Joe is the Youth Choir guy who was at the centre of the front row in the carol concerts, and he was given the job of sitting everyone down. Which he did perfectly, and it's remiss of me not to have mentioned him before. (Particularly as he had tinsel wrapped round his glasses by the end of the last concert - didn't notice it any earlier...)
Not actually very much to say about the last gig, when I think about it. It was very good - everything stayed in tune, in particular, making both choirs 4 for 4 on that front :-) The orchestra hats were probably at their most numerous - the leader didn't have his tinsel antlers, sadly, though. (He did have some less sparkly antlers in the second half, but they weren't as funny somehow.) The much-anticipated horn section silliness didn't really live up to expectations - they did finally don Santa hats, but only for about 5 seconds (literally) when they stood up and played a line of "Rudolph" in the middle of "Sleigh Ride". And that was it! They probably decided it was pointless trying to compete with the trombone section. Sadly I couldn't see the trombones from where I was sitting, apart from Andy's top half when he stood up, but they got the biggest round of applause when they walked onstage (beating only the cellist dressed as Santa). Andy Berryman, the principal trombonist, wore a black and purple long-haired wig, a cowboy-hat-style Santa hat, a bright yellow suit (like a Hi-De-Hi uniform, for those who remember such things) and a HUGE cleavage. I dread to think what he had on his bottom half... I couldn't see that...
There was an artist in the side circle, though, who was in a perfect position to see. Don't know who he was or what/why he was drawing, but he had a large sketching board in front of him throughout. Hopefully we'll see the results at some point!
Anyway, nothing else to say right now, so I'll wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. I'll post if anything prompts me to, otherwise see you at the next rehearsal - 11th January! My throat (and those of the basses - see comment on last-but-one post) might just have recovered from the descants by then :p
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Shoe photos!
I meant to post when I got in from the gig, but got distracted by World of Warcraft again (my druid just got to level 60! This is a big deal. Trust me.) So yet again I'm just going to sleep, and will post when I wake. But I just wanted to let you know that I did get as far as uploading the photos I took tonight. They're all on the choir photos page. They're not *all* of alto silly shoes... I rather like the one of James the alto as Rudolph :-)
Friday, December 23, 2005
No, I'm not up early...
... I'm up late :-)
Going to sleep in a minute. Gig tonight. Very much looking forward to it, particularly after news from the horn section (see Gen's comment on my last post). Plus there's the ALTO DESCANT again - that is, unless Jamie decides enough is enough and bans it! Oh, and there is a plan for all the altos to wear silly shoes. Not entirely sure I own any, but I will look!
I've tried really hard to persuade people I know to come to one of the carol concerts, but have been unable to get any of my friends to come and see me. Maybe one of them will surprise me tonight, but it's looking unlikely. Oh well.
Anyway, my actual reason for posting is that I discovered another fabulous Christmas song. It's a cover version of the Coventry Carol (by a band called The Smashup) and it amuses me greatly. Note: beware of turning the volume up at the start, it gets louder in the verse.... If you like this, you may also be amused by the Christmas edition of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, which was on the other day but is repeated sometime soon - in the next line round, they had a death metal band playing Christmas songs. I was extremely amused by the performance of Deck the Halls :-)
Going to sleep in a minute. Gig tonight. Very much looking forward to it, particularly after news from the horn section (see Gen's comment on my last post). Plus there's the ALTO DESCANT again - that is, unless Jamie decides enough is enough and bans it! Oh, and there is a plan for all the altos to wear silly shoes. Not entirely sure I own any, but I will look!
I've tried really hard to persuade people I know to come to one of the carol concerts, but have been unable to get any of my friends to come and see me. Maybe one of them will surprise me tonight, but it's looking unlikely. Oh well.
Anyway, my actual reason for posting is that I discovered another fabulous Christmas song. It's a cover version of the Coventry Carol (by a band called The Smashup) and it amuses me greatly. Note: beware of turning the volume up at the start, it gets louder in the verse.... If you like this, you may also be amused by the Christmas edition of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, which was on the other day but is repeated sometime soon - in the next line round, they had a death metal band playing Christmas songs. I was extremely amused by the performance of Deck the Halls :-)
Monday, December 19, 2005
"The altos are great, everyone else is feeble."
That's more like it, isn't it? And it was of course *us* that Jamie was referring to this time :-)
Loads of stuff to write, which is why I didn't write it last night - I did stay up for quite a while when I got home, though, because I spent a couple of hours online doing all my Christmas shopping. None of this pushing my way through crowds in shops rubbish! All I have to do now is do some sums to work out how to compensate for the huge amount of money I spent last night...
Before I forget, a couple of non-carol-concert-related things... Graham E has found another review of The Music Makers, and Barbara sent me a copy of the page of jokes she was passing round yesterday. Thanks to both of you.
Anyway, the concerts. The overriding theme was of course silly headgear, as always. The silliest hat was possibly Gill and Liz's turkey hat (they both wore it, at different times), but there were lots that made me giggle even more. (More photos here, although sadly not of any of the ones listed below...) Some highlights, hatwise:
• The antlers, with purple and silver streamers, worn by the leader of the orchestra when he came onstage on Sunday night. Well, not so much the antlers themselves as the look on his face... when everyone laughed, he looked serenely around as if to say "What?!?" It was even funnier when he bent his head down to tune his violin and the streamers covered the strings! And then in the middle of one of the pieces, it fell forward and Jamie had to remove it for him (while conducting) :-)
• The Santa hat worn by the leader of the 2nd violins. It moved from side to side! Jerkily! Not sure if it just does that randomly when switched on, or whether she was controlling it, but it fascinated us!
• The Santa hat with bells on the end, worn by one of the cellists. In the middle of one of the pieces, Sharon (the cellist who shares a desk with him) started poking the bell with her bow :-)
• Jamie's Santa hat. He didn't wear one on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon Heather Stott (the presenter) brought one on for him to wear, but we were quite surprised that she did so right in the middle of a tricky bit of Jingle Bells. On Sunday night she brought it on during Sleigh Ride, which made more sense. But I just got an email from Sheena: "Heather told me she had agreed with Jamie that she would go on during the Sleigh Ride and give him the Santa hat to wear - Jamie had instructed her to come in when she heard the sleigh bells and people jangling their keys. However, there were also sleigh bells in Jingle Bells, and when Heather heard them she thought that was her cue and duly went on, unfortunately just when Jamie had a few particularly tricky bars to conduct. Jamie's remark from the podium was 'Is that for me? I'm a bit busy right now.'" Hee!
Something that's normally a hat highlight but wasn't this year - the horns! What's happened? (Gen, can you answer this?) The horns have usually been at the forefront of hat silliness, but none of them wore even a bit of tinsel this year. And they didn't play Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (in the wrong key) in the middle of Sleigh Ride as they usually do. The theory most people are going with is that they got told off for going too far (possibly as a result of the false breasts, a la Gazza, that they had last year...) and have decided to withdraw their Christmas spirit in protest. I hope this turns out not to be true and they're actually saving all their Christmasness for Friday :-)
Some other random things... no Jamieisms (well, except the one in the title, which is clearly the BEST ONE EVER), but a quote I liked from Dr Liz, after Jamie appeared to be enjoying himself far too much in the warmup: "We're just a toy now, aren't we?" I think it was only a minute later, and for the same reason, that Barbara said "He'd make a great Widow Twankey, wouldn't he?"
In the Sunday afternoon concert there was a kid (at least I PRESUME it was a kid) in the audience with a TAMBOURINE. There were also maracas and sleighbells in the same section of the audience, but it was the tambourine that was continually audible (in every piece, not just the audience participication ones!). I'm kind of surprised that someone would allow their kid to bring a tambourine to a classical concert, but I suppose that it's possible that either they didn't know the kid had it, or they hadn't been before and thought it'd be OK. But when they got there and realised that no-one ELSE was playing a tambourine, I'm very surprised the tambourine wasn't stopped and/or confiscated - if not by the parents then by the stewards! I personally found it incredibly distracting, so I don't know how Jamie put up with it.
Better news, though - that note in A Merry Christmas seems to be right! For the first time ever! Well, at least, it may not be correct throughout the alto section - I can't hear that many people, I'm on the back row - but all the people I can hear are certainly singing it correctly. It's kind of sad how pleased this makes me :-) (And in case you were wondering, the Youth Choir altos got that bit right again both times, AND the Youth Choir as a whole stayed in tune throughout both concerts. Yay!)
There *is* a bar in White Christmas that's bugging me, though. It's a bar where the tune goes F# G, yet the alto part goes Eb F. It's just a mess so far - some people are singing F# G, most have realised that they're supposed to be lower than that and are singing a mixture of D, Eb, E, F and F#, hardly anyone is singing Eb F... The mess continues on the next page, because the next note is an F (i.e. the same note we're supposed to have just sung) and it's quite an easy one to get, so it throws people when they realise they've gone wrong but they don't know where. (Overanalyse things? ME?!? OK, I'll stop now...) The *good* news about White Christmas is that the "up north" thing, which we all thought was a bad idea because it just wasn't funny, has actually gone down very well with the audience! Go figure :-)
I was in the group that sang in the foyer after Sunday night's concert, and Jamie was pleased that we actually got the words right (i.e. ringing/singing). Apparently the Saturday night group didn't. The Saturday night altos were blaming the sopranos, unsurprisingly!
And finally... we got a standing ovation for our descants! We sang three of them in the end (Once in Royal, While Shepherds Watched, and of course O Come All Ye Faithful). It was very exhilarating. Jamie didn't appear to notice we were singing... or, more likely, he was thinking "Oh my God! I can't believe they took me seriously! I'd better not look at them, it'll only encourage them!" But we did get a standing ovation :-) There may of course be those who claim that the standing ovation was NOT in fact for the alto descant. But the facts are clear: did the altos sing the descant at the first two concerts? No. Did we get a standing ovation at the first two concerts? No. Q.E.D. :-)
Loads of stuff to write, which is why I didn't write it last night - I did stay up for quite a while when I got home, though, because I spent a couple of hours online doing all my Christmas shopping. None of this pushing my way through crowds in shops rubbish! All I have to do now is do some sums to work out how to compensate for the huge amount of money I spent last night...
Before I forget, a couple of non-carol-concert-related things... Graham E has found another review of The Music Makers, and Barbara sent me a copy of the page of jokes she was passing round yesterday. Thanks to both of you.
Anyway, the concerts. The overriding theme was of course silly headgear, as always. The silliest hat was possibly Gill and Liz's turkey hat (they both wore it, at different times), but there were lots that made me giggle even more. (More photos here, although sadly not of any of the ones listed below...) Some highlights, hatwise:
• The antlers, with purple and silver streamers, worn by the leader of the orchestra when he came onstage on Sunday night. Well, not so much the antlers themselves as the look on his face... when everyone laughed, he looked serenely around as if to say "What?!?" It was even funnier when he bent his head down to tune his violin and the streamers covered the strings! And then in the middle of one of the pieces, it fell forward and Jamie had to remove it for him (while conducting) :-)
• The Santa hat worn by the leader of the 2nd violins. It moved from side to side! Jerkily! Not sure if it just does that randomly when switched on, or whether she was controlling it, but it fascinated us!
• The Santa hat with bells on the end, worn by one of the cellists. In the middle of one of the pieces, Sharon (the cellist who shares a desk with him) started poking the bell with her bow :-)
• Jamie's Santa hat. He didn't wear one on Saturday. On Sunday afternoon Heather Stott (the presenter) brought one on for him to wear, but we were quite surprised that she did so right in the middle of a tricky bit of Jingle Bells. On Sunday night she brought it on during Sleigh Ride, which made more sense. But I just got an email from Sheena: "Heather told me she had agreed with Jamie that she would go on during the Sleigh Ride and give him the Santa hat to wear - Jamie had instructed her to come in when she heard the sleigh bells and people jangling their keys. However, there were also sleigh bells in Jingle Bells, and when Heather heard them she thought that was her cue and duly went on, unfortunately just when Jamie had a few particularly tricky bars to conduct. Jamie's remark from the podium was 'Is that for me? I'm a bit busy right now.'" Hee!
Something that's normally a hat highlight but wasn't this year - the horns! What's happened? (Gen, can you answer this?) The horns have usually been at the forefront of hat silliness, but none of them wore even a bit of tinsel this year. And they didn't play Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (in the wrong key) in the middle of Sleigh Ride as they usually do. The theory most people are going with is that they got told off for going too far (possibly as a result of the false breasts, a la Gazza, that they had last year...) and have decided to withdraw their Christmas spirit in protest. I hope this turns out not to be true and they're actually saving all their Christmasness for Friday :-)
Some other random things... no Jamieisms (well, except the one in the title, which is clearly the BEST ONE EVER), but a quote I liked from Dr Liz, after Jamie appeared to be enjoying himself far too much in the warmup: "We're just a toy now, aren't we?" I think it was only a minute later, and for the same reason, that Barbara said "He'd make a great Widow Twankey, wouldn't he?"
In the Sunday afternoon concert there was a kid (at least I PRESUME it was a kid) in the audience with a TAMBOURINE. There were also maracas and sleighbells in the same section of the audience, but it was the tambourine that was continually audible (in every piece, not just the audience participication ones!). I'm kind of surprised that someone would allow their kid to bring a tambourine to a classical concert, but I suppose that it's possible that either they didn't know the kid had it, or they hadn't been before and thought it'd be OK. But when they got there and realised that no-one ELSE was playing a tambourine, I'm very surprised the tambourine wasn't stopped and/or confiscated - if not by the parents then by the stewards! I personally found it incredibly distracting, so I don't know how Jamie put up with it.
Better news, though - that note in A Merry Christmas seems to be right! For the first time ever! Well, at least, it may not be correct throughout the alto section - I can't hear that many people, I'm on the back row - but all the people I can hear are certainly singing it correctly. It's kind of sad how pleased this makes me :-) (And in case you were wondering, the Youth Choir altos got that bit right again both times, AND the Youth Choir as a whole stayed in tune throughout both concerts. Yay!)
There *is* a bar in White Christmas that's bugging me, though. It's a bar where the tune goes F# G, yet the alto part goes Eb F. It's just a mess so far - some people are singing F# G, most have realised that they're supposed to be lower than that and are singing a mixture of D, Eb, E, F and F#, hardly anyone is singing Eb F... The mess continues on the next page, because the next note is an F (i.e. the same note we're supposed to have just sung) and it's quite an easy one to get, so it throws people when they realise they've gone wrong but they don't know where. (Overanalyse things? ME?!? OK, I'll stop now...) The *good* news about White Christmas is that the "up north" thing, which we all thought was a bad idea because it just wasn't funny, has actually gone down very well with the audience! Go figure :-)
I was in the group that sang in the foyer after Sunday night's concert, and Jamie was pleased that we actually got the words right (i.e. ringing/singing). Apparently the Saturday night group didn't. The Saturday night altos were blaming the sopranos, unsurprisingly!
And finally... we got a standing ovation for our descants! We sang three of them in the end (Once in Royal, While Shepherds Watched, and of course O Come All Ye Faithful). It was very exhilarating. Jamie didn't appear to notice we were singing... or, more likely, he was thinking "Oh my God! I can't believe they took me seriously! I'd better not look at them, it'll only encourage them!" But we did get a standing ovation :-) There may of course be those who claim that the standing ovation was NOT in fact for the alto descant. But the facts are clear: did the altos sing the descant at the first two concerts? No. Did we get a standing ovation at the first two concerts? No. Q.E.D. :-)
Saturday, December 17, 2005
"Altos, I hate you!"
Needless to say this wasn't US... it was the Youth Choir altos that Jamie hated! They were having trouble singing G, C, D, G instead of G, B, C, G, in the "Glory to thee" bit of the Rachmaninov thingy they're doing (Hymn to the Cherubim). I know what the notes were because they got the same thing wrong - and consequently rehearsed it several times - in Wednesday's rehearsal... The good news is that they got it right in the concert tonight! In fact the Youth Choir sounded about a hundred times better in the concert than they did in either of the rehearsals. Their unaccompanied bits were all perfectly in tune, and they sounded great. Still a few bits where hardly any of them were watching - so frustrating to glance across and see all their heads down, when I know how fantastic they sound when they DO look up!
(BTW, can someone please explain to me why it is that, when I've just sung lots of lovely tunes in a concert, the thing I've had on the brain for the last 4 hours has been those very 4 bars... of the alto part of a piece I'm not even singing in?!? I hate my mind!)
The "adult choir" altos were of course just about perfect in every way :p Jamie did use the phrase "We have a winner!" about us TWICE... this referred to the fact that we were the only section who watched him in A Spotless Rose. It's difficult being the best all the time, but we cope somehow :p
Oh, also in A Spotless Rose during the rehearsal, we got Jamie's impression of an X Factor contestant, which... well, it's hard to describe. But it was very amusing! (It came about, since you ask, because the Youth Choir boys were trying to put in a "cheesy rit" at the end of their solo, and he accused them of wanting to sing it like an X Factor contestant...)
