Relative Pitch: Rudsambee ramblings

You cannot just whip out a cello…

2012-02-12T01:04:00.000Z

...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!

2012-01-26T22:30:00.000Z

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

2012-01-21T15:22:00.000Z

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…

2012-01-14T01:10:00.000Z

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.

Concert Weekend

2011-12-12T13:20:00.000Z

I am sitting here all ready to head off for John and Susan’s for my lift to Rosslyn. At the moment clad simply in two layers (tights and jeans, vest and jumper) I have prepared a bag containing many items of clothing in which to present myself as Michelin Man(ly woman) later on, in the chapel. I have another vest (thermal), leggings, my regulation black trousers, of course (will have to ditch the jeans though I’d keep them on underneath if I could), two cardigans, gloves and two shawls - though I am the second shawl in case someone else needs another layer rather than to sport them both myself. They can be tricky little b*****s to deal with and I can’t imagine what sort of tangle I’d end up in if I attempted to manage two at once.

There is still snow on the ground but we have been assured we can reach our venue; reassuring emails have been sent to choir and audience... now we just have to wait and see which members of the latter group are brave and hardy enough to come and listen to us tonight.

12:03 am – home again. Really quite a reasonably sized audience. There had been some concern about ticket sales but no need to exercise ourselves about as it turns out. While not a sell-out in the straining-at-the-seams level which has been the Rosslyn Chapel experience in former times, the place is small enough to look full even when it isn’t and certainly there appeared to be very few vacant seats. I think the concert went well, though it has to be admitted that there were some raggedy moments and some dodgy, winter-affected voices from time to time. Some pieces went better than expected and some not so well as they might but this is pretty much the way of live performances everywhere so let’s not be too hard on us! St Giles tomorrow and a chance to get right that which went a bit pear-shaped and to improve on the things that were close to completely gorgeous.

It was delightful to welcome Helen back into the Rudsambee fold – however temporarily - and well done to her for managing to sing everything even when she’d never sung at least half of it before in her life. Not something your blogetteer could do in a month of Sundays. A very small and select group, which included Helen and the BW, gave us a marvellous rendition of Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – sounded glorious in the chapel and it was really lovely to be able to sit and listen for a change. Anne played her harp for a few pieces and Sebastian played his cello along with her for Nu Tandas and they did a beautiful job. Thank you, you two. Fabby.

So, one more concert this year, our Christmas party on Wednesday and then we head into 2012 with some big questions over the future direction of Rudsambee but with a determination on the part of not a few members to move onwards (possibly not upwards but, at the very least, on a steady path) into something new. This should be exciting. Let’s be excited.

Please.

Thank you.

I was less of a Michelin Man than anticipated tonight thanks to a new heating system in the chapel. Not that it was particularly warm; just not perishing. I left off the thermal vest and the two cardigans (and the extra shawl), but I did wear my leggings beneath my trousers, on top of my tights. I didn’t take thick socks. I couldn’t, anyway, have got thick socks into my shoes but stone floors and thin shoes are a bad combination and my (not so tiny) feet were frozen. Solid. Ice-blocks. Horrid. I sat and warmed them in front of a cosy fire in the pub after the concert but they still feel dampish, even now. Bed with a hot-water bottle, I think, if I am to be thawed out for tomorrow’s performance.

And more of that once we’ve done it. Night-night.

And now we have. And it went very well indeed. A lo-o-ong rehearsal beforehand; so long that the long-suffering cathedral tea-ladies were getting agitated at our non-appearance. However, it was worth it for the added confidence gained and, some of last night’s problems addressed, we headed into this concert with much more aplomb. St Giles is such a lovely place to sing and we always get a huge and appreciative audience... I don’t think we disappointed them. Tonight we had Tamsin on harp and Anne on piano with Sebastian doing a beautiful job on his cello for Nu Tandas, we sang Seal Lullaby with Anne (and a toy seal) on piano and Tamsin played her harp for Riu, Riu Chiu, with Nikos (much recovered from the op but still a little stuffy of nose, btw) shaking tambourine and Heather banging a drum somewhere in the background.

Great fun.

During the rehearsal an Icelandic friend of Ollie’s (does he know someone of every possible nationality????) came to listen to us singing Immanuel Oss I Natt so that he could give us some hints as to correct pronunciation. A little late in the day you might think – as did we – but, luckily for us, he was extremely impressed with our efforts and only had about four changes to make. We pretty much managed to remember them though it isn’t easy to change the way you’ve been singing something for years in a matter of minutes. I believe there were some Swedish people in the rehearsal audience who offered to help with Nu Tandas and, indeed, I think they did give soloists Rachael and Marie Claire some hints as they both sang some words with unfamiliar pronunciation so well done to them and I hope the Swedes were as happy as our man from Iceland.

Poor Heather was feeling awful, as was Chris. Kirsty has been feeling very under-the-weather, too and suffering from lack of voice but she is off to Canada on Wednesday to spend Christmas with her daughter and was looking much brighter tonight, no doubt buoyed by that prospect. Anne had almost completely lost her voice but Ollie persuaded her to join us and sing what she could and mime where she couldn’t and I was very glad indeed to have her by my side to help me with the little alto solo (duet) in Amuworu. I really had very little idea what I was doing due to lack of practise and lord alone knows what would have happened if I’d been left to myself. (It’s only two bars and about four notes but the timing’s awkward and it really needs belting out which is difficult if you have no confidence in what you’re doing). Tamsin was hacking and coughing away but managed to sing her solo line in Steal Away as beautifully as usual, so - very well done to all our brave little soldiers. Marvellous.

Well, more after the party if I can remember anything. Sorry if this is a bit boring but we’ve been very serious recently what with having to try and sing things properly for people willing to pay good money to hear us do so. Next concert, February.

And after that... who knows???

Turn me back for one minute and...

2011-12-05T11:28:00.000Z

I’ve been in Munich visiting the old man. When I left Edinburgh on Friday morning the weather was really quite good. I had a pleasant walk down to Waverley Bridge – no coat, just a jumper; clear skies and only a little chill in the air. I spend a couple of days away in a city which is quite often perishingly cold at this time of year but which was also rather clement this weekend and I return to FREEZING air and what looks alarmingly like the remains of SNOW on the ground. What the...?

Not good. This is not at all what I want. I would like the white stuff to stay away until after Christmas and Hogmanay so that I can go and do all the things I’ve arranged to do without interruption, thank you. And, also, we had to cancel our Rosslyn Chapel concert last year and really don’t want to be doing the same thing again this. Ticket sales are looking a little dodgy, apparently, which is hardly surprising as our many fans are by now accustomed to missing out on hearing us warbling in this venue, so many years have passed since last we were able to do so. If you are reading this and know anyone who might like to come and swell our audience numbers please encourage them to apply for a ticket or two. Merci.

If that request is to bear any fruit at all I had better get on with this epistle so that it can be made available to you as soon as possible.

Wednesday – so long ago – Ollie was away so had asked Arno to step into his (rather small) shoes which he did admirably and with very little sign of squished toes. We worked very hard and got quite a lot done considering we were sans Lord and Master.

At one point John got very narky about our habit of talking between songs having, he said, missed some important part of a discussion some people were having about something important. He was really very impressive; quite like a schoolmaster. Cowed all us gossipers good an’ proper.For a minute or two at least.

Whether or not we are all entirely happy with everything we will be singing at the weekend, I can’t say. Somehow the preparations for these concerts seems to have been a little rushed and we are missing personnel to an alarming degree in the soprano section, especially as I think Tamsin is unable to sing with us on Saturday. Nikos was off to have an operation on his throat/nose??? So is unlikely, I imagine, to be recovered enough to sing and Kirsty was decidedly croaky and snuffly on Wednesday – there’s bound to be at least one choir member struggling with a cold on Saturday evening. Still, if anything can be said for Rudsambee members it is that they come up trumps at concert time no matter what adversity they may be suffering, so no doubt all will be well in the long run. We are to have some extra rehearsal time this week and I for one will be having a glance through my folder to identify those awkward moments on which I wish to work. And I know there are words I need to look at – foreign ones I don’t know well enough to look confidently at Ollie whilst singing.

Does that last sentence make sense? Ach, well. Nevermind, eh?

I had a moan on Wednesday as Ollie had left me (and a few others) off the quartet list I was having a moan about last week. Bit previous that first moan but I do like to make my feelings clear well in advance. Anyway, the L&M sent round an email to say that he’d overlooked the presence of a third verse that needed to be quarteted so now I DO have a part to sing as do other previously left-outers. Yey!! It’s not the same verse I sang last time so I will need to learn even more words but I’m not complaining –

she says hastily.

Lacking time and inspiration. Apologies. More later in the week.

Kisses.

Coughs and Splutters

2011-11-24T10:04:00.000Z

Poor old us. So much of the above going on. And Nikos had to leave early (having arrived late) because he was feeling so bad. Hasn’t been well for a while, actually, so it was good to see he is still alive and kicking, albeit rather feebly. And skinnily. Very baggy about the jean-bottom, I noticed. Daresay I shouldn’t have been looking...

Anne sat in a chair all evening nursing a cold. Jenny sat in a chair half the evening doodling on a pad of graph paper probably pinched from her son, Connor, who was with us again (though sensibly hiding in the other room) and tomorrow she’ll moan at him for not having done his Maths homework. This is mere speculation, of course. The paper could have come from anywhere. It might even have been her own. She did have a pile of paper with her tonight and, while some of it (unusually) had music on, quite possibly there was other stuff mixed in with it – certainly she didn’t appear to be possessed of anything much we were singing. How she gets by I’ll never know – and she always ends up (almost) knowing everything by heart, too. Perhaps she sleeps with it all under her pillow and absorbs it at night. That could well be where her music is when she’s supposed to have it at rehearsals. And concerts.

People seemed to have been very prompt tonight. Unlike me. And Arno and Kirsty and the aforementioned Nikos. Oh, yes, and Heather, too. We all sloped in a little late (particularly the a-mN) once the others were well away with….something. Immanuel oss I nat’, that was it. Icelandic. Sung many times before by more of us than you would have believed had you heard our efforts this evening. I arrived just as the inevitable discussions regarding pronunciation were beginning. Something like a consensus was reached but what they agreed upon bore little resemblance, as per, to what I have got written down.

These blogs get rather repetitive, don’t they? You could probably write them yourself, Dear Readers. (Note, optimistic, positive frame of mind. Good, eh?)

Having ‘Feng-kin air’-ed and ‘kreesto didli’-ed until it all sounded OK(ish) we moved on to Jajang – much improved; also Nyathi Onyuol and intensive bashing of the tenor section. Ol knocked them into some sort of shape – boy! they’ll be black and blue tomorrow. Mostly with this one it’s the words... they cause problems. And the rhythms. And sometimes the notes. Or the lack of them. There’s one place where the men’s notes are not notes i.e. they have those little crosses instead to indicate speech and John was concerned that not everyone was, indeed, speaking (“ting ma pek” being the delightful wordage at this point). The Boy Wonder, apparently, cares not a jot about this, thinking the effect of half-and-half (half right, half wrong) works a treat. In truth I think he is concerned that, were he to impose a new way of performing this bit on the wrong ’uns, the correct rhythm, so eagerly sought and so welcome once found, might disappear again and be lost forever. Ol is very fond of finding us familiar words with which to ‘replace’ unfamiliar ones and the tenors got well into the spirit of this with something about a car, a car window and then a Nintendo car window... I hope this helps them. I’m looking at my copy and can’t see anywhere where this particular sequence of words would be of any use whatsoever...

We had more of this while working on Hey, hey, Lelija! but it made more sense. Our Lord and Master turned to the ladies and demanded, “Say ‘end’.” We did. “Say ‘me’.” Again, obedient as ever, we did as bid. “Say me-end.” As before. “Me-en-dzeh.” Done. One word sorted. “Say Vienna... shvienna... shvienn... shviennchay” etc etc with an ‘f’ added here and there where no ‘f’ should be and Bob’s yer uncle. Nearly there.

Turning to Amuworu – more tenor bashing. Robin was beginning to look quite cross-eyed while Chris just looked cross. Jenny, it appeared, was ready for bed such a yawn she let out unhindered by any embarrassment whatsoever.

We had a look at Ecce Novum Gaudium and practised singing it with a little delicacy instead of belting it out full throttle as we are wont to do. We are to have Tamsin playing her harp in her lively Tamsin way for this one and Mrs Fardell pointed out that we needed a drum, too. “You wanna do that, then?” enquired the L&M. So now Jen will be drumming - imagine! If she doesn’t have the full rock-band set up, centre stage and mic-ed up I’ll eat... a cake with gluten in it. Which I no longer do if I can help it, btw. Ol pondered quartets for this one. We had them before. We must have done because I have an orange line underneath verse 2 and do not find verses 3 and 4 at all familiar word-wise. Anne agreed; she had sung a quarteted verse in the past, “But let someone else do it this time,” says she, “it’s time us oldies gave the young ones a chance.” “Speak for yourself,” said Susan. “Am I an ‘oldie’?” I asked, “If so, I’m with Susan on this one.” Which I am. I haven’t noticed a lack of opportunity for the ‘young ones’ to show off. Quite the opposite, in fact. And this song requires no particular vocal virtuosity and so is ideal for someone like me who has none.

STOP PRESS…..

UNPRECEDENTED SUCCESS FOR THE TENORS OF RUDSAMBEE

......STOP PRESS

We re-visited that tricksy-dicksy little Tavener piece Rocking – all skipping about between sharps and flats and clashy, clashy chords. And... the tenors got it right!!!!!!! First time. Well, almost. And the ‘almost’ was only one nasty little Bb (or maybe # (or, possibly, natural)). It seems that the harder something is to learn, the easier it is to remember. Maybe concentration is the key?????

The altos and basses got their turn at a battering when we started trying to put The Lamb to bed. Wretched creature just wouldn’t settle down. We were getting there – eventually – but need, says Ol, to work on it at home. The trouble is that at home it is easy…on my own I always get it right. But once those clashy, clashy chords (Tavener again) get going so does my confidence and hitting the correct note straight off becomes slightly (!) less of a breeze. I’d like to think I’m not the only one with this problem and that we had to go over and over and over it because other people were finding it tricky too.

The sopranos got off very lightly, but there were only two of them last night and they had to work bloody hard anyway.

It is Thursday morning. 10:04 to be precise and I have finished my blog. I started it last night!!!! I deserve a STOP PRESS and some bold lettering, too. Go me. If only it could always be like this...

Bushed Blogetteer

2011-11-21T22:18:00.000Z

Such a full-on weekend and now I’m so tired I’m sitting here doing this instead of attending my Pilates class. I usually have to have a very good excuse or a very bad illness to do that so you see what burning the candle at both ends (and melting it a little in the middle) does to someone of my advanced years... probably dancing for several hours in ridiculously high heels on Saturday night was less of a good idea than it seemed at the time, too.

On top of all that a delivery arrived at work today on two palettes; 30 boxes, 28 of which weighed 17kgs apiece, all of which were left outside the shop on the pavement - as is the way with things transported atop wooded platforms – and all of which I had to carry inside and pile up in any space I could find where the danger of them toppling onto our customers was not too great. It transpired later that we had had exactly twice the number of things we’d requested delivered by mistake. I thought there was a lot. I could have left half of it where it was and waited for it to be collected but... I didn’t know that until I got it inside, did I?

But, hey! If I were less tired and more inclined to Pilate I would fail (yet again) to Blog so my exhaustion is your silver-lining... she writes, to no one. One silver-lining going spare, then.

We are singing Christmas songs. There is not much time left. It is a little scary, especially as there seem to be quite a few people away. Just as well most of what we are singing is not new. This does not necessarily mean it is easy, however. We spent a lot of time on Nyathi Onyuol on Wednesday and I am not sure quite how we managed to sing it last year as everyone who did seemed to have precious little idea of how it should sound. I remember it as having been rather scary. I said this just as we all thought we’d finished with it for the evening, prompting the Boy Wonder to demand we sang it again as a measure against panic and all the other choir members to moan at me for my big mouth. Anyway, I am much more sure of what I’m supposed to be singing now so I think it was worth it.

We had Ollie’s Polish teacher, Izabella, (did I get that right?) [you did now!] to coach us in singing Hej, hej, Lelija! and, my oh my, did we need coaching. The BW had done a pretty good job but there were several words that we’d not got right at all. It took ages to go through it all and, although Isabella (did I get that right?) was pretty happy with us in the long run and seemed to think that Polish folk would understand what we are singing, I’m not sure any of us feel that confident about it. The song needs the Polish words, though, because – a little like The Swallow and the Bells, if you remember from last year’s blog - the English ones are a disaster. Unfortunately, English speaking mouths are not made to pronounce Polish sounding words. A lovely girl, that Izabella-did-I-get-it-right? I think she might even have joined in a bit of the singing as I suggested she should. She used to sing in a choir, she told me, and then got her confidence knocked by a perfectionist musician boyfriend. I know the feeling and it is one to be ignored.

My friend, Kirsty, latest Rudsambee recruit, came here on Saturday morning to go over some of the words and music, having such a lot to learn in such a very short time and imagining that I could help!! It was very good for me, too, actually. I realised just how careless it is easy to become (especially about pronunciation) and also that I knew what I was doing in places where I would probably have said that I didn’t. Very illuminating and I hope we’ll repeat the exercise as it will obviously benefit me as well as her.

And make me feel very good and very smug.

Adieu.

Poetry Library #1

2011-11-12T12:22:00.000Z

I am writing this the day before our next concert so will probably hold off sending it to the troll postman until I’ve added a report on how we get on at the Scottish Poetry Library tomorrow evening. As we are going out for a farewell-to-Natalie meal/drinkies straight afterwards we will have to hope that I am in a fit state to type something comprehensible at some point on Sunday.

You may have noticed that I failed to blog last week. I’m not sure why. I think it was lack of enthusiasm brought on by the realisation that all my ‘jokes’ about my sole reader are more true than I would like to have believed. Hardly anyone ever looks at this, you know. And it takes me ages. Rustle up some friends and get them to, at the very least, look us up and then I will feel more like making the effort in future.

Wednesday, then and a new alto in the familiar shape of my friend, Kirsty, who is joining us until Christmas and may stay after that depending on the situation regarding numbers. Somehow, even sans such notables as Harriet, Anna Lauren Luke and Nicos, the room felt very full on Wednesday evening. And Kirsty is only very small so it can’t have been due to her presence. Oh and how could I forget???? Mrs Fardell was absent too due to sick child (sick whilst at school and fine once home; that sort of creature, known and loved by parents the world over). That is a lot of missing persons and yet... the room seemed very full. Are we all beginning to gain the extra winter pounds already? Perhaps it was just that the chairs were distributed in an unfamiliar manner. Quite enough to confuse and overwhelm your poor blogetteer’s aging brain cells.

We sang through most of the stuff for tomorrow’s concert; Kirsty manfully (well, she IS an alto) sight-reading lots of things she may never sing again (if she’s lucky). Tamsin was playing Anne’s harp in accompaniment to several of the Scottish pieces and my! Once she had (nearly) mastered the tuning – Anne tunes the Scottish way and Tamsin doesn’t so it took her a while to get her head around what should be where – she played like one possessed. Never have any of us seen this gentle and elegant instrument played with such vigour and pizzazz. I now understand Anne’s reluctance to play when we have a Tamsin to do it instead. The girl’s a genius. I think I will almost enjoy singing the Gaelic songs now. Tamsin will have her own harp tomorrow so the quick key changes should be smoother and lord alone knows what she will be playing once she’s had a chance to look at the pieces properly. Hold onto your hats. It’s all really rather exciting!

Ollie has given new members permission not to join in our old Gaelic set – four songs sung in a row which a fair few of us have been singing on and off for ages and have done by heart in the past. He reckons there are enough of us to do them justice without giving people the headache of learning the tricksy wordage. Both Marie Claire and Heather have opted to join us regardless. Mad. Why? I have given my music to Heather so that she can copy down my attempts at nothing-at-all-like phonetic renditions of said tricksiness but whether or not she will be able to make head or tail of it, I don’t know. Whenever I look at other people’s efforts I find myself completely foxed, with no idea at all what is expected of me pronunciation-wise. It will be interesting – and possibly extremely amusing - to listen in to Heather’s chirruping tomorrow.

There will be no harp during Fog Elna Khel (shame) so Tamsin has taken over the lofty waily bit at the end previously sung by Harriet and A-L. She also has to lift her voice to the heavens in Steal Away – once again all alone. I imagine she will be delighted to have Miss Helen Miles to give some support at Christmas concert time, (Saturday 10^th December, Roslin Chapel and Sunday 11^th St Giles Cathedral, btw), though it has to be said that she seems to be managing very well on her own. One of these pesky talented people that Rudsambee will keep on turning up.

Heather is now our administrator and, in an extraordinary display of efficiency, brought along to the rehearsal a pile of printed Google maps to help us all reach the Poetry Library tomorrow. What this says about her opinion of Rudsambee intelligence I’m not sure but I took a map because I could and I punched holes in it and put it in the front of my folder. No way I’m getting lost now. Yey.

That’ll do for now, I think. I have to get ready for my daughter’s first event night – A Night in the 1940s – I’m going as a land girl. I was going to make a pinny and construct a cigarette with a bit of ash hanging perilously off the end and go as the cleaner so I could prod people with a mop and wipe up spills with a grimace but sadly I have failed to prepare myself for this. I shall have to try again for the 60s – or, indeed, the 50s, 70s, 80s. Whatever. I could wear a tabard once we get to the 70s. Always enjoyed a tabard.

Perhaps I’ll get this sent off. It will make a nonsense of my first paragraph but – hey. What’s new? More on Sunday. Maybe.

I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.

Water, water everywhere

2011-10-28T14:49:00.001+01:00

We did have fun with the aitch-two-oh this week. Quite who was responsible for the first spillage I can’t say but someone got wet – Heather? – as did the table and a fair bit of floor carpet (where else does one have carpet, by the way? Have often wondered. Answers on a postcard, please). I’ll wager Mrs Fardell was the culprit. Susan, Heather and Jenny all set-to to clear up the mess amidst great merriment. I have even less idea of what occurred as people were preparing to leave at the end of the evening because, as usual, I had my back to the action but it involved the same suspect – I mean, suspects. Susan was transporting a glass of water kitchenwards when someone (Mrs F perhaps?) knocked her about a bit (I think) and, yet again, the wet stuff hit the floor. Even greater hilarity ensued – and it appears that everyone except me had their eyes on the action because everyone except moi was laughing fit to burst. Did ever a blogetteer feel so incompetent? (Yes, every week. Every single week). After the first incident Susan was heard to say, “At least it wasn’t the glass of wine I threw over Dick Grindley a few days ago,” (hard to see how it could have been that particular glass of wine, it being soaked into Mr Dick’s trousers...) – red wine, of course, had to be, didn’t it? – which began a conversation about getting red wine out of whatever it’s been spilled on and the choice of cleansing method the Grindley’s may have resorted to; sucking it out was Jen’s suggestion, grubby girl. You may be wondering what was happening on the singing front while all this was going on... not much, as far as the sops and altos were concerned, obviously. The boys may have been practising something or other but I don’t think so.

All in all it was rather a laid back but extremely productive rehearsal. We were really very short of men – only two of each flavour - and there were a couple of sops missing, too (but here we had the pleasure of the company - and voice - of Rachael’s sister, Abbie, to make up for one of them at least) – so we started nothing new but revisited a fair number of last year’s Christmas pieces: Nyathi Onyuol, Jajang, Amuworo, Hey, Hey, Lily (aka Hej, Hej Lelija; Polish – in which shiny language we will be singing it this year), Immanuel oss I natt, Nu Tandas and Det hev ei rose sprunge. Not bad for an evening’s work, eh? Quite some time was spent on the Polish pronunciation with which our extraordinarily erudite and versatile Lord and Master is now very familiar, having become pretty much fluent in French and so moved on to the languages of Eastern Europe. Now, I know how a good deal of it works having read a book once which had bits of Polish in it and a helpful little page of tips on how various letters/combinations of letters should be pronounced so when Ol said, “How do you think the l with a line through it should sound?” I could answer ‘w’ and cz, ‘tch’ and sz, ‘sh’ etc (these are the easy ones) but this was of no help at all when it came to putting the words to the music – in spite of the fact that I was perfectly familiar with the music already. Oh, the strugglings of an ancient brain. And an ancient brain struggling with the onset of a cold-in-the-head, too. And, yet again, the absence of spectacles (except for the spilling of water tee hee)/bad light combination which flaws me every week. You’d think I’d learn.

But you see how hard it is.

At the end of the evening Heather announced that she had had a request for a sea-shanty singing choir to perform at a wedding in June and asked would we be at all interested? The short answer appeared to be ‘no’. The rather longer one was to do with where we would be singing, when, would anyone be listening or would we be singing against chat and the tinkling of glass (really, really hard work and no fun at all), would we have time to learn sea-shanty-type things to sing (Jenny was well away, jigging and climbing the rigging – she was the only one who looked at all keen but her enthusiasm could have made up for the rest of us, no problem) and other such concerns. Heather looked somewhat crushed at what was, to be sure, an astonishingly negative reaction but, as it is her job now to pass on these requests, she should beware of taking personally adverse responses of this nature. There’s no telling what will catch the imagination of Rudsambeeites and if she becomes too selective we might miss the opportunity to warble somewhere really silly in the future.

Alors, mes leetle cabbages, I have done. Hubby is home – has been here since last Saturday – and, what with one thing and another, I’ve hardly seen him so I shall go and make him some luncheon. See you next week.

Hello, Goodbye.

2011-10-22T10:55:00.000+01:00

(Actually the other way round but that’s not a song title

(As far as I know))

OK, I’m sorry my optimism was so misplaced the week before last but I don’t suppose you were fooled for a minute, were you?

And haven’t I just been a busy little bee today? Mostly, it has to be confessed, doing things I should have done yesterday and couldn’t be bothered to, but these ‘things’ involved housework of various complexions and, really, can you blame me for procrastinating? It has been like Downton Abbey round here, too, let me tell you. My vacuum cleaner is broken or on strike or something – no suction at all – so this-morning I was to be witnessed on hands and knees cleaning the stair carpet with a dustpan and brush and then attacking the sitting-room carpet (BIG room, BIG carpet) with my sweeping brush, stirring up more dust than I was removing. Which reminds me... dusting. Forgot. Still to be done. Darn. Wouldn’t last long at the Abbey, would I? On the streets I’d be, quick sharp and, to be honest, at my age I wouldn’t have much luck there, either.

Just as well it’s 2011 and I am who I am. Even if I’d rather be dressing like Lady Mary. (I don’t even watch the programme and I know all about it. Is this what they term ‘osmosis’?)

To Wednesday evening and not before time you will say. But I do like a chat.

It was all very relaxed. Susan was away and so there was no one there to chivvy us into singing. Firstly we had a chat (which I do like) and then Ollie talked us through the programme for the Poetry Library which at first glance made me feel as if we should warn away people who are inclined to snore when napping – HOWEVER.... after studying it more closely I noticed items such as Desh and Fog Elna Khel on the menu and there’s nothing dull about them. Also we did a fair bit of work on one of the Gaelic pieces I was struggling with and now it sounds really quite jolly and I am becoming less inclined to moan about it – which will be a great relief to all. After that we talked about starting Christmas music next week and only doing a little more work on the SPL concert pieces a bit nearer the time of the performance.

We spent quite some time practising O Lux Beatissima, a new piece but very easy and rather lovely, which we will be singing at both the above mentioned and the Christmas concerts. There were a few people who’d not set eyes on it before but, as I mentioned in a recent blog, even I managed to sight-read this straight off so it presented no problems for other more able choristers. We sang Grabmedoodlewhoosits but without Robin’s solo as he has hurt his back and was unable to move let alone come along to sing. (Hope it is better soon, Robin. Kisses. Eurch – he won’t like that!) Douglas, who used always to sing this solo but who will not be singing with us at the Poetry Library – why not? Don’t ask me – filled in for R (very nicely, as ever) and we worked on getting some colour into the accompanying parts. It became quite like a rainbow. Ahhh.

Ae Fond Kiss: no Helen for the solo, so Kay – being the only true soprano Scot – was volunteered for the job, which she accepted somewhat reluctantly. Helen, btw, was not the least bit Scottish. Just thought I’d mention it.

We headed through to the piano room – that does sound grand, doesn’t it? Really it is the dining room with a piano in it. Some might find that quite grand, too, if without a dining-room or a piano. Why we went through I forget but once there I know we practised Amazing Grace. Only, however, after lengthy discussion and decision-making. This piece, as sung by us, was arranged by former – and, indeed, founder – Rudsambee leader, Sheena Phillips, who I am quite sure was feeling particularly wicked on the day she did it. It is not hard to sing as long as you can avoid the jazzy bits in verses three and four (which, being incompetent, I can); if you can’t avoid them, well... good luck - but it’s quite a challenge to work out who’s supposed to be doing what where and it took the Lord and Master a fair bit of time to get through to his (rather slow) minions just what the complicated requirements are. Add to that the fact that we were rather short of sopranos and as well as the jazzy bit, split two ways, there is a descant somewhere or other and, voila! a recipe for confusion and disaster if ever I heard one. I think (only think, mind you) that I know what I’m supposed to be doing and when I’m supposed to be doing it and that is all I care about. So there.

And speaking of being short of sopranos, we are soon going to be rather short of altos, too. Anne is having to take a break from singing to rest her vocal cords and Natalie announced on Wednesday that she will be leaving the choir after the Poetry Library concert. She has left before and returned and may well do so again once she has finished her studies but her going now will leave us in a bad case for Christmas music, especially if Anne is still unable to warble with us by then. As you know, Harriet is not going to be around for Christmas either, though I believe that Helen is going to join us – but that still leaves us one sop short as Anna Lauren won’t be returning just yet awhile. I feel some recruitment coming on [yep!]... but I felt that before not long ago and nothing happened. Ollie announced that we would be singing quite simple music at the Christmas concerts as there will not be enough of us to sing pieces with lots of splits in them. A great shame but – what can you do? There’s quite a lot we didn’t get to do last year because of cancelled performances so we’ll be revisiting what of that is suitable and I’m sure the programme will be lovely whatever happens.

So, having contemplated an imminent farewell we were contemplating a coffee when who should appear at the door of the piano/dining room but the afore-mentioned AL complete with well wrapped baby Evangeline. What a gorgeous little creature, to be sure. She was very taken with Luke and very patient with the huge, cooing faces that surrounded her. The baby behaved well, too. I felt obliged to warn Anna Lauren that we had to sing Happy Birthday to Arno and AL said it was fine because Evangeline likes music. This is all very well but Rudsambee singing Happy Birthday could never be regarded as music. Perhaps Arno got away with a slightly less ear-piercing rendition of the song thanks to baby-awareness because Evangeline did not cry. Of course this could simply mean that she is tone deaf but I’m sure not. Not with Anna Lauren for a mother. I did try to persuade AL to return to us before Christmas but I had no luck there. She is going to take her time and I am sure this is the right thing to do. (But pretty please, AL???????)

Sorting out my music file so that I have the concert stuff in good order I was somewhat puzzled by several missing pieces, Desh and Fog Elna Khel and Contre qui, Rose for example. Where could they be, I asked myself? What have I done with them? I then remembered the phantom music thief of the Ensign Ewart. Those pieces was nicked, guvnor. Note to Christopher: Please, Sir, can I have some more?

Must dash.

Blogetteer in a bad mood (But not any more)

2011-10-09T12:33:00.020+01:00

Thursday.

What a day. How confusing it all was. I lay awake in the early hours listening to the wind howling and the rain making like Miss Earnshaw at the window, thinking how unlikely it was that I’d be trotting into town later, only to find, on getting up, that the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. I trundled off, delighted, to make my breakfast and lo! the kitchen went dark, Cathy came home again and the wind raged once more. By the time I’d finished eating, sunshine. After my shower, rain. And so on and so on and so... I spent the day dodging precipitation and puddles.

Well, was I out of sorts, or what, last night???? Don’t ask me why... a few people did (so I wasn’t hiding it then?) and I had no proper answer. Feeling under the weather for a day or two; a bit tired... so what? Hardly the first time I’ve felt like that and I’m rarely quite so grumpy. Thank God for Rudsambee, then – it didn’t take long for my mood to lighten (yes, really. You might not believe me, my dear choir cohort, but my mood did, indeed, lighten quite considerably, thank you) and I even ended up laughing. Imagine!

The BW was very late – getting some music sorted was his excuse – so we started without him. How keen is that? We began with something I’d never seen before though several people seemed to know it off by heart. Or to think they know it off by heart. It’s a little ditty called El Grillo [Josquin des Prez] – The Cricket (Jimini, leg-scratchy type not bat-and-ball and silly-mid-off). Easy. Really. Nothing to worry about except that I couldn’t sing it – even though most of it is on one note. Such was my mood – and not in any way improved by the struggle to get a hand(le) on the jumpy one.

Saturday.

Our new music was Christmassy stuff – not carols but things suitable. We began with a third version of that old Rudsambee favourite O Magnum Mysterium. This one by Poulenc. Gorgeous but definitely fiddly. We had a go at a Tavener piece called O, Do Not Move – best to put the consonants in properly, as Jenny pointed out – O, Do Not Moo does not have the same... well, no – wait a minute... cows in the stable and all that. Moo would be fine, after all. It is very short and only the Bass 1s and Sop 2s have anything much to do but it is lovely. We will probably sing this as a companion piece to Rocking which we sang last year. We sang something called Ballet’s Lullaby – by whom??? Any offers? And who, may I enquire, is Ballet? Or is it a case of what? In which circumstance I know the answer having been a ballerina for many years. Yeh, right. You should have seen my sturdy little legs in pink ballet tights – but I always had lovely arms and a good ‘line’. Kay has gone back to ballet lessons which makes me quite jealous so I suggested that she and I might do a little exhibition dance during the singing of this number. Jenny got very excited. Yes, Jen – just as if. Well, I cannot speak for Kay, who wasn’t there, but I can safely say for myself, again – just as if.

