(I *know* you wanted a list of all the sounds in Daphnis and Chloé!)
(What do you mean, you didn't write "zombie uh"?!?)
We had another bash at Daphnis tonight. Didn't do all of it, but lots of it was reinforced. (Actually it sounded instantly more confident than last week - I think people have been practising!) Rory (for it was him again) did a lot of work on the more complicated chords, and they sounded more or less right by the end. There were two alto disaster areas though: bottom of page 5, where the two alto parts are supposed to be in octaves, but in fact all the 1st altos were singing G# instead of B, so we had four bars of lovely tuneful 6ths instead... and top of page 11, where just about the entire alto section insisted on singing the tenor part (and then wondered why it felt so low at the end!)
And then of course there were the hustings. (Those who, like me, suddenly realised they had no idea where that word came from may find this enlightening.) I deliberately haven't mentioned the chairmanship election on this blog before now, because it seemed a little unfair to the other candidates. But since I drew people's attention to the blog on my leaflet and in my speech, it seems silly not to use it now! (I originally planned to start my speech with something like "those of you who read my blog already know everything I think about choir-related stuff, so I'm mainly talking to the rest of you", but I dropped that on the grounds that it sounded patronising...)
Anyway. Answers to a few questions I've been asked tonight:
1. The reason there is much less writing on my pamphlet than the others is that the suggested limit was 130 words, and I stuck to that exactly.
2. The reason I chose a (not very flattering) photo of me singing rather than one of me looking chairmanlike is that, although singing is not the main part of the chairman's job, it *is* the sole reason for the existence of the choir, and I think that has to be at the root of everything we do.
3. It would be fair to say that I have found myself tending to agree with Jamie more often than not (and probably more often than many of the other reps), in committee meetings (including those at which he was not present). However, this certainly does not mean I have never challenged him when I have disagreed, and I would expect to do that more often if I was chairman. (The same goes for other senior members of the HCS, although generally Jamie represents them at committee meetings so I don't have that much direct contact with them. I'm pretty sure they all know me by sight if not by name, though.)
4. Do I really want to be chairman? Well, I'd like to be, but I wouldn't be distraught if I lost, because the other candidates are all very capable, and since the committee has worked very well together as a group over the past couple of years (in the opinion of several of us) I'm pretty sure this would continue whoever was running things. I see the election as a win-win situation for me personally, because if I win, great, but if not - more free time :-) I just thought it was about time there was a female candidate - there's never been one!
5. (I wasn't actually asked this, but I bet some people were wondering...) No, I probably wouldn't wear a football shirt or a geeky T-shirt if I had to go and meet some VIPs on behalf of the choir. It's fair to say that at the moment I don't own many posh clothes, but this will have to change regardless of the election result, because in September I change jobs from a special school to a grammar school, and the dress code is very different! In the meantime I do have my interview suit, if I have to do something posh at short notice :p
If anyone wants to ask me any other questions, please feel free.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Anorak alert!
On my way out, but thought I'd post this, since I've just done it. Armed with the Daphnis miniature score I got from the library yesterday, I've written out a few extra cues that might prove useful. (If there are any places I've missed, please let me know.)
(EDIT: Here's a small version in case there are people who are confused by the large one. The small one will fit on your screen whatever settings you have, but it's very fuzzy. Your best bet is to save the large version (by right-clicking the link, as if you were saving an mp3), and then open the saved version. Most printers should be set up to automatically shrink it to fit on one page, while keeping the quality.)
(ANOTHER EDIT: For sopranos at figure 11... I didn't put a cue here because the altos are singing so I thought that might be enough. But I realised tonight that the sopranos may need a bit more help, because their notes in the 3rd bar are really hard to get. So you may like to know that the violas and cellos (both divided) play the exact same notes for 2 bars from figure 11. Also, in the 2nd bar of 11, there's a bassoon solo that starts on a G#.)
