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!