The week before the big night...

...rather unbelievably we actually have a concert next week. It has sort of appeared from nowhere due, presumably, to the way life speeds up as you get older. When I was six a month seemed to last a couple of years especially if my birthday or Christmas was coming up. Now days run quicker and quicker until life becomes a bit of a blur. And on that philosophical (actually slightly melancholy) note, we begin.

Big thanks to wonderful Claire 2 for stepping so ably into the breach last week. Cheers chick! Well I arrived back from my travels (after a slightly terrifying journey up the legendary Bealach Na Ba and a restful holiday in Wester Ross) and was immediately thrown into the small group piece Miserere Nostri'. Well, it must be said that it was much better than one might have imagined, especially since two of those involved had never sung it before and none of us had sung it for about three years. Perhaps not quite good enough for a concert yet (the sopranos were in perfect canon throughout but we have a tendency to leave everyone else behind), but certainly there is potential.

After a dash of jolly yoga and some silly noise-based warmup led by this Blogstress we embarked upon our pre-concert rehearsal at Priestfield Church. It is always exciting to hear the pieces in an acoustic without so much carpet and last night was no exception. A-L's rather staggering top note in the Tormis (sorry, I regret I cannot tell you which one as in my small mind they all merge together to form one loud Estonian cacophony - that sounds like a a meat-based stew, no? Anyone for a bowl of Estonian cacophony?) sounded particularly brilliant. The Debussy is also coming on and sounded pretty good. We are still perfecting the beginning and Maestro Boy told us to put our tongue on our alveolar ridge (or something like that). That Maestro Boy, what a card! I still have no idea what he was talking about.

Maestro Boy was full of useful advice for his ever-eager followers, including imagining that a Martian was holding a piece of string attached to the tops of our heads. I think it was meant to encourage us to stand tall, but it left me with a scary image of the day the Martians (or indeed any form of extra-terrestrial life) take over our small planet and control us with a length of twine and some well adjusted knots. Terrifying!

What kind of mouth shape should we aim for when singing particularly difficult vowel sounds I hear you cry. Well, I am glad you asked as Maestro Boy had further words of wisdom for us. Apparently you should pout like a duck. No, I found that one difficult to follow too. Do ducks pout? Well, there is a question. I would imagine so, especially when passing full length mirrors or when a particularly handsome mallard with his green plumage waddles by.

His final nugget was directed at the tenors (I believe) during Crucifixus, when he encouraged them to "just wing it". Righto! It must be said that winging an 18th Century piece, in Latin, in 8 parts is slightly easier said then done, but I think the words of advice were welcomed anyways.

So with a week to go the Rudsambee-lets are looking forward to a great gig at the Portrait Gallery next Thursday. There are a number of good reasons why you should come:

1) It is straight after work at 6.
2) It is a nice building with a rather startling acoustic.
3) It is free (bargain, you can't get cheaper than that blog fans).
4) The music will be good.
5) We are beginning with two Tormis pieces which, for an audience, is a little like jumping into a cold Scottish loch in March - a bit of a shock but ultimately satisfying and exhilarating.
6) Apparently there's some art nearby in case you're early.

So we'll see you all there then. The week after is one of our infamous Rudsambee parties. Robin (who will soon be moulding the finest minds of the young generations - congrats on getting into teaching training, pal!) and I will be bringing Guitar Hero along. Oh yes, the photographs courtesy of Chief Blog Editor are sure to be spectacular.

Until next week, when in all likelihood you will get two posts for the price of one. As this blog is free, that is not a great deal of outlay for you!

CSW

More Blogstuff by Claire2

Firstly, Blog-friends, I feel I should mention that tomorrow today (March 19th) is the birthday of our Great Leader and should, therefore, be a day off for Rudsambeeites and their faithful followers. Perhaps we should present a petition to this end (or to parliament, whichever is easier). I’m sure Authority would be sympathetic to our cause. Don’t ask me for his exact age as I’m not sure. Let it simply be said that he is very young indeed but wears the cloak of responsibility like the old man he closely resembles. (A joke G.L. if you are reading this, a small jest in honour of your special day!)

I do know the exact age of Jenny’s mother – to the year anyway, if not the day. She is... no, I shan’t say. How rude that would be. Anyway, she is not too old to do 80 sit-ups every morning, which is extremely impressive and led to some discussion about stomachs and bouncing balls but the less said about that, the better.

There were no cows or choir-socks in evidence tonight but a large frog made his (her?) debut as breath-control instructor. Unfortunately for this well-travelled but interestingly reticent amphibian the demonstration involved being squashed under a tray depressed by Sebastian’s large foot (his small one would have nothing to do with such cruelty). Once the pressure was removed, the flattened frog puffed back up and thus illustrated how we should breathe in, in a relaxed, unlaboured fashion. Chris pointed out, somewhat querulously, that he had stood on a frog once (perhaps it had failed to turn into a prince and required punishment) but that it hadn’t bounced back...

We were slightly down on numbers tonight – I presume everyone missing had a good excuse, hmmm? – but worked quite hard all the same, preparing for out Portrait Gallery concert on April 2nd. (Is that the right date? Don’t have my diary to hand. Or my memory, it seems). At one point Ollie had us stamping and clapping and huh-ing and hey-ing, adding and subtracting movements and sounds and thoroughly testing our co-ordination skills. The results were amusing to say the least – from where I was standing, anyway. (The basses: bless them!) I do feel however, and have often suggested, that we should add some dancing to our repertoire. A few of our pieces are crying out for choreography. Really. For one blissful moment tonight I thought Ollie had decided to go for it - but no. No-one ever listens to me.

