My dear and faithful Reader/s

Sadly the time has come for me to hang up my Blogetteer’s... hmmm... apron? (It’s a messy business).

Certain circumstances arising over the last week mean I no longer feel able – or inclined – to carry on. There are moves afoot to change the essence of the blog content and I can (and will) only write as I have always written, so I think it better to bow out gracefully now than to be pushed out later or squashed into conformity with other people’s idea of what is appropriate. I would have liked to keep going while Ollie was with us but I’m afraid I just can’t. To those of you who have enjoyed my efforts and will miss them, a heartfelt apology. To those of you who haven’t, well – c’est tout; no more to worry about. My last post was my last post so hats off, y’all and salute the Rudsambee banner (or just me, if you prefer). I have enjoyed my time with you – in spite of the effort and HOURS of composition involved when I could have been doing far more useful things. Of course I never would have been doing them anyway but I like to play the martyr whenever possible. I shall have to find something else to write nonsense about now. Ideas, anyone? All suggestions gratefully received.

I don’t know if we will find anyone foolish (and generally idle) enough to take my place but, as you see, the times they are a-changing and perhaps the blog has had its day.

Thank you for reading.

Bisous.

...

Can’t think of a title. Always have a title. Perhaps several glasses of Friday fizz are to blame. And no food except crispy snacks and chocolate.

What a disgrace.

And tomorrow I need to be able to sing because we are doing our last-ever-recording with Ol as Lord and Master.

Oh dear.

It is only 10 o’clock or so but sleep seems a sensible option. However... surely it’s too early. And I need to get at least half of this written before I climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.

Is it two weeks since last I wrote? I believe it is. Week one I could have done it but didn’t know what to say and week two I could have done it but was in London and then Hungary and then Slovakia and then Austria and then Germany so it was all too complicated. No, no – that’s all wrong. Week one was week two. Week one which I didn’t write about because I didn’t know what to say and was travelling about all over the place. Week two I wasn’t there, was I, because I was in all those other places so I could have written about my holiday but not about choir practice. That’s all sorted now, then. Thank goodness for clarity of mind.

Tomorrow we hit the Reid Concert Hall, 11.45 a.m. sharp (hopefully the last time all day we will be in that mode), ready to begin recording at 12 noon. I presume the 15 minutes is for a warm-up but it may just be there to make sure we are all present by mid-day. I am working for an hour or so in the morning so could well be a little late. If you see a distracted creature rushing through the Meadows at around five to twelve tomorrow, croaking and warbling a badly-tuned arpeggio or two as she goes, that will be me. I will endeavour to remember my music folder.

Jenny is coming to sing with us (knew she couldn’t stay away for long) and she won’t have hers, will she? She never did when she was actually a member of the choir so what hope now she’s left? One of us must make an effort. Having said that, having my music is going to prove a little tricky as someone went off with it the other night and left me theirs. I think it was probably Heather. She is supposed to be an organised person but I suspect she’s anything but... just grabs any folder that takes her fancy and waltzes off into the night. How she could mistake my battered old file, chewed at the corners and shedding loose sheets left, right and all over for the one I had to bring home, shiny new and neatly ring-bound, I’ll never know - but she did. Or someone did. I may be maligning the poor girl; in which case, heartfelt apologies and a compensatory hug. I am tempted to keep the shiny file. While I don’t really, actually, honestly, chew the corners of mine it does look rather as if the mice have got at it – I suppose they may have – and the dog-eared music inside it is scribbled with blog-reminding messages instead of singing instructions whereas the one I have now is (shiny and) full of pristine sheets marked only with useful hints as to dynamics and expression and phrasing. Could be handy, don’t you think? Especially tomorrow.

OK, enough for now – it is 11 o’clock. Still early but I think I have earned my bed-time. More after the recording. And the dinner towards which we will be heading immediately on finishing. The rest of this will be an After Dinner Blog and I your After Dinner Blogetteer. A new career? I need one...

Sunday 22:04 Very nearly bed-time again. Not sleeping well (no change there, then) and a busy day which included gardening and tennis and two long walks, in the heat. And I’m getting a cold – how the ****???? So sleepy. But must finish this, must finish this, must finish this...

Yesterday was great fun. Hard work, but not too onerous (unless you’re Kay, who was feeling the pressure). Sadly, being stuck in the Reid Concert Hall for several hours on one of the few sunny days Edinburgh has to offer per year was a real downside to the exercise but we got a half hour break in which to sit out in Bristo Square and, once we’d finished, we sat in the garden at Teviot, supping alcoholic beverages until it was time for dinner (at The Nile Valley. Yum, by the way – if you’ve not been there, go), so it could have been worse.

As for the recording – all seemed to go to plan. We got through the pieces in reasonable time, finishing a little earlier than planned. A small hiccup when it transpired that one of the mics had given up the ghost but, with a bit of tweaking of those still operating, the problem was overcome without holding us up for more than a few minutes. Anne came back to play the piano for us – for The Seal Lullaby and Nu tändas tusen juleljus – and the harpsichord for the two Lully pieces. Sebastian played his cello, beautifully as ever for the same pieces and Tamsin was there to play her harp and to help out with the squeaky-high singing bits which Kay was panicking about performing on her own (for no good reason, she can do it brilliantly but I daresay the prospect is a very scary one). Jenny came back, as mentioned above; sans most of her music, as mentioned above, but perfectly contented to make the tunes up where she had forgotten them. Behm also returned having been tricked into joining us by Ollie who, some days ago, casually asked him if he’d any plans for this Saturday and when told no, immediately claimed him as a much-needed extra tenor. It was lovely to see them all.

Most importantly, considering why we had gathered, was that Helen was there. Helen was there to do the recording, along with her friend – Ali – and was forced to join in a few songs as well, much to her disgust. I do hope that they managed to get enough material to make a reasonable CD [initial reports are positive]. We did about three (is it a ‘take’ when it’s singing or is that just in films?) whatevertheyares [yes, takes] of each piece and somewhere within those three efforts it is to be hoped that there are enough accurate bars to string together into a whole piece of reasonably professional-sounding music. With one thing and another our rehearsal time has been a bit curtailed and we were probably not quite as well prepared as we might have been but we worked hard and were quite frighteningly focussed and quiet for several hours – which is a real feat for us, let me tell you – so I think we deserve some success. If anyone can turn our efforts into a sellable item it is our Helen, so I look forward to hearing the results. Now we just have to come up with a title and I have to come up with a design and then – Bob’s in the building.

Dinner was fun – there were fourteen of us altogether – poor Heather, who did all the organising, was unable to join us and had to go home instead (to a barbeque, so it could have been worse) and Anne and Tamsin left once they’d finished making their contributions earlier in the day; Douglas, Behm and Sebastian all disappeared without explanation, but the rest of us, at Arno’s suggestion, graced the basement of the aforementioned eatery with our rambunctious presence and had a great time. The conversations were wide-ranging and, at one end of the table at least, somewhat dubious of subject matter [highlight was probably Helen reading out product reviews of Veet for Men from Amazon and if that doesn't sound hilarious and dubious, look them up!]. We had the place to ourselves for a fair time but then some other poor souls came to join us and had to contend with our noisy hilarity (is that tautology? Can’t decide so it’s staying). But at least we didn’t sing.

We had to say goodbye to Sarah who has been with us such a short time, but a new job means she will no longer be free on Wednesday evenings so she has had to bid us farewell. She has been a lovely presence and we will miss her but wish her all the best in her future endeavours and will be delighted, I’m sure I speak on behalf of us all, to welcome her back anytime to parties and even to the choir itself if she is able to re-join one day. Having spent some time recording The Irish Blessing we didn’t find it in ourselves to sing it all over again at her. I don’t suppose she has any idea what a lucky escape she had.

Speaking of the Irish blessing: at my suggestion we altered the last words of our usual version. My Irish mother gets very upset when she hears "...in the palm of his hand" because she insists it should be "...in the hollow...". If she is going to have to listen to this CD (which she is, like it or not) I think it only fair not to torture her. Luckily I got my (her) way about this as several other people thought my (her) version a better one. Unfortunately Jenny has not been at rehearsals. She has been singing "palm" for years and years and years. Yesterday she mostly sang "pollow".

Onto a third page and ready to fall asleep over the keyboard...

