Friday 6 February 2009

"Lower and meatier"

Not tonight's dinner, blog fans but an apt description of Rudsambee's bass section (from Maestro Boy no less and he should know being an all-round musical genius and all). Firstly, gargantuan apologies for the lateness of the post folks. Life has been beyond chaotic and last night (when I should have been coming up with my usual mix of enlightening reportage and humourous quips) I fell asleep on my sofa after a falafel dinner while listening to Dave Gilmour's dulcet tones. Hereby ends my excuse.

So back to Wednesday night, then. Rach led our warm up which was a very jolly affair and found us balancing our folders on our heads (I've lost mine currently so I had to borrow one from ex libris Wexler) while standing on one leg and singing My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean. Yes, it would only happen in Rudsambee. I am quite sure the King's Singers don't begin their rehearsal times in such a manner.

We spent much time on the Debussy this evening, all crammed round the piano. It is actually beginning to sound like a song (I know - unbelievable, huh!), as long as we count! We then moved on (as is our wont at present) to Cloudburst. This is fast turning into my highlight of the week (sorry this blog is moving slowly tonight; I am struggling to type due to sore guitar fingers. You know, played it 'til my fingers bled back in the summer of '69). A-L and I worked out that my joy in choir is directly proportional to the amount of Eric Whitacre we sing. This piece is beginning to sound great. And tonight we reached that bit we've all been waiting for - the 7 sopranos. As mentioned last week (week before, week before that... oh I don't know, they all just merge together at present) there is a point in this piece when the sopranos have to split into seven. Goodness, is the world of musical creativity ready for such a vocal experiment. Well, I am just glad I'm not singing the top line. A-L counted the amount of different notes in one chord at this point in the piece - 15! Yes, 15 blog fans. Now that is... well... it's a lot.

That's it for tonight ladies and gents. My left hand index finger is still aching. Hope everyone has a jolly weekend. We'll see you next week.

CSW

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