We had some extremely bedraggled arrivals at choir last night – Kay had to borrow trousers from Susan so thoroughly soaked was she about the legs – but that’s what you get for cycling in a downpour without your waterproofs. I discovered my shoes had holes in them. Not large ones for it took a while to register the damp toesies and really quite a reasonable length of time for them to become truly waterlogged – but holes there are and wet my feet were and I was going to complain very loudly indeed until I saw the state of the cyclists and that put sodden trotters into perspective and shut me up good an’ proper.
So – we had a rather late-in-the-day email from Chris yesterday suggesting that we might like to bring along copies of Cloudburst (our man Eric (Whitacre (yum))) to the rehearsal. As we are going to be singing this in a matter of weeks and as it is rather complicated and as Luke and new Natalie have never set eyes on it before (and as now, as it turns out, you’d think none of the rest of us has, either) – this seemed like a very good idea. Oh, but it’s a tricky little number. Involves waving around of arms and clicking of fingers and slapping of legs and clapping of hands as well as breathing – yes, breathing too, can you believe it? And the Boy Wonder not only expects us to keep filling our lungs while waving and clicking and slapping and clapping and, oh, yes of course, how could I forget? – singing, but he seems to think we can take in such deep breaths and support them so well that we can keep on yodelling for minutes at a time without a refill. Well – he can think what he likes but I fear he’s bound to be disappointed. I can barely get two words out in this one before I start going blue around the edges. I suppose I shall have to practice and hope someone is around to resuscitate me if I take things too far.
We only worked on the first page to begin with and it was largely remembered, if raggedy, but we had to keep stopping so Ollie could explain things to Luke (Natalie 2 wasn’t there which is a bit of a worry as she’s supposed to sing with me) because there’s a lot of explaining to do for anyone who hasn’t seen the music before. I remember perusing it for the first time and thinking I must be in the middle of a very bad dream. And still one line gave me serious trouble yesterday – so much so that Anne had to sing with me to help me out, Jenny having been transferred to the Tenor department and me being the only Alto 2 present. I think Jen and I never actually sang this bit right to begin with. I reckon we re-wrote it to suit ourselves and that is why I was struggling with it last night - it was most distressingly unfamiliar! Anyway, Ollie has given me Jenny back to help out here and there in the difficult passages so she will have to hop about between parts and I feel this is bound to result in a bit more... re-working. (I’m sure Mr Whitacre (yum) would be delighted with our version of his music if he ever heard it). I’m afraid I have to admit to a squeaky protest of "I don’t need help, I’ll get it eventually" etc. etc. (and at a pitch to make a Soprano green with envy) but I’ll be glad to have my old partner in composition-crime back again for the re-writes. I mean the tricky bits.
After this the Sopranos were sent away to work on... something, while the Altos, Tenors and Basses had a wee go at a new/old Spanish piece which goes very fast and is very wordy at times and just a little bit of a tongue-twister. The Ts and Bs started to learn it last week or the one before and we Altos were in danger of tying our tongues in knots as we tried to keep up with their linguistic acrobatics, however the BW took pity on us and we were able to s...l...o...w... down quite considerably for a while in order to get untangled and begin to make sense of what we were singing. It’s a jolly little piece in a simple sort of way and will be fun to sing, I think.
There was a confused swapping around of people and places as the boys went off with Anne to look at more Cloudburst while the sops came back to join the alts for a little work on our Abbie Betinis caravan song (unfortunately without loudness from Jenny as she is already very good at that and there is more to be done on the rest of it than on her BIG moment). There will be quite a few solos in this (I won’t get one, I know, and I think I’m quite glad about that though no doubt I’ll miss the second or two of limelight when it comes to performance – I’ll pull faces or something instead to get myself noticed).
Eventually we all got back together again to have a go at the end of Cloudburst which is where all the extra physical activity comes into play and, well, disaster or what? I, for one, need to do some serious homework. I’m sure it will all come back to me and a fair few people seemed to remember their parts very well indeed (of course, the boys had had a chance to re-familiarise themselves with it by then so they don’t count) so all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well – hooray!
At the end of the evening Susan distributed a worryingly large number of boxes of herbal tea. Where it came from I’ve no idea but I’m with Robin on the back-of-a-lorry theory. And she looks so respectable, too. These Morningside types are not to be trusted. Sneaky. Shifty. If you hear of a herbal tea heist any time soon you’ll know where to point the finger. You got it from me. Make sure to share your reward.
The rain was still raining and the wind gusting so Robin and I engaged in all sorts of unnecessary (but, as he pointed out with consummate charm) very enjoyable conversation and story-telling while trying to look as if we weren’t waiting for Jenny to finish her discussion (looked mighty serious) – (NB the words ‘Jenny’ and ‘serious’ have probably never appeared together in a sentence before) - with Sebastian so that we could look surprised when she offered us a lift home. She wasn’t fooled for a second but she offered anyway. Sorted.
Now, next week I am off down south on Thursday morning and may well have no time for blogstuff so I hope someone else will fill you in on our doings and sayings but I hope they don’t do it too successfully because I am beginning to enjoy this job and wish to keep it, useless as I often am. I’ll be away for two weeks. I shall miss you. Be good.
Kisses.
Good God – it is 2 o’clock in the morning!!
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1 comment:
It took me a very enjoyable hour reading this huge epistle because I was choking with laughter. Thanks. Cheered up my day no end!! x
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