Good night, Readers-mine. Until next time. Sleep tight and squash the bed-bugs.

xx

Tardy for Tormis

Ollie suggested last week that those who were interested get together early this week to have a sing of Kullervo’s Message, a piece by Tormis which the small group folk (when we had a small group) started work on AGES ago and never finished. I was part of this petit assemblage and decided that my presence would likely be an essential element in getting this work going again so off I set, very much earlier than usual these days, music in hand and vague memories of how it sounded in my head. Not that it necessarily sounded there as it should have, of course - I did say we never perfected it, didn’t I? And then, my memory... Arriving at John and Susan’s, I found a strong smell of cooking dinner, the house owners (just about to sit down to said dinner) and Robin. No sign of anyone else. Particularly no sign of Ol. John and Susan were just back from Spain and had not been reading emails (really! Call themselves dedicated?) and so had no idea at all that there was a suggestion of early-meeting-keen-people gathering at 6.50. Probably just as well that no one else did. Robin and I were easily dealt with; given a cup of tea and many questions to answer regarding events while J&S were away. What were our impressions of the candidates etc. I have to say that Mr and Mrs Wexler seemed to have rather decided impressions of these prospectives without actually having met any of them. Final discussions, when they at last take place, really will be interesting.

Ollie appeared eventually, admitting that he had fallen asleep. Whether we are to try this early-meeting mullarkey again next week I don’t know. I shall certainly turn up to sing if required. Let me rephrase that: I shall certainly turn up to sing, if we do.

I am sorry – I am feeling utterly uninspired tonight and I really feel I must get this done now or it will never be finished. So – this is pretty boring and, I’m afraid, will remain so. You have my permission to give up on it if you wish. Goodbye to those of you with sense and a life; for the rest of you here’s a very little more tedium for you. I’ll get it done as soon as possible. Promise.

Aaagh.

Ollie had we women try a few verses of Mateusz which, for the first time, we managed to sing first(ish) time without falling completely to pieces; rhythm a bit dodgy to begin with and pronunciation somewhat shaky in places but I think we might actually be able to put this on the CD if we all work on it at home.

IF WE ALL WORK ON IT AT HOME.

Loud enough?

It was a lovely after-rehearsal chat with lots of people staying back for a cup of tea – almost like old times. Les bons mots? Away wiz ze fairrries, naturellement.

I got a lift home from Marie-Claire, lazy critter that I am.

‘Til next time.

PS The last two postings seem to have lacked any sign of paragraphing. The paragraphs were there when the blog left my fingertips. Christopher???????? [sorry, Blogger has clearly gone funny since the 'new look'!]

Organised Ollie

I am writing this at work (on someone else’s laptop so I’d better watch me language) – yes, bad me; but I have done all I can do so far today: sorted the till and the reconciliation sheet for last week (-ish, haven’t got all the necessary info to do it properly, as usual), swept the floor, tidied up the back room, varnished artwork of varying standard (some rather dubious) and re-stocked the shelves (not easy when there is hardly anything in the cupboard) and I’ve only been in an hour and a half. Now I’ve left myself nothing to do for the rest of the day. So here I am.

We had a prospective alto, Marisa, ‘sitting in’ for the first half of the evening. She joined in the singing, naturally, but left half way as she wasn’t feeling particularly well. I have no idea what she thought of us, having had no chance to ask, but I daresay that question will be answered on Wednesday if she turns up again. There will be a healthy alto section if she joins. The basses are dwindling – though temporarily; hopefully the two that have gone will be back before too long, the tenors are always a problem (!) and even the sopranos have been a bit thin on the ground recently. Yey! for the altos – we will take over and reign supreme. Perhaps Tormis knew what he was up to after all, when he wrote the alto line above the soprano.

What did we sing? Oops. You’ve guessed it. No bloody idea. Something for the CD, I imagine.

Organised Ollie – those are two words not often witnessed side-by-side – presented us each with a list of what he proposes to put on the CD and what we will be singing in St Giles in August. I know.... imagine! The St Giles’ list includes Nikos’s Brodmann area 47 and a few other pieces written by students contemporary with the Lord and Master, (even one by the L&M himself. At long last. It had better be good after all this time waiting for it). So it will be an interesting concert, to say the least.

What a way to go.

Oh, now I’m welling up. Can’t see the screen. Will have to stop.

Speaking of which, I am doing badly with my on-line communications; keep on upsetting people. Might have to hand this job to someone else and steer clear of interwebby mischief-making.

Not that I mean to make mischief.

Not often, anyway.

Hardly ever.....

More on this later...

I am going to yoga now so there is no knowing just when ‘later’ might be... you may wonder why I have made a start on this with so little time in which to finish it but I think I have explained before that carrying on is much easier than beginning and, with even so few sentences set down as this, there is more hope of a completed blog winging its cyber-path to Christopher in a timely fashion than if I put off writing anything at all until I have time to write everything.

Oof – yoga was TOUGH. I am all stretched and strengthened and absolutely exhausted...

Choir practice. Nikos was supposed to be doing the warm-up but Nikos has gone. How sad is that? I will tell you more anon. Ol warmed us up instead, brains too by teaching us some little ditty-ish, round-ish thing in a language which was never established, (as far as I could gather, anyway). Having got our minds and bodies into some sort of working order Ollie moved on to rehearsing us in just two things: The Seal Lullaby, for those new to the choir and therefore the song and She Moved Through the Fair, which was a small-group piece originally so, really, only well known by a very few of us – in fact, most of the erstwhile singers of this have gone and left us. I was one of the originals but you’d never have thought it. This was a piece I could sing off-by-heart once upon a time but I couldn’t remember at all where I’d changed parts, which bits I’d sung, what the pesky notes were. Disaster. Poor Heather was singing with me and, confused enough as it was with having to sing alto sometimes and tenor at others, she also had to stand next to me and hear me dithering. She needs to have the courage of her convictions in these circumstances. Stick ta yer guns, Heather, old girl. You’re far more likely to be right than am I!

When it came to The Seal Lullaby there were only one or two little mistakes (as far as I could tell) and plenty good enough for us to sing along to. I’m not sure we sang it very well but Sarah and anyone else who’d never sung it before (was there anyone else who’d never sung it before?) will have some idea, at least, of how it is supposed to sound.

These two songs are two of the choices for our CD. Ollie is going to ‘insist’ Anne comes along to play piano for us on recording day. I do hope she does. Seems fitting.

So then... Nikos. He has gone back to Greece in order, I believe, to work on his... on his what? Can’t remember what qualification he is working towards but it involves composing and his librettist is in Greece as are his family and friends and I gather he is struggling a little financially here and prefers to be at home while he is trying to complete his work. Who can blame him? He has said he would like to return to us in September and I, for one, hope he does. Strange to think that will probably be up to our new leader... In the meantime he has left us with Brodmann Area 47 and would love us to record it if we can manage to do so. How encouraging to know he trusts that we can do it justice (or perhaps the Scottish weather has driven him crazy. He was mighty discombobulated by the appearance of SNOW in April. We tried to explain that the soaring temperatures of the days before were far more to be wondered at but he still seemed at a complete loss to understand what was going on).

There y’are then. I’m sure I had something else to say but it has gone – poof. Off into the ether whither this blog will follow. But this blog, unlike whatever it was I had to tell you, will re-appear, miraculously at some point (it is miraculous, isn’t it, like it or not – all this technology?).

See you next week.

xx

Chris liked my last blog...

... which is great (“Felt like I was there,” he said) but the fact that he commented at all makes me question what he has thought of all the ones I’ve submitted before [honestly, nobody can take praise these days without finding fault]. However, at his suggestion, I am going to become more positive – I am going to pretend I remember everything that happens of an evening and I am not going to admit to my musical mistakes ever, ever again.

Ha!

Last night was another good rehearsal, though still down on numbers. The altos made a strong showing again, there being four of us; all the tenors turned up (three, that is, a somewhat pathetic number) and of sopranos there were also three - I suppose it is still the Easter holiday and I guess Kay is off with the family gallivanting somewhere pleasant for the duration; Harriet, I’m sure, is working hard on her PhD thesis and Tamsin, so busy, is taking some time out (but will be returning one day, I’m glad to say). Luckily, Marie-Claire, in the diary as an absentee, had managed to change shifts and came along unexpectedly which was, no doubt, a good thing for the sanity of Susan and Rachael – especially when we came to the singing of Nikos’s Brodmann area 47 when all possible strength of mind is required even to look at the music. We had three basses, too. The three who were away last week. Can’t really be termed consistent, can we?

We began with a warm-up orchestrated by Douglas. Had it been a piece of music it would have been of the ponderous and slightly perplexing variety but our brains were given a bit of a work-out, which is never a bad thing, especially when it comes to the singing of Brodmann area 47, as I think I have mentioned before.