I took a few photos tonight. Most are not great, because I only had my phone camera and it has no flash, but I've put them online anyway. I do like the second one of the front of the Bridgewater Hall though. Have they had the lights in the shape of a Christmas tree before and I've just not noticed? I only noticed it this time when we did Messiah a couple of weeks ago - and even then, I don't think I would've noticed if I hadn't approached from Starbucks (it doesn't look as tree-like unless you approach at that angle).
Oh, and talking of lights, have you seen the lights projected onto the ground (and the Pebble) outside the hall? Very pretty! Have they had those before?
I suppose I should probably mention the concert :-) It went very well. Surprisingly short, too, which isn't at all a bad thing! Sleigh Ride was as great as ever (although not many people got the 5th and 6th claps!), and there was a great orchestral arrangement of Jingle Bells that I don't think we've heard before. It featured a lot of slapstick (the instrument, not the comedy), and the slapstick solo in turn featured some amusing shouting from other members of the orchestra! The Youth Choir, as previously mentioned, were great, and I think the highlight of our bit was probably Stille Nacht, which was very lovely indeed. All the audience participation bits went according to plan without anyone forgetting which verse they were in or singing wrong notes (yes, even White Christmas, which we hadn't rehearsed at all until today!), and the Bach bits were spiced up by Gareth's fabulous trumpeting. Oh, and several of the sopranos had flashing fairy lights on their folders, which looked rather good!
A couple of non-concert-related things: firstly, Graham E points out that the Telegraph have reviewed our Music Makers CD, and they seem to like it. And secondly, I know I keep going on about searches that lead people here, but they amuse me so! A recent one was for "tasto solo", which made me feel kind of useful, especially as I think my explanation was much clearer than any of the others that Google throws up! But the most recent one of all was the one that amused me most - it seems that this blog is the number one Google result for "frustrated second altos" :-) But we won't be frustrated tomorrow night, because we are ALLOWED TO SING THE DESCANT! (Did I mention that....?)
(BTW, can someone please explain to me why it is that, when I've just sung lots of lovely tunes in a concert, the thing I've had on the brain for the last 4 hours has been those very 4 bars... of the alto part of a piece I'm not even singing in?!? I hate my mind!)
The "adult choir" altos were of course just about perfect in every way :p Jamie did use the phrase "We have a winner!" about us TWICE... this referred to the fact that we were the only section who watched him in A Spotless Rose. It's difficult being the best all the time, but we cope somehow :p
Oh, also in A Spotless Rose during the rehearsal, we got Jamie's impression of an X Factor contestant, which... well, it's hard to describe. But it was very amusing! (It came about, since you ask, because the Youth Choir boys were trying to put in a "cheesy rit" at the end of their solo, and he accused them of wanting to sing it like an X Factor contestant...)
I took a few photos tonight. Most are not great, because I only had my phone camera and it has no flash, but I've put them online anyway. I do like the second one of the front of the Bridgewater Hall though. Have they had the lights in the shape of a Christmas tree before and I've just not noticed? I only noticed it this time when we did Messiah a couple of weeks ago - and even then, I don't think I would've noticed if I hadn't approached from Starbucks (it doesn't look as tree-like unless you approach at that angle).
Oh, and talking of lights, have you seen the lights projected onto the ground (and the Pebble) outside the hall? Very pretty! Have they had those before?
I suppose I should probably mention the concert :-) It went very well. Surprisingly short, too, which isn't at all a bad thing! Sleigh Ride was as great as ever (although not many people got the 5th and 6th claps!), and there was a great orchestral arrangement of Jingle Bells that I don't think we've heard before. It featured a lot of slapstick (the instrument, not the comedy), and the slapstick solo in turn featured some amusing shouting from other members of the orchestra! The Youth Choir, as previously mentioned, were great, and I think the highlight of our bit was probably Stille Nacht, which was very lovely indeed. All the audience participation bits went according to plan without anyone forgetting which verse they were in or singing wrong notes (yes, even White Christmas, which we hadn't rehearsed at all until today!), and the Bach bits were spiced up by Gareth's fabulous trumpeting. Oh, and several of the sopranos had flashing fairy lights on their folders, which looked rather good!
A couple of non-concert-related things: firstly, Graham E points out that the Telegraph have reviewed our Music Makers CD, and they seem to like it. And secondly, I know I keep going on about searches that lead people here, but they amuse me so! A recent one was for "tasto solo", which made me feel kind of useful, especially as I think my explanation was much clearer than any of the others that Google throws up! But the most recent one of all was the one that amused me most - it seems that this blog is the number one Google result for "frustrated second altos" :-) But we won't be frustrated tomorrow night, because we are ALLOWED TO SING THE DESCANT! (Did I mention that....?)
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
"Bells RING. They do not SING. That's what the ANGELS do."
*yawn* Such a long day, and my feet are killing me. It was my band's concert at school this afternoon, which involved standing (and singing) for 2 hours... followed by an almost-3-hour rehearsal tonight. We didn't stand for much of it, but I really felt it when we did! I'm so tired I planned to go to sleep as soon as I got in, but my cats had other plans :-) So I thought I might as well do a quick post while I'm waiting for them to come home.
Not much to say, really. It was the piano rehearsal for the carol concerts, and Jamie seemed pretty stressed, poor thing. So much to do in so little time, though, which is not really anyone's fault - it's so soon after Messiah, and Messiah was so soon after The Bells, and I think everyone will agree that there's no way we could have spared any of the Bells rehearsal time! Still, it might've helped if people had watched more. I think it's that age-old problem of people being unfamiliar with the music, so they bury their heads in their copies. It's amazing how many people have been singing for decades and still don't seem to realise that sight reading in a group doesn't really work if no-one watches the conductor... apart from anything else, the people who don't know it will pick it up much quicker if everyone sings on the beat, because that way all the harmony is clearer.
The Hallé Youth Choir were with us tonight - they're singing some stuff with us and some stuff on their own. They didn't sound quite as good tonight as they usually do, but they do usually sound fabulous on the night, so let's hope that happens again. They did seem to have a particular problem staying in tune - I've noticed this before with the youth choir, but it was worse tonight. (I was alarmed to notice, btw, that a recent search that led someone to this blog was "altos singing flat"! The cheek!)
Jamie was on good form in the warmup, as ever - he had us singing Jingle Bells, very fast, to "zzz", which was quite amusing, but not as much so as Ding Dong Merrily On High to tractor noises...
I told the new altos about tinsel and glitter. Emma asked if tiaras might be appropriate - I told her that in the encores anything goes, so I look forward to seeing what she produces :p
Oh, a couple of notes from the music: I live in hope that this will be the year that the altos sing A Merry Christmas correctly. The first note of bar 47 is a D, not an E flat as everyone always sings. I have never witnessed a performance of this - by ANY choir - in which this is correct. (I mentioned it to one of our previous chorus masters, and his response was "oh, no-one will ever notice that!" - which, while probably true, was hardly conducive to raising standards!)
And students of harmony, please examine bar 25 of A spotless rose. If you wrote that in a harmony exercise, you would get zero marks. HOW many consecutive fifths and octaves are in that bar? Quite a lot! Just goes to show that the rules of harmony can be broken by a composer who knows his stuff :-)
I'll finish with the best news I heard all night - the altos have been given permission to sing the descant of O Come All Ye Faithful on the Sunday and Friday night concerts! I am delighted - it's by far the best descant of all of them, and for some reason it doesn't feel like I'm singing high when I'm blasting out a descant. People sitting in front of me, be warned :-)
Not much to say, really. It was the piano rehearsal for the carol concerts, and Jamie seemed pretty stressed, poor thing. So much to do in so little time, though, which is not really anyone's fault - it's so soon after Messiah, and Messiah was so soon after The Bells, and I think everyone will agree that there's no way we could have spared any of the Bells rehearsal time! Still, it might've helped if people had watched more. I think it's that age-old problem of people being unfamiliar with the music, so they bury their heads in their copies. It's amazing how many people have been singing for decades and still don't seem to realise that sight reading in a group doesn't really work if no-one watches the conductor... apart from anything else, the people who don't know it will pick it up much quicker if everyone sings on the beat, because that way all the harmony is clearer.
The Hallé Youth Choir were with us tonight - they're singing some stuff with us and some stuff on their own. They didn't sound quite as good tonight as they usually do, but they do usually sound fabulous on the night, so let's hope that happens again. They did seem to have a particular problem staying in tune - I've noticed this before with the youth choir, but it was worse tonight. (I was alarmed to notice, btw, that a recent search that led someone to this blog was "altos singing flat"! The cheek!)
Jamie was on good form in the warmup, as ever - he had us singing Jingle Bells, very fast, to "zzz", which was quite amusing, but not as much so as Ding Dong Merrily On High to tractor noises...
I told the new altos about tinsel and glitter. Emma asked if tiaras might be appropriate - I told her that in the encores anything goes, so I look forward to seeing what she produces :p
Oh, a couple of notes from the music: I live in hope that this will be the year that the altos sing A Merry Christmas correctly. The first note of bar 47 is a D, not an E flat as everyone always sings. I have never witnessed a performance of this - by ANY choir - in which this is correct. (I mentioned it to one of our previous chorus masters, and his response was "oh, no-one will ever notice that!" - which, while probably true, was hardly conducive to raising standards!)
And students of harmony, please examine bar 25 of A spotless rose. If you wrote that in a harmony exercise, you would get zero marks. HOW many consecutive fifths and octaves are in that bar? Quite a lot! Just goes to show that the rules of harmony can be broken by a composer who knows his stuff :-)
I'll finish with the best news I heard all night - the altos have been given permission to sing the descant of O Come All Ye Faithful on the Sunday and Friday night concerts! I am delighted - it's by far the best descant of all of them, and for some reason it doesn't feel like I'm singing high when I'm blasting out a descant. People sitting in front of me, be warned :-)
Sunday, December 11, 2005
We are the dreamers of dreams...
Quick post. The ever-vigilant Graham E sends this excerpt of a bit of Radio 3's CD review, in which they discuss our Music Makers CD as one of their picks of the year. (The excerpt is a WMA file and is 7.7 MB... if you can't open it, let me know and I'll ask Graham to send the mp3 (which is even bigger, hence him choosing WMA instead.)) (Or if you want to listen online, go to Radio 3's Listen Again page, select "CD review", and fast forward to about 1h 10m.) (I believe it was Jackie that spotted it - thanks to both of you!)
If you can't be bothered to listen, here's a summary: They really like the recording and say it made them re-evaluate the music. However, apart from that, they say very little about the actual performance, and don't comment on the choir at all :-(
Other news: I had an email from Cath M, which I don't think she'll mind me quoting. (Many of you will be aware that her husband Graham - see, I told you all the men in the choir are called Graham! - has been in hospital. Lots of people have asked how he is, so now I know the answer I thought it would be easiest just to post it here.) "Graham is doing well. He's very perky (as usual) but has got a v. sore bum so sitting is still very difficult. He's going for his post op appointment tomorrow where we will also find out the biopsy results. We already know he will probably need more chemo. It's a case of fingers crossed! We hope to return to the choir in January if he is able to sit for a good while but Maggie's exercises will be out!! Hope the carol concerts go well. (Graham took a recording of the Bells into hospital on his MP3 player!!)"
If you can't be bothered to listen, here's a summary: They really like the recording and say it made them re-evaluate the music. However, apart from that, they say very little about the actual performance, and don't comment on the choir at all :-(
Other news: I had an email from Cath M, which I don't think she'll mind me quoting. (Many of you will be aware that her husband Graham - see, I told you all the men in the choir are called Graham! - has been in hospital. Lots of people have asked how he is, so now I know the answer I thought it would be easiest just to post it here.) "Graham is doing well. He's very perky (as usual) but has got a v. sore bum so sitting is still very difficult. He's going for his post op appointment tomorrow where we will also find out the biopsy results. We already know he will probably need more chemo. It's a case of fingers crossed! We hope to return to the choir in January if he is able to sit for a good while but Maggie's exercises will be out!! Hope the carol concerts go well. (Graham took a recording of the Bells into hospital on his MP3 player!!)"
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Fall on your knees - oh, hear the angel voices
A few random things I keep meaning to mention. But first, Graham E points out this review, which isn't actually a review of Messiah but does mention it.
Some other links:
Posters advertising our Shostakovich festival have appeared on bus stops all across the city. So you might want to bookmark the official website.
This site might be useful to those of you who are bored with the generic Nokia ringtone.
This site analyses the appeal - or lack of - of a whole load of Christmas songs. Some of you may find it amusing. I did :-) (Warning: there is a small amount of bad language; avoid if this offends you.)
The title of this post is from one of my favourite Christmas songs. I will give you a moment to try to remember which one! But while you do, I feel the need to share the fact that my two favourite verses of any Christmas carol are the following:
Verse 3 of "It came upon a midnight clear":
But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not the love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.
and verse 4 (usually omitted, and not even printed in Carols for Choirs) of "O little town of Bethlehem":
Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed child,
where misery cries out to thee, son of the mother mild;
where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.
And talking of nice Christmas music, I have put a few mp3s online for you to listen to. These are all songs that you either won't have heard at all, or will have totally forgotten about. But I really like them. (Note: there are many other Christmas songs I like just as much, but you hear those all over the place!)
Cold Cold Christmas (Dana) (3.8 MB) (A bit twee, some would say, but I've always liked this song.)
O Holy Night (N Sync version, featuring Justin Timberlake) (4.1 MB) (These guys are REALLY good close harmony singers - I first realised this when I saw them perform the American national anthem live. It was extremely impressive.) (This is the song that the title of the post is taken from, btw!)
Pirate Christmas Carol (2.5 MB) (I can't remember where I found this - it was doing the rounds of the internet a couple of years ago. I don't think I ever knew who sang it.)
Santa Claus is coming to town (Bruce Springsteen version) (6.2 MB) (This is a live recording. It's not the best one I've heard - I've been looking for that for years... it's one where he asks all his band, in the intro, whether they've been good or not - that amused me! But even without that intro, I love this - the change from 4/4 to 12/8 is irresistible, and there's a great sax solo, and one of the band keeps going "ho ho ho!" in the background!)
The Winter Song (Angel) (4.3 MB) (I remember this song being played all the time on the radio one year - possibly 1978 - but it was never a hit. I really love the "hear the angels join the choir" bit. Yes, this DOES appear to be becoming a bit of a theme, doesn't it?)
Wonderful Christmas Time (Tom McRae version) (5.7 MB) (This is great for those of you who, like me, might not always be at their happiest at Christmas. I love the musical aspects of Christmas - can you tell?! - but the rest of it... well, not so much.)
And finally: here is an mp3 of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride (3.6 MB), for those choir members who want to practise the clapping! (Yes, I'm so incredibly sad and obsessive that I did in fact practise this one year. What? I like to get things right!) The first clap is at 1:12 into the track... there are 7 altogether. The others will be left as an exercise for the reader :p
Some other links:
Posters advertising our Shostakovich festival have appeared on bus stops all across the city. So you might want to bookmark the official website.
This site might be useful to those of you who are bored with the generic Nokia ringtone.
This site analyses the appeal - or lack of - of a whole load of Christmas songs. Some of you may find it amusing. I did :-) (Warning: there is a small amount of bad language; avoid if this offends you.)
The title of this post is from one of my favourite Christmas songs. I will give you a moment to try to remember which one! But while you do, I feel the need to share the fact that my two favourite verses of any Christmas carol are the following:
Verse 3 of "It came upon a midnight clear":
But with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not the love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.
and verse 4 (usually omitted, and not even printed in Carols for Choirs) of "O little town of Bethlehem":
Where children pure and happy pray to the blessed child,
where misery cries out to thee, son of the mother mild;
where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.
And talking of nice Christmas music, I have put a few mp3s online for you to listen to. These are all songs that you either won't have heard at all, or will have totally forgotten about. But I really like them. (Note: there are many other Christmas songs I like just as much, but you hear those all over the place!)
Cold Cold Christmas (Dana) (3.8 MB) (A bit twee, some would say, but I've always liked this song.)
O Holy Night (N Sync version, featuring Justin Timberlake) (4.1 MB) (These guys are REALLY good close harmony singers - I first realised this when I saw them perform the American national anthem live. It was extremely impressive.) (This is the song that the title of the post is taken from, btw!)
Pirate Christmas Carol (2.5 MB) (I can't remember where I found this - it was doing the rounds of the internet a couple of years ago. I don't think I ever knew who sang it.)
Santa Claus is coming to town (Bruce Springsteen version) (6.2 MB) (This is a live recording. It's not the best one I've heard - I've been looking for that for years... it's one where he asks all his band, in the intro, whether they've been good or not - that amused me! But even without that intro, I love this - the change from 4/4 to 12/8 is irresistible, and there's a great sax solo, and one of the band keeps going "ho ho ho!" in the background!)
The Winter Song (Angel) (4.3 MB) (I remember this song being played all the time on the radio one year - possibly 1978 - but it was never a hit. I really love the "hear the angels join the choir" bit. Yes, this DOES appear to be becoming a bit of a theme, doesn't it?)
