Hello, mes amies – I’m off to Munich in the morning and to the Trav tonight so have to get this done NOW. Oh, the pressure! I have a French tiler in the kitchen, an assortment of costume-designing young ladies in one daughter’s bedroom, sewing and chatting (mostly chatting, I imagine) and demanding occasional input from expert seamstress, me - (actually all I’ve done is trundle out to buy plastic-covered steel boning and fail dismally to come up with an answer as to the whereabouts of the sewing-machine zipper foot); another daughter upstairs expecting ideas for her next craft-spot appearance on"‘The Hour" (STV!!) and then to spend time with her mother (disappointed in the second instance if not the first – which was a bit dodgy originality-wise but better than nothing), a bag to pack and this to write. Never tell me my life is empty... or that my sentences make sense.
So, to last night. A very good rehearsal. Small group once again too small – this is becoming repetitive. Ollie is going to use the time to do note-bashing on our new pieces instead until things look up a bit. This will be very useful but not as much fun. Maybe, eventually, enough people will start appearing early and we will be able to embark on a little something extra.
When I arrived there were already a few hardy and dedicated folk trilling away at the new Tormis piece – St. John’s Steed, if you remember. Once I had worked out where in the music they were and then worked out what my note was supposed to be (I was the only Alto again so it took a while!) I joined in and was pleased with how much I remembered. I have realised there is something to be said sometimes for being less than brilliant at the old music theory (and practice, let’s be honest) because the fact that the bar lines are all wonky and bar 40 for the women is not bar 40 for the men worries me not at all; whereas Anne – who is an excellent musician – was horribly confused by such inconsistencies (though she seemed to have come to terms with the madness by the end of the evening). We spent quite a long time on this once everyone had gathered and all to good purpose as it was really beginning to sound almost good. There is one point – well, the end, actually – where the Altos have a good deep swoop down (to an F, or something; I just sing the notes once we get below a G – don’t expect me to recognise them. The violin doesn’t go any lower than that so neither does my knowledge) and Christopher gave me such a look at that moment whilst guffawing loudly and suggested that my voice had just broken. I’m not sure if he meant as in adolescent boy or shattered crockery but he had to add – hurriedly – that he’d only commented because he was impressed. Yeah, right.
Galloping on, we began working on Hide and Seek, well, Sang it a bit and then separated to look at it more specifically. Half of us know this one really well and the others not at all so it is important to make sure that the old’uns are not singing what they think is right but isn’t and the newbies have a chance to learn it properly from the beginning. Heather is thoroughly depressed by it. Thinks it the most miserable thing! I can see why. And it’s very low and manly in places which may be depressing her spirits further. But I like it. That may be because I’m one of the manly women. And even I find it rather growly, broken voice and all.
I took some notes during this song and the next in order to enliven the blog as I felt my efforts last week were a little dull to say the least. Unfortunately I left my music and, therefore, my notes at John and Susan’s last night so they’ll be no jollying this up unless I can remember some of the jolly things that were said and done. Which I can’t. Oops.
I’ve just been asked to advise on bullet-holes in clothing and recipes for bloodstains. Had you any idea my knowledge spans so many diverse and peculiar matters? I gave my opinion and prodded various sharp instruments through a piece of material in order to demonstrate likely techniques to achieve a realistic result but as I have absolutely no first-hand experience of bullet-holes this may have been worse than useless. And anyway, it seems to me, there are as many different bullet-holes as there are types of bullet and range of shot, are there not? And then what about shotgun pellets?????
Lastly we reminded ourselves of a very small part of Leonardo during which our Jenny became very dramatic indeed on the word "siren" (as in sea nymph not fire engine) and then we finished – early, I think, but we had worked hard. We women even harder than the men because we got to grips with things faster than they did and, in our spare time while we waited (and waited) for them, started working on the beginning of Leonardo which, up to now, the Boy Wonder has been avoiding. We know why!
A word in praise of Harriet who was the only Soprano1 present all evening and did a great job in very trying circumstances, with extremely tricksy music which would have had many an older Rudsambeeite in all sorts of a mess.
Some discussion as to the viability of going to Poland when numbers available and willing to do so are rather lower than would be ideal. Personally I don’t see the point of going if there are only half of us there to sing as we couldn’t do the usual repertoire and this would be totally unrepresentative of the choir as it is now and probably a huge disappointment for the Poles who would be expecting something akin to what they’ve heard on the CD we sent them. Still, we’ll see. It would be a shame to miss the opportunity but maybe we should leave it for another time when more people are willing to commit to it.
