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.