Wonderful Christmas Time (Tom McRae version) (5.7 MB) (This is great for those of you who, like me, might not always be at their happiest at Christmas. I love the musical aspects of Christmas - can you tell?! - but the rest of it... well, not so much.)
And finally: here is an mp3 of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride (3.6 MB), for those choir members who want to practise the clapping! (Yes, I'm so incredibly sad and obsessive that I did in fact practise this one year. What? I like to get things right!) The first clap is at 1:12 into the track... there are 7 altogether. The others will be left as an exercise for the reader :p
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
"Tenors, do you do butch?"
Jamie was stuck in Holland tonight (long story) so we had Fanny. Nice to see her again - it's been a while - and it meant I could finally complete my photo sheets for the noticeboard :-)
We discovered the programme for the carol concerts. The first of these huge, probably-sold-out-months-ago concerts (of which there are 4) is a week on Saturday, and tonight was the first rehearsal. This being the case, it's probably a wise decision on Jamie's part to have chosen mainly stuff we've sung before, and none of it amazingly difficult notewise (although of course singing apparently simple stuff really well is a skill in itself). I knew this, yet I must admit I was still a little disappointed when I saw the list. However, it does have Sleigh Ride, which is the most important one! Which reminds me - I need to speak to the new altos about tinsel and glitter (and clapping in Sleigh Ride). Must remember to do that next week.
We spent a large part of the rehearsal on a couple of movements of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, which were not the most exciting thing ever, but I'm sure they'll grow on me, because, well, Bach! There was also a brief foray into the Sussex Carol (which we've done lots of times but is still fun) and A Spotless Rose (which will be very lovely). (I'm pretty sure Graham Worth did the bass solo last time we did this, and it was fabulous - mind you, I could listen to Graham sing all day! But the youth choir boys are doing that part this year, which will be interesting.)
Talking of men sounding fabulous, I must say that my favourite moment of the night was the bit in Stille Nacht when the men went into 4 part harmony, just after the start. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. A glorious sound, it was! Made up for our disappointment of a few minutes earlier... It's Jamie's own arrangement of Stille Nacht, and it's scored for ATB only - no sopranos. We were thrilled to notice this. "What a good idea!" we thought. "The sopranos get the tune in every single piece we do at Christmas - well, in fact EVER - so it's about time there was a piece where they didn't sing! And this makes so much sense - if we had all the sops on the A1 line and all the altos on the A2 line, the thing would never balance, with the men divided throughout, so that can't be the plan... How lovely it'll be to sing something with just lower voices!"
So you can guess what the plan turned out to be :p Oh well.
Anyway, I should probably explain the title of this post. It related to something in the Bach chorale. Fanny asked the altos to sing it in a more butch manner. So we did.
Fanny: That, I like. Tenors, do you do butch?
Choir, after hearing them sing their phrase: No!
Fanny: That was quite butch. It was a bit too butch, actually.
Is this the time to mention that it seems (as a result of a search today that led someone here) that this blog is the number one search result for "choir porn star"... but only if you search on MSN? (There's a reason Google's the most popular search engine, you know!) As ever, I'd really love to know what the person was ACTUALLY looking for!
We discovered the programme for the carol concerts. The first of these huge, probably-sold-out-months-ago concerts (of which there are 4) is a week on Saturday, and tonight was the first rehearsal. This being the case, it's probably a wise decision on Jamie's part to have chosen mainly stuff we've sung before, and none of it amazingly difficult notewise (although of course singing apparently simple stuff really well is a skill in itself). I knew this, yet I must admit I was still a little disappointed when I saw the list. However, it does have Sleigh Ride, which is the most important one! Which reminds me - I need to speak to the new altos about tinsel and glitter (and clapping in Sleigh Ride). Must remember to do that next week.
We spent a large part of the rehearsal on a couple of movements of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, which were not the most exciting thing ever, but I'm sure they'll grow on me, because, well, Bach! There was also a brief foray into the Sussex Carol (which we've done lots of times but is still fun) and A Spotless Rose (which will be very lovely). (I'm pretty sure Graham Worth did the bass solo last time we did this, and it was fabulous - mind you, I could listen to Graham sing all day! But the youth choir boys are doing that part this year, which will be interesting.)
Talking of men sounding fabulous, I must say that my favourite moment of the night was the bit in Stille Nacht when the men went into 4 part harmony, just after the start. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. A glorious sound, it was! Made up for our disappointment of a few minutes earlier... It's Jamie's own arrangement of Stille Nacht, and it's scored for ATB only - no sopranos. We were thrilled to notice this. "What a good idea!" we thought. "The sopranos get the tune in every single piece we do at Christmas - well, in fact EVER - so it's about time there was a piece where they didn't sing! And this makes so much sense - if we had all the sops on the A1 line and all the altos on the A2 line, the thing would never balance, with the men divided throughout, so that can't be the plan... How lovely it'll be to sing something with just lower voices!"
So you can guess what the plan turned out to be :p Oh well.
Anyway, I should probably explain the title of this post. It related to something in the Bach chorale. Fanny asked the altos to sing it in a more butch manner. So we did.
Fanny: That, I like. Tenors, do you do butch?
Choir, after hearing them sing their phrase: No!
Fanny: That was quite butch. It was a bit too butch, actually.
Is this the time to mention that it seems (as a result of a search today that led someone here) that this blog is the number one search result for "choir porn star"... but only if you search on MSN? (There's a reason Google's the most popular search engine, you know!) As ever, I'd really love to know what the person was ACTUALLY looking for!
Monday, December 05, 2005
Have a seat. Rest your feet.
Well, I was planning to go straight to sleep when I got home tonight, and write this tomorrow, but it's all whizzing round in my head, so I thought I'd better write it down so I can get to sleep!
The title of this post is not a quote, although I wish it was. Wanting to sit down - and being unable to - was a bit of a theme of the evening. On two separate occasions during the first half of the concert, the men on the front row (who lead our sitting and standing) didn't sit when they should have, resulting in us having to stand up for considerable amounts of time. Grrr. I must admit, I've always hated the sitting/standing system in this choir. Every other choir I've been in, if the conductor wants us to sit at a particular bar number, it's everyone's responsibility to do just that, so we all sit together. But in the Hallé, the tradition is that one person (in the middle of the front row) is responsible for the stands and sits, and everyone else follows him (it's usually a him). The reason I detest this system (quite apart from it causing situations like tonight's, if he makes a mistake) is that I think it looks awful - a kind of double Mexican wave ensues. It's a pretty fast wave, sure, but it's by no means all the choir standing up simultaneously. I'll be very amazed if this system is ever changed, though (and yes, I will be attempting to see that it is, although I'm not holding out much hope).
Anyway, opinions of tonight's Messiah gig seem to vary greatly. My mum loved it, and she was in the audience, so that's the main thing. And quite a few choir members seemed to think it all went pretty well. My opinion? The second half was great. The first half was adequate (in that there were no wrong notes or anything like that) but it was by no means great. And this is very frustrating, because it was great in rehearsal. I felt really sorry for Paul Daniel, because he was so clear about what he wanted (whether or not we agreed with him), and he was delighted when we did everything he asked in rehearsal, but he must have been disappointed that it didn't appear in the concert (at least in the first half). To be fair, Paul did grin all the way through, and appeared to be really pleased, but I do wonder how much of that was just showmanship. Personally I was in a foul mood when I came offstage for the interval, and I hear Jamie was too. Can't say I blame him. All that hard work, wasted!
My theory as to why I, personally, didn't sing very well in the first half (I have no idea what other people might chalk their own performances up to): I couldn't concentrate properly on the music because of things winding me up. And after a while this became a bit of a vicious circle, because I was annoyed with myself for getting so annoyed over such minor things. Argh - I hate my mind! What was winding me up, you ask? Let's see... Sore feet due to not sitting down when we should have (see above). Anticipation of whether or not the men would sit down at the next possible place, so that the rest of us could. Annoyance with myself for not singing as well as I know I can. Annoyance with others for totally ignoring markings that we'd rehearsed at length. Full bladder caused by having no time to go to the toilet before the concert, due to the assembly time being shifted 15 minutes earlier (I am sure the powers that be don't realise what a difference to a tightly-planned day 15 minutes can make, if we are only given a few hours' notice of the change). Annoyance that we stood around in the wings for over 10 minutes waiting to go on, after having been sent down in such a hurry that I barely had time to get changed, let alone go to the toilet. Residual annoyance towards certain people who I was annoyed with this morning because they kept talking during the rehearsal. ... I'm sure I could come up with more, but those are the main ones!
All went swimmingly in the second half, though, so at least I left the hall in a much better mood. I was almost convinced by the pp start to Hallelujah, but unfortunately he made things worse by inviting the audience to stand. I can see why he did, but my favourite thing in the whole piece is the way the audience stand up at that point! It's not the same if they're directed! Sorry, Paul, I loved everything else you did (I didn't even mind the grunting, although that distracted a few people!), but I like my Hallelujah traditional.
A few other things, not all from the actual concert:
I noticed that the figured bass (and probably therefore the tasto solo stuff) is not printed in the newest editions of the score. So that post will have been totally confusing to lots of people!
The soloists were all pretty good (we liked the bass best, I think, particularly in Why do the nations when Paul had to put in "a bit of a pause for a Pavarotti moment"), although I'm not a fan of counter-tenors, personally. It's the principle of the thing I object to - there are so few alto solos as it is, it seems particularly unfair to give them to a man! There was a bit of confusion over this particular counter-tenor, too - we thought it was due to be Michael Chance, but the guy who turned up looked really, really young, and we didn't think Michael Chance was that young. So I googled him and found that he's 50. This was baffling, until Alison pointed out that the counter-tenor we got was not in fact Michael Chance!
A couple of quotes. Firstly, from Jamie, during the warmup:
"and your attitude... which is one of fun... and sheep..."
"Please don't squeak. We have a no squeaking policy in this choir."
And from Paul:
"Surprise the rest of the choir with your crescendos. You should be thinking 'bloody hell, what was that from the sopranos?' "
[Rest of choir: "We always think that!"]
"Don't sing Hallelujah like it's frothy cream. Sing it like it's... a rapier... wait, you can't eat a rapier... Chilli! As if you've just eaten a chilli!"
"You know, I only found out last night that in The Lord Gave the Word, the original had no preachers. It was the women who were doing all the chattering."
(The chattering was really annoying me this morning. It's bad enough during a normal rehearsal, but to do it during the conductor's orchestral rehearsal seems incredibly unprofessional to me. Unfortunately there are a few people - mainly altos, sadly - who seem oblivious to the fact that most people want to hear what the conductor says (even if it's not directed at them specifically). I often glance round to see if I'm getting unjustly annoyed with these people, but no - they are the only ones talking.)
Finally... a few more recent amusing searches! I was pleased that someone found us by searching for "gerontius hard g or soft". And I was extremely amused to discover that, due to this post, this blog is now the number one Google search result for "discordant noise"! But the most baffling one was the person who got here by searching for "I'll put you over my knee"... turned out to be because of Maggie that they found us :p
The title of this post is not a quote, although I wish it was. Wanting to sit down - and being unable to - was a bit of a theme of the evening. On two separate occasions during the first half of the concert, the men on the front row (who lead our sitting and standing) didn't sit when they should have, resulting in us having to stand up for considerable amounts of time. Grrr. I must admit, I've always hated the sitting/standing system in this choir. Every other choir I've been in, if the conductor wants us to sit at a particular bar number, it's everyone's responsibility to do just that, so we all sit together. But in the Hallé, the tradition is that one person (in the middle of the front row) is responsible for the stands and sits, and everyone else follows him (it's usually a him). The reason I detest this system (quite apart from it causing situations like tonight's, if he makes a mistake) is that I think it looks awful - a kind of double Mexican wave ensues. It's a pretty fast wave, sure, but it's by no means all the choir standing up simultaneously. I'll be very amazed if this system is ever changed, though (and yes, I will be attempting to see that it is, although I'm not holding out much hope).
Anyway, opinions of tonight's Messiah gig seem to vary greatly. My mum loved it, and she was in the audience, so that's the main thing. And quite a few choir members seemed to think it all went pretty well. My opinion? The second half was great. The first half was adequate (in that there were no wrong notes or anything like that) but it was by no means great. And this is very frustrating, because it was great in rehearsal. I felt really sorry for Paul Daniel, because he was so clear about what he wanted (whether or not we agreed with him), and he was delighted when we did everything he asked in rehearsal, but he must have been disappointed that it didn't appear in the concert (at least in the first half). To be fair, Paul did grin all the way through, and appeared to be really pleased, but I do wonder how much of that was just showmanship. Personally I was in a foul mood when I came offstage for the interval, and I hear Jamie was too. Can't say I blame him. All that hard work, wasted!
My theory as to why I, personally, didn't sing very well in the first half (I have no idea what other people might chalk their own performances up to): I couldn't concentrate properly on the music because of things winding me up. And after a while this became a bit of a vicious circle, because I was annoyed with myself for getting so annoyed over such minor things. Argh - I hate my mind! What was winding me up, you ask? Let's see... Sore feet due to not sitting down when we should have (see above). Anticipation of whether or not the men would sit down at the next possible place, so that the rest of us could. Annoyance with myself for not singing as well as I know I can. Annoyance with others for totally ignoring markings that we'd rehearsed at length. Full bladder caused by having no time to go to the toilet before the concert, due to the assembly time being shifted 15 minutes earlier (I am sure the powers that be don't realise what a difference to a tightly-planned day 15 minutes can make, if we are only given a few hours' notice of the change). Annoyance that we stood around in the wings for over 10 minutes waiting to go on, after having been sent down in such a hurry that I barely had time to get changed, let alone go to the toilet. Residual annoyance towards certain people who I was annoyed with this morning because they kept talking during the rehearsal. ... I'm sure I could come up with more, but those are the main ones!
All went swimmingly in the second half, though, so at least I left the hall in a much better mood. I was almost convinced by the pp start to Hallelujah, but unfortunately he made things worse by inviting the audience to stand. I can see why he did, but my favourite thing in the whole piece is the way the audience stand up at that point! It's not the same if they're directed! Sorry, Paul, I loved everything else you did (I didn't even mind the grunting, although that distracted a few people!), but I like my Hallelujah traditional.
A few other things, not all from the actual concert:
I noticed that the figured bass (and probably therefore the tasto solo stuff) is not printed in the newest editions of the score. So that post will have been totally confusing to lots of people!
The soloists were all pretty good (we liked the bass best, I think, particularly in Why do the nations when Paul had to put in "a bit of a pause for a Pavarotti moment"), although I'm not a fan of counter-tenors, personally. It's the principle of the thing I object to - there are so few alto solos as it is, it seems particularly unfair to give them to a man! There was a bit of confusion over this particular counter-tenor, too - we thought it was due to be Michael Chance, but the guy who turned up looked really, really young, and we didn't think Michael Chance was that young. So I googled him and found that he's 50. This was baffling, until Alison pointed out that the counter-tenor we got was not in fact Michael Chance!
A couple of quotes. Firstly, from Jamie, during the warmup:
"and your attitude... which is one of fun... and sheep..."
"Please don't squeak. We have a no squeaking policy in this choir."
And from Paul:
"Surprise the rest of the choir with your crescendos. You should be thinking 'bloody hell, what was that from the sopranos?' "
[Rest of choir: "We always think that!"]
"Don't sing Hallelujah like it's frothy cream. Sing it like it's... a rapier... wait, you can't eat a rapier... Chilli! As if you've just eaten a chilli!"
"You know, I only found out last night that in The Lord Gave the Word, the original had no preachers. It was the women who were doing all the chattering."
(The chattering was really annoying me this morning. It's bad enough during a normal rehearsal, but to do it during the conductor's orchestral rehearsal seems incredibly unprofessional to me. Unfortunately there are a few people - mainly altos, sadly - who seem oblivious to the fact that most people want to hear what the conductor says (even if it's not directed at them specifically). I often glance round to see if I'm getting unjustly annoyed with these people, but no - they are the only ones talking.)
Finally... a few more recent amusing searches! I was pleased that someone found us by searching for "gerontius hard g or soft". And I was extremely amused to discover that, due to this post, this blog is now the number one Google search result for "discordant noise"! But the most baffling one was the person who got here by searching for "I'll put you over my knee"... turned out to be because of Maggie that they found us :p
Friday, December 02, 2005
Some very sad news.
From Barbara:
"Very sad to inform you that Ian Benton died very suddenly last night - apparently he had a twisted bowel. Because the death was so sudden there has to be an inquest so no arrangements can be made yet. He [former Halle bass] and Megan [former Halle soprano] had two little boys."
I remember Ian very fondly - he joined the choir roughly when I did, and we often used to talk (particularly about football - he was a Man City fan). My deepest sympathies to his family and friends.
(I have just looked through all my photos to see if I have one that he's on, and I don't. If anyone does, could they please send it to me? Thanks.)