Never short of an opinion, am I?
Time to stop. Will attempt to make notes and bring them home next week – promise.
Have a good weekend. Think of me in freezing, snowy Munich. Brrrrr….
Thursday 27 January 2011
Sunday 23 January 2011
All in a Small Room
We tried small group again this week but once again it was too small to do anything. Somehow we need to lure in a few more people. Ollie thinks he will have to choose something exciting to do and then, maybe, more of us will turn up. We had no Tenors at all – except for the BW who doesn’t really count (though he does occasionally like to join us in song and may well have to if the situation re numbers doesn’t improve) and only one Alto (me. And we all know how useless I am on my own).
Instead of starting something new we had a look at that magnificent man in his flying machine, reminding ourselves of what we learned last week and as we sang more people turned up and as more people turned up we went further and learned more. I actually remembered and managed to sing all on me lonesome – the right notes and everything. You may recall that the Altos have a lot of la-ing to do in this one. Seven pages of it, in fact; I just counted. Seven pages, then a break while the ‘la’s are interrupted by rather more interesting text and then we’re back to the L-word for another couple of pages at the end. It’s quite hard work – does funny things to the tongue. Luckily it’s not all on one note. And it may sound as if it’s really boring but it’s really not. Honest.
But I do think I need to get my eyes seen to. The sight-reading is quite bad enough without being obstructed by poor vision. Caused, I have to point out, by poor lighting.
(We spent all evening in the piano room this week and it’s not exactly brightly lit in there if you bag a spot by the radiator). I can still see to thread a needle if the light’s good enough (and the needle big enough and using string instead of cotton!) and I am loath to give my eyes the excuse to become as lazy as their owner - that is what happens, I believe, if one wears glasses – but trying to read little black dots on thin black lines, at speed, in not very good light, at the end of a long day... well, is it any wonder I sing rubbish??
Having sung through to the end of Leonardo (though without having even glanced at the beginning of it yet, which makes one question what is in store for us when we try to tackle that section) we did a bit of Desh-ing. I got all sorts of bits of it right this time which have never been right before but there’s still a fair few places (the end, which we learned last, in a break from tradition) where I am floundering and which I MUST look at properly before next week. I can do either the words or the tune (rhythm) but not both – trying to do both sends my eyes off in different directions. Everyone else seems to have got the hang of this one, though, because it is sounding good.
We have a new piece of Tormis – Jaani Hobu, or St. John’s Steed. It is a sort of round with other things going on and it is very repetitive, thank God, because it will, eventually, go very fast. We have done O Morgenstern where the Tenors and Sopranos sing in a different key to the Altos and Basses and now we have this where everyone seems to be singing in a different time signature. 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 we are instructed at the beginning and several people were wondering aloud how it was possible to do all three at once. Well, of course, we don’t do it all at once but there’s a bar of this, a bar of that; the Tenors and Basses are doing one thing while the Altos and Sopranos do another, everyone comes together for a bit then off we all go on our separate ways again. And there are the key changes too, of course. Our Lord and Master was quite surprised and impressed with how quickly we got the hang of it (I’m not sure what that says about his belief in our ability) but get the hang of it we did and pretty quickly, too. Somehow it was really quite easy. Odd.
There’s not much else to report. Anna Lauren was back with us having had a trying time getting away to America for Christmas. Original flight cancelled so spent Christmas day driving down to London in order to catch a plane on Boxing Day – nightmare.
It seems our Polish choir will not be able to visit this year though they are still happy to have us over there. No idea what we’ll do about the trip now but no doubt decisions will have to be made soonish. If we go it will be in September, by the look of things, so maybe we’ll get to sing in London in May after all, which would be nice. I should have said last week that Luke IS GOING TO BE A DAD – yey! Another Rudsambee baby. What a fecund lot. Imagine how incredibly exciting it would be if we had more potential fathers in the Tenor section. Ah well, one can dream...
And on that note - time for bed.
xx
Instead of starting something new we had a look at that magnificent man in his flying machine, reminding ourselves of what we learned last week and as we sang more people turned up and as more people turned up we went further and learned more. I actually remembered and managed to sing all on me lonesome – the right notes and everything. You may recall that the Altos have a lot of la-ing to do in this one. Seven pages of it, in fact; I just counted. Seven pages, then a break while the ‘la’s are interrupted by rather more interesting text and then we’re back to the L-word for another couple of pages at the end. It’s quite hard work – does funny things to the tongue. Luckily it’s not all on one note. And it may sound as if it’s really boring but it’s really not. Honest.
