"When I didn't look at the music it sounded fine" (Mrs A Grindley)

Another classic opening quote from Anne there. Lots of funny little moments on Wednesday night actually - it was comedy night chez Wexler. So the small group spent some time on Ms Fardell's 'Shepherd's Call' (we so have Miserere down - more rehearsal time entirely unnecessary!). The men have a wonderful line - "we are fearless men" - except that they sang it at first like wussy men. A bit of umph added and the Rudsambee men really did sound "fearless" (scary?). Ms Fardell also noted a small piece of poetic license - the line is as follows (ahem): "they are honest shepherds protecting their sheep, why torment them as they sleep". Sleeping shepherds protecting sheep? Hmm...

There was much mention of Moog synthesisers which delighted the blogtress who was reminded of a good Moog in action from Oliver Wakeman (yes, it is his son) at the Yes gig last week. Maestro Boy wanted us to all come in as if we were Moogs - I'll leave that to your imagination. We also did a bit of work on breathing. Sebastian's best comment of the night? "I can hold my breath". Well done son, you can now attempt your 50m swimming badge and you can even try it without armbands.

Back to 'Hey Hey Lily' last night as well. Now, have you ever noticed how similar this piece is to that Music Hall classic, 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside'? Separated at birth methinks. This is the one with "rock the baby" though this year we are aiming for a slightly less vigorous 'rock' than in previous years.

We also sang through 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem'. Now, this is such a well-known song that we can have a tendency to just bash through it without much thought. So Maestro Boy encouraged us to think about what we are singing. Sebastian's slightly overblown yet highly emotive performance (with hand movements no less) brought a new perspective to this Christmas carol. As it is my last Christmas with Rudsambee I get to do anything I want (within reason of course, no lasers or guitar riffs I don't think...although...) so am singing the descant - huzzah!

On so on to Maestro Boy's comment of the night (the much coveted 'comment of the night award' was shared this week): "for runs you need to make your nose vibrate". What on earth!? That one certainly doesn't need any further explanation.

And so I am off to sunny (one hopes) Lincoln this weekend. Don't try to rob the house - I've left a large Scotsman in charge!

CSW

Back at Priestfield

Afternoon bloggets.
Oh the weather outside is frightful but a couple of minutes reading Relative Pitch is so delightful. Ain't it just? So a quick run down on Wednesday night. As the post title would suggest we returned to Priestfield to bash out Lauridsen sans soft furnishing.

The warm up was a very jolly affair led by Claire 2. Looking rather like to tragic aftermath of a battle scene, the Rudsambeelets lay on the floor (attempting to subtly move away from those with sweaty feet) and rested with some breathing exercises. How nice!

This evening Maestro Boy asked us to imagine we were singing to the "humunculi" (his word, not mine) at the back i.e. the sweet deaf little old ladies. Helps with projection don't ye know.

So onwards and upwards with Christmas music. Lots of wassailing last night. An admission on my part - I have never, ever got this song right yet...and I must have performed it a good 4 times. I endeavour to break the rut this year. John made a comment about the ox and Jenny laughed a lot so my assumption is that Monsieur Wexler made an unintended statement of intent and Jennifer managed to find a smidgeon of innuendo...that is my guess.

Had a funny old moment with 'Deck the Hall'. One of the sopranos always sings of multiple halls and, of course, the 's' is very obvious. Even yesterday we greedily requested enough 'bells and holly' to deck a number of halls. Cue exasperated lifted eyebrows all round. It doesn't help that Maestro Boy continually gets it wrong!

So on we go to Christmas. I have a candle lit in the house and I'm going to make hot chocolate this evening - it must be winter! As an aside (and because I always sneakily slip in my music choices) we saw the wonderment of Yes last night at the newly painted Usher Hall. My verdict on the new improved building? The toilets are odd. They resemble that corridor in Orwell's '1984', you know, the one where Winston is tortured. Very weird indeed. Gig brilliant!

Until next week

CSW

Happy 100th birthday to Relative Pitch

Yes, to to blow my own trumpet for a moment, this is indeed the 100th post on 'Relative Pitch'; that's 100 moments of sartorial brilliance and unexpected randomness...or something like that. So Wednesday night was a run through a number of pieces we are doing for our Christmas concerts. By now the Rudsambeelets are beginning to wander around in comedy Santa hats and beginning to write their wish-list letters to the Big Man.

