A night off!

Morning blog fans,
Just to let you know (in case you have awoken this morning excitedly awaiting the latest post from Relative Pitch), Rudsambee actually had a night off last night. We are resting on our laurels (I love that phrase!) after the delights of Sunday night (and because half the choir were on holiday). So the Rudsambee-lets spent the evening alone in the community somewhere. A terrifying thought! Anyways, we'll be back next week to prepare for Christmas (in a vocal rather than a putting-up-tinsel sort of way).

So without a full length blog post to read, how else can you spend that hour before lunch? Two suggestions:
1) checking out the back catalogue of the late legend Les Paul on youtube. In a rather showbiz aside, I saw him in concert last year and got to have my picture taken with him. Sad news of his death this week but if I am still rockin at 93 two weeks before my death I'll be quite contented.
2) getting on to the BBC website and following the Ashes as either a) England lose in dramatic grabbing-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory fashion or b) the whole thing is rained off, Australia retain the urn by default and it all peters out in usual British-sporting-summer disappointment.
It's your choice folks.
Until next week then
CSW

A jolly night at St Giles

Good evening folks. An extra blog post this week to fill you in on this evening's concert. Singing at St Giles is always a "generally entertaining" experience as you have the double fear of the sheer amount of spectators and the acoustic which, though beautiful to listen to music in, is tough-as-you-like to get right. After running through the festival crowds (including negotiating a man on a tall ladder) we arrived in time to have a bit of a warm-up, beginning rather ambitiously with Bogoff.

After a cup of tea, Angus realising he had brought the wrong shirt (so he wore pink all night - hee hee!), usual lost folders, and Anne handing out her customary politically-incorrect sweeties (probably best not to ask about this if you don't know what on earth I'm talking about) we were off. So, the actual concert went very well. Sfogava was a wonderful (if hair-raising) singing experience; Man, the acoustic made a huge difference. Even Tormis' swingy girl song passed as a piece of music. And Kay and I managed to fumble our way through the Thuma Mina/Akanamandla link without too much bother. We finished with possibly the world's quickest ever version of Jede Sedlak. Maestro Boy fancied a challenge methinks.

As usual, the audience were very encouraging and St Giles proved to be a crackin' venue - as always. So on Wednesday, out come the bells, the tree and the baubles as we start on our Christmas music. I know, I know. However, I am slacking off for the week but hopefully there will be a blog post - I'll leave it in the safe (relatively safe) hands of our resident Editor.

Thanks to all who came to support us tonight. It would have been a bit dull without you all... and we would have felt a little foolish, especially when it came to the bowing!

Until next time blog fans

CSW

"It's very entertaining"

...an opening quote from Kay there, an apt description of the rather jolly 'Star of the County Down'. The small/large group - affectionately known as Rudsam-wee by this blogstress - singing the piece were not entirely sure how to take that. But it was very entertaining, as was our warmup led by none other than Maestro Boy himself. We began with singing our reactions (squeals of delight or groans of frustrated horror)to the all-encompassing Edinburgh festival. For those not in an EH region, Auld Reekie has been taken over by, well, the entire world it would seem, who flock to the Capital to see Art, good and bad. Legendary theatre director Tyrone Guthrie suggested that "Everyone enjoys it, except my Edinburgh cousins who complain of the phenomenal and outrageous rise in the price of carrots". In our contemporary-carrots-for-pennies-you-can-even-get-them-ready-sliced world I must admit the price rises in the vegetable sphere largely do not affect me. The traffic, people stopping abruptly while walking on pavements and the endless leaflets do. Yet I will not turn Scrooge. It is still an exciting city to be in at present.

So last night was our final rehearsal before St Giles. Even the Tormis swing song was "entertaining," i.e. according to soon-to-be-teacher Robin, it actually sounded like a piece of music. Huzzah! And (in an even bigger shock - hold the 'phone!) the Monteverdi is beginning to sound like a real piece too. This is going to be magnifique in St Giles and will be worth the ticket price alone... especially since it is a free gig!

