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