This song caused a little controversy. Jenny Fardell had very decided views as to how it should be sung, in direct opposition to my own ideas, I may say – there were a few un-tied quavers which looked as if they should have been tied and certainly the words suggested that tying them would be best but, oh no – Mrs F was quite sure they should be separate thus making important words like ‘Jesus’ take second place to ‘hath’. I don’t know – it’s beyond me. Ollie agreed with HER, unfortunately. Bloody typical. (!!) And even more confusing than the weather. Final new piece: As Dew in April by David Wulstan. All went well to begin with and there seemed to be a fair consensus that this was a song worth singing but suddenly all changed and I wasn’t sure why exact... we got to the end and Ollie said “Yes, well, we’ll see about that one” and it took me rather by surprise. Yes, well, I suppose we’ll see...

New pieces over we had a sing through some of the songs for the Poetry Library. Yes. The G_A_E_L_I_C songs. You can imagine what that did for my mood. We started one of them and sang it through and then repeated it, as directed and then repeated it AGAIN at which point I found myself hitting my head on the table. There were people who thought I was doing it because I couldn’t sing it properly. The truth is that I was doing it because I couldn’t face the third repetition. Three times through? Really?

Aaaaagh!

As you can see this has taken a day or two. I’ve been hitting the tennis court (and the high street) instead of the keyboard so, enough now and off to Mr Scott, the Post-man.

Am going to Sussex again next Thursday so you may or may not hear from me next weekend. Oh, let’s be optimistic, shall we?

See you next week, then.

Or the one after.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl

2011-09-23T18:11:00.000+01:00

Miss Evangeline Sara Packer has made a tardy but welcome entrance into Edinburgh society. Photographs have appeared in the Rudsambee Weekly and it is clear that this beautiful young lady will do nothing but enhance our social calendar for many years to come. She will be presented to members at some point in the not-too-distant future (or so your blogetteer presumes) but, until then, I am sure you will join me in extending the warmest of welcomes to the lovely debutante and the most heart-felt congratulations to her proud parents, AnnaLauren and Tim.

And extend also, please, crossed fingers that they get some sleep. Lots of sleep. (My husband used to watch Blackadder with our first, in the early hours when I was almost demented with tiredness and she was being demanding, and it worked a treat; she calmed down, he was amused, I got to sleep. For ten minutes. Before feeding time AGAIN).

On to Wednesday. Fifteen or so of us this week; not bad but there are quite a few scheduled to be off next week, too, so it’s just as well that our next concert is not going to be too demanding. Except that Ollie has added two new (to most of us) Gaelic songs into the programme. Somehow – beyond all the other languages that we sing – I find the Gaelic the most impossible to learn. Why is that? It’s not that I can’t say the words (though it’s best not to look at them as written if you wish to stay sane) but... well, but what? Why? Wherefore? No idea. Suffice it to say that as soon as a Gaelic piece is handed out (not very often, I am delighted to say) my heart takes an icy bath and my brain goes into flight mode. You can take that as meaning that it runs away as fast as it can or that it shuts down. Either is appropriate. It may be because, when I first joined the choir, I had to contend with a Gaelic set which everyone but me knew (and off by heart, too) and I had to learn it (and off by heart, too) very quickly and got myself into a right old tizzy about it (unnecessarily, of course). Perhaps I never recovered from this initial experience. Or it may be because I have an extreme aversion to these pieces – again, why? Absolutely no good reason for that. I actually quite like listening to them, sung well. And I love good old, jiggy Scottish music; makes me want to dance in a very lively and potentially life-threatening fashion. So – why, why, why. And why again. (Are you beginning to sense that, yet again, I don’t have much to say for myself? Funny, that).

Jenny and the other very old (!) [shall we say, Experienced?] members of Rudsambee were well acquainted with these two pieces. Jenny was given the job of telling the rest of us how to pronounce the words. She did very well, on the whole, but pronunciation lessons never run smoothly in Rudsambee rehearsals and there were some contentious moments. Everyone always knows best and when you’ve got three different versions of one word coming at you from three different corners of the room, writing down an indecipherable transliteration (OK, so maybe that’s not exactly the right word but Gaelic might as well be written in a different alphabet for all the sense those letter combinations make); writing phony phonetics down really, really badly becomes inevitable. And I have never yet had the experience of someone speaking sl-o-w-ly when doing this job. Each one rabbits on so fast that I couldn’t even write down English words that quickly let alone peculiar personal versions of unfamiliar ones. Anyway, the tunes are easy so no doubt all will be well. Eventually.

I’ve said that before. Often.

We also started work on a new Eric Whitaker piece (yum). It is called The Seal Lullaby, words by Mr Kipling – he of the poetry, of course, not the pies. It is very pretty and, unusually for us, will have a piano accompaniment so we can’t sing it in the Scottish Poetry Library (no piano) which is a shame as it is quite straightforward – I mean that ‘quite’. There are some tricksy little places which messed up what promised to be another reasonable attempt at sight-reading from yours truly. And it’s the sort of tricksiness that is not so evident when singing one part at a time but becomes appallingly obvious once any other part is added in. Sing the awkward alto bars with only other altos and – what’s the fuss about? Add in a soprano or two, some tenors and the growlers... mayhem. In my mind, anyway. But it IS only a few bars of confusion. AWBW. E.

Ollie wasn’t feeling very good – he hasn’t been feeling brilliant for a while, now, (wish him better and, like Peter Pan and the fairies, I’m sure your wishes will do the trick) so we didn’t have a long rehearsal. I think it was quite productive, though. Certainly it was enjoyable.

Afterwards we sang a belated Happy Birthday to both Heather and Susan. Very belated in Susan’s case as she was away last week when the day of the rehearsal was the actual day of her birthday. Heather’s had only been the day before.
Then, speaking of birthdays, Jenny suggested that I should be forced, I mean encouraged, to recite the poem wot I wrote for Kay’s party. Now, I just happened to have a copy of said poem with me (!) to give to Kay – something I meant to do at her party but didn’t (just as well as I have had time since to review and re-write the bits that needed serious attention) and so, in great embarrassment, I was prevailed upon to entertain my fellow Rudsambeeites with my magnum opus, A Wolf’s Tale (bad title but I haven’t thought of anything better yet). I made them laugh and I was delighted with the reception my efforts received. Gee, shucks, Guys. Thanks. There was a request made that I put the pome on the blog and, indeed, I may do so at some point, but now I have to go and pack for a visit down south (won’t be here next week btw) so such an event will have to be postponed, I’m afraid and you will have to await the literary event of the year in eager anticipation.

xxx

Another small one. Short, too.

2011-09-17T19:14:00.000+01:00

Of what or of whom am I speaking?

Well, it’s not hard to guess, is it? Not our Boy Wonder, though he is quite little. Not any choir member at all, though some of them are really tiny.
No, no. Wednesday’s rehearsal is my subject matter of course and, once again, we were a select group and, once again, it wasn’t worth doing much in the way of learning new material. It must surely be time for things to get back to normal now, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Where is everybody????

Anne has lost her voice – careless but easily done – and she won’t be back for quite a while as she finds it impossible, she says, to attend rehearsals and not join in. Fair enough. I think lots of other people were caught up with work and I suppose this can’t be helped. Kay was at a parent-teacher meeting and came along late but by the time she got there we’d just about finished so we serenaded her with a new piece we’d learned (so quickly and I sight-read it all very happily, too; could it be extremely easy, by any chance?) and I think she got a chance to sing through something but she might as well have gone straight home from the school for all the practice she got, poor thing. Still, she had in-laws baby-sitting so it would have been daft to miss the opportunity for tea and biscuits, no?

We began by singing Sang and then put it aside for later. We sang Grabmediddlywhoosits, too – bit of work required on the Gaelic pronunciation but Robin’s solo sounds lovely. Then we tried the new piece and, as we didn’t get copies to bring home, I will have to leave it to Christopher to inform you what it is called and by whom it was penned as I cannot remember at all [it's called O Lux Beatissima]. I do remember it being something of a doddle to sight-read with a fair amount of accuracy (I am not claiming perfection, not by any means) and that it is in Latin and is suitable for Christmas. See, I took in quite a lot, really.

Once we’d finished with that one the BW announced that he was off to make a cup of tea and that he was leaving us to do some work on Sang – make it interesting, he ordered as he disappeared. Well, we tried, really we did. There was a considerable period of silence broken, eventually, by a giggle or two and then Mrs F got all sensible (?? I know!) and made a suggestion. Off we went then, everyone had something to say. Only trouble was no one seemed to have the same thing to say. One wanted to crescendo at exactly the place someone else thought a decrescendo would be nice. Someone wanted to speed up when others thought a rit. would fit the bill; loud/soft, fast/slow, start/stop. Lordy! We did have a go at verse one and it sounded not bad at all but then the discussion about ways and means reopened and we never got any further so that when Ol returned we were still talking round in circles – and round. And around and back again. He soon sorted us out. We played around with just the first word for a while and some very sudden changes in volume in the first couple of bars and voila! Far more interesting already. We are inclined to become a bit lazy with older pieces and this sort of tweaking works wonders.

So, there you are. Bit dull but I have things to get on with so that’ll have to do you. Laters!

It is Friday night...

2011-09-10T15:58:00.000+01:00

... and this is all I am going to write.

Until tomorrow.

Tomorrow 11.04am

So, a little late again but with GOOD excuses. The younger sproglette had another wee job for STV – a Christmas craft session for the website! – and we had to work flat out to get everything ready for the recording yesterday. Usually I am furious when I see Christmas decorations out in the shops before Halloween but this last week I have been equally angry that no one local seems to have got their Christmas act together yet. And it’s the second week of September, for heaven’s sake – WHERE ARE THE BAUBLES??? She only got the ‘spend money’ go ahead on Monday and, believe you me, preparing for these things takes hours and hours so hours and hours is what we had to spend over the next few days whenever possible, leaving me precious little time for anything else. So hopefully in a month or two there will be a Christmas Crafts with Bella McDonald section on the STV website and if you want a few hints on how to keep the kids occupied with decoration-making (classy stuff!?) that will be the place to go.

Back to Wednesday evening, then and apart from a rather teeny soprano section and an Anne with hardly any voice we were pretty much back up to a group that closely resembled Rudsambee. It was a fairly relaxed evening. Ollie spent the first fifteen minutes or so collating music and handing it around and then we had a look at a couple of old pieces which we will be singing at the Scottish Poetry Library in November – obviously they want some poetical things and some Scottish things and preferably, of course, Scottishly poetical things so we revisited old stalwarts such as Sang and a Gaelic piece the name of which I can’t remember and if I could I wouldn’t be able to spell [but which most people know as the Eriskay Love Lilt]. Ae Fond Kiss was handed out also but we didn’t sing that one this week. Now, I do hate to admit this (well, I don’t really, it appears, as I admit it all the time and bore people to distraction with my opinion) but I find most of these Scottish songs really tedious to sing. They are very pretty and lovely to listen to, I’m sure, but they are not exciting to perform. As Ollie was handing out one or other of them he started to say ‘Now, this song is really...’ – madness to hesitate at this point - ‘...boring’ I supplied. People laughed. Ollie seemed not to have heard. Oh, but he had. ‘I heard that,’ he said. To Jenny. Had I got away with it? No, no. ‘It wasn’t me, it was her!’ exclaimed snitchy, clypey Mrs F. So I poked her in the ribs. She must be a glorious subject to tickle. One gentle prod and she was reduced to a jelly of hysterical giggles and splutterings which, it seemed, would never be brought under control. The temptation to re-administer a subtle jab or two whenever she began to calm down was so great you can hardly imagine the self-control I had to exert for the rest of the evening.

We sang Sang and we sangGrabh Whooseydiddlewot and then we went through to the piano room to have a go at a third Michael Tippet Negro spiritual By and By (and, by-the-by, Harry-you-know-who-you-are, if you’re reading this, I neber hab my thdongue im my tsheek whem I’m writdhin). By and By is much jollier than the other two and therefore caused me a problem or ten in the sight-reading dept. However, I am delighted to say that it was not me this time but Jenny Fardell who protested about the speed at which we were supposed to be singing entirely unfamiliar music. Yey! I didn’t have to feel like a complete numpty all alone. Anne joined us with what she had of a voice as she didn’t feel she should be singing the higher notes of the alto 1 part and, actually, once she had set us on the right path, it wasn’t at all bad. Susan, on her own on soprano 2, had a very awkward bit of unexpectedly dotted note-age to sing but she managed very well indeed. The same cannot be said of the tenor 2s who have the same nastiness in their part but I think they were getting the hang of it by the time we moved on. Why I ever worry about making an idiot of myself when we have a tenor section I don’t know. (Love you, boysies).

We then went over Steal Away and Go Down, Moses. The first isn’t too difficult but I did catch Anne giving me an old-fashioned look at one point so I think I must have been on the wrong note – I don’t think it at all, I KNOW I was on the wrong note. We were singing “Ah-ha-ha-ha” at the time and I should have been singing an E to an F# but was probably on a C or something. Who knows? Well, Anne would know. Anne always knows. That’s why I was subjected to one of her OFLs. Quite scary they are, btw. Go Down, Moses isn’t too bad until the alto 2s have a little joiny-up bit here and there. Jen and I were going down too low. Once someone had pointed out that we were supposed to be singing the same thing as the basses (told you we were manly, you had no idea just how manly, had you?) it was a little easier. Ah, well! It was only week two on these things. All will be well...

...eventually.

Coffee time and Arno was telling us about a show he’d been to see at the weekend (in Holland? I think so) which was about the Dutch contribution to the resistance movement during WWII. It took place in a huge hangar (the play, not the Dutch resistance movement) and the audience sat on a moving platform so the action took place all around them and they were turned to watch it instead of the stage revolving. Clever stuff, eh? At the end an actual plane taxied in through the doors (bringing the queen home) and then someone (the queen? Perhaps not) jumped on a motorbike and sped away up the runway. Sounds great, doesn’t it? A spectacle and a half, I’d guess. I was in a play at Edinburgh Airport a few years ago but we didn’t get to use a plane. Or a motorbike. Tsk.

Better stop now and get meself dressed. It is not a very nice day and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it (hubby was supposed to be coming home but now cannot do so); however I suppose I should at least go and buy some comestibles. Morningside calls. Ooo, and I have two pairs of shoes to get re-heeled. Things are looking up.

Au revoir, mes petits choux.

Why did I bother?

2011-09-08T00:33:00.000+01:00

Oh, dear me. I have just read over that last and most feeble of contributions. What a waste of time. Clearly not of effort. I can’t believe I submitted such rubbish for your perusal. Next time I am in a hurry I shall think twice about blogging. Or maybe I will save myself the effort and not think about it at all.

True, there really wasn’t much to write about last Wednesday – not once I’d done me usual and mislaid all memory of anecdotal material. We went, we made some nice noises, we left. It wasn’t dull though (unlike my blog); we chuckled a fair bit as usual (but about what, Claire, about what?) and Christopher prodded me once or twice with a pencil.

Now, I promised to write about Kay’s 40th birthday party. I say again, ‘40! Surely not.’ But, yes, dear reader, indeed - she has reached that great age without, it has to be said, much in the way of wear and tear to show for it but perhaps with some wisdom. (Perhaps. Not all of us who are considerably older are so blessed). Certainly in possession of a cracking sense of humour and a very sharp tongue, as I have often had occasion to mention. 40 isn’t all bad. In fact, it’s not at all bad. Life even looks quite rosy another decade on if I don’t wear my glasses to look in the mirror. Or expect to sport a bikini in public. (Damn. However, it may never have been a very good idea).

It was a great party. Lovely house. Lots of people. No children (what an excellent notion. Much as I love them. And all hail Kay’s mum and dad). Good nibbles. Copious amounts of alcohol. And a performance from those members of Rudsambee who managed to get there. There were 11 of us: Robin, upholding the virtuosity of the tenors alone, but with some sort of help from Jenny gallantly sight-reading at the foot of the stairs. (We sang in the hallway btw and a good place it was to warble, too). Arno and John, halfway up the stairs, represented the basses; Susan, Kay, Marie Claire and Heather, borrowed from the alto section, sang soprano by the front door and Anne, Natalie and I - with occasional interpolations from Jenny when she lost the tenor line – were the altos on the bottom step. (Well, I think Natalie was on the bottom step but I must be allowed a little poetic licence. For the flow, darlings, for the flow). All of the altos were in attendance. What does that tell you about altos?

We sang only four of the songs we’d rehearsed so as not to try the patience of our audience who, after all, had muchos drinking and talking to do. We started with Monateng Kapele, I think, followed by Akanamandla, (or it could have been the other way around – does it matter?? NO), then Island Spinning Song and, to finish, a grand rendition of Kay’s favourite, Son ar Chistr. Lost all Ollie’s refinements – or nearly all, we did manage some quieter bits and a crescendo or two – but we made a good sound for such a reduced number and my, did we have fun! Which was the point.

And our efforts were much appreciated. Which was great.

No time (or opportunity, rather) for the world premiere of my Meisterwerk, but – never mind, eh? It’ll mean I have something new for our next choir party-piece party. And I can spend a bit of time refining it. Of course this means I have no excuse if it’s rubbish.

Hmmm.

Jenny, Arno and I were the last to leave. Hope we didn’t outstay our welcome but it wasn’t THAT late. Jenny, who lives down the road from Kay had brought her car (?) and offered me, who lives on the other side of town, a lift home (??). I was most grateful (having shoes I don’t often wear rubbing holes in my feet), though somewhat nonplussed (not an unusual feeling when in Mrs Fardell’s company) and I accepted her offer with unattractive alacrity (some small protest but not enough to make her rethink). Arno lives nearish to me so Jen offered him a lift, too. He was more of a gentleman (no, really) and said he was quite happy to walk. Once he understood that Jenny was taking me almost past his door he realised he was not at all happy to walk. So off we went all three.

Good night.

Goodnight.

Here's the thing...

2011-09-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

...am off to Germany to visit Husband any minute now so this will have to be speedy. I’ll give you something to be getting on with and then try and write more later in the week – report on Kay’s lovely party etc, when I have time to do it justice.

I was at work yesterday – most unusual for a Thursday – which is why I didn’t get this done, having left my ironing (another unusual occurrence) and packing until last minute, of course and having to do that last night as well as prepare pounds of plums and rhubarb for jam-making so I can keep it in the fridge while I’m away to stop it all from going mouldy. That is a terrible sentence but no time to change it now.

Wednesday. An improvement in numbers but still lots of people away doing other things – mostly work-related now, I think, rather than holiday. Nicos is back from his homeland at last – looking very healthy (Greek weather must be better than Scottish, I think) and it was lovely to see him and hear that – what was it?... captivating, that was the word, voice again. We have, of course, lost Anna-Lauren to waiting-for-baby. She is going to take a few months off – quite reasonably. We’ll miss her. And we learned that Harriet will not be with us for Christmas concerts as her brother is getting married in Australia – how thoughtless – and she will have to be there instead of with us. Quite some sacrifice, I’m sure you’ll agree. What we will do without both Harriet and AL I have no idea. I feel a bit of temporary recruitment coming on. Any offers?

The Lord and Master has found us some Negro spirituals, as arranged by Michael Tippet, to sing and lovely they are, too. We tried two on Weds – Steal Away and Go Down, Moses. Both have a German translation for some reason. I can’t remember having come across any German-speaking slaves in my extensive reading on the subject but maybe I missed something. We are not using the translation, you will be relieved to hear.

There – I must dash. Apologies for pathetic effort.Will do more on return (if I remember – no promises).

Have a good weekend.

And then there were 8

2011-08-29T00:06:00.000+01:00

Why?

I’m about written out today. Kay has her 40th birthday party (40???) tomorrow and Kay wants entertainment (so entertainment she must have) and she asked me if I’d do a little ditty – ‘actressy-wise’ – for the delectation of those present. To begin with I interpreted this as, maybe, a request for a musical theatre number, which I would have presented (though possibly failing in the delectation department) but, having discovered that Kay does not have a piano – no accompaniment???? - I was delighted to realise that what she actually requires is a poem such as I performed once before at a choir party-piece party, not having the confidence to sing alone in any company other than my own. Now, the delight was soon tempered by the realisation that I’d already read my best poems – not having written any for years – and therefore had nothing new to offer SO….today I wrote a new one. A re-written fairy-tale which took quite some time and many drafts and still leaves quite a lot to be desired but anyway, you see why I feel drained of literary juice.

Anyhow – Wednesday. Hmm. Jenny felt moved to send round an e-mail bewailing the lack of choir commitment at the moment which, to be fair, IS somewhat wanting. Only eight of us turned up – not a good showing. Where were you all, Peeps? We thought maybe some who could not make it to Kay’s party had decided to give it a miss as we were practising songs to sing there but is this a good excuse? Not really. Considering that only five people had put their names in the absence diary there were quite a few unaccounted for. Shabby behaviour, guys. Some people, as Jen pointed out, have to pay baby-sitters and to do that and then turn up to an almost-not rehearsal is not fair, is it? And there were birthday cards to sign. If you got one with a pathetic eight (or seven, in one case) signatures out of a possible twenty-two, you might reasonably be a little disappointed, don’t you think?

We happy few, however, enjoyed ourselves; some of us revisiting rambunctious old songs (suitable for general, drunken jollity) and Heather, Marie Claire and Behm in the enviable position of having to sight-read Breton and Sotho and Swahili (or somesuch) and trying to make sense of a piece that starts with the men singing the two verses in an AABA pattern, continues with the men and the manly women singing the same thing over again and ends (eventually) with the sops joining in and all singing AA BB BB AA AA. Much concentration needed. And in French, too. Kay had been under the impression that she had chosen only easy songs. Ha!

Ollie left early to go and see a show – whether this was always his plan or whether he decided to go once he’d discovered just how poor the turn-out was going to be, I don’t know but soon after he’d gone Natalie went, too and so the rest of us put the kettle on (well, I put the kettle on – we might be limited but it really doesn’t take more than one choir member to do that) and those of us left had tea and biscuits. Jenny decided the biscuits left out for us were not good enough so went rummaging in what she convinced the rest of us is the Rudsambee biscuit drawer and found some alternative version of Jaffa Cakes (and yummy they are, too) as well as some heavily-dark-chocolate-coated buttery gorgeousnesses which we tucked into with enthusiasm and only a momentary concern that we were devouring the Wexlers’ personal supplies. And that was it. I wasn’t really concentrating on amusing incidents although I do remember Jenny dissolving into giggles at one point and I think it may have been my fault. And Marie Claire was telling stories of her newly scary job of doctoring but at that time I was busy with the kettle and missed most of it.

A strange tale to tell you, though. After our concert at St Giles on the 14th of this month we went, as I think I recounted last time, to the pub: The Ensign Ewart on the Royal Mile (up near the Castle). I left at the end of the evening only to have to return pretty quickly when I realised I’d left my folder of music behind. Jenny was still there but just leaving and she helped me to look for it but to no avail. Jen said that Susan had found an abandoned folder or two earlier and had taken them with her so I presumed mine was one of them and went home without it. I discovered that mine wasn’t among the ones Susan had picked up so I returned to the Ensign last Sunday to make enquiries. ‘I will check Lost Property,’ said the barman – which he did. He found my folder, hooray! but, quite bizarrely, it was empty, boo! Music gone. Why? Where is my music? Who’s got my music? And what for?

But thanks for leaving the folder.

Leonardo Takes Flight

2011-08-19T10:49:00.000+01:00

Yes, indeedy. We did it. We sang THE song. In public. And mostly OK, too, though coming in to land was a bit bumpy. I suppose a small amount of turbulence was to be expected and a little wobble on a maiden flight is not to be wondered at. We did not crash and burn.

A good concert it was. St Giles was well attended – perhaps not quite such a large audience as at Christmas but pretty good all the same and much better than I expected when I peeked over the banisters a few minutes before we went on. At that point the numbers looked distinctly disappointing but there must have been a sudden surge in arrivals (cutting it fine, people) between my peeking and our entrance.

We had arranged to gather at the cathedral at around 3.30 in order to get practising by 4 o’clock. Most people arrived in a timely fashion and we were able to fold all the programmes and shift a row of chairs before the first few stragglers wandered in. The latest latecomers appeared after we’d begun the rehearsal; except, that is, for Tamsin who got caught at work (this seems monumentally unfair on a Sunday) and only turned up just in time to get changed for the concert. This tardiness had Kay in a bit of a spin in fear, as she was, of having to manage parts of Leonardo all on her lonesome.

Our rehearsal was witnessed, as usual in St Giles, by many of the touristic visitors who seem, each time, to imagine that a shambling, variously garbed group of stopping-and-starting singers amounts to a full-blown concert performance in Scotlandshire. They make themselves comfy in the seats directly in front of us and watch and listen while we warm-up, sing a few bars of this and a few bars of that and then a few more bars of something else over and over again. We did actually ‘sing’ Desh beginning to end which earned us enthusiastic applause. This is unusual in a practice situation but most welcome. Hearing Arno sing his solo in Fog Elna Khel in that amazing acoustic was quite extraordinary. Once Ollie had convinced him to sing out as loudly as he could it was rivettingly beautiful. I thought I saw Salman Rushdie in the ‘audience’ but I may well have been mistaken (if it wasn’t him he has a true doppleganger, though, which must have been uncomfortable for said double for a while some years ago, eh?) – I don’t see his name in the Book Festival programme so maybe my imagination was off on one. After we’d rehearsed for an hour or so Anne made her routine announcement inviting people to return for the actual performance and we trundled off to drink the tea and eat the biscuits kindly supplied by the cathedral ladies. The tea is not strong and my biscuit was a little on the soggy side but we are always hugely grateful for the ministrations of these ladies – I hope they stay to listen to us (and enjoy it too).
I had to hurry back upstairs (we have our break in the undercroft) to grab my bottle of water which I’d left behind and as I did so I noticed the arrival of another choir – they were making their way out of a side room all dressed in white t-shirts printed in red with the legend Something-or-Other Community Choir. My heart skipped a beat... had we got the wrong day? Were we, unbeknownst to us, sharing our concert with (gasp, panic) a community choir???? I hurried downstairs to make enquiries. No one else had seen them. Eventually Anne appeared. She had seen them. They were American and she presumed they had permission to sing there, which is what they were doing. We had a moment of wickedness – it has to be admitted. Their repertoire was, after all, not quite the thing. They were enthusiastic but, in all honesty, not likely to encourage people to hang around for long. Was this going to be allowed to impact upon our audience numbers? Certainly if the friends I thought may be coming to listen to Rudsambee for the first time turned up while this lot were singing they’d be likely to turn right round and make their escape while the going was good. Anne offered to go up and chase the Americans away at five thirty, giving us a clear half hour to accumulate an audience unaffected by hearing a... hm, less than perfect rendition of Panus Angelicus and other assorted only-sing-them-if-you-really-can numbers, which is what she did – very subtly by catching the conductor’s eye and then looking significantly at her watch (I believe she may even have tapped it). They finished as required and our audience arrived unmolested.

Sorry. That was not nice.

That pesky word has slipped in again – but I think it was necessary this time, don’t you?

So – the actual concert. As I’ve said already. It was good. It was fun. Everything went very well. Ollie’s face was full of pleasure and pride on several occasions, which is lovely to see. We were all grinning like idiots at the end of Fog, it having been gorgeous to listen to and to sing – not sure I can include Arno in that ‘all’ as he is too self-effacing to have taken such pleasure in his own performance. All the soloists were magnificent, actually: Rachael, Anna Lauren, Luke, Harriet, Chris, Arno, Robin, Sebastian, Kay (if I have forgotten to mention someone I apologise profusely) – great stuff, mes amies. And then there was Leonardo. A success, I think. The audience seemed to appreciate the complexity of it and, if they noticed the slight disintegration at the end (the tenors’ fault, said Jenny [what disintegration??]. They always speed up. They require brakes. Or maybe they should simply WATCH OLIVER), they didn’t hold back on the applause because of it. I know I went wrong at one point. I also know I wasn’t the only one to do so. But I really don’t think it was anything but a triumph – even if we sang it slightly better in rehearsal – the clashy chords and the beautiful ones sounded fantastic in that venue and now I think we’ll look forward to singing it again. Often, please, to make the months of work on it worth while. Thanks to Andrew for his drumming (he swapped jobs with Chris who took on the tambourine and did it well) – he didn’t get much chance to practise but no one would have known it.

I met up with a friend afterwards. She knows her music and she was full of praise. She particularly loved Contre Qui, Rose which I am not fond of and was happy to consider dropping from the programme (though it was never really an option). She said it was so beautiful that it moved her to tears. Perhaps I shall have to reconsider my attitude towards this one. All the feedback I got was really, really positive so I think I can claim that even if, as can happen, we didn’t always finish a song in the same key we started it in, we were brilliant!
There was no rehearsal last night as Ol is trying to finish his Masters portfolio (the things he thinks are important, I ask you!) [he's done now. No more student director!] so that’s all for now.

See ya.

“I feel like Jeremy Fisher..."

2011-08-13T00:56:00.000+01:00

...thus spake our Jenny as we left John and Susan’s in the Wednesday night downpour (to distinguish it from the Monday downpour, the Tuesday downpour and the Wednesday daytime downpour) and she was not alone then or yesterday either – especially as I seem to have no shoes at all without holes in them. Today I am hoping for a break in the winter weather so I can go and buy some waterproof footwear (wellies?) – my computer just substituted an ‘i’ for the first ‘e’ in that last word! How rude – and an all-encompassing raincoat of some ugly description which will stop me getting wet from the knees down; though no doubt I will still get soaked from the knees up so maybe there’s no point wasting money on the latter item.
How disappointingly dreary and English I am being with all this talk of the inclement elements.

Music, ho!

We have a concert on Sunday. I daresay you know that as I mentioned it at least once last week. St Giles @ 6. Ditto. Do come if you are able. So Wednesday evening was all about deciding what to sing and how to sing it. We cut (with some difficulty and a fair amount of disgruntlement) two items from the list Ollie circulated last week (too many songs for our 40 minutes-at-most spot); Jaani Hobu went without much argument and then Down in the River (yey! Luke’s solo is lovely but I think it a very, very tedious piece of music). Several voices piped up in favour of keeping this last and dispensing with Envoi instead. Cries of outrage from the Envoi enthusiasts. I didn’t hold back on my views about Down in the River (surprised?) and am glad to say I wasn’t alone. Chris was all for getting shot of either Visur or On Hillisuvi (done to death), it was suggested Bog Off could go for the same reason but as that takes all of two seconds to sing it wouldn’t have made a material difference and it’s a great rousing start of a song, anyway. Someone even proposed we pass on Desh!!!! What? I think because the St Giles acoustic might be a little unfriendly to the middle section; this is true but the conclusion made was that the beginning and the end should sound good enough to excuse whatever happens in the middle (how’s that for sound, Rudsambee reasoning?) – and we can always slow it down. It was left to Kay to voice the notion that Leonardo might be left to dream of his Flying Machine in the dark and peaceful obscurity of our song-folders... nice try but it was never going to work, was it?

In the end the Boy Wonder (maybe he is getting past that appellation, don’t you think? Still boyish and all that but sadly we are too used to his genius to be struck with wonderment any longer), anyway as I was saying, the BW made a final decision. Gone is the liable-to-bolt steed and gone are the butterflies of Envoi (boo, hiss).

Now, as usual, time is ticking on (do you think it ever gets bored of its job?) and I am supposed to be meeting younger sprog for a spot of shoe/university-required-reading-book shopping (note well which comes first) but I am not showered or dressed yet so... I will return. I must try and get this done today as Postman Chris is very, very busy at the moment and it took him rather a long time to get my last effort published for your edification and delight [hmph] so if I am too tardy in my submission this week you may not receive this until well into next and it will look like my fault and I might find myself feeling obliged to apologise again which, under the circumstances described above, would be most unfair. Chris is around and about being photographer extraordinaire and is even, I believe (he will correct me if I’m wrong – or maybe not) official Book Festival snapper [yep] so after this weekend we may not see hide nor hair of him for quite some time (and losing sight of Christopher is not at all easy, as those of you who know him will testify [although someone once lost me in Sainsbury's because my hair was disguised by a clump of coriander]). I have pointed out that it would be easier if I knew how to post the blogs myself but then Chris would not be able to correct me or interfere with my ellipses and what fun would that be? [actually, it all harks back to the current blogstress's dicky internet I believe!]

Back again – not a pair of suitable shoes to be found that I would be willing to wear. I shall have to resign myself to soggy toes or paddle about barefoot. Anyway – on we go...