I may as well also take this opportunity to point you to the 4 tracks of Hungarian text: track 1, track 2, track 3, track 4. I was just copying the CDs tonight for Rosy and figured I may as well put them online. Enjoy!
(EDIT: Here's a small version in case there are people who are confused by the large one. The small one will fit on your screen whatever settings you have, but it's very fuzzy. Your best bet is to save the large version (by right-clicking the link, as if you were saving an mp3), and then open the saved version. Most printers should be set up to automatically shrink it to fit on one page, while keeping the quality.)
(ANOTHER EDIT: For sopranos at figure 11... I didn't put a cue here because the altos are singing so I thought that might be enough. But I realised tonight that the sopranos may need a bit more help, because their notes in the 3rd bar are really hard to get. So you may like to know that the violas and cellos (both divided) play the exact same notes for 2 bars from figure 11. Also, in the 2nd bar of 11, there's a bassoon solo that starts on a G#.)
I may as well also take this opportunity to point you to the 4 tracks of Hungarian text: track 1, track 2, track 3, track 4. I was just copying the CDs tonight for Rosy and figured I may as well put them online. Enjoy!
Train whistle blowin'
Well, I went to a choir committee meeting last night, and - as is traditional - it finished 5 minutes later than planned, which resulted in me missing my train by 10 seconds (it left just as I reached the stairs down to the platform) and having to wait an hour for the next one. Grr. But at least I did finish my book.
Quite a productive committee meeting, though, and I got all agitated when bringing up something that's been infuriating me for YEARS :p Let's see if anything comes of it!
While wandering aimlessly round the station in search of a drink, after missing the train, I was amazed to discover that the (Victoria) station bar was open. I can't actually remember the last time I saw it open, I presumed it had closed permanently! They had the football on, too, but it was so very hot in there that I chose to sit on the station platform rather than in the bar. (Plus, it was only Switzerland v Ukraine!) I did have a nasty thought, though, which was that if England get through the quarter-final against Portugal on Saturday, the resulting semi-final (against Brazil or Ghana or Spain or France) will be on a Wednesday night (5th July).... eek!
Quite a productive committee meeting, though, and I got all agitated when bringing up something that's been infuriating me for YEARS :p Let's see if anything comes of it!
While wandering aimlessly round the station in search of a drink, after missing the train, I was amazed to discover that the (Victoria) station bar was open. I can't actually remember the last time I saw it open, I presumed it had closed permanently! They had the football on, too, but it was so very hot in there that I chose to sit on the station platform rather than in the bar. (Plus, it was only Switzerland v Ukraine!) I did have a nasty thought, though, which was that if England get through the quarter-final against Portugal on Saturday, the resulting semi-final (against Brazil or Ghana or Spain or France) will be on a Wednesday night (5th July).... eek!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Laufet Brüder, eure Bahn!
I sang Beethoven 9 in Todmorden last night as a favour for Terry. Great fun, although it's always a little frustrating when working with anyone who's not the Hallé - you know the standard can't be anywhere near as high, but you still have to bite your lip a bit when the woodwind end up a couple of bars ahead because they weren't watching, for example. Still, for an amateur performance it was really rather good. The conductor (Chris Swaffer) and the chorus master (Greg Beardsell) were both excellent, in particular. (It said in the programme that Greg conducts the Manchester Boys' Choir (as well as the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and many other things) - I can only assume he wasn't conducting them when they prepared Mahler 3 for us last month, as I think they'd have been much better then!)
