Post-concert, Post-party, Last of 2010 (aaagh!)

So.

I promised a post-concert update and then decided that I might as well wait ‘til after the Christmas party, which is why I’m writing now and not three days ago. I am slightly sluggish of brain this morning (no, not due to excess alcohol) – that first sentence took me about five minutes to construct, two and a half minutes per letter, oh dear – and I suspect that this will be a very s...l...o...w process. But here’s hoping I have something to send you before the day is out for I have so much still to do in the way of present purchasing and tree sourcing and food buying and mince-pie making and cake baking and, most important of all, hair-do appointment attending (your faded-looking blogetteer is badly in need of beautification (as far as humanly possible anyway)), that if I fail I fear you may have to wait until New Year to hear about the aforementioned festive activities. Which already have that hazy, misty halo of something lovely too quickly forgotten. Which means this blog is probably not going to enlighten you very much. Which inevitably means deep disappointment. Which means I don’t deserve the present I received last night in recognition of my status as official Rudsambee Bloggetteer. Which was most unexpected, by the way. Which.

We, as I think I mentioned last blog, had to face the disappointment of a cancelled Rosslyn Chapel concert and much wasted hard work, the St Giles effort being so much shorter and so many well-rehearsed songs having to be put to one side, but we stormed into our one and only Christmas concert this year (yes, only one instead of the usual four – how bad is that?) all guns blazing and managed to get at least ten enthusiastic people lurching to their feet at the end (Quite an achievement when you think about it because if I had guns blazing at me I’d be diving for the floor). Jenny was counting the stander-uppers – loudly – and luckily there was significant applause or those still attached to their seats may have felt obliged to leave them, her manner of comment verging on the petulant, and one only wants genuine plaudits after all.

We were joined by our former holy-high-one, Helen, who had managed to escape the hurly-burly horrors of London Town for the weekend and came to sing with us. She didn’t know all the songs but seemed to manage to sing them anyway. Another pesky, show-offy sight-reader. The world seems to be full of them. I was delighted to be able to sing all the way through O Morgenstern without making a fool of myself by squeaking on the high notes – all that happened was the said notes were a little slow in coming out but when they appeared they did so smoothly and joined those already being sung by the other altos without making a spectacle of either themselves or me. There were the usual sticky moments though we all seem to have identified different ones which suggests that the concert was a mess which it wasn’t. Several people think the new African piece was the most malicious tripper-upper but my own personal nemesis for some reason was Dormi Jesu which I actually know off-by-heart but which seemed to go out-of-control for a few bars at one point and, as usual, I felt like it was all my fault though it may not have been. No idea what happened there but something nasty did. I’m not sure many people noticed. I hope not.

Tricky old (new) Jajang went very well, I think. I daresay we were all terrified and concentrating really hard. The faces may well have been a picture – I would like to have been watching – but as long as the sound was OK and the grimaces not too distracting... Our Natalie was actually sitting in the audience having decided not to sing as she’d missed so many rehearsals but she was no good as a commentator on appearance as she listened to the whole thing with her eyes closed. No doubt a sensible move. Many illusions could be undone by the untimely twitching of an eye-lid.

St Giles was warm and welcoming as usual (We would have had the welcome but not the warmth at Rosslyn. It is quite nice not to have to try and sing with chattering teeth and violent shivers to interfere with voice production). It was also pleasantly full - even more so than usual - which seemed to take our newbies by surprise. We may be a small choir but we do manage to get a large audience whenever we ‘do’ St Giles – I remember being quite overcome by the sight of so many people my first time there but they are a friendly, appreciative lot and not at all scary. Elaine and Alison were both there, as well a throng of other ex-Rudsambeeites – lovely to see them – and Elaine joined us for the post-concert feeding session at Vittoria’s so we had a chance to catch up a little with her life –after-Rudsambee. And we sang The Irish Blessing at her. She wasn’t allowed to escape it. She may have imagined that she was safe in a public place. Ha! Wrong.

Onto last night’s party which was woefully badly attended due to colds (man-flu, I mean), over-indulgence at lunch-time office Christmas parties and... exams (Exams??? – Should that ever prevent partying? Ever? I have an uncomfortable feeling we have let someone conscientious into the Rudsambeee ranks). Those of us who made it made it in style. Christopher wore a suit. You may think you need to visit an optician but no. A SUIT. With long trousers and everything. Even a tie. He looked remarkably smart. And very nearly grown-up. Behm wore a tie too. So did John. His had hieroglyphics on. Anne and Jenny sported their ball-gowns. I was sure that our rapidly shrinking Jen would be tumbling out of her dress this year but she assured me that certain parts of her anatomy are a large as ever and would keep everything in place. She was right, I’m glad to say.



Food, as always, excellent. Highlight for me – and not a few others – was Behm’s corn bread which was really cake but which we ate as a savoury (which may be how you’re supposed to do it – it worked anyway) – it was delicious. I think it should become a staple of our pot-luck parties. For as long as we have his company, anyway. John’s mulled wine was, as ever, very, very good indeed and a great time was had by all.

There was a great deal of conversation. I know there was. And much of it very amusing. I remember being rude about the tenors. More than once. I remember unsuitable-for-the-dinner-table subject matter but have no recollection of details. I do remember discussing nappies and the ecological impact thereof, potty-training and the dietry idiosyncrasies of an underweight mother with Kay. Perhaps anybody who reads this and regards this section as very poorly executed – which it most certainly is – could fill it out a bit with those all important particulars I seem to have forgotten, as usual. Not, I reiterate, due to the ravages of excess alcohol but because I only ever remember things these days if I make a special effort to do so and I wasn’t on duty last night - even if I should have been in order to earn my Christmas present; for which many thanks and I really do not deserve it.

Jenny is the buyer and distributor of pressies and did her job with her usual kind words and charm. I do hope she bought herself something as a thank-you present for a job well done. I was overcome to receive another gift – this time for the CD cover design – even more undeserved than the one for Chief Blogetteer. What a lucky woman I am. What a lovely choir Rudsambee is and what fun it has been to keep you (lot) informed about its goings-on.

So – that’s it for this year. Happy Christmas every one.

Here’s to a stellar 2011 (gulp!) xx

xx

Oh Woe and Lack-a-day!

or – The Unveiling of the True Disposition and Intentions of the Erstwhile Angel
Jenny Fardell

Never was Blogetteer so deceived! You may remember my lyrical appreciation of the aforementioned Rudsambeeite in last week’s blog. She had the grace to e-mail her thanks for my kindness but having done so used the same communication to admit – and I quote:

...Had you left your drink within my reach I would have glugged it down pretending I hadn’t realised. And I wouldn’t have been sorry... not one jot...

(I even counted the number of ellipseses so you can be sure I have allowed you an entirely veracious glimpse into her dubious and disappointing character).

Now I have opened your eyes, as mine have been opened so cruelly, we move onto the second disappointment of the week: our concert at Rosslyn Chapel, long-awaited because for years we have been unable to get access to the place due to building work, has been summarily cancelled because of the weather and the subsequent safety issues. As the temperature inside has registered as low as -10 recently it has to be said that the decision to cancel is probably a fair one but this means we will have only one chance to show off all our hard Christmas-music training (hard music/hard work, both) which is a little gutting to say the least. (The likelihood is that our trip to Cranshaws will have to be called off too as the roads are impassable I believe, and thaw or no thaw, are unlikely to be much better by next weekend. I think we’re due more of the white icy stuff on Monday, too, which cannot be said to bode well for a venture into the Borders).

As a result of this (and the difficulty of negotiating the pavements and by-ways of Edinburgh) numbers were rather down at Wednesday’s rehearsal. Anne was stuck out in Balerno, Douglas in Biggar, Harriet in France. Yes, France and not of the ‘Little’ variety either. Real, true, militant, over-the-water France. Other missing persons were, presumably, tucked up safe and warm at home and who can blame them with the temperature dropping and the ice underfoot? We were rehearsing at Priestfield again in order to be at concert-readiness but there was considerably less to get through as the programme for St Giles is so much shorter than for Rosslyn. We had an added Alto as Sebastian had brought a friend along (sorry, missed her name – how hopeless am I? I don’t think I’ve ever been able to remember the name of a visiting stranger... perhaps if they were normal rather than strange... – Chris usually helps out by inserting the correct information [Heike was her name] before posting the blog. What would I do without him?). The lady in question is obviously a good sight-reader as she seemed to be singing along quite happily to most things. I am always enormously impressed by this sort of confidence and would like to have it. As well as the ability to retain information concerning people’s identity.

We sang through most of the material for Sunday’s concert, changed a couple of programmed items, improved quite a bit. Copies of the new CD were handed out, some of the Rosslyn ticket money refunded. Then it was back out into the slippery stuff and slippery it was indeed and so, on the way home, over I slipped! No damage to anything but my dignity – if ever I am to land on my bum you can be sure I will do it when there are lots of people about to witness the occurrence.
This was going to be a short pre-blog. It is a little longer than intended. Lucky you.

More after the concert: Sunday 12th, St Giles Cathedral, 6pm. Be there. Get a CD.



[p.s. Our humble blogstress is being overly humble as usual. The aforementioned CD, a flea in the ear features a cover designed by her fair self. Words, music and scribbles? How overtalented she is!]

Brrrrr!

OK now, so enough’s enough, don’t you think? Very pretty and all that (actually, my garden’s gone beyond pretty, being just one huge mound of undisturbed snow with a twig or two poking out to remind me what is supposed to be out there) but now I’d like it to stop, thank you.

We were slightly down on numbers last night, as you may imagine, but all the altos made it – including Natalie1, returned from her lengthy travels – so we were in the majority for once and the sopranos looked very feeble. (Notice I don’t say ‘sounded’ - too libellous for words!) Anne managed to struggle in from Balerno although, as far as I can make out, she had to leave at dawn in order to arrive on time and was planning to bunker down with the Wexlers for the night rather than attempting to return home. That’s dedication beyond the call of duty for you but we can always rely on Anne for that as well as for being the best tuning-fork around. (Add to this the fact that she is willing to make litres of mulled apple juice for the warming of the multitudes at our Rosslyn concert and you will see that she is thoroughly indispensable).

