Musos invited to add to Lockdown Hymn Book

With Covid-19 confining people to their homes, we're looking at how locals are adapting everyday activities for the lockdown.

Mike Tweed reports on how a Whanganui musician is recording and collaborating from his home.

Dayle Jellyman, part of the prominent Jellyman musical family in Whanganui, has been forced to curtail his many musical projects and self-isolate with his wife at home in Wellington.

With the outbreak of Covid-19, Jellyman's upcoming gig calendar was suddenly empty, and he found himself sitting at his piano at home instead.

With a rare bit of time on his hands, Jellyman wrote "a really simple, nice piece of music", and dubbed it the 'Lockdown Hymn Book'.

"I was just sitting at my piano and thinking about how we just have to release ourselves to the current situation and realise that there's not a whole lot we can do about it," he said.

A piece of driftwood with a face carved into it sits on top of his piano, and this turned out to be an unlikely "muse" during his hymn writing process.

"It was looking down on me as I was plinking away, so I dubbed it 'the All-Seeing Stickhead',"Jellyman said.

"In a weird way, I was secretly hoping it had thought of a way out of this awful thing we're all dealing with at the moment."

Jellyman's original idea was to release a new 'hymn' every few days, then he thought of inviting musicians to record their own version of his original piano piece and "see where it goes".

His younger brother, Hamish, has already provided a trombone part from his isolation bubble in Aramoho, which is available to watch on Youtube.

Jellyman said he hoped to see his original piano part "branch out" and encouraged other people to "take this simple piece of music and create something completely new." All instruments and ideas are welcome, and "anyone, anywhere" is invited to contribute.

"In a way, it simulates a live performance," Jellyman said.

"I just release a video, and someone replies 'here's one I did', then I edit it and throw it online."

"It could end up in a brass band version, then a noise musician could pick it up and turn it into something completely different."

Jellyman plays in numerous outfits in Wellington, including the Darren Watson Band, The Electrons, Miles Calder, and his own psych synth project, Three Rays, with acclaimed New Zealand drummer Darren Mathiassen.

"It's going to take a while for the music scene to get back to normal," Jellyman said.

"Hopefully Stickhead and I can offer a little bit of collaboration in the meantime."

For more information on the Lockdown Hymn Book project, visit facebook.com/LockdownHymnBook.

Mike Tweed
Whanganui Chronicle 3/4/20