Then we sang our new Tormis piece from last week – Bridge of Song. It has lots of unexpected repeats in confusing places and we also have to deal with both Finnish and Estonian (ex-Rudsambeeite, Sari, is to be called upon to give a hand with the Finnish as there were, as per, differing ideas (‘convictions’ would not be too strong a word) as to pronunciation of the Finnish, at least) but it is coming on really rather remarkably quickly. The altos and basses are not allowed to breathe very much which is a bit of a problem for yours truly but if I think about it in advance and stand up straight I can do it. Thinking and not slouching are tricky things to do at the end of a busy day... my mother thinks I have wonderful posture and says she stands up straighter when I’m around (I think she does that only because she is rather small and wishes to look me in the face when pretending I’m still five years old – it must make the pretence that much easier if she’s not having to look up at me) but I’m really pretty sloppy most of the time, to be honest.

A short discussion was held mid-rehearsal as to what we might include on the CD we will record in May. The discussion was lively, several suggestions being crushed before they’d even finished leaving the suggestors mouth. Robin put in a request for an odious thing called Son ar Chistr which, you will gather, I can’t stand. Breton. Horrid. Unfortunately it is quite popular amongst the longer-standing choir members – Kay, for instance, loves it – and I have a terrible feeling that anyone who knows it will be expected to join, joyfully, in its recording. Hear this, folks: I am one who knows it. I will probably have to join in. I won’t do it joyfully.

We moved on to a little piece called The Ox Climbed a Fir Tree. A few of us have more than one copy of this already, indicative of the fact that Ol has tried to get us to sing it several times before. It is by Tormis, again and is really an amusing, though somewhat discordant, offering so I’m not sure why we’ve never yet got it up to performance standard but Ollie, obviously, has no intention of giving up on his dream... We worked on this avec piano – did it help? I remembered most of it from last time but a first note’s always useful. Especially when the alto part is written above the soprano’s and the basses above the tenor’s. Why? Is he just trying to be awkward?

Then the aforementioned (what? More than once?) Brodmann’s area. I amuse myself with the thought that Nikos wrote this piece for us to sing. For us. And he’s given the tenors really, really difficult things to do. What was he thinking??? We altos have a really rather melodic line which makes it all much easier but oh! the counting that is required. Very few notes are where one would (reasonably) expect them to be and they all seem to rely heavily on other parts being exactly where they should be at all times. This is Rudsambee, for Heaven’s sake! But no one can deny that it is fun – in a masochistic sort of a way – and very, very good for us indeed.

I am doing notes as well as this this week so I suppose I’d better get on with those now. Or perhaps not. Maybe I’ll go out and spend money instead... hmmm... notes/pretty new things, notes/pretty new things, notes/pretty new things?

“I’ve never heard a falling bodhran.”

That last word should have Gaelic stylie accents on, I think, but if this computer don’t recognise French it aint goin’ to manage Gaelic, now is it?

‘Twas Robin who spake as above the above and I have to agree with him. Me neither. And it’s not all that exciting, sadly. A woody, drummy sort of a sound with a slide to it. Much as you’d expect, really. But now we can say that we have heard a falling bodhran as can all ten choir members who made it to rehearsal this week.

Yes, ten. A rather pathetic turn-out but I think Ollie had had apologies of one sort or another from all the absentees. He seemed prepared for the eventuality. To the point that he’d decided in advance that there was little point singing at all as there was little we could do with such small numbers. “We’ll have tea and chat,” he announced, “and maybe have a talk with Nikos about a guitar. I’ll go and put the kettle on.” He did.

So, there we were, drinking tea and chatting when Kirsty rushed in, somewhat breathless, eyebrows ahoist and atwist, the apologies on the tip of her tongue frozen there in consternation at the sight that met her eyes. “What’s this?” she demanded. “I feel like I’ve gone through the looking-glass, I’m upside down. Looking at things through the wrong end of a tele-thingy.” Rather mixed images. You will agree but she was extremely confused and who can blame her? Tea and chat happens at the end of the evening. She must have wondered just how late she was and what had happened to the missing 90 minutes. “We’re not going to sing tonight,” someone explained. “Why ever not?” asks K, increasingly put-out. “There’s not enough of us.” “Of course there is. We must sing. I have had such a day. I need to sing.”

So we sang.

Should Kirsty apply for Ollie’s job? She’d certainly whip us into shape, as someone pointed out.

We were given a new piece to look at. A new (to us) Tormis piece, no less. It’s quite some time since we had one of those. Not sure what it’s called because I kindly let Heather retain our shared copy but it had something to do with a bridge [it's called Bridge of Song]. A musical bridge: starts quietly, gets louder and louder, decrescendos. Starts low, gets higher and higher, makes its way back down. You get the picture. The words are in Finnish and Estonian – two for the price of one for those language counters who frequent our concerts – and translate into something rather lovely. Will fill you in on that when I get my own music. It wasn’t hard to sight-read. And it was fun.

Really.



Then we sang the new Lully piece so that Nikos could have a look at the guitar part and that was when the bodhran fell down.

We sang the other two Lully Entrées and I think that was all we did. But we did it well and our small-group status proved that small can, indeed, be beautiful. I suggested we keep the new Tormis for ourselves. Long time since we’ve had an official Small Group number. ‘bout time we got that going again methinks.

So – the reason you didn’t hear from me last week was because I wasn’t there. Or here, for that matter. I missed lots of exciting things. Working on Nikos’s composition for a start, which we haven’t done for ages. Unfortunately I think there were several people missing last week too and this included all the altos, aside from new Sarah. (I know where I was and why but what about the others eh? Eh??)

Ol’s last concert with us will not be until we sing at St Giles in August. Instead of a concert in May we will be recording a new CD – quite a short one like "A Flea in the Ear" – which Helen will come and engineer. We can put on it things we have loved singing with Ollie and we are to be encouraged to make suggestions as to what might be included. Cool, eh?

Happy Easter, everyone. May the Bunny be good to you.

Chocolate, ho!

New faces

A new choir member; Sarah, alto, keen to return (hooray!). It was a really lovely rehearsal. Great atmosphere.

Kirsty did a rather good warm-up, just silly enough and very useful and then we got down to business. Firstly we sang Fog, beautiful work by Arno as always and Harriet did the wail-y bit all by herself and very effectively. Ollie then suggested we should sing something else we know quite well and, looking at the last concert programme, gave us a choice between O Lux Beatissima and the last verse of Une Puce. O Lux... is pretty straightforward but as for The Flea, only a very few of us are more than vaguely acquainted with its final pesky little stanza. Sebastian was heard to put in a word for Abendlied which we can hardly be said to know at all. Am I missing something? Is my interpretation of the words ‘know quite well’ different from other people’s? Having given us the choice the Boy Wonder then took it away again and insisted on Une Puce, which I happen to know very well indeed so could manage without looking at my music which was just as well as the BW had no copy (no Fog either; what does he do with all his music?) and I had to act as music stand for the duration. We sang verse one and the chorus-y bit through once to give those who’d never sung it before some idea of how it goes and then we went over verse four several times until people had almost got the words right and managed to fit them to the music. Progress indeed.

We sang the Lully pieces from the last concert. At this point Ol was to be seen nodding and winking (well, maybe not) at Nikos who was, at first, determinedly ignoring him and then pulled a questioning, and slightly triumphant face, as he cottoned on to what was required. He wasn’t going to get away with whatever it was, though, “There’s one in the other room,” said Ollie, grinning. Nikos visibly drooped. “He’s had a hard day,” explained our Lord and Master, grinning even more while Nikos, dejectedly, went off to find the guitar he really didn’t seem to want to play. But play it he did and with some verve and vigour for one who was doing it so reluctantly. Having sung through these pieces and worked at refining one of them we moved on to a third - the fourth. Still in Nonsense (yet another language we can claim familiarity with now) and as short and silly as the other two, it is also as much fun to sing and was delightfully easy to sight-read (page turns excepted). I actually had my specs with me and perched on the end of my nose instead of residing in my coat pocket – no doubt this helped.
More fun with Mateusz for the girlers and Zikr for the boysies – oh, ours is a struggle but ever so slowly we are making progress. It is two steps forward and one back because we can’t seem to remember week to week what we are doing but, as I say, there is a dim little light at the end of the tunnel towards which we are inching. The men returned to perform Zikr for us and it is sounding brilliant [miraculously!]. Full to the brim of brio and pizzazz. Nikos has a very high bit to sing and does it so well and they all look as though they’re having a whale of a time so it’s very amusing to watch. Good work, Lads. Must try harder, Lassies. There’s a turn-around.

