He ain't got long to stay here

People who've sung with me many times may be aware that many of my scores have the letters "GB" written on them at various points. (Sometimes it's "GGB".) "GB" stands for "good bit", and although of course there are lots of good bits in most of the pieces we sing, only a few of them get the written warning. It is a warning, and it's to warn me that that particular bit is likely to give me a lump in my throat and/or a tear in my eye, so I need to try to concentrate really hard to sing properly. (I'm usually OK in rehearsals - it's in the performance that it gets to me.)

Concentration doesn't always work in these circumstances, so there have been quite a few concerts in which I've had to stop singing briefly because my voice was wobbling so much. It's REALLY annoying when this happens, because it means that in many of my very favourite bits, which I've been looking forward to performing, I end up not singing! Dr Liz told me on the way offstage tonight that she never gets tearful when she's singing, just when she's listening. I think I'm the other way round. There aren't many pieces that make me tearful when I hear them (a notable exception is A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, in which the entry of the brass at the end reduces me to a quivering wreck every time), but there are loads that make me tearful when I sing them.

I mention all this because I don't remember ever being in a concert that made me tearful as much as tonight's did. I'd been looking forward to it more than I can remember looking forward to any concert in years in any case, and I wasn't disappointed - it was fabulous. True, a few things didn't go according to plan - the sopranos didn't come in at all at the start of We Shall Walk, which was baffling, but the rest of us waited another beat for them, and they DID come in, and the crisis was averted and probably none of the audience noticed. And there were some REALLY stupid people in the audience. I thought my least favourite audience ever was the one we had four times at Christmas, when they would NOT stop coughing, but tonight's annoyed me more. To be fair, it was only a few of them - it was an almost-full house, and the vast majority were perfectly well-behaved. But those few thoughtless idiots totally ruined TWO pieces.

How? They were so desperate to be the first ones to applaud that they not only started the instant the music stopped - before the conductor's arms were lowered, so we never got that wonderful silence before the applause starts. But in two cases they assumed that the piece had ended when it hadn't. The first time was at the end of the Largo from the New World Symphony. The conductor, in his introduction, had really only mentioned two things - that there was a famous cor anglais solo, and that although that was wonderful, his favourite bit was right at the very end, where the double basses end the movement with a 4-part chord. (I never knew this before today, which is a bit of a shock to me because I thought I knew the New World Symphony very well indeed.) Did we hear the 4-part chord? We did not, because the I-want-to-clap-first idiots decided the music had ended in the previous bar, and applauded over the double bass chord. I mean, come ON, people - he TOLD YOU HOW IT ENDED and you still got it wrong!

But it was even worse in the second half, because we started with the Barber Agnus Dei. If you know the piece at all (or the Adagio for Strings, of which it is an adaptation) you can probably guess which is the worst possible moment for people to applaud, and of course that's where they did it - there's a huge climax about 7 minutes into the piece, and after a few moments' silence the music continues with an extremely quiet echo of the same two chords. Of COURSE the idiots applauded in that silence, thinking the climax was the end of the piece, and the quiet echo - the best bit of the piece, on which we'd worked the longest - was totally lost. (If you don't know the piece that well and want to know exactly which bit I mean, listen to this recording - the climax in question is at 6:50.)

After the Barber, there were no other applause-related disasters, so I like to think that the offenders were quietly removed and executed. I was particularly pleased that they didn't spoil my favourite piece in any way. (That was A City Called Heaven, in case you're wondering. But I'll come back to that.) So, having written for longer than I intended about what went WRONG, I suppose I'd better rectify that by talking about what went right, because it really was a FABULOUS concert, and there were many, many things I loved about it.

Fanfare for the Common Man was the first item, and it was awesome, in both senses of the word. I don't think I've ever heard it performed live before, and the sound was just incredible. After that, Lincoln Portrait, which I didn't know at all, was always going to be less impressive in comparison, but it was pleasant enough, and I was very taken with the speaking voice that the bass soloist used - very Darth Vader! I would have loved it if he'd added an extra line to the Gettysburg Address that said "No, Luke. I am your father."

The children's choir then sang At The River. When I saw that on the programme, I hoped it was the Groove Armada song, although I realised that was unlikely.... It turned out to be a hymn, and as usual Wikipedia has a lot of interesting information about it. Anyway, they sang it very well (they're REALLY good!) and I know a few members of the choir did get tearful listening to them, but it didn't move me quite that much, lovely though it was.

Then it was time for Go Down Moses (a.k.a. "the one where the 2nd altos have all the best bits"). The bit that got to me in this one was "let my people go" - every time it came, actually, but particularly the one with no crescendo. Spinetingling. The next piece was "We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace" (Moses Hogan arrangement), which I had never heard before a few weeks ago. I really love this piece, and a had a tear in my eye at several places, but mostly the very loud bit near the end where the 1st sops finally had a top G. Someone near me said she found this piece boring, and I suppose I can see what she meant, but I thought it was just wonderful.

I've already mentioned the New World Symphony, but apart from the idiot clappers it was great. It's always been one of my very favourite pieces, and hearing the Largo tonight reminded me how long it's been since I listened to the whole thing, so I'll be doing that very soon. But in the meantime, the last thing in the first half was Songs of Freedom. I love this piece too, but I've been frustrated while we've been rehearsing it because the men never seemed enthusiastic about it. Today, though, they finally sounded as if they were enjoying themselves, and the piece was transformed. And the kids were great too - they'd been practising their hurrahs and were very effective, and of course there was the cute little blond boy (I think he was called Nicholas) who sang a line on his own. He was perfect in rehearsals, but I wondered whether nerves would get to him in the performance - but he was fine. And then, straight after, was Shenandoah.

When we first heard the kids sing this on Wednesday, we all melted (at least, the back row of the altos did). But I still managed (just) to sing our backing vocal part. Tonight I could hardly sing at all - it took me several bars before I could produce even a wobble. Luckily I'd managed to calm down by the time we got to our "Glory Glory Hallelujah" countermelody, although I wasn't helped by the men sounding so amazing in the middle verse!

The train bit was the next part of the medley, i.e. We Are Coming, Father Abraham (I don't think our version included the slightly gruesome last verse!) This has an exciting accelerando as the train picks up speed, but the men never managed to do this convincingly in rehearsals - well, apart from the memorable evening when our choral director conducted them by doing train impressions.... But today they nailed it, and it was great, and then we were into When Johnny Comes Marching Home, in which the kids were again fabulous, and at the very end when they all shouted "HURRAH!" and punched the air in unison, that was when I actually cried briefly, for the first time of the evening. I'm not sure why - my best explanation is that I just LOVED that moment. (I've got a lump in my throat right now just thinking about it!) Just as well it was right before the interval.

After the break was Barber's Agnus Dei, which was sadly ruined by the idiot clappers. Other than that, it went very well, although my breathing seems to go worse each time I do it. At one point on Wednesday I was thrilled that I managed the first line in one breath for the first time ever. But I haven't managed it since, and I never managed it with any of the other lines! Oh well. (And before someone points out that we weren't EXPECTED to sing most of the lines in one breath - I know that, but trust me, we weren't supposed to be breathing as often as I was!)

Then the orchestra played Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. Never heard either played by an orchestra before, although I know the piano originals very well, so that was fun. This was followed by Showboat (Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (in which the tenors FINALLY did their interjections convincingly) and Ol' Man River. (I haven't mentioned the soloists - Sarah Fox and Robert Winslade Anderson - but they were both great.)

And finally we were up to A City Called Heaven. I mentioned this at the end of my last post - the piece was only written two weeks ago, and it was definitely my favourite thing in the concert. Just gorgeous. I was delighted, too, that the conductor told the audience the story of why he wrote it, as I'd hoped he would (it was in the programme notes too, for good measure). (I looked up Anne Brown's obituary, in case you're interested.) I really wish I had a recording of... well, the whole concert actually, but mainly this. Although I struggled to sing the first page because our choral director called us "his beloved choir" just before we started, and I can't remember the last time I was called "beloved", so I had another lump in my throat!

Next came a bit of (appropriately enough) Porgy and Bess: "Summertime" and "Bess, You is My Woman" - both of which brought the house down - and then the conductor got his own back on the audience by starting the last piece - Battle Hymn of the Republic (Wilhousky arrangement) - while they were still applauding the previous one. It seems this arrangement is very popular in America, but I'd never heard it before we started rehearsing it, and we didn't hear it with the orchestra till Friday. As soon as I did, I knew my mum was going to LOVE it. Not that she wouldn't like the rest of the concert, but we both love march-type things with trumpets and military drums, and this was an extreme example. Such an exciting start, and the end was spectacular - and in the middle the men did another 4-part illustration of how incredible they can sound when they put their minds to it. It was all appropriately glorious.

Applause, applause, applause... and then, the encore. We only found out we were doing this on Wednesday: Steal Away. We've done it before, and know it very well, so the lack of rehearsal wasn't a problem - it sounded great the first time we tried it, so it was just a case of polishing. I was all ready to sing it really well tonight - and then, just before we sang it, he quoted the words: "steal away... I ain't got long to stay here". And I felt like such an idiot for not having made the connection between those words and him leaving, but I hadn't. And once the connection was made, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I had tears running down my face through the whole song, and couldn't sing any of it without my voice wobbling. I don't think I'll ever hear it again without thinking of tonight.

Anyway, I have a few links to share with you, but I think I'll save them for a day or two in the hope that a few reviews appear, and I'll link everything together,

Some people think I'm bonkers, but I just think I'm free

So, the picture above was taken four weeks ago today. It feels SO much longer ago than that. I'm not entirely sure where the time's gone, though, since I've been at home most of the time. But I realised that if I don't write this blog post soon, I'll have forgotten everything about Spain, and my list of links to share will be so long no-one will ever read to the end of it....

Actually it's probably a good thing that I've left it a few weeks before writing, because hopefully it'll help me be more concise. And, most of what I have to say is about the journey rather than the time in Valencia - I spent most of the time there in my room reading. But let's see.

(Note: this will be long anyway, I suspect. If you're not interested in the overland trip to Valencia and back, scroll down to the links!)

We set off as planned on Tuesday 26th May. Nothing much to report between home and London. We walked from Euston to St Pancras and did the obligatory pose with John Betjeman. We considered having champagne until we saw how much it cost. Plan B involved getting wine and nibbles from M&S to eat on Eurostar. Eurostar was very exciting and RIDICULOUSLY fast. I was following our progress on the map on my iPhone, and couldn't believe how fast we whizzed across Kent (or how little of London we saw on the way out - a lot more of the journey was underground than we'd expected). When we emerged in France there wasn't much to see other than fields. Sue eventually became convinced that she could see the Eiffel Tower, but none of the rest of us could. In fact, we didn't see it at any stage (on OR off the train), and we're now convinced it's actually been removed.

We emerged from Eurostar at Gare du Nord. After a lot of faffing about caused by the fact that no-one had any euro coins and the ticket machines didn't take notes, so we had to queue for ages to get Metro tickets, we eventually got on a Metro headed for Gare d'Austerlitz... and it didn't move. Turned out there was a strike on. There were lots of announcements which we couldn't quite hear, and each time, some people got off the train, but most of them stayed on. A helpful local woman advised us to stay on because the train would move eventually, and luckily she was correct.

Plan A, on arrival at Gare d'Austerlitz, where we had several hours to kill before getting the sleeper train to Barcelona, was to put the bags in left luggage and wander up to Notre Dame. However, it turned out this would cost a fortune, so we lugged them with us. It wasn't too bad, at least at first - Alison and Sue and I had large rucksacks, which meant that we ended up with sore shoulders quite soon but could otherwise walk easily, whereas Judy had a wheeled case AND a (small) rucksack, so her shoulders were fine but she was hampered by having to manoeuvre her case. Anyway, we wandered along the river in the vague direction of Notre Dame. On the map it looked as if it was quite close, but the map was deceiving, and we walked for quite a while before we could see it. Sadly we didn't have time to go inside, but it was nice to see the place anyway.

When we got back to Gare d'Austerlitz, we had a quick drink in the station bar before wandering over to look for our train. We were all a bit startled at first to see how very small the compartment was. I'd seen photos on the website, and they were quite accurate, but it felt a lot smaller with four of us in it! It was fine though, and actually it felt roomier when the beds were pulled out, even though it wasn't. There was lots of entertainment due to the fact that the corridors were so narrow you had to squeeze past anyone you met coming the other way. (The train was set up in the old-fashioned way with a narrow corridor running along the carriage and separate compartments opening off it. You know, like the Hogwarts Express.)

We'd planned to have our evening meal on the train, but when we went to investigate, it turned out that there wasn't a table available till 11pm. (The train left at 8.30pm.) This was a bit of a disappointment, because we were quite hungry by then, but there was nothing we could do, so we sat and read for a while until we could eat. When we finally did get into the restaurant, the meal was nice, but VERY overpriced for what it was, and there was very little choice. I must admit that if I'd known how much it was before I'd agreed to eat there, I wouldn't have agreed. However, the setting was amazing, so I'm glad I had one meal in there, even though it used the entirety of the money my mum had given me for the week. (Yes, I know it's ridiculous that the only money I had was what my mum gave me!)

After we ate, it was definitely bedtime - it had been a long day and we were all exhausted. The beds were quite comfortable, but annoyingly I couldn't sleep a wink. I think it was because it was so ridiculously hot. Apparently the air conditioning did kick in at some point, but I was on a bottom bunk and couldn't feel any cool air. So I lay awake all night. I did have my eyes shut, though, so it was quite restful. And I was delighted to realise, at about 5 am, that we must have reached the Spanish border, because I felt them changing the wheels on the train (Spain has a different gauge to France).

We got to Barcelona just in time for breakfast. It was now Wednesday 27th May - the day of the Champions' League Final between Barcelona and Man Utd (in Rome) - so I had put on my United shirt specially :-) I was so pleased I did this, because that morning was great as a result! Wherever I went in the city, people commented on my shirt, and it was a really nice atmosphere. The others were a bit taken aback at how friendly the rivalry was - they'd expected that me wearing my shirt would cause trouble - but I hadn't been worried. Interestingly, the first guy who talked to me was someone who was standing at the entrance to the station when we emerged. I'd been told that when we got to Valencia all the locals hated Barcelona so they'd all support United for the day, but this guy told us that this wasn't the case - if it was Real Madrid against United, everyone in Spain (other than Real Madrid fans) would cheer on United, but Barcelona don't inspire such hatred, so the rest of Spain (other than Real Madrid fans!) would cheer on Barcelona. (And he was correct, at least as far as Valencia fans went.)

We asked this guy where he recommended for breakfast. Turned out there was a cafe/bar right over the road from the station, which he said was perfect, and it was. It had the two vital things I needed at that point: 1. great coffee, and 2. a plug socket so I could charge my phone! (I'd expected there'd be sockets on either Eurostar or the Trainhotel, but there weren't, and my phone had used lots of its charge following our progress on the map.) As a bonus, the TV in the bar was showing nonstop pictures of the buildup in Rome. I like a city that has its priorities right - there was NO more important news in Barcelona that day!

After a leisurely coffee or two, we went in search of the metro station, where a very helpful member of staff confirmed the cheapest way of doing what we wanted to do. I was very impressed with the Barcelona metro system - it was clean and efficient and air-conditioned, and the stations had arty things on the walls, and even the muzak was cool - at one point there was a jazzy version of Tea for Two which we were quite taken with. It took a couple of trains to get to Sagrada Familia (the main place we all wanted to see). Eventually we came up the steps, and... WOW! The initial view of the place is absolutely mindblowing, and it just gets better after that.

