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!)

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 :-)

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 :-)

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

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 :-)

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!

"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 :-)

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!

"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?

"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" :-)

"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