We nearly all stayed for tea and coffee which has become rather unusual for some reason. Perhaps it was because I had made brownies????? They were a bit weird having been made with three different kinds of chocolate (one with ginger in it, one with fruits of the forest and one flavoured with rose water!) but they went down a treat and were complimented fulsomely. Unfortunately, I will never have just that combination of chocolate in my cupboard again so they were a real one-off (quite honestly, most of the things I cook are because I make them up as I go along) – I think that might be a bit of a disappointment to one or two choir members... sorry, mes amies. I had made brownies because both Ollie and Chris had had birthdays during the week. We howled at them in extraordinary style.
Today I had a terrible experience which I am going to share with you before I finish because I will never get over it and yet here I am making the time and effort, amidst my suffering, to write this blog and I feel you should appreciate it... I went to get passport photos taken.

OMG.

I have torn them up. I know perfectly well that I am never going to get a good passport photo. I know there is no such thing – especially as one is no longer allowed to smile (my only hope) but I am sure that someone or some machine somewhere can take one of me in which I look a little, tiny bit like ME and not some ‘orrible old crone of at least 65, with no shape to the head (where had the top of my head gone? I know it’s there) and a saggy, saggy, saggy face. Do all those people who tell me I don’t look my age really mean that I look much older than I am? I think they must.

I have spent far too much time since I got home checking my visage in various mirrors around the house. In some I look very old indeed and in others not. Which of them do I believe? Which should be sent charity-shopwards? When should I book in for surgery?

And when will I have the courage to try again?

Still waiting

We were a smallish group again on Wednesday, the Boy Wonder having failed in wondrousness and yet to audition the remaining Rudsambee possibilities. I think he has another four or five people to see – but I am hardly one to complain about procrastination, so I will presume that his duty is being done (or, maybe, has been done since Wednesday) and that we will see some new faces and hear some new voices next week. That’ll liven the blogging up. I hope.

I have to clear something up and thanks to John for the hint. The Colour Poems are not by Gesualdo at all but by Richard Nye. There is a distance in time of several centuries between the compositions. The Gesualdo we have been working on is called Io tacero (there should be an accent on the second ‘o’ [what sort!?]) which are the first words of the piece. I did think that 'Colour Poems’ was a remarkably modern concept for someone of Gesualdo’s vintage.

Io tacero is coming on – we did lots of work on it. I nearly know what I’m singing. Kirsty was away but Heather was back and once or twice I found myself singing the right thing while she sang the wrong which was great fun and very life-affirming. The sad fact is that Douglas and Chris still believed I was struggling. I do pull some bad faces but I also chortled gleefully and punched the air a few times so you’d think they might have cottoned on.

Once again we separated to practise girl and boy things – how did you do, boys? [we were fabulous as ever, of course!] We were appalling – no idea at all, suddenly, how Mateusz was supposed to sound. We made a bit of effort to get it right but, having pretty much failed entirely, we gave up and gossiped instead. Those men went on for ages. Eventually, at 9.45pm, we had to go in and tell them to stop. Tea and coffee and beds were calling and our girlish enthusiasm had waned long before.

Rudsambee sang a traditional Happy Birthday to me. It started off incredibly tunefully. I was getting ready to be seriously disappointed but then, led by Susan with wickedly glinting eye, the howling began and things fell apart in the most ear-splitting fashion imaginable. A real classic and most gratifying. I received a lovely card and someone posted a jar of yummy chocolate-y pot au chocolat (should that ‘o’ have a hat on?) scrumminess into my coat pocket so I went home a happy bunny indeed.

Ta-rah. Ooo – you should see my new bathroom btw. It’s fab.

I was robbed, Guv!

Well, I suppose it’s my fault for being so slow again. Kirsty got there first. Anyone who has access to Rudsambee weekly notes will have read everything I had to say, already – and written quite as amusingly as I could/would have done it, too (if that doesn’t sound over-presumptuous!) (that’s a hard word to spell – had to resort to the dictionary; a paper one at that, having no idea at all how to spell-check on this – or any other – computer. Having said that, I doubt this, or any other, computer would have been able to identify the word I was trying to spell, so woeful were my efforts) so I am wondering if there is any point in my continuing with this...

HOWEVER – let us presume that there is an odd reader, here or there... no, let’s be realistic and pretend that there is an odd reader, here or there, who has no access to said notes and would like to hear about this (last) week’s rehearsal and let’s carry on.

We had no new members to meet as Ol still hadn’t got round to seeing them all. He auditioned a few last week, I believe and this few included a tenor who proved to be a bit of a disappointment. “He wasn’t very good,” said the Boy Wonder to the bijou gathering of Robin, Susan and myself, early arrivals (well, Robin and I were early; Susan was simply at home as usual). “And he was a tenor? Blimey, he must have been bad,” offers yours truly, mistress of tact and diplomacy. Poor Robin looked a little jaundiced while agreeing with my sentiments, whereupon Susan and I felt it necessary to spend several minutes bolstering his (really quite recently gained and now sadly-) undermined confidence. Later, once all who were going to arrive had done so, this same topic of conversation resurfaced. Now there were Three Tenors to discombobulate. To my shame (!), I repeated my unkind observation. Quite bad enough, this repetition, but Kay provided the final nail, the straw that broke... “He must have been completely tone deaf,” says she, guffawing. Protests were heard, unsurprisingly, from Tenor Corner, “Now you’ve gone too far,” complained a re-crushed Robin and even Chris appeared to have his head in his hands (though he may just have been catching a catnap, being somewhat over-worked at present). Yes, well, poor tenors, how mean we were. They are really very good once they know what they’re doing. They’re just a little slow, a little tentative with the sight-reading. Does this sound familiar. “Pot,” you could say. “Kettle.” Fair. Entirely fair.

As to what we sang... we began with a new piece, Colour Poem IV, by Gesualdo (I think). Kirsty and I took the Alto 2 part and some of the sopranos the Alto 1. I was glad to have company; you know me and the sight-reading (though I was standing next to the tentative tenors so I might have been OK by myself – less pressure when you know you’re not the only one going wrong!) [AHEM!] and there was some tricky old timing in this. Looked easy. Deceptive. But we did quite well in the end. I wasn’t in complete despair and that’s always a bonus. And Kirsty is a much better SR-er than me but, very kindly, didn’t make me feel like a fool, pulling enough faces and sighing often enough to give me the impression she wasn’t as on top of things as, otherwise, I might well have imagined she was.

I have some notes scribbled on this music but have forgotten what they were supposed to help me remember. That happens SO often, doesn’t it? There is something here about avoiding horrible Clannad-like, Gaelic breathiness such as was evident, for example, in the theme tune to Robin of Sherwood, TV series of yesteryear (?) [see below]. At this point Kirsty, who was either not listening or was displaying quite astonishing ignorance, asked, “Clannad? Was I in that one?” Explanations had to be given, amidst hysteria. I don’t know – perhaps she was living in Germany at the time of the hoody-man. I’m not sure Sebastian or Arno, or any of the young things, knew what we were talking about either.



After this the girlies went off to Polish [oh very punny] our new song, Mateusz. It still needs a deal of buffing but Ollie has transcribed the music for us which makes it all much easier. Ha! Rubbish. It makes it much clearer – and we have parts. End of. It’s great fun, though. We sang it to the men later, (no idea, again, what they were up to while we did our thang but I’m sure they worked hard – they must have done because, when we returned to them, Rachael was heard to comment, “This room smells of boy.” and it did.); Douglas said, “That’s definitely a women’s song,” (????????) and then asked if it was African. He wasn’t the only one who wondered that. You see, we were right with the reggae stuff last week – and we must be doing it some sort of justice if the men picked up on it, n’est-ce pas?



We had a sing through of the Lully pieces for a bit of fun et c’est tout,
as far as I can remember.

Tad boring. Apologies. Will try harder next time. But it’s ‘ard when someone’s ‘alf-inched all yer best lines, innit?

Lu-urve.

Reggae a la Poles

Please imagine an accent on that ‘a’. I really must learn to put them on myself.

So – an apology is fidgeting away at my conscience but I am ignoring it, manfully. This edition is very late indeed (in case you hadn’t noticed). It is Monday evening (night) and I am only just settling down to write. Now, sometimes these blogs are not posted until Monday anyway, even if I have written them considerably earlier. This all depends on Christopher’s other activities. As I have said before, he is a very busy lad. I am not complaining. Not at all. Honestly. No, really, please believe me. If I must rely on a very busy lad then I have to take my turn. It may be that this is not posted until Wednesday or Thursday. It may be that it is not finished ‘til Wednesday or Thursday but I will try extremely hard to stay awake long enough to get it done. There is not very much to say, after all.