We all wanted to go round and look, but we still had the problem of the bags (the left luggage at the station was closed, and the nearest alternative was miles away, so we had to keep everything with us). But it all worked out fine, because Sue and I were quite keen to sit and have a rest before going round the cathedral, whereas Alison and Judy wanted to go immediately. So Sue and I sat with the bags while they went in, with the plan being that we'd go in when they came out. As it turned out, they were longer than we'd expected and we didn't have time, but it wasn't a problem, because we knew we had time to kill on our return journey. It did mean we didn't see much else in Barcelona, but we'd never expected to, so none of us minded.

While Sue and I were waiting, we took turns popping off for a quick wander round the square. I bought some postcards and attempted to buy some stamps. In Spain you get them from tobacconists (if they don't have any where they sell postcards) but the first few places I asked said they didn't have any. The next place I tried said they DID have stamps, but couldn't possibly sell them to me because of my shirt. I couldn't work out whether or not they were joking, but they didn't give me any stamps! I got some in the end though, from a lady who had just finished wrapping up a Barcelona football shirt for a customer. That resulted in another good conversation :-)

Sue and I had a great time examining the outside of Sagrada Familia. I think it's the most amazing building I've ever seen. Only St Peter's in Rome comes close. I could tell you all the things we saw, but there are probably millions of places online that will do it better. (If you're interested, you should probably start with the official site.) Most unexpected thing we saw in the architecture: probably the bassoon. Really.

Anyway, when Alison and Judy emerged we went for lunch nearby. It was at this point that I cursed things by saying - out loud, in front of witnesses - that it was the best day I could remember having in years. Note to self: if you ever have another day as good, do NOT say so. Because before our lunch had even arrived, Judy's rucksack had vanished. She retraced her steps just in case, but was adamant all along that she'd had it when we got to the café, so it must have been stolen while we were sitting there. She seemed amazingly unruffled by this, saying that it didn't really matter because most of her stuff was in her case and everything valuable was in her handbag, but even so I would have been much more upset than she was. (In fact I *was* quite upset, because I felt as if I'd cursed the day. Yes, I know that's irrational.)

Despite this setback, we had a lovely lunch. All morning there had been people in Barcelona shirts all over the place. They vanished, of course, at the precise moment that we decided it would be nice to get a photo of one of them with me in my United shirt. But a while later, one did appear, so I hurtled across the street and accosted him. He seemed quite amused, and didn't mind being dragged across to our table to be photographed. (That's the photo at the top of this post.) When the waiters saw this, they wanted to be photographed as well, but they weren't wearing Barcelona shirts so it seemed like a good idea to wrap my United scarf round them. (See photo below.)

Eventually we got back on the metro to head back to Estació de França, and the curse struck again. There was a minor incident on the train that I didn't really see clearly, but it looked as if Judy was being pushed by someone. I'd forgotten about it by the time we got off, until Judy realised that her purse had been taken out of her handbag. This upset her a lot more than the loss of the rucksack an hour or two earlier, because there was a lot of money in it.

We'd seen a place we thought might be a police station, so Judy went in there to ask what to do. Turned out it was a Foreign Office type place, and they couldn't do much, but they did call the police in Valencia to explain what had happened, so that it would be easier for Judy to report there the next day.

After that, we got to the station. We were in plenty of time for the train to Valencia, so we sat on a bench and waited for our train to appear on the board. There was a train listed at the correct time, but the departure board didn't go into much detail, and didn't mention where ANY of the trains stopped (other than their final destination) so we weren't sure whether that train was ours.

It goes without saying that when a day is cursed, it's cursed three times... because with (I think) twenty minutes to go before the train left, we found out that that train (the only one at the correct time) was NOT our train... because our train went from Barcelona Sants instead of Estació de França! I felt terrible. This was entirely my fault. I'd been the one who'd booked all the tickets and told the others the arrangements. I thought I'd double checked everything, but I hadn't been thorough enough. (Some trains to Valencia DO go from França, but not the one our tickets were for.) The thing is, because Alison had paid for all the tickets, I gave them all to her when they arrived, so I didn't have the actual ticket to look at, or I might have noticed the station name. I can't believe I didn't notice when I *got* the tickets, though - I suspect I must have assumed that "Sants" was some sort of abbreviation.

Anyway, the urgent thing was to try to get to Sants in time. We got a cab, and it was obvious that he thought it was unlikely we'd make it, when we told him what the problem was. He did drive pretty fast, but the traffic wasn't good (and at one point there was apparently a naked guy running along the pavement, although I didn't see him!) and we got to the barrier less than a minute after the train was due to leave. Needless to say it had left bang on time.

As Judy later pointed out, if there was ONE train we were going to miss, this was the best one, because there were plenty of trains on that route, and missing ours didn't mean we missed anything else. But the problem was that I knew it would cost us a fortune. The tickets we had were extra-cheap web special offer ones, valid only on that specific train. Judy tried to talk them into letting us use them on the next train, but I knew it would never work - the conditions were very clear - and it didn't. So we had to get new tickets, which cost more than three times as much as the useless ones. And by this point, of course, neither Judy nor I had any money at all. Sue came to the rescue, although there was a bit of a panic when they pointed out that her credit card had expired (luckily she had another one that worked).

The next train was an hour later, and it was possibly the nicest train we'd been on so far (even nicer than Eurostar, and that was quite posh). I was in a black mood by then, though - I just felt so guilty that a simple error of mine had cost everyone so much money, especially because I already had no idea when I'd be able to pay the others back for the REST of the journey. I managed to distract myself a bit with Harry Potter - I'd taken all seven books with me to reread, and I think I was up to book 4 by this point. Harry always cheers me up, so I was in a better mood by the time we arrived (again, bang on time, like all our trains so far). I was quite surprised that the others still trusted me to know which way to go to get to the hotel, but they did, and in this case their trust wasn't misplaced, because it was fairly easy to find. (I'd loaded lots of maps onto my phone - it would have been easier to use the GPS map, but that involves going online, which is only free in the UK.)

We finally got to the hotel at about 7.30 pm, I think. All I wanted to do was sit down, shower (preferably while sitting down), rest my feet, rest my SHOULDERS (the weight of our bags had become a big issue by then) and eat and drink. But most of these were not an option. Why not? CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE FINAL! Kickoff was at 8.45 pm. I'd arranged to meet Claire and her husband, who'd agreed to find somewhere good to watch the match from. She'd texted me to tell me where they were, but when I looked on the map my heart sank, because it was even further from the hotel than the station was, and I knew THAT took ages. So I had the fastest shower ever, got half changed (only half, because there was no way I wasn't putting that United shirt back on, however sweaty it was... if I'd thought ahead properly, I would have brought two! I've GOT two!) and went straight out again. It's fair to say I was hobbling a bit - I suspected I had some blisters, but hadn't had time to look properly.

I made it to the bar JUST in time - the match kicked off just after I walked through the door - but I missed the first few minutes while I wandered through the bar looking for Claire, with no success. I texted her to ask where she was, but shortly afterwards she appeared at the door and took me to another bar nearby - they'd decided it was less crowded. It was indeed less crowded - but only a couple of minutes after I got there, Barcelona scored. Things went downhill from there, as I'm sure you're aware. United had only played well in the first ten minutes, and they eventually lost 2-0, and we couldn't claim they didn't deserve to lose.

It was an experience watching the game in a bar full of Spanish fans, who were cheering for Barcelona whether or not they were actually Barcelona fans, but the atmosphere was friendly. Ro and I shouted sporadically, which amused them. (Les, Claire's husband, was too annoyed with the performance to get excited about it, and Claire herself wasn't watching.) (I actually tend to squeak rather than shout, when I'm watching football.)

By the time the game ended, I was REALLY hungry, having had nothing to eat since lunch, but I had no money till I could get my per diem thingy, so it couldn't be helped. I think it actually helped that there were no seats in the bar and another long walk back to the hotel, because by the time I got back my feet and legs were aching so much that I was more bothered about getting into bed and not having to move for eight hours than about getting any food. Also, I hadn't slept a wink the previous night on the train, and I'd only slept for an hour or so the night BEFORE that, so it was definitely bedtime.

Next morning: concert day! It seemed a bit surreal that after all that travelling and non-musical activity, it was so soon. But more important things came first, name ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BREAKFAST and HANDING OUT OF MONEY. Hurrah! Food at last!

I think I went back to my room to read, after breakfast. My legs and shoulders were still aching, and I had definite blisters on my feet. And in any case I'd planned to stay in a lot - it's the best way of not spending any money. I'd decided that I could probably survive till I got home on the handout money, but this plan was based on eating as much as possible at breakfast and putting bread and fruit aside for lunch.

At lunchtime we all wandered over to the Palau de la Musica to rehearse. It's a lovely place - actually even lovelier than I thought, because I didn't walk all the way round it, and when I saw Alison's photos I wished I had. The rehearsal was fine - I was about to tell you about my favourite moment of the whole trip, but I think that was in the SECOND rehearsal (just before we went onstage) so I'll get to it shortly. The acoustic in the hall was a bit weird and it was very hard to keep to the beat until we got used to it.

I went back to read some more between rehearsal and concert, although we did go for a wander to the supermarket at some point to get snacks to keep us going till after the concert. By the time it was concert o'clock, I was already melting - I really, really hate the heat. But I forgot about it when I got inside the Palau de la Musica, because there was fabulous air conditioning, and then our choral director gave one of his inspiring speeches (I can't remember a thing he actually said now, but I know I was really inspired at the time!) and then, during the warmup/rehearsal, there was an absolutely magical moment which was my highlight of the whole trip, and which I've been trying to describe to people since.

This will sound a bit odd if you weren't there, but bear with me. It was the "ich harrete" bit, where the men sing the tune and the two soprano soloists sing backing vocals. The men knew the tune, and they were singing it in tune and with the correct pronunciation. There was nothing wrong with it at all - it sounded great - and I suspect that most other choral directors would have said "well done" and moved on. But not ours. He DID say "well done". But he wanted more. He wanted the men to sing the tune as if they were all soloists.

Now, just think about that for a moment. It's an absolutely tiny alteration that he was looking for. So tiny that it's difficult to put into words exactly what he meant (well, any words other than what I've already used). It's SUCH a tiny alteration that you'd be forgiven for not believing it would be possible for anyone to tell the difference, even if the men DID succeed in doing what was requested.

And yet.

Here's how he got what he wanted: He told them to all sing that passage together, but not TRYING to be together. They were to all sing as soloists, and as long as they all sang at roughly the right speed, it didn't matter (for the purpose of the exercise) that the rhythm was lost. He did not clarify exactly how it WAS going to work.

Well, it took a minute before they all worked out what he meant, but then they set off. He didn't conduct them at all, after starting them off. Of course, within a few seconds there was just a huge wash of sound, and no words or rhythm were audible, just mushed-up notes. The ladies looked at each other, amused, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering how on earth this was going to help ANYTHING. It sounded totally ridiculous.

But then... the miracle. (Or, if you like, the proof of genius. I know which explanation I believe.) With no other input - from anyone other than the men themselves - the sound changed. Gradually we realised that it DIDN'T sound totally ridiculous; it was the best sound I've ever heard the men make. I had shivers down my spine, because they DID suddenly sound like a load of soloists. It was wonderful. By the end of it I had a big goofy grin on my face through the sheer joy of listening to that sound. We gave them a round of applause, and we were not just being polite.

In the concert, that bit didn't sound QUITE as magical as it did when they sang it without a beat... but it definitely sounded better. Which was the point, after all. I really hope that experience sticks with them until we sing at the Proms - I can't wait to hear that bit again!

The whole concert went really well, actually. We got a standing ovation at the end, which was lovely. (We often get a few people standing in Manchester, but it's extra special when it's an audience that doesn't know us, and presumably didn't include many family or friends.)

After the concert, Alison and I went out for food. We actually ended up in an Italian restaurant, which was not our intention, but it was very nice and we ate far too much. We decided to walk it off afterwards - Alison wanted to see the cathedral, and I knew where it was (because the bar where I'd met Claire was very near there) and we were at that side of town anyway, so we had a bit of a wander. The most impressive thing we saw wasn't actually the cathedral (which wasn't lit very well, so we couldn't see much of it) but an absolutely enormous tree in the middle of a square. We did find out later what sort of tree it was - it was mentioned in that guidebook that was in the hotel room - but I've forgotten now. (Here's what it looked like, though. That's me sitting on it.)

Friday was a free day, and in the morning we walked up to the City of Arts and Sciences, passing the opera house on the way. Both were spectacular. (I've only just found out that the opera house has had its problems. Seem amazing - it looks absolutely perfect now.) We did go inside the science museum bit of the City of Arts and Sciences, but I didn't find the inside as impressive as the outside, sadly (although they did have Spider-Man, which is always a good thing). Afterwards, we had some orxata (tigernut squash, a local delicacy) because a friend of Alison's had told her it was unmissable. Well, it was OK, but I don't think I'd rave about it.

We'd decided we had to find some authentic paella for lunch. This turned out to be UNBELIEVABLY difficult. I know there were paella places near the hotel, and out past the Palau de la Musica. But there were NONE near the City of Arts and Sciences - at least, if there were, they were well hidden. We looked all over the place. There were loads of restaurants, but none served paella! Eventually we decided to head back to the hotel from the place we'd got to (which was quite a way away), and if we didn't find any paella on the way, we'd give up. Well, we did find some in the end, but we were almost all the way back to the hotel before we did.

After all that walking, my blisters were playing up again, so I stayed in my room reading (and brilliantly not spending any money!) for the rest of the day and evening. (No doubt some of you will feel sorry for me, but I'm very used to my own company and was very happy to do this, so don't worry. I love to sit and read. If I sit and read at home, I'm always aware there's something else I really ought to be doing instead. I loved reading without the guilt!)

The next morning was the start of the long (but exciting) journey home. It was a lot less eventful than the outward journey, so it won't take as long to tell. Let's see... The lovely Graham agreed to squeeze the five books I'd finished into his suitcase so I didn't have to carry them. That fact made the journey home a million times easier - my shoulders hadn't really recovered from the outward journey! My only remaining concern was whether the last two Harry Potter books would last me until I got home. (I'm a very fast reader anyway, but even faster when it's a book I've read several times before.)

Sue and Judy didn't want to walk to the station, so they paid for a cab for all of us, which was nice. We were in plenty of time, and definitely at the right station! It's a gorgeous station, as well. Alison was very frustrated because she hadn't brought the charger for her camera, and it had died, so she couldn't take photos of the fantastic architecture. (That's why the last few photos are all mine, you see.) Sue and I sat on a bench, and our weight made the other end lift up, which amused the extremely cute guy who was sitting there, which in turn amused me enough to make me determined to get a photo of him - and I did (see below).

The train actually left about fifteen minutes late (the only one of all our trains that wasn't bang on time) but it had made up the time before Barcelona, so all was well. We arrived at Sants station and got the metro to Sagrada Familia, where Sue and I went inside - and were blown away by how amazing it was - while Judy and Alison stayed with the bags. We confused ourselves because we'd assumed that the bench we'd sat on on Wednesday was the same as the bench they sat on on Saturday, but it turned out it was in a whole different garden on the opposite side of the cathedral. However, it was while discussing this that it turned out Judy and Alison had missed one entire face of the cathedral as a result of similar confusion, so we won! Highlight of the day, though, was Sue looking at the architecture and suddenly shouting out "There's the cock!" It was probably funnier if you were there :-)

We had lunch nearby again - same road, different café - and then got the metro back to Estació de França and went to the Bar with the Plug Sockets (it probably had a different name but I forget what!) Sue and I sat and people-watched (and bag-watched) and had sangria, while Judy and Alison went to see Las Ramblas. I'd been told all sorts of other places that I should visit, but going anywhere else on the metro would have cost money I didn't have, and I didn't have the energy - or the unblistered feet - to walk far, so I volunteered to stay with the bags, and Sue liked the idea of just sitting and having a drink, so everyone was happy. Hopefully I'll go back to Barcelona one day. (I'll have to, I didn't even see Camp Nou!)