John had the liquor cabinet open in an extremely generous and welcoming manner and was doling out snifters of whisky and sloe gin. I got a glass of the gin but unfortunately had to ask for it as he managed to miss me out whilst playing host/barman in a jolly ‘man the barricades’ blitz-y – but obviously rather haphazard - sort of fashion. Never one to hold back where alcohol is concerned I demanded attention (I did say ‘please’, honest) and am very glad I did as the sloe gin was delicious and just what was required post slippy-slidey walk in the very, very cold.

This general consuming of warming beverages led to the first amusing incident of the evening; one, I think, most people missed which is a shame because it illustrated beautifully the friendly spirit of the choir and the generosity of one member in particular: our Jen arrived a little late and, collecting a wee dram (if you can have a wee dram of sloe gin) on her way through the room, came to sit beside me. She was too late to hear me admitting that I’d picked up the wrong little black file on my way out of the house and so had none of the music I needed for the rehearsal but in time to hear me say, “Don’t worry, I’ll just share with Jenny, I’m sure she won’t mind.” What did the dear girl do but thrust her glass of the yummy stuff under my nose, quite happy for me to take a slug of her drink no questions asked or remonstrations made. I think I gave her a bit of an old-fashioned look; certainly I was a bit puzzled to begin with - but once I’d cottoned on (the length of time it took indicative of the fact that the same munificent gesture would never have occurred to me), I explained the situation and, naturally, we both dissolved into the first giggles of the evening. You may remember that last week I suggested we should endeavour to keep Mrs Fardell away from intoxicating liquids. Luckily she behaved much better this week and I may be able to rethink that recommendation. And how can anyone condemn such a friend to temperance?

Eventually – with much prompting from Anne who had it very much in mind that concerts are looming (she seemed to be the only one) – we were called to order by our lord and master and got down to work. This week we worked on Lullay and Ther is No Rose, Run, Toboggan, Run (oh dear), Deck the Hall, Nyathi Onyuol and Sleep. The girls had a little time later on to sing O Morganstern and Trees of the Field as well for the sake of those amongst us who have never sung them before and find them tricky. Funny how with half the people we get twice the work done...

Lullay is going to be lovely with gorgeous solos from Kay and Marie-Claire.
Ther is No Rose will no doubt be fine too though we were lacking our full compliment of double-trios and so just sang it all together.
Run, Toboggan, Run was a bit of a disaster until Ollie split us up and left the women to the tender mercies of Anne who is a task-master and a half and wouldn’t rest until the altos were singing in tune. I have to admit it sounds much better when we do. With a bit of tweaking and work on expression it ended up sounding a thousand times better. Let’s hope we don’t forget what got tweaked and why.
Deck the Hall is a laugh and a half. Remembering that there is only one hall proves to be a bit of a problem. Someone (a soprano) always puts an ‘s’ on and it is never the same person (soprano) twice. This one is guaranteed to make people smile. I think.
Nyathi Onyuol is getting there at last. I don’t know the words to this yet and really must make an effort to learn them as without the words the rhythm goes and thus befalls disaster.
Onto Sleep. And Eric Whitacre (yum). Susan had been busy handing out copies of this-and-that all evening (there’s always someone without something and usually several without lots). “Does anyone need Sleep?” she asked, all innocence, to cries of “Yes, I do” and “Can’t remember the last time I had any!" Much hilarity ensued (and Christopher gesturing at me to make sure I didn’t forget to remember to tell you). Once we’d settled we worked hard on this; so much so that I thought my voice (MY VOICE) might run off again. The sopranos got rather concerned on reaching the end that they were getting it wrong and so we concentrated on their problem for a while, poor Kay having to sing a very high section over and over again to make sure she’d got it right. It sounded fine – lovely, actually. It was only when I pointed out that Jenny and I had been singing entirely the wrong thing during these few bars (not looking at our music, as usual – complacent, or what?) that they realised they’d been right all along. Oops! And tee-hee. And sorry, Kay; hope there have been no ill-effects.

Once the singing was done some discussion took place as to whether or not the old people would need their carols on Sunday. The general opinion was not. They’d be mad to try and get out and about in this weather. Hips! Aaagh! Also someone - Chris or Kay? - asked if we had contingency plans in case Rosslyn had to be cancelled. We didn’t but now we do. A decision will be made on Thursday 9th and if we can’t go ahead as planned we will try to inform, directly, as many people as possible on Friday and a notice will be posted on the web-site as well. But it’ll be a bit of a, um, pain, won’t it? All go outside and breathe heavily and let’s see if we can melt the snow.

Now I have done my best to stay as up-beat as possible while writing this but I went out shopping today and bought a very nice shirt for my husband and then LOST IT. I went back to all the shops I’d been in and made enquiries but, nothing; so someone out there has got a very nice shirt for no money at all and I’m out of pocket when I had nothing in the pocket to start with. Grrrr. It’s time to go off and be grumpy for a couple of hours.

Christmas?

Humbug!

Squeak.

Whoo-hoo! I managed to do so. Just the tiniest voice and a little unpleasantly on the rodent-y side to be honest but so much better than nothing and maybe I’ll be able to sing properly by December 11th after all. Please keep fingers and toes crossed. And eyes, to be on the safe side. Ta.

So, what did we do? I cannot for the life of me remember what order we did things in so let’s just pretend I know what I’m talking about, shall we? and not be too precious about accuracy. Highly over-rated it is, in almost every circumstance.
Started off with a look at Ther is No Rose (spelling correct before you start getting all sniffy – it is an OLD song and they just wrote things as they wanted, much as do the youth of today). This little number does not involve the sopranos so they were sent away to look at other things while the rest of us tried out the first verse all together many, many times, mostly so we could get the pronunciation of ‘swych’ (such) right – ‘ch’ as in ‘loch’ not as in chocolate or chlorine - but also because we all have to sing it. Eventually this will be performed in sort of double trios – that’ll be six people at a time then - and I am doing two verses with Jenny which is just as well because she can sing loud enough for both of us (and several other people too) if my voice decides to return to its hiding place. There is a long phrase at the end of each verse which we are supposed to do in one breath.

Nuff said.

That was earlier – I have returned to work clutching a hot-water bottle, believe it or not. I know you will be delighted to hear that they are starting work on my new heating system on Tuesday (hoorah!) so, pretty soon – all being well – I will have no need to moan and whimper about the cold anymore. That will jolly things up quite considerably, won’t it?

Hmmm... now what shall I claim we did next? Let’s say it was O Morgenstern which I didn’t even try to sing. I did attempt a sort of hum but that was a disaster so I gave up. I was delighted when Heather and Marie-Claire, both new and far too good at sight-reading, got it wrong but there was little I could do to help (darn it) because I couldn’t have got the notes out if I tried. I was able to give them a little advice once the BW had pointed out their initial mistake (oh so tactfully – he really is a wonder) which I enjoyed immensely. Having said all this, I should point out that this is a piece of music in which the sopranos and tenors sing in a completely different key to the altos and basses so getting a note or two (and it was only a note or two) wrong is hardly anything to be ashamed of. My momentary sense of superiority was, therefore, really quite unfounded and I am the one who should be feeling ashamed (only, I don’t) but one has to take what one can get and do it as often as possible, too.

We move onto the octet in In Dulci Jubilo when eight of us (yes, really) went off to practise by ourselves (with The Boy Wonder, of course) leaving the others to look at Rocking (I think). The octet is now coming together quite nicely – we have new people singing some of the parts and, as usual, they are great – and, no, I am NOT pulling faces as I type. Changes always seem a little strange to begin with (we have sung this bit with the same eight voices for about four years now) but I think the present line-up is beginning to sound well blended. It will be better once I am at full capacity. Or maybe not. Perhaps I’ll throw everything off-kilter. Yikes – what a notion!

Work was done on Jajang, Jajang which I am beginning to understand. It is still a little hairy in places but does sound remarkably good from time to time!
Rocking is coming along too and will be lovely, I think. The tenors are struggling here and there (and everywhere?) but they’ll get it in the end; they usually do. Chris, rather poignantly, begged for help at one point claiming they were ‘lost and broken’ – aaah! – but I think – judging by my notes – that there was only a small problem with tuning: “...it is more of a flat b than a b flat” says Ol. Well it can happen to anyone. The altos and sops are good at this song. We are swots, according to Our Leader. Well, hell yes! Sure we are. Singing disconnected sharps and flats and naturals which have no noticeable relationship to one another – Good Lord, we do it all the time.

Trees of the Field – tricky. Dour, according to Kay. Getting there.
That was it. Was that it? Possibly.

Jenny was particularly giggly this week. Anything at all set her off. Kay dropping all her music (and doesn’t sheet music just scatter beautifully) just as we were about to start trilling something or other; this is a fine practice in rehearsal but not to be recommended in the middle of a concert as Helen (gone away but back for Christmas, I believe) could tell you... mention of vibrating, battery-powered toys (well, who can blame her?) when all Behm wanted was the whizzy hole-punching thingummyjig)... Heather using her head as a pencil-case (she looked a bit like a porcupine. Between her and Mr Scott the real pencil-case was almost empty, Chris having spent some time ‘putting pencils in’ Robin. Why? Well who knows? When? In the middle of a song, of course. Where? I dread to think)... your blogetteer nearly tumbling off her stool (Heather caught me just in time, there was only half a buttock left in contact; just what caused the slippage I am unable to say, it happened all of a sudden and quite without reason)... Sebastian sleeping peacefully in his too-comfy seat between tunes (he’s just back from several weeks in Japan and still adjusting; when singing he went at it full throttle but in between he snored – musically, of course). Jen admitted to having partaken of some Bailey’s prior to rehearsal. Shocking behaviour, I suggested. “Well, it was a while ago – at half past five”, she tells me. That is well before drinkies-time if you ask me. And if the effects of a small glass of alcoholic beverage last that long and cause that sort of mischievous result then, for heaven’s sake KEEP THE WOMAN AWAY FROM THE BAR AND THE BOTTLE – please!