I have been pretty busy myself, actually. Thursday was a day which involved shopping for various things I will need this week and won’t have time to buy because I am working more than usual. Then yoga. Then food. Then starting to prepare for installation of new bathroom i.e. moving all my stuff into a downstairs bedroom, emptying the hall of furniture, dust-sheeting bookshelves. Then packing. An early start on Friday; a weekend in Munich mit hubby; a late-ish return yesterday and then more preparation for the great works mentioned above which started today. Do you see any opportunity there for blogging???

A new bathroom? I hear you ask. Did the woman not have a new kitchen recently? Has she come into an inheritance/won the lottery/been a-thieving? Yes, a new bathroom. Which is needed as badly as the new kitchen was. I have been ashamed of my bathroom for years – since we moved in here, to be honest and it will be wonderful to show people where to find... ahem... facilities, without feeling either embarrassment or the urge to apologise. I only hope I like it once it’s done tee hee.

Wednesday last was an odd occasion. For a start, I arrived at the almost-end of a Recruitment Committee meeting. Not much interest in the position of Ollie Replacement yet so some hard work to do (not to say desperate measures to take). I put my ha’pence-worth in, of course. I do like to be of assistance if at all possible.

Also, poor Heather was there with a bare foot and a half-empty (-full?) pack of frozen peas resting on her ankle. She had given it a twist when getting off the bus and a fair old wrench it had got judging by the swollen state of it. Eventually she decided to go home as it was causing her such discomfort, so she called her husband to come and get her and bid us goodbye as we headed off to rehearse. We were a very small group because Ollie hadn’t finished auditioning all the potential new members. He would like to get everyone started on the new repertoire (oo, posh) at the same time so is hoping to be able to ask his chosen people along next week. Robin did the warm-up and was very theatrical about it all, wiggling and shaking and then testing us with one of his favourite challenges – he only does this so he can laugh at our feeble efforts. Try it yourselves at home: start by holding one hand up in front of your face. Then lift this hand up and stretch your arm above your head. Do the same thing with the other hand/arm. Once you’ve done this a few times add in another move: after holding your hand in front of your face, move it around to the back of your head before stretching your arm above your head. This is all very straightforward until you try to do it quickly with both arms alternating. Chaos. Like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time only worse. I can manage the pat-ty, rub-by thing (if I concentrate really hard) but this, as above, not at all.

So, once that was, hilariously, out of the way we got down to the little work we did. The ‘we’ in that sentence applies to the women because we split into two groups again and the men worked very hard indeed, it seemed, on Zikr while we began by working hard and ended up doing nothing much at all. I think Ol was expecting to get more done but then, having done some teaching-of-Polish (again), and teaching of (a little tiny bit of) music with us he went off to see how the boys were getting on and didn’t come back for ages by which time it was after 9.30 and time to stop.

[When we left the lads to themselves we returned to the dining-room where the committee-meeting had been taking place. Heather was still there, frozen footed and forlorn, awaiting her husband. Talk about taking his sweet time. And they’ve only been married since the summer. Shocking behaviour. I hope he had a good excuse.]

I have no idea what our new piece is called but I know (sort of) how to pronounce most of the words and what some of them mean (kissing behind the stove has got something to do with it; hot stuff, eh?) and, best of all, how it is supposed to sound. Well! If we can manage that I, for one, will be delighted. Once the BW took off to work with the men, Chris arrived with music for us to listen to – our new song (a Polish folk-song, in case that had slipped past you) as performed by a group called The Warsaw Village Band. Listen to them if you can. “I know they’re Polish,” says Kay, “But are they black?” You will see what she meant if you listen. Their music is a sort of fusion and there is a definite hint of reggae in there. And jazz. It is fantastic. And that harsh, nasal tone Eastern-European voices can manage so brilliantly when required to do so. Wonderful and really rather weird and crazy stuff. Chris put it on a loop and we listened in awe as these girls managed to fit five words into the space two fit in comfortably. We listened many times without working out how to do it and then we gave up and just chatted.

And then Ollie came back and apologised for being away so long and said that would do for the night.

So we went home.

No Jen to give me a lift.

Just as well, really. I have got very lazy about walking home and it only takes about five minutes.

Bedtime. Night-night.

All About Nothing

We had no rehearsal this week. Several people were sick or tired (or both) so Ollie decided we should all have a week off and meet again next Wednesday with some new music and some new faces. However, I feel I must write a few words at least in order to keep up the blog-count. Once it starts dropping, as we have seen in the past, there is no hope for it and it falls and falls and finds it as hard to get back up again as my voice does from the depths of alto-2-I-don’t-think-so-make-that-tenor-1 parts. And (see previous blogs if necessary), I reiterate, that is HARD.

What can I tell you about instead? I did nothing on Wednesday night although free to do whatever I fancied. Lazy? Unimaginative? Me? Oh, well, go on then, perhaps I am. Of course I may have done something quite exciting and simply forgotten all about it but I think not. Speaking of forgetting all about things, I actually forgot my PIN number the other day; the one I use all the time, the one I know as well as I know my own name. What a numpty. How did that happen? The gaping, four digit space in my brain – well, two digit, slightly less agape, I had remembered the first couple of numbers – was filled again pretty quickly, thank heaven, but oh, it’s a bit scary. I have been thinking very hard about remembering things since then and can report that, so far, all seems as per (i.e. a little raggedy at times but nothing too concerning); however, if, at any point in the near future, you think I am a-slip mentally – if you can tell, that is - please leave a comment on the blog and I will take immediate action (more crosswords and Sudoku or something).

Yesterday I did some gardening. This followed a trundle to-and-from Craiglockhart for a tennis session. Impressive, eh? Yes, but just how badly did I play? Oh, my! Maybe three or four shots to be quite proud of but as for the rest... and, unfortunately, most (OK, all) of the other ladies who attend this session are better players than I am and some of them are a little inclined to tut, albeit sotto voce (if one can tut in such a manner), which doesn’t make me play any more competently I can assure you. I am going to persevere, though, because otherwise I’ll never improve and they will just have to put up with me. Interestingly, the very best players (very good indeed) are less likely to display frustration and are full of encouragement. I suppose their competitiveness is under control due to winning on a regular basis (unless they have me as a partner) while others feel they have something to prove. Anyway, I am much more relaxed with the people I play with on a Tuesday and I still play like a dog half the time... an old dog; old dog/new tricks. Oh dear, does this mean there is no hope for me?

So, the gardening. Only the front garden. This is manageable (unlike the back which I look out on in despair) and I smartened things up quite well. There are lots of snowdrops and the bluebells are coming; things are a-stir and how lovely it was to be out there in the warm sun, working really rather hard. I even got the ladder out to cut away some stuff (note my expertise in nomenclature) from around the window. I filled the brown bin up to the top so had to stop though there is still more to be done. Ivy, for example, is invading from around the more inaccessible side – naturally – so I must get out there and saw it off at the bottom before it can make its way into the sitting room by way of under-the-window. It appears to be making a good job of insinuating itself between the stone, the mortar and the wood of the frame. Not good. Not good at all. Bring me my trusty blade.

I spoiled all this healthy living by going out in the early evening yesterday and not returning until the early morning today, having spent the intervening time with friends who practise drinking much harder and more regularly than I do but with whom I think I kept up fairly well. I had a lovely time but genuinely thought I was going out for an hour or two for a drink or two, not for seven hours and several bottles – you can imagine how I am regretting this behaviour now and vowing not to do it again. Often in my life I have made vows of a similar sort. Often I have broken them. I have no will-power or – let’s face it – common-sense. I am, in short, a fool.

But you know that already.

Now, I have to go into town to collect some rings that have been in the jewellers for surgery. Why is it that the rest of me is very little, if at all, bigger than I was in my youth and yet my fingers seem to have got fatter? This seems mighty unfair. And is definitely rather costly.
Adieu, for the nonce, my dear Reader(s).

Your fond (and fairly efficient), Blogetteer.

Pitch(ure) Perfect

Well, OK, maybe not but not bad at all: Lovely concert at the Portrait Gallery beneath all the newly scrubbed great and good; all very shiny-clean and gilded. Didn’t get much chance to look around but really liked what I saw of the new café area – very open and bright and welcoming. Must go back for a better nosey (perhaps I’ll peruse a picture or two as well. What a revolutionary!) before too long.

We didn’t get much time to rehearse because not everyone was able to arrive by 5 o’clock. Eventually we ended up doing a fair bit of practising in front of our gathering audience but they didn’t seem to mind too much; indeed, why should they? One and a bit concerts for the price of none can’t be bad, can it?