Alison and I had decided we weren't going to have another meal on the trainhotel, so we went to a nearby shop and bought supplies to sustain us till the next day. It was still ridiculously hot, so we got ice creams too. EXCELLENT plan, because when we got on the trainhotel it was soon as hot as last time. There was a bit of tension, too, because Sue had bought her ticket a day after the rest of us, and that meant she'd ended up in a different compartment on the return journey because someone else had already bought the fourth place in our compartment. Sue was hoping to persuade whoever it was to swap, but as it turned out we never even saw her. We saw her partner a few times, and I don't know what he'd sorted out, but the gist of it was that if we didn't mind keeping their suitcase in our compartment, Sue could stay with us, so it all worked out well.

Sue and Judy went for their meal (again, they couldn't get in before 11 pm), and while they were eating, at about midnight, we crossed the border into France, and the wheels were presumably changed again. I say "presumably" because Alison and I were trying hard to see exactly what was going on, but we couldn't be sure. We definitely stopped for ages, and they were doing SOMETHING, but we couldn't see what. When I witnessed whatever it was on the way south, I was sure the train tilted when they did it, but it didn't this time. Maybe it felt different because I was lying down? Anyway, this time it felt more as if they lifted the whole train up and then lowered it again, but I couldn't be sure.

Sue and Judy returned not long afterwards, and we all went to sleep. Well, we tried - Sue fell asleep with her light on, and I can't sleep with lights on. We were both in top bunks this time, so if I'd climbed over to wake her, I suspected I would have woken the others as well. So I had the brilliant idea of throwing things at her till she woke up, and the best things seemed to be screwed up (but unused) tissues. She did wake up eventually, and turned the light off at my request and went straight back to sleep. She was very amused when I explained to her (in the morning) why her bed was covered with screwed up tissues, because she didn't remember the incident at all!

We got to Paris in time for Sunday breakfast. The others wanted to go for a wander and have breakfast somewhere outside the station. I figured that inside the Gare d'Austerlitz was still in Paris, and it involved no walking, and my blisters were STILL sore, so I insisted on staying with the bags and had breakfast on my own on the station. (I had the last laugh, because the café they went to didn't have enough croissants for all of them!) I enjoyed people-watching - in particular, there was a large samba band that was obviously meeting up to go by train to a festival somewhere, and every time an extra one turned up, there were flamboyant greetings all round. I was also quite taken with the station announcement jingle, which had a sultry jazz-type female voice singing "da da da da" (to C G Ab Eb) before every bit of information.

When the others got back, we got the Metro to Gare du Nord, and had a coffee while waiting for our Eurostar to be announced. The trip back under the Channel was as incident-free as the trip the other way, and in no time at all we were back at St Pancras and it was time to split up. Alison was going off to Glyndebourne before she went home, and I was booked on a different train home to Sue and Judy. I'd hoped to meet up with friends, because I had several hours to kill before my train (it was cheaper to go later), but they had other plans in the end, so I did a bit more reading. That meant that I'd slightly miscalculated the number of books I needed, because I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Euston Station an hour before my train left. But all was well, because I have free internet access on my phone, so I read some books online. I finally got home just before 11 pm on Sunday 31st May, very keen to see my cats. Slightly less keen to find that my mum (who'd been catsitting) had accidentally unplugged the fridge and freezer at some point, but there was hardly any food in either anyway, and she'd cleaned the house for me, so I came out of it all pretty well!

You can see all my photos - and even more of Alison's (which are much better, because she had a proper camera and a steadier hand!) online here. But, in case you can't be bothered to look, my favourites (other than the one at the top of this post) are below. The first is us having lunch near Sagrada Familia. (That's where the top picture was taken, too.) The second is the two waiters with me and Alison, wearing my scarf (they were very amused by that). The last picture was taken on Valencia station on the morning we left. It may appear to be a photo of Sue, but I was actually trying to get the very cute guy who was sitting on the bench with us :-)





Anyway, the aforementioned million links, in no particular order:

Here's the Times review of our Valencia gig.

It turns out there's a great blog about life in Valencia - Hola Valencia. Sadly I only found out they existed while we were actually there, because they contacted me via Twitter. If I'd known earlier I would have got them to come to our concert! But do look through the blog - there are some great pictures.

Oh, and coincidentally Valencia is coming to Manchester in August! Do go to the game if you can. Valencia CF is a very good team (they finished 6th in La Liga) but they have huge financial problems at the moment, and presumably this friendly is part of their plan to make some money.

Sting talks about songwriting and school music lessons.

Via ChoralNet, a very powerful welcome address given to new music students in Boston by Karl Paulnack. He talks about the power of music, particularly after September 11th.

There are pianos being left in public places all over London at the moment. Someone from the Guardian went to play one.

The BBC Music Magazine compares the musical heritage of Barcelona and Manchester.

The new version of Sibelius (version 6) allows you to input music (to produce a printed score) by singing directly into the computer. Can't wait to try this, but it'll be a while before I can. In the meantime, version 5 does everything I really need it to, so I can be patient.

On 14th June there was a World Busk Day. They even had the first ever buskers in Antarctica. Yet somehow none of this was in the mainstream news, unless I missed it. Bizarre.

If you've ever played Rock Band, you'll be looking forward to the forthcoming Beatles Version. Most exciting part? If you watch the trailer all the way through, you'll realise that it has not just one vocal line but THREE DIFFERENT ONES. So people who can sing harmony parts - and stick to them - will have a decided advantage!

A brief Guardian editorial about office choirs.

The Spectator talks more about Spotify, which I mentioned a while ago. If you haven't signed up yet, I recommend you do!

Also in the Spectator, a piece about songs that you don't like as much as you used to.

Via Finite Attention Span, a fabulous audio story about postal workers in Ghana.

You may remember that I have written about Whit Friday in the past. This year's was on 5th June, and it was the wettest one I can remember. It was still great, though. If you know a band which was involved, look them up on the Saddleworth results and the Tameside results. And put Whit Friday 2010 in your diary - it's on 28th May.

BBC Sport lists their favourite football chants of the season.

Did you all watch the Cardiff Singer of the World? I enjoyed it, but that's probably because I didn't attempt to watch it live - I recorded it all so that I could fast forward through the interview and chat bits, which I really hate (in general, not just on this programme). As usual I was disappointed that there were no altos and hardly any mezzos, and I was annoyed that there was a counter-tenor in the final (I don't like counter-tenors at all), although he was quite good. I was also annoyed that so many of the arias were repeated so often - the baritones were the worst for this. I got very sick of Largo al factotum and that thing from Don Carlo. I think the right person won, though.

I listened to Götterdämmerung on the radio and enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. The men sounded fabulous. My favourite bit, though, was the orchestral bit right near the end, and it was a bit I'd heard before but hadn't even realised was Wagner, let alone Götterdämmerung. I worked out that where I'd heard it before was on the soundtrack to Excalibur, at (I think) the bit when Arthur's died and Excalibur has been thrown into the lake, and then the Lady of the Lake holds it up in the air. It's years since I've seen this film, so I might have remembered it wrong. But I'm pretty sure the music I'm talking about accompanies a scene that's something like that. The IMDB soundtrack listing suggests it might be Siegfried's Funeral March; can anyone confirm this? Anyway, the Classical Source has a review that I don't think I'd seen when I listed other reviews.

The Choir of London took Puccini to Palestine.

The Guardian has been running an alphabetical series called School of Rock, which analyses aspects of songs. My favourite so far has been the feature on optimistic songs.

My favourite link of all the ones I'm mentioning today: The BBC Music Magazine reports that the RLPO is trying to claim that our orchestra is not the oldest in Britain. I absolutely love the quote from our chief executive - I laughed out loud for quite a long time when I first read it!

The Guardian is very excited about the forthcoming Elbow concert. They had a preview piece a couple of weeks ago, and now there's a more detailed report about rehearsals.

Here's a thing from BBC News about how singing can help seriously ill people, and another thing about how opera is good for the heart. Oh, and apparently Verdi is better for your heart than Bach. (via Intermezzo)

An interesting thing in the Guardian about the evil that is booking fees.

It seems that Brynfest made a big loss last year and this year's has been cancelled. Very sad.

And, finally, a few non-musical links. The most important is about the Manchester Zombie Walk on Sunday 12th July. Put the date in your diary! Read the comments to the MEN article for a few more details. We should have singing zombies! 4-part harmony!

Star Wars fans - particularly if they also like games - will be excited about the forthcoming Star Wars MMO, called Star Wars: The Old Republic. Watch the trailer - the game looks AMAZING. (Also, like most games, it looks like one I'd be REALLY bad at, but I'd enjoy watching a friend play.)

The Guardian is as enthusiastic as me about the Spanish rail system.

Soup o' th' Day is a new website that lists "what's on in Greater Manchester". I don't really like the layout - it's quite hard to read - but the information is up to date, and may be useful to some of you.

What does the internet think? is a new site that gives a simple answer to a simple question.

And, finally - you'll be aware, I'm sure, that United have allowed Cristiano Ronaldo to leave. Both the Guardian and the MEN describe him as "irreplaceable", and I'm very much afraid they're right, although I hope they're not. I'm particularly worried because my season ticket has now expired, and my heart is broken because I can't afford to renew it. (I couldn't afford it last year either, but there was a miracle - i.e. a well-paid one-off piece of freelance work - at just the right time. This year, there was no such miracle.) The reason I'm WORRIED rather than just upset is that I've had my season ticket for the last three seasons, and we've won the league in all three seasons. We didn't win in the three seasons BEFORE I had a season ticket. So plainly I was the lucky charm, and it's all downhill from here. Oh well.

It occurs to me that I haven't said anything about rehearsals since we got back from Spain, and they've been fabulous - but I have no energy to write in detail now! Short version: we are currently rehearsing for a concert on 4th July, which has an all-American programme that I'm very excited about. There are things we're doing that night that aren't listed on the website - another four things at least, and who knows what else (we only found out about one of the extras last night, and we haven't seen the music for it yet!) In addition to the Barber Agnus Dei (which will be mindblowing, although my breathing feels worse every time we do it) and the Songs of Freedom medley (which I really like, especially after I asked whether we could change a note in the alto part and he agreed!), we're also doing a fun arrangement (involving the audience) of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, plus three spirituals: Go Down Moses (my favourite of the Tippett set, mainly because the 2nd altos have the best part, which NEVER happens); We Shall Walk Through The Valley In Peace (which is just gorgeous, particularly the bass notes) and A City Called Heaven, which is the one we just found out about. Our choral director sang it to us at the end of last night's ladies' sectional, and it was so beautiful I had a tear in my eye. Not sure whether that was because of the song itself, or his singing, or the fact that it was his last ever sectional with us. Probably a combination of all three. But I can't wait to sing it tonight.

Faster than fairies, faster than witches

Early tomorrow morning I will be setting off on a 1400-mile train journey from my house to Valencia. The journey involves five separate trains in each direction, and I am RIDICULOUSLY excited that it's about to happen, having been planning it for so long. My mum has arrived at my house in preparation for her catsitting duties. Really I should start packing, but I have the urge to tell you all the details of the journey (sorry Libby!)

For comparison purposes, I should explain that he main group from the choir is setting off from Manchester Airport at stupid o'clock on Wednesday morning and flying to Alicante, from where they will transfer to Valencia by coach, arriving about 2pm. They are setting off again on Saturday teatime, and will be back in Manchester in the early hours of Sunday. I believe this is costing them about £265 each.

The main reason I started looking for another option was that a deposit had to be paid last autumn, and the rest of the money had to be paid in January. Neither of these was an option for me, so I was encouraged to discover that not only is it possible to make the whole journey by train, but it would be a bit cheaper, and (most importantly) we wouldn't need to pay anything until much nearer the time. As it's turned out, I still don't have any money at all (so I'm EXTREMELY relieved to find out that we will all be given some money for food while we're in Spain - I was quite worried about how I was going to eat!), but luckily I have some nice friends. My fellow altos Alison and Judy and Sue are travelling with me, and the agreement has been that I would do all the investigating and booking etc., and they (well, mainly Alison) would pay for my share on the understanding that I would pay them back when I could. So, I feel a bit guilty that so far I haven't paid anything at all, but I'll feel slightly LESS guilty if it turns out that we get to Valencia with no problems.

It should all be fine - we do have all the tickets, and we know where and when we've got to be at each place. And we will get to spend time in both Paris and Barcelona in both directions, which no-one else will! So, here's my schedule:

OUTWARD:
Tue 26th May
0745 Depart Littleborough
0814 Arrive Manchester Victoria
Walk across city centre
0915 Depart Manchester Piccadilly (Virgin Trains)
1123 Arrive London Euston
Walk or tube to St Pancras
1332 Depart London St Pancras (Eurostar)
1647 Arrive Paris Gare du Nord (Paris is an hour ahead so only 2h15m)
Metro to Gare d'Austerlitz
2032 Depart Paris Gare d'Austerlitz (Trenhotel sleeper)

Wed 27th May
0824 Arrive Barcelona Estaçion de França
1500 Depart Barcelona Estaçion de França (RENFE regional train, along the coast)
1821 Arrive Valencia Estaçion del Norte

RETURN:
Sat 30th May
1000 Depart Valencia Estaçion del Norte (RENFE regional coast train)
1339 Arrive Barcelona Estaçion de França
2105 Depart Barcelona Estaçion de França (Trenhotel sleeper)

Sun 31st May
0900 Arrive Paris Gare d'Austerlitz
Metro to Gare du Nord
1213 Depart Paris Gare du Nord (Eurostar)
1328 Arrive London St Pancras (London is an hour behind so actually 2h15m)
Walk or tube to Euston
1855 Depart London Euston (Virgin Trains)
2111 Arrive Manchester Piccadilly
Walk across city centre
2208 Depart Manchester Victoria
2235 Arrive Littleborough

Total cost: £256. So it's not MUCH less than flying, but in my opinion it's well worth it, mainly because of no-one having to pay anything until much more recently, but also because it will be so EXCITING! The trains themselves will be great (I've always wanted to travel on Eurostar, ever since the tunnel opened) and the chance to spend significant amounts of time in both Paris and Barcelona is just a bonus. Not to mention we get to sing in a concert. Whee!

Anyway, I may as well clear up some links while I'm here.

First, and most importantly, football. (What? You know you were expecting it!) You will no doubt be aware that last year, when United won the league AND the champions' league, there was no victory parade because the council was too scared after Rangers Day. This year, they have relented slightly. They are still insisting that there will never again be any live football on big screens in Manchester, but they have agreed that if - and only if - United beat Barcelona on Wednesday, there will be a parade on Thursday. (I'm sad I'll miss this, but those of you who will be in Manchester may wish to be warned about the road closures.) It does seem a bit mean, though, that if United lose on Wednesday, there will be no parade. If it was any other team in any other city, you can bet there'd be a victory parade if they won ONE trophy, let alone the FOUR trophies that United have already won this season (the Champions' League would make it five). Oh well.

In other Manchester news, I assume most people know that there are no trams running in the city centre till September, but did you also know that there will be no trams on the REST of the Altrincham and Eccles lines for the whole of August?

Music-related stuff now: Have you seen the new Cadburys Cluster advert? I saw it a couple of weeks ago and was very amused. You know I love sleighbells, especially in May :-)

On 18th May, a pianist called Gonzales broke the world record for the longest solo performance: over 27 hours. Here's how he prepared for it.