My mobility telephone is beeping and one of the smoke alarms is joining it in an effort to inform me that its battery has run down so I’d better go see.

‘Til next time. xxx

Listen and Learn...

... is what I’d told myself I’d do but this is only possible if one is present when new songs are being practised which, on Wednesday, I wasn’t. Why not? Well, simply because I forgot we were rehearsing at Priestfield Church this week rather than in Morningside so I was rather late – doh! Add to this that, once I arrived, there were no spare copies for me to peruse while the others were singing and you will see that my chances of getting acquainted with whatever it’s called were slim indeed.

You will gather from this introduction that I am still unable to join the merry chorus. My voice has returned though it remains somewhat temperamental and liable to disappear into a sulk if overused (three sentences and it’s getting grumpy; four, and it’s stormed off to the bedroom and slammed the door) but singing is out of the question at present, a gentle hum in the shower being all that I can manage and that a little unsteadily. I am hoping that by resting it sufficiently well (if only idle chatter and raucous laughter were not quite so attractive) I will be ready to take my place at our Christmas concerts. There may be a song or two for which I have to sit out but I can’t begin to imagine missing out altogether.

So – again it was rather lovely (most of the time) to sit and listen. The new song, name of which, tune of which I have no idea, sounds great and newbie Harriet does a beautiful solo at the beginning. I don’t think it sounds all that difficult to learn but – famous last words and all that, it’s probably a stinker.
The church was chilly – of course – but thanks to the kind ministrations of Chris who enveloped me in his jacket and then his scarf (I already had two on so no one can say that my throat was neglected) and then his gloves, I did not freeze completely solid. The singers were probably not much better off, though expending energy in thought and action no doubt warmed them a little. I took to mouthing the words of the songs in an effort to generate a little more bodily heat but, really, it’s not much of a solution to numbing toes and goose-pimpled knees so don’t rely on this tactic if you find yourself lost in Arctic wastes at any point in the future. My charging up and down the aisles and waving my arms about may have proved a tad too distracting for the choir, who were working very hard, so I felt obliged to sit still but I do think energetic movement is probably the answer when the ice is setting in.

The Christmas programme is coming together nicely. And for those of you who live nearby and don’t sing with the choir, get your Rosslyn Chapel tickets soon as they are going fast. And if you are planning to attend bring blankets and hot-water bottles because my! is it cold. But so worth it.

This is a very feeble effort, I know but I don’t have much to say for myself this week (ha!) and with a bit of luck both my actual and my cyber voices will be in better shape next time.

Off out to dinner now. Yum.

Stoic no more [addendum]

Oh dear, yes – or, indeed, no. Have to relinquish hard-earned title as I didn’t manage to get to choir this week. Shame on me. But this cold-in-the-nose-in-the-head-in-the-throat is hanging on in a quite unprecedented and unnecessary fashion and it was SO chilly on Wednesday (having said that, anywhere – even outside in a blizzard, would have been warmer than it is at home) and I was feeling tired, tired, tired so I huddled in front of the open oven door with heat on full belt (yes, really!) and felt guilty for staying away but oh, so cosy as long as I kept myself cooking.

Anne, bless her, sent round some pretty comprehensive notes so I have some idea of what went on and I thought I’d keep you (lot?!) informed as far as possible because, after all, Chris did point out to me not so very long ago that Claire(1) was very much better at blogging than I am and continued to do so whether she attended rehearsal or not. And I realise that Chris has already blogged but it's done now so here it is.

Mostly the notes seem to be concerned with pronunciation of one sort or another. The odious English version of The Swallow and the Bells has, at last, been replaced with the promised Ukranian but this, of course means learning to sing in Ukranian. I tried to print out the notes so that I could sit somewhere in comfort with them and partake of a nap or two when it all got too much but for some reason my (new) printer won’t do as it’s told and so I have visions of poor, freezing little me sitting here trying to make sense of a computer screen pronunciation lesson and failing dismally. If I fall asleep here I shall next fall off my chair and bash my head against the wall or the bottom step of the stair, (that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a poem) and this is not a happy prospect, is it?

Not only must I try to get a hold of Ukranian but we have another new song to learn and this one is in Swedish. Ditto the extensive ‘phonetics’ and the sorry prospect of unconsciousness. I learned proper phonetics at drama college (to help with accents, doncha know) and I was very good at it indeed – 99% in the last exam I took which is why I gave it up and didn’t attempt to get a qualification in the subject, foolish youth – but I have forgotten it all now (and no doubt would have done so even with the certificate) so the poor old brain has no resource to call upon anymore and it can take quite some time to get a handle on these foreign ditties, I’m afraid. Not good if the only place available in which to try to do so is this sub-zero troglodyte dell where I sit at present.

Ollie, the dear boy, has offered to hold extra practices on Monday evenings and even on Tuesdays for those who can’t ‘do’ Mondays so that those of us who have missed out, or who are new to the choir and trying to learn old repertoire, have a chance to catch up. I think I’ll need to be there Mondays and Tuesdays every week until the concerts if I am to make significant inroads into my ignorance.

Anne has sent out two appeals recently (demanding or what??); one, that a group of us takes some time to go and sing at the Christmas party held for pensioner members of Contact the Elderly, a charity with which she has been involved for some time; and two, that as many people as possible lend thermos flasks – 1 litre capacity at least - for the transportation of the mulled apple punch (or ‘cup’ as there will be no alcohol and therefore no fisticuffs) to be served at the Rosslyn Chapel concert. I am able (I think I will be by then, anyway) and willing to warble merrily at the Christmas party and equally willing but less able to offer help with regard to supply of thermos flasks which, considering that the whole hot apple cup beverage notion was one of my own (finest) is a little embarrassing. However, if I see any likely looking receptacle lying around in the kitchens of my friends or reclining sad and desperate-looking in the local charity shops I shall lay hold of said article (handing over some small financial compensation in the latter case, of course) and proffer it for use.

OK. Enough. Can no longer feel my fingers or toes. Brain solidifying alarmingly. Take back title of stoic. No one else would suffer so for their art when there are (probably) so few people out there who appreciate the effort. Thank you, those of you who do.

Kisses (though rather cold and possibly still infectious ones).

What blogger?

That frightful woman Our delightful blogstress was off sick this week so I'm afraid her fans are stuck with a brief editorial.

There was much excitement at Anna-Lauren's return after an emergency trip home to the States. Hugging and stuff. Although she was still a bit jetlagged so only stayed for half the rehearsal.

After Anne's initial concern that she might be the only Alto in attendance (the question was, could she sing enough for four? (yes, she bloody well could!)), Heather and Jenny came to support, so at least we weren't painfully low on numbers. Behm, having made friends with the cats, was relieved of his feline lapwarmers and we had a bit of a sing...

The new African Piece, Nyathii Onyuol, is coming along nicely. We tried not to shout, but it's always tempting to take the enthusiam in African music too far. Jenny also got a little hysterically distracted by the line which sounds like 'manwanky'. Ollie produced an amended version of The Swallow and the Bells (aka Carol of the Bells, only with a more faithful - but still frightfully twee - translation of the lyrics) with the Ukranian words sandwiched in: Shchedryk, as it is now, and a less exciting but simpler and more coherent version than we had tried a few years ago. Always nice to see the newbies' stupefied faces when confronted with such an array of languages :D

Speaking of which, we have some Swedish stuff! Nu tändas tusen luleljus, sent direct from Sweden in a bundle of 'beautiful' Christmassey and seasonal songs. Anne will be playing harp for this (she was informed) and Harriet will be giving us a lovely solo at the beginning. And maybe at the end. Actually we might just send the pair of them on and go for a cuppa. It's something to do with light apparently and other than some very suprising accidentals in the Soprano line it sounded wonderfully Swedish and wintry.

Remember the Lamb? Apparently we'll be doing that again, along with a new piece by John Tavener, Rocking. You may know this as a Christmas song kiddies often sing with painful emphases, "We will rock you ROCK you ROCK you," etc. and will be pleasantly surprised by this version which is more of a succession of very unusual, exciting but ultimately wonderful chords in that Tavener/Pärt/Tormis vein. The ladies had tried this before but the boys were Rocking virgins so it's particularly impressive that we managed to make it sound recognisably musical.

And the Korean lullaby, Jajang, Jajang, Aghi Jesu which elicited a "That was RUBBISH!" from Kay at a certain entry (it was the Basses) and led our esteemed leader to remark more than one that it wasn't a very easy piece. what was meant to be a "Once through without stopping whatever happens" descended into 20minutes of note- and Tenor-bashing. I'm sure it'll come together. Probably. These things usually do. [runs off to practice furiously]

Anne then asked us for large thermos flasks and warned that Rosslyn tickets are going fast (if you wanna come, better get in touch soon!) and John tried to get some information from Ollie about the imminent CD - which should be available to download or buy at concerts any month now - before people drifted away into the miserable night.

Hopefully you'll have your Claire back next week.

C

Blogetteer = Stoic!

Yes, truly. I am a paragon.

Or something.

Absolutely no voice whatsoever – you may think I mean I was croaking but, oh no I don’t; croaking would have been quite an advance on my vocal capabilities – still would, to be honest – ‘no voice’ means not even a squeak and yet I went to choir rehearsal this week in order to listen and learn and to pick up any exciting tit-bits of gossip or chat for you, my dear and faithful blog-follower/s.
Was this a waste of time? Quite possibly, yes. I did listen. I did learn (though no doubt I’ve forgotten everything by now) and I did keep my ears open for anecdotal diamonds but – suffice to say it was a quiet week. Once again Kay managed to be Kay and cause much amusement – particularly to herself and Jenny – but all the rest seemed to be work.

So it’s conceivable that I went along only to spread around my lurgi – whatever it may be – and that next week everyone else will be voiceless and I’ll be yodelling away on my own (only, my husband informs me that everyone he knows who has had this has been affected for at least two weeks so, if that is the case and I have indeed infected the others, Rudsambee rehearsals may be somewhat disrupted for the foreseeable future which does not bode well for Christmas - oops!). I have to say that, having been without the power of speech since last Saturday night, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t infectious by Wednesday or I wouldn’t have gone so let’s all cross our fingers and hope that I was right. And if I was wrong let’s all cross our fingers and hope that the constitutions of Rudsambee members are such as to render the germs impotent.

