Well, another week, another rehearsal a la Rudsambee. Tonight I am going to try and mention
We began last night in usual surreal fashion by singing a song about pigs and dogs to the Blue Peter tune led by Douglas. All very jolly, and caused muchos hilarity for Josh and Connor (Jen’s two munchkins), who graced us with their presence last night and behaved impeccably. Nice to see you boys!
Although much of the evening was spent on ‘that page’ of the aforementioned Whitacre number, we did concentrate on our new Czech song and the Vaughan Williams, Spring Time of the Year (which Helen rather hilariously referred to as Springtime for Hitler which does indeed change the general demeanour of the song – I’m hoping that everyone got that little cultural reference otherwise you may well be a little concerned about the political convictions of the Rudsambee-lets. Rest assured we are all firmly indifferent to all political parties, especially at present). Both these pieces are starting to sound rather good and we did the first verse and chorus of Jede Sedlak without copies. I for one laa-ed my may through the first chorus but it came back to me as we went along. We also learned the second verse led (in our Slovak-expert Kay’s absence) by Mummy Elaine who, as well as knowing a great deal about music named after sweeties, has also, and I quote “sung a few operas in Czech” over the years. Are there any limits to this lady’s talents? Suffice to say we didn’t do the second verse without music, rather we mumbled along trying to work out how the words could possibly fit in and hoping against hope that the Reid Hall won’t be full of our Eastern European friends for the premier. Our pronunciation may well leave something to be desired!
Comment of the night award (a much cherished accolade…I judge this by the sheer amount of ridiculous things said during a Wednesday night rehearsal) goes to Oliver2. After we took yet another stab at page 7 of Cloudburst and suffered one of those Maestro Boy eyebrow moments (see previous posts), our venerable Editor asked whether the tenors were sharp or flat that time. Oliver 2’s response? “Wasn’t it just the wrong note?” Genius, I salute thee!
We concluded the evening (or at least Douglas, A-L, Natalie and I concluded the evening) finding a gun-like object in the Wexler’s front room. Various suggestions were made, but our eventual conclusion was that it was a gadget for demagnetising cows. A useful device if ever I saw one. If the Chief of Lothian and Borders Police ever takes time out of his busy crime-beating schedule to read this blog (I am assured, BTW, that he probably does) then I believe said instrument was a glue gun, though you might want to look into it further. I have suspected for a while that the Wexler house might be a criminal hangout. I’ll keep you informed about that. [Chris says: The 'gun' generates static to remove dust and grime from the grooves of LPs, but you're clearly too young to know about these things. Vinyl? About 12" across? Played with a needle rather than a laser? Oh, never mind...]
CSW
Her's a non-bursty Whitacre piece, led by the man himself. Our Esteemed Leader swears we will never perform it...
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