Naturally there was a dodgy moment or three – Abendlied went better than expected, I think, though I messed up the bit I had been telling Jenny on Wednesday I found perfectly easy – typical! At this point the Tenor 1 part (yes, Jen and I were growling again) comes in on the same note as the Altos have just finished on (or started on or something) only, in spite of how it’s written in the music, we should be an octave lower. I came in merrily on exactly the same note as the Altos, a whole octave too high and when I realised what I had done I had to swoop down to where I was supposed to be rather too quickly for any elegance of tone. Jenny said she didn’t notice but this was her last concert (sob, wail, gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair) so perhaps she was being kind. Or perhaps her hearing is not what it was after 5 years of me screeching in her ear...

The Lully Entrées were wonderful – our little band quite superb and I echo Anne and Harriet in their delight that the band was not just a band but consisted of three choir members who just moved along to where their instruments waited for them, played brilliantly and then returned to sing with us again. ‘Twas special. And well done to a very colourful Chris for staying in both his mind and body and producing a splendid solo – I knew he would.

Robin came along to sing with us after all which was a joy. We had the pleasure of his company in spite of his having had a trying day. The Tenor section was much stronger as a result – there would only have been a lonely two of them without him. Then there was the joy of his solo in Kiisu Miisu [see below] which gets better every time, (and, while I’m writing about this, Susan’s miaowing during this song has taken on a new life recently – she says she is doing it In Memoriam for Rufus and Rosie; fabulous stuff it is) >>> back to Robin ... a solo Ollie would have had to do otherwise (perhaps he was disappointed to see Robin running in, shirt-tails flapping and hair a-flop, but I don’t think so) and he joined us for the meal afterwards too which was lovely. (Having Robin there, I mean, though the meal was good too).




The pesky Lamb was up to its usual tricks, gambolling off out of control (tune) here and there but we managed to shepherd it back under some sort of order before we finished.

Everything else was OK – some quite lovely, of course. The audience was a good size and seemed to enjoy themselves – though there was a fair bit of wandering in and out and not all of it quiet. Anne was glaring at people from her seat in the middle of them but, rather surprisingly considering Anne’s glare, this didn’t make much difference. Why people (mis-)behave like this I don’t know – especially during quieter songs. It wouldn’t be difficult to wait until there’s some applause before coming in or going out; we do get applause, quite a lot of it really and none of the songs is so long that the waiting would be unacceptably protracted. Ah well! People, eh?!

Post-concert almost all of us headed off to Vittoria’s on Leith Walk for a farewell-to-Jenny-and-Anne meal. We thought it was a farewell-to-Harriet meal as well but it turns out she’s not actually leaving us just yet. Oops. We tried to include her in the Irish Blessing at the end of the concert but she waved her hand rather desperately, mouthing "No, I’m not going," so we had to give up on that one. I’d made her a card, too but I’ll just keep it until she really does leave (which will be all too soon once she’s completed her PhD). It will be signed by Jenny who’ll be long gone and anyone else who decides to leave before Harriet (don’t you dare) which will be a bit odd but... well, this IS Rudsambee.

Cards and presents given (Anne got gardening vouchers and gin (!), Jenny a teddy in a Rudsambee t-shirt (inspired, Sebastian Arno! [apologies for the confusion]) and a voucher for the Queen’s Hall, (or actual tickets – anyway there’s a ukulele festival on there in April and I think the idea was that she might enjoy that (I love over-using brackets, don’t you?))) we said our sad goodbyes and headed home. Choir will not be the same without those two. There will be no Anne to organise us and to whip the women into shape when Ol has his hands full with the men (oo-er)... and I might have to be serious and well-behaved with no Jenny beside me to provoke into giggles and to giggle with. As to managing the singing without them, well…I think I’m going to have to do some growing up.

At my age, I ask you!

IT’S NOT FAIR (stamp, scowl, stamp again).

So that’s that. I did it – two blogs. Good me.

Maybe I shall start calling myself your blogetteer again.

P.S. Re last week’s blog and the mention of "dusty, scratchy amber stuff" – I meant amber-coloured. Do you, Mr Commentator, think I am a fool????????

Pre-Portrait Gallery

So – tomorrow night we sing at the Portrait Gallery for the first time since it was closed for refurbishment, however long ago that was… any ideas, Mr S?  [I think that's just shy of 3 years since we were last there] It is a lovely space to sing in and we used always to get good-sized audiences so we’ll see what the morrow brings and how/if things have changed.  We have to meet in the Educational Lunch Room!?!  At least, I think that’s what I heard.  Sounds awful, doesn't it?  When I eat my lunch I wish to enjoy my food, if at all possible, along with some idle chit-chat (always possible); on the odd (I use that word advisedly) occasion a meaningful discussion on a topical subject is acceptable but only if one’s lunch companions are really serious types who don’t understand the notion of a good natter.  I certainly don’t want educating while I eat – imagine what that would do to the digestion.

Anyway, tonight we sang through almost everything we will be singing tomorrow.  Note the ‘almost’.  It will be a fine day – and probably the end of the world – when we actually go through the whole programme the day before a performance.  That would be far too cosy and safe, wouldn’t it?  Can’t be having us cosy and safe.

I arrived a little early for once and was delighted to come upon an intense rehearsal of the musical accompaniment to the Lully pieces.  All three of our musicians had turned up and it was sounding really rather good.  Tamsin was almost asleep, having had a looooooong day but still managed to pluck her harp strings with extraordinary energy.  It was lovely to hear the three of them play together at long last – we’ve had Nikos on his guitar and Sebastian on his cello but never Nikos and Sebastian and never Tamsin at all.  Once everyone turned up we spent a fair bit of time putting the whole thing together and it’s going to be fun.  The basses – the three that are left (I forgot about Luke last week because he wasn’t there – that’s a bit insulting, isn’t it?) - were a little hesitant at first and they do have a tricky time coming in in the right place bit they were certainly sounding OK by the time we finished.  Chris has a solo in the first (second) Entrée (oo! An  accent.  Thank you) and sings it splendidly.  Usually.  For some reason, on one of our run-throughs, he went completely and horribly wrong for no discernible reason at all…. one second he was singing merrily away and then came a wrong note and then another one and then…. well, there were no more notes, just the wrong one repeated rather a lot of times.  Oh, it was funny.  Kay was beside herself and she wasn’t the only one.  It is so very hard to sing when killing oneself laughing.  There was many a squawk and splutter.  Poor Christopher had no idea at all how things went so badly wrong.  I think it was a sort of out-of-body experience.  Let’s hope he stays well inside his body tomorrow evening. [Poor Christopher realised later that he had mysteriously started singing the next page of the piece]

Abendlied was a bit of a nightmare.  I had very little idea what I was doing first time round but had remembered it by the second go, only finding it pretty tricky to sing with any confidence or gusto – gusto isn’t quite what’s required for this one but it does go a long way towards making it sound as if we know what we’re singing.  And I’m not sure we do, not really.  Ah well.  Another practise tomorrow and maybe we’ll get through it without too many nasties.  Ah, the wishful-thinking phenomenon…. where would we be without it?

Oh yes, forgot to mention that Ollie’s friend, Andrew, came to beat a drum and tap a tambourine along with us in the Lully pieces.  He learns quickly, he does.  And he knows Ol well enough to be able to say to him, “I do need to know the difference between…” (hand flap) “And…” (almost imperceptibly different hand flap).  Don’t we all?  The percussion adds just that little je ne sais what to the proceedings.  Good stuff.

Well, I promised you two reports this week and I have delivered numero uno.  Short and sweet (uninformative) but very much in evidence.  Clever me.  How much are you willing to wager against me managing  the second?  I shall do my best to confound your expectations but

don’t hold your breath waiting….

You cannot just whip out a cello…

...you have to prepare it.  ‘Course you do:

“Do you cover it in rosin, or something?” asks Robin.  “Well, how should I know.  I don’t know anything about stringed instruments.”

While this may be true I am quite sure he is aware that a rosin-covered cello would be a) rather dusty, b) rather scratched and c) no better sounding than a rosin-free one.

And surely there’s enough to do as it is with spikey things to be lowered, strings to be tuned, bows to be tightened…(and yes, OK, a bit of the dusty, scratchy amber stuff comes in handy at this point).

The cello in question was (is) Sebastian’s and he was preparing said cello in order to accompany our rendition of Lully’s Entrees de Ballet (no accent again – my lap-top ain’t ‘alf picky).  We will be singing these at the Portrait Gallery on Thursday (what? When?  Aaaaagh!) with Tamsin on harp, Nikos on guitar and Ol’s friend Andrew (who, a propos of nothing - still no accent - knits a mean cable-stitch, btw) on tambourine.  Neither Tamsin nor Nikos were present on Wednesday and Andrew only ever gets to practise with us last minute, so we have yet to try singing this with all the noise going on.  There will only be two basses left to sing and only two tenors as well because we’ll be missing (big-time) our Robin so there will need to be some belting-out of tunes and lyrics from the remaining men.  John and Arno were being a bit shy on Wednesday.  No room for that sort of behaviour, lads.  Especially as there’s been talk of the instruments being amplified.  You need to make yourselves heard and I know you can do it.  (Don’t worry about getting the notes right, anything will do as long as it’s in tune).