Anyway – what did the others do this week while I sat and listened? I have to say here that some of it sounded lovely. It is very impressive what 17 or so voices can do in terms of sound – even if Ollie had to ask them to try not to shout. It was very tuneful shouting.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – reprise from last year. Must remember to sing eh-mahn-oo-el rather then ee-man-yew-el. There’s a bit of hopping about between parts as the tenor line gets rather high and so the manly women have to take over.

Another go at Apple Tree Wassail. Got the stamping right – those who know there should be stamping but the newbies haven’t been told about this yet. I hope they’ve realised by now or they must be wondering what’s going on when the olduns start jigging about – so far rather unenthusiastically, it has to be said. No clapping introduced as yet – either everyone has forgotten or the feeble stamping is all they can manage for now. Daresay it’ll all be in place (quite probably the wrong place) by the time concert season is upon us.

The joy of Deck the Hall, again a reprise from last year, but there is every indication after Wednesday that – all being well on the laryngeal front - I will be able to sing it properly this year and without look of abject terror when we get to the ‘swing’-y bit. Worked closely on this problematic little section and I begin to see the light. Was delighted to notice that new and very competent members seemed rather concerned about this PLS, too. Excellent. Shall feel less like a total eejit in future.

More work on the new African song; still mighty tricky as to words, especially as there are several places where they don’t fit the music and have to be squashed in – and, to be honest, as to tune - for the tenors, at least, but – hey! what’s new? (tee hee). There is a bar where the notes for the tenors and basses have been replaced by little crosses on sticks….”What do we do here?” asks Luke. “Speak it?” suggest several people. “On these notes?” asks Luke. “That’ll be singing then,” says Kay. Queue grand hilarity and K unable to speak or sing for quite some time.

That was it, really. Some discussion about possible visit to Poland next year. There is a choir there we could do an exchange with and they have sent a recording so we can decide if they are the sort of choir we’d like to sing alongside. I presume we’ll send them one too so that they can make an equal judgement. Not averse to a trip to Poland – let’s hope Ollie approves them. And they us, of course but how could they not???

Now I am freezing (no heating which isn’t helping the vocal situation one bit; also ingress of water from flat upstairs so a little damp around here at the moment – are you feeling sorry for me yet? (again). Also – to add to my woes – we seem to have lost access to the internet as completely as I have lost access to my voice so how I am going to get this to Christopher to get to you, I just don’t know BUT... I ‘ave done me duty. I ‘ave writ what needed to be wrote. I ‘ave done me best in spite of hadversity. Can definitely claim status of stoic.

Off to wrap up in layers and large duvet…

See ya.

Rudsambee Naked

Don’t get over-excited. Explanation later.

So – this week it was my turn to look confused and put-out on arrival. Shouldn’t have taken such delight in other people’s similar emotions last week, should I? Thinking I was well in time I arrived to see/hear a fairly large group of singers trilling away in the piano room as if they’d been at it for ages; indeed they seemed to be quite familiar with a tune I’d never heard before. “Am I late or am I missing out on something?” I asked, believing for one horrible moment that nearly everybody else had been asked to come early to sing something without me. Had I looked around a bit more I would have seen that others more indispensable than I were also missing which would have put my mind at rest immediately but, instead, Heather shoved some music into my hand and pointed to where they’d got to so I joined in, still wondering if I was supposed to be there. Then Jenny arrived. And then Arno and Sebastian and so on and I, in turn, handed music to them and was comforted.

This new piece for Christmas is in the African Luo language. To begin with we sang it to ‘la’ as usual. Somehow I find I always manage to sight-read things better first time round – how can that be? I wonder if it’s because, after that first in-blind-panic attempt I start actually thinking about what I’m doing. Perhaps I should never think. I don’t do it often and it nearly always gets me into trouble when I do. However, sight-reading notes is one thing. Trying to read Luo and notes at the same time is quite another. It felt like being four and learning to read again, slipping and stumbling over the funny little black marks on the page which should have meant something but WHAT???

Having sort-of got to grips with this we moved on to some older pieces – first the Apple Tree Wassail (“What does ‘wassail’ mean?” asks Behm – yes, he came back, whoo-hoo – and Robin, opening his mouth to reply, thought better of it and closed it again. “Tell you later,” he said weakly. But I don’t think he did). This is a larky, silly song and I think our new people are going to have to take it less seriously once they get the hang of it otherwise Jenny and I will sound very odd (and that would never do) at the end, shouting about capfuls and hatfuls and little bushel baskets – no the bushel baskets are bushel size, it’s little heaps – duh – which this year, for a change, we intend to do in good West Country accents, as is appropriate. Anne will teach us how (though I imagine I already know!).
Then we sang through Run, Toboggan, Run, a real tongue-twisting test of diction when up to speed but taken slowly last night for the benefit of the people seeing it for the first time.

The interesting thing about singing old songs with new people is that we can no longer pretend that we’ve been singing them right. So many little notes and phrases that have sounded perfectly good over the years but are not what the composer wrote at all. There are places where the slurring and fudging has been acknowledged, with peerless honesty, by the slurrers and fudgers but many, many others, it appears, where the slippage has gone unnoticed and unremarked, even by the Boy Wonder. It should be possible for us oldies (time served not necessarily years lived) who are still in the majority, to ignore the looks of consternation on the fresh young faces amongst us when what we are singing does not match what is written on their music and breezily to carry on as per, allowing them to question their music reading skills rather than our ability – but somehow it is not. We are forced to reassess and to learn things properly for a change. I use the word ‘interesting’ in a loose sort of way which could equally well mean annoying, or irritating, or infuriating...

Having spent most of the evening in the piano room we returned to the larger space for a quick run through of the new piece, sans piano, whereupon Kay, sniffing loudly and incredulously (can one sniff incredulously? She seemed to manage it, but that’s Kay for you), demanded, with unflattering surprise and deepest distain, “What’s that smell? Susan, have you been CLEANING?” Much hilarity. Susan, feeling ‘unjustly accused’ denied that the odour was that of polish (imagine!) and trundled off to the kitchen to arrest the culprit, a bowl of quinces - of which more later – bringing it back to shove under Kay’s nose (a sharp one, it must be said; I got no whiff of polish – but then, I am not well acquainted with that particular smell...) as evidence of her innocence.

As Anne, keeper of all things administrative, was away this week there were no announcements but John requested that we spend a little time discussing the lack of interest in our website. Far fewer ‘hits’ than formerly, apparently. It is now too boring and corporate-looking and we need to think of ways of attracting people’s attention. “Photos,” suggested Kay, only to be told that it had been decided to remove all such paraphernalia to another site. (Where? you may well ask but I can’t help you having no interest in looking at bad photos of myself. No doubt Chris will give you the necessary information before posting this for me). [Yes okay then; if you click on this picture you can see lots of us!]



We considered that a well chosen photo or two might lure folk in... I suggested choosing one and then photo-shopping it to within an inch of its life to make us all look GORGEOUS as no one wants to see an ugly choir (not that we are anything of the sort, of course) and then Kay topped this by suggesting we could be naked (I think there are not enough hours/days/months in the year for that amount of photo-shopping). I said rather you than me sort of thing but that it would certainly make deciding what to wear for concerts rather easier. “Yes,” says Kay, “We could just wear our accessories,” by this time she could hardly speak for laughing, “and the men could just wear their shirts.” Now, far be it from me to pour cold water on innovative thought but does it strike you, as it does me, that this is hardly a fair distribution of humiliation? The men in shirts?? All their wobbly bits will be covered and the dangly bits too, unless they are very – um, lucky.

Repairing to the kitchen to drink a cup of tea I happened upon a discussion about quinces – they of the polish-y fragrance. Susan persuaded Robin to try some of her quince cheese or whatever it’s called and rooted out a rather rusty-looking tin in which resided some rather sugary-looking brown squares. Robin bravely had a nibble and, declaring that it was ‘all right, actually’ continued to eat. Susan now felt it safe to explain that the tree was planted over, and fertilized by, a much-love cat’s grave, that the substance was probably a little old and should probably be thrown away and that it was really just lumps of left-over pulp from quince jelly making. Yum. Robin suddenly not so enamoured.

We embarked on a little quince-sniffing in order to try and decide if the smell was indeed that of polish or something other. I’m for something other but no idea what, Jenny was for rubber dolls (!!??!!), someone else thought dust. Find a quince, have a sniff and report back.

Idea – ‘Smelling Quinces’ another good book title. Or perhaps one for our forthcoming CD?

A most amusing evening all told. Robin, Jenny, Greta and I were still laughing at my door. Perhaps the Luo are a very happy people and it is infectious.
On a sadder note, our dear, loyal-beyond-the-call-of-duty, Elaine has decided – rather abruptly – to leave us. We will miss her very much and, Elaine, if you are reading this, come and see us soon. You will be expected at ALL the parties WITHOUT FAIL – hear? And you must be the first person ever to have avoided having The Irish Blessing yelled at you. Surely that is an experience not to be missed?
Another suggestion for stimulating interest in the website was some triple x action, so – see you next week.

XXX

Tavener, Who He?

Hey, Peeps – late Friday night and I have been bored out of my mind all day so you’d think, wouldn’t you, that I might have done this before now – but, oh no! that would be too sensible.

So now I am tired and grumpy and who knows what I’ll find to write…..

We were several people down – again, but most with good excuses – even one of the newbies was absent so I really hope this is not a BAD SIGN. Behm – who informed me last week that he would probably come back this week as he hadn’t anything else to do on a Wednesday night – had something else to do this Wednesday night after all (being ill, apparently) and so we had to do without him. We badly need an extra tenor so I hope he intends to return in the weeks to come.

In spite of the reduced number we did lots of work and the time whizzed by. In fact we started early!! Surely that must be a first. Anne, Chris, John, Susan and I were there with Ollie a few minutes before anyone else so we started to sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen all by ourselves – not difficult as we have done this before – and were well into verse three before we began to be joined by the stragglers looking most perturbed and puzzled – all, presumably, having been quite sure they were on time and, being faced with a small group of warblers warbling merrily away, probably imagined SOMETHING INTERESTING was going on to which they had not been invited. (My presence should have put their minds at rest for if SOMETHING INTERESTING was, indeed, going on then ten to one my ‘talents’ would not be required!)