Wednesday; a dreich evening it was to say the absolute least. We all arrived rather damp and dishevelled. During the warm-up it became apparent, thanks to some twitching, whispering and surreptitious pointing in the alto section, that there was something amiss with Ollie’s feet. “He’s still wearing his dirty, wet shoes,” says Anne. This is against all choir protocol. But so is snitching. [Also worth mentioning perhaps that amidst this finger-pointing and shoe-decrying, Robin became mysteriously known as Roger.] It transpired that he had left them on because he had to go out to fetch someone from round the corner. First trip was unsuccessful so next time, Ol having removed the offending articles, Chris went instead, being the sort who wears easily donned flip-flops whatever the weather. Ollie did try to put them on over his socks (“Oh, you’re actually German,” said Sebastian) but it was quicker to send Chris. The object of the search was Andrew who is to play a tambourine for us during Leonardo. There also needs to be a drummer. Apparently the drummer needs to be found in the Alto 2 section. That’s Jenny and me. I can’t sing, breathe, watch Ol and beat a drum (in the right places, in the correct rhythm) all at the same time - and so I said - which left Jenny. A bodhran was found and handed over which resulted in severe confusion as to how she would hold her music and a drum and a beater (not that there was a beater) and read two lines of music. I offered to hold the music. And the drum. And to hit any beats she happened to miss. At this our Lord and Master decided to find someone else, another Andrew-type, to do the job. Good decision. The other percussion in this piece – finger cymbals – is being provided by Harriet who can do everything at once – or almost. She admitted to missing a few times. And then asked, in a slightly concerned voice, about a music stand for the performance. She was told she’d have to manage without even if it meant holding something – was it the cymbals, was it the music? – in her toes. Somehow I think she actually would manage that if it were really necessary...

So we sang through most things and those things we didn’t sing or sang badly will be practised before the concert on Sunday – Ol really can be very blasé about such things. I suppose that indicates that he has faith in us. From which we should take comfort. Natalie was keen to know if her triplets sounded all right (see last week). “Yes, fine. Thank you for doing that, it’s very handy,” says the L&M. ‘Handy’ – I ask you. Just don’t get carried away with such enthusiastic praise, Natalie. We wouldn’t want you to get above yourself.

Okey-dokey, enough for this instalment as I might feel the urge to write more after the concert and I wouldn’t want to take advantage of your patience, Dear Reader. (You see I have given up on the /s now. If there is more than one of you out there I apologise for my lack of faith. At least I keep writing in spite of it).
Wish us luck for Sunday – particularly in the aerial department. Here’s to the wind beneath our wings...

Where’s my sunshine????

2011-08-08T23:48:00.000+01:00

You have not heard from me for several weeks because I have been on holiday – and I have been badly spoiled. Three weeks of almost uninterrupted sunshine. Good food, far too much wine and beer (but lots of water, too, to compensate), the company of my husband and, eventually, once they’d finished with their own gadding expeditions - one to the festival in Benicassim and t’other to Ibiza, the girls as well. Oh what a lovely time we had.

And now, here I am in Edinburgh and – nice to be home and all that BUT... where’s my sunshine???? I seem to have missed whatever paltry amount has been on offer since my return by being at work while it was making its brief appearance. Darn! My tan will fade and then I’ll be just a little, pale, old lady again (with a few extra wrinkles courtesy of la lovely France and Espan-with wiggle-a the excelente - but so worth it. I think... will keep you posted on that one) and all the loveliness will be forgotten.

I don’t know if anyone kept you in the Rudsambee loop while I was away but I doubt it as lots of other warblers were away at the same time. This appalling holiday-taking nonsense even led to the cancellation of one rehearsal as there were too few people around to make it worth meeting. Imagine! Perhaps we’ll have to institute a sort of office-type holiday rota so no two (or three or, God forbid, four) members of any one part are away at the same time. We have a concert coming up (Sunday 14th Aug, 6 o’clock, St Giles’ Cathedral btw) and most of us will be around for that, I’m glad to say and from what I could gather on Wednesday, in spite of the shameful summer-absenteeism, much hard work has been done while I’ve been away – particularly on Leonardo’s machine which just about sounds ready to take off now. As long as it launches itself in the right direction and doesn’t crash halfway through the flight it promises to be quite spectacular. There is the occasional cough in the engine and I am often in danger of running out of fuel but I think between us we might manage to keep airborne for long enough. And here’s to a gentle landing.

A few adjustments have had to be made to the programme and the parts because poor Marie Claire has to work during the concert – that’s the trouble with being clever and qualifying as a doctor; not very easy to get out of it if the hours don’t quite suit. We won’t be singing Quand j’ai ouy which is a shame because it’s a great song and MC’s solo is gorgeous and Natalie has taken over singing MC’s triplets in Leonardo – seems to have got the hang of them very quickly (they’re yummy, listen out for them if you’re at the concert). I’m not sure whether this rearrangement has led to Susan’s part changing or what but there was some discussion as to whether or not she was happy with whatever it is she’s doing now. Some sort of run somewhere (or is she actually going for a run? She did a charity walk recently, perhaps she’s moving on); apparently she can manage perfectly well when singing along with a recording, “Because”, she said, “there are lots of people singing the right notes.” “Ooo,” said Ollie, “so damning, Susan.” Quite amusing to watch her trying to wriggle out of that one. I knew what you meant, Susan. Those other sopranos are dreadful.

I’m not sure if Robin ever got an answer to his question – “How much wind should we be producing?” As much as poss, lads. We need to blow the audience away.
We did some perfecting work on Fog Elna Khel – without Arno to begin with because it’s quite high for him to sing without a warm-up. Having said that, none of us got a warm-up until about halfway through the rehearsal – what possessed the BW to allow us one then is beyond me. Maybe we were grating on his ears. We sang a few arpeggios or something and then Natalie asked what the highest note we sang was… “A C#, I think,” said Ollie, prodding at the keyboard. “Surely not!” someone exclaimed. “Yes, I think it was.” More prodding. “If it was, why are we singing alto?” asked Nat. Why indeed. And I echo the ‘surely not’.

We sang through Bog Off – which is being re-introduced after far too long a gap – for those newcomers who needed to learn pronunciation; Kiisu-miisu for Natalie who has never sung this with Robin doing the solo and was keen to give it a go (not sure why when all we do is make meowing noises in the background but hey! and it’s an absolute delight to hear it because Robin gets better every time – brilliant); Visur Vatnsenda-Rosu for ditto Bog Off; Envoi, which nearly caused fisticuffs... “That was rubbish,” the Lord and Master announced, stopping us after all of two bars of whichever bit we were practising. “Did he call us rubbish?” asked an outraged bass (or was it a tenor? It was male, anyway). “There’s only one of him,” says another b or t, male anyway, “We can take him.” We didn’t. Ollie protested innocence and he is only very small, so instead we just sang it again and did it better. He’ll never learn, will he, if that’s the way we behave? ; and Desh, during which we had to close our eyes and pretend to be Augustus Gloop, the fat greedy boy from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “I want the sweets. I want the sweets,” we chanted as crossly as possible and boy! were we disagreeable. That is how we have to sound when singing bits of Desh. We will have to try and do it with a smile for fear our petulance upsets the audience and has them marching out in disgust.

Eh, voila! C’est tout. Oh – except for how’s this for stoopid? I spent really rather a lot of time this afternoon booking a ticket for a fringe show – the Traverse box office web site was being contrary – but I got my ticket in the end. It took me about half an hour to realise that I had booked a non-refundable, non-returnable ticket for Sunday 14th August at 6.30pm...

Am I not supposed to be elsewhere at that time?

A***.

xx from your bird-brained blogetteer.

Rufus RIP

2011-07-05T00:33:00.000+01:00

Sad day. Rufus, choir cat-mascot of the male variety, is no more. Rosie is still going strong but will no doubt start missing her pal very soon. We all send our love and condolences to the Wexler family, don’t we? Rehearsals will be very quiet – unless, of course, it’s Rosie who does the yowling. Trust me not to know.

You will have noticed that I missed a week... I had my reasons. Not good ones but reasons all the same. I was going to wait until after our concert on Saturday, which seemed like a sensible plan, but then I was very busy on Sunday – I started putting books back on shelves when tennis was cancelled (too windy, apparently! They can’t make that excuse at Wimbledon, can they? Where’s the commitment?), and once one starts a job like that – especially when everything must be in alphabetical order – it is almost impossible to stop. I went on so long that I didn’t start getting ready to go to Anne’s (60th – no, surely not) birthday party until almost the time I was supposed to be at John and Susan’s getting a lift. You will have gathered that I was at a party on Sunday afternoon (a great party, thank you, Anne and Dick) – no chance to blog there – and once I got home not only did I find a daughter in residence on the sofa expecting attention but I also HAD to finish the re-shelving. Over a thousand books later I’d done everything but the ones the girls and/or I used to love when they were little which I can’t possibly throw out and some mysterious tomes belonging to my husband which will probably have to go as he’s not here to stop me chucking them out. Sunday gone. Monday I had to work, then I went to Pilates, then I did the kiddies books. Monday gone. Today it’s Tuesday and Tuesday is nearly gone but anyway it’s too late for last week’s news now because there will be more tomorrow. Probably.

Until tomorrow, then. Or rather Thursday. But my next few days are shaping up to be extremely busy as well, so – oh dear!... you may have a long wait.

And you have had. It is now the evening of the Monday following the one mentioned above. Ooops. Perhaps I should use the ‘s’ word? I have avoided it very effectively for quite a while. Maybe it should make an appearance here. Or maybe not. Life gets in the way of many things and blogging is one of them. Life has included an inordinate amount of cleaning recently due to the necessity of hosting weekend houseguests – very lovely to have them and SO very lovely to have a spotless dwelling but not good for my duties as blogetteer. I even cleaned windows which is unheard of around here. It is so pleasant to be able to see out into the garden again though unfortunately, apart from sweeping the front path and removing a large pile of busily rotting garden waste from the (laughingly named) patio (i.e. a number of very ugly paving slabs rather carelessly laid – yet another job waiting... and waiting... and... to be done), the garden I am looking out on did not get tidied along with the rooms from which the windows look out upon it. I am going on holiday on Saturday – imagine the jungle to which I shall return in three weeks’ time.

What do I have to tell you? Great concert at the Reid Hall on June 25th. Lovely audience – and not a bad size, either. We raised a goodly sum for our charities – St Columba’s Hospice and Drake Music, Scotland. I made my bottling speech which must have been well received in spite of its ‘cheekiness’. Cheeky is a polite judgement, I think! Well, it did the trick and if people felt pressured into handing over their cash then I did my job well – and at least I made them laugh while I extorted the dosh. We sang well and (Ollie having decided not to air Leonardo for a practice run) were relaxed and able to enjoy ourselves. I had thought that we should give Leo a go but changed my mind the night before the concert because it would have been too much pressure and the rest of the pieces would probably have suffered from it, so I was delighted when the Boy Wonder announced his decision – and I was far from the only one. We will be singing it in St Giles in August.

Aaaagh!

On Wednesday there was a very small turn-out at rehearsal (happens so often after a concert) so Ollie suggested we sort out some of the tricky passages of the above-mentioned demon of a piece and finish early. I’m not sure if we did finish early in the end but we certainly went some way towards sorting out the tricky passages. And it was fun. Perhaps not everyone there would agree with that last statement but I enjoyed myself – except for when my voice started giving out; it seems not to have recovered fully from the problem before Christmas and I got into a bit of a sulk and a temper with it and announced - sotto voce – to Jenny that I would probably have to give up the choir and give up singing for good very soon. But I won’t. I shall continue screeching and squeaking until they chuck me out with une puce in my oreille. So if you come to a concert in the near future and hear weird and musically inexplicable noises emanating from the alto section I shall be looking innocent and trying to imply, with small grimaces and movements of the shoulder, that the tenors behind me are to blame - but you, Dear Reader(s) will know the shameful truth. Don’t tell, I beg.

Not a very satisfactory effort, this edition. Whomsoever, back in the dim and distant day, coined the word ‘erratic’ did it entirely for the future benefit of your Rudsambee blog, I think, which is nothing if not that. I‘m going to do it... I am... I can feel it coming on... it had to happen sooner or later... all that effort for nothing, dammit –

Sorry.

Oo-er

2011-06-17T15:32:00.000+01:00

And a very wide yawn. Up at 3.30 this-morning having only succumbed to sleep at about 1.30am (intended to stay up all night and ‘power through’ as elder sprog would say. Fail). Was walking down to Waverley Bridge by 4.20 in order to hop aboard airport bus. As a result of all this am feeling very slightly woozy and numb of brain. Was definitely at a choir rehearsal last night but not sure where or why or what we did. Also am using my dad’s lap-top with strangely small and curvy keyboard - most confusing. Hold out very little hope for this blog. Funny, isn’t it - and have meant to mention this many times before - how computers do not recognise the word ‘blog’ when it only exists because they do.

So - you may be pleasantly surprised by shortness of this update. Unless new burst of post-prandial energy kicks in and I start sp... - am unable to write the word I want as computer keeps changing it so will have to space out letters, sorry - s p r a f f i n g with typical over-volubility.

Computer wished me to write ‘strafing’. What on earth for?

A committee meeting was just coming to a conclusion when I arrived last night - I am not sure if anyone present was paying attention as most of them espied my arrival and waved at me through the window when I’m sure they should have been looking at whoever was talking and, at the very least, pretending to listen. I heard Anne bringing proceedings to a close sounding only a tiny little bit frustrated.

Through to the other room trooped the committee having done their duty and on we went.

Douglas was back with much improved eye but accompanied by Jean, ready, she said, to take him home at the first sign of weariness. She stayed in the kitchen reading a book so I presume she can see through doors - Douglas obviously doesn’t really need his eyesight with such a wife. He stayed until nearly the end of the evening and then, with no word from Jean it seems, slipped quietly away. Telepathy as well as x-ray vision at work? "Douglas, you have had enough, don’t over-do it. Douglas, you have had enough. Time to go home..." Hmm. I wonder. If she can see through wood...

Taught the new people Une Puce - oh, the memories of trying to read weirdy olde French words and music at the same time. I think they were picking it up very quickly, considering. I am a little vague (not unusual) about what else we did. Contre qui, Rose was one - pretty well remembered. Sang it very slowly. No breath. Blue in face. No one noticed. Ollie had the girls practise their over-toney,harmonics-y singing for Desh - every time I think I’ve got this it goes again but it’s much easier when everyone’s singing and you can just go for it underneath all the other noise. The altos are better at this than the sopranos. Lower voices come in handy now and again even if they’re not so show-boat-y in general. Once we’d done this for a bit we all got back together again and practised the whole thing, rather slowly because slowly is how we’ll have to perform it in St Giles in the summer and we might as well get used to it. The tenors have to start this piece and have often been in trouble for not looking up to take the beat and speed from the BW... the sight of Robin with his eyes out on stalks, almost falling over in his eagerness to be seen to be watching was one I will not soon forget. Priceless. Even Douglas was looking at Ol, with one eye at least...

At some point during or after the singing of this piece I turned to see Jenny yogically propped on one leg , with the fingers of her left hand resting on her knee, middle finger to thumb, eyes fixed and staring as if she were in a meditative trance. "Are you being a tree?" I asked (that is a yoga posture btw, one which inevitably causes me to fall over unless I have the right trousers on - long story, don’t ask). The tree was instantly felled and became hysterical. I can’t be certain but I’m not sure she knew she was doing whatever she was doing... should we worry?

Then we sang Leonardo all the way through and in the bits where it didn’t sound dreadful it sounded amazing. Really. And there were quite a few bits which didn’t sound dreadful. By George, I think we’ve almost got it. OK, OK - slightly optimistic assessment perhaps, but there are a fair few of us who think we should just go for it and try it out at the next concert - there’s got to be a first time and it’s not necessarily easier the longer it’s left. Kay, for one, is not so keen. She has missed a rehearsal or two (in San Francisco, don’t ask me to feel sorry for her!) and Tamsin is not going to be at the Reid Hall concert so that leaves just Harriet (she does know what she’s doing) and Kay herself on the Soprano 1 part which is very high and pretty tricky, but - quit yer moaning, Ms Russell and listen to yer mp3!!!!!!!!!! [The BW, btw, sent around carefully crafted recordings of each part to help people to rehearse. There is a suspicion that only two people have actually listened to theirs.]

All over and more yummy biscuits and that’s when I decided to stay up all night because tea and biscuits after 10pm do not make for an easy drift off nod-landwards. Had long conversations about lord knows what with heaven knows whom. And then, as we were getting ready to leave, Jenny was talking about son Josh’s temper. "I just don’t listen", she says, putting the middle fingers of both hands to corresponding thumbs, "I just do this and close my eyes". Ah-ha. Now we know what she was doing in rehearsal. Not doing. She was not listening. Obviously. Duh. Trees have no ears...

I bid you farewell from not-at-all-sunny Sussex. Oh, no, wait - there are shadows on the lawn. Can this mean...??????? Yey! I see blue sky. I go out under it.

Mwah.

80% of what?

2011-06-10T13:34:00.000+01:00

I should be in my garden planting things that should have been planted weeks ago but the weather’s looking a bit dicey (what, again?) and I only garden in the sun so here I am instead, feeling slightly guilty for not getting on with one job and rather pleased with myself for substituting another rather than curling up with a book. You are lucky the tennis hasn’t started yet – blogging does not stand a chance against goggling at people walloping a ball back and forth and over and into a net. (And this in spite of the dearth of heart-throbby types. Where are all the pretty boys? Someone needs to start picking potential world-beaters on the basis of their facial features – the bodies look after themselves, after all...)

Too much from one old enough to be (quite a young) grandmother? Possibly. But we all like something nice to look at, don’t we?

Arno mentioned on Wednesday evening that the blogs seem to be getting longer – I think they are and perhaps they shouldn’t be. I go on about myself a good deal, don’t I? See – there’s the flaw in the blogospherical world. Who is going to bother except egocentric types who imagine they have something worthwhile to broadcast about their lives when really they are no more interesting or articulate than anyone else. Quite possibly less so. Almost definitely less so. Well, I’m not going to promise to change my ways. Not when I’m so marvellous and fascinating.

We were sadly down on numbers – again – this week. Douglas is still having to rest his eye, Kay is still on holiday, Heather is still getting married. How long does it take to get hitched these days? For goodness sake! Put on a pretty dress, show off a bit, say “I do” a few times and Bob’s yerunc, Fanny’s yer aunt and you are a Mrs Whoosit. Easy!

As for the others, Luke is no longer recovering from the root-canal work (one hopes) but is being over-worked, as is Christopher. Poor lambs. I have no idea how that feels though I hear about it a lot from my husband. No idea about the rest of the absentees. Hope they’re OK and not in the ranks of the OW’ed as well. Congratulations to Marie-Claire who turned up even though she is doing her (medic) finals and after a not particularly pleasant exam and Anna Lauren who came for a while but had to go home early through tiredness (I think). Hope you’re feeling better, AL. Take it easy whenever possible, that’s my advice. (To everyone – pregnant or not!)

This week we were mostly working on Leonardo. Used Nobis Datus as a warm-up and spent some time perfecting blended vowels which proved to be wasted effort as we had to do it all again when we got to Leo and his machine. “I don’t think you’re stupid,” says our Lord and Master, “You just can’t be bothered to remember”. Well, either stupid or lazy. Take your pick. One way or the other we need to be reminded to an extent which must put oLaM in danger of ulcers. And consider the number of people who were absent... he will have to start reminding all over again next week.!

No change there then.

We are getting the hang of this piece, gradually. Working on a section here, a few bars there, it is beginning to come together. We might even try it out in our next concert. Harriet is going to be the only Sop 1 who knows what is going on and even she-who-is-nearly-perfect found herself going wrong and "trying to follow the tenors". What? Why? I think we’d all agree that this is absolutely no way to go to get things right. [heeeeyyyyy!] Harriet must be aware of this now. The hilarity which followed her admission would be enough to convince anyone that they’d made a fundamental misjudgement. The tenors never know what they are doing, this is accepted fact. Never, ever follow a tenor. Even if – especially if – you are another tenor. [oh okay, fair point.]

Back to the dodgy vowels and, asks Sebastian, “Should I be hearing ‘pisses and writes’?” Well, no. Not ideally. The word is ‘paces’. He is pacing and writing – is he pacing back and forth to his desk, writing a bit then moving on or is he carrying a notepad and a quill with him? Alas! We will never know–he is pacing and writing and not, as someone suggested, causing the candles to burn low by practising his aim. (To such depths, I’m afraid, do your innocent choristers descend from time to time).

Once we’d finished singing someone asked to know what we’re supposed to be singing on June 25th. Ollie said it would be 80% of the London programme. “80% of each song?” asked Robin. “No, we leave four people out each time,” suggested Sebastian. I have no idea if the maths of that notion is correct or not but which is the right answer?

Jenny was quite remarkably quiet this week. Apart, that is, from some muttering during and after bar 90 of the above song (a question of grammar or sentence construction or somesuch – basically no comma where our Jen thinks there should be one); and no, one cannot sing and mutter at the same time but we have 3 bars rest after the problem area and she put these to good use. She told me she’d had no coffee all day and that she’d had some tea before leaving the house (being English, at first I thought she meant a cuppa then realised that she, being from Yorkshire, was referring to dinner). Thus was she in a stable frame of mind. No, no, no, Jenny. Don’t be boring. Drink an ocean of coffee on an empty stomach next Wednesday and come and amuse us properly, please.

Delicious Spanish biscuits, courtesy of John and Susan, at coffee time which meant that I ate far too many and indeed, as a result, more or less lived off biscuits on Wednesday having eaten very little else except for biscuits (homemade and very healthy... hmmm) earlier in the day. Bad me. Some be-wailing of the aging process with Susan and Anne (the latter being much more accepting of it than either Susan or me) over a cup of tea and all those cookies (which are not going to help maintain a healthy, youthful glow now are they?) and time to go home. Jenny offered me a lift, as usual; I accepted, as usual, even though I should have run home as fast as little, fat legs could scamper in order to mitigate effects of appalling diet.

...and I only made the biscuits for the decorators but they don’t seem to eat biscuits and so who’s going to carry on consuming biscuits until they’re all gone...?

Are you as confused as I am?

2011-06-02T16:05:00.000+01:00

So, here I am once more - having been forced to leave you to Jenny’s tender mercies last week due to yet another internet malfunction. I have said it before – and here I go again (and it won’t be the last time either) – technology is pants. Quite why pants are used as an object of odium I don’t know, I’m sure; darned useful things they are and we’d be lost without them. Or coldish around the nether regions for far too many months of the year, anyway. And, if American, forced to live amongst men in skirts – which, as we well know, faced with some of the be-kilted monstrosities to be seen hinginaboot the streets and byways of Scotchland, can be an unsavoury experience to say the least.

Thank you, Jenny, for your contribution – much shorter and to the point than anything I seem able to produce; but I was sorry you did a me and forgot the funny thing(s) I said. I can remember them extremely clearly (there’s a wonder) but it’s too late now to repeat them (sob) and my wit is lost to the wider world (that’s you, Dear solitary Reader) forever (sigh).

Well, I’d better get a move on while the internet-sticky-thingy deigns to do its job so here goes:

Last night. Thought I was running late but arrived to find nearly everyone congregated in the hall – something of a squash – in no particular hurry to move and get on despite our Lord and Master having been quite stern on the subject of tardiness at last week’s meeting and at one or two rehearsals earlier in the year. However the L&M was also rather sloth-like and, dawdling from the basement regions some minutes behind time himself, proceeded to engage my attention with tales of a wedding attended last weekend (of which more later) instead of chivvying us through to start practising.

Eventually we were gathered in the correct place, missing a few notables: Douglas, recovering from a detached retina (eek); Luke, recovering from root-canal work (yuck); Kay, John and Susan on holiday (grrr) and Heather, getting married soon (aah). Anna Lauren was back and recovered from foot-failure (yey), (tentative diagnosis, tendonitis) and looking every inch the blooming mother-to-be but, she says, feeling like the chap in Alien just before the gruesome bit.
Robin was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Bert and whoosit on it (help, please, Christopher – can’t remember the other one’s name [It's Ernie]). “Ahh, is that you and Gordon?” asks Jenny. “Ur.. um.. no.. yes,” answers Robin (that’s clear then). “I always thought Bert and Ernie were brothers,” offers Behm. “Oh, no. No oh no,” say Robin, Chris and Ollie. “Perhaps I had a strange relationship with my brothers then,” Behm suggests. Perhaps he did.

We began by trying something new – Nobis Datus by Victoria. I don’t remember why Jenny was fussing but I do remember that Christopher guffawed far too loudly and quite unnecessarily when Ollie said to her (with only a small touch of equally superfluous irony and a large grin), ‘Nevermind, just follow Claire’. Now, as you will witness, I am always willing to admit my failings when it comes to sight-reading (and counting and singing in tune) but I am not a complete numpty and actually – apart from the counting – this was not at all a difficult piece to sight-read and I did it perfectly well. And our Jenny had got some literary notionette into her head and spent the whole evening trying to get her thoughts down on paper, scribbling away on a tiny scrap of something that resembled a crumpled old receipt from an ancient shopping trip, so that her mind was entirely elsewhere. When we moved on to Leonardo I can safely submit that I was upholding the Alto 2's honour pretty much all by myself even in the impossible parts. So there, Mr Editor. There have been rehearsals when Jen has been absent – not many, but she does go off on holiday now and again – and I know I can make a bit of a fuss about singing on my own if there is a new piece or something we’ve not done much but this is only because I do not like, never have liked and never will like, making a fool of myself. I am full of admiration for people who get on with the job and get it wrong and ask for assistance but I like to get things right (and first time if at all possible) – which is silly, I know but can’t be helped. But at these Jenny-less rehearsals, I am not entirely lost and it should not be presumed that I am, thank you very much.

That told ‘em.

Yes, we spent a fair amount of time on old Leo which is good. I, for one, am quite a bit clearer on what happens where and I actually managed to sing and count (not much watching Ollie but you can’t have it all at once) all the way through to the end before the evening was over. We still didn’t practise the beginning, which has been sadly neglected, but I am sure that will come and Anne assures me that our part isn’t too difficult [The first page isn't hard, it's just loud and high]. I don’t remember and can’t tell from just glancing at it but I’m sure she’s right. (!) Once we’d finished Ollie was telling us which bits we’d rehearse in detail next week. He told the tenors to look at page 6. I suggested they might like to look at the music on page 6 as well. Nikos asked if the basses could work on page 5, “Particularly bar 21... And 22... and 23, and – up to 26, actually.” “Perhaps we could start at bar one”, Sebastian added. I think we all know how they feel.
Afterwards we gave Rachael a very late birthday card – a first and very feeble offering from yours truly. She should have had one a couple of weeks ago but Douglas has been off (see above) and so Natalie asked me last week if I could arrange something instead. Well, I thought I’d have lots of time at work to make something worth giving her but I didn’t as it turned out so, sorry, Rachael – perhaps next year. A raucous rendition of the birthday song may have made up for the poor quality of the card itself. I hope so.

During the coffee-and-tea-drinking session that inevitably follows rehearsals we heard more about Ollie’s wedding. Well, not his – God forbid! – but the one he went to. Old school friend marrying into the Greek community this was one big, fat Greek wedding. 500 guests. £27,000 pinned to or draped over the happy couple. Ol said he was embarrassed to offer his meagre £20 when others had made necklaces of £50 notes so it went back in his pocket! I think £20 is a generous offering myself but perhaps under the circumstances and in such a public arena... But then – imagine – he went to sign the Guest Book only to discover they were charging £25 for the privilege. Hmm... Have we non-Greeks been getting things seriously wrong all these years? Either I need to find my girls Greek husbands (Nikos? One of the sopranos (????) thinks he has “a... captivating voice” – there’s no way of doing justice to the way it was said - and he seems like a lovely young man) or I need to start a new way of doing things. (In Scotland? Amongst the Scots? Is it likely to take off?)

And speaking of new ways of doing things we decided that Marie Claire, once qualified as a doctor, should set about making hospitals more like those of Holby City and Casualty. Living personal crises out on the wards to enliven things. Forgetting about the patients while emoting about yer love-life. That sort of mullarkey.Much more fun. During this conversation I suffered the thoroughly-deserved intervention of the karmic: “So, you’ll be a real doctor soon,” says Robin during discussion about the horrors of final exams. “If she passes”, I say (why?) and kick over a glass the contents of which merrily take off in an unstoppable stream across the carpet (the room must slope). I ran to the kitchen for mopping paraphernalia while Robin and Marie Claire laughed heartily at my misfortune. At least it was just water. The gods must know I really didn’t mean to be mean.

Ollie was causing great hilarity in the kitchen but I was in the wrong place saying the wrong thing so I’ve no idea what he was talking about. Regaling his appreciative audience with more wedding stories, I believe. Chris was cooking Ollie’s dinner and a very delicious pancake was shoved into my hands and pretty quickly after that into my mouth. Yum. And there was more later, of a sweet variety and bang went the smug feeling I’d been experiencing due to having consumed slightly fewer-than-recommended calories during the day. Ah well! Skinny quite often = scrawny at my age and is scrawny a good look? Is it? I think you all know what I want you to say...

Bye-bye, Lovelies.

Spoiled you are!

2011-05-27T00:24:00.000+01:00

It seems like our blogstress is stressed by her computer's kapuz-ted-ness. Could her tired mind have been thinking straight when she asked me to have a go at taking over her precious blog until she's fixed? However, it is a great pleasure dwelling on our AGM which poor Natalie valiantly brought to order several times and managed to keep us from too much discussion on the nitty gritty of things. Such as Robin asking me when and in which context I would use the expression - "Eeee, lad, A'll go to t'foot o' ow-er stairs!" - and Behm being surprised that my Granny actually used the expression.

I don't know what Sebastian's poor visiting daddy made of it all, him not speaking much German... I mean English.... (He may not speak much German either, but he seemed to make a pretty good attempt at it!!) Personally, I think he should be writing this blog, and next time I propose we do the AGM in subtitles.

In the midst of a nice selection of biscuits, crisps, tea, coffee, and sweets, we thanked Anne and Dick, most profusely, for their hard work as Admin and Treasurer. And we cheered heartily for the members willing to take on new posts (mainly relief... no one enjoys feeling they have to volunteer or be elected on the spot!). However Heather, our new Administrator, is going to find the job difficult without any arms... the said limbs having been twisted off!! Thanks also to Susan, who, on top of everything else she manages is willing to be treasurer and our blogstress who volunteered to HAND MAKE birthday cards for everyone. Thank you to Douglas who has been doing birthday cards (not hand made, though cleverly chosen) for a few years now. He is taking over the Xmas card list. A congratulations to Gordon, our auditor, who got a raise of £5 on his token of thanks. Chris said he will continue to manage the marketing side of things but doesn't promise to manage it unless people ask to be managed, or come to him with good ideas he can unpick and say why they won't work. If I've missed anyone out, sorry, Chris to fill in blanks.... I was too busy being surprised at being a trustee. I forget I am until these AGMs , and Anne is looking at me knowing full well I haven't been a very responsible one.

Nikos had a very clever idea about everyone paying subs in instalments, but it was too much for poor brain cells. People have to excuse my maths - I couldn't tell the time, understand money, do mental arithmetic or fractions way into my teens. But had math solely been binary codes, triangles, bar/ pie charts, or long division, I could have beaten Einstein any day!!
Where was I? Oh, yes.... oh, no .... someone thought I was volunteering for everything, though I'm not sure what and why it amused everyone.... Claire said something funny but I forget what.

Generally our AGMs do not follow the laborious-ness of serious meetings and it's rather difficult for people who need to go through the 'constitution of this that and the other' to get a decent solemn audience. Well done, Herr Meller, who was the only person in the room who was taking any notice whatsoever of the treasurer's report. Having time for a sing after the meeting (what an achievement!!) was anyone else amused or confused by seeing two Sebastians singing bass, or was anyone expecting a double outburst of manic scatting?!

We all deserved a slice of lime cake which Claire had baked, probably to prove to us that her new kitchen is now actually functioning! Then four of us sloped off to the pub.

That's all. I'm off to catch up on the Apprentice.

Jenny

They went, they sang, they conquered. Or some such thing.

2011-05-26T12:24:00.000+01:00

So we was in Lunnun, innit. And we was good, man. Mos’ly, anyways. A likklebittabovva on Sunday, yeah? bu’ nuffin much. Wicked, me bruvvas. True.

Actually, it really did go quite well and just to prove it, the Belgian choir we sang with on Sunday are very keen – I’m reliably informed – to have us go to visit them and sing in Belgium. And that’s in spite of the fact that we made a right old mess of Jaani Hobu. Disaster struck at a point where stopping to start again was unrealistic so we had to keep going somehow…which we did but only because Harriet refused to be broken and kept singing when all others had given up. I say ‘we’ but the truth is that the altos weren’t supposed to be singing and neither, I believe, were the basses so we can all feel blameless and smug and point fingers at the sopranos and tenors who went wrong BIG TIME – no idea how [this is all a big fib, it was totally the Basses to blame]. Don’t suppose they know either. Eventually things came back together again but rather too together because we all finished at the same time which we shouldn’t have. I doubt anyone in the audience noticed that particular blunder, so much less glaringly obvious than the first. Just as well we don’t take ourselves too seriously, eh? Once we had finished Ollie turned to the audience and explained that we had just been singing about a man riding his horse... ‘And we all know,’ says our BW, ‘that people who ride horses sometimes fall off. I think that’s what happened there.’

Well, it was a good weekend all in all. Unfortunately Anna Lauren was unable to join us having (somewhat mysteriously) damaged her foot and no one wants to be traipsing around London with a sore foot – (I know this having broken my toe while at college when, being unable to get my shoe on, I had to hobble around the city barefoot for two or three weeks. Yuck. And imagine... your blogetteer, a filthy-footed drama student. How, um, bohemian) – especially when pregnant. AL sensibly decided to stay at home (which meant that Rachael had to take over singing her solo in Cheenar Es which she did beautifully, brave girl. To think she was once an alto...)