And so it was back to 'Deck the Halls' which we are attempting properly this year. Maestro Boy encouraged us to (and I quote) "make it sound ridiculous". We never need to be asked twice of course. The aim was to give it a bit of life. This version of 'Deck the Halls' is a bit of a comedy take on an old favourite anyways. As I have probably mentioned before (there have been 100 posts you know) each part is encouraged to sing in peculiar ways e.g. 'teasing', 'inviting' etc. We decided to make our own Rudsambeelet versions so the basses need to be 'beery' and the tenors should be 'coarse'. The men, of course, did admirably.

We also returned to 'Susser de Glocken Nie Klingen' which led to Rachel's humorous and, indeed, insightful comment, "what is the final chord supposed to be?" A question that, I must admit, took about four hours to answer. The sopranos have a very easy final sequence i.e. even easy by soprano standards i.e. one note, the same note. So, to be honest, we didn't really appreciate the horrors of the final chord for the rest of the Rudsambeelets. It is very tough indeed but, as usual, we cracked it before the end. Huzzah!

And so we press on with Christmas excitement. Tickets are now out and are selling only slightly less quickly than those for the last U2 concert. Get them quick fans. We are going to do Mrs Fardell's 'Shepherd's Call' with dynamics and everything this Wednesday. What larks!

CSW

Visits from old friends

Evening all (as the policeman said). Well, Mirren, Peter and baby Aiden came to visit last night. Just like old times...except with the added small boy. Lovely to see you folks. So, of course, the Rudsambeelets were highly distracted all evening. My ultimate favourite moment of the night was when Mirren placed baby in Maestro Boy's arms for the photograph. Cue hilarious, slightly hysterical panicked look from our Great Leader.



Well, I was doing official notes last night so the blog notes were slightly less extensive than usual. However we did have a very enjoyable, self-help warmup from Maestro Boy who led us in a breathing chant..."I am a strong, confident woman". Very entertaining and said with particular vigour by our strong, confident men.

The general consensus last night was that it is virtually impossible to ever leave Rudsambee (I'm going to try and prove that wrong come January but that is a story for another day). Angus pointed out that one could commit suicide... which seems a little dramatic. Maestro Boy's top comment of the night was to the small group singing 'Noel Nouvelet' when he asked us to sing 'p-ish'. Obviously he meant quiet-ish but it did leave us wondering.

One person who was singing very 'low-ish' last night was Monsieur Wexler who sings an incredible note in 'Run Toboggan Run'. The very foundations of Chez Wexler shook. We also sang 'Deck the Halls'. We've tried this before... I emphasise the word 'tried'. Last night it began to sound like a real piece of music and we even started to sort out the jazzy, syncopated bit. We have decided against the cadenza which brings a new meaning to the word 'cheese'. So currently we just stop without any resolution and leave it hanging in the...

Momentous moment? We sang a new piece by a certain J Fardell Esquiress. It's all about shepherds and is very jolly and a little clashy... intentionally clashy, I mean. Just note bashed it last night but it'll sound great when we've cracked it. I have great hopes for this up and coming composer. Remember you heard the name here first folks.

And so Christmas rehearsals continue and I am tempted to hang a bit of tinsel out, or at least place a snow globe strategically on the mantlepiece.

Have a marvellous weekend.

CSW

'Halfway through you just...lose it' (Mrs A Grindley)

The above quotation was heard during last week's rehearsal with reference to our gentlemen. Anne (who as everybody knows is musician extraordinaire) sat in the corner feeling ill and took on the Andrew-Lloyd-Webber-in-that-Sound-of-Music-reality-show role of commenting when the mood took (sorry, that grammar feels a little weird). In fact illness had taken a firm grip on the Rudsambeelets and we were seriously depleted last Wednesday.

Apologies for the delay in posting this week. My precious MacBook has been to the Mac Doctors and has come back today feeling much better with a clean screen and a working microphone. So I have only just looked at my notes from last week which are virtually indecipherable.