So – the rest of the attendees arrived in dribs and drabs and, picking up copies of the number, joined us in Christmassy song. We used this as a warm-up. Once upon a time we took it in turns to take the warm-up – a few physical jerks, more or less energetic or spiritual depending on whose turn it was and then some breathing exercises and some scales or arpeggios and, sometimes, a little ditty composed for the occasion or a jazzy improv if it was Sebastian. Once upon a time someone took notes each week and wrote them up and sent them round so that absentees would know what we had done and what they needed to practise but since Jenny – list-maker and reminderer - got all grown up and started working in the community she has become completely disorganised and has lost every rota we ever tried to make so we no longer know who is supposed to be doing what and no one seems willing to take over her role, with the result that Ollie has to warm us up every week and no one ever takes notes any more. Writing this I am thinking that perhaps this is something I could do. Hmmm... I shall go to rehearsal next week armed with a piece of paper neatly divided into sections with dates and spaces for warm-up and note-taking and I shall get everyone to sign up for one or the other or, preferably, both and then I’ll bring it home and forget to remind people what they are doing when and we’ll be back to square one but at least I’ll have tried.

Back to rehearsal. Having finished with the Merry Gentlemen we divided up into girls and boys and off we went to get to grips with the Korean piece Jajang, Jajang, Ahgi Jesu – a lullaby. Korean is a new language for us so we females stuck to la-ing though the men seemed to be singing the words when we rejoined them. Either Ollie knows how to speak Korean all of a sudden or they are taking a big risk because almost always when some phonetic version of a foreign language appears on a piece of music we find the reality is very different when we ask someone who actually knows how it is supposed to sound. At least the tune sounded good though heaven only knows what the men were singing about. Hopefully we will find a helpful Korean to put us on the right track. Both Jenny and Kay were yawning away during this song. I don’t think it’s boring at all. Perhaps we were keeping them up. Still they managed to join the rest of us in impressing Ollie when he asked the women to sing a bit of the piece on their own. At least, I think he was impressed. “You did that quite well, didn’t you?” says the Boy Wonder, in wonder. Yes, we did.

Next, while the tenors, basses and honorary man Jenny set to work on a new piece by Tormis – something to do with sledging, I think – we women set off once again for the room with the piano to have a look at Rocking by John Tavener. Someone misheard something because the name Tavener seemed to cause undue confusion amongst the sopranos. Or perhaps his name simply has the same effect on some people as his music does on others. Anyway, as I said, we set off for the piano room and one look at the music, over-endowed with sharps and flats and every single possible interval designed to throw the singer off balance, had me thanking my stars that Anne would be bashing out the notes on said piano to help us along. "Little Jesus, sweetly sleep" is something we used to sing at Primary school for the nativity play. But not like this! Oh no. Not like this at all. But this is absolutely lovely once you get the hang of it. It will sound magical in St Giles. It isn’t even as difficult as it first appears – except, perhaps, for the odd note here and there (ha!).

We finished by singing through The Swallow and the Bells which we will sing in Ukrainian or some such eventually but for which we only have a dire English translation at the moment. The words might mean the same in whatever language we’ll be singing it in in future but they couldn’t possibly be as naff and ugly (they're actually worse than the morecommon version, Carol of the Bells!). Sometimes English just doesn’t work. Then we did O Nata Lux which is yummy and then it was time to finish.

I have odd little notes here and there on my music – to whit: "uppity Chris", "glue", "yawns". While the latter certainly has to do with Jenny and Kay looking as if they should be home in bed I have no idea at all what the other two mean. I only know that I had it in mind when I wrote them that this edition would be a very amusing addition to my blog. This is what comes of not getting down to things. Not getting down to things is what I am best at. Everyone needs a skill of some sort and that is mine. I am with Scarlett O’Hara on the “I’ll think about it tomorrow” business. But it never did her any good either.

Ol Fixes It so that Opportunity Knocks for New Faces with the R Factor

Yey! We have new people. Four of them, all at once. Imagine!!

Last night I met Ollie round the corner from the Wexler’s house (where we practise) walking in entirely the wrong direction as if he’d forgotten where he was going or had changed his mind about taking the rehearsal. The former would have been more likely. “Where are you off to?” I demanded to know – I am older than him and considerably wiser about most things so I feel entitled to boss him about a little outside of choir (and sometimes in when I’m feeling particularly motherly) – upon which he announced, with a grin and not a little pride, that there were new people to collect from the bus stop and that he would see me later. Not much later, for I had not yet divested myself of coat, scarf, boots and other nippy-weather clothing, when he appeared with Greta and Behm (ignore the ‘h’ when pronouncing – several of us thought he was called Ben to begin with. Some, being a little slow on the uptake, may well still do so). He left them with me as I was the only option available – and then John appeared, thank god, to help with the small chat at which, quite frankly, I suck – and we were still in the hallway nattering away, be-coated and be-shod, when others started to arrive at which point I thought maybe it would be a good idea to take them through into the room we rehearse in, in case they were beginning to think we spent all evening warbling in the confines of the entrance hall. By this time it had been established that Greta sort-of knows Rachael as they both work at EUSA (have I got that right, ladies?), Greta having a student job there and Rachael a proper grown-up one. Greta is American and is studying medicine having already done a degree in English Literature in America with medicine as a subsidiary subject???? Yes, yes – only in the USA. Behm is a friend of our Christopher and I don’t know much more about him than that except that he sang tenor, came along just to try it out and was very friendly. I shall quiz him next week if he turns up.

Later Harriet (the potential kidnapee from last week) and Nicos (lonely Greek man from last week) appeared; the first a soprano as is Greta and the second a bass. Unlike Behm, these three have been auditioned and found to be up to our rigorous standards (!) so, we have a definite two new sops and one new bass and a potential new tenor and therefore (cross fingers) a full compliment of choristers and so, as I said at the start, yey!

Tomorrow I shall write something about our activities during rehearsal – if I can remember anything by then. My mind is already slightly fuzzy and a glass of wine has not helped matters so I think I’d better leave this for now and try again later when a night’s sleep has cleared the fog. We can always hope, eh?

...

Well – ‘tis now tomorrow and almost tomorrow again and although the fog had dissipated earlier I did not take advantage of the fact and now it has returned due to a Friday Fizz session at a local hostelry and so, unfortunately I am not, after all, going to get round to telling you any more than I have already done.
Suffice it to say we have started on Christmas songs.

That’ll have to do for now.

Night night.

Rudsambee Recruits!

Well, hello!

My first task is to apologise for my absence and for leaving you to Jen’s tender mercies – though, I must say, she made a great job of the Wigtown blog and, as I was in no fit state to sit in the cold and damp tip-tap-typing at my computer, I am hugely grateful to her for taking over.

Chris informed me last night that he thinks I should write the blog whether or not I’m at the rehearsal I’m supposed to be writing about. Apparently Claire(1) fulfilled her weekly duties as Blogstress no matter what. Well, somehow I doubt you’d want to hear about my bout of cellulitis (no, not cellulite, though I’m sure I have that as well – on a more permanent basis, too!), my soaring temperature, blotchy, swollen arm and quite disgustingly debilitating antibiotics – and all because of the smallest splinter imaginable; or about my most recent trip to Munich where I went even though I should really have stayed at home getting better (having said that, I could write several blog entries about the joys (not) of the Oktober Fest/Beer Festival and the endless amusement to be had from looking at people who really shouldn’t be in their lederhosen and dirndls - but maybe I should leave that to another time and place) so, if you don’t mind, I shall stick to my habit of only – oh lordy, the terminology has escaped me for the moment, Olde Ludditey stick that I am – POSTING (“is that right?” she quavers) a blog when I have something to say about the choir. And of course, as you know, sometimes not even then.

So...

STOP PRESS LATEST

We’ve been recruiting – or trying to. All very exciting. I have to claim credit as it was my idea to hold an open rehearsal, to invite along anyone interested in singing with a choir and to see if we could inveigle a few of them into auditioning for us. Last night we held said rehearsal, open-doored and open-armed, in the spacious upstairs hall at Priestfield church. I think we’d had about 4 notes of interest but in the end there were 11 eager new faces, 10 women and 1 solitary, brave, Greek man (potential bass). More sopranos than anything else, as usual, but as we are in need of one or two of those this was no bad thing. One of them was particularly good. We require a replacement Helen to sing the squeaky bits along with Anna Lauren and this young lady (name forgotten in spite of the silly name-game I made everyone play before we started) held a very high, very long note all on her lonesome (or so it seemed) when we had a go at singing the glorious‘Sleep. Lovely (both the song and the long, high note). So, we have to have her and she may get no choice in the matter – Rudsambee would sink to kidnap and coercion, I’m sure, if it became necessary. We began with 3 women singing alto but soon lost one of them to the tenors (2nd tenor, too – Jenny was most put out, even quite sulky. “That’s my job” she said sotto voce, bottom lip protruding alarmingly). I don’t know if Jess (?) was a likely candidate but she was the only potential tenor and the poor lads are in need of support, there being only 3 of them now. Plus the disgruntled one on occasion, when unavoidable.

I managed to be late though I’ve no idea how. I think my kitchen clock must be slow as I left in plenty of time, heeding the Boy Wonder’s instructions to be there ready to start at 7.30 - and I’m not a dawdler, that I can assure you. As I had agreed to do the silly, physical part of the warm-up my tardiness was a tad embarrassing. Ollie even had to phone me to check I was coming and it was only then when I looked at my phone that realised I was running behind – only by about 5 minutes but still - I had planned to be early. Oops! Anyway, people were still gathering when, eventually, I did arrive so it wasn’t the end of the world by any means. I duly took everyone through some daftness and then made an idiot of myself by forgetting half the words to a nonsense song which, therefore, only lasted half as long as it should have and made even less sense than usual, but – heigh-ho! perhaps it didn’t matter and my squealing and swearing in despair gave them all something to laugh at – which is nice.