Those of us who made it to the centre of the universe met up in Ealing on Saturday afternoon where we had a chance to change, chat and check out some of our rival performers before a short rehearsal. After another chin-wag we made our way into St Matthew’s church and awaited our turn for ten minutes of fame. The quality of the singing was variable but all were enthusiastic. There was a lovely Estonians-in-London choir which included three babes-in-arms (Anna Lauren take note), a community choir with a huge age range and a sad story of lost funding and last ever performance, an enormous male-voice choir from Croydon who lifted the roof and were followed by a madrigal group of six – quite some contrast and perhaps not the best bit of programming! We sang second-to-last and did it beautifully – of course, tee hee. The Estonians loved our Tormis and I think everyone appreciated our slightly quirky choice of music. Afterwards we all went our separate ways for the evening – no post-concert hobnobbing this time... people to see, places to go. I went off to my friend Sharon’s for the night, which was lovely. There are some people you just don’t see enough of in life, are there not?

I was hoping to finish this tonight as I’ve left it so long – good excuse; been working ALL week. Six days in a row. What is the world coming to? But if I am to get up to play tennis at 9.30 tomorrow morning and have any chance at all of seeing the ball let alone hitting it I shall have to stop now and tuck myself down (I’m doing this in bed) and try to sleep. Younger daughter phoned earlier to tell me that the world is supposed to be coming to an end tonight - which answers rather neatly the question posed above (and in which case, what a waste of my last hours writing this) - and to tell me she loved me, just in case!! but I shall behave as if I will get my game of tennis in the morning and will get some rest now.

A demain xx

Demain is now aujour d’hui and here I am again having played tennis very badly indeed in the high winds and general dampness of the Meadows courts. Not the best – especially when there is a short-tennis tournament on with very small people playing a whole hell-of-a-lot better than moi. Grrrr.

Where had I got to? Sunday concert. West Hampstead. Glorious day. Arrived for rehearsal at 1.30. I had had breakfast ‘out’ in a lovely place called Le Pain (bread). (My friend Sharon texted her daughter who is currently in Vietnam, ‘In Pain with Claire and dad’. Daughter texted back, ‘Oh dear’! Most amusing) and then a wander around Liberty’s pretending I could afford their wares. Lovely way to start the day. Came upon a slightly dubious conversation, on arrival at Emmanuel Church, involving sleeping with snakes... hmm, don’t ask, but it involved Robin and Marie Claire and some snorts of unbridled laughter until son-of-the-manse Robin remembered where we were and put his Sunday face back on again. A short practise ensued and then the concert at 2.30. Not a bad turn-out really. Mostly family and friends, I think but I’m not certain about that. Considering there appeared to be no advertising except one small notice on the church notice-board, I suppose we were lucky to have an audience at all. And those who were there were very appreciative, as stated above somewhere and the very tight, professional Belgian group – of whom there are only eight or so, liked us muchly it appears. I’m sure we would be delighted to go and sing in Belgium for them but the mini-ness of their choir may make hosting our number a little tricky. We’ll see. I couldn’t stay for the whole of their performance as I had to get to Gatwick so I heard only the first three pieces. They sing beautifully but a very different sort of song choice and a very different style of singing... one with no mistakes, from what I could gather. Not our way at all.

So, now we start preparing for our next concert. Wednesday was quite a laid-back affair - apart from the traditional bickering about French pronunciation – but the Boy Wonder has mastered that language now so we are obliged to listen to him which should help. Should. Don’t hold yer breath. We concentrated on just two songs; the new Lauridson Contre qui, Rose (see petit probleme – avec accent which I must learn to put on for myself - above) and Abbie Betinis’ Envoi. Ollie even gave us a break in which to have a chat in the hope that this would focus our minds better. Wrong. It was really very hard to get back into singing mode once we’d relaxed out of it and considering how much yawning was going on before the break it’s really quite remarkable that anyone remained awake after it. However we managed to make some progress with the pieces and will be able to move on to sorting out old Leonardo next time. He needs some sorting, let me tell you. I am still entirely unable to make head or tail of the last three pages of la-la-la-ing – who would ever have thought it could be so darned difficult to ‘la’ and count and watch Ol all at the same time? My biggest problem these days is the fact that I need reading glasses to see my music with any great clarity now – eventually, failing brain not withstanding, I will know it well enough not to need to worry but seeing it is quite an advantage at this stage – however, with my glasses on, as well as looking like a scary-old granny,teacherly-type (which is not a good look for me), I struggle to see anything but a wavery blur of a conductor who could be doing anything or nothing for all that I can tell and this is even less helpful than failing to see which notes I’m supposed to be warbling and when. Bi-focals, you will suggest but I am in denial and have absolutely no intention of spending even more money on fancy-pantsy stuff such as that. Susan has the peering over the top of her specs down to a fine art but she’s older than me and I just can’t resort to that technique yet awhile. I can’t. Shan’t. So there.

We were missing Anna Lauren so no up-date on the pedi-problem. If you are reading this, AL (how unlikely is that??) I wish you better very soon, my dear.
Not much of an improvement on the anecdotal front. Going to get a very bad school report this term. Promise to make more of an effort from now on. What is the point of everyone being so very funny and witty and clever if I forget what they say as soon as they say it so that I can’t pass the amusement on to you, dear reader?

Bye for now, then, I say; head hanging in shame...

Must do better, must do better, must do better, must do better, must do better, must do better, must do better, must d

I’m back!

2011-05-12T13:09:00.000+01:00

Yes and, oh lawks! working on a new laptop with an unfamiliar keyboard. This could take some time...

So, where have I been? you are asking (aren’t you?). Nowhere but here, dear reader(s), but sans computer and therefore of no earthly use to the blogosphere. The other machine-from-hell objected so severely to the dust and dirt of a mighty re-wiring enterprise that it turned up its tabs and expired thus leaving me without any means of cyber-communication (which annoyed me more than I would ever have thought possible given my Ludditey-loathing for anything containing a micro-chip and a search engine).

But I am back now and ready to tussle with technology on your behalf (-halves) like the battling blogetteer I will ever be.

Much has happened since last I had the opportunity to address you but most of the much has disappeared into the black hole of my mind along with all the other stuff I’m supposed to remember but don’t (such as where I put my glasses, when I’m supposed to go to work, the names of my children...) and, anyway, when was the last time I blogged? That information has been sucked into the bottomless abyss as well. Sometime shortly after Christmas, was it? Whilst I was in the midst of kitchen refurb? (Still not recovered from that and still not finished either!! Floor going down next week – I think. Aaagh!) Progress held up by above-mentioned re-wiring. Now the whole place needs re-decorating (which means choosing paint, which means aaagh! again).

You must be very glad indeed that I have been incommunicado all this time so that you have not had to suffer all the nightmare of the disruptions along with me, week by week, are you not? However, if you feel you’ve missed out atall I’m sure I could fill you in on all the agonies I have undergone over the last few months in the next few blogs...? No? Ah well. No doubt I’ll find something else to moan at you about at great length before too long.

This is confession time. All the above was writ as an introduction to last week’s blog and that is as far as I got. Too many distractions and not enough brain. I am off down south in a few hours so will endeavour to get something down here and sent off to Christopher before I go (though why I allow him anywhere near it I don’t know - he admitted to editing my work from time to time if he thought I’d used too many ellipses or succumbed to any other disgraceful habit of authorship and just who is he to decide which of the ellipses or other such is unnecessary? [I'm the Editor! As long as it has to pass through me I'll play with it.] Each one comes from the heart I can assure you).

The choir as a whole – or nearly a whole, perhaps a four fifths – is heading to London this weekend for a couple of concerts in the annual London Stavanger (that’s spelled wrongly, I know but I can’t think how it’s supposed to look right now) [it's Sangerstevne], a Scandinavian-sort-of choir festival. Non-competitive. Most important that it’s non-competitive or we wouldn’t go. Not very many of us are leaving today but I am off to spend a couple of nights with the aged parents (who look and act anything but) in Sussex. Lovely. We all meet up at about 3.30pm (I think/hope) in Ealing on Saturday. There are several concerts in Ealing on Saturday, each with several choirs performing and we are singing in one that starts at 5.00pm (St Matthew’s Church, for any southern types who fancy such entertainment free of charge, which is always a bonus) and we will be singing for about 10 minutes somewhere towards the end of the programme. We have to hope that the other choirs are good or there could be an empty church by the time we get to have a yodel. Well, empty except for my Aged P’s, Helen Miles and Oliver Henderson – Rudsambee members of yore (the latter two, not my parents) who are both coming to see us, so I’ve heard. At least those four will constitute an appreciative, if rather bijou, audience.

On Sunday we get a whole half a concert to ourselves - which is a bit more like it – sharing with some Belgians, if I’m not much mistaken; and we are singing first so that if the inhabitants of West Hampstead turn out in force to support us, we have a better chance of an audience even if we sing like hell and spoil it for the others. Emmanuel Church, Lyncroft Gardens NW6, btw, just in case Free again and again, we can be assured of four looker-on-and-listener-inners. Perhaps if that’s all we get we can cram ourselves – and them – into the front two pews so it all feels cosier. That’s if there are still pews there. The church in my parent’s village where I got married and my girls were both baptised has got rid of such old-fashioned furnishings so that they can get all friendly and confidential once or twice a month and discuss things while having coffee and croissants!! Most peculiar. And a really good way to ruin a beautiful, ancient church. I suppose they think it better to have it full(ish) though despoiled rather than untouched but empty. I don’t care very much about what goes on in churches but I did rather love that building. Sob.

So – we have a good mix of things to sing this weekend. Some old, some new. We will be starting with Tormis on Saturday which may well confuse people not familiar with our repertoire. Ollie is expecting them to think we’re mad and indeed they may well do so. Especially as we are singing Kiisu Miisu (about an cat) and Susan is going to do her brilliant cat impersonation here and there when she feels like it (while Robin sings the words and the rest of us sing a meouw-y sort of sound underneath). After this we move onto Lulling which is very pretty and straightforward and then Desh, of which I have spoken before though so long ago you may not remember. This is the piece based on an Indian raga and we sang it at our first concert this year – in the National Gallery – where an Indian gentleman jumped to his feet at the end of it and came bustling up to us enthusing about the song/our performance/the arrangement and, in great emotion and excitement, demanded extra applause from the other audience members – which was gratifying to say the least. A shame we didn’t kidnap him in order to take him and his enthusiasm with us whenever we perform this piece but I suppose that behaviour would be unacceptable. Desh will be followed by a new piece called Fog Elna Khel – a traditional Syrian/Iraqi song, ~~High Above the Palm Tree~~ There above, I have an intimate friend [here's an interesting point then: due to a cunning homophone, this song is mistransalted as being about a palm tree. People then remark about the absence of said tree anywhere except in the first line without realising the mistake!]. Arno sings a brilliant solo – very Arabic-sounding - and we get to sing our favourite brash ‘a’ sound. Then we finish with two of the Armenian Komitas folk songs – the jolly ones, saving gorgeous Cheenar Es for Sunday.

And on Sunday we do all the above with the addition of several old favourites and a new Debussy, Quant j’ai ouy le tabourin, with a lovely solo from Marie-Claire and lots of rhythmic (cross yer fingers wontcha?) la-la-la-ing from the rest of us. Should be good. Should be fun. Dontchoowanna be there?

Once this is done with we will start preparing for a concert at the Reid Concert Hall on June 25th. Think we’re going to make it a charity event so do come if you’re in town. More info later, of course, now you have your blogetteer back, yey!
I will end here as I must get this to Mr Scott for his unwarrantable ministrations and if I leave it all too long I will be in a panic and forget to re-pack my music or something horrendous. If I don’t have my music and Jenny has only half of hers [and that trampled through mud most likely], as usual, where will the poor three available altos be? Yes, there will be only three of us so we have pinched Rachael (she moved up to soprano, if you remember) for a couple of the songs to swell the manly-lady chorus. We have to sing a high ‘E’ at one point, all by ourselves in a very exposed fashion and, although I can get a high ‘E’ perfectly well when not so exposed and not trying to sing it on an ‘-ing’ sound which is really, really tricky, Jenny admitted last night that she can’t sing it at all so that would leave poor Heather trilling away all alone (perhaps with yours truly in squealy accompaniment) and this would not do. Rachael knows the part for this song and whichever other one it is we decided we needed her for so, please, touch any available wood right now so that she doesn’t develop a cold or any other undesirable buglet before the weekend.

Now I shall really stop. Next time I shall try and give you more amusing anecdotal info – this has all been a little bit catchy-uppy and boring. Note to self: Must do better.

Here’s to success and laughter in the big smoke. ‘til next week. Adieu.

The long dark rehearsal of the soul

2011-02-18T18:33:00.000Z

Totally lacking in inspiration today, I’m afraid, so I feel it is only fair to warn you that the following may be extremely boring. Only carry on reading if you really have nothing better to do with your time. A great gaping hole in your social calendar or a desperate need to prove yourself the world’s greatest procrastinator are the only excuses I’ll allow for further perusal of today’s meagre offering. Go and do something enjoyable – or at the very least, useful. Shoo.

On Wednesday the committee had a meeting before we started singing so there was no extra-rehearsal-instead-of-small-group. Because of this I arrived about fifteen minutes late which is inexcusable but I did say, didn’t I, in a previous edition, that the more time I have once I get home before I have to go out again the less likely I am to leave punctually? Quite how I managed to be fifteen minutes behind I have no idea, but I was. Luckily I wasn’t the only one and Tamsin – who joined us last week for the first time – arrived only seconds before me. I really don’t remember if anyone was even later but I doubt it.

While we’re on the subject of last week, my reason for not blogging was that this poor old machine was in hospital, riddled with viruses. It has been cured as far as possible but what the long term prognosis is I have no idea. As it has come back so much better but, for some reason, blocking my internet access – only mine, I think, the elder daughter (only other user at present) seems to be able to manage – I don’t know if Jenny or Chris acted as temporary blogger in my absence (about which anybody who would listen to me last Wednesday was informed in advance) so I may tell you things you already know. I will endeavour to stick solely to this week’s news in order to avoid repetition – an absolute must if I want to avoid boring to utter distraction any foolish- I mean loyal - reader who has ventured this far.

I arrived to find work in progress on a new piece: O Nata Lux de Lumine by Thomas Tallis. We have sung these words to a different tune. One by whom? For the moment it escapes me (or, anyway, I feel less than confident about typing the name that springs to mind and very much less willing to take the time to go and look it up) but I know that Christopher will insert the correct information in his squarey brackets before he posts this for me, won’t you Mr Scott? [that would be Morten Lauridsen's O Nata Lux] Ta muchly. For this Jenny and I have to sing Tenor 1 which is fine except that the Tenor line is written, of course, an octave up from where the actual notes are in the treble clef and I don’t need to tell you what that does to my brain even if it shouldn’t. However, it’s not too difficult a piece to get to grips with (once the eyes uncrossed).

Onto Quant j’ai ouy le tabourin by M. Debussy (old French, not incompetence) which is all about hearing a drum and therefore full of drum-y sounds, my favourite being the nasal ‘lon, lon, lon, lon’ which the T1s (yep, me again, with attendant confusion, as above) get to sing in bars 13, 14 and 15. I feel pretty confident I know what I’m doing in this one though occasionally forgetting to sing a bouche fermée (accents please, Chris [ok]) as instructed but I’m not the only one. There’s a lot of la-la-la-la-ing in this as there is in Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. I think I mentioned before how strangely all this affects one’s tongue...

Some light relief in the form of St John’s Steed. (When Ollie suggested we try “the Tormis” Jenny said, “What, again?” and then “Are we singing another one then?” and then “Oh, no. That was Tallis.” How such confusion could occur is a matter for Mrs Fardell to explain because it is way beyond me. Actually, no it’s not really, is it? The Ts to start, the Ss at the end, the two syllables... ignore the music and words and then no wonder.) We sang this really well. What fun it is. So much so that I think everyone laughed out loud at the end. So as "not to get complacent" we did go over a few bars here and there where there was room for improvement. There’s always room for improvement.

On to Leonardo and we actually started at the beginning AND sang the tricky bit, bars 92-115, which the Boy Wonder has been avoiding for weeks. I found both these easier than the end where I’m still all at sea. There is little solo in bar 7 which requires someone (a Soprano) with a strong voice to sing ‘ma-a-a-a-a-a-a-chine’ in a bleating sort of fashion above everyone else singing normally. AnnaLauren was the obvious choice. Ollie encouraged her to sing like "a Texan sheep" and so she did. And once she stops feeling utterly ridiculous and really goes for it (which she will) the effect will be stunning - very whirr-y, wind in the ailerons; if, indeed, Leo had such things on his craft. I’m sure he must have.

Imagine if you haven’t read this far as per instruction and I have wasted time trying to impress you with my use of technical terminology.

We spent quite a lot of time on this piece. It was hard work. When, at about 9.15, Ollie asked what the time was a rather pie-eyed Robin took a deep breath and, having answered truthfully, admitted that he had “..almost considered lying”. Almost. Bless. What an honourable chappie, he is to be sure.

Voila. C’est tout. Things to do (shopping), places to go (Waitrose), people to see (husband home from Germany) (or check-out personage) (or both, I suppose).

‘Til next week.

xx

For lo! the wind was blusterous

2011-02-05T18:04:00.000Z

Wasn’t and isn’t it just? I should be going out to the shops but I really can’t summon up the energy or spirit necessary to venture forth. I went out in the worst of it yesterday (it was bad but not so very bad when I left the house but became quite vicious in terms of freezing wind and driving rain once I got too far down the road to make it worth turning for home again) and my coat is not yet dry or my face thawed out (still, that’ll save on the botox bills, eh?) so for now I am staying in and food and other fundamentals will have to wait. I won’t starve though I may struggle. (Emergency food parcels, anyone? Anything will do!)

At least our wayward weather waited until after rehearsal on Wednesday evening to really get going, although both Sebastian and Harriet had to battle against the elements on their bicycles to get there. Sebastian looked so bewildered and exhausted when he arrived that I thought he must be going down with something but he assured me it was just the journey that had floored him. Harriet looked fine and fresh-faced which is what comes of being young and fit but she admitted to having struggled quite significantly uphill against the wind on her way. Presumably that means she’d be heading downhill on her return so let’s hope she managed to stay in control and didn’t end up careering off course and over the horizon. We need her.

We began proceedings with a look at a new piece – a traditional Syrian/Iraqi song arranged by Salim Bali called High Above the Palm Tree. It is lovely though the pronunciation of the Arabic words is proving tricky – not a surprise. There is a sheet provided with instructions of how to pronounce the various variously accented vowels and what is meant by the ‘ symbol and the dots underneath the occasional letter (well – they tell us there are dots underneath occasional letters but so far we’ve not found any) but this is all very well. It is much more difficult to interpret this well-meaning helpfulness than whoever provided it can possibly imagine. Add to this advice as to how some of the throaty sounds should be produced ("imagine you are cleaning your glasses and breathe out hard" – not so easy in the middle of a song) and the fact that the most oft encountered vowel sound (an ‘o’ with a line on the top) is not mentioned at all and you see the problem. Compensation lies in the fact that we are allowed to sing a very brash ‘ay’ sound (this we can do because we do it a great deal anyway particularly when it sounds really horrid and inappropriate) instead of having to ‘ah’. In fact there is an irony here in the fact that Ollie is struggling to get us to sound brash enough. Of course if we succeed in pleasing him in this respect it may bode badly for his blood-pressure when he has to try and get us to sound sweet and rounded again – brassy and bel canto do not bide well together.

We started looking at this before everyone had arrived so there was a bit of shuffling around to get people in a position where they were close to their musical allies. Jenny got lost across the other side of the room from we altos but she seemed perfectly at ease between the sops and the basses. Her first fit of giggles erupted not long after she arrived when she placed some sheets of paper on the table and Susan spluttered "Good God, she’s got her music with her". This IS an unusual occurrence these days – even during concerts Jenny’s file is often empty. Working at a proper job (a few hours a week) and being organised is, as I believe I have had occasion to mention before, something our Jen finds problematic. But she was, indeed, in possession of her music (or what passed for it, anyway; it may, of course, have been an extensive shopping list or a developing short story. Or some grubby old paper she’d snatched up on leaving home to fool us all) and so she was able to carol away without leaning over a shoulder or straining her neck (or someone else’s (mine)) for a change.

Next up, St John’s horsey. This is really coming on now. Susan did a lovely demonstration of a trotting steed – well, it has to be a pony as she’s so small; can a pony be dubbed a ‘steed’? – and I suggested that we have her displaying her interpretive equine dancing skills in front of the choir whenever we sing this in concert – I’m sure it would go down a storm.

There again, do we need another storm?

Just a thought.

Our final job of the evening was to make some more headway with Leonardo. Starting, as usual, with bar 30 we sang and practised our way through to the end of bar 91 and then picked up again at the last note of 115 and sang to the end (well, most people did – more of that later). The bars between 91 and 115 are, according to our Lord and Master, "terrifying". Goody. I presume he considers the bars up to 30 equally scary as we’ve not tried them (officially) yet though the women had a glance at them last week. Personally I find the last 7 pages rather trying. I had to leave my other alto compadres once we reached page 21 and go to join Jenny in the (vain) hope that she’d be singing the right thing and therefore prove of some assistance. I think between us we got every third or fourth note right. As for the last bit – on the face of it this is easy. On the face of it. I managed to sing some of the right notes (in the wrong places, naturally) and wrong notes in the right places (if that’s even possible) but, on the whole, the wrong note in the wrong place entirely was all I could manage. Sing it properly?? Not a chance. And I’ve no idea what Mrs Fardell was up to but I don’t think she was much closer to the music, as written, than I was. I’m afraid this resulted in complete hysteria. Just as well we were at the end of the evening’s work or the BW might have been a tad annoyed because I could hardly breathe and had tears pouring down my face and Jen was as bad. I have an uncomfortable feeling she may have been laughing AT me rather than with but, hey! I can take it. No one could say that her amusement was misplaced.

So to notes – "Any chance you two could control yourselves for a moment?" asked the patient Anne. "About as much chance as of us singing in tune," was my reply. But we did - eventually. A decision about the Poland trip – no for this year. Not enough of us able to commit. But a yes for London in May, so that gives us something to work for and to look forward to. Anne won’t be able to make it, neither will Anna Lauren or Luke (who will either be a dad by then or anticipating the imminent arrival of offspring) and Chris feels it is unlikely that he will make it as he has a pile of college work to hand in the following week (is this a good excuse? Several people thought not!) which is a shame but we will manage without them (just) and a weekend in London will be fun and frolicky for the rest of us.

you soon xx

Hurry, hurry, rush, rush

2011-01-27T18:22:00.000Z

Hello, mes amies – I’m off to Munich in the morning and to the Trav tonight so have to get this done NOW. Oh, the pressure! I have a French tiler in the kitchen, an assortment of costume-designing young ladies in one daughter’s bedroom, sewing and chatting (mostly chatting, I imagine) and demanding occasional input from expert seamstress, me - (actually all I’ve done is trundle out to buy plastic-covered steel boning and fail dismally to come up with an answer as to the whereabouts of the sewing-machine zipper foot); another daughter upstairs expecting ideas for her next craft-spot appearance on"‘The Hour" (STV!!) and then to spend time with her mother (disappointed in the second instance if not the first – which was a bit dodgy originality-wise but better than nothing), a bag to pack and this to write. Never tell me my life is empty... or that my sentences make sense.

So, to last night. A very good rehearsal. Small group once again too small – this is becoming repetitive. Ollie is going to use the time to do note-bashing on our new pieces instead until things look up a bit. This will be very useful but not as much fun. Maybe, eventually, enough people will start appearing early and we will be able to embark on a little something extra.

When I arrived there were already a few hardy and dedicated folk trilling away at the new Tormis piece – St. John’s Steed, if you remember. Once I had worked out where in the music they were and then worked out what my note was supposed to be (I was the only Alto again so it took a while!) I joined in and was pleased with how much I remembered. I have realised there is something to be said sometimes for being less than brilliant at the old music theory (and practice, let’s be honest) because the fact that the bar lines are all wonky and bar 40 for the women is not bar 40 for the men worries me not at all; whereas Anne – who is an excellent musician – was horribly confused by such inconsistencies (though she seemed to have come to terms with the madness by the end of the evening). We spent quite a long time on this once everyone had gathered and all to good purpose as it was really beginning to sound almost good. There is one point – well, the end, actually – where the Altos have a good deep swoop down (to an F, or something; I just sing the notes once we get below a G – don’t expect me to recognise them. The violin doesn’t go any lower than that so neither does my knowledge) and Christopher gave me such a look at that moment whilst guffawing loudly and suggested that my voice had just broken. I’m not sure if he meant as in adolescent boy or shattered crockery but he had to add – hurriedly – that he’d only commented because he was impressed. Yeah, right.

Galloping on, we began working on Hide and Seek, well, Sang it a bit and then separated to look at it more specifically. Half of us know this one really well and the others not at all so it is important to make sure that the old’uns are not singing what they think is right but isn’t and the newbies have a chance to learn it properly from the beginning. Heather is thoroughly depressed by it. Thinks it the most miserable thing! I can see why. And it’s very low and manly in places which may be depressing her spirits further. But I like it. That may be because I’m one of the manly women. And even I find it rather growly, broken voice and all.

I took some notes during this song and the next in order to enliven the blog as I felt my efforts last week were a little dull to say the least. Unfortunately I left my music and, therefore, my notes at John and Susan’s last night so they’ll be no jollying this up unless I can remember some of the jolly things that were said and done. Which I can’t. Oops.

I’ve just been asked to advise on bullet-holes in clothing and recipes for bloodstains. Had you any idea my knowledge spans so many diverse and peculiar matters? I gave my opinion and prodded various sharp instruments through a piece of material in order to demonstrate likely techniques to achieve a realistic result but as I have absolutely no first-hand experience of bullet-holes this may have been worse than useless. And anyway, it seems to me, there are as many different bullet-holes as there are types of bullet and range of shot, are there not? And then what about shotgun pellets?????

Lastly we reminded ourselves of a very small part of Leonardo during which our Jenny became very dramatic indeed on the word "siren" (as in sea nymph not fire engine) and then we finished – early, I think, but we had worked hard. We women even harder than the men because we got to grips with things faster than they did and, in our spare time while we waited (and waited) for them, started working on the beginning of Leonardo which, up to now, the Boy Wonder has been avoiding. We know why!

A word in praise of Harriet who was the only Soprano1 present all evening and did a great job in very trying circumstances, with extremely tricksy music which would have had many an older Rudsambeeite in all sorts of a mess.

Some discussion as to the viability of going to Poland when numbers available and willing to do so are rather lower than would be ideal. Personally I don’t see the point of going if there are only half of us there to sing as we couldn’t do the usual repertoire and this would be totally unrepresentative of the choir as it is now and probably a huge disappointment for the Poles who would be expecting something akin to what they’ve heard on the CD we sent them. Still, we’ll see. It would be a shame to miss the opportunity but maybe we should leave it for another time when more people are willing to commit to it.

Never short of an opinion, am I?

Time to stop. Will attempt to make notes and bring them home next week – promise.

Have a good weekend. Think of me in freezing, snowy Munich. Brrrrr….

All in a Small Room

2011-01-23T16:32:00.000Z

We tried small group again this week but once again it was too small to do anything. Somehow we need to lure in a few more people. Ollie thinks he will have to choose something exciting to do and then, maybe, more of us will turn up. We had no Tenors at all – except for the BW who doesn’t really count (though he does occasionally like to join us in song and may well have to if the situation re numbers doesn’t improve) and only one Alto (me. And we all know how useless I am on my own).

Instead of starting something new we had a look at that magnificent man in his flying machine, reminding ourselves of what we learned last week and as we sang more people turned up and as more people turned up we went further and learned more. I actually remembered and managed to sing all on me lonesome – the right notes and everything. You may recall that the Altos have a lot of la-ing to do in this one. Seven pages of it, in fact; I just counted. Seven pages, then a break while the ‘la’s are interrupted by rather more interesting text and then we’re back to the L-word for another couple of pages at the end. It’s quite hard work – does funny things to the tongue. Luckily it’s not all on one note. And it may sound as if it’s really boring but it’s really not. Honest.

But I do think I need to get my eyes seen to. The sight-reading is quite bad enough without being obstructed by poor vision. Caused, I have to point out, by poor lighting.

(We spent all evening in the piano room this week and it’s not exactly brightly lit in there if you bag a spot by the radiator). I can still see to thread a needle if the light’s good enough (and the needle big enough and using string instead of cotton!) and I am loath to give my eyes the excuse to become as lazy as their owner - that is what happens, I believe, if one wears glasses – but trying to read little black dots on thin black lines, at speed, in not very good light, at the end of a long day... well, is it any wonder I sing rubbish??

Having sung through to the end of Leonardo (though without having even glanced at the beginning of it yet, which makes one question what is in store for us when we try to tackle that section) we did a bit of Desh-ing. I got all sorts of bits of it right this time which have never been right before but there’s still a fair few places (the end, which we learned last, in a break from tradition) where I am floundering and which I MUST look at properly before next week. I can do either the words or the tune (rhythm) but not both – trying to do both sends my eyes off in different directions. Everyone else seems to have got the hang of this one, though, because it is sounding good.

We have a new piece of Tormis – Jaani Hobu, or St. John’s Steed. It is a sort of round with other things going on and it is very repetitive, thank God, because it will, eventually, go very fast. We have done O Morgenstern where the Tenors and Sopranos sing in a different key to the Altos and Basses and now we have this where everyone seems to be singing in a different time signature. 4/4, 3/4, 2/4 we are instructed at the beginning and several people were wondering aloud how it was possible to do all three at once. Well, of course, we don’t do it all at once but there’s a bar of this, a bar of that; the Tenors and Basses are doing one thing while the Altos and Sopranos do another, everyone comes together for a bit then off we all go on our separate ways again. And there are the key changes too, of course. Our Lord and Master was quite surprised and impressed with how quickly we got the hang of it (I’m not sure what that says about his belief in our ability) but get the hang of it we did and pretty quickly, too. Somehow it was really quite easy. Odd.

There’s not much else to report. Anna Lauren was back with us having had a trying time getting away to America for Christmas. Original flight cancelled so spent Christmas day driving down to London in order to catch a plane on Boxing Day – nightmare.

It seems our Polish choir will not be able to visit this year though they are still happy to have us over there. No idea what we’ll do about the trip now but no doubt decisions will have to be made soonish. If we go it will be in September, by the look of things, so maybe we’ll get to sing in London in May after all, which would be nice. I should have said last week that Luke IS GOING TO BE A DAD – yey! Another Rudsambee baby. What a fecund lot. Imagine how incredibly exciting it would be if we had more potential fathers in the Tenor section. Ah well, one can dream...

And on that note - time for bed.

xx

Off We Go Again!

2011-01-15T21:49:00.000Z

Well, hellooooooh! Happy New Year to you (all) – slightly belated I know but heartfelt all the same, I assure you. Did you (all) have lovely festive season(s)? Mine was a little weird to tell the truth but my presents were good (both those I gave and those I received) and that’s what matters, eh? Chris went to Ollie’s for Christmas but it must have been rubbish because his festive highlight, apparently, was watching a group of straight men drinking cherry Lambrini, or some such aberration, on New Year’s Eve. Our Boy Wonder was a little put-out at hearing this, as you can imagine. But really, what can you expect from a rainbow-haired troll who wears shorts in the middle of winter? (Longish shorts, you’ll be delighted to hear. The thought of him in short-shorts is enough to have a body being carted off by the white-coated ones).

I should probably have started back with the blogging a week ago when we had our first meeting but I didn’t and, as I have determined not to employ the overused s...y word at all if I can help it, I have to inform you that I am not s...y at all, so there. I had far too much to think about and complain about and worry about (new kitchen: don’t do it if you want to remain sane and even marginally pleasant to be around) to be bothering with telling you of our start-of-year discussions concerning what 2011 holds - and may hold - in store for Rudsambee. In short, we may go on an exchange-type, concert trip to Poland in either May or September and host the Polish choir in June; we may go and sing in London in May if we’re not going to Poland; we may sing in Rosslyn at Christmas if they’ll have us; we may go to Cranshaws at some point in the year to earn the money they gave us two years ago for a concert we couldn’t get to through the snow; we will sing in St Giles in both August and December and the National Gallery in April. We may – horror of horrors – lose our Boy Wonder after he finishes his Masters later this year and will therefore have to start thinking about how we recruit a new Director. This topic caused lively discussion with no absolute decision made as to how we might go about it but several ideas, including putting out a request for interested parties on the university Music Dept website. Ol reckons this would yield a fair amount of interest and that we could replace him in the twitching of a baton. Never! I think that kidnap and coercion will be necessary. We have to do something. After all he’s too young to appreciate his potential predicament - namely, whatever would he do without us!?

Anne is preparing to give up being administrator-extraordinaire; believe it or not we had an expression of interest in the post from Heather – hurrah for newbies!! She thinks that, with a little off-loading of extraneous duties, she will manage the job without too much difficulty and as some of those extraneous duties can be off-loaded fairly easily (as long as no one suggests I take on any of them!!) it looks as if we may have a replacement for irreplaceable Anne. Though Heather will have to go it some (oh, what a delightfully ugly expression that is!) to fill the post as brilliantly as the perfectly-pitched person who has always seemed so indispensable.