You probably already know about the Royal Opera House stuff on Radio 3, but the Intermezzo blog has a few more details.

Mendelssohn 2 is on this month's BBC Music Magazine cover CD, and Robert Tear talks about it on their website.

Via ChoralBlog, an interesting post from This Blog Will Change The World, about introverts as performing musicians.

From The Chorister, a selection of remedies for when you have a bad throat but you HAVE to sing.

From The Spectator, an interesting article about authenticity.

And one last non-musical link before I go off to pack: via the J-Walk Blog, a fascinating article about logos with hidden messages. There are lots of extra ones mentioned in the comments - well worth a read!

Hasta luego :-)

Que sera sera, whatever will be will be - we're going to Italy!

Well, I've been saying for ages that the Champions' League Final would be between Manchester United and Barcelona, and so it has turned out. I'm very much looking forward to watching this from Spain - I'm told that Valencia fans hate Barcelona, but whether or not they'll support them in a match where the opponents are English remains to be seen!

As for the title, I was amused at Old Trafford on Sunday when the crowd realised that "Italy" and "Wemberlee" not only rhyme with each other but also have the same number of syllables, which meant that all the songs which include the world "Wembley" could be instantly adapted to become Champions' League Final songs. Recycling is always good!

I didn't sing in the Wagner concert this weekend, but the reviews are impressive - Manchester Evening News, Guardian and Times so far (I'll add others if they appear). Only the MEN mentions the choir, but since the MEN is the one that hardly EVER mentions the choir, that's good!

EDIT: Graham points out a couple of posts on the Intermezzo blog (I used to edit a newsletter called "Intermezzo", but that's a scary amount of time ago!): half-time report and the final score.

FURTHER EDIT: A couple more reviews: Telegraph and Musical Criticism.

FURTHER FURTHER EDIT: Here's the Independent review.

AND ANOTHER ONE: The Spectator is maybe not quite as impressed as the others, but they still liked it!

I went to Thursday's rehearsal because we were due to rehearse music other than just Wagner. As it turned out this only happened in the final five minutes, but never mind. Before that, I did get to sing the 15 notes of Wagner, but because I wasn't doing the concert I had no music. But I hate having to share copies, so I'd prepared by putting the music onto my phone. I wouldn't recommend singing from a mobile phone screen usually, but for 15 notes it was good enough, and it amused me that it was possible! (There were more than 15 notes on the screen - of course I had to add cues...)

I've been at home for almost four weeks now - temp assignments seem to be vanishing along with permanent jobs - but at least I'm well rested and have been able to work on Plan A. My website is ALMOST ready to go - watch this space.

Other stuff: which opera would you say is England's national one?

As you've probably seen, the bells of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral are to play "Imagine".

Here's more news about that Elgar statue I mentioned a while ago (Graham sent me the link at the time but I am very behind with my email).

The ABBA guys have written a song for their staff choir - very sweet of them!

Via Allen Simon on ChoralBlog: Liz Garnett on How much practice do you need?

The always-wonderful Overgrown Path tells us more about the recent goings-on at Snape. (I have recently been reading lots of Harry Potter fanfiction so it took me a few minutes to realise that the Snape in question was not a Hogwarts professor...)

Talking of Harry Potter, anyone who's read the books or seen the films will know about the Weasleys' clock. Well, soon you will be able to buy one!

There's an interesting new initiative to provide free rehearsal rooms.

If you have a PS3 in your house, you may be interested to know that you can now get SingStar with wireless mics. (If you've never tried this game, I recommend it - great fun! I've only played it once myself but I did enjoy it.)

I think I already mentioned this, but Usain Bolt will be running down Deansgate on Sunday.

And finally, this isn't anything to do with music (at least, not directly), but I found this 15-minute talk about creativity fascinating. (If you like this sort of thing, there is lots more at TED.)

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. It's a festival that I remember every year but have never actually had a chance to celebrate. Nice that Mexicans have SOMETHING to cheer them up at the moment! (If you can't be bothered to follow the link, Cinco de Mayo is Spanish for 5th May, and is a Mexican holiday which commemorates them kicking the French out of Mexico.)

I'm in a bit of a slow period with my attempt to learn Spanish, because I'd been mainly studying on the train, but I've been at home for the past three weeks, so no train journeys! Must get back to it soon. Three weeks from this moment, my train will have just arrived in Barcelona. Three weeks from today is also the Champions' League Final, which I always knew United would be in because I wouldn't be able to go! (Mind you, I was sure we'd be in the FA Cup Final for the same reason - it's on 30th May - and that didn't work...) It's still very possible that Barcelona will be our opponents - they just need to beat Chelsea (at Chelsea) tonight. (Actually a score draw would be enough, due to the away goals rule.) I do hope it's Barcelona, it will add to the atmosphere in Spain if it is! And just in case you feel the urge to burst into song, here is some music for you:



(Higher quality version here in case you want it!)

Before I leave football, I can't resist mentioning last week's story from the Newcastle-Portsmouth game - the "swearing opera singer" was one of the soloists when we did St Cuthbert! He was very nice too - I seem to remember he saw me taking pictures and offered to take a photo of the choir for me (on my camera).

I have an mp3 that I'd love to share with you, but I think the people involved might not be too impressed, so I won't! But I do want to mention it anyway. It's a great example of how it's possible for a group of a cappella singers can rescue a song that's gone horribly wrong, just by listening to each other and not giving up! I did a couple of 6-part a cappella arrangements almost two years ago for my band, but for various reasons we never managed to get six of us in the same place at the same time till last week. I had been DESPERATE to try these two songs, but since we had a gig a couple of days later, we mainly had to concentrate on that - but we tried the two 6-part songs right at the end. Unfortunately no-one had had a chance to look at their part - or, at least, maybe they looked when I first gave them the music but forgot in the following two years! This meant that things did not go well.

One song wasn't too bad, because at least everyone knew the tune, but the other was so bad it was hilarious! Despite that, I'm quite proud of the recording of our attempt at sight reading it. Why? Well, the first two notes are fine. Immediately after that, things start to go wrong, but because there was one person singing who DID know their part (me, because I wrote it!), it didn't totally fall apart, just sounded awful. When the song reaches its last verse, there is a complicated key change, which you'd think would make things worse... but the person who has the tune at that point came in very confidently on what FELT like the right note (he had few other options, since most of the notes he was relying on for his cue didn't happen) and everyone else recognised his confidence and pitched their next note from his. Immediately there was audible harmony, which increased everyone's confidence - and the last couple of bars were perfect. To cap it all, when we checked with the guitar, we'd ended perfectly in tune! So the message is: any performance can be rescued, if you trust each other :-)

I have a lot of links to share, but first I wanted to mention All the Small Things, which finished its first series last night. I imagine lots of you watched it - what did you think? I expected to hate it, but actually I really enjoyed it. It even brought a tear to my eye once or twice. There were a few things that annoyed me, though... Mainly, the fact that they made classical music slightly evil. (Well, not really, but if you watched it I'm sure you know what I mean.) The breakaway choir was made to seem more fun partly because they sang choral arrangements of pop songs, and the original choir (with the nasty people in it) was shown singing classical stuff most of the time, except for a couple of occasions when we were plainly supposed to be slightly sympathetic, and then they sang pop! But I suppose this was to be expected from a primetime BBC1 programme.

(Just to be clear, I love pop songs as well as (if not more than) classical, so I'm not saying they should have reversed their portrayal - it just seems a bit unreasonable to give the impression that pop is fun and classical isn't.)

There's also the fact that the main choir only sang one piece of music most of the time (Haydn's Creation) - which I suppose is fairly realistic, because the series didn't last very long - except that they only ever rehearsed one movement of it! And then, at the last rehearsal before the contest they'd been working towards, the conductor abandoned Haydn and gave them a pop song to sight read (not just for fun, they performed it in the contest final). Uh huh.

However, I did really like the fact that they concluded that contests were not the be-all and end-all of choral singing, and also that they showed that even the best singers can fall apart in auditions! And I loved the fact that they filmed the finale on my platform at Victoria Station. I felt so proud to see it! Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next series - maybe they might even learn another movement of The Creation...

(Talking of Haydn, have you seen the official website of the RNCM's imminent Haydn fetsival? And, while we're at it, have you seen what they're doing - non-Haydn-related - at Piccadilly Station on 4th July? I wish I could see that - very mean of them to do it while we're singing elsewhere!)

The other main thing I wanted to mention here today is Spotify. I've been hearing about this for ages, but I only tried it a few days ago. Until fairly recently you could only sign up if you had an invite, but this is no longer the case - go to the official page to start an account. I'm very impressed with it - it gives you the option to listen (legally) to full pieces of music (both pop AND classical). Those of you who use iTunes will be aware of how useful it is to be able to listen to 30-second clips of music before buying it... Spotify lets you listen to the WHOLE THING. It also gives you links to buy the music if you want to, but you don't have to. So, what's the catch? Lots of you won't even think it's a catch, because it's just this: you can't save the music to your own computer, you have to go online to hear it every time. But there's no limit to how many times you can do this, and you can save the link so that you don't have to search for the song again. There is one more tiny catch if you sign up for the free account, which is that after every few songs you have to listen to a short advert before you can play your next song. They don't interrupt the song to play an advert, and each time you have a forced ad break it's only ONE advert. I've found it a small price to pay for such a good service. Try it and see!

On a related note, the Overgrown Path blog tells us about things you can download from the British Library. I haven't tried this yet but I plan to do so soon. (I'm also amused by his post about music journalists! But I particularly liked his post about the difference between "lean-forward music" and "lean-back music". Food for thought.)

TV things coming up: I think I mentioned a while ago about the Birth of British Music series - well, it starts this Saturday (BBC2, 8pm). The first episode is about Purcell, and there's also a performance of Dido and Aeneas (from the Royal Opera House) on BBC4 next Friday night (15th May, 8.05pm). (I had an unexpected job interview just after I last posted, during which - amongst other things - I had to identify a couple of musical scores from untitled pages. One of them was Dido, and I knew the others too. Needless to say I still didn't get the job! I must admit I'm curious about whether or not the successful candidate got all the questions correct....)

Oh, and also on Saturday - and also at 8pm - there is a Radio 4 programme about John Barbirolli. Bit rubbish of them to put it on then, but thank goodness for iPlayer! (If you can't use iPlayer, it's repeated on Monday afternoon.)

What else? The blog at ChoralNet has moved, and I didn't realise until Podium Speak pointed it out. I've fixed my link now, but there have been lots of articles posted there in the meantime, of which the ones that caught my attention for longest were the ones about Germanic Latin and singing styles you may never be able to master.

Via Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, this thing about Mahler's markings made me laugh a LOT :-)

Here's a delightful video of a load of buskers round the world playing Stand By Me. Do watch the whole of it, it will put a smile on your face. And, entirely coincidentally, here's another performance of Stand By Me, together with a nice article about the wonderful Gareth Malone, which explains very well what effect a good choirmaster can have on many lives. (I had tears in my eyes watching this video, but that's mainly because I remember crying my eyes out when I saw it at the time, and THAT was because I'd watched what they'd gone through to get to that point - I'm glad that series won a BAFTA, it was great!)

And a few quick links to finish, in no particular order:

Interesting article about the power of live performance (prompted by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, but the point is more general).

Norman Lebrecht wonders how much justification there is for calling London a music capital.

Another alarming article about libraries - this one tells us that some Gloucestershire libraries are to have piped music! Argh!

Not three tenors any more: Placido Domingo has switched to baritone.

An article about playing Bach to hippopotamuses (mentioning our very own orchestra).

Ben Folds has released an album of his own songs covered by university a cappella groups. More pop stars should do this!

The Guardian points out that the UK's last piano maker is to cease production soon. Very sad.

Manchester Confidential tells us of a charity karaoke day in Manchester next Wednesday (13th May): 24 Hour Karaoke People at Tiger Tiger. (They also mention that karaoke was born in Stockport!)

And some non-musical links: the Manchester Evening News says it was 40 years ago yesterday that G-Mex stopped being a train station. Some interesting facts, most of which I didn't know!

Blackle is an alternative to Google which claims to save energy.

And finally, a game for you to try: Foldit. It's a bit of a time sink (like all the best games!) but at least it's all for a good cause (unlike most other games!)

Verrath? An wem? ... Siegfried? Gutrun's Gemahl? ... Brach er die Treue?

So, I've been sent rehearsal mp3s of the Wagner (thanks to those responsible, you know who you are) and they are now on my mp3 page. The total length of all 19 clips is less than 19 minutes, and sure enough the ladies only seem to sing for a total of about one minute (three separate bits, in clips II-39A, II-43 and II-45B). I looked up the score online (at IMSLP) and found that the entirety of the ladies' role is in the title of this post - and none of those words are repeated! A total of 15 notes, not even in harmony. Good old Wagner.

It's just as well I already decided I couldn't do the concert due to the Manchester derby, because due to United beating Porto last night, there is now a Champions' League semi-final at Old Trafford on the evening of 29th April, which I will NOT be missing. (It's against Arsenal, and Dimitar Berbatov - who is not the most popular United player, but I love him - had this to say: "They are a great team. But we are Manchester United, so I think we are going to win.")

A few links for you: firstly, our Abraham Lincoln gig is now on the official site. (Note to self: must go and look at that statue sometime.)

On An Overgrown Path reports on the latest I Fagiolini project - Tallis in Wonderland. Sounds intriguing - I'd love to see that. (I've still never seen them live despite one of my best friends being a member!)

Operas from Glyndebourne are to be shown on Sky Arts this summer.

In non-musical news, several bits of Greater Manchester are to lose their postmarks (I'm actually pleased about this - I hate having an Oldham postmark when I don't live in Oldham), and here is a heartwarming story about robots and nice people: Tweenbots.

Oh, and I finally finished my most recent temp assignment (at the university) yesterday, and I'm taking all the paid holiday I'm owed (which is only about a week, because I had to use some of it for recent bank holidays) to try and make some progress with Plan A, which has always been to do musical stuff from home. I have a new website that no-one has yet seen, with a proper domain name and everything - I'll let you know as soon as it's ready to be unveiled! In the meantime, I'm still applying for relevant musical admin jobs when they come up, but having been rejected now by every major musical organisation in Manchester (one of them has rejected me FIVE TIMES) I don't hold out much hope there. But working from home is much better if I can manage it, because it saves me three hours' travelling every day plus £23 train fares each week.

Just a couple of requests in the meantime, though - hope you don't mind me being cheeky... If you know anyone who's doing an Associated Board exam soon, and they're worrying about the aural and sight reading aspects, please suggest that they contact me, because I would love to give them a crash course (two or three lessons). Similarly, if you know anyone who wants a few maths (or music) GCSE or A level lessons before their exam, please send them my way. Thanks!

Shoes off!

Well, it seems to be three weeks since I last wrote here. Sorry for the delay, things have been stupidly busy, but hopefully they are starting to calm down now. I have a million links to share with you, but first let me summarise recent choral goings-on.

We've done The Planets twice, once in Manchester and once in Leeds. Both performances went well, although they were very different from each other. In Manchester, we stood in the choir assembly area in a big group facing away from the doors (which were opened just before we sang and closed gradually at the end, as instructed in the score). We (well, the altos at least) were instructed to sing as loudly as we possibly could. In Leeds, there were far fewer people singing, and we stood in a curved, narrow corridor just outside one of the doors to the auditorium; unlike in Manchester, there were audience members sitting right by the door, and we could see into the hall when the door was open. So when we sang as we'd been instructed in Manchester, of course it was far too loud, so some rapid adjustment was required.

(Apparently, after the Manchester concert, an audience member was heard to say "that was really good, but it's a pity they used a recording for the ladies' voices!" I hope that at least the Leeds audience was convinced we were really there...)

