Wedding planning and a new piano

An event of miraculous proportions occured this morning that, along with the appearance of the sun - the big yellow thing in the sky, folks - which is nervously edging its way towards another large dark cloud, has put me in good spirits for this morning's post. Yes blog fans, I spotted a rubbish truck - that is a truck that takes away our rubbish rather than a truck with no engine and scaffy paint or something. These lesser-spotted vehicles are a rare sight in the Scottish Capital and the build up of binbags down every street is making Auld Reekie look like a scene from Children of Men with the lovely Clive Owen, except without the end-of-the-world-running-gun-fights imagery. Check out this for those outside of the EH postcode - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8165451.stm - "some bins have started to overflow"...are you kidding? It's got to almost wading proportions. But spotting the truck gave me some hope. So it is with a glad heart that I write to you this morning.

So the piano chez Wexler has departed and last night we did a bit of note bashing with Helen's super-duper-spangly electronic piano which even transposes songs for you, thereby supporting my theory that one day computers will take over the world. We began the evening with a round of that ever popular children's favourite 'Clare MacDonald had a zoo' led, in her usual indomitable style, by Jen. The sight of the Rudsambee-lets pretending to be owls, flamingos, kangaroos and giraffes confirmed in my mind that either we are totally mad or creative geniuses (I know that isn't the plural, grammar fans, before you write to me in your droves complaining about the dumbing down of Relative Pitch. 'Genii' adds an Aladdin dimension to my already overcrowded description).

Then we started rehearsing the music for Douglas' daughter's wedding. We spent a bit of time getting it all right (obviously this takes only minutes in Rudsambee-world - we are, after all, musical genii - ha!) and then the gentlemen left us (only to go to the next room) while the ladies sang Schubert's Ave Maria. This is at the request of the happy couple but, trust me, when all the female Rudsambee-lets sing it together, in unison, with a couple of comic-warbly-pretending-to-be-opera-stars voices thrown in, it sounded nasty verging on dreadful. As it was written for solo sop anyway, we all volunteered Helen who was, and I quote, "not amused". Suffice to say it will sound spectacular.

Anne may well be playing a bit of organ for this and allusion was made to an occurence involving underwear. Sadly, the story went no further so you can use your own imagination...unless someone can enlighten us.

The Sfogava is coming on pretty well. Last night it sounded particularly beautiful as Maestro Boy sang sop 2...in falsetto. If it all goes horribly wrong, he surely has a career as a counter tenor ahead of him. Singing Monteverdi while laughing uncontrollably at Maestro Boy's incredible sop 2 line brings an added dimension of difficulty to proceedings.

Finally, Rudsambee are on the look-out for some gentlemen...who can sing. If this is you then get in touch. We could do with a tenor and a bass I believe...or indeed a counter tenor.
Job description: must be able to hold a tune, have a willingness to turn his hand to all languages, have a excellent sense of humour, not be allergic to either modern Estonian clashes (in the musical sense rather than the political) or the occasional bit of cheese. Pay scale: you must be joking.
In these credit crunch times of unemployment such a gig surely appeals to some young man.

Have a great week one and all.

CSW