Claire 1, diva-extraordinaire, (who seems to think that I will just stand in now whenever she has better things to do than blog – or, indeed, attend rehearsal) will return with her ready wit and much better eye-for-detail and ear-for-the-ridiculous next week but thank you, all, for listening/reading. Until my next opportunity, this is your replacement blogetteer signing off and sending love and kisses as luvvie people do xx

'We'll just have to go for three encores'

...the reaction, blog fans, to Maestro Boy's set list for the Portrait Gallery concert which is long, considering it is only supposed to be half an hour. And to top it off we are dusting down good ol' Misere Nostri. I must admit I balked slightly the suggestion of resurrecting this one; my most nervous moment as a Rudsambee-let was just before a gig in Lochcarron (I believe) when this testing little piece made me feel sick and shaky. However, I now have Helen on the top line with me and feel much less concerned. We'll see how we go with this one. The set list contains a lot of Tormis, a wee bit of Part jolliness and the Gaelic set!

Well, I must make a mention of Oliver2's rather brilliant musical socks. They have treble clefs on them and everything, although they don't actually sing. We more than made up for the lack of warbling foot fashion with our own musical fun.

It was a night noticeable for Anne's madness (which I promised not to mention but in my commitment to investigative journalism...). It was rather funny as, and anyone who knows her will vouch for this, Anne ALWAYS knows what she is doing, what is going on and EXACTLY what note we are singing at any given moment. Trust me, if it weren't for Anne a number of us would still be wandering around the Czech countryside, struggling across train tracks with nothing but a bottle of strong drink and a chocolate wafer treat as companions. However last night she excelled herself by being the only Rudsambee-let who couldn't work out where on earth we were going from in 'Green Fir Forest'. Cue much hilarity.

In fact it was a night of laughter as we returned to Envoi (that wacky one about butterflies where the second sops slowly pass out as they do that strange breathing thing towards the end - surely composer Betinis was a disgruntled alto or a cocky top sop to put that one in). We did a wee bit of practice on the soprano melody (I do indeed use that word loosely). When I suggested that the second sops had always made a particular phrase up, I was proved unswervingly correct (a rare experience, blog fans!), as we descended into musical rubbishness and Jen laughed like a drain (I don't know if I've ever shared this on Relative Pitch, but this phrase concerns me - I have never seen a laughing drain and feel I am missing out. [Susan kindly offers this]). Eventually we cracked it but not until we had been duly awarded the Most Pathetic Divas Award 2009.

We finished in true Groundhog Day style in exactly the same way as last week - the small/large group singing Star of the County Down. Jen seemed to sing something about the Nile at one stage. I may be wrong but I am not sure that the longest river in Africa (a bit of general knowledge for you there - I'll give you that for free, put your money away!) has anything to do with this traditional folkie number. As up-and-coming-blogstress Claire 2 said, the piece may well be improved with some stereotypical Egyptian moves - I'll leave you to imagine that one.

Last night we also welcomed Natalie back after her sabbatical. Great to see you lady. Anyways, I am away next week so hopefully Claire 2 will stand in and write something profound, thought-provoking and potentially life-changing. Brillig!

CSW

'The problem with the French is that we all have an opinion'

So we begin this evening's post with a quotation from our hostess with the mostess, Susan. Great line! She didn't mean, I hasten to add, that we all have an opinion about the French (e.g. that they wear stripy jumpers, cook perfectly and own a number of stylish berets) but rather about the French language. She is right of course, as last night's conversation illustrated. After a brief sing through of the Debussy I decided to head for a wee comfort break. As I left the room a discussion arose as to the correct way to say regarder. Upon rejoining the rehearsal the conversation was still in full flow and no definitive answer had yet been reached. Apparently we should watch our dipthongs. Now I don't even know what a dipthong is, but I will endeavour to keep an attentive eye on it.

So we began our rehearsal with a jazzed up version of the Jungle Book classic I wanna be like you led by our own King of the Swingers, Arno. Genius! We then spent a long while on our Chinese piece, Green Fir Forest. Mostly, I must admit, we battled with the words which are complicated to say the least. Fortunately we don't have as many opinions about Chinese as we do about French so screaming arguments about polite discussion on the subject of correct pronunciation was kept to a minimum, with conversation largely dominated by questions like "is 'e' pronounced 'ee' or 'e' or 'uh'?". You get the general drift. Anyways, we are making quite good progress with this one all in.

We then moved on to the Debussy. Jen said that the sopranos "are very smooth". I think she meant musically or at least rhythmically, but I would suggest that our smoothness extends to our general demeanour. Anyway, we are finally starting to add some dynamics to this which must mean we are increasing in confidence.

And finally we listened to the small group version of Star of the County Down [NB we sound better than this]. I have heard wafts of this over the weeks but last night was the first time we experienced it in all its jazzy wonderment. It must be said though that these Rudsambee-lets haven't quite got the hang of the 'small group' concept. There were only five of us in the audience so actually the small group is, well, a large group! This group (affectionately now christened 'Rudsamwee' by this blogstress. Genius!) did a great job of this folky number and Robin even said it made him proud to be Irish (I think he wiped a tear from his eye, sipped at his Guinness and danced a short jig at this point but I couldn't be sure).

We ended the evening's revelries by flying two remote controlled helicopters around the living room. They were a little like two giant bugs I was chased by once across a car park in Kenya, so I must admit I was a little afeared. Helen was excellent at it though and definitely won my prize...if I had a prize...which I don't.

Anyways, that's all for now lads and lasses (goodness I had a Preab san ol moment there). Apologies to both the French and the Irish this evening as I appear to have made crass generalisations about both our two closest neighbours - good one C. I'm off to listen to John Wetton loudly through my new ipod speakers. Nice...

CSW