Actually, it was very odd singing The Planets without moving! I don't recall ever doing that before. We seem to have done the fadeout differently each time, although each time we've usually stood still until the actual fadeout bar. Let's see how many ways I can remember of doing that last bar:
• gradually turn through 180 degrees so we're facing away from the door
• gradually raise our music to cover our faces
• both of the above, one after the other
• walk backwards away from the stage
• gradually turn and then walk FORWARDS away from the stage (our favourite example of this was the time (at the Bridgewater Hall) that we sang from the side of the stage and then walked along the corridor to the bar)

Anyone remember any others?

We also had our first Mendelssohn 2 gig last Sunday (this is the only performance in Manchester, but we'll also be doing it in Spain and London). It went well, although I've only seen one review so far, in The Times, who said that "time and again [the choir] plunged us into a luxurious warm bath, scented with emollient harmonies". Not bad, although given that we were going for lightness and clarity, maybe not the review we might have hoped for! I think we DID achieve lightness and clarity, though, so maybe the reviewer just didn't have enough words to say that too...

I must admit that, although I really enjoyed the concert (as I always do), I'm feeling very demotivated about choir at the moment, and my self-esteem as a singer is at an all-time low. This is more to do with me (and the way my mind works) than with the choir, but I've been thinking about whether this summer might be a good point to leave. It has a certain symmetry - as I've mentioned before, Mendelssohn 2 is the first thing I ever sang with the choir, so it'd be fitting if it was the last thing as well. I haven't decided yet though - and maybe the trip to Spain will reinspire me and give me back some self-belief. I hope so, as I can't imagine life without choir!

Anyway, there are a LOT of links I need to share with you. Oh, and if you're looking for mp3s to practise with, my mp3 page doesn't yet have any Wagner, but it will as soon as I have the relevant mp3s (I have a source who has promised to send them). The Mendelssohn is still there, and I've just added the Barber Agnus Dei (I know we won't be doing that for a while, but it's hard so I thought I'd put it up while I remembered!)

(The Guardian included the Wagner gig on their list of top 50 things to see this spring, by the way. I think it's unlikely I'll be there, though, because the Manchester derby (i.e. United v City) has just been rescheduled to the afternoon of Sunday 10th May. Oh, and in case you haven't heard it, there's a very interesting interview about the project which you can download from the orchestra's website.)

The 2009 BBC Proms season has finally been unveiled, with the highlight of course being Prom 19 on 30th July (although I see that the Youth Choir get to go twice - they'll also be there on 6th September for Messiah). Advance booking (limited online and postal only) opens on Monday 20th April and general booking opens on Tuesday 26th May. In the Guardian, Charlotte Higgins lists her potential highlights; Tom Service does the same; and Stephen Hough (who was a couple of years about me at school - I wonder if he'd remember me?) talks about his Tchaikovsky proms.

From the Front of the Choir has a great post (although a slightly depressing one!) about the difficulties of hosting an English sing-along.

Norman Lebrecht writes about the Messiah tradition (there have also been a few TV programmes this weekend about the same topic, but I haven't seen any yet, although Sky+ has them for me!)

An interesting new CD release - a four-CD survey of British songwriting. Tom Service tells us more, including the interesting fact that the project is possible due to The Planets!

Paul Johnson writes about Richard Strauss (I'd forgotten it was an anniversary year for him!)

Here's a piece about Kathleen Ferrier's death, discussing what (if anything) she had in common with Jade Goody.

Via On an Overgrown Path: a performance of Cosi Fan Tutte in New York is asking the audience to send texts to choose the ending!

It was on the same blog that I first heard the sad news about the death of Maurice Jarre (do read the comments there too). The Guardian has an obituary.

Have you heard of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir? No, I hadn't either. You may regret clicking on the link, especially if you watch their video! (And if you HAVE watched their video, the name you're trying to remember is this!)

Good news for opera fans - the BBC is extending its opera coverage - more on TV, and the radio stuff available online (I must admit I hadn't realised it wasn't already!)

If you, like me, knew nothing of the link between Manchester and Abraham Lincoln until recently, you may be interested by a recent MEN article that mentions it. (I can't find a link to our Abraham Lincoln gig - or in fact any of the summer prom concerts - on the orchestra's website - am I being blind?) (EDIT: Sheena points out that it's on the B Hall site.)

The prolific Tom Service has a thought-provoking article about why young people have been driven away from classical music.

A recent Guardian editorial compares Purcell with the Beach Boys.

Gramophone has a list of orchestras that change lives.

From VHK, news of a choral music exhibition at Oxford's Bodleian Library. I wish I could go and see this, but it's very unlikely, so I'll have to make do with living vicariously through VHK.

A great article (not specifically music-related) on the BBC News site, about how a piece of art can change your life.

From ChoralNet: the choices facing the conductor when the performance falls apart.

From the same blog: news of how a Canadian choir is trying to recruit tenors.

And also via the same blog: news of Handel's eating disorder.

An interesting initiative by Sky Arts: a virtual trip to the opera, including backstage camera. I don't have Sky Arts - did any of you see this?

Peter Phillips writes about vibrato.

Charles Hazlewood writes about British classical music - and it looks as if he has a TV series about this starting soon too.

Anthony Sayer, at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog, writes about what conductors are for.

And in today's news, the pianist who has conquered Tourette's.

Finally, a few non-musical links: Rachel Cooke writes about fighting to save libraries. Nostalgic, thought-provoking and depressing.

The Big Picture is always fabulous, but I particularly liked these photos of the recent Earth Hour, in which you can click to see the difference with the lights out.

If you're still a bit baffled by Twitter, here's an article explaining it more thoroughly. And if any other choir people (other than Dr Liz and I) have signed up, let me know!

Here's a handy list of things you may not have realised you can do with Google.

Other things you may not have realised existed: several of my friends are raving about Graze, which I haven't tried but seems like a great service.

TV Catchup is a free LEGAL online service for watching programmes from the most popular UK TV channels.

Couch Surfing is a way to travel very cheaply by staying on people's couches.

And, finally finally, two things that have amused me this week: a recent Dilbert comic, and this incident at the station on Wednesday night:



(The guy on the bench was extremely drunk, and it seems he had created that puddle...)

"You really did kind of miss it... except for the back row of the altos."

It's very rare for me to miss a choir rehearsal, so it felt very weird to be there on Wednesday having missed the previous week due to the Inter Milan game. It felt much longer than two weeks since I'd been there! Anyway, it doesn't sound as if I missed too much, and I had two separate people who took notes for me so I'd be up to date. (Oddly enough, they didn't both give me the SAME notes, which is a little intriguing!)

This week we spent the first half separated into two rooms - the ladies did Neptune while the guys had their first go at Götterdämmerung. (It's because of the Wagner that we're likely to have lots of free time after the Holst is out of the way - the ladies only have "about 9 bars" to sing in the whole of it, whereas the men have lots to do.) Neptune was a bit dire at first, and I got quite cross, as you will have realised if you follow me on Twitter (I won't repeat it all here). But it got better, and I'm sure it will be alright on the night. To finish the first half, we did the bit of the Mendelssohn where the men don't sing, which is nice because it's the only time we get to split into 1st and 2nd altos.

The second half of the rehearsal was great fun, though, because we moved into the jumbled-parts formation, in which the instruction is "sit wherever you like, as long as you're not next to anyone singing the same part as you". I absolutely LOVE it when we do this. (I think some people don't love it, because it usually transpires that there are clumps of people who haven't moved until they are individually instructed to do so!) Last time we did it, I sat between two basses. This time it was two young tenors called (I think) Josh and Michael. They were a bit shy, and I think they lost a lot of their confidence when they found that they couldn't hear any other tenors, but they did much better than I think they think they did. Points in their favour: 1. I could hear them both, and they both sang in tune and on the beat; and, 2. They didn't get every note right, but when either of them got a note wrong, they realised, and put a ring round it, and in most cases if we then sang the same section again, they got it right the second time. All choral singers should be like this.

The next two weeks will be a bit hectic, since they include 3 concerts and various extra rehearsals. Hope everyone's feeling healthy! (I often try to explain to non-choir people why it's so tiring, but I don't think they believe me. It's hard to get across to non-singers how physically exhausting it is. So we get no sympathy!)

Anyway, a few links for you. The biggest news of the last week has been the unveiling of the 2009 Manchester International Festival programme. We already knew about Prima Donna (Rufus Wainwright's opera) but the two pop/orchestral collaborations were a very pleasant surprise - I hope I'll be able to find enough money to get tickets. If I can only see one of them, then it will definitely be Elbow with our favourite orchestra, but I'd also quite like to see Antony and the Johnsons with the Camerata.

Talking of unveiling, our boss has unveiled an Elgar statue.

Here's a Spectator article by Peter Phillips talking about whether or not choirs should attempt Allegri's Miserere.

And a new craze: Bikearoke! Or, singing while you cycle. I think I'd be too out of breath!

Me gusta cantar

I am slowly making some progress with my Spanish, see, although the inconsistency of pronunciation is still really confusing! I'll get there. Currently I can understand a lot more of it than I can speak, but there's still a couple of months before I need to be able to speak it, so all is well. (Yes, I'm sure it's possible to go to Spain without knowing any Spanish at all, but not if you're me.)

There is one thing I've noticed while I've been trying to learn Spanish, which I wanted to mention here, and it's something I've never noticed when working on Italian or German or French. (I have O-levels/GCSEs in all three, but I don't use them regularly enough to keep in practice, so every so often I try to build up my skills again.) The thing is that we sing in all three of those languages, so their pronunciation has been regularly reinforced, and I hardly ever have to think how to pronounce the words. This was actually a bit of a problem when I was in Italy last year with my mum, because I could pronounce things so well (e.g. on menus) that the waiters assumed I could actually understand and compose sentences perfectly too! So I often had to disappoint them by slowing them down.

Anyway, I got sidetracked there for a minute... What I actually wanted to explain here was that Spanish is much more unfamiliar to me. I think I've only ever sung in Spanish once, and that was a section of a fabulous piece by Bill Connor called "Land" which was commissioned by the Manchester Cathedral Cantata Choir almost twenty years ago. (I don't know if the work has ever been performed since, but I'd love to do it again.) Other than that, my only Spanish singing has been "La Bamba", and I only know a few of the words to that! So, I've had to concentrate much harder on listening carefully to the pronunciation. I've got a CD that accompanies the textbook I'm using, but at the moment I'm mainly concentrating on podcasts such as SpanishPod and Coffee Break Spanish. (Both are available free on iTunes and updated regularly.) Anyway, it was actually Coffee Break Spanish that made me realise what I wanted to explain here (I'm getting to my point, honest!) because whereas SpanishPod has two hosts who both speak Spanish fluently (although only one is a native speaker), Coffee Break Spanish is made in Scotland, and whereas one of the hosts is a fluent speaker, the other is a beginner, so you often get to hear him demonstrating pronunciation to her, and her repeating it (somewhat haltingly). And what I find fascinating is that even though I'm not familiar with the language yet, I can instantly identify what's wrong with her pronunciation, because exactly the same sort of issues come up every single week at choir, regardless of which language we're singing in! For example, if the teacher guy says a phrase and the girl repeats it, I know immediately that the reason it sounds wrong is because her vowel is more "ew" than "oo", or her T sound is too hard, or her R isn't rolled enough, etc. And every time I spot something like this and then the teacher mentions it to her a moment later, I feel really smug :-)

TL;DR version: being in a really good choir helps with language-learning, in ways you might not have realised!

It does feel like several weeks since I was last in a choir rehearsal, although it was only six days ago. I've been busy nonstop since then, including spending the whole of the weekend earning some extra cash by doing a load of data entry. I'm regretting having volunteered for that now, because although I do need the cash, I probably needed the rest more. And I'd promised myself I'd catch up on emails this weekend... Oh well. If I owe you an email, I apologise - it's not just you! I do read all my emails the day I receive them, but at the moment I can only reply to them immediately if I can do so in one line or so. I do have a folder of emails-that-need-longer-replies going back to December, so if you're one of them, sorry - I'll reply eventually, I promise. (Unless I don't know you at all, in which case I *might* reply, but you must understand that when I have time to clear my inbox, I will give priority to people I *do* know.)

There was no Holst at last week's rehearsal, which is a pity because it looks as if the main rehearsal for that will be tomorrow, when I won't be there. (I'm going to Old Trafford to see United play Inter Milan - I do usually give up my season ticket when football clashes with choir (as it so often does!) but there's no way I'm missing this one!) It was great to be at the BBC though - I love it when we rehearse there (even though we had to go in via the basement on this occasion). It's well-lit and the toilets are clean and numerous (I wish our usual venue could say the same on either count) but most importantly it is in the CITY CENTRE and therefore very easy to get to. Pity we can't rehearse there all the time, but I imagine they charge us an arm and a leg so it probably can't be helped.

Yet again I have had "und alles Fleisch" (the octave leap bit) on the brain ever since the rehearsal - well, until this afternoon, when I heard a colleague use the phrase "always the bridesmaid", and this caused the chorus of "Why Am I Always The Bridesmaid" to lodge itself in my head. (After tomorrow night hopefully it'll be replaced by "Mourinho, are you listening...")

On Thursday I went with a friend to check out an open mic night in a pub near where he lives. Luckily we hadn't rehearsed at all - if we got to go on stage, we were just going to do songs we knew well enough to do at the drop of a hat - because it turned out that the pub had put the open mic nights on hold for a while (I suspect they saw us coming!) However, we spent a couple of hours there anyway, just chatting - very pleasant, I hardly ever do that. My friend's wife has been learning the piano, and she told me that her teacher has persuaded her to take the grade 1 exam. However, it transpired that this teacher hadn't mentioned anything at all about aural or sight-reading, so I think I scared her by explaining what was involved! Hope I haven't put her off the exam... I did say I'd help her if she wanted me to, so hopefully all will be well. (I have many thoughts about aural and sight-reading, many of which I've mentioned here in the past, but I don't think it helps students not to tell them they'll have to do it.)

Anyway, a few links: Someone has investigated the use of a click track on various pop songs. The article itself is quite technical, but if you ignore the numbers the conclusions are still comprehensible.

YouTube has finally chosen its orchestra, and the Guardian has a couple of articles about this (here and here).

The Guardian also has a couple more articles related to the ABO conference: one about speeches in Welsh and one responding to last week's article about drunkenness in orchestras.

And in non-music news, if you're a fan of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", you may find this as fascinating as I do: the transcript of the first story meeting has emerged. (Fuller story here.)

And finally, here's a really nice idea for a birthday present - wish this had happened to me!

P.S. Only just saw this and had to edit to add it: Manchester Confidential samples the buffet at Victoria Station and really, really regrets it. It's funny but sadly all too true!

"If you DON'T praise his holy name, then we'll go into D minor, people, and it will be BAD."

It feels like much longer since I've updated here than it actually is. Sorry if it feels that way to you too!

Vaughan Williams is now a long-distant memory, because for the last couple of weeks it's been all Mendelssohn. (Incidentally, I'd forgotten how short Mendelssohn's life was - he died when he was 38.) I really like this piece, quite apart from its personal significance for me (being, as previously mentioned, the first thing I ever sang with the choir). It's a huge sing, though, and it'll be interesting to see whether any voices collapse under the strain, particularly as we're performing it more times than we do most things (we're doing this in Manchester, and at the Royal Albert Hall in the Proms, and in Valencia). My favourite bit is still the 4-part men's chord at the start of "The Night is Departing", but there are lots of other good bits too.