Along with Anne will go our Treasurer, Dick, but Susan has offered to take on this role. We are hoping that her lack of understanding of the words "household accounts" (they mean nothing to me, either) and her willingness to shred a cheque for several thousand pounds at the behest of her husband will not impact upon her performance as keeper of the Rudsambee books.

Enough, enough. Since all this we have had a proper rehearsal and I have to leave room to tell you something of Wednesday evening’s activities. We tried to re-establish small group but the group was so small that we were unable to make much of a start. Once a few extra folk arrived we sang through that old favourite Star of the County Down and eventually (if you were me) sort-of remembered how it was supposed to go. It may be that we have to find some pieces with fewer splits if there are only going to be a handful of us arriving at 7.15 but Ollie seems keen to do something and I am too. Somehow it’s easier to leave the house earlier than to sit down for a bit, get comfy and then have to haul myself up and off to Morningside for 7.45. Jenny is going to find it difficult to be there on time which will be a bit of a disaster if we need ff Alto2s because I can only do ff if it’s on the right note. Still we’ll see how it goes and if you come to a concert and there’s a small group piece and you see me going puce you’ll know that I’m trying to sing loudly all by myself and struggling badly without me buddy-slash-partner-in-crime.

When it got to rehearsal proper we started with Desh and played at being Indian instruments again. Joy. Love it. Can’t sing it but love it all the same! Actually, there’s fast and tricky bits which get my eyes all crossed, my tongue all twisted and my brain badly whisked but apart from that it’s fine.

We then started work on a new Eric Whitacre (yum) piece called – with consummate simplicity - Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. That’ll take up some room on a programme. And the song is much longer than the title – 13 double-sided pages! That’ll take up some time in a concert. Ollie sent the girls off with Anne to work on a very short section which took an age to get the hang of! Once we’d made some headway we moved on to the bit where Leo gets up the nerve to take off and as this involves lots of ‘la’-ing on one note for the Alto2s, all Jenny and I have to do is to remember (how) to count. All the way up to thirteen. Hmm. I think everyone else is being much more complicated while we 'la' but I was counting too hard to notice. I did notice, however, that this will be stunning once we know what we’re doing.

After getting back together again to sing what we’d learned (!) we moved on to reprising Hide and Seek, an Imogen Heap song we performed on several occasions a while ago with some success, so much so that we recorded it! Of course, our new members have not sung this before and I have no idea what they made of it as it is a little strange and the words make no sense at all but it is fun to sing and one of one of my daughter’s friends said it was her favourite piece when we sang it in St Giles a year or two ago and she being young and therefore, presumably, knowing what’s what this has to be viewed as encouraging, doesn’t it? This is also a long song – 16 dsps – and with Desh at 7.5 it looks as if our lord and master is attempting to arrange the shortest full-length Rudsambee concert in history. Three songs and almost a full programme already!!!

There then. Blog numero 1 done and dusted (unlike my kitchen). Time for beddy-byes. Until next time... (note I don’t say ‘next week’. Better safe than s...y).

xx

Post-concert, Post-party, Last of 2010 (aaagh!)

2010-12-16T16:56:00.000Z

So.

I promised a post-concert update and then decided that I might as well wait ‘til after the Christmas party, which is why I’m writing now and not three days ago. I am slightly sluggish of brain this morning (no, not due to excess alcohol) – that first sentence took me about five minutes to construct, two and a half minutes per letter, oh dear – and I suspect that this will be a very s...l...o...w process. But here’s hoping I have something to send you before the day is out for I have so much still to do in the way of present purchasing and tree sourcing and food buying and mince-pie making and cake baking and, most important of all, hair-do appointment attending (your faded-looking blogetteer is badly in need of beautification (as far as humanly possible anyway)), that if I fail I fear you may have to wait until New Year to hear about the aforementioned festive activities. Which already have that hazy, misty halo of something lovely too quickly forgotten. Which means this blog is probably not going to enlighten you very much. Which inevitably means deep disappointment. Which means I don’t deserve the present I received last night in recognition of my status as official Rudsambee Bloggetteer. Which was most unexpected, by the way. Which.

We, as I think I mentioned last blog, had to face the disappointment of a cancelled Rosslyn Chapel concert and much wasted hard work, the St Giles effort being so much shorter and so many well-rehearsed songs having to be put to one side, but we stormed into our one and only Christmas concert this year (yes, only one instead of the usual four – how bad is that?) all guns blazing and managed to get at least ten enthusiastic people lurching to their feet at the end (Quite an achievement when you think about it because if I had guns blazing at me I’d be diving for the floor). Jenny was counting the stander-uppers – loudly – and luckily there was significant applause or those still attached to their seats may have felt obliged to leave them, her manner of comment verging on the petulant, and one only wants genuine plaudits after all.

We were joined by our former holy-high-one, Helen, who had managed to escape the hurly-burly horrors of London Town for the weekend and came to sing with us. She didn’t know all the songs but seemed to manage to sing them anyway. Another pesky, show-offy sight-reader. The world seems to be full of them. I was delighted to be able to sing all the way through O Morgenstern without making a fool of myself by squeaking on the high notes – all that happened was the said notes were a little slow in coming out but when they appeared they did so smoothly and joined those already being sung by the other altos without making a spectacle of either themselves or me. There were the usual sticky moments though we all seem to have identified different ones which suggests that the concert was a mess which it wasn’t. Several people think the new African piece was the most malicious tripper-upper but my own personal nemesis for some reason was Dormi Jesu which I actually know off-by-heart but which seemed to go out-of-control for a few bars at one point and, as usual, I felt like it was all my fault though it may not have been. No idea what happened there but something nasty did. I’m not sure many people noticed. I hope not.

Tricky old (new) Jajang went very well, I think. I daresay we were all terrified and concentrating really hard. The faces may well have been a picture – I would like to have been watching – but as long as the sound was OK and the grimaces not too distracting... Our Natalie was actually sitting in the audience having decided not to sing as she’d missed so many rehearsals but she was no good as a commentator on appearance as she listened to the whole thing with her eyes closed. No doubt a sensible move. Many illusions could be undone by the untimely twitching of an eye-lid.

St Giles was warm and welcoming as usual (We would have had the welcome but not the warmth at Rosslyn. It is quite nice not to have to try and sing with chattering teeth and violent shivers to interfere with voice production). It was also pleasantly full - even more so than usual - which seemed to take our newbies by surprise. We may be a small choir but we do manage to get a large audience whenever we ‘do’ St Giles – I remember being quite overcome by the sight of so many people my first time there but they are a friendly, appreciative lot and not at all scary. Elaine and Alison were both there, as well a throng of other ex-Rudsambeeites – lovely to see them – and Elaine joined us for the post-concert feeding session at Vittoria’s so we had a chance to catch up a little with her life –after-Rudsambee. And we sang The Irish Blessing at her. She wasn’t allowed to escape it. She may have imagined that she was safe in a public place. Ha! Wrong.

Onto last night’s party which was woefully badly attended due to colds (man-flu, I mean), over-indulgence at lunch-time office Christmas parties and... exams (Exams??? – Should that ever prevent partying? Ever? I have an uncomfortable feeling we have let someone conscientious into the Rudsambeee ranks). Those of us who made it made it in style. Christopher wore a suit. You may think you need to visit an optician but no. A SUIT. With long trousers and everything. Even a tie. He looked remarkably smart. And very nearly grown-up. Behm wore a tie too. So did John. His had hieroglyphics on. Anne and Jenny sported their ball-gowns. I was sure that our rapidly shrinking Jen would be tumbling out of her dress this year but she assured me that certain parts of her anatomy are a large as ever and would keep everything in place. She was right, I’m glad to say.

Food, as always, excellent. Highlight for me – and not a few others – was Behm’s corn bread which was really cake but which we ate as a savoury (which may be how you’re supposed to do it – it worked anyway) – it was delicious. I think it should become a staple of our pot-luck parties. For as long as we have his company, anyway. John’s mulled wine was, as ever, very, very good indeed and a great time was had by all.

There was a great deal of conversation. I know there was. And much of it very amusing. I remember being rude about the tenors. More than once. I remember unsuitable-for-the-dinner-table subject matter but have no recollection of details. I do remember discussing nappies and the ecological impact thereof, potty-training and the dietry idiosyncrasies of an underweight mother with Kay. Perhaps anybody who reads this and regards this section as very poorly executed – which it most certainly is – could fill it out a bit with those all important particulars I seem to have forgotten, as usual. Not, I reiterate, due to the ravages of excess alcohol but because I only ever remember things these days if I make a special effort to do so and I wasn’t on duty last night - even if I should have been in order to earn my Christmas present; for which many thanks and I really do not deserve it.

Jenny is the buyer and distributor of pressies and did her job with her usual kind words and charm. I do hope she bought herself something as a thank-you present for a job well done. I was overcome to receive another gift – this time for the CD cover design – even more undeserved than the one for Chief Blogetteer. What a lucky woman I am. What a lovely choir Rudsambee is and what fun it has been to keep you (lot) informed about its goings-on.

So – that’s it for this year. Happy Christmas every one.

Here’s to a stellar 2011 (gulp!) xx

xx

Oh Woe and Lack-a-day!

2010-12-10T13:05:00.000Z

or – The Unveiling of the True Disposition and Intentions of the Erstwhile Angel
Jenny Fardell

Never was Blogetteer so deceived! You may remember my lyrical appreciation of the aforementioned Rudsambeeite in last week’s blog. She had the grace to e-mail her thanks for my kindness but having done so used the same communication to admit – and I quote:

...Had you left your drink within my reach I would have glugged it down pretending I hadn’t realised. And I wouldn’t have been sorry... not one jot...

(I even counted the number of ellipseses so you can be sure I have allowed you an entirely veracious glimpse into her dubious and disappointing character).

Now I have opened your eyes, as mine have been opened so cruelly, we move onto the second disappointment of the week: our concert at Rosslyn Chapel, long-awaited because for years we have been unable to get access to the place due to building work, has been summarily cancelled because of the weather and the subsequent safety issues. As the temperature inside has registered as low as -10 recently it has to be said that the decision to cancel is probably a fair one but this means we will have only one chance to show off all our hard Christmas-music training (hard music/hard work, both) which is a little gutting to say the least. (The likelihood is that our trip to Cranshaws will have to be called off too as the roads are impassable I believe, and thaw or no thaw, are unlikely to be much better by next weekend. I think we’re due more of the white icy stuff on Monday, too, which cannot be said to bode well for a venture into the Borders).

As a result of this (and the difficulty of negotiating the pavements and by-ways of Edinburgh) numbers were rather down at Wednesday’s rehearsal. Anne was stuck out in Balerno, Douglas in Biggar, Harriet in France. Yes, France and not of the ‘Little’ variety either. Real, true, militant, over-the-water France. Other missing persons were, presumably, tucked up safe and warm at home and who can blame them with the temperature dropping and the ice underfoot? We were rehearsing at Priestfield again in order to be at concert-readiness but there was considerably less to get through as the programme for St Giles is so much shorter than for Rosslyn. We had an added Alto as Sebastian had brought a friend along (sorry, missed her name – how hopeless am I? I don’t think I’ve ever been able to remember the name of a visiting stranger... perhaps if they were normal rather than strange... – Chris usually helps out by inserting the correct information [Heike was her name] before posting the blog. What would I do without him?). The lady in question is obviously a good sight-reader as she seemed to be singing along quite happily to most things. I am always enormously impressed by this sort of confidence and would like to have it. As well as the ability to retain information concerning people’s identity.

We sang through most of the material for Sunday’s concert, changed a couple of programmed items, improved quite a bit. Copies of the new CD were handed out, some of the Rosslyn ticket money refunded. Then it was back out into the slippery stuff and slippery it was indeed and so, on the way home, over I slipped! No damage to anything but my dignity – if ever I am to land on my bum you can be sure I will do it when there are lots of people about to witness the occurrence.
This was going to be a short pre-blog. It is a little longer than intended. Lucky you.

More after the concert: Sunday 12th, St Giles Cathedral, 6pm. Be there. Get a CD.

[p.s. Our humble blogstress is being overly humble as usual. The aforementioned CD, a flea in the ear features a cover designed by her fair self. Words, music and scribbles? How overtalented she is!]

Brrrrr!

2010-12-03T01:07:00.000Z

OK now, so enough’s enough, don’t you think? Very pretty and all that (actually, my garden’s gone beyond pretty, being just one huge mound of undisturbed snow with a twig or two poking out to remind me what is supposed to be out there) but now I’d like it to stop, thank you.

We were slightly down on numbers last night, as you may imagine, but all the altos made it – including Natalie1, returned from her lengthy travels – so we were in the majority for once and the sopranos looked very feeble. (Notice I don’t say ‘sounded’ - too libellous for words!) Anne managed to struggle in from Balerno although, as far as I can make out, she had to leave at dawn in order to arrive on time and was planning to bunker down with the Wexlers for the night rather than attempting to return home. That’s dedication beyond the call of duty for you but we can always rely on Anne for that as well as for being the best tuning-fork around. (Add to this the fact that she is willing to make litres of mulled apple juice for the warming of the multitudes at our Rosslyn concert and you will see that she is thoroughly indispensable).

John had the liquor cabinet open in an extremely generous and welcoming manner and was doling out snifters of whisky and sloe gin. I got a glass of the gin but unfortunately had to ask for it as he managed to miss me out whilst playing host/barman in a jolly ‘man the barricades’ blitz-y – but obviously rather haphazard - sort of fashion. Never one to hold back where alcohol is concerned I demanded attention (I did say ‘please’, honest) and am very glad I did as the sloe gin was delicious and just what was required post slippy-slidey walk in the very, very cold.

This general consuming of warming beverages led to the first amusing incident of the evening; one, I think, most people missed which is a shame because it illustrated beautifully the friendly spirit of the choir and the generosity of one member in particular: our Jen arrived a little late and, collecting a wee dram (if you can have a wee dram of sloe gin) on her way through the room, came to sit beside me. She was too late to hear me admitting that I’d picked up the wrong little black file on my way out of the house and so had none of the music I needed for the rehearsal but in time to hear me say, “Don’t worry, I’ll just share with Jenny, I’m sure she won’t mind.” What did the dear girl do but thrust her glass of the yummy stuff under my nose, quite happy for me to take a slug of her drink no questions asked or remonstrations made. I think I gave her a bit of an old-fashioned look; certainly I was a bit puzzled to begin with - but once I’d cottoned on (the length of time it took indicative of the fact that the same munificent gesture would never have occurred to me), I explained the situation and, naturally, we both dissolved into the first giggles of the evening. You may remember that last week I suggested we should endeavour to keep Mrs Fardell away from intoxicating liquids. Luckily she behaved much better this week and I may be able to rethink that recommendation. And how can anyone condemn such a friend to temperance?

Eventually – with much prompting from Anne who had it very much in mind that concerts are looming (she seemed to be the only one) – we were called to order by our lord and master and got down to work. This week we worked on Lullay and Ther is No Rose, Run, Toboggan, Run (oh dear), Deck the Hall, Nyathi Onyuol and Sleep. The girls had a little time later on to sing O Morganstern and Trees of the Field as well for the sake of those amongst us who have never sung them before and find them tricky. Funny how with half the people we get twice the work done...

Lullay is going to be lovely with gorgeous solos from Kay and Marie-Claire.
Ther is No Rose will no doubt be fine too though we were lacking our full compliment of double-trios and so just sang it all together.
Run, Toboggan, Run was a bit of a disaster until Ollie split us up and left the women to the tender mercies of Anne who is a task-master and a half and wouldn’t rest until the altos were singing in tune. I have to admit it sounds much better when we do. With a bit of tweaking and work on expression it ended up sounding a thousand times better. Let’s hope we don’t forget what got tweaked and why.
Deck the Hall is a laugh and a half. Remembering that there is only one hall proves to be a bit of a problem. Someone (a soprano) always puts an ‘s’ on and it is never the same person (soprano) twice. This one is guaranteed to make people smile. I think.
Nyathi Onyuol is getting there at last. I don’t know the words to this yet and really must make an effort to learn them as without the words the rhythm goes and thus befalls disaster.
Onto Sleep. And Eric Whitacre (yum). Susan had been busy handing out copies of this-and-that all evening (there’s always someone without something and usually several without lots). “Does anyone need Sleep?” she asked, all innocence, to cries of “Yes, I do” and “Can’t remember the last time I had any!" Much hilarity ensued (and Christopher gesturing at me to make sure I didn’t forget to remember to tell you). Once we’d settled we worked hard on this; so much so that I thought my voice (MY VOICE) might run off again. The sopranos got rather concerned on reaching the end that they were getting it wrong and so we concentrated on their problem for a while, poor Kay having to sing a very high section over and over again to make sure she’d got it right. It sounded fine – lovely, actually. It was only when I pointed out that Jenny and I had been singing entirely the wrong thing during these few bars (not looking at our music, as usual – complacent, or what?) that they realised they’d been right all along. Oops! And tee-hee. And sorry, Kay; hope there have been no ill-effects.

Once the singing was done some discussion took place as to whether or not the old people would need their carols on Sunday. The general opinion was not. They’d be mad to try and get out and about in this weather. Hips! Aaagh! Also someone - Chris or Kay? - asked if we had contingency plans in case Rosslyn had to be cancelled. We didn’t but now we do. A decision will be made on Thursday 9th and if we can’t go ahead as planned we will try to inform, directly, as many people as possible on Friday and a notice will be posted on the web-site as well. But it’ll be a bit of a, um, pain, won’t it? All go outside and breathe heavily and let’s see if we can melt the snow.

Now I have done my best to stay as up-beat as possible while writing this but I went out shopping today and bought a very nice shirt for my husband and then LOST IT. I went back to all the shops I’d been in and made enquiries but, nothing; so someone out there has got a very nice shirt for no money at all and I’m out of pocket when I had nothing in the pocket to start with. Grrrr. It’s time to go off and be grumpy for a couple of hours.

Christmas?

Humbug!

Squeak.

2010-11-29T10:41:00.000Z

Whoo-hoo! I managed to do so. Just the tiniest voice and a little unpleasantly on the rodent-y side to be honest but so much better than nothing and maybe I’ll be able to sing properly by December 11th after all. Please keep fingers and toes crossed. And eyes, to be on the safe side. Ta.

So, what did we do? I cannot for the life of me remember what order we did things in so let’s just pretend I know what I’m talking about, shall we? and not be too precious about accuracy. Highly over-rated it is, in almost every circumstance.
Started off with a look at Ther is No Rose (spelling correct before you start getting all sniffy – it is an OLD song and they just wrote things as they wanted, much as do the youth of today). This little number does not involve the sopranos so they were sent away to look at other things while the rest of us tried out the first verse all together many, many times, mostly so we could get the pronunciation of ‘swych’ (such) right – ‘ch’ as in ‘loch’ not as in chocolate or chlorine - but also because we all have to sing it. Eventually this will be performed in sort of double trios – that’ll be six people at a time then - and I am doing two verses with Jenny which is just as well because she can sing loud enough for both of us (and several other people too) if my voice decides to return to its hiding place. There is a long phrase at the end of each verse which we are supposed to do in one breath.

Nuff said.

That was earlier – I have returned to work clutching a hot-water bottle, believe it or not. I know you will be delighted to hear that they are starting work on my new heating system on Tuesday (hoorah!) so, pretty soon – all being well – I will have no need to moan and whimper about the cold anymore. That will jolly things up quite considerably, won’t it?

Hmmm... now what shall I claim we did next? Let’s say it was O Morgenstern which I didn’t even try to sing. I did attempt a sort of hum but that was a disaster so I gave up. I was delighted when Heather and Marie-Claire, both new and far too good at sight-reading, got it wrong but there was little I could do to help (darn it) because I couldn’t have got the notes out if I tried. I was able to give them a little advice once the BW had pointed out their initial mistake (oh so tactfully – he really is a wonder) which I enjoyed immensely. Having said all this, I should point out that this is a piece of music in which the sopranos and tenors sing in a completely different key to the altos and basses so getting a note or two (and it was only a note or two) wrong is hardly anything to be ashamed of. My momentary sense of superiority was, therefore, really quite unfounded and I am the one who should be feeling ashamed (only, I don’t) but one has to take what one can get and do it as often as possible, too.

We move onto the octet in In Dulci Jubilo when eight of us (yes, really) went off to practise by ourselves (with The Boy Wonder, of course) leaving the others to look at Rocking (I think). The octet is now coming together quite nicely – we have new people singing some of the parts and, as usual, they are great – and, no, I am NOT pulling faces as I type. Changes always seem a little strange to begin with (we have sung this bit with the same eight voices for about four years now) but I think the present line-up is beginning to sound well blended. It will be better once I am at full capacity. Or maybe not. Perhaps I’ll throw everything off-kilter. Yikes – what a notion!

Work was done on Jajang, Jajang which I am beginning to understand. It is still a little hairy in places but does sound remarkably good from time to time!
Rocking is coming along too and will be lovely, I think. The tenors are struggling here and there (and everywhere?) but they’ll get it in the end; they usually do. Chris, rather poignantly, begged for help at one point claiming they were ‘lost and broken’ – aaah! – but I think – judging by my notes – that there was only a small problem with tuning: “...it is more of a flat b than a b flat” says Ol. Well it can happen to anyone. The altos and sops are good at this song. We are swots, according to Our Leader. Well, hell yes! Sure we are. Singing disconnected sharps and flats and naturals which have no noticeable relationship to one another – Good Lord, we do it all the time.

Trees of the Field – tricky. Dour, according to Kay. Getting there.
That was it. Was that it? Possibly.

Jenny was particularly giggly this week. Anything at all set her off. Kay dropping all her music (and doesn’t sheet music just scatter beautifully) just as we were about to start trilling something or other; this is a fine practice in rehearsal but not to be recommended in the middle of a concert as Helen (gone away but back for Christmas, I believe) could tell you... mention of vibrating, battery-powered toys (well, who can blame her?) when all Behm wanted was the whizzy hole-punching thingummyjig)... Heather using her head as a pencil-case (she looked a bit like a porcupine. Between her and Mr Scott the real pencil-case was almost empty, Chris having spent some time ‘putting pencils in’ Robin. Why? Well who knows? When? In the middle of a song, of course. Where? I dread to think)... your blogetteer nearly tumbling off her stool (Heather caught me just in time, there was only half a buttock left in contact; just what caused the slippage I am unable to say, it happened all of a sudden and quite without reason)... Sebastian sleeping peacefully in his too-comfy seat between tunes (he’s just back from several weeks in Japan and still adjusting; when singing he went at it full throttle but in between he snored – musically, of course). Jen admitted to having partaken of some Bailey’s prior to rehearsal. Shocking behaviour, I suggested. “Well, it was a while ago – at half past five”, she tells me. That is well before drinkies-time if you ask me. And if the effects of a small glass of alcoholic beverage last that long and cause that sort of mischievous result then, for heaven’s sake KEEP THE WOMAN AWAY FROM THE BAR AND THE BOTTLE – please!

My mobility telephone is beeping and one of the smoke alarms is joining it in an effort to inform me that its battery has run down so I’d better go see.

‘Til next time. xxx

Listen and Learn...

2010-11-20T21:35:00.000Z

... is what I’d told myself I’d do but this is only possible if one is present when new songs are being practised which, on Wednesday, I wasn’t. Why not? Well, simply because I forgot we were rehearsing at Priestfield Church this week rather than in Morningside so I was rather late – doh! Add to this that, once I arrived, there were no spare copies for me to peruse while the others were singing and you will see that my chances of getting acquainted with whatever it’s called were slim indeed.

You will gather from this introduction that I am still unable to join the merry chorus. My voice has returned though it remains somewhat temperamental and liable to disappear into a sulk if overused (three sentences and it’s getting grumpy; four, and it’s stormed off to the bedroom and slammed the door) but singing is out of the question at present, a gentle hum in the shower being all that I can manage and that a little unsteadily. I am hoping that by resting it sufficiently well (if only idle chatter and raucous laughter were not quite so attractive) I will be ready to take my place at our Christmas concerts. There may be a song or two for which I have to sit out but I can’t begin to imagine missing out altogether.

So – again it was rather lovely (most of the time) to sit and listen. The new song, name of which, tune of which I have no idea, sounds great and newbie Harriet does a beautiful solo at the beginning. I don’t think it sounds all that difficult to learn but – famous last words and all that, it’s probably a stinker.
The church was chilly – of course – but thanks to the kind ministrations of Chris who enveloped me in his jacket and then his scarf (I already had two on so no one can say that my throat was neglected) and then his gloves, I did not freeze completely solid. The singers were probably not much better off, though expending energy in thought and action no doubt warmed them a little. I took to mouthing the words of the songs in an effort to generate a little more bodily heat but, really, it’s not much of a solution to numbing toes and goose-pimpled knees so don’t rely on this tactic if you find yourself lost in Arctic wastes at any point in the future. My charging up and down the aisles and waving my arms about may have proved a tad too distracting for the choir, who were working very hard, so I felt obliged to sit still but I do think energetic movement is probably the answer when the ice is setting in.

The Christmas programme is coming together nicely. And for those of you who live nearby and don’t sing with the choir, get your Rosslyn Chapel tickets soon as they are going fast. And if you are planning to attend bring blankets and hot-water bottles because my! is it cold. But so worth it.

This is a very feeble effort, I know but I don’t have much to say for myself this week (ha!) and with a bit of luck both my actual and my cyber voices will be in better shape next time.

Off out to dinner now. Yum.

Stoic no more [addendum]

2010-11-12T13:04:00.000Z

Oh dear, yes – or, indeed, no. Have to relinquish hard-earned title as I didn’t manage to get to choir this week. Shame on me. But this cold-in-the-nose-in-the-head-in-the-throat is hanging on in a quite unprecedented and unnecessary fashion and it was SO chilly on Wednesday (having said that, anywhere – even outside in a blizzard, would have been warmer than it is at home) and I was feeling tired, tired, tired so I huddled in front of the open oven door with heat on full belt (yes, really!) and felt guilty for staying away but oh, so cosy as long as I kept myself cooking.

Anne, bless her, sent round some pretty comprehensive notes so I have some idea of what went on and I thought I’d keep you (lot?!) informed as far as possible because, after all, Chris did point out to me not so very long ago that Claire(1) was very much better at blogging than I am and continued to do so whether she attended rehearsal or not. And I realise that Chris has already blogged but it's done now so here it is.

Mostly the notes seem to be concerned with pronunciation of one sort or another. The odious English version of The Swallow and the Bells has, at last, been replaced with the promised Ukranian but this, of course means learning to sing in Ukranian. I tried to print out the notes so that I could sit somewhere in comfort with them and partake of a nap or two when it all got too much but for some reason my (new) printer won’t do as it’s told and so I have visions of poor, freezing little me sitting here trying to make sense of a computer screen pronunciation lesson and failing dismally. If I fall asleep here I shall next fall off my chair and bash my head against the wall or the bottom step of the stair, (that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a poem) and this is not a happy prospect, is it?

Not only must I try to get a hold of Ukranian but we have another new song to learn and this one is in Swedish. Ditto the extensive ‘phonetics’ and the sorry prospect of unconsciousness. I learned proper phonetics at drama college (to help with accents, doncha know) and I was very good at it indeed – 99% in the last exam I took which is why I gave it up and didn’t attempt to get a qualification in the subject, foolish youth – but I have forgotten it all now (and no doubt would have done so even with the certificate) so the poor old brain has no resource to call upon anymore and it can take quite some time to get a handle on these foreign ditties, I’m afraid. Not good if the only place available in which to try to do so is this sub-zero troglodyte dell where I sit at present.

Ollie, the dear boy, has offered to hold extra practices on Monday evenings and even on Tuesdays for those who can’t ‘do’ Mondays so that those of us who have missed out, or who are new to the choir and trying to learn old repertoire, have a chance to catch up. I think I’ll need to be there Mondays and Tuesdays every week until the concerts if I am to make significant inroads into my ignorance.

Anne has sent out two appeals recently (demanding or what??); one, that a group of us takes some time to go and sing at the Christmas party held for pensioner members of Contact the Elderly, a charity with which she has been involved for some time; and two, that as many people as possible lend thermos flasks – 1 litre capacity at least - for the transportation of the mulled apple punch (or ‘cup’ as there will be no alcohol and therefore no fisticuffs) to be served at the Rosslyn Chapel concert. I am able (I think I will be by then, anyway) and willing to warble merrily at the Christmas party and equally willing but less able to offer help with regard to supply of thermos flasks which, considering that the whole hot apple cup beverage notion was one of my own (finest) is a little embarrassing. However, if I see any likely looking receptacle lying around in the kitchens of my friends or reclining sad and desperate-looking in the local charity shops I shall lay hold of said article (handing over some small financial compensation in the latter case, of course) and proffer it for use.

OK. Enough. Can no longer feel my fingers or toes. Brain solidifying alarmingly. Take back title of stoic. No one else would suffer so for their art when there are (probably) so few people out there who appreciate the effort. Thank you, those of you who do.

Kisses (though rather cold and possibly still infectious ones).

What blogger?

2010-11-11T15:02:00.001Z

~~That frightful woman~~ Our delightful blogstress was off sick this week so I'm afraid her fans are stuck with a brief editorial.

There was much excitement at Anna-Lauren's return after an emergency trip home to the States. Hugging and stuff. Although she was still a bit jetlagged so only stayed for half the rehearsal.

After Anne's initial concern that she might be the only Alto in attendance (the question was, could she sing enough for four? (yes, she bloody well could!)), Heather and Jenny came to support, so at least we weren't painfully low on numbers. Behm, having made friends with the cats, was relieved of his feline lapwarmers and we had a bit of a sing...

The new African Piece, Nyathii Onyuol, is coming along nicely. We tried not to shout, but it's always tempting to take the enthusiam in African music too far. Jenny also got a little hysterically distracted by the line which sounds like 'manwanky'. Ollie produced an amended version of The Swallow and the Bells (aka Carol of the Bells, only with a more faithful - but still frightfully twee - translation of the lyrics) with the Ukranian words sandwiched in: Shchedryk, as it is now, and a less exciting but simpler and more coherent version than we had tried a few years ago. Always nice to see the newbies' stupefied faces when confronted with such an array of languages :D

Speaking of which, we have some Swedish stuff! Nu tändas tusen luleljus, sent direct from Sweden in a bundle of 'beautiful' Christmassey and seasonal songs. Anne will be playing harp for this (she was informed) and Harriet will be giving us a lovely solo at the beginning. And maybe at the end. Actually we might just send the pair of them on and go for a cuppa. It's something to do with light apparently and other than some very suprising accidentals in the Soprano line it sounded wonderfully Swedish and wintry.

Remember the Lamb? Apparently we'll be doing that again, along with a new piece by John Tavener, Rocking. You may know this as a Christmas song kiddies often sing with painful emphases, "We will rock you ROCK you ROCK you," etc. and will be pleasantly surprised by this version which is more of a succession of very unusual, exciting but ultimately wonderful chords in that Tavener/Pärt/Tormis vein. The ladies had tried this before but the boys were Rocking virgins so it's particularly impressive that we managed to make it sound recognisably musical.

And the Korean lullaby, Jajang, Jajang, Aghi Jesu which elicited a "That was RUBBISH!" from Kay at a certain entry (it was the Basses) and led our esteemed leader to remark more than one that it wasn't a very easy piece. what was meant to be a "Once through without stopping whatever happens" descended into 20minutes of note- and Tenor-bashing. I'm sure it'll come together. Probably. These things usually do. [runs off to practice furiously]

Anne then asked us for large thermos flasks and warned that Rosslyn tickets are going fast (if you wanna come, better get in touch soon!) and John tried to get some information from Ollie about the imminent CD - which should be available to download or buy at concerts any month now - before people drifted away into the miserable night.

Hopefully you'll have your Claire back next week.

C

Blogetteer = Stoic!

2010-11-08T09:39:00.000Z

Yes, truly. I am a paragon.

Or something.

Absolutely no voice whatsoever – you may think I mean I was croaking but, oh no I don’t; croaking would have been quite an advance on my vocal capabilities – still would, to be honest – ‘no voice’ means not even a squeak and yet I went to choir rehearsal this week in order to listen and learn and to pick up any exciting tit-bits of gossip or chat for you, my dear and faithful blog-follower/s.
Was this a waste of time? Quite possibly, yes. I did listen. I did learn (though no doubt I’ve forgotten everything by now) and I did keep my ears open for anecdotal diamonds but – suffice to say it was a quiet week. Once again Kay managed to be Kay and cause much amusement – particularly to herself and Jenny – but all the rest seemed to be work.

So it’s conceivable that I went along only to spread around my lurgi – whatever it may be – and that next week everyone else will be voiceless and I’ll be yodelling away on my own (only, my husband informs me that everyone he knows who has had this has been affected for at least two weeks so, if that is the case and I have indeed infected the others, Rudsambee rehearsals may be somewhat disrupted for the foreseeable future which does not bode well for Christmas - oops!). I have to say that, having been without the power of speech since last Saturday night, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t infectious by Wednesday or I wouldn’t have gone so let’s all cross our fingers and hope that I was right. And if I was wrong let’s all cross our fingers and hope that the constitutions of Rudsambee members are such as to render the germs impotent.

Anyway – what did the others do this week while I sat and listened? I have to say here that some of it sounded lovely. It is very impressive what 17 or so voices can do in terms of sound – even if Ollie had to ask them to try not to shout. It was very tuneful shouting.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel – reprise from last year. Must remember to sing eh-mahn-oo-el rather then ee-man-yew-el. There’s a bit of hopping about between parts as the tenor line gets rather high and so the manly women have to take over.