But I do think I need to get my eyes seen to. The sight-reading is quite bad enough without being obstructed by poor vision. Caused, I have to point out, by poor lighting.
(We spent all evening in the piano room this week and it’s not exactly brightly lit in there if you bag a spot by the radiator). I can still see to thread a needle if the light’s good enough (and the needle big enough and using string instead of cotton!) and I am loath to give my eyes the excuse to become as lazy as their owner - that is what happens, I believe, if one wears glasses – but trying to read little black dots on thin black lines, at speed, in not very good light, at the end of a long day... well, is it any wonder I sing rubbish??
Having sung through to the end of Leonardo (though without having even glanced at the beginning of it yet, which makes one question what is in store for us when we try to tackle that section) we did a bit of Desh-ing. I got all sorts of bits of it right this time which have never been right before but there’s still a fair few places (the end, which we learned last, in a break from tradition) where I am floundering and which I MUST look at properly before next week. I can do either the words or the tune (rhythm) but not both – trying to do both sends my eyes off in different directions. Everyone else seems to have got the hang of this one, though, because it is sounding good.
We have a new piece of Tormis – Jaani Hobu, or St. John’s Steed. It is a sort of round with other things going on and it is very repetitive, thank God, because it will, eventually, go very fast. We have done O Morgenstern where the Tenors and Sopranos sing in a different key to the Altos and Basses and now we have this where everyone seems to be singing in a different time signature. 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 we are instructed at the beginning and several people were wondering aloud how it was possible to do all three at once. Well, of course, we don’t do it all at once but there’s a bar of this, a bar of that; the Tenors and Basses are doing one thing while the Altos and Sopranos do another, everyone comes together for a bit then off we all go on our separate ways again. And there are the key changes too, of course. Our Lord and Master was quite surprised and impressed with how quickly we got the hang of it (I’m not sure what that says about his belief in our ability) but get the hang of it we did and pretty quickly, too. Somehow it was really quite easy. Odd.
There’s not much else to report. Anna Lauren was back with us having had a trying time getting away to America for Christmas. Original flight cancelled so spent Christmas day driving down to London in order to catch a plane on Boxing Day – nightmare.
It seems our Polish choir will not be able to visit this year though they are still happy to have us over there. No idea what we’ll do about the trip now but no doubt decisions will have to be made soonish. If we go it will be in September, by the look of things, so maybe we’ll get to sing in London in May after all, which would be nice. I should have said last week that Luke IS GOING TO BE A DAD – yey! Another Rudsambee baby. What a fecund lot. Imagine how incredibly exciting it would be if we had more potential fathers in the Tenor section. Ah well, one can dream...
And on that note - time for bed.
xx
Saturday 15 January 2011
Off We Go Again!
Well, hellooooooh! Happy New Year to you (all) – slightly belated I know but heartfelt all the same, I assure you. Did you (all) have lovely festive season(s)? Mine was a little weird to tell the truth but my presents were good (both those I gave and those I received) and that’s what matters, eh? Chris went to Ollie’s for Christmas but it must have been rubbish because his festive highlight, apparently, was watching a group of straight men drinking cherry Lambrini, or some such aberration, on New Year’s Eve. Our Boy Wonder was a little put-out at hearing this, as you can imagine. But really, what can you expect from a rainbow-haired troll who wears shorts in the middle of winter? (Longish shorts, you’ll be delighted to hear. The thought of him in short-shorts is enough to have a body being carted off by the white-coated ones).
I should probably have started back with the blogging a week ago when we had our first meeting but I didn’t and, as I have determined not to employ the overused s...y word at all if I can help it, I have to inform you that I am not s...y at all, so there. I had far too much to think about and complain about and worry about (new kitchen: don’t do it if you want to remain sane and even marginally pleasant to be around) to be bothering with telling you of our start-of-year discussions concerning what 2011 holds - and may hold - in store for Rudsambee. In short, we may go on an exchange-type, concert trip to Poland in either May or September and host the Polish choir in June; we may go and sing in London in May if we’re not going to Poland; we may sing in Rosslyn at Christmas if they’ll have us; we may go to Cranshaws at some point in the year to earn the money they gave us two years ago for a concert we couldn’t get to through the snow; we will sing in St Giles in both August and December and the National Gallery in April. We may – horror of horrors – lose our Boy Wonder after he finishes his Masters later this year and will therefore have to start thinking about how we recruit a new Director. This topic caused lively discussion with no absolute decision made as to how we might go about it but several ideas, including putting out a request for interested parties on the university Music Dept website. Ol reckons this would yield a fair amount of interest and that we could replace him in the twitching of a baton. Never! I think that kidnap and coercion will be necessary. We have to do something. After all he’s too young to appreciate his potential predicament - namely, whatever would he do without us!?