Ollie did the sensible bit of the vocal warm-up and then added a bit when Luke turned up just as we were finishing. Poor lad missed all the fun..
Then we sang. Started with Desh – think I’m getting the hang of the fast bits now, although there are some ‘words’ it’s very hard to get the tongue around. Quite what our recruits made of it I don’t know but it’s great fun and very unusual so hopefully they were impressed by our originality. Certainly they seemed to be making quite a good job of it – unless, of course, they were only pretending to join in. I’m sure I might (would) have been tempted to such subterfuge had I been in their position.

Next we had a look at Sleep, which we haven’t sung for ages but which I remembered almost perfectly. Was able to dispense with the music an’ all! I have to say it was sounding gorgeous – especially when the men (sorry, Jess) were singing bits by themselves. Yum. I do hope we’ll get to perform it again soon because it is a joy to sing – and also, I imagine, to listen to.

Working on these two pieces took us all the way through to 9.30. I think Ollie had planned to sing a couple of other things but decided that doing less and actually hearing the results of some concentrated practice would be more satisfying in the end. I’m sure he was right. The choir performed Bogoroditse Djevo and Une Puce to illustrate how brilliant we are and how good they’re going to have to be if they want to join us (!!) and then we had tea and coffee and chat and Anne got people to sign up for auditions if they were so inclined or to ‘think about it’ if they 1. hated us; 2. were scared off or 3. actually wanted to think about it.

I will let you know how successful we have been in finding some new members as soon as the results of this interesting exercise are known. If we don’t manage to fill all the places perhaps we’ll repeat the IE because it was really rather fun and somewhere out there must be the perfect Rudsambeeites just waiting to discover us and to be discovered.

Big hugs.

Claire

Wigtown and so on

Due to the demise of our blogstress, who has been dangerously infected by a splinter in her arm and is incapacitated at present, I have been asked to not only remember what happened at the last rehearsal, but also to remind everyone what happened in Wigtown.

Last Wednesday seems like a very long time ago. I spent the rehearsal in a state of hyper-tensive excitement and expectation, and dread about the amount of preparation I had to do, for the arrival of my American cousin I've not seen for more than 25 years, his girlfriend and friend. I know we sang something because we usually do, and then went into the other room to do the middle bit of Desh which goes very fast and proved that our new alto, Heather, can count better than everyone else! Then it was tea and coffee count and I went to Tesco to shop, forgetting to buy a haggis. If anyone would like to expand on this rehearsal blog, feel free.

WIGTOWN - was, as ever, a huge success. The weather was perfect, my American visit had exceeded expectation. On Saturday morning I had a crazy time shoving people out of the door and dragging others in to meet my visitors, cleaning the car windows and making sure everyone had breakfast. At the request of having people in the car who could navigate I ended up with a Wacky Races effect (link just in case you're too young to remember Dastardly, Muttley and Penelope Pitstop). I had four different directions, went off route very slightly, and nearly finished off travel sick passengers by hitting an unseen bump before bouncing over a cattle grid. (Sorry, guys! And if Kay says she can't sing that high in rehearsals don't believe her, I definitely heard a top C!). In the end we found a fifth way to get to Newton Stewart. In all the hurry that morning, I had forgotten my coat, so when we arrived at Newton Stewart for a 10 minute lunch break I parked outside a charity shop and found the best coat I've ever possessed. Even the hood fits properly! And so we arrived in Wigtown and parked by a sandpit built in the middle of the pavement with kiddies playing in it and parents flobbed out in old fashioned deckchairs scattered round. What a brilliant idea, it made such a happy picture.

We were impressed by the acoustics in the church. And were pleased with the musicians who joined us for Hebrew Love Songs and Cloudburst. Especially Sandy who did amazing drum rolls and crashes of thunder, and David Sumner who, after all these years of organising us, had the opportunity to join in.

The concert, as ever, was fun and well received. I didn't hear any mistakes. Our soloists were magnificent, Une Puce was so dreadful Claire felt obliged to tell everyone that's how it should be sung before introducing the next song. Maybe we should introduce all our songs like this and pre-empt any cock-ups in future concerts... hmm... We ended with the Irish Blessing for Alison who took it on the chin like a man. I hope she had a lovely last weekend with us and we wish her all the best as she takes off with the "snatchin' grabbin' pigeon pinchin' " Myrtles (apologies for Wacky Races reference again!).

So we had a jolly meal afterwards and Susan and I got the ginger icecream we've been dying for since Vittorias took it off their menu. I won't mention the fiercest barman I've ever seen, but I wouldn't have wanted to start a fight in that bar! We went to the rather strange talent show after Anne had sorted out the bill. In the middle of complicated counting she overheard someone discussing plans for Sunday and shouted - We'll talk about that later! - and continued adding up everyone's meals. That lady is amazing and we wouldn't go anywhere or do anything without her. So a HUGE thank you for your never ending patience and chivvying and your knack of being able to boss us so we enjoy it and would feel lost without it.

Talent show, oh my word! Did anyone understand the stand up comedians? If they were funny would someone like to tell me why? I drifted in and out of snoozes. One minute I was watching some people singing ten green bottles as if they were drunk, then I'd jump awake and there was a man singing a love song to a monkey very badly. And I wouldn't have known it wasn't part of the same act. It was like being in a very disjointed dream which made a lot of sense when asleep. Anyway, eventually we trundled off to our hosts, but not before Claire had recognised one of the girls in the talent show and told her she'd been very brave. "Oh!" the girl replied rather surprised.



I don't think I've ever stayed in such an incredible house. It used to be a church and drill hall. And I think Claire was just relieved she didn't have to share a room, or bed, with someone who'd forgotten her pyjamas. After breakfast and a confusing phone call from Elaine who seemed to know what she was doing but left me and Claire wondering if we'd got the plans Anne had carefully instilled in our heads after the concert right, we decided to stick to what we thought we should do, which turned out to be right. And we had a lovely day meandering around in the hot sun before going back to Edinburgh.

I hope everyone had as happy a weekend as I did. Claire, I hope you're feeling better. Alison we'll miss you. Thank you again Anne. Well done, Ollie. Sorry Jean couldn't make it :(. A big cheer for all of us!

The Sleeping Blogetteer

I was going to write this in rhyme as the title seemed to demand it somehow but it’s far too much effort and so you’ll have to wait for another time for the privilege of reading my astounding versifications. Pure doggerel, you know, but quite amusing when I’m on form, if I may be allowed to claim so.
You can believe that if you wish though I wouldn’t recommend it.

I really do seem to have missed a great deal of what went on last night. I’m ashamed to say I think I was laughing too much (when we weren’t singing, of course. Well mostly. I did splutter my way through a good few lines of Une Puce but that was Anne’s fault as I shall reveal later) to notice what was happening elsewhere. I can’t even remember what I was laughing at, though - obviously – it had something to do with Jenny. Really – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I am a disgrace of a blogger. I hardly ever pay sufficient attention to the evening’s proceedings and many a joyous daftness is lost for ever due to my negligence.

Yesterday I was particularly inattentive, it seems. Chris – unusually - sent me a little email to remind me of some of the evening’s bons mots and I have to admit that I could make nothing of two of them at all. I’m sure that a comment on the basses ‘interesting parts’ was extremely amusing and that a ‘freestyle robin’ is something well worth seeing (and hearing) but why such comments were made, or when, or by whom, I couldn’t say. I feel I missed out on a good deal of fun. Was I asleep? If so, why didn’t someone prod me? Or sing very loudly in my shell-like? I wake very easily…only a small amount of effort would have been required. Did Christopher notice me napping and thus the reminder? So many questions and no answers at all.

I do remember that the evening began with a discussion about lifts to and from Wigtown for next weekend. It was all sorted much more easily than I had feared it would be when I read the list of drivers and what they could and could not do – principally could not as far as I could see. However, we all have transport now and all seem to be leaving from somewhere not too far away from home so a 9 o’clock in the morning start will not be overly painful. Where we will be staying when we get there is anybody’s guess but we have been promised accommodation with the locals, who are a generous bunch, so no doubt everyone will have a bed for the night who requires it and with a bit of luck no one will have to share their pillow with another who has no desire to do so. As to the concert itself, we are singing Cloudburst again (with a little more help from the locals) and the Five Hebrew Love Songs so whatever else it is it will be a delight to perform. Yey!

When, eventually, we got around to singing we sang arpeggios to ‘Jenny is pretty today’, which had her blushing. When Ollie suggested we change the words to ‘Jenny is ugly today’ because ‘pretty’ is hard to sing on the top notes there was an understandable outcry which resulted in ‘Jenny is happy today’ instead which, if nothing else, must have had the neighbours wondering who the hell Jenny is and why we feel the need to sing about her, happy and pretty though she may well be. After this we spent a little time teaching Anne and Elaine, who missed last week’s rehearsal, how to make over-tonal noises for Desh which Anne said “sounds like a sitar,” a miracle as this, after all, is exactly what we were trying to sound like. Wonders will never etc etc.

Then, revisiting a few old pieces to sing along with the above-mentioned glories next weekend we had a go at En une seule fleur – a Rainer Maria Rilke oddity set to matching music by Morten Lauridsen. Neither Luke nor Heather has ever set eyes on this before but they seemed to be getting the hang of it without too much difficulty – quite remarkable, considering… We sang once – and rather beautifully – through Dormi, Jesu which, again, Heather was viewing for the first time. There are several other pieces which she will see for the first time next Wednesday and then sing with us on Saturday and I am much impressed by the calm with which she seems to be approaching this event. I remember my first concert and how at sea I felt and how sick and I think I’d had a month or two to prepare for it. With habitual generosity Ollie has promised that we will sing through everything Luke and Heather don’t yet know before the concert. The Boy Wonder is a hero, pure and simple. What would we do without him?