Last week we had a great rehearsal in which we sight-read through the whole thing. I love rehearsals like that (so much so that I gave up my ticket for that night's United game) but that's mainly because I love sight-reading. And yes, even though I have sung it before, it did feel like sight-reading... but bear in mind that it's over 15 years since I last sang it, and last time it was in English and this time it isn't, so there is no muscle memory (if indeed muscle memory works after 15 years!) On the whole the sight-reading was pretty successful - I do think most of the choir are getting better at this. (It occurred to me the other night that there's an easy way to tell - just from watching - who the best sight-readers are in any choir. Just wait for a page turn. There are still many singers (in all choirs) who only turn the page at the moment the music actually REACHES the end of the page. The good sight-readers will have turned several bars earlier.)

This week we didn't do the whole thing, but concentrated on some of the harder bits. There was also a ladies' sectional at which I'd expected we'd do the section where the men don't sing and the ladies are in 4 parts, but we didn't. I'd also expected we'd do the Planets, but we only spent 5 minutes reading through it at the end. Lots of people (who presumably hadn't done it before) seemed quite bemused by it, but I'm sure they'll find it easy enough once they've worked out which line to sing. The sectional was great fun though, as usual. I think it's because there are always far fewer people there than at the Wednesday rehearsals, so the atmosphere is much more intimate.

(They used to always alternate the sectional nights, so that people who have a regular commitment on a particular night, as so many of the choir do, don't always miss out. But recently all the ladies' sectionals have been on Thursdays and all the men's have been on Tuesdays, so any ladies who have to be elsewhere on a Thursday won't have been able to come to any of them. And it's been a pain when I've been trying to schedule rehearsals for my band, because Thursdays are the only nights none of us has any other regular commitment, so we usually rehearse on Thursdays, but since four of us sing in the choir we've found it extremely difficult to fit rehearsals in this year so far, due to the number of choir commitments on Thursdays.) (And even after we HAVE agreed dates, things keep happening to prevent us rehearsing as planned, due to people being ill or having to go into work. There are seven of us and we've NEVER yet had a rehearsal with more than five! One day...)

Anyway, at this week's ladies' sectional, we not only made lots of progress on the hard bits of the Mendelssohn, we were also treated to a one-man performance of My Evaline. (I recognised the tune but didn't know its name - I had to ask. It's from the Yale Songbook, a.k.a. "Songs of Yale", used by the Yale Glee Club.) Why? Because there's a bit in Mendelssohn 2 that is similar to a bit of "My Evaline"! There was also a bit of discussion of the Andrews Sisters (for those who've never heard them, their most famous song is probably Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and there's a documentary about them on BBC4 at 9pm this Friday.). I love rehearsals like that! (And I realise I've now said that about two totally different types of rehearsal - well, I love both types!)

The other choir-related excitement this week was that I've spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning the details of our get-to-Valencia-by-train plan. In the next day or two the tickets will go on sale for the Paris to Barcelona leg of the journey, so I wanted to be sure that we know exactly what we're doing, and at what time, and how long we need for each connection. The plan is now thoroughly worked out, and all we have to do is buy the tickets. I think I'm actually looking forward to the journey more than the concert - well, we'll be doing the same concert at least twice in other locations, but this journey will be a one-off! (In case you're wondering, it will cost about £240 total for each of us - £220 if we stay with friends in London on the Sunday night on the way back and take advantage of the cheap fares on the Monday.)

Anyway, I have a few links to share from the last week or two.

At Sydney Opera House they had a dawn concert for the victims of the Australian bush fires. There is a clip on the BBC news site, although it cuts out just as the choir is about to sing - if anyone finds a link to more of it, please let me know!

Meanwhile, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, they performed an opera in the bar after a power cut in the auditorium.

ACDA (the American Choral Directors' Association) has its own YouTube channel, where you can view lots of videos of choral performances. I've only looked at a few - please let me know if you discover one that you think everyone needs to see. (Thanks to ChoralBlog for alerting me to this.)

Here's a fascinating article about the technical aspects of a project to bring live opera to cyberspace.

From the front of the choir has had a great series of posts recently about "preparing to sing", but the one I found most interesting was the one that explained exactly why physical warmups are so important.

The Really Terrible Orchestra is having problems with other orchestras using its name. I'm very amused by this article: "Their CDs come with complimentary earplugs and their music is bereft of C sharps because it is a note that their principal bassoonist has never mastered." "Sometimes the orchestras' efforts are so excruciating that the conductor will stop a performance to offer his apologies to the audience." "“It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have been discovered to be playing different pieces of music by different composers, at the same time. We are The Really Terrible Orchestra and we shall go on and on.”

A nice story from the MEN about a member of the Youth Choir.

There is a new(ish) band called Fleet Foxes, and I just love their singing. Read this review of a concert they did in London this week. I would REALLY like to hear them live. (More reviews of their gig by The Times, the Financial Times and the Independent.)

Talking of London concerts, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will be at the South Bank Centre for a week in April. (That's these people, in case you'd forgotten.) I think it was only announced a few days ago, but already all the tickets are almost gone. That's someone else I'd love to see live, particularly as they're doing (amongst other things) Concerto for Orchestra and The Rite of Spring, two of the most exciting pieces there are. (Their conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, has been in London this week conducting the Philharmonia, to rave reviews (Guardian, Times, FT.))

By way of contrast, there's someone who decided to go for a month without music and blog about it.

In the news yesterday: doctors are planning to do voice box transplants. I'm intrigued by this, mainly because I can't help wondering what effect this would have on the singing voice. The article doesn't mention this question, but I hope some scientist is poised to investigate!

In the news today: well, not really news, but further mention of the prevalence of drinking problems in orchestras. I'd be very surprised indeed if it transpired that this was a problem that affected OUR orchestra, but I'd love to know which orchestras they're talking about in the article.

Non-musical stuff: the Big Picture has a great series of photos from this year's Carnival in Rio.

A date for your diary: Saturday 28th March (8.30-9.30pm) is Earth Hour. Get ready to turn your lights out.

I'm fascinated by Twitscoop - a constantly-changing summary of what people are talking about RIGHT NOW, taken from millions of Twitter posts.

And finally - apparently cats are fascinated by this spider, but I haven't been able to get either of mine to look at the screen for long enough to notice it!

EDIT: I almost forgot... the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film (due for release on 17th July) has a new official website, where you can see a trailer and hear the new version of the theme tune. Over four months to go and I'm ridiculously excited!

The night is departing

Very busy week - out every night and have had loads of stuff to do at home too, which has meant not going to bed till... well, now! - so I'll write properly at the weekend. This is just a flying visit to let choir members know that, thanks to the wonderful Sheena, Mendelssohn 2 is now available on my mp3 page (also linked on right of this page). The choir on the recording isn't great, but they're good enough to help with notebashing at least. Oh, and my prediction about what language we're singing in turned out to be correct! Drat!

A demonstration of quality unaccompanied singing

I'm quite impressed with the MEN review of last night's concert, although their perception of what part of our performance was the best is interesting (by which I mean, I don't agree with it!) I really enjoyed the concert (well, our bit at least - the rest of the programme wasn't really to my taste, although the Britten thing was fun). I don't think we sang as well as we were doing last week, but it was amazing after the rehearsal the previous night, which did not go as well as we might have hoped (plus it ended with us receiving some very bad news). People always say that a bad dress rehearsal makes for a good concert, and it certainly worked in this case!

I actually got quite overcome at some point in the Gloria when I realised that the performance was going to be good after all, and couldn't sing properly for a minute or so because I had a lump in my throat. After that I was OK, but I got so excited by the end that I couldn't keep my breath for the very last phrase - a pity, because how often do the altos get to start *and* finish a piece? Oh well.

Anyway, no more Vaughan Williams for us - next up, Mendelssohn 2 and the Planets. I'm really, really hoping we do the Mendelssohn in English (which will probably guarantee it's in German...) because it was the first thing I ever did with the choir, in 1993, and we did it in English then, so that's the version I've got in my head. (I wasn't allowed to sing in the concert that time due to being "on probation", so this will be my first performance of it.) Does anyone have (or know of) a recording of it IN ENGLISH? I've been looking for one for the past 16 years and not managed to find one... In the meantime, if anyone has a recording in German that they'd be willing to share, I'd appreciate it. (I've never bought one because I've been holding out for the English version.)

Finally, a couple of links: talking of Mendelssohn, there is a sing-a-long-a-Mendelssohn day in May.

From the BBC, the healing power of drumming.

And a composer tries to recreate Neanderthal music.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

As if there weren't enough problems this week caused by the weather (although Manchester did pretty well compared to most enough places - there are still several inches of snow on the ground at my house, but this hasn't stopped me doing anything) I had a difficult day yesterday caused by a student sit-in. Apparently this started on Thursday, but the first I knew of it was on Friday morning when I arrived at the university (where I am currently temping) to find security staff all over the place. I was sent to three doors before they eventually let me in (I don't have a staff card, see, being a temp). Turns out the students had expanded into the post room, and our office is very near there.

So, not only was it a pain to get in (so I couldn't start work on time despite my train being early for once), we didn't receive any post and couldn't send any (there was one package that apparently HAD to go yesterday, so I spent a while after work trying to find a postbox with a wide enough opening, having bought stamps at lunchtime only to find that the package was too big for the nearby postbox, and I didn't have time to go in search of a post office). And by lunchtime, our part of the building was deserted, with only one security guard left, who said that if I went out he wouldn't be able to let me back in, so I had to arrange for someone to come up and meet me... I found out later that apparently the university had emailed everyone in that building to tell them to go home. They certainly didn't email me, nor anyone else in my office (at least I don't think so, because they stayed there all day too), but it's probably just as well because if I'd had to go home I would have lost half a day's pay!

And I didn't even see any of the student sit-in, despite having to go right past it - the many, many security guards kept people shielded. Oh well.

Anyway, choir this week was particularly good fun. The gig is on Thursday, so this was our last session before joining up with the youth choir (who will be singing the four solo lines - not as solos, just to give a different sound). We did sing every note of the Mass, for the first time (although not in order). I think it will be fabulous. And what made it even better was that we spent the majority of the rehearsal sitting muddled up (i.e. no-one was next to someone singing the same part). I *love* it when we do this, and wish we did it more often! I think it's really good for showing people which bits they need to work on individually. (In every choir I suspect there are a lot of "followers" who don't realise how much they are following - hopefully sitting jumbled up alerts them to this!)

I ended up sitting between Peter and Cliff, both 2nd basses, and it was WONDERFUL. I had never noticed how many glorious low notes they have in this piece - it was spinetingling. Actually, I thought the men in general sounded much better when they were jumbled up - I have a theory as to why this might be, but I will leave you to come up with your own!

On Wednesday we'll be rehearsing in the hall with the youth choir, which I'm very much looking forward to. Then on Thursday it's the concert, which I think will be our best one in a while (and ALL our concerts are great, so that should give you some idea how good this one will be!) I'm very pleased that they've changed their minds about having us sitting in the choir seats during the main concert - so we're back to being a proper post-concert event as originally planned. (I'd hoped we'd be performing on the stage rather than from the choir seats, but it turns out this isn't an option because there is no way we can *rehearse* on the stage, so I agree we should perform as we've rehearsed. It'll still be great!)

I'm particularly excited because not only is my mum coming on Thursday, my best friend and his wife will be there too. He hasn't seen the choir in *years* - and his wife never has - so I can't wait to hear what they think!

Anyway, hopefully there'll be a lot to say about the concert, but in the meantime I have, as usual, a few links.

On an Overgrown Path talks about unusual performance spaces (including Belle Vue) prompted by a concert he went to in Great Yarmouth.

The BBC Music Magazine tells us about opera singers in the crowd at rugby games.

There's a nice audio slideshow about the Soweto Gospel Choir on the BBC website today.

The Soweto thing is uplifting, but this is quite the opposite: Time magazine tells us about the increasing use of Auto-Tune software to improve vocal performances. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

Oh, and I applied for a music-related job this week. I've actually applied for this particular job three times in the past 18 months - I got an interview the first time, but not the second. So I don't hold out much hope, but I think I would be great at it, so I wasn't about to give up! I'll let you know if I get anywhere...

If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy

I've had a bit of a mixed week in which some good things have happened, but far more things have not gone according to plan. I spent far too much time chasing a certain organisation to get them to pay me for some freelance work I did for them. I was desperate to get this money by Friday so I could pay this month's mortgage, but it was not to be. They do say they're GOING to pay me, but don't seem in any hurry to actually do so! Argh!

Choir was fun though - not just the fact that we finally did the last few bits of the VW that we hadn't previously looked at, but also because during the warmup there was a great impromptu variation on the regular off-the-voice quiet staccato "hoh-hoh-hoh" thing (choir members will know the one I mean, I hope). This time we were instructed to do a long note every so often and then go back to the staccato. The sound of the whole choir doing this together was amazing!

The VW gig is a week on Thursday and I'm really looking forward to it. It was originally billed as a post-concert event, but now it seems we are part of the main concert after all. I hope they still change the lighting like they did last time, I thought that made all the difference.

I had a rehearsal with my band on Thursday. There was a last-minute rethink about what we were going to be able to rehearse due to a couple of people not being able to make it, but I was delighted that we were still able to try "This Little Babe" (from Britten's Ceremony of Carols) (yes, I know January is not the most obvious time to be singing this, but I only thought of it a couple of weeks ago and couldn't bear to wait 11 months to try it!) It occurred to me that there's no reason why it wouldn't work with guitar accompaniment instead of harp, and in fact it worked really well. Better than you might expect, actually, given that the three of us who were singing it all knew it very well, but we'd all previously sung the alto part. Since the other two are both 1st altos, though, I decided it made more sense for them to sing the soprano parts and me to stick with the alto part. To be fair, it only goes high right at the end... Anyway, I thought we sounded fabulous! The most amusing part was that I'd sent my guitarist an mp3 because he's never heard the song before, and he said he'd found it difficult to practise to due to the "weird echo effects on the recording". It took me a moment to realise that he meant the canon! I had to show him the vocal score to explain that what was going on in verse 3 was entirely down to Britten :-)

(The other amusing part was that we instructed him to pay no attention to us as we would put him off, which was fine until it got to the last line and his chords were supposed to alternate with ours... Despite that, he did very well for a first attempt, given that he doesn't really read music (he was playing from a chord sheet I'd created, as usual). Next time we'll be trying "Balulalow" as well - that needs 4 singers and we only had 3 on Thursday.)

In non-musical news, the Vendee Globe has been won, although only one competitor is home so far - the rest are a long way behind him. The winner is Michel Desjoyeaux, who also won it the year Ellen MacArthur came second (which is what originally made her famous). It's not been in the news at all, but maybe that's because there have been no British sailors with any chance of winning after Mike Golding and Alex Thomson had to pull out. Oh well. Maybe in 4 years' time!

A few links to finish. The Guardian tells us of how Argentina and Uruguay have been arguing about the history of the tango.

Someone at Manchester Confidential went to her first classical concert.

Boston.com has a theory about a sensitive female chord progression. I'd be more convinced if they'd quoted more songs I actually know (and I do know LOTS of songs!)

Boston.com is also responsible for the Big Picture, which I've mentioned before, but recently they had a great series of photos of London from above, at night.

It was a spreadsheet in my case!

At one point during this week's Vaughan Williams rehearsal, we were told that we needed to think of whatever had made us happiest so far that day, so that our singing would sound livelier. (Note to any non-singers reading this: this may sound ridiculous, but it does actually seem to work.) I was amused to realise that my happiest moment of the day was caused by a spreadsheet I'd created. It was the conditional formatting that did it, I love that :-)

Not much to say other than that, and I'm on my way out of the house, so let's see if I can quickly share a few links.

I'm very, very amused by The Choral Conductor's Flowchart (courtesy of ChoralBlog). Some of the language might be NSFW - be warned.