Another go at Apple Tree Wassail. Got the stamping right – those who know there should be stamping but the newbies haven’t been told about this yet. I hope they’ve realised by now or they must be wondering what’s going on when the olduns start jigging about – so far rather unenthusiastically, it has to be said. No clapping introduced as yet – either everyone has forgotten or the feeble stamping is all they can manage for now. Daresay it’ll all be in place (quite probably the wrong place) by the time concert season is upon us.

The joy of Deck the Hall, again a reprise from last year, but there is every indication after Wednesday that – all being well on the laryngeal front - I will be able to sing it properly this year and without look of abject terror when we get to the ‘swing’-y bit. Worked closely on this problematic little section and I begin to see the light. Was delighted to notice that new and very competent members seemed rather concerned about this PLS, too. Excellent. Shall feel less like a total eejit in future.

More work on the new African song; still mighty tricky as to words, especially as there are several places where they don’t fit the music and have to be squashed in – and, to be honest, as to tune - for the tenors, at least, but – hey! what’s new? (tee hee). There is a bar where the notes for the tenors and basses have been replaced by little crosses on sticks….”What do we do here?” asks Luke. “Speak it?” suggest several people. “On these notes?” asks Luke. “That’ll be singing then,” says Kay. Queue grand hilarity and K unable to speak or sing for quite some time.

That was it, really. Some discussion about possible visit to Poland next year. There is a choir there we could do an exchange with and they have sent a recording so we can decide if they are the sort of choir we’d like to sing alongside. I presume we’ll send them one too so that they can make an equal judgement. Not averse to a trip to Poland – let’s hope Ollie approves them. And they us, of course but how could they not???

Now I am freezing (no heating which isn’t helping the vocal situation one bit; also ingress of water from flat upstairs so a little damp around here at the moment – are you feeling sorry for me yet? (again). Also – to add to my woes – we seem to have lost access to the internet as completely as I have lost access to my voice so how I am going to get this to Christopher to get to you, I just don’t know BUT... I ‘ave done me duty. I ‘ave writ what needed to be wrote. I ‘ave done me best in spite of hadversity. Can definitely claim status of stoic.

Off to wrap up in layers and large duvet…

See ya.

Rudsambee Naked

2010-10-30T01:06:00.000+01:00

Don’t get over-excited. Explanation later.

So – this week it was my turn to look confused and put-out on arrival. Shouldn’t have taken such delight in other people’s similar emotions last week, should I? Thinking I was well in time I arrived to see/hear a fairly large group of singers trilling away in the piano room as if they’d been at it for ages; indeed they seemed to be quite familiar with a tune I’d never heard before. “Am I late or am I missing out on something?” I asked, believing for one horrible moment that nearly everybody else had been asked to come early to sing something without me. Had I looked around a bit more I would have seen that others more indispensable than I were also missing which would have put my mind at rest immediately but, instead, Heather shoved some music into my hand and pointed to where they’d got to so I joined in, still wondering if I was supposed to be there. Then Jenny arrived. And then Arno and Sebastian and so on and I, in turn, handed music to them and was comforted.

This new piece for Christmas is in the African Luo language. To begin with we sang it to ‘la’ as usual. Somehow I find I always manage to sight-read things better first time round – how can that be? I wonder if it’s because, after that first in-blind-panic attempt I start actually thinking about what I’m doing. Perhaps I should never think. I don’t do it often and it nearly always gets me into trouble when I do. However, sight-reading notes is one thing. Trying to read Luo and notes at the same time is quite another. It felt like being four and learning to read again, slipping and stumbling over the funny little black marks on the page which should have meant something but WHAT???

Having sort-of got to grips with this we moved on to some older pieces – first the Apple Tree Wassail (“What does ‘wassail’ mean?” asks Behm – yes, he came back, whoo-hoo – and Robin, opening his mouth to reply, thought better of it and closed it again. “Tell you later,” he said weakly. But I don’t think he did). This is a larky, silly song and I think our new people are going to have to take it less seriously once they get the hang of it otherwise Jenny and I will sound very odd (and that would never do) at the end, shouting about capfuls and hatfuls and little bushel baskets – no the bushel baskets are bushel size, it’s little heaps – duh – which this year, for a change, we intend to do in good West Country accents, as is appropriate. Anne will teach us how (though I imagine I already know!).
Then we sang through Run, Toboggan, Run, a real tongue-twisting test of diction when up to speed but taken slowly last night for the benefit of the people seeing it for the first time.

The interesting thing about singing old songs with new people is that we can no longer pretend that we’ve been singing them right. So many little notes and phrases that have sounded perfectly good over the years but are not what the composer wrote at all. There are places where the slurring and fudging has been acknowledged, with peerless honesty, by the slurrers and fudgers but many, many others, it appears, where the slippage has gone unnoticed and unremarked, even by the Boy Wonder. It should be possible for us oldies (time served not necessarily years lived) who are still in the majority, to ignore the looks of consternation on the fresh young faces amongst us when what we are singing does not match what is written on their music and breezily to carry on as per, allowing them to question their music reading skills rather than our ability – but somehow it is not. We are forced to reassess and to learn things properly for a change. I use the word ‘interesting’ in a loose sort of way which could equally well mean annoying, or irritating, or infuriating...

Having spent most of the evening in the piano room we returned to the larger space for a quick run through of the new piece, sans piano, whereupon Kay, sniffing loudly and incredulously (can one sniff incredulously? She seemed to manage it, but that’s Kay for you), demanded, with unflattering surprise and deepest distain, “What’s that smell? Susan, have you been CLEANING?” Much hilarity. Susan, feeling ‘unjustly accused’ denied that the odour was that of polish (imagine!) and trundled off to the kitchen to arrest the culprit, a bowl of quinces - of which more later – bringing it back to shove under Kay’s nose (a sharp one, it must be said; I got no whiff of polish – but then, I am not well acquainted with that particular smell...) as evidence of her innocence.

As Anne, keeper of all things administrative, was away this week there were no announcements but John requested that we spend a little time discussing the lack of interest in our website. Far fewer ‘hits’ than formerly, apparently. It is now too boring and corporate-looking and we need to think of ways of attracting people’s attention. “Photos,” suggested Kay, only to be told that it had been decided to remove all such paraphernalia to another site. (Where? you may well ask but I can’t help you having no interest in looking at bad photos of myself. No doubt Chris will give you the necessary information before posting this for me). [Yes okay then; if you click on this picture you can see lots of us!]

We considered that a well chosen photo or two might lure folk in... I suggested choosing one and then photo-shopping it to within an inch of its life to make us all look GORGEOUS as no one wants to see an ugly choir (not that we are anything of the sort, of course) and then Kay topped this by suggesting we could be naked (I think there are not enough hours/days/months in the year for that amount of photo-shopping). I said rather you than me sort of thing but that it would certainly make deciding what to wear for concerts rather easier. “Yes,” says Kay, “We could just wear our accessories,” by this time she could hardly speak for laughing, “and the men could just wear their shirts.” Now, far be it from me to pour cold water on innovative thought but does it strike you, as it does me, that this is hardly a fair distribution of humiliation? The men in shirts?? All their wobbly bits will be covered and the dangly bits too, unless they are very – um, lucky.

Repairing to the kitchen to drink a cup of tea I happened upon a discussion about quinces – they of the polish-y fragrance. Susan persuaded Robin to try some of her quince cheese or whatever it’s called and rooted out a rather rusty-looking tin in which resided some rather sugary-looking brown squares. Robin bravely had a nibble and, declaring that it was ‘all right, actually’ continued to eat. Susan now felt it safe to explain that the tree was planted over, and fertilized by, a much-love cat’s grave, that the substance was probably a little old and should probably be thrown away and that it was really just lumps of left-over pulp from quince jelly making. Yum. Robin suddenly not so enamoured.

We embarked on a little quince-sniffing in order to try and decide if the smell was indeed that of polish or something other. I’m for something other but no idea what, Jenny was for rubber dolls (!!??!!), someone else thought dust. Find a quince, have a sniff and report back.

Idea – ‘Smelling Quinces’ another good book title. Or perhaps one for our forthcoming CD?

A most amusing evening all told. Robin, Jenny, Greta and I were still laughing at my door. Perhaps the Luo are a very happy people and it is infectious.
On a sadder note, our dear, loyal-beyond-the-call-of-duty, Elaine has decided – rather abruptly – to leave us. We will miss her very much and, Elaine, if you are reading this, come and see us soon. You will be expected at ALL the parties WITHOUT FAIL – hear? And you must be the first person ever to have avoided having The Irish Blessing yelled at you. Surely that is an experience not to be missed?
Another suggestion for stimulating interest in the website was some triple x action, so – see you next week.

XXX

Tavener, Who He?

2010-10-23T08:33:00.000+01:00

Hey, Peeps – late Friday night and I have been bored out of my mind all day so you’d think, wouldn’t you, that I might have done this before now – but, oh no! that would be too sensible.

So now I am tired and grumpy and who knows what I’ll find to write…..

We were several people down – again, but most with good excuses – even one of the newbies was absent so I really hope this is not a BAD SIGN. Behm – who informed me last week that he would probably come back this week as he hadn’t anything else to do on a Wednesday night – had something else to do this Wednesday night after all (being ill, apparently) and so we had to do without him. We badly need an extra tenor so I hope he intends to return in the weeks to come.

In spite of the reduced number we did lots of work and the time whizzed by. In fact we started early!! Surely that must be a first. Anne, Chris, John, Susan and I were there with Ollie a few minutes before anyone else so we started to sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen all by ourselves – not difficult as we have done this before – and were well into verse three before we began to be joined by the stragglers looking most perturbed and puzzled – all, presumably, having been quite sure they were on time and, being faced with a small group of warblers warbling merrily away, probably imagined SOMETHING INTERESTING was going on to which they had not been invited. (My presence should have put their minds at rest for if SOMETHING INTERESTING was, indeed, going on then ten to one my ‘talents’ would not be required!)

So – the rest of the attendees arrived in dribs and drabs and, picking up copies of the number, joined us in Christmassy song. We used this as a warm-up. Once upon a time we took it in turns to take the warm-up – a few physical jerks, more or less energetic or spiritual depending on whose turn it was and then some breathing exercises and some scales or arpeggios and, sometimes, a little ditty composed for the occasion or a jazzy improv if it was Sebastian. Once upon a time someone took notes each week and wrote them up and sent them round so that absentees would know what we had done and what they needed to practise but since Jenny – list-maker and reminderer - got all grown up and started working in the community she has become completely disorganised and has lost every rota we ever tried to make so we no longer know who is supposed to be doing what and no one seems willing to take over her role, with the result that Ollie has to warm us up every week and no one ever takes notes any more. Writing this I am thinking that perhaps this is something I could do. Hmmm... I shall go to rehearsal next week armed with a piece of paper neatly divided into sections with dates and spaces for warm-up and note-taking and I shall get everyone to sign up for one or the other or, preferably, both and then I’ll bring it home and forget to remind people what they are doing when and we’ll be back to square one but at least I’ll have tried.

Back to rehearsal. Having finished with the Merry Gentlemen we divided up into girls and boys and off we went to get to grips with the Korean piece Jajang, Jajang, Ahgi Jesu – a lullaby. Korean is a new language for us so we females stuck to la-ing though the men seemed to be singing the words when we rejoined them. Either Ollie knows how to speak Korean all of a sudden or they are taking a big risk because almost always when some phonetic version of a foreign language appears on a piece of music we find the reality is very different when we ask someone who actually knows how it is supposed to sound. At least the tune sounded good though heaven only knows what the men were singing about. Hopefully we will find a helpful Korean to put us on the right track. Both Jenny and Kay were yawning away during this song. I don’t think it’s boring at all. Perhaps we were keeping them up. Still they managed to join the rest of us in impressing Ollie when he asked the women to sing a bit of the piece on their own. At least, I think he was impressed. “You did that quite well, didn’t you?” says the Boy Wonder, in wonder. Yes, we did.

Next, while the tenors, basses and honorary man Jenny set to work on a new piece by Tormis – something to do with sledging, I think – we women set off once again for the room with the piano to have a look at Rocking by John Tavener. Someone misheard something because the name Tavener seemed to cause undue confusion amongst the sopranos. Or perhaps his name simply has the same effect on some people as his music does on others. Anyway, as I said, we set off for the piano room and one look at the music, over-endowed with sharps and flats and every single possible interval designed to throw the singer off balance, had me thanking my stars that Anne would be bashing out the notes on said piano to help us along. "Little Jesus, sweetly sleep" is something we used to sing at Primary school for the nativity play. But not like this! Oh no. Not like this at all. But this is absolutely lovely once you get the hang of it. It will sound magical in St Giles. It isn’t even as difficult as it first appears – except, perhaps, for the odd note here and there (ha!).

We finished by singing through The Swallow and the Bells which we will sing in Ukrainian or some such eventually but for which we only have a dire English translation at the moment. The words might mean the same in whatever language we’ll be singing it in in future but they couldn’t possibly be as naff and ugly (they're actually worse than the morecommon version, Carol of the Bells!). Sometimes English just doesn’t work. Then we did O Nata Lux which is yummy and then it was time to finish.

I have odd little notes here and there on my music – to whit: "uppity Chris", "glue", "yawns". While the latter certainly has to do with Jenny and Kay looking as if they should be home in bed I have no idea at all what the other two mean. I only know that I had it in mind when I wrote them that this edition would be a very amusing addition to my blog. This is what comes of not getting down to things. Not getting down to things is what I am best at. Everyone needs a skill of some sort and that is mine. I am with Scarlett O’Hara on the “I’ll think about it tomorrow” business. But it never did her any good either.

Ol Fixes It so that Opportunity Knocks for New Faces with the R Factor

2010-10-16T00:24:00.000+01:00

Yey! We have new people. Four of them, all at once. Imagine!!

Last night I met Ollie round the corner from the Wexler’s house (where we practise) walking in entirely the wrong direction as if he’d forgotten where he was going or had changed his mind about taking the rehearsal. The former would have been more likely. “Where are you off to?” I demanded to know – I am older than him and considerably wiser about most things so I feel entitled to boss him about a little outside of choir (and sometimes in when I’m feeling particularly motherly) – upon which he announced, with a grin and not a little pride, that there were new people to collect from the bus stop and that he would see me later. Not much later, for I had not yet divested myself of coat, scarf, boots and other nippy-weather clothing, when he appeared with Greta and Behm (ignore the ‘h’ when pronouncing – several of us thought he was called Ben to begin with. Some, being a little slow on the uptake, may well still do so). He left them with me as I was the only option available – and then John appeared, thank god, to help with the small chat at which, quite frankly, I suck – and we were still in the hallway nattering away, be-coated and be-shod, when others started to arrive at which point I thought maybe it would be a good idea to take them through into the room we rehearse in, in case they were beginning to think we spent all evening warbling in the confines of the entrance hall. By this time it had been established that Greta sort-of knows Rachael as they both work at EUSA (have I got that right, ladies?), Greta having a student job there and Rachael a proper grown-up one. Greta is American and is studying medicine having already done a degree in English Literature in America with medicine as a subsidiary subject???? Yes, yes – only in the USA. Behm is a friend of our Christopher and I don’t know much more about him than that except that he sang tenor, came along just to try it out and was very friendly. I shall quiz him next week if he turns up.

Later Harriet (the potential kidnapee from last week) and Nicos (lonely Greek man from last week) appeared; the first a soprano as is Greta and the second a bass. Unlike Behm, these three have been auditioned and found to be up to our rigorous standards (!) so, we have a definite two new sops and one new bass and a potential new tenor and therefore (cross fingers) a full compliment of choristers and so, as I said at the start, yey!

Tomorrow I shall write something about our activities during rehearsal – if I can remember anything by then. My mind is already slightly fuzzy and a glass of wine has not helped matters so I think I’d better leave this for now and try again later when a night’s sleep has cleared the fog. We can always hope, eh?

...

Well – ‘tis now tomorrow and almost tomorrow again and although the fog had dissipated earlier I did not take advantage of the fact and now it has returned due to a Friday Fizz session at a local hostelry and so, unfortunately I am not, after all, going to get round to telling you any more than I have already done.
Suffice it to say we have started on Christmas songs.

That’ll have to do for now.

Night night.

Rudsambee Recruits!

2010-10-08T01:44:00.000+01:00

Well, hello!

My first task is to apologise for my absence and for leaving you to Jen’s tender mercies – though, I must say, she made a great job of the Wigtown blog and, as I was in no fit state to sit in the cold and damp tip-tap-typing at my computer, I am hugely grateful to her for taking over.

Chris informed me last night that he thinks I should write the blog whether or not I’m at the rehearsal I’m supposed to be writing about. Apparently Claire(1) fulfilled her weekly duties as Blogstress no matter what. Well, somehow I doubt you’d want to hear about my bout of cellulitis (no, not cellulite, though I’m sure I have that as well – on a more permanent basis, too!), my soaring temperature, blotchy, swollen arm and quite disgustingly debilitating antibiotics – and all because of the smallest splinter imaginable; or about my most recent trip to Munich where I went even though I should really have stayed at home getting better (having said that, I could write several blog entries about the joys (not) of the Oktober Fest/Beer Festival and the endless amusement to be had from looking at people who really shouldn’t be in their lederhosen and dirndls - but maybe I should leave that to another time and place) so, if you don’t mind, I shall stick to my habit of only – oh lordy, the terminology has escaped me for the moment, Olde Ludditey stick that I am – POSTING (“is that right?” she quavers) a blog when I have something to say about the choir. And of course, as you know, sometimes not even then.

So...

STOP PRESS LATEST

We’ve been recruiting – or trying to. All very exciting. I have to claim credit as it was my idea to hold an open rehearsal, to invite along anyone interested in singing with a choir and to see if we could inveigle a few of them into auditioning for us. Last night we held said rehearsal, open-doored and open-armed, in the spacious upstairs hall at Priestfield church. I think we’d had about 4 notes of interest but in the end there were 11 eager new faces, 10 women and 1 solitary, brave, Greek man (potential bass). More sopranos than anything else, as usual, but as we are in need of one or two of those this was no bad thing. One of them was particularly good. We require a replacement Helen to sing the squeaky bits along with Anna Lauren and this young lady (name forgotten in spite of the silly name-game I made everyone play before we started) held a very high, very long note all on her lonesome (or so it seemed) when we had a go at singing the glorious‘Sleep. Lovely (both the song and the long, high note). So, we have to have her and she may get no choice in the matter – Rudsambee would sink to kidnap and coercion, I’m sure, if it became necessary. We began with 3 women singing alto but soon lost one of them to the tenors (2nd tenor, too – Jenny was most put out, even quite sulky. “That’s my job” she said sotto voce, bottom lip protruding alarmingly). I don’t know if Jess (?) was a likely candidate but she was the only potential tenor and the poor lads are in need of support, there being only 3 of them now. Plus the disgruntled one on occasion, when unavoidable.

I managed to be late though I’ve no idea how. I think my kitchen clock must be slow as I left in plenty of time, heeding the Boy Wonder’s instructions to be there ready to start at 7.30 - and I’m not a dawdler, that I can assure you. As I had agreed to do the silly, physical part of the warm-up my tardiness was a tad embarrassing. Ollie even had to phone me to check I was coming and it was only then when I looked at my phone that realised I was running behind – only by about 5 minutes but still - I had planned to be early. Oops! Anyway, people were still gathering when, eventually, I did arrive so it wasn’t the end of the world by any means. I duly took everyone through some daftness and then made an idiot of myself by forgetting half the words to a nonsense song which, therefore, only lasted half as long as it should have and made even less sense than usual, but – heigh-ho! perhaps it didn’t matter and my squealing and swearing in despair gave them all something to laugh at – which is nice.

Ollie did the sensible bit of the vocal warm-up and then added a bit when Luke turned up just as we were finishing. Poor lad missed all the fun..
Then we sang. Started with Desh – think I’m getting the hang of the fast bits now, although there are some ‘words’ it’s very hard to get the tongue around. Quite what our recruits made of it I don’t know but it’s great fun and very unusual so hopefully they were impressed by our originality. Certainly they seemed to be making quite a good job of it – unless, of course, they were only pretending to join in. I’m sure I might (would) have been tempted to such subterfuge had I been in their position.

Next we had a look at Sleep, which we haven’t sung for ages but which I remembered almost perfectly. Was able to dispense with the music an’ all! I have to say it was sounding gorgeous – especially when the men (sorry, Jess) were singing bits by themselves. Yum. I do hope we’ll get to perform it again soon because it is a joy to sing – and also, I imagine, to listen to.

Working on these two pieces took us all the way through to 9.30. I think Ollie had planned to sing a couple of other things but decided that doing less and actually hearing the results of some concentrated practice would be more satisfying in the end. I’m sure he was right. The choir performed Bogoroditse Djevo and Une Puce to illustrate how brilliant we are and how good they’re going to have to be if they want to join us (!!) and then we had tea and coffee and chat and Anne got people to sign up for auditions if they were so inclined or to ‘think about it’ if they 1. hated us; 2. were scared off or 3. actually wanted to think about it.

I will let you know how successful we have been in finding some new members as soon as the results of this interesting exercise are known. If we don’t manage to fill all the places perhaps we’ll repeat the IE because it was really rather fun and somewhere out there must be the perfect Rudsambeeites just waiting to discover us and to be discovered.

Big hugs.

Claire

Wigtown and so on

2010-09-28T23:26:00.000+01:00

Due to the demise of our blogstress, who has been dangerously infected by a splinter in her arm and is incapacitated at present, I have been asked to not only remember what happened at the last rehearsal, but also to remind everyone what happened in Wigtown.

Last Wednesday seems like a very long time ago. I spent the rehearsal in a state of hyper-tensive excitement and expectation, and dread about the amount of preparation I had to do, for the arrival of my American cousin I've not seen for more than 25 years, his girlfriend and friend. I know we sang something because we usually do, and then went into the other room to do the middle bit of Desh which goes very fast and proved that our new alto, Heather, can count better than everyone else! Then it was tea and coffee count and I went to Tesco to shop, forgetting to buy a haggis. If anyone would like to expand on this rehearsal blog, feel free.

WIGTOWN - was, as ever, a huge success. The weather was perfect, my American visit had exceeded expectation. On Saturday morning I had a crazy time shoving people out of the door and dragging others in to meet my visitors, cleaning the car windows and making sure everyone had breakfast. At the request of having people in the car who could navigate I ended up with a Wacky Races effect (link just in case you're too young to remember Dastardly, Muttley and Penelope Pitstop). I had four different directions, went off route very slightly, and nearly finished off travel sick passengers by hitting an unseen bump before bouncing over a cattle grid. (Sorry, guys! And if Kay says she can't sing that high in rehearsals don't believe her, I definitely heard a top C!). In the end we found a fifth way to get to Newton Stewart. In all the hurry that morning, I had forgotten my coat, so when we arrived at Newton Stewart for a 10 minute lunch break I parked outside a charity shop and found the best coat I've ever possessed. Even the hood fits properly! And so we arrived in Wigtown and parked by a sandpit built in the middle of the pavement with kiddies playing in it and parents flobbed out in old fashioned deckchairs scattered round. What a brilliant idea, it made such a happy picture.

We were impressed by the acoustics in the church. And were pleased with the musicians who joined us for Hebrew Love Songs and Cloudburst. Especially Sandy who did amazing drum rolls and crashes of thunder, and David Sumner who, after all these years of organising us, had the opportunity to join in.

The concert, as ever, was fun and well received. I didn't hear any mistakes. Our soloists were magnificent, Une Puce was so dreadful Claire felt obliged to tell everyone that's how it should be sung before introducing the next song. Maybe we should introduce all our songs like this and pre-empt any cock-ups in future concerts... hmm... We ended with the Irish Blessing for Alison who took it on the chin like a man. I hope she had a lovely last weekend with us and we wish her all the best as she takes off with the "snatchin' grabbin' pigeon pinchin' " Myrtles (apologies for Wacky Races reference again!).

So we had a jolly meal afterwards and Susan and I got the ginger icecream we've been dying for since Vittorias took it off their menu. I won't mention the fiercest barman I've ever seen, but I wouldn't have wanted to start a fight in that bar! We went to the rather strange talent show after Anne had sorted out the bill. In the middle of complicated counting she overheard someone discussing plans for Sunday and shouted - We'll talk about that later! - and continued adding up everyone's meals. That lady is amazing and we wouldn't go anywhere or do anything without her. So a HUGE thank you for your never ending patience and chivvying and your knack of being able to boss us so we enjoy it and would feel lost without it.

Talent show, oh my word! Did anyone understand the stand up comedians? If they were funny would someone like to tell me why? I drifted in and out of snoozes. One minute I was watching some people singing ten green bottles as if they were drunk, then I'd jump awake and there was a man singing a love song to a monkey very badly. And I wouldn't have known it wasn't part of the same act. It was like being in a very disjointed dream which made a lot of sense when asleep. Anyway, eventually we trundled off to our hosts, but not before Claire had recognised one of the girls in the talent show and told her she'd been very brave. "Oh!" the girl replied rather surprised.

I don't think I've ever stayed in such an incredible house. It used to be a church and drill hall. And I think Claire was just relieved she didn't have to share a room, or bed, with someone who'd forgotten her pyjamas. After breakfast and a confusing phone call from Elaine who seemed to know what she was doing but left me and Claire wondering if we'd got the plans Anne had carefully instilled in our heads after the concert right, we decided to stick to what we thought we should do, which turned out to be right. And we had a lovely day meandering around in the hot sun before going back to Edinburgh.

I hope everyone had as happy a weekend as I did. Claire, I hope you're feeling better. Alison we'll miss you. Thank you again Anne. Well done, Ollie. Sorry Jean couldn't make it :(. A big cheer for all of us!

The Sleeping Blogetteer

2010-09-17T08:53:00.000+01:00

I was going to write this in rhyme as the title seemed to demand it somehow but it’s far too much effort and so you’ll have to wait for another time for the privilege of reading my astounding versifications. Pure doggerel, you know, but quite amusing when I’m on form, if I may be allowed to claim so.
You can believe that if you wish though I wouldn’t recommend it.

I really do seem to have missed a great deal of what went on last night. I’m ashamed to say I think I was laughing too much (when we weren’t singing, of course. Well mostly. I did splutter my way through a good few lines of Une Puce but that was Anne’s fault as I shall reveal later) to notice what was happening elsewhere. I can’t even remember what I was laughing at, though - obviously – it had something to do with Jenny. Really – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I am a disgrace of a blogger. I hardly ever pay sufficient attention to the evening’s proceedings and many a joyous daftness is lost for ever due to my negligence.

Yesterday I was particularly inattentive, it seems. Chris – unusually - sent me a little email to remind me of some of the evening’s bons mots and I have to admit that I could make nothing of two of them at all. I’m sure that a comment on the basses ‘interesting parts’ was extremely amusing and that a ‘freestyle robin’ is something well worth seeing (and hearing) but why such comments were made, or when, or by whom, I couldn’t say. I feel I missed out on a good deal of fun. Was I asleep? If so, why didn’t someone prod me? Or sing very loudly in my shell-like? I wake very easily…only a small amount of effort would have been required. Did Christopher notice me napping and thus the reminder? So many questions and no answers at all.

I do remember that the evening began with a discussion about lifts to and from Wigtown for next weekend. It was all sorted much more easily than I had feared it would be when I read the list of drivers and what they could and could not do – principally could not as far as I could see. However, we all have transport now and all seem to be leaving from somewhere not too far away from home so a 9 o’clock in the morning start will not be overly painful. Where we will be staying when we get there is anybody’s guess but we have been promised accommodation with the locals, who are a generous bunch, so no doubt everyone will have a bed for the night who requires it and with a bit of luck no one will have to share their pillow with another who has no desire to do so. As to the concert itself, we are singing Cloudburst again (with a little more help from the locals) and the Five Hebrew Love Songs so whatever else it is it will be a delight to perform. Yey!

When, eventually, we got around to singing we sang arpeggios to ‘Jenny is pretty today’, which had her blushing. When Ollie suggested we change the words to ‘Jenny is ugly today’ because ‘pretty’ is hard to sing on the top notes there was an understandable outcry which resulted in ‘Jenny is happy today’ instead which, if nothing else, must have had the neighbours wondering who the hell Jenny is and why we feel the need to sing about her, happy and pretty though she may well be. After this we spent a little time teaching Anne and Elaine, who missed last week’s rehearsal, how to make over-tonal noises for Desh which Anne said “sounds like a sitar,” a miracle as this, after all, is exactly what we were trying to sound like. Wonders will never etc etc.

Then, revisiting a few old pieces to sing along with the above-mentioned glories next weekend we had a go at En une seule fleur – a Rainer Maria Rilke oddity set to matching music by Morten Lauridsen. Neither Luke nor Heather has ever set eyes on this before but they seemed to be getting the hang of it without too much difficulty – quite remarkable, considering… We sang once – and rather beautifully – through Dormi, Jesu which, again, Heather was viewing for the first time. There are several other pieces which she will see for the first time next Wednesday and then sing with us on Saturday and I am much impressed by the calm with which she seems to be approaching this event. I remember my first concert and how at sea I felt and how sick and I think I’d had a month or two to prepare for it. With habitual generosity Ollie has promised that we will sing through everything Luke and Heather don’t yet know before the concert. The Boy Wonder is a hero, pure and simple. What would we do without him?

We whooped and yelled (tunefully, mind you) our way through Monateng Kapele and we practised Une Puce. How Heather managed the latter I don’t know. It is in Old French, which is weird, and very fast and it took us weeks and weeks to get the hang of it but she didn’t look all that much like a frightened rabbit so she must have found it sort of OK. Of course she may well have been singing rubbish and all the wrong notes too but I was too far away from her to hear (by that I mean I had Jenny in between) and I do hope so because that would make me feel far less stupid than I do when I see these young people picking things up so easily. By that I mean learning, not bending down to retrieve dropped objects which I can still do with no trouble at all I assure you.

The third verse of Une Puce - sung by choir 1 who get all the fun (no, I’m not in it) – requires to be sung in a very nasal, ugly fashion – well, that’s what the BW requires of it, anyway. It is about ‘une vielle charmeresse’, an old enchantress who has for our purposes, it appears – at least in the eyes of the young master – lost any chance she might once have had of enchanting anybody and must, inevitably, be witchy and horrid rather than a faded beauty with seductive voice – and, yes, what fun would that be? So – ugly and nasal it is. As a result, thanks to Anne – and rather happily – we have a new piece of musical terminology. Forget... what have we in the folder?... yes, forget ‘moderato, grazioso’. Forget ‘slowly and gently’ or ‘lievemente, giocoso’ (what??). Forget ‘senza misura’ and ‘poco piu mosso’ (hmmm….?). Instead we have ‘sustained old hag’.

Genius. My, did we laugh. And laugh. And, as I said earlier, laughed some more when supposed to be singing.

All together it was quite a jolly little rehearsal. We are really rather a jolly little bunch. And now I’m off for a jolly big drink.

Cheers!

Another Sop Bites the Dust

2010-09-09T23:40:00.000+01:00

Lord a’ mercy, jus’ what is we doin’ wrong? Now Alison is bidding us farewell and quite soon, too. She is going to sing with us at the Wigtown Book Festival and then... off into the sunset! So, ten a penny as sopranos are, we are obliged to search for another as well as a tenor or two (maybe three to be on the safe side; they’re slippery creatures and can’t be trusted to stay around for more than a month or two – unless they’re Chris or Douglas who have to stay because no one else would have them) and a bass. Lawks! Thank goodness we have an open-rehearsal-come-and-sing-with-us(-please-please-please) session coming up. My idea, I’ll have you know (and I shall happily take all credit for it until no one turns up and we are left to entertain only ourselves). The plan is to have lots of fun, but not so much that we scare prospective members off. Jenny is banned. Sebastian is on the reserve list and Christopher is going to be obliged to have normal hair and to cover his legs.

Last night was a lot of fun again – more work on Desh. We had to recap on the tabla boing-ing for those who weren’t there last week. It has to be said that the basses are really rather good at this. Try as we all might the effect is not quite the same in the upper registers – though it’s not bad and the effect is always interesting if not arresting, as it is with the rumblers. To add to the general fun and merriment we played at being sitars, too, this week. This involved attempting to get whistle-y sort of harmonies into the voice whilst humming – that open mouthed humming which has people looking as if they’ve lost their last marble [otherwise known as overtone singing]. It is most extraordinarily difficult but apparently there are people in the world who can drone away on one note while getting their whistle to play a proper tune on top. All I managed was nearly to asphyxiate myself. I think I misinterpreted Ollie’s instructions. When he said to close up the nose by sealing the top of the mouth off with the tongue I managed to seal up the whole lot so no air at all was getting either in or out. No harmonies for me but very pretty stars before my eyes and a momentary glimpse of heaven. I shall practise in the shower as instructed – as long as I’m alone in the house. Ah, but then who will rescue me when I pass out? This question arose before, if you remember. Last time it had to do with holding loooooong notes. Did you ever imagine that singing was such a dangerous, life-threatening exercise? Alas! Perhaps, ere long, another alto will be required as well.

The only other things we did were Aurora Rutilat – an old piece being revived for Wigtown and very lovely it is too - and Mary’s Song, ditto, in which Jenny gets to sing a beautiful solo in the first verse. (Only the first verse. Natalie and Heather, it seemed, were all for letting her sing every verse solo but, really, she needs to be kept in her place.) We are attempting to be poetic for the Book Festival, as is fitting you will agree.