The programme did manage to totally miss out the tenor soloist, which I should imagine he wasn't too pleased about. (Well, he was listed at the start, but didn't have an individual page with his bio.) He was very good though (Richard Barraclough was his name, and to redress the balance I won't name any of the other three!) and he particularly amused me during the rehearsal when he made a bit of a clatter by CLIMBING INTO THE BAR, which was a sectioned-off area in the same room. (Well, to be accurate, the clatter came when he climbed out again, but that was what coincided with a quiet bit!) (And to be fair, I think he was only trying to refill his water bottle, but the idea of a tenor climbing into a bar amused me too much to pay attention to such details :p )
All the soloists sounded great, actually, although the soprano caused quite a few problems by being totally unable to follow the beat. Even when they all moved so that she could see the conductor, she watched him yet paid no attention. She did get better, though, after quite a few goes at the solo quartet page that ends with her on a top B - she got that right in the concert, although she managed somehow to get a bar ahead at some point earlier in the movement, which confused things a bit - the conductor had so much to do trying to ensure that everyone else didn't follow her that he forgot to bring the choir in, so it was just as well that there were several of us who were confident enough to come in with their "Deine Zauber" anyway.
I went along expecting to sing tenor, as that's what I'd offered to do (I usually do when I'm helping out another choir, because they are usually short of tenors but have hundreds of altos). I was particularly keen on this because it was a chance to sight read, which you know I love, and as a bonus I would finally get to sing the Turkish march bit in the middle! (that's the Laufet Brüder bit referred to in the title). I did sing tenor for the first part of the rehearsal, but they seemed pretty confident (I found out later that there was a Hallé tenor there, who I know very well by sight but I've forgotten the name of (sorry!) - one of the newer ones, anyway). And there weren't that many altos (in fact I think there were fewer altos than basses!) and they weren't very confident, so I shifted over and sang alto. I know the alto part from memory - at least I did, but an hour and a half singing the tenor part put me off a bit, so I needed to glance at my copy from time to time.
Word to the wise, by the way - if you have trouble memorising things and you weren't in the choir last time we did Beethoven 9 (which we sang from memory), start learning it NOW. Because we sing it again in October, and it's very likely that we'll be doing it from memory again....
The programme did manage to totally miss out the tenor soloist, which I should imagine he wasn't too pleased about. (Well, he was listed at the start, but didn't have an individual page with his bio.) He was very good though (Richard Barraclough was his name, and to redress the balance I won't name any of the other three!) and he particularly amused me during the rehearsal when he made a bit of a clatter by CLIMBING INTO THE BAR, which was a sectioned-off area in the same room. (Well, to be accurate, the clatter came when he climbed out again, but that was what coincided with a quiet bit!) (And to be fair, I think he was only trying to refill his water bottle, but the idea of a tenor climbing into a bar amused me too much to pay attention to such details :p )
All the soloists sounded great, actually, although the soprano caused quite a few problems by being totally unable to follow the beat. Even when they all moved so that she could see the conductor, she watched him yet paid no attention. She did get better, though, after quite a few goes at the solo quartet page that ends with her on a top B - she got that right in the concert, although she managed somehow to get a bar ahead at some point earlier in the movement, which confused things a bit - the conductor had so much to do trying to ensure that everyone else didn't follow her that he forgot to bring the choir in, so it was just as well that there were several of us who were confident enough to come in with their "Deine Zauber" anyway.
I went along expecting to sing tenor, as that's what I'd offered to do (I usually do when I'm helping out another choir, because they are usually short of tenors but have hundreds of altos). I was particularly keen on this because it was a chance to sight read, which you know I love, and as a bonus I would finally get to sing the Turkish march bit in the middle! (that's the Laufet Brüder bit referred to in the title). I did sing tenor for the first part of the rehearsal, but they seemed pretty confident (I found out later that there was a Hallé tenor there, who I know very well by sight but I've forgotten the name of (sorry!) - one of the newer ones, anyway). And there weren't that many altos (in fact I think there were fewer altos than basses!) and they weren't very confident, so I shifted over and sang alto. I know the alto part from memory - at least I did, but an hour and a half singing the tenor part put me off a bit, so I needed to glance at my copy from time to time.