We whooped and yelled (tunefully, mind you) our way through Monateng Kapele and we practised Une Puce. How Heather managed the latter I don’t know. It is in Old French, which is weird, and very fast and it took us weeks and weeks to get the hang of it but she didn’t look all that much like a frightened rabbit so she must have found it sort of OK. Of course she may well have been singing rubbish and all the wrong notes too but I was too far away from her to hear (by that I mean I had Jenny in between) and I do hope so because that would make me feel far less stupid than I do when I see these young people picking things up so easily. By that I mean learning, not bending down to retrieve dropped objects which I can still do with no trouble at all I assure you.

The third verse of Une Puce - sung by choir 1 who get all the fun (no, I’m not in it) – requires to be sung in a very nasal, ugly fashion – well, that’s what the BW requires of it, anyway. It is about ‘une vielle charmeresse’, an old enchantress who has for our purposes, it appears – at least in the eyes of the young master – lost any chance she might once have had of enchanting anybody and must, inevitably, be witchy and horrid rather than a faded beauty with seductive voice – and, yes, what fun would that be? So – ugly and nasal it is. As a result, thanks to Anne – and rather happily – we have a new piece of musical terminology. Forget... what have we in the folder?... yes, forget ‘moderato, grazioso’. Forget ‘slowly and gently’ or ‘lievemente, giocoso’ (what??). Forget ‘senza misura’ and ‘poco piu mosso’ (hmmm….?). Instead we have ‘sustained old hag’.

Genius. My, did we laugh. And laugh. And, as I said earlier, laughed some more when supposed to be singing.

All together it was quite a jolly little rehearsal. We are really rather a jolly little bunch. And now I’m off for a jolly big drink.

Cheers!

Another Sop Bites the Dust

Lord a’ mercy, jus’ what is we doin’ wrong? Now Alison is bidding us farewell and quite soon, too. She is going to sing with us at the Wigtown Book Festival and then... off into the sunset! So, ten a penny as sopranos are, we are obliged to search for another as well as a tenor or two (maybe three to be on the safe side; they’re slippery creatures and can’t be trusted to stay around for more than a month or two – unless they’re Chris or Douglas who have to stay because no one else would have them) and a bass. Lawks! Thank goodness we have an open-rehearsal-come-and-sing-with-us(-please-please-please) session coming up. My idea, I’ll have you know (and I shall happily take all credit for it until no one turns up and we are left to entertain only ourselves). The plan is to have lots of fun, but not so much that we scare prospective members off. Jenny is banned. Sebastian is on the reserve list and Christopher is going to be obliged to have normal hair and to cover his legs.

Last night was a lot of fun again – more work on Desh. We had to recap on the tabla boing-ing for those who weren’t there last week. It has to be said that the basses are really rather good at this. Try as we all might the effect is not quite the same in the upper registers – though it’s not bad and the effect is always interesting if not arresting, as it is with the rumblers. To add to the general fun and merriment we played at being sitars, too, this week. This involved attempting to get whistle-y sort of harmonies into the voice whilst humming – that open mouthed humming which has people looking as if they’ve lost their last marble [otherwise known as overtone singing]. It is most extraordinarily difficult but apparently there are people in the world who can drone away on one note while getting their whistle to play a proper tune on top. All I managed was nearly to asphyxiate myself. I think I misinterpreted Ollie’s instructions. When he said to close up the nose by sealing the top of the mouth off with the tongue I managed to seal up the whole lot so no air at all was getting either in or out. No harmonies for me but very pretty stars before my eyes and a momentary glimpse of heaven. I shall practise in the shower as instructed – as long as I’m alone in the house. Ah, but then who will rescue me when I pass out? This question arose before, if you remember. Last time it had to do with holding loooooong notes. Did you ever imagine that singing was such a dangerous, life-threatening exercise? Alas! Perhaps, ere long, another alto will be required as well.

The only other things we did were Aurora Rutilat – an old piece being revived for Wigtown and very lovely it is too - and Mary’s Song, ditto, in which Jenny gets to sing a beautiful solo in the first verse. (Only the first verse. Natalie and Heather, it seemed, were all for letting her sing every verse solo but, really, she needs to be kept in her place.) We are attempting to be poetic for the Book Festival, as is fitting you will agree.

So – c’est tout. I’m sure, as usual, I have missed out the best bits [such as referring to certain people as being foghorn-like]. Some of that is done on purpose as too much bean-spilling would have Rudsambee down to me and those of us who are rather too free with the insults – actually, that is nearly everyone so no worries there then – but harmony is essential in a choir, is it not? And who am I to go and spoil it???

Laters!

Hell’s Piano is Full of Moths

My, Rudsambee related goings-on don’t ‘alf offer up some excellent potential book titles! How’s the above for an example? Explanation later.

Well, here I am in spite of concerns expressed last week (it was this week, actually, wasn’t it, by the time I got round to blogging?) because the Munich plane doesn’t leave until late afternoon in the summer (it’s summer until October, you’ll be delighted to hear) and so I have time to enlighten you as to last night’s events. ‘Events’ is an inappropriate word. Particularly in the plural. Maybe I can squeeze one eventful moment from the proceedings but that will be all, I fear.
We were down on numbers – this seems to be becoming a habit and not one of which your bloggetteer approves, btw – no Sebastian, no Luke, no Natalie 1 (or 2 for that matter), no Alison, no Anne and Christopher arrived but left again very quickly once he realised he wasn’t going to miss much [and had more exciting thing to run off for]. Ollie was somewhat tardy, Helen even more so. However, in all the self-congratulatory excitement of post-absolutely-fantastic-concert, no one cared at all.

And, delightfully, we had the company of Heather again who joined us for the pre-concert rehearsal last week - about which I didn’t have time to tell you - and is to sing with us at our next concert and hopefully many more after that. She is an alto and a very good one from what I have gathered so far – certainly she was the only one of us last night who noticed that our ‘difficult’ entry was only a matter of singing up one note from the sopranos. Most illuminating and extraordinarily helpful. Downside? Well, she is petite and very pretty so I shan’t want to stand anywhere near her at concerts but will no doubt find myself, feeling like a heifer, right alongside. Just on a personal note (for a change), I find it remarkable that in the company of tall people I feel entirely insignificant and therefore rather embarrassed to be around; however, put me in the company of the small, in which you might imagine I’d enjoy a feeling of superiority and consequent self-importance and I feel over-large, ungainly and clumsy – none of which I am in reality. What I am, obviously, is perennially dissatisfied with my lot. How unattractive. Ah-ha!



Cod-psychology enough for one day, methinks.

Back to last night. John suggested that I do some sort of a warm-up and I was happy to oblige with a few silly physical jerks before handing over to Jenny for the technical stuff (ie singing and breathing which takes more thought than I was willing to attempt on such short notice). By the time this was over the Boy Wonder had arrived, rather sheepishly admitting that he’d had no time to come up with anything to do but had some copies of a piece suggested by Arno and that we would work on that for 45 minutes or so and then have tea and biscuits. I think it may have been at this point that Chris upped and left us for more worthwhile occupation (could it have had anything at all to do with photography, I wonder? [yes]) but he missed a lot of fun by so doing. Arno has found us a gem and I think that is a view shared by all who were there – such agreement is not always evident in the Rudsambee ranks, I assure you. The piece – let me go and get my folder - is called Desh and is an Indian Raga arranged by an American composer, Ethan Sperry. In it we all have to spend time imitating instruments such as the tabla so we practised getting a good bouncy thrummy-drummy sound on the words "Thom ta Taka Dimi" and in future we have ‘k-Dng’s and ‘Da din din da’s to work on. Yey! I think we did quite well for a start and I, for one, can’t wait to carry on with it. Ollie was saying something about getting an Indian classical singer of his acquaintance to come and sing with us – I think there will be another piece which builds up to this one but I didn’t quite catch all he was saying. Whatever – it sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

So – that and then we did indeed finish very early for tea and coffee, biscuits and chat. Kay, who has just moved house and needs a piano, was quizzing Ollie as to the merits of the electric sort (she wants something she can play without waking the boys up!) and asked him how much he paid for his. I won’t relate the rather shocking reply but Kay – always one to speak her mind - responded with a classic – "Do you think it’s worth paying that much for a fake?" Robin spluttering (and spitting out his tea in the process), guffawed in the way only Robin can and suggested that Kay, in future, might consider filtering her comments and questions through him in order to avoid the odd defamatory word that so easily can creep into perfectly innocent observations. (There is something ugly about that sentence but I don’t know what it is. There is no time to be fussy so you’re stuck with it). We then heard about Kay’s old piano – which she got from former Rudsambeeites, I believe. Oops! It was, apparently "rrrridden" with moths. Oh! how I wish I could do justice to that "ridden". Such a rolled "r" and such depths of horror and disgust. If you’ve ever had moths you’ll understand; if not – well, there is nothing I can do to improve the telling of it.

We had, at last, to sing goodbye to Helen who did – after all – turn up for her farewell. I have to say she was most reluctant to be sung at. She pleaded to be let off, she wailed, she grovelled on the floor. She said she had no fields for the rain to fall on, softly or otherwise and she didn’t want to be blown about by the wind whichever direction it was coming from. But we prevailed. We sang. We nearly sang twice but stopped before she ran away without getting hugged. She liked that even less than the singing but hugged she was and off she’s gone though I think she’s coming back for Christmas. Once in Rudsambee you can never really leave... mwah-ha-ha-haaa.

So – there you have Hell’s Piano.
There you have Helen’s Farewell.
There you have This Week’s Report.
And here is The End.
xx

‘Til next time.

Standing Ovation for Small (but perfectly formed) Edinburgh Choir plus: The Diva Returns

Yes, we are small and so, to be frank, was the number of people who leapt to their feet (actually, they were non-existent – the action generally was decidedly less energetic than that though much appreciated all the same) after our triumphant return to the stage at St Giles Cathedral on Sunday. But a standing ovation is a standing ovation and it was all very thrilling, let me tell you. And also, I feel, well deserved. It was a damn fine concert, dontcha know and we was well proud!!

