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.
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