So – c’est tout. I’m sure, as usual, I have missed out the best bits [such as referring to certain people as being foghorn-like]. Some of that is done on purpose as too much bean-spilling would have Rudsambee down to me and those of us who are rather too free with the insults – actually, that is nearly everyone so no worries there then – but harmony is essential in a choir, is it not? And who am I to go and spoil it???

Laters!

Hell’s Piano is Full of Moths

2010-09-02T17:11:00.001+01:00

My, Rudsambee related goings-on don’t ‘alf offer up some excellent potential book titles! How’s the above for an example? Explanation later.

Well, here I am in spite of concerns expressed last week (it was this week, actually, wasn’t it, by the time I got round to blogging?) because the Munich plane doesn’t leave until late afternoon in the summer (it’s summer until October, you’ll be delighted to hear) and so I have time to enlighten you as to last night’s events. ‘Events’ is an inappropriate word. Particularly in the plural. Maybe I can squeeze one eventful moment from the proceedings but that will be all, I fear.
We were down on numbers – this seems to be becoming a habit and not one of which your bloggetteer approves, btw – no Sebastian, no Luke, no Natalie 1 (or 2 for that matter), no Alison, no Anne and Christopher arrived but left again very quickly once he realised he wasn’t going to miss much [and had more exciting thing to run off for]. Ollie was somewhat tardy, Helen even more so. However, in all the self-congratulatory excitement of post-absolutely-fantastic-concert, no one cared at all.

And, delightfully, we had the company of Heather again who joined us for the pre-concert rehearsal last week - about which I didn’t have time to tell you - and is to sing with us at our next concert and hopefully many more after that. She is an alto and a very good one from what I have gathered so far – certainly she was the only one of us last night who noticed that our ‘difficult’ entry was only a matter of singing up one note from the sopranos. Most illuminating and extraordinarily helpful. Downside? Well, she is petite and very pretty so I shan’t want to stand anywhere near her at concerts but will no doubt find myself, feeling like a heifer, right alongside. Just on a personal note (for a change), I find it remarkable that in the company of tall people I feel entirely insignificant and therefore rather embarrassed to be around; however, put me in the company of the small, in which you might imagine I’d enjoy a feeling of superiority and consequent self-importance and I feel over-large, ungainly and clumsy – none of which I am in reality. What I am, obviously, is perennially dissatisfied with my lot. How unattractive. Ah-ha!

Cod-psychology enough for one day, methinks.

Back to last night. John suggested that I do some sort of a warm-up and I was happy to oblige with a few silly physical jerks before handing over to Jenny for the technical stuff (ie singing and breathing which takes more thought than I was willing to attempt on such short notice). By the time this was over the Boy Wonder had arrived, rather sheepishly admitting that he’d had no time to come up with anything to do but had some copies of a piece suggested by Arno and that we would work on that for 45 minutes or so and then have tea and biscuits. I think it may have been at this point that Chris upped and left us for more worthwhile occupation (could it have had anything at all to do with photography, I wonder? [yes]) but he missed a lot of fun by so doing. Arno has found us a gem and I think that is a view shared by all who were there – such agreement is not always evident in the Rudsambee ranks, I assure you. The piece – let me go and get my folder - is called Desh and is an Indian Raga arranged by an American composer, Ethan Sperry. In it we all have to spend time imitating instruments such as the tabla so we practised getting a good bouncy thrummy-drummy sound on the words "Thom ta Taka Dimi" and in future we have ‘k-Dng’s and ‘Da din din da’s to work on. Yey! I think we did quite well for a start and I, for one, can’t wait to carry on with it. Ollie was saying something about getting an Indian classical singer of his acquaintance to come and sing with us – I think there will be another piece which builds up to this one but I didn’t quite catch all he was saying. Whatever – it sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

So – that and then we did indeed finish very early for tea and coffee, biscuits and chat. Kay, who has just moved house and needs a piano, was quizzing Ollie as to the merits of the electric sort (she wants something she can play without waking the boys up!) and asked him how much he paid for his. I won’t relate the rather shocking reply but Kay – always one to speak her mind - responded with a classic – "Do you think it’s worth paying that much for a fake?" Robin spluttering (and spitting out his tea in the process), guffawed in the way only Robin can and suggested that Kay, in future, might consider filtering her comments and questions through him in order to avoid the odd defamatory word that so easily can creep into perfectly innocent observations. (There is something ugly about that sentence but I don’t know what it is. There is no time to be fussy so you’re stuck with it). We then heard about Kay’s old piano – which she got from former Rudsambeeites, I believe. Oops! It was, apparently "rrrridden" with moths. Oh! how I wish I could do justice to that "ridden". Such a rolled "r" and such depths of horror and disgust. If you’ve ever had moths you’ll understand; if not – well, there is nothing I can do to improve the telling of it.

We had, at last, to sing goodbye to Helen who did – after all – turn up for her farewell. I have to say she was most reluctant to be sung at. She pleaded to be let off, she wailed, she grovelled on the floor. She said she had no fields for the rain to fall on, softly or otherwise and she didn’t want to be blown about by the wind whichever direction it was coming from. But we prevailed. We sang. We nearly sang twice but stopped before she ran away without getting hugged. She liked that even less than the singing but hugged she was and off she’s gone though I think she’s coming back for Christmas. Once in Rudsambee you can never really leave... mwah-ha-ha-haaa.

So – there you have Hell’s Piano.
There you have Helen’s Farewell.
There you have This Week’s Report.
And here is The End.
xx

‘Til next time.

Standing Ovation for Small (but perfectly formed) Edinburgh Choir plus: The Diva Returns

2010-08-31T10:44:00.000+01:00

Yes, we are small and so, to be frank, was the number of people who leapt to their feet (actually, they were non-existent – the action generally was decidedly less energetic than that though much appreciated all the same) after our triumphant return to the stage at St Giles Cathedral on Sunday. But a standing ovation is a standing ovation and it was all very thrilling, let me tell you. And also, I feel, well deserved. It was a damn fine concert, dontcha know and we was well proud!!

A long rehearsal starting at 2 o’clock paid rich dividends. Amazingly enough we all maintained enough energy and voice to delight the crowds (and, yes, there were crowds, even at the rehearsal) in spite of all the work we had put in earlier in the day. The girlies got thoroughly to grips with the Abbie Betinis song that had had us pulling our hair out at previous practises and so we were able to perform it and to give our Jenny the chance to terrify the audience with her opening holler (very tuneful but quite extraordinarily loud, as I think I have said before) as the first item on a pretty marvellous programme. Recently we have got into the habit of singing Bogoroditse Djevo as an opener but we threw that aside this time and got all female and Eastern and wail-y instead and it was great. I think we are likely to repeat it. Often. (And just to put your minds at rest; however tempted, I didn’t pull faces to get attention even though, as predicted, I didn’t get to sing a solo (or a duet for that matter. I know my place!)

Three of our pieces this time were accompanied. Yes, three. Can you imagine? You might find that shocking if you know us as an a cappella choir but it’s nice to have a change from time to time and we have allowed other musicians to join us before and it is rather good fun as well as having the most unusual and gratifying effect of keeping us in tune. The first song was accompanied by a viola (lovely) and a tambourine - well, a Riq; it looks like a tambourine but let me tell you if you think tambourine-jingly-jangly-shaky-clinky then you’ve never heard this in the hands of Hilary, famed belly-dancer and owner of Hilary’s Bazaar on the High Street. You can get an unbelievable number of sounds from this if you know how – and she does. Woo-hoo!

We also sang the beautiful Five Hebrew Love Songs – thank you Mr Whitacre – for which there must be a piano (played by our multi-talented Anne who has always given up her right to sing these lovely things with us in order to play piano instead) and a violin, played by a friend of Sebastian whose name, shamefully, I don’t know – but she played gorgeously and with very little practise too, so huge thanks in great awe is hereby extended by yours truly. (And everyone else, no doubt, and they probably know your name [it's Charlotte]).

Our final piece, the glorious Cloudburst - Mr W again, how clever is he? - requires all sorts and conditions of instrumental activity ranging from the singers through piano (not Anne this time), hand bells, cymbals, little chime-y thingummyjigs [aka windchimes], a thunder sheet and a very, very big drum not to mention finger-snapping, hand-clapping, leg-slapping shenanigans from the members of the choir. Anna Lauren actually managed to bruise her legs she was slapping them so hard in rehearsal... I only hope she managed to restrain herself somewhat in performance or her husband will get peculiar ideas about Rudsambee and may make her give us up which would be nothing short of a disaster.
Anna Lauren, we need you!

Especially as this was Helen’s last concert with Rudsambee. She is leaving to head for the bright lights and the hustle bustle and the dirt and the noise and the crowded streets of London Town. We didn’t manage to catch hold of her to sing the Irish Blessing at her. She says she is coming to rehearsal on Wednesday so that we can say goodbye then but I have my doubts... she may have escaped unserenaded, in which case she’ll be the first person ever to have achieved such a thing. Speaking of which, we waved farewell to (and sang at) Angus last week. He’s off back to Oz with the family and we shall miss him.

So to the second part of tonight’s story: The Return of the Diva. Yes, Claire1 was back with us again on Sunday and this time she joined us in song. Marvellous. Given a half-hour or so to learn the Abbie Betinis that we had been struggling with for weeks she was able to sing that and the Hebrew Love Songs and Cloudburst with us at the concert and also the necessary encore (at last a chance to sing Bog Off (by which I mean Bogoroditse Djevo, of course)) because she knew all those from her former days as a member – or should I say THE member of Rudsambee (sorry Diva!). It was lovely to have her back even if for a very brief appearance but very confusing to be one of two Claires again having got used to being the-one-and-only – a condition much more suited to my disposition, as I’m sure you realise.

So – that’s about it, folks. I didn’t write last week as I was off down south for a long weekend and this week I’m off to Germany for the same (oh! the life of a jet-setter) so you may well have to wait for a report on Wednesday’s fun and games until next Monday or later. Maybe Jenny will oblige if any really exciting news needs to be imparted for I may well have forgotten everything well before I get back from Munich. Usually I’m hard-pressed to remember anything by Thursday morning.

Thank you to anyone who came to the concert – especially if you were one of the stander-uppers.

Catch you later.

Amend Last Weeks Title to: "Return of The Idiot, The Fool, The Half-wit"

2010-08-20T15:21:00.001+01:00

What can she mean? I hear you cry. How dare our erudite and multi-talented Blogetteer refer to herself in such disparaging terms? Woe and alack-a-day! What has upset the delicate balance of her sensibilities and led to this – surely unjustifiable? - self-censure?

(You get the picture…)

Well, I wrote the blog in good time last week – honest I did – as evidenced therein by the word ‘tomorrow’ i.e. Sunday, which I would only use if I were doing a Saturday report, wouldn’t I? Unless, of course, I was being very sneaky and trying to trick you into thinking I was writing on Saturday when really it was Monday which would explain why the blog did not appear until Tuesday. Still with me? Actually what happened was that I did indeed get me blogging done on Saturday but then I emailed Chris (who does the posting) and, blow me down! forgot to send the relevant attachment. (What he made of an email merely announcing that I was off to write introductions, I have no idea. Perhaps he thought I thought he’d be interested in such minutiae?) It wasn’t until Tuesday when our erstwhile replacement blogstress, Jenny, sent me an email entitled "Where is it?" that I realised my mistake. (Thank you, Jen. Good work. Someone is reading these, it seems!) Chris, being well used to my inefficiency and long past making polite inquiries as to the whereabouts of my weekly (!?) words of wisdom, did not make any polite inquiries into my weekly WoW so they might have remained written but unread – a crime against great literary endeavour if ever there was one – had it not been for The Vigilance of Mrs Fardell (oooo, there’s a good book-title).

So you see why I feel it necessary to castigate myself. I did give Christopher permission to write rude things about me as a footnote to my last week’s effort but it appears he has displayed remarkable restraint and decided against it. Either that or he was too busy to bother. Whatever the reason, I feel obliged to do the job for him. Job done.

None of which enlightens you as to the recent activities of your favourite choristers.

Sunday was an interesting experiment. I feel the time of day was a little unfortunate. 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning nearly proved the undoing of the Boy Wonder – he made it for 9.55 but the rest of us had been there as per instructions (from TBW) since 9.15 or earlier. Something about a forgotten alarm... However, at least he got there which is more than can be said for Helen, who didn’t - this being the time of unsleeping dissertation hell. Which left some interesting Helen-shaped holes in things, some of which could be filled by Anna-Lauren or the massed voices of the soprani but one of which was more of a Helen-shaped chasm and had poor Elaine battling all alone through the 2nd choir verses of Une Puce while the 1st choir boasted no less than four of the heavenly high-voiced (an imbalance I can’t explain as it would have been only marginally improved by Helen’s attendance. There must have been another absent soprano, mustn’t there? But whom...? I apologise to whoever it was if it was anybody. Imagine forgetting you! [perhaps Rachael?])

Anyway, the audience were a bit thin on the ground when we began and only a little thicker when we finished but set fair to be considerably larger for those who followed us as by then the sun was out and people had actually got out of bed. However, we sang some songs and collected some money (for Water Aid and St Columba’s Hospice) and had some photos taken, the latter activity providing some fair amusement for passers-by, one of whom took some pictures of us taking pictures of ourselves (timer on Chris’s posh camera) as if he thought we were famous... or something.

On to last night where we, rather than the audience, were rather thin on the ground and remained that way. Robin was busy preparing for his first day as a grown-up, teaching Chemistry in Dunfermline (Good luck, kiddo. You’ll be brilliant, I’m sure!). Chris was absent, Arno was absent, Natalie2 was absent, Helen... and so on. We warmed up by singing the beginning of This Marriage and working on blending so it sounded gorgeous (will it last??) then sang through the Five Hebrew Love Songs which we’re hoping to perform at St Giles on the 29th. Luke has never sung these before so was delighted to get a chance, I’m sure, but no doubt feels he needs much more practise – which he will get on the 29th! Once this was done Ollie sent the boys away. They could actually have gone home at this point but decided to stay and work amongst themselves which shows commendable dedication. No idea what they did but perhaps Luke got to spend more time on the 5HLSs after all. Meanwhile we ladies had a hard old time trying to get our heads round the Abbie Betinis caravan song we started some weeks ago. Now, I don’t know how much time was spent on this while I was away but I didn’t feel I was floundering more than anyone else so maybe not much or maybe it is just horribly difficult. The notes are awkward and the rhythms are impossible! Well, no. Not impossible, but the concentration required! No doubt one day (very, very soon I hope) we’ll be laughing at how hard we found it but at the moment the learning of it is not a pleasant experience. This is the one with several solos and Jenny’s very loud big moment, remember? And last night Natalie1 actually offered to do one of the solos. Is the girl mad? I think it’s the only offer Ollie will get. Anna Lauren has to do one because it goes really high but nobody else seems keen to catch the Maestro’s eye when he starts mentioning the ‘s’ word for this one. Will Natalie get her heart’s desire? Watch this space. Or come to the concert.

Really that was it, though at the risk of mentioning Jenny’s name too often there were two amusing incidents last night involving She Of The Capacious Lungs. First I found her in a trance whilst contemplating a pencil held delicately upright at nose level between forefinger and thumb – as if it were a thing of great beauty or engineering of extraordinary complexity. I think she should have been singing at the time but obviously this pencil had captured her imagination far more than the song. Secondly, at the end of the rehearsal, for no apparent reason, she pulled on an old Victorian-style nightdress adorned with sea-themed doodads in which she swung about in what seemed to be a proud display of her invention and ability to sew. Why? You may well ask! It turned out she’s off to a family get-together down south this weekend during which there will be a fancy dress party with - yes, you’ve guessed it! - a sea theme, and she wanted to try her costume out in front of a sympathetic – if somewhat puzzled – audience. Natalie, once she’d recovered from her jaw-dropped confusion, suggested Jen should string some shells round her neck and I thought I had a shell-bedecked piece of string at home from one of the girl’s long-ago mermaid costumes which I offered to lend in return for a lift home. I got the lift but she didn’t get the necklace. Having emptied in vain the dressing-up box (which is at the back of a very dark cupboard) I came to the conclusion I must have dismantled or lost it years ago. A shame. But the nightie speaks for itself.

See you next week.

Maybe.

Return of The Blogeteer

2010-08-18T01:11:00.000+01:00

Ahoy there, me hearties! And how be’st thou after me long absence, I be wonderin’? I b’lieve Able Seaman Fardell kept things ship-shape while I was on shore-leave – no one asked her but I’m right glad someone took the ‘elm or oo knows where we’d be by now? Up a creek with the sails flappin’, I fear. Fer sartin you’d be less well informed than youm are thanks to ‘er efforts.

Enough. How are you ‘all’? I had a very good holiday, thank you, though the weather could have been better. I went down south where the sun used always to shine during July and August but where it does so no longer. Grrrr. Very disappointing. Extremely frustrating. However, great fun was had by all and I so shouldn’t complain, should I? Or should I? Methinks my advancing age entitles me to the status of ‘Grumpy Old(ish) Woman’; something one ought to take advantage of whenever possible. So, grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I feel I missed a great deal of practise choir-wise, even though it was only two rehearsals. Especially as I returned to find that we are singing that tongue-twisting, tricksy little Spanish number (La Tricotea) TOMORROW in Princes Street Gardens and singing it pretty blinking fast, too. I have done my best to learn it well enough to slide and slur my way through it and if I manage to keep the panic from my eyes I might just get away with it. Apparently we will be doing it by heart in two weeks time in St Giles – ah, yes... what would life in Rudsambee be without a little pressure, a morsel of terror, to keep the spirit fighting fit?

Apart from this, Wednesday evening was pleasantly gentle – dare I say ‘laid back’? Should that be a worry 3 days before a concert? The most memorable comment of the night was Ollie saying something along the lines of, “That was really good... and it can only get better” which had us chortling (nervously) but which song he said it about escapes me completely, though I have a sneaking suspicion it was the Spanish blighter mentioned above. It would certainly be true.

We had all sorts of fun with ‘Monateng Kapele’ which is fun to sing anyway but which is much more interesting now – if only we remember what we practised in all the excitement of singing outdoors with microphones and a coming-and-going audience (that’s if there’s an audience at all). It may be pouring with rain. It may be stiflingly hot (and us in full concert dress of BLACK and red, too – but you should have seen the reaction from certain people when I suggested that a summer style should maybe be adopted in future - in the summer, of course... oh, lordy! It was a slightly mischievous suggestion, I must admit, as I well remember the painful deliberations which got us to the ‘costume’ we have now, but really! Other choirs manage to dress themselves without all this fuss – how hard can it be??????) – where was I?

Oh, yes, we have no idea what to expect but I have to say that my hopes of an event inventively entitled Scotland’s Got Talent are somewhat subdued. And from what I’ve heard the claim has, as yet, not been proven! Let’s hope enough people get past the title (and the big tent within which we are not singing but which is taking up a great deal of room in the area in which we are) for us to change that, to prove the point and to astonish the crowds with our virtuosity.

Now I must go and write some introductions to tomorrow’s songs – I am to deliver them all because I have used a microphone before. No one asked if I had done this with any success. It was assumed. And I allowed the assumption. So – God help me if I get it wrong!!!!

Wish me luck (or at the very least a mic that doesn’t swing around loose-headed like the last one I had to deal with during a play-reading at the Traverse a few months ago. You try emoting whilst chasing an errant instrument of amplification around with your mouth......)
xx

...and the barbecue

2010-08-09T08:48:00.000+01:00

Me again, our Blogstress having sent her apologies for having to regrettably miss this major event which happens, in Anne and husband Dick's garden, almost every year. So, I get the scoop! Although I nearly didn't because of the weather. Rainy all morning but dry in the afternoon and just got better so by the late afternoon we were all practically sunbathing.

It was really good that Angus and family could be there. The last Rudsambee party before they go back to Australia (They have to return the kangaroos they smuggled over here, or something...).

Anne's garden, as hinted at in the previous blog, is a haven. Not only for singers with greedy tummies, (yummy raspberries! May as well own up to tasting a couple. Actually it was in an attempt to encourage a suddenly shy boy to join the party that we invaded the patch) but also for wildlife. Robin was delighted he got an opportunity to impress us with his bee identifications. Though I think he regretted telling us there is such a thing as a Cuckoo Bee because he had to explain no, it does not build its hive in clocks, nor does it buzz on the hour, and it can't count. It just steals other bees homes. I forget which type of queen bee landed wearily on someone's plate, but Anne instantly recognised it was in need of some first aid and disappeared into the kitchen for a spoonful of honey, shouting:- "This is why you might find a few teaspoons in the flower beds, folks, it's amazing how bees revive after being fed a bit of honey." However, this particular invader of our BBQ got more than she was expecting. Anne had kindly (?) warmed the spoon up to make the honey less sticky. Suddenly her Majesty found a hot teaspoon stuck up her rear end because she turned round at the wrong moment, and flew off indignantly.

People turned up in dribs and drabs and the arrival of Kay and co. livened up an already very hearty party. Sandy and Euan were delighted to find two bigger boys to roll in the grass with. Connor and Sebastian spent most of the afternoon swinging the little tots round and flying them in the air and being used as climbing frames. Euan just followed Sebastian round with his arms in the air waiting to be lifted up. At one point our bass was lying in the grass with Euan cuddled into his neck and Sandy curled up on his stomach begging for more "Tummy-Highs" (where a person is balanced in the air on someone's feet). And even adults can "fly" like this. I know because I had a go... and wow! it was amazing, it felt like I didn't weigh anything at all, though I'm not sure if Sebastian felt the same way...

A pause in grass play whilst we all went to admire Dick's magnificent tools...!! He has acquired some new engineering stuff including a model traction engine which, once finished, will be able to pull a carriage load of us round the garden at the next BBQ! I suggested it would suffice Edinburgh council until the trams are finished, but Dick said it's only capable of two speeds - slow and a bit faster. Well, it would still be faster than waiting for a tram at this stage!
Some delicious dessert wine came out when the children had gone home. And the remaining few of us went when the midges came out.

It was a lovely day. Heaven just to chill out and pretend you don't have a house to clean, shopping to do, clothes to wash and iron....

Big thank you to our hosts, missed those of you who weren't able to come along, and looking forward to the next parteee.

Jenny

More from Jenny

2010-08-08T03:28:00.000+01:00

So, to Luke's horror, out came quite a few oldies (music, not choir members you understand). Starting with Jede Sedlak, we were instructed to be bouncy and energetic. Whereupon our most energetic bass, Sebastian, looked absolutely terrifyingly manic with his bounciness. And once started he was like a pogo-stick and couldn't stop! This encouraged Anne to have a go (I tell you, if she goes at her garden with as much vitality it is not surprising it's worthy of the Chelsea Flower Show!). Anne and I (well, there was nothing stopping me joining in) had a wee dance and "seriously," said Anne, "there should be more of it!" The whole song was uplifted and sounded fresh, and it really set the tone for the whole evening. Go Sebastian, schatz!

Actually, he did go. On his bottom, on the floor, to roll when asked to roll the 'r's (NOT meaning the rear end!) when purring in Kiisu Misu. Angus nearly had me rolling on the floor with the facial contortions he was making in trying to purr. Enough about the basses! Honestly, last week it was Luke stealing the blog page! The basses are taking over!! AAARGH!

Onto more serious stuff. CHATTING in the rehearsal. Tut tut, Anne and Kay. Classic line from Ollie: "Just because you're holding your folders up doesn't mean I don't know what you're up to!"

Protested Kay, "But there's been a fire. It's really serious." He didn't think it was serious enough, and said it could wait until after the rehearsal.

Ollie asked if anyone knew a violinist to play for the Hebrew Love Songs. I said my wee boy has just had his second violin lesson, and Susan said something sarcastic about it but I didn't catch what exactly...

Now, which piece was it where Ollie said he wasn't going to go over and over it, but did anyway!? La Tricotea. The words, as the title might suggest, are indeed tricky. And to our horror, we're doing the second verse as well. The sopranos had a chance to sit and smirk at us poor lower voices, as they don't sing in this piece.

So, all will come together at the Ross Band Stand on the 15th August at 10am. And as I can't think of anymore funny people to write about, I'd better go and do the big Tesco shopping.

J

ps

Message from Thomas:

I am fine. Currently I am applying for next year, as my contract runs out next year September. I won't know before January...

As you were asking for good news: I am going to marry my dear Steffi next year in August (... writing this actually brought back the memory of you asking me about my boyfriend... I still find this hilarious...)

Please, tell everyone my regards.

And one from Ollie2:-

Best wishes to all of you. I've been trying to find a choir that is as cool as Rudsambee in London, and there doesn't seem to be one. You're too wonderfully unique...

Guest post

2010-07-29T01:34:00.000+01:00

Ahem. Where is the blogstress? Having a good skive off in Germany, methinks. So whilst I'm in the mood I, Jenny, will comment on tonight's rehearsal.

We all had a jolly good skive last week. Ollie was ill. I was ill (though admittedly on Thursday not Wednesday). Kay had a funny throat (probably all the dust with moving house). And I don't know who else was ill, but I don't think many people turned up in spite of John's very kind offer to supply us with wine and revelry in the director's absence.

Everyone was better this evening. Oh, much better, judging how focused and jolly we were rehearsing our Cloudburst ~~racket~~ er, music. Unless it was a result of all the haircuts - quite a few ladies turned up with trims. Personally, a good haircut makes me feel very sprightly and is guaranteed to put me in a good mood. Another reason could be that we're very much looking forward to performing Cloudburst again, and especially in St Giles (29th August, hint hint).

Watch out for our new Bass's extraordinary finger clicking talents in this piece! Luke can do all four fingers very loud and fast which not only gives a kind of washboard impression, but would have Eric Whitacre reeling and drooling that it's EXACTLY what he requires for rainy sound effects. This led to a demonstration of weird talents. Arno, for instance, is able to flap his fingers against the palms of his hands which produces a kind of clapping noise (causing Sebastian to ask if that was in fact the sound of one hand clapping); it looked as if he was playing invisible castanets very manically. No one was interested in me being able to wiggle my big toes, choosing to focus on other, more womanly, assets. I can only take it as a compliment... thanks, Elaine, for drawing attention in that direction!

Concentrating solely on Cloudburst, we were rather impressed with Luke's and Natalie's (our new Alto - just for the extra confusion of two Natalies in the Alto section) sight reading and their ability to keep up with what was going on.
Luke, the main feature in this blog it seems(!), gets second prize for comment of the evening: when Ollie mentioned we will be singing the Hebrew Love Songs, Luke boldly asked "Er, what did you say I haven't sung yet?" It gave Robin hysterics. He was rather giggly anyway after Ollie's priceless request that he wanted to, "... hear a noise coming out from the bottom section". He might have been feeling very happy anyway, due to the fact he passed his driving theory test today!

John tried to hand over his narrations in Cloudburst to Anna-Lauren saying she speaks better Spanish. Which is probably true, but as Anna-Lauren says he has a way of putting it across. We decided to attempt stereo. John will do the first narrated bit, and A-L the second one.

So, we all go home with sore thighs from all the slapping. Don't get excited, it's very boring really. Even though Helen promised she'd slap me... I'm sure Eric wasn't thinking of anything except how to emulate the sound of rain when he wrote the instruction to slap the thighs. I await an email link from Arno who, typically, seemed to have a theory about where slapping yourself hurts least or makes the most noise... will report back if any experiments get to rehearsal.

I'm off to bed now. But first I will indulge in a cream cracker and a glass of milk, and finish a bit of knitting. Singing makes me hungry. I'm not going to eat the knitting.

Rain, rain, go away...

2010-07-17T01:17:00.001+01:00

Lord Loveaduck! (and so he must as this is the weather for them) what is going on? Silly question. This is Scotland and summer and we’re gearing up for the Festival – why wouldn’t it be bucketing? Who doesn’t appreciate a bit of fog (or shall we call it a haar for poetry’s sake)? Who needs to be able to see the castle? What type of boring personage does not enjoy puddle-dodging?

We had some extremely bedraggled arrivals at choir last night – Kay had to borrow trousers from Susan so thoroughly soaked was she about the legs – but that’s what you get for cycling in a downpour without your waterproofs. I discovered my shoes had holes in them. Not large ones for it took a while to register the damp toesies and really quite a reasonable length of time for them to become truly waterlogged – but holes there are and wet my feet were and I was going to complain very loudly indeed until I saw the state of the cyclists and that put sodden trotters into perspective and shut me up good an’ proper.

So – we had a rather late-in-the-day email from Chris yesterday suggesting that we might like to bring along copies of Cloudburst (our man Eric (Whitacre (yum))) to the rehearsal. As we are going to be singing this in a matter of weeks and as it is rather complicated and as Luke and new Natalie have never set eyes on it before (and as now, as it turns out, you’d think none of the rest of us has, either) – this seemed like a very good idea. Oh, but it’s a tricky little number. Involves waving around of arms and clicking of fingers and slapping of legs and clapping of hands as well as breathing – yes, breathing too, can you believe it? And the Boy Wonder not only expects us to keep filling our lungs while waving and clicking and slapping and clapping and, oh, yes of course, how could I forget? – singing, but he seems to think we can take in such deep breaths and support them so well that we can keep on yodelling for minutes at a time without a refill. Well – he can think what he likes but I fear he’s bound to be disappointed. I can barely get two words out in this one before I start going blue around the edges. I suppose I shall have to practice and hope someone is around to resuscitate me if I take things too far.

We only worked on the first page to begin with and it was largely remembered, if raggedy, but we had to keep stopping so Ollie could explain things to Luke (Natalie 2 wasn’t there which is a bit of a worry as she’s supposed to sing with me) because there’s a lot of explaining to do for anyone who hasn’t seen the music before. I remember perusing it for the first time and thinking I must be in the middle of a very bad dream. And still one line gave me serious trouble yesterday – so much so that Anne had to sing with me to help me out, Jenny having been transferred to the Tenor department and me being the only Alto 2 present. I think Jen and I never actually sang this bit right to begin with. I reckon we re-wrote it to suit ourselves and that is why I was struggling with it last night - it was most distressingly unfamiliar! Anyway, Ollie has given me Jenny back to help out here and there in the difficult passages so she will have to hop about between parts and I feel this is bound to result in a bit more... re-working. (I’m sure Mr Whitacre (yum) would be delighted with our version of his music if he ever heard it). I’m afraid I have to admit to a squeaky protest of "I don’t need help, I’ll get it eventually" etc. etc. (and at a pitch to make a Soprano green with envy) but I’ll be glad to have my old partner in composition-crime back again for the re-writes. I mean the tricky bits.

After this the Sopranos were sent away to work on... something, while the Altos, Tenors and Basses had a wee go at a new/old Spanish piece which goes very fast and is very wordy at times and just a little bit of a tongue-twister. The Ts and Bs started to learn it last week or the one before and we Altos were in danger of tying our tongues in knots as we tried to keep up with their linguistic acrobatics, however the BW took pity on us and we were able to s...l...o...w... down quite considerably for a while in order to get untangled and begin to make sense of what we were singing. It’s a jolly little piece in a simple sort of way and will be fun to sing, I think.

There was a confused swapping around of people and places as the boys went off with Anne to look at more Cloudburst while the sops came back to join the alts for a little work on our Abbie Betinis caravan song (unfortunately without loudness from Jenny as she is already very good at that and there is more to be done on the rest of it than on her BIG moment). There will be quite a few solos in this (I won’t get one, I know, and I think I’m quite glad about that though no doubt I’ll miss the second or two of limelight when it comes to performance – I’ll pull faces or something instead to get myself noticed).

Eventually we all got back together again to have a go at the end of Cloudburst which is where all the extra physical activity comes into play and, well, disaster or what? I, for one, need to do some serious homework. I’m sure it will all come back to me and a fair few people seemed to remember their parts very well indeed (of course, the boys had had a chance to re-familiarise themselves with it by then so they don’t count) so all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well – hooray!

At the end of the evening Susan distributed a worryingly large number of boxes of herbal tea. Where it came from I’ve no idea but I’m with Robin on the back-of-a-lorry theory. And she looks so respectable, too. These Morningside types are not to be trusted. Sneaky. Shifty. If you hear of a herbal tea heist any time soon you’ll know where to point the finger. You got it from me. Make sure to share your reward.

The rain was still raining and the wind gusting so Robin and I engaged in all sorts of unnecessary (but, as he pointed out with consummate charm) very enjoyable conversation and story-telling while trying to look as if we weren’t waiting for Jenny to finish her discussion (looked mighty serious) – (NB the words ‘Jenny’ and ‘serious’ have probably never appeared together in a sentence before) - with Sebastian so that we could look surprised when she offered us a lift home. She wasn’t fooled for a second but she offered anyway. Sorted.

Now, next week I am off down south on Thursday morning and may well have no time for blogstuff so I hope someone else will fill you in on our doings and sayings but I hope they don’t do it too successfully because I am beginning to enjoy this job and wish to keep it, useless as I often am. I’ll be away for two weeks. I shall miss you. Be good.

Kisses.

Good God – it is 2 o’clock in the morning!!

EAVB_WIPGCVVLJP

A quiet evening in Morningside

2010-07-08T00:54:00.000+01:00

Hello, mes amies, how’s things avec vous, ce soir? Je suis very well, merci for asking.

So, yes, a very quiet evening. Quite a crowd of people but not much nonsense (no Jenny who is on holiday and causing havoc elsewhere) and it was all over very quickly indeed though I think we managed to do a fair amount of work. We learned a new piece by Debussy – very Debussy, too. Liked it. Though if I had remembered to take my file (ie my music) I might have managed better because then I would have had some control over the pages. Instead I found myself turning over all wonky and trilling from page 5 when everyone else was on page 7 and page 9 when they were on 11 and so on and so forth and SO bad for one’s sight-reading. Kay, having spent an amusing half hour or so listening to my squeaks and sighs of frustration, laughed at me and my noises and told me not to make feeble excuses for my lack of basic music skills. Cruel. Fair, but cruel all the same.