As is our custom at present, Rudsambee chunked (see previous posts) and mixed up which really helps with tuning. And, since Rachel was standing just in front of our Editor Christopher, she provided him with a perfect music stand, folder balanced on her head. Yet even with the chunking last night you could largely tell where the sopranos were as for some reason Mummy Elaine, Alison and Helen all wore Rudsambee uniform of black and red. I wore pink just to be difficult! And to clash, but only visually not musically.

The African set was interesting last night as I entirely forgot how the piece even went. Excellent, considering that Kay and I are leading off. Don't panic blog fans - I will wander about singing it for the next couple of days and all will be well.

Just to fill you in on last Saturday, the wedding went off without a hitch. Helen's Ave Maria was spectacular, and we all started on the right note for Irish Blessing but that was probably because Anne was belting out a Bb on the organ as loud as possible. The congregation didn't really join in with the responsorial psalm but they all nodded so maybe 'response' meant just that ('Ah yes, quite right' nods) rather than actually singing along. They didn't have the words anyways so it might have proved a little difficult. Congrats to the happy couple and to Douglas who looked pleased as punch (eh? What sort of a saying is that?) all day.

So we look forward to Sunday evening. It should be a great concert so I'd recommend it - I'd be a bit foolish not to.

As usual a post-concert blog update is to be expected...

CSW

"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):

Wedding planning and a new piano

An event of miraculous proportions occured this morning that, along with the appearance of the sun - the big yellow thing in the sky, folks - which is nervously edging its way towards another large dark cloud, has put me in good spirits for this morning's post. Yes blog fans, I spotted a rubbish truck - that is a truck that takes away our rubbish rather than a truck with no engine and scaffy paint or something. These lesser-spotted vehicles are a rare sight in the Scottish Capital and the build up of binbags down every street is making Auld Reekie look like a scene from Children of Men with the lovely Clive Owen, except without the end-of-the-world-running-gun-fights imagery. Check out this for those outside of the EH postcode - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8165451.stm - "some bins have started to overflow"...are you kidding? It's got to almost wading proportions. But spotting the truck gave me some hope. So it is with a glad heart that I write to you this morning.

So the piano chez Wexler has departed and last night we did a bit of note bashing with Helen's super-duper-spangly electronic piano which even transposes songs for you, thereby supporting my theory that one day computers will take over the world. We began the evening with a round of that ever popular children's favourite 'Clare MacDonald had a zoo' led, in her usual indomitable style, by Jen. The sight of the Rudsambee-lets pretending to be owls, flamingos, kangaroos and giraffes confirmed in my mind that either we are totally mad or creative geniuses (I know that isn't the plural, grammar fans, before you write to me in your droves complaining about the dumbing down of Relative Pitch. 'Genii' adds an Aladdin dimension to my already overcrowded description).

Then we started rehearsing the music for Douglas' daughter's wedding. We spent a bit of time getting it all right (obviously this takes only minutes in Rudsambee-world - we are, after all, musical genii - ha!) and then the gentlemen left us (only to go to the next room) while the ladies sang Schubert's Ave Maria. This is at the request of the happy couple but, trust me, when all the female Rudsambee-lets sing it together, in unison, with a couple of comic-warbly-pretending-to-be-opera-stars voices thrown in, it sounded nasty verging on dreadful. As it was written for solo sop anyway, we all volunteered Helen who was, and I quote, "not amused". Suffice to say it will sound spectacular.

Anne may well be playing a bit of organ for this and allusion was made to an occurence involving underwear. Sadly, the story went no further so you can use your own imagination...unless someone can enlighten us.

The Sfogava is coming on pretty well. Last night it sounded particularly beautiful as Maestro Boy sang sop 2...in falsetto. If it all goes horribly wrong, he surely has a career as a counter tenor ahead of him. Singing Monteverdi while laughing uncontrollably at Maestro Boy's incredible sop 2 line brings an added dimension of difficulty to proceedings.