However, I will struggle on as best I can. Well we began with proper Christmas and the 'Apple Tree Wassail'. It is a jolly one and we did it without words (or at least with words but without them in front of us, if you get what I mean). We started, as Maestro Boy put it, with the men and the 'manly women'. Actually we did pretty well remembering it though the sopranos realised that there was a particular line that we have never sung right...not ever. Shock horror! We'll crack it this year though folks.

Much to my Mother's delight, we are doing the Lauridsen 'O Magnum Mysterium'. This is in my top five Rudsambee tunes and again our abilities for recollection were pretty impressive. This is a sensational piece of music - it'll be a highlight folks.

For Rudsambee, Christmas is no longer Christmas without 1) a random sing-a-long round the piano at the Christmas Party and 2) a bit of Abbie Betinis. So it'll be 'Run Toboggan Run' again this year. During conversations regarding who would sing what, Maestro Boy concluded that we would have 'normal people on the top'. This, of course, relies on the assumption that there are normal people in Rudsambee. One of the funniest moments of the evening came when we repeated the opening line about a dozen times so we could get the harmonies right. However, the first line is 'Anticipation's in the air'. After 12 plus runs through anticipation was no longer the defining emotion.

And so on to Saturday night and a lovely party round at Rachel's with Bel dressed as a pumpkin and Jen dressed as a ghost. Lots of good soup, good chat and a peaceful walk down Portobello beach. Nice! Get well soon one and all. Hopefully we'll have a full collection of Rudsambeelets come Wednesday. Until then folks...

CSW

Cough, splutter, cough...

...so went the Rudsambeelets last night. Lots of sickness around at present and the air was scented with Olbas Oil (other natural sinus clearers are available). Hopefully we'll all be on the up by next week.

So we were late beginning the main rehearsal because we were moving through the fair with the small group so Maestro Boy's warmup was as follows: "(note on the keyboard) can you sing that? (Rudsambeelets sing beautifically) Right, let's try the 'Huron Carol' then shall we?" Surely the shortest warmup ever attempted.

Yes, you hear right, the 'Huron Carol' has been dragged out of the folder for Christmas 2009. So it's Gitchi Manitou all over again. For those who haven't heard this one before it is a jolly Native Indian song celebrating Christmas. The final chords take us into a major key which makes the whole thing a little cheesy/emotionally affecting (delete as appropriate). As we sang we remembered the last time we performed this a couple of years ago. There is a wonderful moment where the lyric is 'kneel' but the representative rhyming word is 'pelt' (as in beaver pelt don't you know). In order to rhyme it with the former it would, of course, have to be 'peel' which brings a whole other image to the table! We decided that Beaver peel could either be a type of shoe leather or the rodent equivalent of candied peel. So 'knelt' to rhyme with 'pelt' seems to be best.

There is also a moment in this piece where the basses split into three. Since we only had two basses last night this posed a bit of a problem. We did consider doing a 'mother in front of Solomon' and chopping Arno in half but decided against it.

We used to do this piece with rolled 'r's' as far as we remember but as we couldn't imagine our Indian friends singing it as though it were Italian opera we decided just to emphasise the 'r's' instead. Claire 2's laughter at the sops' lovely rolled 'r's' confirmed our decision... We also created two new musical terms last night (we are right on the cusp of the British experimental choral scene) - 'bigging' and 'littling'. Basically I think it refers largely to crescendos and...erm...the opposite.

So we also bashed through 'Veni, Veni' again and a new piece about trees (the title has escaped me). The latter was hard with bars of 9/8 and notes with little '2s' above them which means...the 2 version of triplets. So the piece feels like it is slowing down, like squishing your way across a muddy field. A tough little number but we'll get there as always. We even had time to sing through 'Dormi Jesu' which we've nailed. Huzzah!

So that's all for now. Lots of pills, Vitamin C and throat sweeties. Cough, cough...Hugs to all the Rudsambeelets who are struggling through the dreaded colds.

Until next week...cough...cough
CSW

'Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, how I love your shiny bra'...