Then we went over one we learned last week all about praying in a river, which seems a strange place to choose but chacun à son (rather soggy) goût. Very gospel. Like this too, especially after tonight when the basses and tenors were exhorted to sing with appropriate expression and expressions: eyes closed, pained look of rapture (as demonstrated by Ollie looking rather as if he had an extremely nasty internal upset) which resulted in a star turn from Robin who appeared quite carried away with religious ecstasy (I presume it was religious but I’ve spoken of dubious moral standards before...) The song asks "who shall wear the robe and crown?" and I decided we should award the robe, at least, to Robin and dress him up for performances in some large, cassocky type garment in which guise he can stand at the front and emote for all of us. Probably he’ll insist on the crown as well. Or a tiara at least. Lovely. Do come see.

While most of this was going on Sebastian snuck away to watch Germany losing their fussball match (which I believe was of some importance). Bit of a shame as I feel sure he’d have given Robin a run for his money in the competition for the cassock of emotion. Now, unless the Boy Wonder makes them do it all over again next week, we’ll never know which one of them is more deserving. And I wouldn’t care to guess.

Well, me darlin’s, I b’lieve that’s all as I has to say. An’ it’s late an’ I is weary. Lord A’mighty, how I is weary!

And I have to get up and play tennis tomorrow morning. Hmmmm.

A bientôt xx

Another missing week, another rushing blogetteer….

2010-07-01T20:22:00.005+01:00

Hey there, folksies.

Sorry.

Someone should keep a word count because I’m sure my blogs contain that particular adjective more than most.

I decided against an update last week as we were due to have a very exciting and exacting day on Saturday which I though would make far better news than the goings-on on Wednesday evening. However – life then took over and I couldn’t find time to follow through with my plans. And now I am here and in a rush AGAIN – (off to Germany in a while and not prepared, naturally). Aaaagh!

Yes, yes, I know – it’s all my own fault. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

So to Saturday. What a day we had. Met at the Reid Concert Hall at 9.45ish and then worked very hard indeed – with a short break for tea/coffee and birthday cake (more of that later*) and a short break for lunch – until about 4.15. We rehearsed and recorded and rehearsed and recorded and we got through everything we had to do in a pretty disciplined manner, let me tell you. Ollie only had to look pained a couple of times and raise his voice about once. We were so good. And that is a rare and beautiful thing. It has paid off, apparently, as Ollie announced last night that the recordings sound amazing. Yey! Can’t wait to hear them.

We now have Dormi Jesu – Abbie Betinis; three almost-impossible-to-get-hold-of-a-recording-of Armenian folk songs by Komitas; Une Puce – Le Jeune; Dieu! Qu’il la fait bon regarder – Debussy; Bogoroditsye Dyevo (probably spelt wrongly but I know it off-by-heart and lost my copy long ago and usually just call it ‘Bog Off’ anyway) – Arvo Part (with an umlaut) and one of our swing songs (done as an extra for fun and because we are cleverer than the men) down for posterity and I, for one, will proudly distribute copies to friends and family whether they want them or not.

(Red-squiggle Central after that).

*Anne’s birthday. She had to bring her own cake (delicious it was) and demand to be sung to. After all she does for us, too. Shameful behaviour. We devoured the cake and yelled a duly tuneless ‘Happy Birthday’ – eventually.

Having had a wee bit longer break we hurried (ran, in my case – I never used to be late for anything…blame all my friends who have kept me waiting over the years and worn me down) back to the hall for our evening concert. A short warm-up (or cool-down for me) and then downstairs to await our huge and avid audience…

…..of 20.

Yes, that’s right. 20. Only a few more of them than us – and usually we’d have been about on a par but there were a couple of absentees in our ranks.

What happened? Well – it was a beautiful evening, Andy Murray was playing tennis, people were selfishly busy graduating and there were several marches all jostling for a bit of Edinburgh road space so no wonder we were overlooked, eh? And, oh! such a quiet audience they were too until Anne bravely pointed out that they should feel free to applaud – which they then did as loudly as 20 slightly awkward-feeling people can. They looked happy enough – honest. And considering what a day we’d had we didn’t do too badly either – though we’ve been better. Anna Lauren forgot to come in at one point (too busy counting the audience though really that’s a poor excuse as it should have taken only about a milli-second), Helen saved the day but then dropped her music all over the floor (luckily at a point when she didn’t really need it any more), Jenny didn’t appear to have any music judging by the way she had to keep nudging closer to me and looking over my shoulder and there was a long silence in the middle of ‘She Moved Through the Fair’ when the small group members forgot to keep singing between verses. Ah well! Some things the audience wouldn’t have noticed and others they seemed to forgive us for so all’s well that ends with us vaguely in tune.

Last night we started some new pieces and got on really well – they will be fun to sing. And Jenny gets a chance to holler really loudly (so much so that Susan was concerned for her glass-wear and her neighbours’ comfort – but, hey, the notes weren’t high enough to threaten the glasses and the neighbours can put up with a thundering Jenny if they can put up with the rest of us at full throttle) and she will sound quite extraordinary in St Giles acoustic so you’d better be there to witness it. (29th August, 6pm).

Other excitement – the appearance of a new alto – Natalie by name, so maintaining the Rudsambee tradition of including at least two people with the same moniker at any one time as a mode of spreading confusion amongst members and fans. Natalie 2 is lovely. Used to be an actress like yours’ truly and may be again one day for all we know but is working for a charity at the moment – a much worthier job, I have to say! She seemed to enjoy herself and promised to be back next week. So there’s one vacancy filled. More newbies to come before too long, we hope.

Jen enjoyed herself hugely by telling John he had a leak under his car. I thought she was looking expectant and mischievous. When John returned wielding a rather phallic vegetable I understood. She then tried to get the leek back. What cheek. Finders keepers as someone (Susan, I think, who stood to gain from the acquisition of said veg) quite rightly pointed out.

Much hilarity. Jen purple.

Must dash. xx

ps This just in: pictures from last week's concert courtesy of Ally:

Sunday evening – oops

2010-06-20T22:53:00.000+01:00

Oh! so many apologies for those who like to start the weekend with a blog-fix. Blame the sun, blame my mother-in-law for having an 80th birthday, blame the weeds in the garden but DON’T BLAME ME!

Now I’m having doubts as to the spelling of the word "blame"... just doesn’t look right once it’s been written more than twice. Ah well! No red squiggles so it must be OK – though there is a green one which I can’t understand or get rid of. It’s under the ‘blame’ before the weeds – could it be a weed? If so I’ll be after it with my little knife or my big spade and you may never hear from me again...

I was hoping to have a brand new computer by now but unfortunately, because of the mother-in-law and the nasty green things, there’s been no time to go and buy one. The hubby wasn’t around long enough to get his cheque book or his cards out – home Friday at midnight and off to Germany again already so I have to wait for another few weeks. Will this poor old thing keep functioning in the meantime? Not if I attack it with my little knife or my big spade that’s for certain. Those green squiggles better keep themselves to themselves.

So – Wednesday. What a long time ago that seems. There was a reasonable turn-out, although at 8.43pm the five of us who got there good and promptly were looking at one another with some concern wondering what had happened to the Boy Wonder and everyone else. Much to our relief he and they (or most of ‘em, anyway) arrived soon after and on we got.

Once again the sops and altos did some swinging while the tenors and basses went away with Anne to have a go at their splits. (Next time you see us there will be a gymnastic display by the men. Which will be nice. And novel.) We (the higher voiced, that is – though I am thus reminded of yet more hurtful name-calling as Jenny and I were yet again referred to as ‘the manly women’ – there is absolutely no respect shown for our exquisitely rich, 2nd alto rumblings) are almost there. Up in the tree tops without falling off. And judging by our full-choir rendition of On Hillisuvi when the lads returned, they did OK too – but who’d dare not to with Anne in charge?

We also went over Dormi Jesu which was well remembered and pretty gorgeous and the Armenian pieces to make sure we’d got the pronunciation right – which I think we have and that was it apart from a new Tormis piece (oh my, how popular he is right now, isn’t he?) called Kahvatu Valgus (sadly) or Pale Light (much better).

Now, I have spent many fruitless hours with a dictionary and my thesaurus looking up the word ‘tatterous’. Any ideas? Apparently it can apply to the heavens – it does in this song, anyway... I quote: "neath heavens so tatterous riven". Lovely – don’t you think? Nonsense, I fear, but really rather expressive. Our Boy Wonder has a favourite time-wasting game which involves getting the computer to translate a sentence or paragraph into another language and then translate it back again. The more times you do this the funnier it gets. And I’m sure most people have been on to web-sites advertising the joys to be had in various exotic holiday locations written in almost totally incomprehensible English. Translators seem to have a favourite trick of giving up on difficult words and simply substituting something from their own language, vaguely anglicised and this is what appears to have happened here. I read "taterous" to begin with and wondered if it might have something to do with spuds – though it seemed unlikely – but then I noticed the second "t" which no doubt makes all the difference. Please enlighten, if at all possible. Or send suggestions as to what these words evoke in your creative and cultured imaginations.

Bisous.

An Armenian in Edinburgh.

2010-06-12T01:23:00.000+01:00

Monsieur le Soleil, Master of Millinery, has another hat on. Very smart he is looking – and about time too, don’t you think?

However, down here in Troglodyte land it is as dark and dusty as ever and there is a draft from upstairs where the back door is open to let in the warm, fresh air – somehow not quite so warm once it gets down here. Ah well, the more quickly I do my duty by you the more quickly I’ll escape the chill breeze... so, on I go.

Last night we learned how to pronounce Armenian words. Unfortunately last time we sang our Komitas pieces we had it all wrong so who knows what we were trilling about?? What larks. Ollie announced some weeks ago that he had found an Armenian gentleman willing to come and teach us the necessary – no mean feat as apparently there are only two or three Armenians in Edinburgh and hardly any more in the whole of Scotland though you’ll find a welter of them in London and a fair few in Birmingham – but said gentleman had proven frustratingly incorporeal and, indeed, had we had the above information, I think we would have come to the conclusion that he was nothing but a figment of the Boy Wonder’s imagination. Last night he materialised – quite small and probably easily missed so maybe he came before as expected and we failed to see him? Anyway, he may be diminutive but he was HUGELY useful as well as being charming and charmingly impressed by our singing (accents aside). Now we can be sure that, in the unlikely event of another Armenian or two turning up at our forthcoming concerts, we will not embarrass ourselves by singing something rude by mistake (mind you, as it appears one of the lines in one of the songs is something to do with a young lady being exhorted to ‘come down from the mountain and shake your... [um]... chest’ perhaps they’re rude enough already). I believe our friend – who’s name I cannot remember sorry sorry sorry – is going to come to our concert on the 26th and bring his wife and a few other people so let us hope we don’t let him down. It’s always a bit tricky re-learning something and as we’d committed these songs to memory for the National Gallery it might be even harder than usual, particularly when it’s mostly a small-seeming matter of replacing some ‘um’s with ‘am’s and ‘p’s with ’b’s. Of course there are some almost impossible sounds to make, too, but we’re used to that and will do our best as always! There’s bound to be an argument, sorry, discussion next week when we find that everyone has written down something different for the tricky words and has been busily practising them all week (!!!) in their own way. Worra laff!

So – we girls did not work on Clifford this week so he remains only as battered as he was after the lads had a go at him (that was bad enough; what thugs they are. But I believe he is out of hospital – for now!). Instead we did some more work on our new swing-song and then practised linking it to the old one and then delighted the boys with it again – they tried to look interested, bless them, but failed dismally – and I think we may find we’re performing these rather sooner than we’d expected for Ollie hinted that they might be included in the programme for the 26th... you’ll have to be there to find out if I’m right.

I promised I would mention, for anyone reading this in Edinburgh (there are hoards of you, I know) that we are looking for new members so if you can sing soprano, tenor or bass – or all three – can sight read reasonably well (I can’t believe I have the cheek to be writing that!) and are willing to audition, do get in touch. And if none of this applies to you but know someone to whom it does then tell them to get in touch. This is a matter of some urgency as we are losing a few members before too long and need to get people in to start learning before they leave us (sob, sob, tearing of hair). A smooth transition is desirable. That’d be a first...

Adieu. xx

The Sun Has Got His hat On – Yey!

2010-06-05T01:14:00.000+01:00

Well.

There was I, feeling so utterly uninspired yesterday that I turned off this computer without attempting a word of a blog and then, this-evening, again feeling somewhat dead between the ears and wanting to be out in my glorious and very-much-freer-of-weed-than-this-morning garden and not sitting in Troglodyte Dell (i.e. downstairs where the girls and this machine live in the dark, amongst the strewn clothing) when what should happen but that I read my e-mails to find they contain some wonderful messages of praise and encouragement for your bloggetteer. Thank you, my lovely Rudsambee buddies, but oh! what a guilt trip I am now on!! And also somewhat obliged to give you something to read. Yikes!

The eldest is playing repetitive music now which is going to get into my brain and make this task even harder dab-n-do-dab-n-dah.

That reminds me of Sebastian’s improvised warm-up on Wednesday [things can only get better] when he had us [this is the rhythm of the night] shoop-de-doing and ba-be-dabbing [everybody dance now (she can’t make up her mind)] all over the place. It was really quite impressive – he just made it up as he went along giving each few people something different to sing and it all went together and sounded very funky indeed. I don’t think I could do such a thing. Who am I kidding? I know I couldn’t. Clever boy.

So, what else did we do? Well, Ollie sent the lads off into the other room to work on our song about Clifford – whom, Robin reminded us, is actually a big red dog so that’s put paid to any hope of a straight face during performance. I don’t know how they got on but indications were of little progress – glum faces on return, mention of it not yet being a piece of music. It’s the girls’ turn next week. Bet we can do better (better at destroying any resemblance to a piece of music I mean, naturally).

While the chaps were off mugging poor old Cliff we girlies got to try a new piece of Tormis; companion to our Timid Girl on a Swing (the song, that is, not him) (am I making any sense? It’s probably sunstroke). (By the way she’s not at all timid – more like Fragonard’s lovely, swinging with no knickers on, but that’s beside the point). We did very well, I think. And it’s fun. And we’ll probably sing both pieces at St Giles in the summer so be there! (August 29th, Sunday, 6pm, FREE – no excuses)

Having performed our pretty good stab at whatever the new song’s called to the basses and tenors – who looked less than impressed, I must say but perhaps they were just sour-grape-ily jealous of our genius? – we had a go at Sfogava Con Le whoosit to see if we could remember it, which – somewhat surprisingly - I did; though it goes very low for the 2nd altos at one point and, it being a while since I’ve been required to sink to such depths (vocally at least) I found myself from time to time, larynx protesting at ill-usage, inadvertently yodelling in the quieter passages.

On to that pesky old flea of an Olde Frenchy type – Une Puce – which, if you remember from a previous blog, we are supposed to sing off-by-heart and the words of which are rather fond of wandering off to see what’s going on round the corner. Elaine, quite rightly pointed out that those lucky b*****s in Choir 1 (not her word/asterisks, she’s far too well bred) who are singing verses one and three had had considerably more practice than those of us who, as a bit of an afterthought, were landed with verse four, rarely sung and really rather difficult to learn for some reason. Maybe it is lack of practice but I rather suspect an ancient curse. We divided into our two groups and choir 2 got a good go at the evil verse four and maybe, just maybe, were a little better at it by the time we’d sung it through slow and fast and fast and slow and over and over again. I daresay we’ll all have forgotten verse two now but, hey, at least we’ll finish well which is all that matters in the end.

In the end. And this is it. xx

Me again!

2010-05-27T18:49:00.000+01:00

Back so soon? I hear you ask. Well, yes. Here I am, raring to go, only days after my last effort. Extraordinary.

Yesterday we sang new songs. Two of them. One of them was called I Remember Clifford. A really silly song title, don’t you think? It’s the name. Clifford. Apologies to any of you who bear that moniker but, well, it’s a silly name to write a song about. It was Sebastian’s idea to sing it and he’s German so we have to forgive him as it’s unlikely he realises quite how daft it sounds. Clifford was, apparently, a very fine trumpeter. Perhaps some of you know his work. I’m sure he is worthy of a whole song-book of praise but maybe the composer should simply have dedicated the music to him and kept his name out of the lyrics. Am I being unfair?

Anyway, we had a note-bashing session and duly bashed them completely senseless. Some work required, methinks. A great deal of work required. Jenny, naturally, had a purple-face episode or two (clashed ‘orribly with her orange jumper, let me tell you), so much so at one point that I was deeply concerned for her welfare. That point was when we had to sing ‘... for these who heard mm...’ - just for those of you who are wondering what sort of thing sets her off. Actually, almost anything can set her off. Actually, forget the ‘almost’.

Our other new piece is another Chinese song, Lake Wild-Goose – and, oh! so squeakily high for the sopranos (and after Ollie promised he wouldn’t give them anything of that nature, too. The boy wonder is shameless). When he suggested we sing ‘the goosey one’ Jenny said, with worried face, ‘but I haven’t got any Debussy’. Orange and purple still looked bad.

We only had to ‘la’ to this as Chinese is pretty much beyond us all – except for our new experts, John and Susan, who learned some for their recent visit to China and who assured us that it is written in Mandarin. Clever, eh? It is also translated into whatever they call it when Chinese is written in our alphabet but as these words never sound how they look it is advisable to leave well alone until someone who knows what’s what can get to us with the information required. Last time this was Ollie who had had instruction from an informed personage and had written it all out in his own version of phonetics so heaven only knows what we were singing about but it probably had nothing whatever to do with a Green Fir Forest. Perhaps this time we’ll be crooning about Peking Duck Pond. I do hope so.

So that was it. Lots of hard work (for those of us who showed up) but a good start.
We had a visitor in the extremely small shape of Anna-Lauren’s sister Skylar (who would fit very snugly in Luke’s pocket) here on a visit from America. She is, I understand, a very good musician indeed so I don’t know what she made of our caterwaulings but she was still smiling at the end of the evening so it would appear she is as brave and polite as she is musical.

I must away to ready myself for a supper date with my cousin and his wife (isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to know?). I have been gardening so it could take some time...

AGM and TWOTY - TWO

2010-05-26T23:01:00.001+01:00

Plus - The Unexpected and Extremely Exciting Arrival of an Old Friend, with descriptions of a range of interesting and amusing reactions for your delectation...

Yes, well, yet again somewhat delayed though with good excuses this time. A very late return from Germany – they’ve changed the flight times for some reason and I didn’t get back here ‘til after midnight on Sunday; then work and a hard Pilates class on Monday so far too exhausted (!!) to type.

Anyway, the TWOTY was pretty well dealt with last time so on to the AGM; one evening a year (obviously) of huge excitement and absolutely no singing whatsoever; which, as there’s a concert peeking its scary head over the horizon (June 26th, btw, for those fans able to attend and swell audience numbers, Reid Concert Hall at the university, 7.30 p.m. – see you there xx), is/was rather a shame but duty must be done, Treasurer’s reports reported (yawn) (apologies to very useful, efficient and uncomplaining Dick) (Treasurer) (but ‘yawn’ all the same) and discussion had as to who, what, where and when. And why.

Why, indeed.

Alison takes the chair at these meetings and does a fine job keeping us up to the mark and preventing too much deviation from matters-in-hand - and we are an easily deviated no, no, no diverted bunch, I assure you. However, we listened quietly and with respect to the Treasurer’s report and I am pleased to tell you that Rudsambee has come through the last year or so of financial turmoil in fine shape and with money in the bank. How’s that then? Those city types need to have a word with us. There’s something to be said for singing for your supper, after all, eh? Ha!
We also have to go through the list of who-does-what-committee-and-board-members to see if everyone is happy with their lot and willing to continue for another year.

Usually this is very simple because everyone is, but this year, never so far having been allowed a position of responsibility, I decided to stage a coup and bag one. Waving an AK47 in one hand and a machete (brought back from a jungle trip last year by my niece) in the other with the pin of a hand-grenade clamped between my teeth, I demanded – OK, forget the hand-grenade – I demanded to be taken seriously and to be given POWER. POWER , I say. Proper power. None of this bloggy nonsense. What do they take me for? Don’t they know who I am????

What? Where was I? Oh, yes... but this year, Anne announced that she thinks it is time someone took over from her as extremely-useful-can’t-be-done-without-organiser-of-everything-and-everybody. What her real title is I have no idea. Administrator? That sounds about right. There were many gasps of horror and wails of disbelief and absolutely no offers whatsoever from potential successors. But what an act to follow. I, for one, have no intention of applying for the post – you see how I struggle to organise myself into blogging mode; imagine if I were responsible for the organisation of concerts and tours and money. Apparently we are likely to lose Dick as our Treasurer at the same time. Oh Lordy. The end is nigh! What will we do??? I’ll keep you posted. This much I can manage.

There was more, of course, but here you have the best of it.

So... onto the unexpected arrival... I turned up on Wednesday to find that Alison had decided to confound and confuse by taking a seat in the alto section for the purposes, above mentioned, of chairing our meeting. Why? I don’t know but she looked pretty amused with herself and one doesn’t argue with chairs. So, I made for the sopranos and while greeting Elaine did a really rather spiffing double-take with genuine grunt of surprise in the vocal department – nothing I could repeat if I ever find myself on stage and required to do a double take with a genuine grunt of surprise – on noticing our old friend and sometime diva, Claire 1, calmly seated as of old amongst the holy high ones. Well, how lovely. (She seemed very happy to be with us but must have been feeling a little disappointed not to be able to exercise her golden vocal chords. Bad timing, Diva dear. Ollie and I did our best to persuade her she should join us for our St Giles’ concert in the summer when she can warble Cloudburst with us once more. She appears keen!) Next came Anna-Lauren who squealed so loudly in delight when she saw Claire that it is just as well she wasn’t required to sing later for I think she’d have had no voice left to do it with. Claire was then engulfed in a hug of heroic proportions which confirmed, if anyone had been in doubt thus far, that A-L has missed C₁ hugely and was over the moon to have her back, even if for one night only. Natalie looked very pleasantly surprised if a little confused when she arrived and spotted our friend; Ollie, whose permission for the visit had been sought and won, not at all surprised but very smiley and then, then came Jenny.

Jenny was late – something to do with boys and babysitting – and crept in as Dick was giving the Treasurer’s Report, seating herself on the floor at Angus’s feet. She was pretty much opposite Claire but failed to see her even when Claire leaned right forward and waved a hand and pulled a face or two (sorry, Dick). I am still amazed at her self-control – not something for which our Jen is renowned - when she finally did realise who she was looking at; A huge intake of breath, hands clamped over wildly grinning mouth, eyes on stalks, eyebrows above hairline, face purple, shoulders shaking – but not one squeak or snort or chortle escaped . Not one. Not from her anyway, though others were less well-behaved. But then, we were watching her and rarely has a funnier sight been seen.

I missed the rest of the reactions as everyone else was there before me but here you have a small selection with my compliments.

The End.

AGM and TWOTY

2010-05-20T23:20:00.000+01:00

Hello, dear Readers. Here I am, dashing off a missive before zooming off to the airport for a trip to Munich. And with two occasions to report on I hope I don’t short-change you in my hurry.

So – first things first: TWOTY. Douglas and Jean’s wedding last Saturday which was a triumph and a delight and I feel sorry for all of you who missed it; either because you were not invited (tee hee) or because you were otherwise prevented from attending. We had a great time; good ceremony with an outstanding contribution from your favourite choir (that's us, BTW) who were on superlative form (although I have to admit to a mistake or two entirely due to over-confidence and not looking at my music).

The church was sweet with a good acoustic and very full indeed of smartly dressed people (well, mostly. You can’t be involved in banning bombs and making the world a better/greener place without having a hippie or two for a friend!!) Those who did the readings – well-chosen pieces, too; none of that "love is gentle, blah blah, blah yawn" stuff but Romans (which??), a Janet Paisley poem called "These Rings" or something similar (your blogetteer was a minor poet once-upon-a-long-time-ago, btw, and did workshops with aforementioned lady whose work is worth having a peek at if you don’t know it already) and a beautiful Native American People’s poem/prayer which another friend of mine also used at her wedding and with its bidding to "... walk gently through the world and know (?) its beauty..." sends shivers down the spine of yours truly ... by now you will have forgotten the beginning of this sentence, am I turning into Proust???? – those who did the readings did them really, really well. Bravo.

The reception was a lovely relaxed affair with only one-and-a-bit speeches, from our hosts, and then delicious food to give us some energy for dancing. The choir sang a few rousing numbers to get things going, one of which was an arrangement (notorious to some) of "Only You" with Anne on piano, Douglas brilliantly on lead vocals (took us all by surprise, I can tell you – superb) and the rest of us "ba-ba-ba-ba" and "sha-la-la"-ing for all we were worth in the background. (Luckily the consumption of alcohol thus far had been really very moderate so we didn’t drown Douglas out with over-enthusiasm, which was a real potential danger, let me tell you!)

Energetic dancing (Arno nearly died, I think) followed, with a break or two for further performances (well done, mini-Wild Myrtles, lovely).

I left with exactly the same people I arrived with though I can only speak for myself (and by extension Ollie, Helen and Chris) so I don’t know what dodgy arrangements were arrived at by others (see last week’s blog for explanation) – but we stayed to see the cake being cut and then headed home by which time Ollie and I, at least, had had a fair old gallop around the dance floor and worked off most of the food we’d consumed earlier. I spoiled this by stuffing far more than my fair share of wedding cake but – hey – what can a fruitcake/marzipan/icing junkie do?

Now I have to find somewhere to plant my little crab-apple tree. A lovely feature of the day saw seedling trees of various kinds distributed along the tables along with packets of wild-flower seed for guests to take home and plant/scatter in memory and celebration of Jean and Douglas’s day. How thoroughly romantic is that, then? As well as being so very right for people who care about the world as much as they do. Perfect.

Which, on a sartorial note, was how they both looked, by the way.
I have run out of time, I think, so will leave you with that for now with the promise of a report on both our AGM and the unexpected appearance of an old friend to follow when I return from Deutschland...

Tschus (with an umlaut) xx

ps here's some more photos:

The Eve of the Wedding of the Year

2010-05-14T15:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, we’re off to Biggar tomorrow to witness the marriage of our Douglas and the lovely Jean and to sing for them, too. I am sure you will join me in wishing them a beautiful day, a glorious wedding and many, many years of happily married life.

Lifts to the church were organised on Wednesday evening in a vague sort of a way, with Anne informing us that we didn't have to go home with the same person we arrived with. Hmmm. She also asked who would like to ‘go out’ with both Sebastian and Robin, then suggesting that Jenny might. She might well, but she’s on a hiding to nothing with one of them at least. Also, small matter but she is a married woman so best leave well alone, I’d say. Anne is married too but intimated that she’d be quite happy to swap her Dick for the return journey. All a bit frisky for my liking – I am getting quite concerned for the moral welfare of my fellow choir members. I do hope there is a weighty sermon about the sanctity of marriage tomorrow. I feel it is badly needed to keep people in line. I blame television.

So, much better turn out this week which was good to see. Bet Douglas was relieved. Having to rely on a group of morally questionable warblers to enhance your wedding service is quite bad enough without having them under-rehearsed as well. Things were sounding rather lovely, however, and we even had a chance to go through the impossible Son ar Chistr; a traditional Breton number though, if Ollie takes it as fast as he did on Wednesday, after we’ve all had a drink or two I think it won’t matter a damn what language it’s in as it won’t be anything but slurs and hiccups. Sari, who used to be in the choir, came along to play the bodhran (accents, accents, spelling, spelling) for us during this and our Gaelic set which sounded great and, what with a bit of clapping along, it will all be very jolly. There are a few other things which we plan to sing at the reception which we haven’t yet had a practice of but I think we know them well enough and by then, I daresay, people will be pissed relaxing and determined to enjoy themselves so I imagine they won’t care too much if there’s a certain raggedy charm to the performance.

Helen has promised me that she will wear a frilly dress to the reception and I will report on this next blog. My hopes are not raised too high however and I am prepared to be disappointed. If you knew Helen like I know Helen you’d know that a dress is pushing it - and as for frills... ah, well! Some things were just never meant to be. If she keeps her promise photos are a must and will be attached for your amuseme- ahem, delectation.

All of which reminds me – what am I going to wear??????

Late again

2010-05-10T00:46:00.000+01:00

Yes, yes, yes, I know but it has been quite a weekend in the McDonald household with return of wandering daughter and imminent birthday – 21st, no less – of younger. (No big party this time but lots of shopping required, naturally).

Lydia has returned with footage of her New Zealand bungee jump which looks completely terrifying but great fun and as the oldest person ever to do one was – apparently – 92 there is still plenty of time for me to get a go one day. Whoo-hoo! She apologised for bad language; unnecessarily, I feel, as I’m sure equally choice expressions would leave my lips once out on the ledge with no option but to leap off or look like a fool. Have to say – she did a great job. That’s my girl!

So – back to last Wednesday’s rehearsal which was quite remarkably badly attended. I know I’ve said this before but there were only 8 of us. Yes, 8. And not a Bass in sight!! Shocking. I hope anyone who was ill is now better and anyone who was having to meet a deadline met it and anyone else who had any good excuse for not being there did whatever it was they had to do with a reasonable measure of success and for the sake of Douglas’s nuptials next weekend I really hope there are more of us there this week!

We sang for only an hour or so; (partly, I have to admit, this was my fault as I had managed to lock myself out of my home and needed to get to younger sprog’s dwelling to pick up keys before she went out for the night. Thanks to Jenny I got there in plenty of time and so was able to sleep in my own bed and, more importantly, to let my husband in when he arrived home from Germany at 1 o’clock in the morning. But Ollie decided there wasn’t much point doing a full rehearsal with such depleted numbers and yet another one having to leave early). In our hour we were able to get a good run at This Marriage and to sing through the two songs I’ve never sung before so now I feel I know everything and can approach Douglas’s wedding with something like confidence. Hurrah!

Unfortunately, thanks to Helen and her really rather good impersonation, there are quite a few of us who will have difficulty keeping a straight face when, in This Marriage, we get to the line "... a seal of happiness..." – a lovely image but, well, I became quite hysterical and will have the greatest job to refrain from corpsing at the ceremony (for those of you who don’t know, this is a theatrical term for the uncontrollable urge to laugh during a performance; something that only ever happens at the most inopportune moments and actually causes physical pain!!) but I promise to try and control myself, Douglas, honest.

Oh, lordy – this is full of ME again. But there weren’t enough of us there on Wednesday to give me any scope for diversification. I can tell you, however, that Sebastian had his 40th birthday party at the weekend – which sadly I couldn’t attend – (down at Tyninghame which is an idyllic place) and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him all the best. Hope everyone had a great day/evening/night. It’s almost impossible not to in such a gorgeous place.

Ciao! xx

Claire

Two in a row – whoo-hoo.

2010-05-02T12:00:00.000+01:00

Hello, People, (or Person), (or no one at all),

Well, Saturday was going to be our barbeque and sing-song in Cranshaws day, but – bother and blimey, they couldn’t find us an audience! What can that mean????? Apparently the problem involves illness in the community. And lambing. And also, maybe, the fact that they’re programmed to expect us at Christmas, warbling carols. Perhaps nothing else will do. Whatever. We will not be going, after all. Which is a great shame. I will probably never now see Cranshaws by daylight. However, as it is quite magical all dark and glittering with frost and stars (real, proper, countryside starriness) I daresay I can live with the disappointment. See you in December, folks xx

The change in plans allowed us, this week, to have a look at more music for the Wedding of the Year which pleased yours truly because, as related last blog, there are a couple of things I’ve never set eyes on. Actually, three things I’ve never set eyes on. Now there are only two. We make progress. After Wednesday’s rehearsal I think I can claim to know Monateng Kapele (African, Sotho, in case you’re wondering) - great, rousing stuff which we can belt out good and proper – as long as we take care to give the verse a little more consideration. There’s always a catch. Now I just have to learn a Norwegian ditty that appears to be easy being all ‘dum, dum da’ –ey but will be a tricky little number, I’ve no doubt, as getting yer dums and das in the right order is bound to be problematic, don’t you think?

Then there is a version of Only You. This one consists of ‘ba-ba-ba’ and ‘sha-la-la’ – ditto above concern. I am not alone in my ignorance of these songs, which is a comfort. Next week we are bound to cover them and then all will be well...

It was a pleasure to re-visit Ave Maris Stella and If Ye Love Me (both absolute beauties) – and extremely good fun, if a little scary, to sing Gaol mo chridh-sa Mairi Bhan (there’s an accent or two in there which I can’t reproduce, so apologies to any Gaelic speakers who might be reading this) aka Mairi’s Wedding at break-neck speed (ooo, some Gaelic practice required, methinks!) and I hope my enthusiasm for the majority of Douglas’s choices makes up for my unthinking rudeness about one of them.("Do we have to? [practise it] I’ll slit my wrists.") Not clever. Sort of funny, but not clever.

Next week I must take a pen and a piece of paper as I know extremely amusing – occasionally hilarious - things occur or are said weekly and I can rarely remember what or why or by whom by the time I sit down to report. How useless is that? It means I have to write about myself (sigh) instead, which is not at all the point of this blog, though it may be of others. Note to self (me, again!!): MUST DO BETTER.

G’bye.