Word to the wise, by the way - if you have trouble memorising things and you weren't in the choir last time we did Beethoven 9 (which we sang from memory), start learning it NOW. Because we sing it again in October, and it's very likely that we'll be doing it from memory again....
Thursday, June 22, 2006
... as you work yourselves into a pirate frenzy...
Guess what! More mp3s :-)
Daphnis and Chloé choir bits:
Page 1-11 (8.6 MB)
Page 11-12 (1.9 MB)
Page 13-18 (3.5 MB)
Page 19-20 (1.2 MB)
Page 21 (1.7 MB)
Page 22-23 (4.0 MB)
Page 24-30 (2.0 MB)
This seemed more use than posting the whole thing.
Note that some of the openings (in particular on the first track) are extremely quiet, so don't decide too soon that it's not working :p Also, I've included a bit more than the printed cue in most cases, but each excerpt starts not long before the choir sing.
Brief summary of the story on Wikipedia and a much longer one here. Turns out it's all about incest! They didn't mention that when they told us about the pirates :p
We didn't have Jamie tonight due to his Oxford Blues thing, so Rory Macdonald, the Hallé's assistant conductor, came to introduce us to the Ravel. He was pretty good. I couldn't hear him at first, although to be fair this was mainly because someone near me talked THE WHOLE TIME he was speaking. So rude! But later on, she shut up and he spoke louder, so all was well :-)
We got through the whole thing, and I was pleased to discover that I remembered most of it from the last time we did it. I've been trying to work out when that was, and I've just remembered that it was so long ago that it was before my friend Andrew Nicholson became the Hallé principal flautist, because this piece features a lot of flute solos, and I'm pretty sure it was Andrew's trial piece - he got the permanent job as a result of his performance in this. (I could be wrong about this, of course. But I do remember him playing it, and very lovely it was too.)
I do hate using French vocal scores, though. Does anyone know why it is that they never have any cues - or at least very inadequate ones? Rory said "the anoraks amongst you can go out and invest in a full score"... I don't own an anorak, but you all know that otherwise that's me :p Rest assured that when I do get a full score, I will post helpful cues for you all to write in.
(Oh, while Rory was trying to explain to the tenors how to get one of their more difficult notes with no cue, he suggested using a tuning fork, and then produced a pitch pipe he's been using at Covent Garden when conducting the offstage shepherd boy in Tosca this week. He told us about the diva-like small boys he's working with. And then realised that his pitch pipe was in C#, which defeated the object of him getting it out!)
Nothing else to say, actually. But to finish, even more mp3s:
Jamie talking about his Oxford Blues Service (9.7 MB) on In Tune yesterday (thanks Graham)
The Time of our Lives - the official FIFA World Cup 2006 anthem, by Il Divo with Toni Braxton (3.9 MB). I include this because despite avidly following everything World Cup-related, I didn't know this existed till yesterday, when I found out about it while searching for something else. I hasten to add that I'm not a fan of Il Divo...
And finally, for the altos (although I'm sure the rest of the choir will get to hear about this eventually), some Goodies!
Funky Gibbon (3.1 MB)
Wild Thing (4.5 MB) (note: I heard this, when I was young, before I heard the original version. So to me this is the original. It's much more fun than the Troggs!)
Daphnis and Chloé choir bits:
Page 1-11 (8.6 MB)
Page 11-12 (1.9 MB)
Page 13-18 (3.5 MB)
Page 19-20 (1.2 MB)
Page 21 (1.7 MB)
Page 22-23 (4.0 MB)
Page 24-30 (2.0 MB)
This seemed more use than posting the whole thing.
Note that some of the openings (in particular on the first track) are extremely quiet, so don't decide too soon that it's not working :p Also, I've included a bit more than the printed cue in most cases, but each excerpt starts not long before the choir sing.