Ha! That got your attention, didn't it? Rather predictably this was a wee Jenny ditty which she regaled us with during our small group practice. I realise that over the course of these posts I have rarely mentioned our small group (Rudsamb-wee)so let's make up for that right now. After the delights of Miserere, last Thursday, last night it was back to She Moved Through the Fair. Due to the big clash (intentional I may add) between Robin and Christopher (it should be noted that the clash is musical rather than personal... I think), Robin's line is pure brutal to sing. Jenny sang along in his ear which helped to a point but then, as Maestro Boy helpfully pointed out, "you are standing next to a woman singing low and it's scary". That's your Quote of the Night award and I've not even mentioned the main rehearsal yet. This beautiful number is really coming on quite well. I particularly like the Celtic twiddles (if you know what I mean - grace notes et al) and do feel that the piece should include a few more actually. If one adds too many, however, you do begin to sound like a Mariah Carey-alike, a terrifying prospect!

And so on to the main rehearsal. Arno led us through a very entertaining warm up in which he taught us a Dutch song about sheep drinking milk. What larks! The first time through we remembered there was a child and a sheep but couldn't quite recollect the actions of the said sheep. This led to a noisy opening retreating to a non-existent middle two lines. We got there eventually though. He then made us sing it to the tune of Beethoven's, oh, you know - that one that isn't the Moonlight and rather unbelievably it fit perfectly. Exactly what the great composer would have wanted methinks.

Well, last week Maestro Boy put on his best teacher gown and grabbed his sharpened cane (not really but you see the point, so to speak) and brought a bit of discipline to proceedings. You see the Rudsambee-lets are all chatty sorts of folks, finding humour in the least humorous places. So Maestro Boy could be heard above the racket, he decided to bring a little order. So now whenever he says "PENGUIN!" we all have to be silent. It's the Rudsambee equivalent of putting your finger to your lips (which we also did last night btw). Why Penguin? Oh come on, surely after 95 posts you don't need to ask questions like that.

We spent most of the night on two Christmas pieces - The Coventry Carol and Veni, Veni Emmanuel (aka O Come, O Come Emmanuel, but for posh choral types who like to show off in Latin). Both were sounding rather good towards the end. Both are versions by the King's Singers who are, or course, all boys and (wait for it) have a counter-tenor (after a particularly funny experience a few years ago, which I won't go into, in Rudsambee counter-tenors are the cause of hilarity and respect all at the same time). Rudsambee, with girls (yes, I know, who'd have thought it?), 20 voices and certainly no counter-tenor (unless Christopher gets a shock) have to adapt things slightly. But both really sounded good and we'll look forward to performing them at Christmas.

We also sang through Green Fir Forest as Sebastian is going to China (don't you try and rob his house neither you varmint, he has a cello and it bites) and wanted to take a recording with him. So we crowded up the stairs and sang into his camera propped on the arm of the chair. Marvellous! Here's hoping our Chinese friends enjoy it, even though we were a little hazy in places - some Rudsambee-lets' eyes are not up to reading music in a stairwell.

As we re-entered the rehearsal space (the lounge Chez Wexler actually) I began to sing what I always sing when I have stood on a step for a period of time, "Half way up the Stair is the Stair where I sit...". A former flame (actually we were madly in love when we were six, when I was seven his friend dumped me on his behalf - coward!) sang this once in performance and I always think on it. Rather amazingly it sounds quite like Veni, Veni Emmanuel. Try it and see. There's a musical link you've probably never made before.

And so we concluded by singing Happy Birthday to Alison who has a special birthday - discretion will not allow me to tell you which. Tea, coffee, chat etc.

So the run down to Christmas is on. We worked out that it really wasn't that long until the first concert (scarily enough at St Giles!) so we need to get down to it. Everything is so far sounding rather beautiful though so huzzah for us.

Thanks for reading and a shout out to my Dad who reads this every week and who actually was able to recite some of it to me down the phone from memory! Either shows the greatness of my prose or the never ending devotion of my Dad. Also, while we're on the subject of parents, cheers to Rachael's Mum and Dad who are fast becoming our biggest groupies - they came to watch the Falkland concert even though Rachel was sunning herself in Bath and not singing. Commitment of the highest order indeed.

CSW