From the Guardian, a great article about why Guitar Hero is such fun. If you've never tried the game, and/or never heard of it, and/or think you would never enjoy a video game - read this.

Also from the Guardian, a great interview with Acker Bilk.

Tomorrow is Burns Night, and it's a special one this year, kicking off the Year of Homecoming. And here's a great article by the wonderful Jackie Kay about Burns.

If you've ever read the fabulous children's book Coraline (by Neil Gaiman), you will be delighted to know that an animated film of it is released next month. and here's a trailer featuring Neil himself talking about it. (This is one of the best books EVER to read aloud to kids; I did so for several classes when I was at Rydings Special School, and it went down very well.) (Also, after reading Coraline you will never think of buttons in the same way again.)

And finally, the Vendee Globe race is almost over - the leaders are in the North Atlantic, and Michel Desjoyeaux is still a long way ahead of the rest - but in the meantime the Big Picture has some great photos of recent sailing events.

Types of cadence

Quick quiz for any of you who have ever studied any music theory: Before reading any further, how many types of cadence can you name?

One of the things I love about choir rehearsals is that they very often remind me of things I once knew and ought to still know, so I have to go home and look them up. Tonight it was English cadences, of which there are many in the Vaughan Williams. When the term was first mentioned last night, I thought I knew what they were, but when the explanation was given I was wrong. Turned out I was getting them muddled with feminine cadences, which are basically cadences in which the final note is on a weak beat of the bar. And while I was looking this up, I got sidetracked and was reminded of Phrygian cadences, and discovered their link with Andalusian cadences - I'd never heard of those before! (Well, not by that name, although the sound of the cadence is very familiar.)

If you mentioned any of these in your list of cadences, you definitely win. However, the four standard ones (that I think are probably on the Grade 5 Theory syllabus, although I could be wrong about that) are Perfect (V-I); Plagal (IV-I); Imperfect (anything-V) and Interrupted (V-VI). If you got all four, give yourself a pat on the back! (Lots more info, as usual, at Wikipedia.)

(Oddly enough, Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for Phrygian cadences - maybe I will write one - but while checking my info elsewhere, I discovered this very useful dictionary of musical terms. Worth bookmarking, I think.)

Lots of singing this week - there was a full rehearsal last night and a ladies' sectional tonight, both concentrating on Vaughan Williams. It's very wonderful and I can't wait to perform it. (My favourite chord is at letter E on page 20 - I *know* you wanted to know that!) Two things I only noticed tonight, mainly because we looked at the Agnus Dei for the first time: The last page of the score is the first time all 12 parts sing at the same time, and the very last phrase of the piece (sung by the altos) is identical (well, apart from a tiny difference in rhythm) to the very first phrase of the piece (sung by the altos). How clever is that?!

I don't have many links for you this week, because I seem to have had no time to do anything. (Oh, and if you're one of the many people to whom I owe email, please be patient and I'll get to you in the end. I had a bit of an inbox explosion after that article appeared in the paper, and I haven't managed to summon the energy to reply to ANYONE yet - so it's not just you!) In fact, the only musical one is one that I saw a while ago (can't remember if I mentioned it at the time) but Dr Liz reminded me of: a load of monks performing the Hallelujah Chorus. (Note: they don't actually sing...) (Further note: it's entirely possible they're not actual monks...) I don't think I've ever been quite so amused by the word "and" - watch and you'll see what I mean! (Hint: fast forward to 1 minute 30, because it's boring until then.)

A totally different video is a physicist describing what it would be like to die in a black hole. (This is half an hour long, and it's all very entertaining, but the black hole bit is just the first seven minutes of it. If you listen to the rest, don't worry - that asteroid is NOT going to hit us!)

The most entertaining bit of my week so far, though, was being at Old Trafford on Sunday to witness United thrashed Chelsea. The funniest part was the reception John Terry (the Chelsea captain) got. Unsurprisingly he is very popular at Old Trafford these days, because it was mainly due to him falling over in Moscow that we won the Champions' League. This meant that he was cheered when his name was read out (which is unusual for an opposing player) and every time he touched the ball. You probably had to be there to appreciate how funny this was!

As good as ever

I suppose it's not ENTIRELY a bad thing if the only mention your role gets in a review is "as good as ever", especially if the reviewer in question has been known, in the past, not to mention you at all. But anyway, in case anyone missed it, the Manchester Evening News very belatedly reviewed our carol concerts.

I was still listening to Christmas music until yesterday, but that's because I have a playlist of "all the Christmas music there is" and once I've started to listen to it, it feels wrong not to finish. Plus, I really like the Zither Carol! This list has grown each year and currently contains 214 tracks (some pop, some classical), so it takes a while to listen to all of it.

Christmas for the choir is finished for ten months or so, though, and this week we started on the lovely Mass in G Minor by Vaughan Williams. (Wikipedia claims it is the first mass written in a distinctly English manner since the sixteenth century, and I must admit I can't think of a counterexample.) We'll be performing this on 12th February, at a late-night performance following an interesting-looking concert whose main work is Schumann's 3rd Symphony, although I love the title of the Colin Matthews piece! Last time we did one of these post-concert events, it was the Tippett Negro spirituals, and the atmosphere was absolutely magical - I hope this one's as good, and I suspect it might be. (That Tippett performance was recorded, and if memory serves I think we heard it in a rehearsal but there was some reason why we couldn't all have copies of it - can anyone remind me?)

Anyway, I enjoyed sight-reading the Vaughan Williams on Wednesday, and am looking forward to starting work on it properly. My favourite aspect so far is that it's for double choir, and the two choirs are sitting separately. This means that us 2nd altos feel even more special, because it's much more obvious how outnumbered we are by the 1sts (I think there were literally three times as many 1sts as 2nds, last time I counted). On Wednesday we ended up totally surrounded by 2nd sops - as in, there was a circle of them enclosing us! We'd been instructed to sit in wedges so that each row contained all eight parts, but the 2nd sops had already filled all the 2nd alto spaces on the second row before any of us got there, so we started at the third row... and then a load of 2nd sops arrived late and sat behind us (and to our right as well) because there were no more seats. As a result I now know the 2nd sop part quite well but couldn't hear the men at all. Still, it'll give me a new experience next week!

I may have posted these mp3s before (we did the Sanctus for last year's vocal assessments) but here they are again anyway for those who want to practise:

Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei

I've acquired a load of links over the last few weeks - I didn't want to include any of them in my Twelve Days of Christmas song posts because I knew I was less likely to keep my vow of posting for twelve consecutive days if I did! (If you didn't read any of those, do go back and look - my readership dropped each day I did them, but I enjoyed doing them anyway so I don't really care!) So, here are some things for you to read.

I suspect there'll be quite a few things about Haydn this year (he died on 31st May 1809) and here are the first: The great Haydn road trip and Long live Papa Haydn; both from the Guardian, the first about a trip to places associated with Haydn while listening to all 106 of his symphonies, and the second specifically about his vocal works.

Also from the Guardian, an article about a new film about Carl Orff, and another about footballers' tastes in pop music.

You may well be aware of last year's story about Joshua Bell busking (I thought I'd mentioned it at the time, but it looks as if I didn't). I was recently reminded of it by, of all things, a Snopes post. (In case you haven't encountered Snopes before, it's an invaluable site for checking the truth of those emails you get that tell you "this is a true story, forward it to everyone you know!") The event was actually an experiment by the Washington Post, and the full story (including a link to the video of his performance) is a very thought-provoking read, as is the followup discussion with the writer, which explains how the experiment came about and why he waited three months to write about it!

Here's a not-entirely-serious Guardian artcile about the effect of Guitar Hero on guitar design.

And some double bass related T shirts.

Another VERY interesting article by David Griggs-Janower, this time about what conductors do in rehearsals and why it's so exhausting. (The followup post, about being a teacher, is also worth a read, and the two posts together explain very well the main reason I gave up teaching!)

From ChoralBlog, a piece about church congregations not being able to sing as high as they used to. (The full original post at Soho the Dog is interesting too.)

MIke Barnes writes in the Guardian about loud noise in music causing tinnitus.

From the J-Walk blog: apparently Microsoft are introducing a thing called Songsmith, which creates an instant accompaniment as you sing. If any of you tries this I would love to hear your reports!

That's the end of my music-related links, but I have a few more non-musical ones to share. Firstly, the Big Picture continues its excellence with some amazing photos from recent events in Gaza.

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, so it's great timing for an announcement that there is to be a dark sky park in Scotland. I'll definitely be visiting that as soon as I can afford the trip. (Talking of astronomical things, if you've been wondering what that very bright "star" is that you can currently see in the south west in the early evenings, it's Venus, and it sets at 8pm.)

I'm currently teaching myself Spanish in preparation for our trip to Valencia in May, and I'm relieved it's not Portugal we're going to, because I imagine it would be VERY confusing to learn Portuguese at the moment - they're changing all their spellings!

Working at RNID for over a year showed me how much I had to learn about deafness, so it doesn't surprise me to find that there are aspects of blindness that I had no idea about. For example, I had no idea, until I read this, that children learning Braille used to have to do so backwards!

Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture ends tonight, so I thought I'd mention a new banner that's recently been put up at Old Trafford. (Thanks to Republik of Mancunia for the picture.)

And from Manchester Confidential, news of an opportunity to become a hermit for two months at the Manchester Museum!

Finally, I know you've been wondering about the Vendee Globe. (I forgot to remind you about my other favourite yacht race, the Rolex Sydney Hobart race, which takes place every Boxing Day between Sydney and Hobart (Tasmania), but there were no big surprises in it this year.)

The leaders are now on the home stretch, having rounded Cape Horn and being well on their way up the Atlantic, to the east of South America. The leading British competitor is currently Samantha Davies (the one who didn't quite rescue that guy), who's in 4th place of the 12 who are still in the race, but 1800 miles behind the leader (Michel Desjoyeaux, who has won the race before - in fact, he was the winner in 2001 when Ellen MacArthur rose to fame by coming second). There's been more trauma recently, though - two more of the leading competitors have had to withdraw, because one of them (Jean Le Cam) capsized near Cape Horn (in one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world) and then the guy who rescued him (Vincent Riou) was dismasted as a result of damage caused during the rescue. Both sailors are now safely in Chile, but they might easily not have been - this is what happened to Jean Le Cam's boat...

The twelfth day of Christmas: Manchester Rap

To finish with, a song that was never a hit, and was never (as far as I recall) performed on TOTP. If there was a video, I never saw it (and I can't find one on YouTube). It's not on Wikipedia, and googling it merely turns up a few people trying to find a copy of the mp3. (This being the case, I can't guarantee what year it was released - I could dig out my 7" vinyl copy, but that would require more energy than I currently have - but I think it was 1989.) I don't think it was ever even played on the radio... except on Manchester local radio!

The Bosnians - Manchester Rap

It's entirely possible that this song will do nothing for you if you're not from Manchester. It has the same chord - and in fact more or less the same backing entirely - all the way through. The vocal line has no tune - it's all spoken. That being the case, there is obviously no vocal harmony. There are no interesting instruments. Nothing musical of note happens at all.

And yet.... this song makes me giggle every time I think of it. "MAXEEEEENE!"

Anyway, tomorrow, back to normal - I could continue this series forever, but I suspect no-one wants me to (my readership has gone down each day for the last twelve!)

The eleventh day of Christmas: Jilted John

I suspect that to anyone who's a certain age, it's impossible to hear the name "Gordon" without the voice in your head adding "... IS A MORON!" Today's song will explain this to anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about....

Jilted John - Jilted John

Yes, the name of the song is the same as the name of the singer - that never happens these days! This was a big hit in the UK in 1978 (yes, it was only a matter of time till we got back to the 1978 catalogue). I was at school at the time, and everyone I knew quoted this song at the drop of a hat. Musically there's nothing to it - for large parts of it there are only two chords (although this does make it much more interesting when they use any other chords) and the tune isn't anything special. (It's surprisingly hard to sing, though - and yes, I have performed it live in front of an audience, and not on karaoke! The range is large, and I can't sing it in the original key at all because it goes too low (and up the octave it just sounds stupid) - but it feels wrong in any other key! So I think when we did it I shared the tune with my guitarist.)

It's the lyrics that grabbed everyone at the time, though. Several lines became much-quoted instant classics: "Gordon is a moron" was the obvious one, but also "He's more of a man than you'll ever be!" and "I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop!" and many others. My favourite, though, was always "Here we go... TWO THREE FOUR!"

I looked to see if there was anything on YouTube, and found this TOTP appearance. Oddly enough, although I remember Jilted John on TOTP very clearly, the insane guy in the background doing odd hand moves had totally slipped my mind....

The tenth day of Christmas: Mansize Rooster

Well, yesterday's song was slightly silly. Today's is a bit sillier. (And, just to warn you, tomorrow's is very silly, and the last one is totally ridiculous!)

Supergrass - Mansize Rooster

Supergrass became a very big band, but this was their first (minor) hit; it got to number 20 in 1995. To me, though, none of their subsequent songs was a patch on this one. This song has just about everything! And I must admit I never knew what it was supposed to be about until I looked it up on Wikipedia - and now I know, I still can't see what the lyrics have to do with that!

Apart from the slight silliness, this song does have something else in common with Johnny Remember Me: a galloping horse rhythm on the guitar. But I love the fact that it doesn't do this all the way through - there are different sections with quite different accompanying rhythms, and I particularly like the way the song moves from one to another. For example, in the intro, the drums play on every beat (which makes for a very powerful intro!) but then the drums start galloping to bring us to the first verse.

There's also one bit where all the backing stops totally, leaving the vocals alone briefly - very exciting. My only complaint is that they should have made the end as definitive and exciting as that - they actually fade out... but I can't have everything! However, there are some Jellyfish triplets :-)

As for the vocals - well! Vocal harmony throughout, obviously (and all the harmony is interesting - some unexpected chords! I always love that) but there's also a high howling bit of BV that comes several times. And I also love the way that the last time he sings "crazy" the glissando is twice as long. And he even shouts "ROOSTER!" in a silly voice in the middle! Perfection.

The ninth day of Christmas: Johnny remember me

I make my band rehearse/perform this more often than they would probably like, because I love it so much. Mainly because it's so amusing to perform! I think it's gradually growing on them.......

John Leyton - Johnny Remember Me

It reached the top of the UK charts in 1961. The singer, John Leyton, had a few other minor hits after this one, but none were as successful as his first chart entry. He did also have a career as an actor; most notably in The Great Escape, but he was in quite a few other things too. I'd known this almost as long as I've known the song; however, until today I'd never actually researched the song at all, so I never previously know that according to Wikipedia the backing singer is called Lissa Gray... who these days appears to be the director of the National Children's Choir! Admittedly I can't find anything that tells me for sure whether these two Lissa Grays are the same person... does anyone know?

Anyway, the ghostly backing vocals are definitely the best bit of the song, but the guitar is great too (my guitar chordsheet has the instruction "galloping horse rhythm). And although there is a fadeout rather than a proper ending, this is one of the few occasions when it makes sense. I could write more, but instead I will point you to a description by Tom at the Freaky Trigger blog, where he is in the middle of an ongoing project to review all the UK's number one singles in chronological order. I only discovered this very recently and have very much enjoyed reading all the entries (he's now up to March 1981, so it took me a while to catch up!)

The eighth day of Christmas: My resistance is low

This one was actually written by the wonderful Hoagy Carmichael and was a big hit in the UK in 1976.

Robin Sarstedt - My resistance is low

The singer, Robin Sarstedt, is the younger brother of both Peter Sarstedt ("Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?") and Eden Kane ("Well, I Ask You") This song was his only hit. I could only find one version of it on YouTube, but it doesn't show any of the performers other than Robin, and it misses out the very end!