"Very sad to inform you that Ian Benton died very suddenly last night - apparently he had a twisted bowel. Because the death was so sudden there has to be an inquest so no arrangements can be made yet. He [former Halle bass] and Megan [former Halle soprano] had two little boys."
I remember Ian very fondly - he joined the choir roughly when I did, and we often used to talk (particularly about football - he was a Man City fan). My deepest sympathies to his family and friends.
(I have just looked through all my photos to see if I have one that he's on, and I don't. If anyone does, could they please send it to me? Thanks.)
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tasto solo
Above: During the break at tonight's rehearsal. Paul Daniel is standing, talking to the oboe player.
(SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE MOOD TO BE EDUCATED!)
This phrase appears lots of times in the accompaniment to Messiah, and I wondered for years what it meant. Last year I finally got round to looking it up: Tasto solo (in the accompaniment) means bass alone, with no chords (e.g. at the start of He Trusted In God on page 115). It's not immediately obvious why the composer needs to write it, because every time you see it, it appears that only the bass part is playing anyway. However, you may not all be aware that in baroque music, the keyboard players would be expected to add harmonies to the written bass part, following shorthand provided by the composer. This is called "figured bass", and you can see examples of this shorthand throughout Messiah (well, you can in my edition, anyway - I presume you can in most of them) - for example, in the first line of the first aria, Comfort Ye. There are figures 6, 4, 3 and 6 under the bass part. The keyboard player wouldn't just play on those notes, though, he'd play on all of them. If there are no figures, it implies a root position chord; 6 means first inversion, etc. This method allowed the composer to specifiy exactly what harmony he wanted, with very little effort. So "tasto solo" means the keyboard player would play no chords at all - just the bass line - rather than assuming that no figures means root position chords.
I include the above because I figured (figured! hee! d'you see what I did there? :p ) that if I'd been curious about that, maybe someone else is too :-)
Oh, and I must just tell you a joke I heard today, which I like a lot!
A drummer goes into a library. "Have you got any drumsticks?" he asks the librarian. "This is a LIBRARY!" says the librarian. "Oh, I'm sorry," says the drummer. "Have you got any drumsticks?" he whispers.
*giggle*
Anyway, tonight was the orchestral rehearsal for Messiah. Went pretty well - Paul Daniel seemed very pleased (at least, he smiled a LOT and kept saying how fabulous we sounded. We decided we will be happy to have him back sometime :p ) We were a bit concerned at first, though, because when we arrived he was lying on his back on the floor, with one leg elevated. We never did find out why! Another surprise was the arrangement of the orchestra. The VIOLAS are at the front! Never seen that before. (The traditional arrangement for an orchestra has 1st violins on the conductor's left, with 2nd violins behind them; cellos on his right, with double basses behind them; and violas in the middle, right in front of the conductor. Mark Elder prefers to have the 2nd violins on his right and the cellos where the 2nds normally are, with the double basses separated from all the other strings, at the back of the platform behind the brass.) Tonight the 1st and 2nd violins were in their traditional places on the conductor's left, and (as is usual with baroque music) the harpsichord and chamber organ were in the centre of the platform, with the oboes, trumpets, bassoon and timps at the back. But the cellos, rather than being at the front of the platform, were clustered near the keyboard instruments with the double basses nearby, and the violas were at the front, to the conductor's right. Hands up who else noticed this! Right, you can have ten brownie points.
Another odd thing was that the orchestral parts were all headed The Messiah (not Messiah). I strongly suspect they deliberately chose that edition just to wind me up :p
As for the rehearsal itself, I was delighted to find that I can actually do all the runs without running out of breath. Never managed that before. I think it's because I never actually understood how to do them before this year! (i.e. with no h anywhere) Gone are the days of the "comedy ff" such as the one at the top of page 63 on "a son is given". (You know what I mean - there are loads of bars like that, that come at the end of a long run. All too often the choir runs out of steam during the run, so that by the end only half of them are singing... then in the next bar, after everyone's breathed, it's suddenly deafeningly loud. Comedy ff. Amused me every time!)
(Actually I was doing pretty well even before we got to the runs - I was impressing the people next to me by reading the mind of the conductor. For example, guessing which movement he was going to do next (that's actually pretty easy to do, if you know which movements the trumpets play in) and guessing which bar he was talking about, when we had different bar numbers to the orchestra... Good grief, I'm such a showoff, aren't I? I must stop that!)
One thing I do like about Paul Daniel's interpretation is that it's generally quite a bit faster than usual. Adds to the excitement - and also means we get more sleep on Sunday night! Messiah is a long gig - the latest time I remember leaving the stage (after a 7.30 start) was 10.20 pm. (That was in 2003, when we did it, unusually, with no cuts.) But the usual finish time is about 10.10. Anyone want to bet on 10pm for this year?
Not many amusing quotes tonight, I'm afraid. There was one Jamieism, when he was giving notes from last night: "Pretend it was written by Shostakovich, that bar. Middle period Shostakovich. Be really nasty." (that was to the sops in He Trusted In God.) I must admit I very much enjoyed singing that movement tonight, actually, because I saw that I'd written "Lucius Malfoy impression" and decided to try singing it like him. I think it worked pretty well! Imagine his voice when he says "Enjoy yourself, won't you? While you can." (That's a quote from the new film.) I also enjoyed it because it's a fugue, and I always find it exciting waiting to come in with the alto entry. It's kind of like running a relay (not that I've done that for about 30 years, but you know what I mean!) Generally the basses start, then the tenors, and by the time it's our turn I'm usually quite excited. (No, it doesn't take much!)
I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing an essay-length post for the second night running, when what I really need to do is try to sleep. (For that matter, I'm not entirely sure why I found it so difficult to summon the motivation to write actual essays when I was supposed to, when I have no trouble producing that amount of writing about trivial stuff! Oh well.) But I've started so I'll finish, as they say.
Yet another thing about He Trusted In God... there was a great soprano solo in it tonight :p Well, actually it sounded like more than one soprano, plus possibly one or two tenors and basses... all people who weren't watching at the end, and sang straight on instead of observing the general pause! Needless to say there were no altos who fell into this trap :-)
Paul Daniel almost called us mezzos tonight, until we growled at him. He then pointed out that "mezzo" and "alto" are both male words in Italian (they end in "o"). So we pointed out that "soprano" is too :-) (This seemed much funnier at the time!)
I was amused to see, on page 86 at the start of His Yoke Is Bloomin' Difficult, a drawing of a man apparently hanging himself. I was even more amused to glance around me and see that everyone else had a similar drawing. This is from last night, when Paul insisted we draw a picture of ourselves with string holding the tops of our heads high. Sadly we are all terrible artists and found it impossible to draw this without making it look like a hanged man!
I was delighted to find that I can still remember all the last few choruses from memory - yes, even Amen! And while singing the last page of the Amen Chorus it occurred to me that I mentioned dominant pedals yesterday, yet didn't point out that there's a great example of one on that page. Strictly it starts in bar 147 when the basses reach the A and hold it for several bars, although you could claim that it actually starts the bar before, with the long alto A. Both have the same effect, though - a dominant pedal is a kind of aural clue that we're reaching the end of the movement (once you know what they sound like you'll be amazed how many pieces have one). Listen to that long A and you'll see what I mean, I think. I have a thing about dominant pedals - I like them a lot. (Also Neapolitan 6ths and chord iii, but I'll explain those another time!)
In (almost) totally unrelated news, this is an interesting news story about how singing affects the brain. I've had that link for over a week and kept forgetting to post it!
Finally, I was interested to see that a few people found this blog today by searching for "hogwarts march brass band score", which is of course the music I planned to write out on Saturday (but didn't actually do till Monday night, due to getting distracted by World of Warcraft...) If you've seen the film and are wondering which bit of music I mean, it's what the brass band plays at the start and end of the 3rd task, and it looks like this (that's the first page of an 11-page score that took me several hours to produce!)
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Now, His Yoke... *choir mutters* ... is EASY!
Piano rehearsal for Messiah tonight. (Explanation of what a piano rehearsal is is in this post for those who don't know.) Anyway, we met Paul Daniel (who I'm quite impressed to find has a Wikipedia entry). I'm still not totally convinced by his dynamic alterations (especially the last one, which we only found out about tonight: starting the Hallelujah Chorus quietly! My favourite thing in the whole piece, ruined! That's even worse than the year the conductor decided to ask the basses to start He Trusted In God quietly. Oh, the muttering that ensued!) but I'm not quite as totally against them as I was. This is partly because he knew exactly what he wanted, and explained why he wanrted these things, and was extremely clear throughout... and partly because he seems like a really great guy. I liked him a lot. (The title of this post is from him - more Paul Daniel quotes in a minute!)
I'd had a really bad day at work which culminated in me totally losing my temper for the first time in years, and screaming - literally, and at length - at a hall full of kids. I don't recommend it. By the time I got to choir my voice was still raw and I couldn't speak above a whisper without coughing, so I wasn't expecting to sing very much, if at all. But Jamie's warmup somehow managed to cure it. Still couldn't sing as loudly as I usually can, but I could sing without coughing. Clever, that!
Not much scope for Jamieisms, as he only did the warmup, but we did get "Can you do a polar bear coming out for a swim in the morning?" (which was a face-stretching exercise), and also at one point when he was being a bit of a human beatbox, I was reminded of that amazing guy Shlomo, who was on Later with Jools a couple of weeks ago. Did you see him? I was very impressed. No idea how he does what he does.
Anyway, Paul Daniel stuff. My favourite:
PD: Are you called mezzos or altos?
Altos: [in unintentionally butch yet horrified voices] Altos!
PD: Not contraltos?
Altos: [even more horrified] No!
(I must say he went up even more in my estimation for asking. I don't think I can recall any other conductor ever asking, and non-altos may not realise how much most of us hate being called those other words... I can even forgive him for calling it The Messiah!)
A similar one which may not amuse non-altos as much as it did us:
PD: You copy them, don't you? [referring to a soprano phrase that we echo]
Altos: Yes.
PD: Can you do it better?
Altos: [amused that this is even being questioned] Yes!
A bit of a visual one, but still:
"Everyone's eyebrows go up in semiquavers, don't they? Mine do. *demonstrates* It's a Handelian reflex."
Oh, and I personally very much enjoyed his Lucius Malfoy impression in "He trusted in God" (when he was demonstrating the utter withering scorn required). And then there was the "HEH-HEH heh" exercise (practising accenting semiquavers) which made him grin hugely for several minutes :-)
And the last one: "Men use their 6-packs!" This was his suggestion for articulating semiquavers. I mention it not because the phrase itself is particularly amusing but because of the hurt looks many of the basses gave us when we laughed at the very thought :p
Looking through my score, I noticed a couple of old scribblings that I can't resist including. (Well, as Sylvia pointed out, there are so many scribblings on my Messiah score that it's hard to work out which ones to follow. For example, there's a bar I've dubbed "The Bar Of Many Dynamics", on page 71. It has, crossed out: p, pp, mf, p, f, ff, mf. This year's marking is p, so there's another p with a ring round it. Many, many bars of my Messiah score are like that, and that's not including the ones that have extra non-dynamic instructions!) But the two I treasure are these:
From Nicholas Cleobury, who conducted it one year: "Aren't the altos intelligent?"
From Jamie, the first year he rehearsed it with us, on page 13 at the words "And all...": "You know, the bloke what wrote it!"
Think about it :-)
*giggle*
And finally, I've not mentioned searches for a while, but there have been some good ones lately. I'm quite impressed that someone found this blog by searching for "jocelyn sings" (and I'd love to know who it was!) I also like that someone searched for "a Dominant pedal is a" (presumably looking for a definition) and this blog was the only result... However, I think my favourite is the person who searched for "jack sparrow byronic" and discovered that all three of those words appeared on a choir blog :-)
I'd had a really bad day at work which culminated in me totally losing my temper for the first time in years, and screaming - literally, and at length - at a hall full of kids. I don't recommend it. By the time I got to choir my voice was still raw and I couldn't speak above a whisper without coughing, so I wasn't expecting to sing very much, if at all. But Jamie's warmup somehow managed to cure it. Still couldn't sing as loudly as I usually can, but I could sing without coughing. Clever, that!
Not much scope for Jamieisms, as he only did the warmup, but we did get "Can you do a polar bear coming out for a swim in the morning?" (which was a face-stretching exercise), and also at one point when he was being a bit of a human beatbox, I was reminded of that amazing guy Shlomo, who was on Later with Jools a couple of weeks ago. Did you see him? I was very impressed. No idea how he does what he does.
Anyway, Paul Daniel stuff. My favourite:
PD: Are you called mezzos or altos?
Altos: [in unintentionally butch yet horrified voices] Altos!
PD: Not contraltos?
Altos: [even more horrified] No!
(I must say he went up even more in my estimation for asking. I don't think I can recall any other conductor ever asking, and non-altos may not realise how much most of us hate being called those other words... I can even forgive him for calling it The Messiah!)
A similar one which may not amuse non-altos as much as it did us:
PD: You copy them, don't you? [referring to a soprano phrase that we echo]
Altos: Yes.
PD: Can you do it better?
Altos: [amused that this is even being questioned] Yes!
A bit of a visual one, but still:
"Everyone's eyebrows go up in semiquavers, don't they? Mine do. *demonstrates* It's a Handelian reflex."
Oh, and I personally very much enjoyed his Lucius Malfoy impression in "He trusted in God" (when he was demonstrating the utter withering scorn required). And then there was the "HEH-HEH heh" exercise (practising accenting semiquavers) which made him grin hugely for several minutes :-)
And the last one: "Men use their 6-packs!" This was his suggestion for articulating semiquavers. I mention it not because the phrase itself is particularly amusing but because of the hurt looks many of the basses gave us when we laughed at the very thought :p
Looking through my score, I noticed a couple of old scribblings that I can't resist including. (Well, as Sylvia pointed out, there are so many scribblings on my Messiah score that it's hard to work out which ones to follow. For example, there's a bar I've dubbed "The Bar Of Many Dynamics", on page 71. It has, crossed out: p, pp, mf, p, f, ff, mf. This year's marking is p, so there's another p with a ring round it. Many, many bars of my Messiah score are like that, and that's not including the ones that have extra non-dynamic instructions!) But the two I treasure are these:
From Nicholas Cleobury, who conducted it one year: "Aren't the altos intelligent?"
From Jamie, the first year he rehearsed it with us, on page 13 at the words "And all...": "You know, the bloke what wrote it!"
Think about it :-)
*giggle*
And finally, I've not mentioned searches for a while, but there have been some good ones lately. I'm quite impressed that someone found this blog by searching for "jocelyn sings" (and I'd love to know who it was!) I also like that someone searched for "a Dominant pedal is a" (presumably looking for a definition) and this blog was the only result... However, I think my favourite is the person who searched for "jack sparrow byronic" and discovered that all three of those words appeared on a choir blog :-)
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Busy busy busy.
I've just updated the online choir schedule to match the new one Naomi handed out the other day. We now know our commitments up to June 2007! Any choir members who don't have the link (which we deliberately don't post online), email me.
Already done today:
- Bought all my Christmas cards, and 7 2006 calendars. (If you're wondering why I need 7 - and no, none of them are for other people - it's a long story I won't bore you with!)
Still to do today:
- Write out the music for the Hogwarts March (from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) for brass band - that's a favour for a colleague.
- Write out chords for choral version of Jingle Bells so my guitarist can play it to accompany us at my band's Christmas gig for the kids at my school.
- Work out a good set list order for gig (my favourite ever set list was the year we segued from Away in a Manger (a cappella) to Song 2 by Blur, with full band) (that's the one that goes "WOO HOO!" a lot) (They're in the same key. Hence the segue :p )
- Give my friend Owain a guided tour of some of the tougher areas of Azeroth.
- Update school website.
- Work out stage positions for each scene of the school Christmas show.
- Catch up with online faffing :-)
Already done today:
- Bought all my Christmas cards, and 7 2006 calendars. (If you're wondering why I need 7 - and no, none of them are for other people - it's a long story I won't bore you with!)
Still to do today:
- Write out the music for the Hogwarts March (from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) for brass band - that's a favour for a colleague.
- Write out chords for choral version of Jingle Bells so my guitarist can play it to accompany us at my band's Christmas gig for the kids at my school.
- Work out a good set list order for gig (my favourite ever set list was the year we segued from Away in a Manger (a cappella) to Song 2 by Blur, with full band) (that's the one that goes "WOO HOO!" a lot) (They're in the same key. Hence the segue :p )
- Give my friend Owain a guided tour of some of the tougher areas of Azeroth.
- Update school website.
- Work out stage positions for each scene of the school Christmas show.
- Catch up with online faffing :-)
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I just like to look at sheep.
What, you don't think I'd witness Jamie saying that and not use it as the title, do you? :p
(I should probably point out that he claimed he actually said "I'd just like to look at the Sheep" (i.e. All We Like Sheep). But we heard what we heard!)
