The Eve of the Wedding of the Year

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??????

"If it sounds simple it's because we are good at it" (J Wexler Esq 5/8/09)

T'rific opening line from Monsieur Wexler with reference to the Boy's Song (someone one day will tell me the actual title of the Russian/German ditty). And, of course, it could just as readily be applied to all Rudsambee performances, except for the Girl's Song (Timid Girl by Tormis) which sounded "poo" (C Warden 5/8/09).

So we began last night with a jolly version of Row, row, row your boat led by Claire 2...with actions...and sound effects. In fact the whole exercise confirmed only one thing for this blogstress, a fact learned in primary school - boys are rubbish at things. Actually our gentlemen redeemed themselves with some excellent performances for the rest of the evening, which perhaps confirms that they are just more rubbish at doing ridiculous action songs than girls...which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

We spent quite a bit of time on our African songs last night which are really begining to sound quite good. Now the Soweto Choir we ain't but even so...For the first song Sebastian leads us and so we just have to follow him; for the second the whole choir follow the sops which is a very dangerous thing to do especially as this blogstress made up half the lyrics. Kay and I also get to set the pace which is a bit of a responsibility.

After our friends in York performed Dindirin in its original Spanish/French/who knows/a bit of a mixture, Rudsambee (not to be outdone) decided we would give it a go. Actually it sounded rather good but not good enough to avoid the customary language discussion (Jen and I found a comfy seat on the couch and had a snooze at this point). In the end we were treated to a Sonny and Cher performance by Anne and John so if you want to know about pronunciation for this, ask them.

"Half past nine, half past nine, hang your knickers on the line". Advice there from Kay who apparently said that little rhyme all the time as a child. The mind boggles. The mind was equally boggled by Chris' suggestion that after the wedding on Saturday (don't panic happy couple, I am coming to that), something is happening on Corstorphine Hill. As Jen lives in the vicinity of that peak (sorry, 'peak' is a bit much, 'mound' might be better) anything could be happening up there. Attend at your peril.

We also, of course, spent a bit of time on Sfogava which is sounding...better than last week. So Saturday is the wedding and the Rudsambee-lets are all ready to go. The priest apparently doesn't know any bride that has ever been on time (actually I baulk that trend, arriving early for my wedding and that in spite of the rugby being on the telly) so we have to bring all our current music just in case. Bride, if you are 20 minutes late or more, your poor guests may well be treated to a round of Kanarbik or something really inappropriate like Dindirin which speaks of a doomed love affair, so I would make haste if I were you.

That's all for tonight. Just to bring you up to date with the rubbish crisis, my bins have now been emptied and I smiled at the bin man this morning, half because the weather is beautiful and it is dificult not to smile under blue skies, and half due to the relief of finally being able to remove a pizza box from my kitchen that has be sitting rather forlornly on my side for a week as I was unable to squeeze anything else into the 'bucket', as the Scots would say.

Until next time
CSW

The unbearable subjectiveness of dynamics

Well, just to keep you up to date with the rubbish problem in Auld Reekie Toon, as I'm sure many of you won't have slept a wink all week due to concern about the Blogstress having to scale piles of refuse on her way home: apparantly private firms are picking it up. I'll await the results.

Last night I made schoolboy error of forgetting I was leading warmup until two minutes before the rehearsal - duh! - so it was another outing for that old family favourite the Cheesy Wotsit Song. Beautiful as always, and now we can wander round with an irritating repetitive song in our heads for the rest of the week.

We had a few folks missing but we jollied along in typical Rudsambee fashion, beginning with a run through of the songs for Douglas' daughter's wedding. This is coming up a week on Saturday and all seems to be in hand (just in case the happy couple happen to stumble upon Relative Pitch during the course of the week). We are singing Rudsambee classic Take My Hand just before the bride comes in and had an interesting time trying to work out whether we have always sung it slightly wrongly or whether our poor memories were letting us down again. Suffice to say we had to think in triplets. Maestro Boy suggested that the piece had "that Envoi feeling" which left Robin, Mummy Elaine and myself with heads in hands (see previous blog posts as to the triplet difficulty level of Envoi - it is off the scale and generally involved us having to dance a salsa either literally or in our mind's eye). Take My Hand also contains the little used botanical term "fescue". Maestro Boy was unsure as to its meaning and the gardeners amongst us (most of us live in flats so expertise in this was severely limited) explained that it is a type of grass. Cue Maestro Boy, "it sounds horrid". Festering fescue perhaps?

To add further excitement, the previously used dynamics for this piece are as subjective and vague as I have ever heard - "warm and light", "warm" (no idea where the lightness went for verse two), "strong and hard" (that's verse 3 when the daily grind starts to get to the happy couple - bit of encouragement to the wedded duo there) etc etc. Whatever happened to p and mf? However, we muddled through and put in some jolly crescendos just for fun.

Anyways we cracked this one and moved of to Sfogava which I think will sound better when a) we are able to sing the right notes in the right order, b) we maintain good tone throughout c) we sing it in an slightly more boisterous acoustic then we currently have at chez Wexler and d) we stop looking scared and gripping our copies so tightly. Plenty of time to perfect it folks - all of three weeks. In all seriousness (no really) it is going to sound brillig when we've cracked it.

So what are we wearing to Douglas' daughter's wedding you may ask? Of course uniform in Rudsambee has in the past been a topic of discussion akin to the development of world peace or the ending of poverty. It was decided very quickly (after a brief jape about wearing full wedding outfits - big hats, tails... a white dress!) to wear our usual red and black. The gentlemen took their shirts away tonight with Robin's suggestion that an "implicit iron" comes with them. Not sure what an implicit iron looks like, but hopefully all the gentlemen will arrive looking suitably pressed. With great power comes great responsibility lads.

Talking of lads, Robin's final comment of the night was the pertinent question "Where do men hang out?" An interesting query though he was of course asking because we are still on the look out for some tenors and basses to join us, but you never know with Robin...

All the joys of the summer season to you all
CSW

PS for all cat-lovers out here, another piece of entertainment shared by Mr Whitacre (although not by him):