Anne is preparing to give up being administrator-extraordinaire; believe it or not we had an expression of interest in the post from Heather – hurrah for newbies!! She thinks that, with a little off-loading of extraneous duties, she will manage the job without too much difficulty and as some of those extraneous duties can be off-loaded fairly easily (as long as no one suggests I take on any of them!!) it looks as if we may have a replacement for irreplaceable Anne. Though Heather will have to go it some (oh, what a delightfully ugly expression that is!) to fill the post as brilliantly as the perfectly-pitched person who has always seemed so indispensable.
Along with Anne will go our Treasurer, Dick, but Susan has offered to take on this role. We are hoping that her lack of understanding of the words "household accounts" (they mean nothing to me, either) and her willingness to shred a cheque for several thousand pounds at the behest of her husband will not impact upon her performance as keeper of the Rudsambee books.
Enough, enough. Since all this we have had a proper rehearsal and I have to leave room to tell you something of Wednesday evening’s activities. We tried to re-establish small group but the group was so small that we were unable to make much of a start. Once a few extra folk arrived we sang through that old favourite Star of the County Down and eventually (if you were me) sort-of remembered how it was supposed to go. It may be that we have to find some pieces with fewer splits if there are only going to be a handful of us arriving at 7.15 but Ollie seems keen to do something and I am too. Somehow it’s easier to leave the house earlier than to sit down for a bit, get comfy and then have to haul myself up and off to Morningside for 7.45. Jenny is going to find it difficult to be there on time which will be a bit of a disaster if we need ff Alto2s because I can only do ff if it’s on the right note. Still we’ll see how it goes and if you come to a concert and there’s a small group piece and you see me going puce you’ll know that I’m trying to sing loudly all by myself and struggling badly without me buddy-slash-partner-in-crime.
When it got to rehearsal proper we started with Desh and played at being Indian instruments again. Joy. Love it. Can’t sing it but love it all the same! Actually, there’s fast and tricky bits which get my eyes all crossed, my tongue all twisted and my brain badly whisked but apart from that it’s fine.
We then started work on a new Eric Whitacre (yum) piece called – with consummate simplicity - Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. That’ll take up some room on a programme. And the song is much longer than the title – 13 double-sided pages! That’ll take up some time in a concert. Ollie sent the girls off with Anne to work on a very short section which took an age to get the hang of! Once we’d made some headway we moved on to the bit where Leo gets up the nerve to take off and as this involves lots of ‘la’-ing on one note for the Alto2s, all Jenny and I have to do is to remember (how) to count. All the way up to thirteen. Hmm. I think everyone else is being much more complicated while we 'la' but I was counting too hard to notice. I did notice, however, that this will be stunning once we know what we’re doing.
After getting back together again to sing what we’d learned (!) we moved on to reprising Hide and Seek, an Imogen Heap song we performed on several occasions a while ago with some success, so much so that we recorded it! Of course, our new members have not sung this before and I have no idea what they made of it as it is a little strange and the words make no sense at all but it is fun to sing and one of one of my daughter’s friends said it was her favourite piece when we sang it in St Giles a year or two ago and she being young and therefore, presumably, knowing what’s what this has to be viewed as encouraging, doesn’t it? This is also a long song – 16 dsps – and with Desh at 7.5 it looks as if our lord and master is attempting to arrange the shortest full-length Rudsambee concert in history. Three songs and almost a full programme already!!!