Two rehearsals in two days (and I have another one tomorrow, with my pop group). I had a great time on Monday night, too, playing piano duets with Dr Liz, but because I had loads of work that also had to be done that night, it meant an extremely late bedtime, with the result that by the time I got back from last night's sectional I was so tired I went straight to sleep. Which is pretty rare for me - I'm very much a night owl!
All of that means that this post covers two rehearsals. Last night was the sop/alt sectional - not a huge attendance, but we got a lot done. Most of the Jamieisms listed below are from last night. Tonight was a MUCH bigger attendance, because it was our first ever open rehearsal, and there was a pretty full room. Maybe not quite double our usual number, but there were lots there.
All of tonight's rehearsal, and most of last night's, was on Messiah. And I must admit that I'm finding it slightly frustrating. We're having Paul Daniel conducting it this year. That in itself is pretty exciting, because he's quite famous (conducted the Last Night of the Proms a couple of months ago). And he is obviously keen to make this performance individual, which I applaud. But one of the main ways in which he's doing this is by making lots of bits quiet (often with big crescendos shortly afterwards, but still). And I remain unconvinced that this is an improvement. Maybe I will change my mind on the day, but so far it's just frustrating. I mean, one of the few bits of the Amen Chorus I actually really like is just not the same when it's quiet!
Talking of the Amen Chorus, that's my other frustration. We learned that (and Hallelujah, and Since By Man Came Death) from memory last year, and although it was a lot of hard work at the busiest part of the year, it was an AMAZING feeling to put the copies down and leave them there. It's somewhat frustrating to have done all that work and not put it to permanent use - yes, I want to do that bit (and possibly more) from memory EVERY year now! But it doesn't look as if we will. At least, no-one's mentioned it yet, and that would be shorter notice even than we had last time...
Other news, unrelated to Messiah: We learned tonight that Naomi, our fabulous choral administrator, has been promoted (well done to her) and Cathy (the current choir secretary) will take on her job (on a professional basis) for the next 3 months, after which a permanent appointment will be made. Difficult shoes to fill! It'll be very weird not having Naomi there all the time.
Anyway, the Jamieisms! They started in the warmup yesterday, when he told us that he'd been talking to a rock climber who mentioned that he does an exercise in which he shakes his hands downwards vigorously, in order to make them grip rocks more easily (apparently). Jamie, when demonstrating this, turned it into what he described as a "funky dance", and suggested that it could be the dance of the "Hallé chicks". Oddly enough there were no immediate takers...
There was also the bit where he was talking about how hard singing is, and suggested "Prepare in your cars!" This was a bit visual, but imagine him gripping an imaginary steering wheel and tensing up every part of his body. ... Maybe you had to be there!
Then there was "If I was your harshest critic...", which was followed by wry giggles, and (my personal favourite) the bit when the sops sang something exactly how he'd asked them to, and he laughed delightedly to himself, and we all laughed delightedly at his laughter (you know when someone sounds so happy you just have to join in?), and he said, sounding honestly bewildered, "I don't know what you're laughing at!" and, when various people tried to tell him, "What, me?"
Well, it made me smile :-)
Some other stuff I scribbled down:
(after spending a few minutes practising the runs to "scooby dooby doobie" etc.) "Make up the words. ... We've had 3 *months* of making up the words! \o/"
"Dots are the enemy."
"Imagine you've got a wasp stuck in your trousers."
(after demonstrating, with hand gestures, how to sing the word "tidings") "The dings are the tablecloth that you pull away and leave all the crockery."
"Don't go all beige - white with a hint of apple - on me. It's bright blue! But a soft blue!"
"Oh yeah. Messiah. Whatever." (a la Vicky Pollard)
(after making an ffffff noise (I mean the f sound, not a very loud noise!) "I've never seen Silence of the Lambs, but is that the noise he makes?"
"Tenors, don't sing 'stripes' in that mock Cockney accent I know you love."
"No camp crescendo in that bar. ... Tenors!"
Oh, and a final thought from last night - Jamie was amused at the idea of the choir producing a DVD - with a commentary! I can just picture it. Not sure how many non-choir people would understand a word of it, though :p
(I should probably point out that he claimed he actually said "I'd just like to look at the Sheep" (i.e. All We Like Sheep). But we heard what we heard!)
Two rehearsals in two days (and I have another one tomorrow, with my pop group). I had a great time on Monday night, too, playing piano duets with Dr Liz, but because I had loads of work that also had to be done that night, it meant an extremely late bedtime, with the result that by the time I got back from last night's sectional I was so tired I went straight to sleep. Which is pretty rare for me - I'm very much a night owl!
All of that means that this post covers two rehearsals. Last night was the sop/alt sectional - not a huge attendance, but we got a lot done. Most of the Jamieisms listed below are from last night. Tonight was a MUCH bigger attendance, because it was our first ever open rehearsal, and there was a pretty full room. Maybe not quite double our usual number, but there were lots there.
All of tonight's rehearsal, and most of last night's, was on Messiah. And I must admit that I'm finding it slightly frustrating. We're having Paul Daniel conducting it this year. That in itself is pretty exciting, because he's quite famous (conducted the Last Night of the Proms a couple of months ago). And he is obviously keen to make this performance individual, which I applaud. But one of the main ways in which he's doing this is by making lots of bits quiet (often with big crescendos shortly afterwards, but still). And I remain unconvinced that this is an improvement. Maybe I will change my mind on the day, but so far it's just frustrating. I mean, one of the few bits of the Amen Chorus I actually really like is just not the same when it's quiet!
Talking of the Amen Chorus, that's my other frustration. We learned that (and Hallelujah, and Since By Man Came Death) from memory last year, and although it was a lot of hard work at the busiest part of the year, it was an AMAZING feeling to put the copies down and leave them there. It's somewhat frustrating to have done all that work and not put it to permanent use - yes, I want to do that bit (and possibly more) from memory EVERY year now! But it doesn't look as if we will. At least, no-one's mentioned it yet, and that would be shorter notice even than we had last time...
Other news, unrelated to Messiah: We learned tonight that Naomi, our fabulous choral administrator, has been promoted (well done to her) and Cathy (the current choir secretary) will take on her job (on a professional basis) for the next 3 months, after which a permanent appointment will be made. Difficult shoes to fill! It'll be very weird not having Naomi there all the time.
Anyway, the Jamieisms! They started in the warmup yesterday, when he told us that he'd been talking to a rock climber who mentioned that he does an exercise in which he shakes his hands downwards vigorously, in order to make them grip rocks more easily (apparently). Jamie, when demonstrating this, turned it into what he described as a "funky dance", and suggested that it could be the dance of the "Hallé chicks". Oddly enough there were no immediate takers...
There was also the bit where he was talking about how hard singing is, and suggested "Prepare in your cars!" This was a bit visual, but imagine him gripping an imaginary steering wheel and tensing up every part of his body. ... Maybe you had to be there!
Then there was "If I was your harshest critic...", which was followed by wry giggles, and (my personal favourite) the bit when the sops sang something exactly how he'd asked them to, and he laughed delightedly to himself, and we all laughed delightedly at his laughter (you know when someone sounds so happy you just have to join in?), and he said, sounding honestly bewildered, "I don't know what you're laughing at!" and, when various people tried to tell him, "What, me?"
Well, it made me smile :-)
Some other stuff I scribbled down:
(after spending a few minutes practising the runs to "scooby dooby doobie" etc.) "Make up the words. ... We've had 3 *months* of making up the words! \o/"
"Dots are the enemy."
"Imagine you've got a wasp stuck in your trousers."
(after demonstrating, with hand gestures, how to sing the word "tidings") "The dings are the tablecloth that you pull away and leave all the crockery."
"Don't go all beige - white with a hint of apple - on me. It's bright blue! But a soft blue!"
"Oh yeah. Messiah. Whatever." (a la Vicky Pollard)
(after making an ffffff noise (I mean the f sound, not a very loud noise!) "I've never seen Silence of the Lambs, but is that the noise he makes?"
"Tenors, don't sing 'stripes' in that mock Cockney accent I know you love."
"No camp crescendo in that bar. ... Tenors!"
Oh, and a final thought from last night - Jamie was amused at the idea of the choir producing a DVD - with a commentary! I can just picture it. Not sure how many non-choir people would understand a word of it, though :p
Saturday, November 19, 2005
From Wester Ross to Nova Scotia
Well, the Proclaimers were great. Anyone who knows their music but hasn't seen them live, do try to get a ticket next time they come; anyone who doesn't know their music should buy their greatest hits CD immediately. (At which point you'll realise you actually DO know quite a few of their songs really well!)
Anyway, I missed choir due to seeing them, and felt slightly twitchy about this all night. But I have been very helpfully kept informed of Jamieisms etc. by three separate people - Liz L (as promised), Dr Liz, and Alison, who also scribbled down all the markings for me. Silly me, thinking there wouldn't be many changes! Anyway, because I'm in a hurry I'm just going to copy and paste what they wrote (with slight edits) - don't think they'll mind.... Thank you, ladies, for doing this!
Alison:
Quote of the evening was "Sing laaaaaht (light) - otherwise you end up like Wallace smelling some Stinking Bishop!"
Dr Liz:
Was on the look out for quotes. Didn't get many.
Started with "Behold the Lamb of God", worked through to "Let us break
thier bonds".
Interval is going to be after "Let all the Angels of God". Ooh! that's
new and a nice D major end.
Cutting the King of Chlorine. (i.e. "Lift up your heads")
Directed to the altos (can't remember why, you're obviously far
quicker that I am) "and you end up looking like Wallace smelling
stinking bishop". (jamieism, obviously!)
At one point he told the tenors to have more gay abandon, which they
then produced!
Liz L:
It seems that whilst everyone knows Messiah backwards, singing it forwards all together is slightly more tricky!!!!!
Anyway, a couple of good Jamie-isms tonight:
"There were people visibly moved.... jumped out of their seats" (reviewing the 2nd Movement of The Bells)
"It's like the feeling you get just before you go skinny-dipping" (encouraging the sopranos to 'go for it')
"You need to fit with the altos.... ... ... for once!" (to sops on bottom of page 92)
Encouraging the altos to make that "lovely alto fizz" accompanied by little fizzy handmovements (well it made me smile!)
{You need to be] "like ever-ready batteries rather than duracell... or whichever one has the rabbit" (encouraging us all not to give up & sing to the end of the phrase)
"It's like Wallace smelling some 'stinking bishop'" (which apparently makes more sense if you've seen the Wallace & Gromit film)
"It sounds a bit like someone clambering up a rock-face........ twice!"
The last (and personally my 2nd favourite of the evening) :
"at least I do it loudly in front of you all" (after making a mistake)
My favourite wasn't necessarily a Jamie-ism, but it was funny!
A few of us were stood outside the rehearsal room in the break and Jamie invited us to join the rehearsal again by saying (accompanied by 'Gangsta rap' hand movements and a thick Mancunian accent)
"come on... let's sing some tunes... some tunes from da Messiah"
(maybe you just had to be there!!!!!!!!!!!)
......................................................................................................
Well, I haven't seen the Wallace and Gromit film either, so could someone please explain to me what on earth that quote is all about?!?
"Lift up your heads" seems on odd one to miss out. I'll be interested to hear the reasons why. I'm not too distraught over it, though. Not like the year we did Messiah with Nicholas McGegan (I'm pretty sure it was him, anyway) and he cut the CHOIR for large parts. (i.e. we only joined in for a few bars in "For unto us" etc.; the soloists sang the rest.) I did an OU course a few years after that, that explained why he probably wanted to do it that way. But at the time, no-one explained the reasons to the choir, and in fact they didn't even TELL us until we met the conductor at the piano rehearsal, a few days before the concert. I'm sure I wasn't the only person who spent the whole concert feeling grumpy and betrayed.
Oh, and a pet peeve I feel the need to share, because this annoys me almost as much as people saying "Gerontius" with a J at the start. The name of the piece is Messiah. Not The Messiah. (Look at your copy if you don't believe me!) I mention this just in case there were people who didn't know - I live to educate :p
Anyway, two final things. Firstly, I took 16 kids to see the new Harry Potter film yesterday, and it's GREAT. Definitely the best of the four so far. And also, I have a new favourite word: kadigan. Read and be enlightened :-)
Anyway, I missed choir due to seeing them, and felt slightly twitchy about this all night. But I have been very helpfully kept informed of Jamieisms etc. by three separate people - Liz L (as promised), Dr Liz, and Alison, who also scribbled down all the markings for me. Silly me, thinking there wouldn't be many changes! Anyway, because I'm in a hurry I'm just going to copy and paste what they wrote (with slight edits) - don't think they'll mind.... Thank you, ladies, for doing this!
Alison:
Quote of the evening was "Sing laaaaaht (light) - otherwise you end up like Wallace smelling some Stinking Bishop!"
Dr Liz:
Was on the look out for quotes. Didn't get many.
Started with "Behold the Lamb of God", worked through to "Let us break
thier bonds".
Interval is going to be after "Let all the Angels of God". Ooh! that's
new and a nice D major end.
Cutting the King of Chlorine. (i.e. "Lift up your heads")
Directed to the altos (can't remember why, you're obviously far
quicker that I am) "and you end up looking like Wallace smelling
stinking bishop". (jamieism, obviously!)
At one point he told the tenors to have more gay abandon, which they
then produced!
Liz L:
It seems that whilst everyone knows Messiah backwards, singing it forwards all together is slightly more tricky!!!!!
Anyway, a couple of good Jamie-isms tonight:
"There were people visibly moved.... jumped out of their seats" (reviewing the 2nd Movement of The Bells)
"It's like the feeling you get just before you go skinny-dipping" (encouraging the sopranos to 'go for it')
"You need to fit with the altos.... ... ... for once!" (to sops on bottom of page 92)
Encouraging the altos to make that "lovely alto fizz" accompanied by little fizzy handmovements (well it made me smile!)
{You need to be] "like ever-ready batteries rather than duracell... or whichever one has the rabbit" (encouraging us all not to give up & sing to the end of the phrase)
"It's like Wallace smelling some 'stinking bishop'" (which apparently makes more sense if you've seen the Wallace & Gromit film)
"It sounds a bit like someone clambering up a rock-face........ twice!"
The last (and personally my 2nd favourite of the evening) :
"at least I do it loudly in front of you all" (after making a mistake)
My favourite wasn't necessarily a Jamie-ism, but it was funny!
A few of us were stood outside the rehearsal room in the break and Jamie invited us to join the rehearsal again by saying (accompanied by 'Gangsta rap' hand movements and a thick Mancunian accent)
"come on... let's sing some tunes... some tunes from da Messiah"
(maybe you just had to be there!!!!!!!!!!!)
......................................................................................................
Well, I haven't seen the Wallace and Gromit film either, so could someone please explain to me what on earth that quote is all about?!?
"Lift up your heads" seems on odd one to miss out. I'll be interested to hear the reasons why. I'm not too distraught over it, though. Not like the year we did Messiah with Nicholas McGegan (I'm pretty sure it was him, anyway) and he cut the CHOIR for large parts. (i.e. we only joined in for a few bars in "For unto us" etc.; the soloists sang the rest.) I did an OU course a few years after that, that explained why he probably wanted to do it that way. But at the time, no-one explained the reasons to the choir, and in fact they didn't even TELL us until we met the conductor at the piano rehearsal, a few days before the concert. I'm sure I wasn't the only person who spent the whole concert feeling grumpy and betrayed.
Oh, and a pet peeve I feel the need to share, because this annoys me almost as much as people saying "Gerontius" with a J at the start. The name of the piece is Messiah. Not The Messiah. (Look at your copy if you don't believe me!) I mention this just in case there were people who didn't know - I live to educate :p
Anyway, two final things. Firstly, I took 16 kids to see the new Harry Potter film yesterday, and it's GREAT. Definitely the best of the four so far. And also, I have a new favourite word: kadigan. Read and be enlightened :-)
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
The Times: "This was a concert with bells on."
Not seen any other reviews of Saturday yet (and I have looked) but the Times liked it!
EDIT: Graham E sends a link to the M.E.N. review.
EDIT 2: The Independent didn't seem to like it. And they said we lacked Russian timbre! The cheek!
EDIT: Graham E sends a link to the M.E.N. review.
EDIT 2: The Independent didn't seem to like it. And they said we lacked Russian timbre! The cheek!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
"Well, we'd go anywhere to sing with Mark."
That's what one of the LPC told my tenor friend Graham W, when asked why so many of them had made the effort to come up to Manchester to sing The Bells with us. Nice, eh? I'm glad they did, though, because it was great to have so many singers. And they were really good, too. Particularly a bass sitting behind me whose Russian was so perfect that I thought he must be Russian.