So, that was a small diversion.  What I was going to say at the beginning of this blog goes as follows:  It is just as well I am not the sort of person who makes resolutions at the beginning of the year.  I am far too busy thinking about all the things I didn’t achieve in the previous fifty-two weeks and am also unlikely to acieve in the following twelve months.  If I did make resolutions I dare submit that one of them would have been something to do with getting my blogging done more regularly and on a Wednesday night or Thursday morning instead of -  well, instead of what I do.  You may have noticed that my first couple of 2012 blogs were, indeed, written and presented with some despatch (you may have noticed but that rather depends on whether or not Postman Chris was doing his job with matching enthusiasm) in spite of the lack of resolution (!); you may also have noticed that I fell off my blogging wagon last week – after so short a time, shameful ain’t it? - and found myself far too busy (ahem) to apply myself to literary creativity (ahem again).  I promise forthwith to try and behave as if I actually had made the resolution as outlined above and am actually the sort of person who would make great efforts to keep it.

In an effort to make up for my failure last week I will (maybe) send you two reports next.  One after the rehearsal on Wednesday and one after the concert on Thursday.  This will be Jenny’s last concert with us (just what am I supposed to do without her?) and we are going out for a farewell meal afterwards so there should be lots to tell you.

We have a new soprano, by the way.  Yey!  Her name is Luana.  I know nothing else about her yet except that she is young and can sing but no doubt that will change.  I’ll let you know…….

Now, some altos, please.  Where are all those keen but under-employed warblers?  I really can’t manage the growly-girly bits all by myself…I can get low enough but then I struggle to get back up again.  It’s like the break between a chest voice and a head voice but more extreme; as if my voice has fallen into a deep well with sides too sheer and slippery for it to have any chance of hauling itself out. 

And no bucket.

I could drown down there.

We could do with a couple of tenors, too.

Perhaps I should get my mother to pray to St Anthony.  He’s always finding things for her.  But then, those are things she’s lost in the first place.  I’ve no idea if he’s able to start the process from scratch.

 

OMG!

What the…?  I arrived in good time last night and, what did I see?  I’ll tell you what I saw.  Through the dining-room window I espied a group of men….several basses and a smattering of tenors.   In full voice.  It seems they had all arrived

EARLY?

And were practising – I say it again because it is almost beyond belief and the more I say it the more I might believe it – 

EARLY.

By arrangement, as it turned out.  I find this a little scary.  Why?  Not sure, exactly.  Men of the super-keen variety are not unheard of within our ranks but to get nearly all of them there

EARLY

is, I think, unprecedented and, yes, a little scary.  Hypnotism?  Bribery?  Threats?  Something fishy’s going on and I’m not sure I like it!

We women arrived in dribs and drabs, as is usually the case with everyone and all of us looked slightly nonplussed.  More than one person asked “What is going on?”  Susan offered the explanation that the men’s…um…previousness (?!) was by mutual agreement.  This did nothing to dispel the confusion.

Once we had all gathered and been joined by the ‘men’-who-have-been-swapped-by-aliens we began with a warm-up orchestrated by Jenny who did a much better job of it than I did in Week One.  I think people actually felt warmed-up by the time she’d finished with us.  Ollie then told us what we’d be doing for the rest of the evening and, indeed, we did do most of it but, unfortunately, there was no time to have a second look at Nikos’s piece and I was looking forward (with only a teensy amount of dread) to that.

We went over the two French pieces which we began last week – the Lully  Entrées de Ballet.  I had my glasses with me this week and a clear head so these went much better for me.  They are not difficult, or not in the alto line, anyway.  We have had to change the rhythm in a few bars as the notation was different from the original and Ol wants it the same, we worked on tuning and expression.  The basses have ten bars or so to sing at the beginning of the 3^rd Entrée (why has my computer added an accent on this word for me and not on the first ‘Entrées’ above (and again)?  Is it the ‘s’ that confuses?  No, look, I added an ‘s’ and it’s still there.  I think it’s the Lully; how odd [here, have an accent]) and they tried, bless them.  Perhaps they should arrive early next week to practise this.  They sang it (?) and it wasn’t good.  In fact, “That was shit,” said Kay, never one to mince her words.  It was.  But it was better when we came back to it later.  And when we came back to these later and still hadn’t got the chordage quite precise enough Ollie told us he wanted no wet tea-bags, no splatting.  “Perhaps a cafettiere instead,” suggested Robin; though it’s hard to see how that would work.

We spent some time on the beautiful Abendlied, which is not yet beautiful, I’m afraid, but has potential.  I felt some triumph in finding a couple of bars quite straightforward which our Jen was finding tricky.  HA!  I practised on my own at home before leaving for rehearsal.  It is a few bars later where the Eb that was causing Mrs Fardell a problem reverts to an E natural that was tripping me up (in spite of personal practise) but I managed to find the pesky note every time after some trilling around and about it and it will come naturally (tee hee) soon enough.

We separated into two groups for the men to practise (again) their new piece and for we women to try and make some progress with the Bulgarian song we started last week.  Make progress we did, especially after throwing the men out of the piano-holding room but then we discovered that our two sheets of music, coming along rather nicely by this time, should have been considerably more in number, the first page ending with bar 12 and the second starting with bar 61.  Oops.  Quite a lot missing, then.  “Perhaps we won’t practise linking them up just yet,” says the puzzled BW, “Someone emailed me this and told me there were only 2 pages.”  Someone was mistaken, were they not?  I don’t suppose anyone but a Bulgarian or two would notice if we were only singing a third of the words; it seems from the translation we have that those few we are singing would make some sort of sense alone but the men’s piece is much longer than ours so I think an effort should be made to find the missing section as quickly as possible.  Can’t have them hogging the limelight (even if they are prepared to turn up 

EARLY).

We female types were treated to a performance of Zikr (think that’s correct – Christopher?? [yep]) and what fun it was.  The basses were in full flow and the tenors looking terrified and confused by turns but they did OK.  Very OK.  It is a great piece and will sound fantastic once they all know what they’re doing (one can dream…)

Heather has come up with a good plan – she thinks maybe we should consider making a new CD before Ollie leaves us; either instead of or as well as a concert in May.  I like this idea, though we have no Helen to do the recording.  I’m sure someone could be found to help out. There’re bound to be a few things we want to set down from Ollie’s tenure and I think we’ll kick ourselves if we don’t do it.  May is looking a bit dodgy for me in terms of being around at weekends so I hope a decision is made soon about dates and doings so that I can order my life accordingly and not miss out on any Rudsambee-related excitement.

There you are.  Up-to-date if not enthralled.

xxx

Vagueness

Bad head space this week so I am sorry but I haven’t got much to say for myself having been even less switched on than this week than I usually am.  I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to write a comprehensible sentence... let’s see what I can do.

There was a new face in the alto section but, having arrived a little late, I missed introductions – I presume there were introductions? – I really apologise.  I believe our new face belongs to a young lady of German nationality.  In this I could be mistaken; there are other countries where German is spoken.  I know Christopher will supply you with the necessary information [actually, he missed the intro as well!].  Soon he is going to show me how to post my own blogs and then you will never learn the truth about anything.   Oh, lord!  Anyway, said young lady seemed to be coping extremely well with copious amounts of sight-reading and so, if she stays, she will be a most welcome addition and I will still be by far the worst sight-reader in the choir. 

So – new stuff again.  Ollie’s idea is that we should spend a few weeks looking at new pieces and then select the ones we really like to work on alongside brushing up some older pieces for the Portrait Gallery concert.

We looked at two songs by Lully – from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme: entrée de ballets 2 and 3.  These are supposed to be fast and funny, if I remember rightly... I wasn’t feeling fast or funny but I got some of the notes right – eventually!  We will have Nikos on guitar and Sebastian on cello when we sing these so will have to work on the balance but for now we were just note-bashing.