There then. Blog numero 1 done and dusted (unlike my kitchen). Time for beddy-byes. Until next time... (note I don’t say ‘next week’. Better safe than s...y).
xx
I should probably have started back with the blogging a week ago when we had our first meeting but I didn’t and, as I have determined not to employ the overused s...y word at all if I can help it, I have to inform you that I am not s...y at all, so there. I had far too much to think about and complain about and worry about (new kitchen: don’t do it if you want to remain sane and even marginally pleasant to be around) to be bothering with telling you of our start-of-year discussions concerning what 2011 holds - and may hold - in store for Rudsambee. In short, we may go on an exchange-type, concert trip to Poland in either May or September and host the Polish choir in June; we may go and sing in London in May if we’re not going to Poland; we may sing in Rosslyn at Christmas if they’ll have us; we may go to Cranshaws at some point in the year to earn the money they gave us two years ago for a concert we couldn’t get to through the snow; we will sing in St Giles in both August and December and the National Gallery in April. We may – horror of horrors – lose our Boy Wonder after he finishes his Masters later this year and will therefore have to start thinking about how we recruit a new Director. This topic caused lively discussion with no absolute decision made as to how we might go about it but several ideas, including putting out a request for interested parties on the university Music Dept website. Ol reckons this would yield a fair amount of interest and that we could replace him in the twitching of a baton. Never! I think that kidnap and coercion will be necessary. We have to do something. After all he’s too young to appreciate his potential predicament - namely, whatever would he do without us!?
Anne is preparing to give up being administrator-extraordinaire; believe it or not we had an expression of interest in the post from Heather – hurrah for newbies!! She thinks that, with a little off-loading of extraneous duties, she will manage the job without too much difficulty and as some of those extraneous duties can be off-loaded fairly easily (as long as no one suggests I take on any of them!!) it looks as if we may have a replacement for irreplaceable Anne. Though Heather will have to go it some (oh, what a delightfully ugly expression that is!) to fill the post as brilliantly as the perfectly-pitched person who has always seemed so indispensable.
Along with Anne will go our Treasurer, Dick, but Susan has offered to take on this role. We are hoping that her lack of understanding of the words "household accounts" (they mean nothing to me, either) and her willingness to shred a cheque for several thousand pounds at the behest of her husband will not impact upon her performance as keeper of the Rudsambee books.
Enough, enough. Since all this we have had a proper rehearsal and I have to leave room to tell you something of Wednesday evening’s activities. We tried to re-establish small group but the group was so small that we were unable to make much of a start. Once a few extra folk arrived we sang through that old favourite Star of the County Down and eventually (if you were me) sort-of remembered how it was supposed to go. It may be that we have to find some pieces with fewer splits if there are only going to be a handful of us arriving at 7.15 but Ollie seems keen to do something and I am too. Somehow it’s easier to leave the house earlier than to sit down for a bit, get comfy and then have to haul myself up and off to Morningside for 7.45. Jenny is going to find it difficult to be there on time which will be a bit of a disaster if we need ff Alto2s because I can only do ff if it’s on the right note. Still we’ll see how it goes and if you come to a concert and there’s a small group piece and you see me going puce you’ll know that I’m trying to sing loudly all by myself and struggling badly without me buddy-slash-partner-in-crime.
When it got to rehearsal proper we started with Desh and played at being Indian instruments again. Joy. Love it. Can’t sing it but love it all the same! Actually, there’s fast and tricky bits which get my eyes all crossed, my tongue all twisted and my brain badly whisked but apart from that it’s fine.
We then started work on a new Eric Whitacre (yum) piece called – with consummate simplicity - Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. That’ll take up some room on a programme. And the song is much longer than the title – 13 double-sided pages! That’ll take up some time in a concert. Ollie sent the girls off with Anne to work on a very short section which took an age to get the hang of! Once we’d made some headway we moved on to the bit where Leo gets up the nerve to take off and as this involves lots of ‘la’-ing on one note for the Alto2s, all Jenny and I have to do is to remember (how) to count. All the way up to thirteen. Hmm. I think everyone else is being much more complicated while we 'la' but I was counting too hard to notice. I did notice, however, that this will be stunning once we know what we’re doing.
After getting back together again to sing what we’d learned (!) we moved on to reprising Hide and Seek, an Imogen Heap song we performed on several occasions a while ago with some success, so much so that we recorded it! Of course, our new members have not sung this before and I have no idea what they made of it as it is a little strange and the words make no sense at all but it is fun to sing and one of one of my daughter’s friends said it was her favourite piece when we sang it in St Giles a year or two ago and she being young and therefore, presumably, knowing what’s what this has to be viewed as encouraging, doesn’t it? This is also a long song – 16 dsps – and with Desh at 7.5 it looks as if our lord and master is attempting to arrange the shortest full-length Rudsambee concert in history. Three songs and almost a full programme already!!!
There then. Blog numero 1 done and dusted (unlike my kitchen). Time for beddy-byes. Until next time... (note I don’t say ‘next week’. Better safe than s...y).
xx
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