Talking of Russian basses, someone who we're all agreed is headed for superstardom is tonight's bass soloist, whose name I now know. It's Mikhail Petrenko. (The soprano was Tatiana Pavlovskaya - how great a name is that?!? She was fabulous too, as was John Daszak the tenor, but Mikhail had a lot more to do in the concert so we noticed him more.) When Mikhail walked - well, strode would be more accurate - onto the stage for his first item (Shostakovich's Ten Songs of the Fool from King Lear, which amused everyone by basically being a set of variations on "Jingle Bells" with dramatic arm gestures and despotic laughter), I realised that that's how all male soloists should walk onto the stage. Wow. Of course, the open-necked white shirt (no jacket) (with the collar up) helped the image. Kind of Byronic. Ish. (Oh, and btw, googling him reveals that he's 30 this year. Which surprises me, as I thought he was much younger, but I'm really bad at judging age!)
Needless to say, the crowd loved him :-)
The concert, since you ask, when pretty well. I wasn't too impressed with the Glinka or the Borodin - instantly forgettable for me, I'm afraid - but the Shostakovich songs were great fun, and then there was The Bells. Most of the bits that had often been wrong were right. There was one bit where it nearly fell apart due to people not watching, but as ever the 2nd altos stuck to their guns and dragged everyone back onto the beat. (At least, that was MY perception. Other sections may disagree :p ) There was a bit of bad feeling at the warmup, though, when it was announced that we would be warming up at 6.30 instead of 7.00 as the schedule says. I suspect, remembering the pattern from previous two-choirs gigs, that it was always intended that the warmup should be at 6.30 and Jamie assumed that's what the schedule said. But the fact is that the schedule didn't say that, and lots of people had made plans which were awkward to alter at such short notice.
A couple of interesting things in the programme (there's always something that they don't bother to tell us till we read it in the programme!) Firstly, and amusingly, apparently the 3rd movement is supposed to be "a terrifying depiction of a panic-stricken crowd". How appropriate :p And, also, "The choral writing in this movement is so difficult that in later life the composer introduced some simplifications." Uh huh.
Only two quotes to report, other than the LPC one. A bass (who I won't name, because we need all the basses we can get, so it would be a pity if one was murdered) said, just as I walked past him, "Sopranos aren't renowned for having brains. Oops! Don't quote me!"
And the other is the only Jamieism of the day, but it's a great one. This was during the warmup: "Can I ask you to imitate a small furry animal that's chewing something very tasty and doesn't want any of his family to know about it?"
Other news: The triangle player turns out not to be a work experience boy, he's actually 21 and will be playing with the Hallé for the next 5 weeks. I suspect I added to his pressure by mentioning to one of his percussionist colleagues how very impressed we all were with his concentration, and that we were watching his every move :p
And I was very amused by Alison having water stuck in her ear (we went swimming in the afternoon) and trying all sorts of contortions and head shaking to dislodge it. Dr Liz suggested that she should hop around with her head on one side, but that didn't work (I suggested she probably needed to do it for much longer, but she didn't fall for that!). Anyone got any brilliant remedies in case this happens to any of us in the future?
I'll leave you with some photos. The first one is the window of the Dutch Pancake House, who really should be ashamed of themselves. The tree was just pretty. [EDIT: Photos now removed, sorry.] I also took some other photos during the interval (half the singers were missing - it was much more crowded by the time we went on!), and they're up on the choir photos page (I had to remove a few of the Belshazzar ones to fit them on, but most of the Belshazzar ones are still there too, in case you didn't see them at the time.) BIt blurred, sorry, but I don't have a steady hand! I thought some people might like them anyway. And it was a bit of luck being able to take them from the balcony - I took the first one and realised I could only get a decent impression of the numbers was to go up there. Now, I do know the code for the door, because I've been up there for committee meetings. But I'd just decided that it would be wrong to abuse that just to go and take a picture, when Naomi called down that I should bring up some of the ladies who were queuing for the toilets, so that they could use the ones upstairs too and help speed things up. So I went up there and took a couple of photos while I was waiting for them. Pity I managed to get them so blurry!
And finally - "Bravo, darling!" That's for Liz L, who is convinced that Mark was probably saying that to people in the corridor after the gig. (He certainly didn't say that in my hearing, but he was thanking all the choir members who passed him and saying repeatedly how fabulous it was.) Liz has very kindly offered to write down any and all Jamieisms from Wednesday's rehearsal, for I will be unable to attend. I never miss a rehearsal if I can help it, but I'm off to see the Proclaimers, and that's the only night they're in town. I don't really mind missing one rehearsal on Messiah, because I'd imagine the markings will be very similar to last year's - but I'm distraught at missing Jamieisms! You must all write down all the ones you notice, just in case there are some that Liz can't hear :-)
Talking of Russian basses, someone who we're all agreed is headed for superstardom is tonight's bass soloist, whose name I now know. It's Mikhail Petrenko. (The soprano was Tatiana Pavlovskaya - how great a name is that?!? She was fabulous too, as was John Daszak the tenor, but Mikhail had a lot more to do in the concert so we noticed him more.) When Mikhail walked - well, strode would be more accurate - onto the stage for his first item (Shostakovich's Ten Songs of the Fool from King Lear, which amused everyone by basically being a set of variations on "Jingle Bells" with dramatic arm gestures and despotic laughter), I realised that that's how all male soloists should walk onto the stage. Wow. Of course, the open-necked white shirt (no jacket) (with the collar up) helped the image. Kind of Byronic. Ish. (Oh, and btw, googling him reveals that he's 30 this year. Which surprises me, as I thought he was much younger, but I'm really bad at judging age!)
Needless to say, the crowd loved him :-)
The concert, since you ask, when pretty well. I wasn't too impressed with the Glinka or the Borodin - instantly forgettable for me, I'm afraid - but the Shostakovich songs were great fun, and then there was The Bells. Most of the bits that had often been wrong were right. There was one bit where it nearly fell apart due to people not watching, but as ever the 2nd altos stuck to their guns and dragged everyone back onto the beat. (At least, that was MY perception. Other sections may disagree :p ) There was a bit of bad feeling at the warmup, though, when it was announced that we would be warming up at 6.30 instead of 7.00 as the schedule says. I suspect, remembering the pattern from previous two-choirs gigs, that it was always intended that the warmup should be at 6.30 and Jamie assumed that's what the schedule said. But the fact is that the schedule didn't say that, and lots of people had made plans which were awkward to alter at such short notice.
A couple of interesting things in the programme (there's always something that they don't bother to tell us till we read it in the programme!) Firstly, and amusingly, apparently the 3rd movement is supposed to be "a terrifying depiction of a panic-stricken crowd". How appropriate :p And, also, "The choral writing in this movement is so difficult that in later life the composer introduced some simplifications." Uh huh.
Only two quotes to report, other than the LPC one. A bass (who I won't name, because we need all the basses we can get, so it would be a pity if one was murdered) said, just as I walked past him, "Sopranos aren't renowned for having brains. Oops! Don't quote me!"
And the other is the only Jamieism of the day, but it's a great one. This was during the warmup: "Can I ask you to imitate a small furry animal that's chewing something very tasty and doesn't want any of his family to know about it?"
Other news: The triangle player turns out not to be a work experience boy, he's actually 21 and will be playing with the Hallé for the next 5 weeks. I suspect I added to his pressure by mentioning to one of his percussionist colleagues how very impressed we all were with his concentration, and that we were watching his every move :p
And I was very amused by Alison having water stuck in her ear (we went swimming in the afternoon) and trying all sorts of contortions and head shaking to dislodge it. Dr Liz suggested that she should hop around with her head on one side, but that didn't work (I suggested she probably needed to do it for much longer, but she didn't fall for that!). Anyone got any brilliant remedies in case this happens to any of us in the future?
I'll leave you with some photos. The first one is the window of the Dutch Pancake House, who really should be ashamed of themselves. The tree was just pretty. [EDIT: Photos now removed, sorry.] I also took some other photos during the interval (half the singers were missing - it was much more crowded by the time we went on!), and they're up on the choir photos page (I had to remove a few of the Belshazzar ones to fit them on, but most of the Belshazzar ones are still there too, in case you didn't see them at the time.) BIt blurred, sorry, but I don't have a steady hand! I thought some people might like them anyway. And it was a bit of luck being able to take them from the balcony - I took the first one and realised I could only get a decent impression of the numbers was to go up there. Now, I do know the code for the door, because I've been up there for committee meetings. But I'd just decided that it would be wrong to abuse that just to go and take a picture, when Naomi called down that I should bring up some of the ladies who were queuing for the toilets, so that they could use the ones upstairs too and help speed things up. So I went up there and took a couple of photos while I was waiting for them. Pity I managed to get them so blurry!
And finally - "Bravo, darling!" That's for Liz L, who is convinced that Mark was probably saying that to people in the corridor after the gig. (He certainly didn't say that in my hearing, but he was thanking all the choir members who passed him and saying repeatedly how fabulous it was.) Liz has very kindly offered to write down any and all Jamieisms from Wednesday's rehearsal, for I will be unable to attend. I never miss a rehearsal if I can help it, but I'm off to see the Proclaimers, and that's the only night they're in town. I don't really mind missing one rehearsal on Messiah, because I'd imagine the markings will be very similar to last year's - but I'm distraught at missing Jamieisms! You must all write down all the ones you notice, just in case there are some that Liz can't hear :-)
Friday, November 11, 2005
More Russian basses, please!
No quotes tonight. And not much to say. It was the orchestral rehearsal for The Bells. Mark had promised us last night that he wouldn't need us for the full three and a quarter hours, and it was looking as if he might go back on his word, but he did let us out 15 minutes early in the end.
Things didn't go too badly overall. True, there were a lot of places where we weren't together at all, because of people not watching (at one point most of the people behind me, not realising Mark was slowing down, reached the end of a section THREE BARS ahead of those of us who didn't have our heads buried in our copies!) But the notes were all more or less right, and the words weren't bad either. And the thing sounds very lovely indeed with the orchestra, particularly in the last movement. Wish I had someone coming to the concert who actually knows me, but my friends always seem to have better things to do when I ask them :-(
We were quite taken with the triangle player, who we'd never seen before. He was the first member of the orchestra to be in his seat, and sat there practising intently while the rest of the players wandered onto the stage. Dr Liz was convinced he was there on a work experience placement, but I don't think he was that young! Could be wrong though....
Talking of the orchestra, there were 4 people I was at school with on the platform tonight, which I think is a record. John the horn bumper and Sharon the cellist have been members of the orchestra for a while, but I was delighted to see Richard back leading the 2nd violins as he did in Gerontius, as he was actually in the same class as me. The others were a couple of years younger, as was John the tenor soloist.
John Daszak is the only originally-booked soloist who actually turned up, and he sang as fabulously as ever. But the two replacements were just as good - a young soprano and bass, both from St Petersburg (didn't catch their names). Neither of them looked particularly Russian, but they sounded it - especially the bass! He didn't sing till the last movement, and we hadn't noticed him till then. But when we reached his solo, he ambled onto the stage, tall and skinny and very casual in jeans. And then he opened his mouth. Wow! I think several of us melted on the spot. He had the most amazing sound, and fantastic diction (I could understand every word) - and oh, so very Russian. I'm really looking forward to seeing what reception he gets on Saturday!
Things didn't go too badly overall. True, there were a lot of places where we weren't together at all, because of people not watching (at one point most of the people behind me, not realising Mark was slowing down, reached the end of a section THREE BARS ahead of those of us who didn't have our heads buried in our copies!) But the notes were all more or less right, and the words weren't bad either. And the thing sounds very lovely indeed with the orchestra, particularly in the last movement. Wish I had someone coming to the concert who actually knows me, but my friends always seem to have better things to do when I ask them :-(
We were quite taken with the triangle player, who we'd never seen before. He was the first member of the orchestra to be in his seat, and sat there practising intently while the rest of the players wandered onto the stage. Dr Liz was convinced he was there on a work experience placement, but I don't think he was that young! Could be wrong though....
Talking of the orchestra, there were 4 people I was at school with on the platform tonight, which I think is a record. John the horn bumper and Sharon the cellist have been members of the orchestra for a while, but I was delighted to see Richard back leading the 2nd violins as he did in Gerontius, as he was actually in the same class as me. The others were a couple of years younger, as was John the tenor soloist.
John Daszak is the only originally-booked soloist who actually turned up, and he sang as fabulously as ever. But the two replacements were just as good - a young soprano and bass, both from St Petersburg (didn't catch their names). Neither of them looked particularly Russian, but they sounded it - especially the bass! He didn't sing till the last movement, and we hadn't noticed him till then. But when we reached his solo, he ambled onto the stage, tall and skinny and very casual in jeans. And then he opened his mouth. Wow! I think several of us melted on the spot. He had the most amazing sound, and fantastic diction (I could understand every word) - and oh, so very Russian. I'm really looking forward to seeing what reception he gets on Saturday!
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
"I know you did beautiful Elgar. Forget about that now!"
... said Xenia, at the start of tonight's piano rehearsal for The Bells. Which went a lot better than most people expected, but was very long (nearly 9.40 when we finished) and extremely hard work. We started with Jamie, polishing a few bits that needed it (including the infamous page 51 section, although by the end of the rehearsal there were still a LOT of altos behind me who were a tone too high every time they reached page 53. I wasn't sure exactly who it was, so I didn't like to tell them. But I will tomorrow if it still sounds as wrong as it did tonight, I think.) and then Mark came later. He seemed surprisingly impressed with things, which I think inspired people to sing better. He also said that the LPC is struggling with the text. They're not coming up till Saturday - I'm looking forward to hearing how they're getting on with the music. They were pretty good in Gerontius, but The Bells is a lot harder!
I'm falling asleep (as ever) so I'm just going to list some quotes, in a minute. But there are a few other things I'd like to mention first. Firstly, I was really impressed with the basses tonight. They made a fantastic sound, but more usefully they actually SANG where they were supposed to - there were none of those all-too-familiar embarrassing moments when either none of the basses comes in, or if they do it's totally the wrong speed, and the wrong notes, and tentative. They even went with the "loud and wrong" philosophy, with the result, of course, that their very few mistakes could be corrected very easily. I really hope they continue like this :-)
Secondly, for those ladies who are unaware, we are definitely wearing our normal uniforms on Saturday. There will be no repeat of Sashgate!
Thirdly, they are switching the Christmas lights on in Manchester city centre tomorrow - from Albert Square - so many of the roads will be closed from 5 pm onwards. Avoid driving to the rehearsal if you can help it...
Finally, some quotes. The Jamieisms first:
"Mark won't do it that slowly, but I'm just being naughty. And so are you!" (to the men on page 42, when they weren't watching and hence finished several seconds before Jamie did)
"Write the word 'adrenalin' and then cross it out." (to the altos on page 41, when lots of people were singing sharp)
From Mark:
"See? Many, many pages are fine already!" (after we sang the whole of the fiendishly difficult 3rd movement)
"How lovely to hear a choir that sings so well in tune!"
"We've advertised 3 soloists, as you do, and I'm delighted to report that one of them will actually be coming!" (For those who don't know, Mark seems to have a curse when it comes to soloists. It's very rare for all the ones he books to actually end up singing in the concert. One or more of them always falls ill.)
But my favourite quote of the night is not from Jamie, or Mark, or even Xenia. It's from Dr Liz. You see, there was this very tall unfamiliar guy - who wore a bandanna (a la Cap'n Jack Sparrow). He turned up just before the rehearsal started, spoke briefly to Jamie, and sat with the 2nd basses and joined in. We'd never seen him before, and we were dying to know who he was and why he was there. I chickened out of asking him myself, but decided that since Dr Liz is much braver than me, she might agree to do it.
Dr Liz: "So do you want me to just have no shame and go up to him and say 'all the 2nd altos want to know who you are'?"
2nd altos: "Yes!"
:-)
P.S. I suppose you want to know the answer... His name was Adam and he's a post grad student at the RNCM who's working on Russian choral music - or possibly specifically Rachmaninov, I forget. He's not a member of the choir and won't be singing in the concert, he just came along for research purposes. Anything to add to that, Liz?
I'm falling asleep (as ever) so I'm just going to list some quotes, in a minute. But there are a few other things I'd like to mention first. Firstly, I was really impressed with the basses tonight. They made a fantastic sound, but more usefully they actually SANG where they were supposed to - there were none of those all-too-familiar embarrassing moments when either none of the basses comes in, or if they do it's totally the wrong speed, and the wrong notes, and tentative. They even went with the "loud and wrong" philosophy, with the result, of course, that their very few mistakes could be corrected very easily. I really hope they continue like this :-)
Secondly, for those ladies who are unaware, we are definitely wearing our normal uniforms on Saturday. There will be no repeat of Sashgate!
Thirdly, they are switching the Christmas lights on in Manchester city centre tomorrow - from Albert Square - so many of the roads will be closed from 5 pm onwards. Avoid driving to the rehearsal if you can help it...
Finally, some quotes. The Jamieisms first:
"Mark won't do it that slowly, but I'm just being naughty. And so are you!" (to the men on page 42, when they weren't watching and hence finished several seconds before Jamie did)
"Write the word 'adrenalin' and then cross it out." (to the altos on page 41, when lots of people were singing sharp)
From Mark:
"See? Many, many pages are fine already!" (after we sang the whole of the fiendishly difficult 3rd movement)
"How lovely to hear a choir that sings so well in tune!"