Finally, Rudsambee are on the look-out for some gentlemen...who can sing. If this is you then get in touch. We could do with a tenor and a bass I believe...or indeed a counter tenor.
Job description: must be able to hold a tune, have a willingness to turn his hand to all languages, have a excellent sense of humour, not be allergic to either modern Estonian clashes (in the musical sense rather than the political) or the occasional bit of cheese. Pay scale: you must be joking.
In these credit crunch times of unemployment such a gig surely appeals to some young man.

Have a great week one and all.

CSW

Changing the Wexler feng shui

Well, I arrived last night (after M&S had run out of sandwiches - don't get me started!) to find Helen sitting in a tenor seat. Now, anyone who knows the Rudsambee-lets will inevitably have discerned three undeniable truths:
1) We always have long discussions about correct pronunciation,
2) We always have at least one moment of hilarity per night (generally when Jenny has done something silly)
3) We always sit in exactly the same seats chez Wexler with the Sopranos on the comfy sofa (so we can lounge about), the Altos near the window (to catch the breeze - make of that what you will), the Tenors next to Maestro Boy (for emergency notes) and the Basses next to the door (not sure why they should be there - quick getaway in case it all goes horribly wrong?). This latter point of order never changes. Yet last night, we (wait for it...) moved round. Goodness whatever next? This now places the Sopranos near Maestro Boy and on the hard stools... you can see his plan?

And so, as usual, a visitor arrived just as the Rudsambee-lets were doing some ridiculous dancing, rhythm sequence while reciting girl's names quickly. Poor Kathryn (Rachel's friend) was, however, not put off and joined in gamely.

If the hard stools were the stick then Maestro boy's carrot came in the form of a box of Roses. Mrs W made the hazardous mistake of choosing a caramel only moments before Maestro Boy asked us to sing Sfogava. Monteverdi and a mouth full of sweetie is an interesting if challenging combo. This piece is coming along quite nicely now. The ladies headed next door with Anne for a while (to use the pia-pia-piano) to note bash. She made (inadvertently I believe, though nothing gets past this blogstress) the statement of the night: there is a line that reads, "Mentre cosi splendete" and Anne asked us for a "Men with good tone". Sopranos and Altos like good toned men (I'm sorry, I came over all 'Carry On' there for a moment. Apologies.).

We also bashed through our lady and gentlemen pieces. The ladies, as mentioned last week, are singing a jolly number about a swinging girl by Tormis. It has unanimously been voted (by me) as our favourite Tormis piece so far. And it is even starting to sound good - already, like, a month before the concert. Shock horror!

The gentlemen were introduced to their piece last night. Sebastian had brought this number along (Editor can add song name as I wasn't paying attention but was too busy eating a bag of Skips which provided my dinner last night due to M&S failing in their duty to provide a delicious pre-rehearsal piece - blimey, there's a Scottish word for you - my Englishness is gradually diminishing, I'll be eating fried things soon. Every night!). Apparently this song is in German and Russian. Or a Russian song in German. Or something like that. The ladies enjoyed listening to this with Maestro Boy struggling along (he had been next door with the ladies working on the Tormis so had to sight-sing it... sight-singing in performance, btw, is not unheard of for Rudsambee-lets but is something we try to avoid for fear of ever-increasing blood pressure), Anne singing a jolly descant (not in the original sadly) and Sebastian giving a proper, old-school performance - trust me, if he had had evening dress and a white scarf nonchalantly draped around his shoulders, he would have looked like a 1920s cabaret star. He should definitely do it like that at St Giles. They'd be dancing in the aisles! (A little bit of poetry for you at the end of this paragraph - didn't even realise until I read it back... the creativity of the Institute must be entering my brain through osmosis - not that sort of Institute btw, the Humanities Institute where I currently sit in studious busyness)

And so another night has been and gone, and St Giles approaches (not literally, last time I checked it remained firmly grounded opposite the Council Chambers) with breathtaking speed. It's going to be fun folks so put it in your diary.

Have a marvellous week one and all.

CSW