilitating other people performing. So might in the house band for other people, or you might be working on some way of backing up people to encourage them to get up to see sing songs you’ve worked with them during the day.
One things we all had is all the chiefs just have a band, and you teach the band that song.
nick cody: Oh wow.
Phil Doleman: An arrangement, and you train them. But then, they go and perform it in the evening. It’s very, very hard work, but it’s really rewarding and it’s unlike anything I’ve done in the UK.
nick cody: Wow.
Phil Doleman: Plus, you get to the West Coast of America and go to San Francisco.
nick cody: Not to shabby!
Phil Doleman: No! It’s a nice place to go, it’s gorgeous!
nick cody: So, if people want to find out about what’s happening in the world of Phil Doleman what’s the best way for them to do that.
Phil Doleman: The website is phildoleman.co.uk, all one word, and you find me on Facebook, I’ve my own page but I’ve also got Phil Doleman music page on Facebook. And, yes, all of those have all the gig lists and the workshops and things like that, and also if come along to a festival, next one is going to Grand Northern Ukulele Festival at the beginning at May. And I’m at a lot of festivals, and just come and say hello, and accost at a festival somewhere and take it from there.
nick cody: Well, thank you so much for chatting to us.
Phil Doleman: Always a pleasure mate, always a pleasure.
nick cody: Cheers.
Phil Doleman: Cheers.