"We've advertised 3 soloists, as you do, and I'm delighted to report that one of them will actually be coming!" (For those who don't know, Mark seems to have a curse when it comes to soloists. It's very rare for all the ones he books to actually end up singing in the concert. One or more of them always falls ill.)
But my favourite quote of the night is not from Jamie, or Mark, or even Xenia. It's from Dr Liz. You see, there was this very tall unfamiliar guy - who wore a bandanna (a la Cap'n Jack Sparrow). He turned up just before the rehearsal started, spoke briefly to Jamie, and sat with the 2nd basses and joined in. We'd never seen him before, and we were dying to know who he was and why he was there. I chickened out of asking him myself, but decided that since Dr Liz is much braver than me, she might agree to do it.
Dr Liz: "So do you want me to just have no shame and go up to him and say 'all the 2nd altos want to know who you are'?"
2nd altos: "Yes!"
:-)
P.S. I suppose you want to know the answer... His name was Adam and he's a post grad student at the RNCM who's working on Russian choral music - or possibly specifically Rachmaninov, I forget. He's not a member of the choir and won't be singing in the concert, he just came along for research purposes. Anything to add to that, Liz?
Sunday, November 06, 2005
"It's either Elgar's fault or yours, and I'm suggesting it's Elgar's."
We sang for five hours today. That's a lot of work for a Sunday! All I want to do is go to sleep for about twelve hours, but I have to get up for work much earlier than I'd like, so this will be quick. (Also, my feet are killing me! Lots of standing up was done. Ow.)
The recording session - and the rehearsal before it - went pretty well. This is probably because there was a lot more concentration (and a lot less talking) than usual. And also that we're really good, of course :p Mind you, a possible reason for the lack of annoying chatter was that Jane brought her annual charity quiz sheets, and lots of people were kept quiet doing them. I did a few on Liz's sheet but then gave up. One of the ones we were stuck on was the word that could be placed after "sin" and before "egg". My mum suggested "ister"... (think about it!)
Anyway. Jamie did one of his "no pain, no gain" warmups, to the background of much creaking of bones and yelps of pain. (Yes, really.) And then followed an extremely detailed rehearsal (and, later, recording) of the Ireland and Elgar, which I won't describe at length - I'll just list the Jamieisms. The first one refers to the fact that we stayed in tune throughout - not always the case when singing a cappella for long periods of time, so something to be proud of!
"Half an hour in the same key? Niiiiice!"
"It's soft! It's focussed! It's soft! It's focussed!" (accompanied, as ever, by arm actions)
"That's too many words. Just write MANIC."
"Like Eddie Izzard after he's just told a slightly non-PC joke."
"That A flat is bloomin' marvellous. At the moment I don't see any love from you towards it."
"It's a descending semitone... the other incarnation of THE DEVIL."
"Can you NOT tighten your larynx, tenors? Otherwise I'll kill you." (This was followed by, from the booth, "NO CLENCHING!")
And finally one from Gill: "He needs to get out more..." (after Jamie was really, REALLY excited about a particular phrase the basses sang)
Oh, and one note from me: Am I the only one who thinks the end of As Torrents In Summer is exactly the same as the end of the Vicar of Dibley theme tune? (Well, different words. But other than that, it feels identical to me.)
To end, two things I meant to post last week:
This article is about John Barbirolli, and has some interesting links. Have a look if you're into that sort of thing.
This is something I find while I was looking for something else. It's someone who - *gasp* - doesn't seem to think our Gerontius was the best thing ever! Which reminds me - those people who are still waiting for their DVDs, I'm promised you will get them eventually. I keep asking my friend, but I don't like to ask too often.
Finally, I'm delighted that someone found this blog by doing a search for "Great Altos" :-)
The recording session - and the rehearsal before it - went pretty well. This is probably because there was a lot more concentration (and a lot less talking) than usual. And also that we're really good, of course :p Mind you, a possible reason for the lack of annoying chatter was that Jane brought her annual charity quiz sheets, and lots of people were kept quiet doing them. I did a few on Liz's sheet but then gave up. One of the ones we were stuck on was the word that could be placed after "sin" and before "egg". My mum suggested "ister"... (think about it!)
Anyway. Jamie did one of his "no pain, no gain" warmups, to the background of much creaking of bones and yelps of pain. (Yes, really.) And then followed an extremely detailed rehearsal (and, later, recording) of the Ireland and Elgar, which I won't describe at length - I'll just list the Jamieisms. The first one refers to the fact that we stayed in tune throughout - not always the case when singing a cappella for long periods of time, so something to be proud of!
"Half an hour in the same key? Niiiiice!"
"It's soft! It's focussed! It's soft! It's focussed!" (accompanied, as ever, by arm actions)
"That's too many words. Just write MANIC."
"Like Eddie Izzard after he's just told a slightly non-PC joke."
"That A flat is bloomin' marvellous. At the moment I don't see any love from you towards it."
"It's a descending semitone... the other incarnation of THE DEVIL."
"Can you NOT tighten your larynx, tenors? Otherwise I'll kill you." (This was followed by, from the booth, "NO CLENCHING!")
And finally one from Gill: "He needs to get out more..." (after Jamie was really, REALLY excited about a particular phrase the basses sang)
Oh, and one note from me: Am I the only one who thinks the end of As Torrents In Summer is exactly the same as the end of the Vicar of Dibley theme tune? (Well, different words. But other than that, it feels identical to me.)
To end, two things I meant to post last week:
This article is about John Barbirolli, and has some interesting links. Have a look if you're into that sort of thing.
This is something I find while I was looking for something else. It's someone who - *gasp* - doesn't seem to think our Gerontius was the best thing ever! Which reminds me - those people who are still waiting for their DVDs, I'm promised you will get them eventually. I keep asking my friend, but I don't like to ask too often.
Finally, I'm delighted that someone found this blog by doing a search for "Great Altos" :-)
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
"Cos they're all dying for it!"
That's the tenors, needless to say. Although in fairness to them, I should probably point out that this was Jamie pointing out why they breathed so well as a section :-)
I've been so tired all day (loads of stress at work, causing me to be unable to sleep much last night) that I had planned to go to bed as soon as I got home tonight. But I changed my mind because of one of the many Lizzes in the choir (in this case Liz L, the new 1st alto), who delighted me by telling me that this blog always entertains her at work on a Thursday. I could hardly let her down after that, could I? :-)
Another of the Lizzes, Lizzy A, told me that she was upset that I got at the sopranos last week. However, she did admit I was somewhat justified, so I didn't feel guilty for too long! And finally there's Liz T (the one with the blog) who is in the USA at the moment. She has had her hair done, and sent me a photo. (She says it's redder than it looks.) I include it here (with Liz's permission) because someone asked me tonight what she looks like. Nice hairdo, isn't it? [EDIT: Photo now removed, sorry.]
So, anyway, tonight was the AGM. It ran over a bit (well, 35 minutes!) but Jamie could hardly complain since it was him that spoke at most length! (My bit was supposed to be 10 minutes, and I think it more or less was.) It was a much more pleasant affair than last year's AGM, and it felt (to me at least) as if people weren't totally bored. I hope that was in fact the case. Lots of interesting and useful information, which I won't attempt to repeat here, as all the choir members will be getting a copy of the minutes. I'll just mention one topical thing, though, to reassure people who weren't there. A question was asked about the extent to which the Hallé is affected by the national insurance issue recently reported to be causing major problems for many UK orchestras. The answer is that it is not a big worry for the Hallé because most of our players are on contracts; the orchestras that will be most at risk are those in which most players are freelance.
Oh, actually, I'll mention one other thing. The rehearsal on 23rd November (which will be of Messiah) is now an open rehearsal. So please bring your friends! The more the merrier! The plan is that after they've seen what it's like to actually be a part of the choir, there will be audition slots available for them to sign up for if they wish. (Terrible grammar, but YKWIM.) And talking of rehearsals, I've updated the online schedule to mention this. No other changes other than that I've now added this Sunday's evening session (somehow I'd managed to miss that off, sorry) and I've checked all the football fixtures again.
After the AGM we had a necessarily short rehearsal. We finally got to see the other piece we're recording: Elgar's As Torrents In Summer, which I've sung before but I can't remember when or where (that's been bugging me all night!). Jamie: "Who's sung this piece before? [sees that quite a few people have raised their hands] Great. That's reassuring. ... We're recording this piece on Sunday."
Needless to say, the people who always sing behind the beat when sight reading sang behind the beat. But at least they were more or less in tune, so it could've been worse. Some amusement over the pronunciation of the word "fountain"... Jamie: "Fountayne isn't English, really, unless you're from a certain area of Essex." I personally found it oddly difficult to sing all the Rs without rolling them at all, as instructed. I was reminded of my friend Alison singing Dancing Queen... she is such an experienced choral singer that she finds it hard to sing "Friday night and the lights are low" without rolling the R in "Friday", for which I have teased her many times :-)
We did The Hills briefly, too. It was still behind. Argh! Hopefully people will actually WATCH on Sunday...
And finally, The Bells - the end of the last movement and the end of 3rd movement. We actually started at page 51! I was so pleased! And we actually practised the section I've been obsessing about! It's a bit better now.
Oh, and the tenors had a fabulous "loud and wrong" moment on page 90, when they all went very confidently for an F when it should've been an E. They catch on very quickly, though - and it's SO much easier when mistakes can actually be heard and therefore corrected.
Going back to The Hills, Libby looked up the lyricist (James Kirkup) online, and was very surprised to discover he'd written a poem which is... well, let's just say it's nothing like The Hills! Have a look here (scroll down to see the poem), but not if you're easily offended.
Which reminds me of my final thing: recent searches that have led visitors here! New ones include the following:
"The Mother of all Sudoku Puzzles- the Hardest!!"
"i'll go anywhere don't ask me to sing in the choir" (the mind boggles!)
"cute without the e choir" (Cute without the E is the name of a song. Nothing to do with choirs AFAICS.)
"paul scholes and beckham" (led to this post)
And my favourite two (the last one in particular amuses me a very great deal, but then I'm a sad geeky type!)
"muppets singing porn music"
"orcish porn"
You see, you only have to mention the word "porn" once, and the search engines love you from that moment on :p
I've been so tired all day (loads of stress at work, causing me to be unable to sleep much last night) that I had planned to go to bed as soon as I got home tonight. But I changed my mind because of one of the many Lizzes in the choir (in this case Liz L, the new 1st alto), who delighted me by telling me that this blog always entertains her at work on a Thursday. I could hardly let her down after that, could I? :-)
Another of the Lizzes, Lizzy A, told me that she was upset that I got at the sopranos last week. However, she did admit I was somewhat justified, so I didn't feel guilty for too long! And finally there's Liz T (the one with the blog) who is in the USA at the moment. She has had her hair done, and sent me a photo. (She says it's redder than it looks.) I include it here (with Liz's permission) because someone asked me tonight what she looks like. Nice hairdo, isn't it? [EDIT: Photo now removed, sorry.]
So, anyway, tonight was the AGM. It ran over a bit (well, 35 minutes!) but Jamie could hardly complain since it was him that spoke at most length! (My bit was supposed to be 10 minutes, and I think it more or less was.) It was a much more pleasant affair than last year's AGM, and it felt (to me at least) as if people weren't totally bored. I hope that was in fact the case. Lots of interesting and useful information, which I won't attempt to repeat here, as all the choir members will be getting a copy of the minutes. I'll just mention one topical thing, though, to reassure people who weren't there. A question was asked about the extent to which the Hallé is affected by the national insurance issue recently reported to be causing major problems for many UK orchestras. The answer is that it is not a big worry for the Hallé because most of our players are on contracts; the orchestras that will be most at risk are those in which most players are freelance.
Oh, actually, I'll mention one other thing. The rehearsal on 23rd November (which will be of Messiah) is now an open rehearsal. So please bring your friends! The more the merrier! The plan is that after they've seen what it's like to actually be a part of the choir, there will be audition slots available for them to sign up for if they wish. (Terrible grammar, but YKWIM.) And talking of rehearsals, I've updated the online schedule to mention this. No other changes other than that I've now added this Sunday's evening session (somehow I'd managed to miss that off, sorry) and I've checked all the football fixtures again.
After the AGM we had a necessarily short rehearsal. We finally got to see the other piece we're recording: Elgar's As Torrents In Summer, which I've sung before but I can't remember when or where (that's been bugging me all night!). Jamie: "Who's sung this piece before? [sees that quite a few people have raised their hands] Great. That's reassuring. ... We're recording this piece on Sunday."
Needless to say, the people who always sing behind the beat when sight reading sang behind the beat. But at least they were more or less in tune, so it could've been worse. Some amusement over the pronunciation of the word "fountain"... Jamie: "Fountayne isn't English, really, unless you're from a certain area of Essex." I personally found it oddly difficult to sing all the Rs without rolling them at all, as instructed. I was reminded of my friend Alison singing Dancing Queen... she is such an experienced choral singer that she finds it hard to sing "Friday night and the lights are low" without rolling the R in "Friday", for which I have teased her many times :-)
We did The Hills briefly, too. It was still behind. Argh! Hopefully people will actually WATCH on Sunday...
And finally, The Bells - the end of the last movement and the end of 3rd movement. We actually started at page 51! I was so pleased! And we actually practised the section I've been obsessing about! It's a bit better now.
Oh, and the tenors had a fabulous "loud and wrong" moment on page 90, when they all went very confidently for an F when it should've been an E. They catch on very quickly, though - and it's SO much easier when mistakes can actually be heard and therefore corrected.
Going back to The Hills, Libby looked up the lyricist (James Kirkup) online, and was very surprised to discover he'd written a poem which is... well, let's just say it's nothing like The Hills! Have a look here (scroll down to see the poem), but not if you're easily offended.
Which reminds me of my final thing: recent searches that have led visitors here! New ones include the following:
"The Mother of all Sudoku Puzzles- the Hardest!!"
"i'll go anywhere don't ask me to sing in the choir" (the mind boggles!)
"cute without the e choir" (Cute without the E is the name of a song. Nothing to do with choirs AFAICS.)
"paul scholes and beckham" (led to this post)
And my favourite two (the last one in particular amuses me a very great deal, but then I'm a sad geeky type!)
"muppets singing porn music"
"orcish porn"
You see, you only have to mention the word "porn" once, and the search engines love you from that moment on :p
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
"This wild, discordant noise proclaims our peril!"
It turns out that this is the translation of the words on page 69. Jamie didn't mention this until Gill asked him. I suspect he didn't want to discourage us any more than we already were... for tonight was somewhat dispiriting. I think the people who've missed loads of rehearsals (and not looked at the music in between) have finally registered that the concert is in just over TWO WEEKS, and before then we've got an AGM (which will occupy half a rehearsal) and a recording session (which would help if we were recording "The Bells", because recording sessions are always great for getting the notes firmly embedded - usually too late, but still! - but we're not). I doubt they'll do anything about it, but at least they've realised there's a problem. (But not that it's in any way their fault, of course.)
Jamie was again pretty calm and positive for the most part, but even he couldn't help show his frustration a few times. But we did get a lot done. (If only it sticks!) We actually sang the whole piece apart from the 1st movement. We even did pages 51-55! At last! I must admit I felt kind of smug when the music totally fell apart at that point... It was right near the end by the time we got to it, so there wasn't really time to do it properly, but at least people were alerted to the fact that they need to have a good look at that bit, and I'm sure the conscientious ones actually will.
The altos actually had a pretty good night, probably because we were following our "loud and wrong" philosophy. We were even held up as an example to the others, and you know how we love it when that happens! "There's lots of mistakes, but by God it means something!" was Jamie's description of our singing :-)
We also got "Good recovery - thank you, altos" after we had yet again saved the choir from grinding to a halt, by actually watching. (Revolutionary concept, I know!) But there are still things that many of the altos are getting wrong every time, and I really wish some of them would actually notice. The E natural on page 71 is one that Jamie nagged us about, but he was quite right - most people were singing an E flat. This contrasts ironically with the last bar of the top line of page 64, where the altos should be singing an E flat but most of them are singing E natural. (To be fair, there is an E natural a few bars earlier, and many people haven't noticed the key signature, I think.) Oh, and there are two places where the last note on the top line and the first note on the bottom line are THE SAME NOTE, but people are changing note between the lines and therefore getting the whole of the following music wrong too. This happens on page 67 with an F sharp, and on page 41 with a G. Argh! And that's not even mentioning the people who are still behind the beat and/or flat ALL THE TIME. Arrrrggghh! But still - on the whole we're still clearly the best section, so we can cope with a few imperfections from time to time :p
By way of contrast to our fantasticness, the sopranos weren't on form at all tonight. Maybe they had some key people missing, because they've normally sounded great recently. But tonight I actually wrote "don't rely on sops" on page 66 (by which I mean "be sure to follow the conductor rather than them") and I haven't had to write that for ages. They did sound very nice once they got the hang of the bit at the very end of the last movement, though. And the men sounded wonderful on their long low chord on page 81. I wrote "GB" in my score :-)
Not so many Jamieisms tonight. We did have "It was a very loud mistake, which I encourage all the time - but not here!" (on page 76). But other than that there was just the start of the 2nd movement, where he went into a little solilioquy about seductive triplets and clashing duplets and "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus". You probably had to be there :p
Other stuff: A few links I've been meaning to include. Did you know that Freddie Flintoff likes singing? Let's get him in the choir! (I found out about this through one of the many Jon Christos searches that leads people here. Apparently Flintoff has employed Jon Christos as his vocal coach!) Also, this story about a choir singing with Kate Bush is interesting, as is this one about dolphins being taught to sing the 'Batman' theme. And finally, if you can read German you might enjoy this blog, which I think is written by a German singer. It definitely has a link to this blog, anyway. (My German is very rusty, so I tried running the page through the automatic Google translator, but there were many words that Google couldn't cope with!)