After this we split up into two groups, male and female.  The women stayed in the sitting-room while the men went through to where the piano resides.  As the BW stayed with us (most of the time) I have no idea who led the boys and I have no clue what they were working on [Arno mostly controlled the men through the first four pages of Zikr, which is another arrangement by Ethan Sperry whose Desh caused such amusement previously] but we female types were having a look at a piece called Dilmano Dilbero... a Bulgarian song with very tricky rhythms.  A while ago we used this piece as a warm-up and Ollie had called me earlier in the day to ask if I still had a copy of the music.  I couldn’t find it and as I searched I started to think that we’d never had the music but had been taught a bit of it off by heart and sung that bit over and over until warm... Ollie was, apparently, thinking the same thing but he managed to find the music before the rehearsal so we were able to start work on it.  We got the hang of the first two bars without too much difficulty but after that everything went to hell and, in all the time we spent, we didn’t get beyond bar 5.  However, we enjoyed ourselves getting nowhere.  The men sounded very dramatic.  I think they got further than we did with whatever they were working on but perhaps they were just singing bars 1 and 2 and giving it laldy to sound impressive.

When we got back together we had a look at a piece called Abendlied [after a few weeks of frantic email discussion to figure out where it had gone].  Sebastian has chosen this and it is lovely.  Asked for a translation he manfully obliged until John offered, “It’s ‘Abide With Me’ in German, almost word for word.”  Which it is.  But the tune’s really pretty.

Chris fed me chocolate and gluten-free bickies to calm my shattered nerves (they began to mend) and that was it for the evening.  Jenny drove me home.

BIG love to Rudsambee.  Full of shiny, twinkly stars shining and twinkling.

New year, new songs, same old blogetteer…

Yep, no hope, me buddies.  ‘Ere I am again, sans resolutions and already so far behind in the blogging business that it will take me until 2013 to catch up.  Well, no – that’s a ridiculous exaggeration, isn’t it?  Interesting we are but there’s no way that much has happened in the Rudsambee ranks since last I communicated.  However, I missed out on detailing the Christmas party and also our first meeting of the year last week, at which we discussed the future instead of singing, (and at which we had the amusement and excitement of Ollie-by-SKYPE) and so I will have to say something about these two events before I get going on tonight’s rehearsal.  Won’t I?  Yes I will.  There are, after all, things to be said.

But I’ll say them tomorrow.  Or Friday.  Or over the weekend.  I just wanted to get started this evening because once I’ve started it’s so much easier to carry on. 

Eventually. 

You know how it is.

A demain, (vendredi, le weekend, un jour…), mes amies – oh, we did go all French tonight but more of that plus tard.  Adieu.

I was right, of course.  I have spent the last day or so making something 1950s-ish to wear for my elder sprog’s 1950s night tonight so have had no time for this.  I apologise.  But I’m here now so on we go.

Or back we go, rather, back to December 15^th 2011, of distant memory.  The Christmas party.  Lovely evening in all particulars except one.  Great food as ever, good chat, good wine.  Not as many people as usual… quite a few missing choir members (not sure some of the newer Rudsambeeites are quite up to speed with our love of socialising – they’d better catch up and cotton on quick sharp) and the Myrtles were off somewhere singing to people and, as a result, we were missing several former members who can usually be relied upon to partay well into the small hours.  So, it was an earlyish night really but no less enjoyable for that.  The one particular mentioned above was that Anna Lauren popped along to say hello (which was nice) and to announce that she will not be returning to sing with us (which was not).  Devastating news, this but we wish her all the best and blessings galore as she moves forward into the future.  We will have to encourage her to join us for an evening at some point soon so that we can Irish Blessing her. 

First meeting of the year was on the 4^th.  There were only about 10 of us present but we got a lot done.  We have a recruitment plan and a recruitment committee and will, therefore, be recruiting very soon.  We need to find someone to take over from the BW when he decides to go.  He was unable to be with us in person as he was ‘stuck’ in London… it just happened to be Helen Miles’ birthday that day – in London - and I feel that this was the glue rather than any problems with travel, but I may be wrong.  Anyway, we could hardly complain as he had abandoned whatever birthday celebrations were taking place in order to join us by means of that miraculous invention which is SKYPE (have I spelled that correctly?  Luddite mind in evidence.  Again [Corrected. Luddite.]).  It was very amusing to see his little face grinning away at us on the very small screen.  Even more amusing to see it when he had no idea what was going on in Morningside and was looking blank (and bored) to say the least!  At one point Chris turned the laptop round so that Ollie could see Kay, who was addressing him directly.  Several minutes later – long after Kay had finished – a pathetic wee voice could be heard asking, “Can someone turn me round, please?”  Cue great hilarity as Christopher did as bid and our L&M was able, once more, to join us.

So, we are going to have Ollie’s company until April or May, it seems, but we will try to find someone who would be able and willing to join us before Ol goes and to work alongside him preparing us for a (possible) concert in May.  We have a concert in February at the Portrait Gallery and the usual St Giles in August and some Christmas dates but it was felt that a huge un-concerted gap between Feb and Aug might lead to enervation which would be a disaster for a new director and for us.

Ollie is on the search for some new choristers – a couple each of sopranos, altos and tenors – so if you know of anyone who might be interested tell them to get in touch pronto.  We are remarkably well off for basses.  And they’re good ones, too.

To Wednesday evening and our first sing of the year.  We have re-introduced the warm-up and note-taking routine so I was on warm-up duty and Jen on notes.  Can’t wait to see them.  She could hardly write for laughing at various moments but at least she was writing (some)things down so her chances of remembering what was going on are a deal better than mine.  Perhaps I should wait to read the notes before I publish this so I can pinch her ideas and pretend that I was paying attention this week???  My warm-up was a bit sketchy… had lots of thoughts about it beforehand but did I employ a pencil to record those thoughts?  Did I b*****y.  Anyway, better than nothing.  Susan seemed quite disappointed that I didn’t get people touching each other as I have been known to do in the past.  Not as exciting or rude as it sounds, unfortunately.  A little reciprocal shoulder massage is all.  Next time, Susan, next time…

We started by singing Une Puce.  Ollie was very particular about this.  Read Jenny’s notes for further info.  Then on to new material.  Exciting stuff.  Sight-reading and such.  An arrangement of Linden Lea came first.  “Does anyone know this?” asks Ollie.  “Yes, my mother used to sing it,” replies Jen.  Now, maybe it was her Yorkshire accent (slight but still evident) that did it but I glanced at the top of my copy and was quite convinced that it said:  Arrangement by Arthur Skargill. “ ??????,” I thought, “Didn’t know he was musical”.  Well, musical or not (what’s your guess?) he didn’t, in fact, arrange this piece but the chap who did has a name with the same initials and other vaguely corresponding letters and I didn’t have my glasses with me.  No, really.  I didn’t. 

Now – we have run into a petit problem.  I seem to have mislaid my file.  My file and therefore my music.  Could I have left it chez Wexler?  I think this is highly probable.  So I am not going to be able to tell you much more because of old brain.  You will have to wait until next week to discover what other pieces (French) we had a go at.  Or read Jenny’s notes.  However, one thing I can tell you is that Nikos has written a piece for us to sing and we had a go at that and my oh my, it is going to be fun.  That is to say, bloody tricky.  But fun too.  Oh yes.  Can’t remember quite what it’s called but I can find out (maybe) if you give me two ticks... Brodmann area 47 (I Googled).  Forty-something anyway.  Brodmann 47 (or whatever) is an area of the brain and is associated with something-or-other to do with music but there’s a big musical terminology shaped hole in my head at the moment where that word should be so I am not going to be able to tell you what I am talking about. The hole may well fill up with the appropriate wordage (not before I’ve despatched this blog Chris-wards, of course) but I fear I may be missing Brodmann fortywhoosit completely.  Anyway, Nikos has us doing all sorts of exciting things and making/singing noises instead of words.  This led to some amusement when he was attempting to explain what sound certain letters (some Greek) denoted.  “This is a ‘h’ as in hotel,” says he throatily.  “There is no ‘h’ in hotel,” says Susan, oh so correctly.  “ ’h’ as in how a Greek person would say hotel,” say I.  That’s clear then.  What he actually wants is the sort of ‘ch’ in loch.  That is what he will get.  Next cause of levity (Fardell hysteria) was when we were asked to speak our parents’ names for a bar or two.  Nikos has parents with lovely names: Maria and Yiannis.  My aged Ps are Tom and Peggy.  Rhythmic but hardly romantic.  Jenny’s dad was called Percy.  Still, Jenny’s not shy and Percy made a great showing (only he must have been a bit of a nuisance when he was alive because every time his name came up Jenny turned into her mother and he was being told off, poor man).   Ratchetting up the hysteria level, one of Nikos’s instructions had to do with orgasms – or lack of them, (if I may write such a word in the blog... my apologies to those of a nervous disposition).  Jenny apoplectic.

I’ll give you more info next week when I will have my folder to hand.  Promise.

Enough for now.  Quite an epistle, this blog.