The end (both the singer's very low note, and the fact that it ends with a whispered "yeah!") is possibly my favourite bit of the song, but there are also fabulous Disneyesque backing vocals, and a full orchestra which has all sorts of interjections to contribute. Also, the intro is one of the best intros ever, and I defy you not to start swaying by the end of it!

The seventh day of Christmas: Sincerely

This is one of my mum's very favourite songs, but few other people seem to know it. However, people I've introduced it to have invariably loved it - Rachel even got me to do an SATB a cappella version to be performed at her wedding!

The McGuire Sisters - Sincerely

Sincerely is from 1955, and was at number one for almost three months in the USA. It was only a minor hit in the UK. It's one of a large number of songs from those days which were originally written and recorded by black vocal groups (in this case The Moonglows) but covered almost immediately by white groups, who then went on to have far greater success with almost identical versions of the songs because there were so many places that wouldn't play music by black groups. Thank goodness things have changed since then. I felt a bit guilty when I found out about this part of the history of doo wop, because I'd never heard (or even heard of) the Moonglows version, and by the time I did hear it, I'd loved the McGuire Sisters version for too long for it to be superseded!

So what's so great about it? Mainly the luscious vocal harmonies. The parts are all really close together, and the fact that the tune is so low in the voice - and that's the TOP part - makes the harmony seem even more dense and wonderful. (The bottom part - which I sing - goes down to the E below middle C. I can usually get this no problem, but I have to plan set lists quite carefully when we're performing Sincerely, because I can't get the low notes if the previous song was at all high...)

There's also a proper big band AND some male backing vocalists accompanying them. The best bit of the backing is undoubtedly the trumpet flourishes (I can't think of a better way to describe them - but listen and you'll know which bit I mean!) but I do also love the bit when the men sing "ba ba ba ba ba ba"... Oh, and I nearly forgot the unsubtle key change! And it all ends on a major seventh chord... what more can you ask for?

The sixth day of Christmas: The king is half undressed

Here's another song which I've loved since I first heard it, but although it's all wonderful, there's one specific moment that gets into onto the Twelve Days of Christmas list.

Jellyfish - The King is Half Undressed

From a UK point of view, Jellyfish were a one-hit wonder, because although this song made the UK chart (just) in 1991, it was the only one of theirs that did. However, they did apparently have a bigger hit in the USA - Baby's Coming Back - but I've never heard their version of this, just the cover by the mighty McFly a couple of years ago.

However, The King is Half Undressed is a perfect pop song. (Its video even won awards.) I like the harmonies - not just your standard three or four chords, there are some really interesting ones. It even starts on a major seventh chord - not many songs do that! And there are some fabulous backing vocals - lots of psychedelic oohs and ahs, and a great "ba ba ba ba!" And there's a HARPSICHORD! (or at least something that's pretending to be a harpsichord...)

But my favourite bit is the lead into the last verse, which starts at about 2:55. The guitar does a thing that I think of as an "emphatic strum" - I can't describe it better than that without either using FAR more words or actually writing out the rhythm, but I love it when guitars do this. And it's extra emphatic this time. Why? Well, the guitar actually does this same emphatic strum right at the start of the song, but there the chord has the aforementioned added major seventh, plus it's only accompanied by the aforementioned harpsichord. For the recapitulation at 2:55, the chord is now straightforward major (no added seventh), and instead of harpsichord, the guitar is accompanied by bass and drums. All of these factors make the emphatic strum SO much more emphatic. But it gets even better, because the strum itself is only my second-favourite bit in this song. My favourite bit is the bit it leads into: a set of triplet crotchets (on an unexpected chord) that are so distinctive in my mind that when they appear in any other song I refer to them as "Jellyfish Triplets". (This really confuses people if I give them a copy of one of my guitar songsheets for any of these songs. Most often this has happened with She Loves You (I'll leave it to you to see if you can decide where in the song the Jellyfish Triplets appear....) but there are others! None as good as Jellyfish though...)

(P.S. She Loves You is far too well-known to make it onto this list, but I can't mention it without pointing out that the G6 chord that appears twice in the song (the very last chord, and the end of the intro) is one of the best chords EVER to sing in a small one-to-a-part group.)

The fifth day of Christmas: Tammy

Just to buck the trend a little, here's one that's not from 1978 and has no backing vocals!

Debbie Reynolds - Tammy

This got to number 2 in the UK charts in 1957, but was number 1 for several weeks in the USA. It's sung by Debbie Reynolds, who was always most notable to me as being the mother of Carrie Fisher, but she was also the girl in Singin' in the Rain and more recently she was Grace's mum in Will and Grace. The song itself originally appeared in the film Tammy and the Bachelor, which was not only the first in a series of Tammy films but also featured Leslie Nielsen as a non-comic leading man and Fay Wray as his nothing-to-do-with-King-Kong mother!

Apparently Debbie Reynolds' performance of this song in the film was Olivia Newton John's inspiration for Hopelessly Devoted to You in Grease, and you can certainly see some similarities. The song, as with so many of my favourites, is very simple, and one of my very favourite ones to sing (I even invented some cheesy backing vocals so we could do it with the band!) There's really nothing more to say - just listen and wallow in its wonderfulness. (It always makes old ladies cry when I sing it to them - I hope it's tears of joy they're crying!)

The fourth day of Christmas: Come back my love

This is a song that I know so well - and have performed so many times (and recorded!) - that I'm always quite surprised when I introduce someone to it and find that they've never heard of it before.

Darts - Come Back My Love

This got to number 2 in the UK charts in 1978 (are you noticing a pattern here?!) Darts had quite a few big hits that year (I also love Boy from New York City and It's Raining) but their career didn't last much longer than that. They had a big impact on me at the time, though - I'd always liked what I'd heard of doo-wop music, but didn't often get the chance to hear any (its heyday was before I was born - it was my mum that introduced me to it), until suddenly Darts were performing it on Top of the Pops!

Come Back My Love isn't a complicated song. The main chorus bit comes four times, with a middle 8 that comes twice, and an instrumental break, plus a proper intro and coda. But there is a great saxophone solo, and a great piano bit, and the backing vocals are possibly the most fun backing vocals to sing of any song EVER. They even actually include the words "doo wop"! Not to mention "doobidi" and "wah wah". (I'd show you the music, but it's so many years since I wrote it out that I only have a handwritten version... I must do it properly sometime though, because it looks much harder than it is, so it's hard to introduce a new singer to it!)

The third day of Christmas: Lilac Wine

This one was a UK chart hit - it got to number 16 in 1978 - but I've rarely heard it since, so there's a good chance you won't know it.

Elkie Brooks - Lilac Wine

I didn't actually realise until I looked it up just now, but this version isn't the original - it's actually a really old song. Elkie Brooks was very popular where I grew up, because I grew up in Salford and she's FROM Salford. I suspect she wasn't as well-known elsewhere, but I could be wrong! Anyway, I know quite a lot of people who regard Jeff Buckley's "Grace" as the greatest album of all time, and he covered Lilac Wine on there, but I find his version disappointing compared to this one. (I think that's why, although I find Jeff Buckley's album pleasant enough, I've never been fanatical about it, even though I'm considered ignorant by some for having this opinion.)

I just love the orchestration on Elkie's version. It starts with a bare fifth, and you think there are only a few instruments backing her, but then more join in, until you realise there's a full orchestra there. There are timp rolls and everything! And I love the harmony too. It starts in A minor, but the chorus is in A major - at least until it surprises you by following a D major chord with a very unexpected F major. It gets back to A major in the end - and it's a proper ending. None of this fadeout rubbish! They don't make them like this any more :-)

The second day of Christmas: Ruby Red Dress

Here's another one that wasn't a hit in the UK - in fact, it was never even RELEASED in the UK for some reason, although it got to no. 1 in the USA.

Helen Reddy - Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)

I've always thought of this song as "Ruby Red Dress" and was quite surprised to discover, when I went in search of it, that that isn't actually the title. It was around in 1973, when I was very young, and I remember hearing it a lot on the radio. (Must ask my mum which radio station we used to listen to in those days, because they were clearly ahead of their time by playing songs that were never to be released!)

Again, it's a very simple song, but it's a great one to sing, and the tune won't leave your head any time soon. It starts off more or less in D major, although the fact that every chord is a D7 chord (and there are lots of C7 chords) makes the key slightly awkward to pin down. In fact, you could almost think of the whole verse as a dominant pedal, because at the chorus it finally resolves to G major.

My favourite things about the song, though, are the backing vocals and the brass parts. Both of these only join in at verse 2, and again they're very simple but effective. This is not quite my favourite Helen Reddy song - that would be Angie Baby - but Angie Baby was a big hit in the UK so it's more likely you've heard that one. If you find yourself still singing "leave me alone, won't you leave me alone" this time next week, I apologise!

The first day of Christmas: Say it ain't so, Joe

I thought I'd use this Christmas period to introduce you to a few songs that you might not know. Not classical - I doubt there are any classical songs that I know that are unfamiliar to all of you - but my first love, which is pop!

Murray Head - Say it ain't so, Joe

Some of the songs I plan to write about are songs that did well in the charts but are never heard these days. This one, though, was never in the charts - which amazes me, because I remember it getting lots of radio play at one point. This is the original version, sung by the guy who actually wrote it, Murray Head (best known for One Night in Bangkok). It came out in 1975, but a few years later there were a couple of cover versions - from Roger Daltrey in 1977 and Gary Brooker in 1979. I think it was the Gary Brooker one that I heard first, but I must have heard all three on the radio, because it was many years later that I acquired CDs of them (there were no CDs in 1979!)

The title of the song is a well-known quotation (although, as with so many well-known quotations, there is some doubt over whether or not its origin is an urban legend). It's from the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 - a dark time in the history of baseball - and the Joe in question is Shoeless Joe Jackson. The story was told by the film Eight Men Out, and is also a big part of Field of Dreams. Short version of the story: in 1919, most of the players of the Chicago White Sox baseball team (one of the most successful teams at the time, and still a major team now) accepted bribes to intentionally lose several games, including that year's World Series. They were found out, and all banned from professional baseball for life. Shoeless Joe Jackson was the fans' favourite, and it was never proved conclusively that he was involved in throwing games, but he was banned with the rest anyway. He was the David Beckham of his day, so this was a big deal... and as he emerged from the trial in which he was found guilty and banned, allegedly a little boy said to him "Say it ain't so, Joe!" (In Field of Dreams, the reason Kevin Costner built a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield was because he believed the voice in his head was Shoeless Joe asking him to do this, and as a result the ghosts of Shoeless Joe and the other players did turn up to play there...)

The song itself is very simple, starting in D major with fairly straightforward chord progressions. The thing I love most about it, though, is the section starting at about 1:45. It starts in B minor and goes through a series of fairly obvious chords, but none so obvious that you're ever sure exactly which of them is going to appear next. The progression ends with A minor, and with this we realise that the progression has been leading us through a really long modulation from D major to E major. The song from here to the end remains in E major, but the moment when the first E major chord of the whole song appears - at 2:44 - is one of the most joyous moments in any song. It never fails to cause my face to break into a huge grin. Magical.

On the last day before Christmas, my true love sent to me: four inflatable Santas, three sets of tuned sleighbells, two great Sleigh Rides and a robot

I got a text last night from Dr Liz asking how the concert went, and my answer was that it was too good to do it justice in a text so I'd have to ring her! But she was about to go to sleep, so I said I'd blog about it ASAP.

(I'm currently temping at a company in Salford Quays. I'm covering reception, but the phone didn't ring at all today - very peaceful!)

All of this year's carol concerts have been good, but last night's was far and away the best. So I was delighted that that's the one my mum came to. She says that there were people next to her who'd come up from Devon specially - they didn't have relatives or friends performing, they just came because they knew it would be good! What excellent taste. And Bruce was there too - not seen him for ages!

Anyway, there were many things that happened at last night's concert that didn't happen at any of the others, and since I don't have currently anything to refer to, I might forget some of them. But I know you're all dying to hear what they did for "12 Drummers Drumming", so let's start there!

Our first clue was that there was an unexpected drum on the stage - I think it's called a conga drum but I could be wrong. Definitely Latin American, anyway. This drum hadn't appeared in any of the other carol concerts, and as far as we were aware there were no items on the programme with Latin American percussion involved - exciting! Anyway, it lay dormant until The Twelve Days of Christmas, and then, on the twelfth day of Christmas, we had a whole Latin American percussion break - all the section played, there were shakers and everything - and then Jim the clarinettist stood up and played Tico Tico. Fabulous!

(There was also a new turkey hat for our conductor in The Twelve Days of Christmas - one of several that were produced during the concert. Sadly Petroc never got one for himself, but he was excellent apart from that!)

Mozart's Sleigh Ride was as wonderful as ever as far as the sleighbells were concerned. Ric wore his antlers again, and they fell down again. Our conductor made us giggle again with his dreamy look while conducting the audience. But the new addition was that John the timp player did an impression of a robot in the bars when he wasn't playing. Not everyone could see this, but it was very amusing to those of us who could! It's hard to describe what he actually did - probably the easiest way is to say: you know when someone does a mime of being a robot? That's what he did!

Then, at the start of the second half, the horn section had us all crying with laughter. I remember a few years ago when one of them brought the house down by wearing an inflatable Santa suit - well, this year ALL FOUR OF THEM wore inflatable Santa suits, and they could hardly walk, so they had to help each other get onstage. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much! And of course the audience probably thought this had happened every night, but it hadn't, and we had no warning so we were as surprised as they were. I'm really cross I didn't have a camera with me though. If anyone magically managed to get any photos of the horns in costume, please send me one! I'll be forever grateful!

There were no other extreme costumes in the orchestra, although there was a lot more tinsel - and more Santa hats and antlers etc. - than on previous nights. However, the trumpets and trombones made up for their sartorial restraint by being very wonderful indeed in the Sleigh Ride encore. They stood up for the jazzy bit again, but this time they didn't play just the printed notes - they really jazzed it all up. And the percussion section joined in the fun by making the most of the fact that they had Latin American instruments available! And the horns, not to be upstaged, stood up in their Santa suits to play their traditional Rudolph excerpt. I'm sure Leroy Anderson would have loved it all!

What else? Ooh, I nearly forgot Santa. Not the inflatable horn Santas but the other one. When Petroc was introducing something or other, Santa came onstage - carrying not a sack, but a violin - and interrupted him . He (Santa) was unimpressed at the way he'd been portrayed and wanted to correct this. He also wanted to audition for the orchestra! He got out his violin to show what he could do, but quickly found that his beard got in the way when he played it the usual way - so he held it in front of him and played it like a cello. He gave us a quick burst of Hava Nagila, but although I thought this was very impressive, it didn't impress the leader of the orchestra enough for her to invite him to join the violin section. She decided he'd be OK with the violas (!)... but there were no empty seats. In fact, it turned out that there was only one empty seat in the whole orchestra - the timp chair. So Santa was sent over to sit behind the timps, and it was only then that I realised that Santa was in fact John the timp player (who'd been a robot earlier). A versatile guy!

Anyway, a great time was had by all (although I do rather wish the coughers had stayed at home - they got louder each day!) I need to sleep now. However, I do have a vague plan of doing a 12 Days of Christmas feature here, starting tomorrow - I haven't entirely decided what form it will take, but do watch this space!

P.S. I've just realised I've ended every paragraph with an exclamation mark. Sorry. But it was just an exclamation-mark-type concerts :-)

P.P.S. Almost forgot - the annual American military's Santa-tracking site is now live - do have a look if you've never seen it - plus, if you're losing track of the date, my favourite website will help....