A long rehearsal starting at 2 o’clock paid rich dividends. Amazingly enough we all maintained enough energy and voice to delight the crowds (and, yes, there were crowds, even at the rehearsal) in spite of all the work we had put in earlier in the day. The girlies got thoroughly to grips with the Abbie Betinis song that had had us pulling our hair out at previous practises and so we were able to perform it and to give our Jenny the chance to terrify the audience with her opening holler (very tuneful but quite extraordinarily loud, as I think I have said before) as the first item on a pretty marvellous programme. Recently we have got into the habit of singing Bogoroditse Djevo as an opener but we threw that aside this time and got all female and Eastern and wail-y instead and it was great. I think we are likely to repeat it. Often. (And just to put your minds at rest; however tempted, I didn’t pull faces to get attention even though, as predicted, I didn’t get to sing a solo (or a duet for that matter. I know my place!)

Three of our pieces this time were accompanied. Yes, three. Can you imagine? You might find that shocking if you know us as an a cappella choir but it’s nice to have a change from time to time and we have allowed other musicians to join us before and it is rather good fun as well as having the most unusual and gratifying effect of keeping us in tune. The first song was accompanied by a viola (lovely) and a tambourine - well, a Riq; it looks like a tambourine but let me tell you if you think tambourine-jingly-jangly-shaky-clinky then you’ve never heard this in the hands of Hilary, famed belly-dancer and owner of Hilary’s Bazaar on the High Street. You can get an unbelievable number of sounds from this if you know how – and she does. Woo-hoo!

We also sang the beautiful Five Hebrew Love Songs – thank you Mr Whitacre – for which there must be a piano (played by our multi-talented Anne who has always given up her right to sing these lovely things with us in order to play piano instead) and a violin, played by a friend of Sebastian whose name, shamefully, I don’t know – but she played gorgeously and with very little practise too, so huge thanks in great awe is hereby extended by yours truly. (And everyone else, no doubt, and they probably know your name [it's Charlotte]).

Our final piece, the glorious Cloudburst - Mr W again, how clever is he? - requires all sorts and conditions of instrumental activity ranging from the singers through piano (not Anne this time), hand bells, cymbals, little chime-y thingummyjigs [aka windchimes], a thunder sheet and a very, very big drum not to mention finger-snapping, hand-clapping, leg-slapping shenanigans from the members of the choir. Anna Lauren actually managed to bruise her legs she was slapping them so hard in rehearsal... I only hope she managed to restrain herself somewhat in performance or her husband will get peculiar ideas about Rudsambee and may make her give us up which would be nothing short of a disaster.
Anna Lauren, we need you!

Especially as this was Helen’s last concert with Rudsambee. She is leaving to head for the bright lights and the hustle bustle and the dirt and the noise and the crowded streets of London Town. We didn’t manage to catch hold of her to sing the Irish Blessing at her. She says she is coming to rehearsal on Wednesday so that we can say goodbye then but I have my doubts... she may have escaped unserenaded, in which case she’ll be the first person ever to have achieved such a thing. Speaking of which, we waved farewell to (and sang at) Angus last week. He’s off back to Oz with the family and we shall miss him.

So to the second part of tonight’s story: The Return of the Diva. Yes, Claire1 was back with us again on Sunday and this time she joined us in song. Marvellous. Given a half-hour or so to learn the Abbie Betinis that we had been struggling with for weeks she was able to sing that and the Hebrew Love Songs and Cloudburst with us at the concert and also the necessary encore (at last a chance to sing Bog Off (by which I mean Bogoroditse Djevo, of course)) because she knew all those from her former days as a member – or should I say THE member of Rudsambee (sorry Diva!). It was lovely to have her back even if for a very brief appearance but very confusing to be one of two Claires again having got used to being the-one-and-only – a condition much more suited to my disposition, as I’m sure you realise.

So – that’s about it, folks. I didn’t write last week as I was off down south for a long weekend and this week I’m off to Germany for the same (oh! the life of a jet-setter) so you may well have to wait for a report on Wednesday’s fun and games until next Monday or later. Maybe Jenny will oblige if any really exciting news needs to be imparted for I may well have forgotten everything well before I get back from Munich. Usually I’m hard-pressed to remember anything by Thursday morning.

Thank you to anyone who came to the concert – especially if you were one of the stander-uppers.

Catch you later.

Amend Last Weeks Title to: "Return of The Idiot, The Fool, The Half-wit"

What can she mean? I hear you cry. How dare our erudite and multi-talented Blogetteer refer to herself in such disparaging terms? Woe and alack-a-day! What has upset the delicate balance of her sensibilities and led to this – surely unjustifiable? - self-censure?

(You get the picture…)

Well, I wrote the blog in good time last week – honest I did – as evidenced therein by the word ‘tomorrow’ i.e. Sunday, which I would only use if I were doing a Saturday report, wouldn’t I? Unless, of course, I was being very sneaky and trying to trick you into thinking I was writing on Saturday when really it was Monday which would explain why the blog did not appear until Tuesday. Still with me? Actually what happened was that I did indeed get me blogging done on Saturday but then I emailed Chris (who does the posting) and, blow me down! forgot to send the relevant attachment. (What he made of an email merely announcing that I was off to write introductions, I have no idea. Perhaps he thought I thought he’d be interested in such minutiae?) It wasn’t until Tuesday when our erstwhile replacement blogstress, Jenny, sent me an email entitled "Where is it?" that I realised my mistake. (Thank you, Jen. Good work. Someone is reading these, it seems!) Chris, being well used to my inefficiency and long past making polite inquiries as to the whereabouts of my weekly (!?) words of wisdom, did not make any polite inquiries into my weekly WoW so they might have remained written but unread – a crime against great literary endeavour if ever there was one – had it not been for The Vigilance of Mrs Fardell (oooo, there’s a good book-title).

So you see why I feel it necessary to castigate myself. I did give Christopher permission to write rude things about me as a footnote to my last week’s effort but it appears he has displayed remarkable restraint and decided against it. Either that or he was too busy to bother. Whatever the reason, I feel obliged to do the job for him. Job done.

None of which enlightens you as to the recent activities of your favourite choristers.

Sunday was an interesting experiment. I feel the time of day was a little unfortunate. 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning nearly proved the undoing of the Boy Wonder – he made it for 9.55 but the rest of us had been there as per instructions (from TBW) since 9.15 or earlier. Something about a forgotten alarm... However, at least he got there which is more than can be said for Helen, who didn’t - this being the time of unsleeping dissertation hell. Which left some interesting Helen-shaped holes in things, some of which could be filled by Anna-Lauren or the massed voices of the soprani but one of which was more of a Helen-shaped chasm and had poor Elaine battling all alone through the 2nd choir verses of Une Puce while the 1st choir boasted no less than four of the heavenly high-voiced (an imbalance I can’t explain as it would have been only marginally improved by Helen’s attendance. There must have been another absent soprano, mustn’t there? But whom...? I apologise to whoever it was if it was anybody. Imagine forgetting you! [perhaps Rachael?])

Anyway, the audience were a bit thin on the ground when we began and only a little thicker when we finished but set fair to be considerably larger for those who followed us as by then the sun was out and people had actually got out of bed. However, we sang some songs and collected some money (for Water Aid and St Columba’s Hospice) and had some photos taken, the latter activity providing some fair amusement for passers-by, one of whom took some pictures of us taking pictures of ourselves (timer on Chris’s posh camera) as if he thought we were famous... or something.




On to last night where we, rather than the audience, were rather thin on the ground and remained that way. Robin was busy preparing for his first day as a grown-up, teaching Chemistry in Dunfermline (Good luck, kiddo. You’ll be brilliant, I’m sure!). Chris was absent, Arno was absent, Natalie2 was absent, Helen... and so on. We warmed up by singing the beginning of This Marriage and working on blending so it sounded gorgeous (will it last??) then sang through the Five Hebrew Love Songs which we’re hoping to perform at St Giles on the 29th. Luke has never sung these before so was delighted to get a chance, I’m sure, but no doubt feels he needs much more practise – which he will get on the 29th! Once this was done Ollie sent the boys away. They could actually have gone home at this point but decided to stay and work amongst themselves which shows commendable dedication. No idea what they did but perhaps Luke got to spend more time on the 5HLSs after all. Meanwhile we ladies had a hard old time trying to get our heads round the Abbie Betinis caravan song we started some weeks ago. Now, I don’t know how much time was spent on this while I was away but I didn’t feel I was floundering more than anyone else so maybe not much or maybe it is just horribly difficult. The notes are awkward and the rhythms are impossible! Well, no. Not impossible, but the concentration required! No doubt one day (very, very soon I hope) we’ll be laughing at how hard we found it but at the moment the learning of it is not a pleasant experience. This is the one with several solos and Jenny’s very loud big moment, remember? And last night Natalie1 actually offered to do one of the solos. Is the girl mad? I think it’s the only offer Ollie will get. Anna Lauren has to do one because it goes really high but nobody else seems keen to catch the Maestro’s eye when he starts mentioning the ‘s’ word for this one. Will Natalie get her heart’s desire? Watch this space. Or come to the concert.

Really that was it, though at the risk of mentioning Jenny’s name too often there were two amusing incidents last night involving She Of The Capacious Lungs. First I found her in a trance whilst contemplating a pencil held delicately upright at nose level between forefinger and thumb – as if it were a thing of great beauty or engineering of extraordinary complexity. I think she should have been singing at the time but obviously this pencil had captured her imagination far more than the song. Secondly, at the end of the rehearsal, for no apparent reason, she pulled on an old Victorian-style nightdress adorned with sea-themed doodads in which she swung about in what seemed to be a proud display of her invention and ability to sew. Why? You may well ask! It turned out she’s off to a family get-together down south this weekend during which there will be a fancy dress party with - yes, you’ve guessed it! - a sea theme, and she wanted to try her costume out in front of a sympathetic – if somewhat puzzled – audience. Natalie, once she’d recovered from her jaw-dropped confusion, suggested Jen should string some shells round her neck and I thought I had a shell-bedecked piece of string at home from one of the girl’s long-ago mermaid costumes which I offered to lend in return for a lift home. I got the lift but she didn’t get the necklace. Having emptied in vain the dressing-up box (which is at the back of a very dark cupboard) I came to the conclusion I must have dismantled or lost it years ago. A shame. But the nightie speaks for itself.

See you next week.

Maybe.