And finally, the latest searches that have led people here include the following:
"girls bottom parts"
"jamie quiver" (which led to this post)
"casualty theme mp3"
"sleigh ride lyrics sopranos and second sopranos"
and, last but not least,
"sin and pleasure" ... which baffled me until I remembered this post!
Jamie was again pretty calm and positive for the most part, but even he couldn't help show his frustration a few times. But we did get a lot done. (If only it sticks!) We actually sang the whole piece apart from the 1st movement. We even did pages 51-55! At last! I must admit I felt kind of smug when the music totally fell apart at that point... It was right near the end by the time we got to it, so there wasn't really time to do it properly, but at least people were alerted to the fact that they need to have a good look at that bit, and I'm sure the conscientious ones actually will.
The altos actually had a pretty good night, probably because we were following our "loud and wrong" philosophy. We were even held up as an example to the others, and you know how we love it when that happens! "There's lots of mistakes, but by God it means something!" was Jamie's description of our singing :-)
We also got "Good recovery - thank you, altos" after we had yet again saved the choir from grinding to a halt, by actually watching. (Revolutionary concept, I know!) But there are still things that many of the altos are getting wrong every time, and I really wish some of them would actually notice. The E natural on page 71 is one that Jamie nagged us about, but he was quite right - most people were singing an E flat. This contrasts ironically with the last bar of the top line of page 64, where the altos should be singing an E flat but most of them are singing E natural. (To be fair, there is an E natural a few bars earlier, and many people haven't noticed the key signature, I think.) Oh, and there are two places where the last note on the top line and the first note on the bottom line are THE SAME NOTE, but people are changing note between the lines and therefore getting the whole of the following music wrong too. This happens on page 67 with an F sharp, and on page 41 with a G. Argh! And that's not even mentioning the people who are still behind the beat and/or flat ALL THE TIME. Arrrrggghh! But still - on the whole we're still clearly the best section, so we can cope with a few imperfections from time to time :p
By way of contrast to our fantasticness, the sopranos weren't on form at all tonight. Maybe they had some key people missing, because they've normally sounded great recently. But tonight I actually wrote "don't rely on sops" on page 66 (by which I mean "be sure to follow the conductor rather than them") and I haven't had to write that for ages. They did sound very nice once they got the hang of the bit at the very end of the last movement, though. And the men sounded wonderful on their long low chord on page 81. I wrote "GB" in my score :-)
Not so many Jamieisms tonight. We did have "It was a very loud mistake, which I encourage all the time - but not here!" (on page 76). But other than that there was just the start of the 2nd movement, where he went into a little solilioquy about seductive triplets and clashing duplets and "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus". You probably had to be there :p
Other stuff: A few links I've been meaning to include. Did you know that Freddie Flintoff likes singing? Let's get him in the choir! (I found out about this through one of the many Jon Christos searches that leads people here. Apparently Flintoff has employed Jon Christos as his vocal coach!) Also, this story about a choir singing with Kate Bush is interesting, as is this one about dolphins being taught to sing the 'Batman' theme. And finally, if you can read German you might enjoy this blog, which I think is written by a German singer. It definitely has a link to this blog, anyway. (My German is very rusty, so I tried running the page through the automatic Google translator, but there were many words that Google couldn't cope with!)
And finally, the latest searches that have led people here include the following:
"girls bottom parts"
"jamie quiver" (which led to this post)
"casualty theme mp3"
"sleigh ride lyrics sopranos and second sopranos"
and, last but not least,
"sin and pleasure" ... which baffled me until I remembered this post!
Thursday, October 20, 2005
That's TWO things, actually, Jamie
(at one point tonight, Jamie said that it didn't sound as if people were taking a breath where instructed on page 88 of "The Bells". He said: "That means only one thing - you're cheating, or you're not working hard enough.")
Many, many Jamieisms tonight. So I'll list them first. (We had sectionals in the first half again, but the ladies were with Jamie this week.) (We did a bit of work on "The Hills" when we got back together, but mainly it was work on the harder bits of "The Bells". Although yet again the bit starting at page 51 was missed. We stopped 4 bars before it at the end of the sectional, and when we sang through a big chunk of the 3rd movement at the end as a full choir, we stopped at page 49. Again. See, it looks as if we've worked on it, because we all have things written on those pages, but those marks are mainly from the language rehearsals. We've only actually sight-read that section, on two widely-separated occasions. We've never note-bashed it, and I really think it will need it.)
Anyway, my favourite of tonight's Jamieisms (there were more).
"Every rehearsal I feel like I'm throwing stuff at a wall. Most of it falls off..."
"I should be able to see the blood in your eyes!" (to the sops on p42)
"Suddenly I feel like a tai chi instructor." (after demonstrating yet more vowels-accompanied-by-hand-movements)
"I'm the ambassador from the sovereign state of Xenia."
But the best one had to be his description of the busker that played his violin so much that he's only got ONE FINGER left... and it's bleeding... I can't even remember what he was trying to illustrate with this analogy! I was too amused!
A couple of other random thoughts: Firstly, it occurred to me, while reciting "slukh nash sladastna" on page 7, how similar Russian is to Orcish. (Those who are bigger Tolkien geeks than me will no doubt claim they're totally different. But still.) And secondly, I realised that Jamie's "vowel face" makes him look rather like Logan Echolls. (Except with less hair.) Alarming. (Logan Echolls is a character on a TV programme called Veronica Mars.)
Finally, to change the subject, I want to mention a few more search terms that have brought people to this blog. Quite a lot lately have been searching for "engage the enemy more closely", which I quoted a few months ago. A few seem to have been searching for me specifically, which is a little spooky. We've also had visitors looking for "choir outfits style for ladies", "liz and lisa", "Haydn's Nelson Mass mp3", and "jon christos". (Quite a few for him, actually. And as a result we seem to be linked from this page, which may amuse those who sang with Russell Watson a few years ago.) Oh, and there was also a search for "jamie hare", which baffled me, because I didn't remember ever using the word "hare", but then I saw that it led to this post :-)
I suppose I ought to explain the "facial urge jamie" searches, since I found out the answer last week and promised to explain. It seems there is a website called Facial Urge (PLEASE NOTE: if you are at work this site will probably be blocked, as it is a porn site. Don't click unless you're sure you want to see.) Anyway, there is a girl on that website called Jamie, and I assume it is her that all these people are searching for.
P.S. For those who have asked how to download my mp3 files of "The Bells": You need to go to this post and right-click on each of the links (i.e. where it says "1st movement" etc.). You should get a drop-down menu which will include "save target as..." or something similar (I don't use Windows so I don't remember the exact words). Select that, and then it will probably ask you where you want to save it. Save it wherever you like as long as you know where it is!
Many, many Jamieisms tonight. So I'll list them first. (We had sectionals in the first half again, but the ladies were with Jamie this week.) (We did a bit of work on "The Hills" when we got back together, but mainly it was work on the harder bits of "The Bells". Although yet again the bit starting at page 51 was missed. We stopped 4 bars before it at the end of the sectional, and when we sang through a big chunk of the 3rd movement at the end as a full choir, we stopped at page 49. Again. See, it looks as if we've worked on it, because we all have things written on those pages, but those marks are mainly from the language rehearsals. We've only actually sight-read that section, on two widely-separated occasions. We've never note-bashed it, and I really think it will need it.)
Anyway, my favourite of tonight's Jamieisms (there were more).
"Every rehearsal I feel like I'm throwing stuff at a wall. Most of it falls off..."
"I should be able to see the blood in your eyes!" (to the sops on p42)
"Suddenly I feel like a tai chi instructor." (after demonstrating yet more vowels-accompanied-by-hand-movements)
"I'm the ambassador from the sovereign state of Xenia."
But the best one had to be his description of the busker that played his violin so much that he's only got ONE FINGER left... and it's bleeding... I can't even remember what he was trying to illustrate with this analogy! I was too amused!
A couple of other random thoughts: Firstly, it occurred to me, while reciting "slukh nash sladastna" on page 7, how similar Russian is to Orcish. (Those who are bigger Tolkien geeks than me will no doubt claim they're totally different. But still.) And secondly, I realised that Jamie's "vowel face" makes him look rather like Logan Echolls. (Except with less hair.) Alarming. (Logan Echolls is a character on a TV programme called Veronica Mars.)
Finally, to change the subject, I want to mention a few more search terms that have brought people to this blog. Quite a lot lately have been searching for "engage the enemy more closely", which I quoted a few months ago. A few seem to have been searching for me specifically, which is a little spooky. We've also had visitors looking for "choir outfits style for ladies", "liz and lisa", "Haydn's Nelson Mass mp3", and "jon christos". (Quite a few for him, actually. And as a result we seem to be linked from this page, which may amuse those who sang with Russell Watson a few years ago.) Oh, and there was also a search for "jamie hare", which baffled me, because I didn't remember ever using the word "hare", but then I saw that it led to this post :-)
I suppose I ought to explain the "facial urge jamie" searches, since I found out the answer last week and promised to explain. It seems there is a website called Facial Urge (PLEASE NOTE: if you are at work this site will probably be blocked, as it is a porn site. Don't click unless you're sure you want to see.) Anyway, there is a girl on that website called Jamie, and I assume it is her that all these people are searching for.
P.S. For those who have asked how to download my mp3 files of "The Bells": You need to go to this post and right-click on each of the links (i.e. where it says "1st movement" etc.). You should get a drop-down menu which will include "save target as..." or something similar (I don't use Windows so I don't remember the exact words). Select that, and then it will probably ask you where you want to save it. Save it wherever you like as long as you know where it is!
Sunday, October 16, 2005
"Oh my lord, you're becoming Russian!"
Sorry for delay in posting. I seem to be overwhelmed with work at the moment. Not even played World of Warcraft!
Wednesday's rehearsal was good and bad. Good because it was my birthday, and Dr Liz (who's just started a new blog, btw - go check it out) brought me a balloon, which I tied to my chair :-) Then, at the end, Meg and Tom and Bruce sang "happy birthday" to me in beautiful harmony. Most impressive!
Also good was the fact that we finally got to see one of the things we're recording in 3 weeks' time - The Hills by John Ireland. And very lovely it is too.
Bad things included the fact that there was a very large number of people missing, and lots more were late. The weather was appalling, and international football traffic probably didn't help. (I spent the whole rehearsal feeling guilty that I hadn't checked the England venues recently - when I checked the football fixtures against the schedule last summer, I did check for international games too, but the venue for Wednesday night hadn't been confirmed, and I forgot to check more recently.)
I did hear a couple of people saying that they feel they hardly know The Bells at all, and we need lots more rehearsals than we have scheduled. But I disagree - IMHO there have been more than ample rehearsals, but unfortunately very few people have attended all of them. It's very frustrating to go over the same stuff again because a whole load of people have turned up that weren't there last time we did THE EXACT SAME STUFF. Argh. (I must admit I spent a large part of Wednesday's rehearsal admiring Jamie for keeping up such a positive attitude throughout, when inside he must surely have been incredibly annoyed at the whole "one step forward, two steps back" feeling.)
Other bad things - we spent the first half in sections, ladies and gentlemen separately, and for various reasons I invariably hate that. But at least it was only the first half. Oh, and when we sight-read The Hills, despite it being pretty straightforward, it still seemed as if the vast majority of people (certainly a lot of the ones near me) were waiting to listen for each note before singing it, so that it just draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagged. ARGH. You're in one of the best choirs in the country, people, why can't you take a chance?!? You're even encouraged to get it wrong! All the time!
Oh well. Must stop ranting. What did we actually do on Wednesday? Well, I was hopeful we might finally do the bit of the 3rd movement that we've still never done (p51 etc.) but we didn't get to that bit. We started at the end of the 3rd movement and worked backwards, but only got back to page 61. A few good Jamieisms though (including the one in the title):
"Wow, that's really wrong, isn't it?"
"Can each note be a suitcase that falls out of the hold?" (p71-2)
"D'you wanna do that with your right arm? It's great fun!" (this was after demonstrating the idea of going for the vowel on the "pile-up on the motorway" word, vzglyad, on p64. Bit visual - you probably had to be there...)
Oh, and not really a Jamieism, but it amused me - on p62 we were having trouble getting the note for "yes", and when it seemed as if we could do it, Jamie said "happy?" and we chorused... "Yes!" (OK, I'm easily amused. I admit it!)
A few final things. Naomi told us about the Halifax Choral Society performance of Gerontius with the Hallé on 13th November, for which they are asking for volunteer extra singers (see Liz A if interested). Naomi added: "This will be a no-sash occasion!"
Barbara gave me a CD that has Shostakovich 2 on it so I could put it online. I haven't quite enough web storage space to do that yet, but when I take down The Bells I will.
Graham E writes about the Mellor concert here (you may need to scroll down to his comment).
And finally - I was talking to the three new altos, who all seem to be still having fun, and Lisa commented on how very much she'd enjoyed her first individual session with Maggie. So, yay!
Wednesday's rehearsal was good and bad. Good because it was my birthday, and Dr Liz (who's just started a new blog, btw - go check it out) brought me a balloon, which I tied to my chair :-) Then, at the end, Meg and Tom and Bruce sang "happy birthday" to me in beautiful harmony. Most impressive!
Also good was the fact that we finally got to see one of the things we're recording in 3 weeks' time - The Hills by John Ireland. And very lovely it is too.
Bad things included the fact that there was a very large number of people missing, and lots more were late. The weather was appalling, and international football traffic probably didn't help. (I spent the whole rehearsal feeling guilty that I hadn't checked the England venues recently - when I checked the football fixtures against the schedule last summer, I did check for international games too, but the venue for Wednesday night hadn't been confirmed, and I forgot to check more recently.)
I did hear a couple of people saying that they feel they hardly know The Bells at all, and we need lots more rehearsals than we have scheduled. But I disagree - IMHO there have been more than ample rehearsals, but unfortunately very few people have attended all of them. It's very frustrating to go over the same stuff again because a whole load of people have turned up that weren't there last time we did THE EXACT SAME STUFF. Argh. (I must admit I spent a large part of Wednesday's rehearsal admiring Jamie for keeping up such a positive attitude throughout, when inside he must surely have been incredibly annoyed at the whole "one step forward, two steps back" feeling.)
Other bad things - we spent the first half in sections, ladies and gentlemen separately, and for various reasons I invariably hate that. But at least it was only the first half. Oh, and when we sight-read The Hills, despite it being pretty straightforward, it still seemed as if the vast majority of people (certainly a lot of the ones near me) were waiting to listen for each note before singing it, so that it just draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagged. ARGH. You're in one of the best choirs in the country, people, why can't you take a chance?!? You're even encouraged to get it wrong! All the time!
Oh well. Must stop ranting. What did we actually do on Wednesday? Well, I was hopeful we might finally do the bit of the 3rd movement that we've still never done (p51 etc.) but we didn't get to that bit. We started at the end of the 3rd movement and worked backwards, but only got back to page 61. A few good Jamieisms though (including the one in the title):
"Wow, that's really wrong, isn't it?"
"Can each note be a suitcase that falls out of the hold?" (p71-2)
"D'you wanna do that with your right arm? It's great fun!" (this was after demonstrating the idea of going for the vowel on the "pile-up on the motorway" word, vzglyad, on p64. Bit visual - you probably had to be there...)
Oh, and not really a Jamieism, but it amused me - on p62 we were having trouble getting the note for "yes", and when it seemed as if we could do it, Jamie said "happy?" and we chorused... "Yes!" (OK, I'm easily amused. I admit it!)
A few final things. Naomi told us about the Halifax Choral Society performance of Gerontius with the Hallé on 13th November, for which they are asking for volunteer extra singers (see Liz A if interested). Naomi added: "This will be a no-sash occasion!"
Barbara gave me a CD that has Shostakovich 2 on it so I could put it online. I haven't quite enough web storage space to do that yet, but when I take down The Bells I will.
Graham E writes about the Mellor concert here (you may need to scroll down to his comment).
And finally - I was talking to the three new altos, who all seem to be still having fun, and Lisa commented on how very much she'd enjoyed her first individual session with Maggie. So, yay!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)