Brief summary of the story on Wikipedia and a much longer one here. Turns out it's all about incest! They didn't mention that when they told us about the pirates :p
We didn't have Jamie tonight due to his Oxford Blues thing, so Rory Macdonald, the Hallé's assistant conductor, came to introduce us to the Ravel. He was pretty good. I couldn't hear him at first, although to be fair this was mainly because someone near me talked THE WHOLE TIME he was speaking. So rude! But later on, she shut up and he spoke louder, so all was well :-)
We got through the whole thing, and I was pleased to discover that I remembered most of it from the last time we did it. I've been trying to work out when that was, and I've just remembered that it was so long ago that it was before my friend Andrew Nicholson became the Hallé principal flautist, because this piece features a lot of flute solos, and I'm pretty sure it was Andrew's trial piece - he got the permanent job as a result of his performance in this. (I could be wrong about this, of course. But I do remember him playing it, and very lovely it was too.)
I do hate using French vocal scores, though. Does anyone know why it is that they never have any cues - or at least very inadequate ones? Rory said "the anoraks amongst you can go out and invest in a full score"... I don't own an anorak, but you all know that otherwise that's me :p Rest assured that when I do get a full score, I will post helpful cues for you all to write in.
(Oh, while Rory was trying to explain to the tenors how to get one of their more difficult notes with no cue, he suggested using a tuning fork, and then produced a pitch pipe he's been using at Covent Garden when conducting the offstage shepherd boy in Tosca this week. He told us about the diva-like small boys he's working with. And then realised that his pitch pipe was in C#, which defeated the object of him getting it out!)
Nothing else to say, actually. But to finish, even more mp3s:
Jamie talking about his Oxford Blues Service (9.7 MB) on In Tune yesterday (thanks Graham)
The Time of our Lives - the official FIFA World Cup 2006 anthem, by Il Divo with Toni Braxton (3.9 MB). I include this because despite avidly following everything World Cup-related, I didn't know this existed till yesterday, when I found out about it while searching for something else. I hasten to add that I'm not a fan of Il Divo...
And finally, for the altos (although I'm sure the rest of the choir will get to hear about this eventually), some Goodies!
Funky Gibbon (3.1 MB)
Wild Thing (4.5 MB) (note: I heard this, when I was young, before I heard the original version. So to me this is the original. It's much more fun than the Troggs!)
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
And you thought obsession was a bad thing!
It's due to my obsessive nature that I was rooting through my CDs looking for the Rachmaninov Vespers, having realised that I needed to include the Ave Maria in my "Best Choruses" list, and while doing so I discovered my CD of Daphnis et Chloé, which I'd forgotten I owned. Since we're starting rehearsals on that tomorrow, I thought I'd post the first movement. [EDIT: Now removed, see next post!] I knew I'd sung it before, but couldn't remember anything about it. Now I've had a listen, it seems a lot more familiar. And those who are worried about singing in French will be reassured to hear that there are no words - it's all sung to 'ah' :-)
And some more additions to the "Best Choruses" list that I can't believe I forgot yesterday (I'll put all the links in one place eventually):
Dixit Dominus, 1st movement (Handel) (7.1 MB)
Agnus Dei, from Requiem (Duruflé) (4.2 MB)
Lift Thine Eyes, from Elijah (Mendelssohn) (1.9 MB)
Magnificat, 1st movement (Bach) (3.7 MB)
Passion Chorale, from St Matthew Passion (Bach) (2.8 MB)
Ave Maria, from Vespers (Rachmaninov) (4.3 MB)
Sleep Well, from St John Passion (Bach) (9.0 MB)
Oh, and did you all know about the Leek double sunset? It's tomorrow (and every year round about Midsummer Day). I found out about it the day afterwards last year, and have had it marked in my diary since. If anyone sees it, do report back!
And some more additions to the "Best Choruses" list that I can't believe I forgot yesterday (I'll put all the links in one place eventually):
Dixit Dominus, 1st movement (Handel) (7.1 MB)
Agnus Dei, from Requiem (Duruflé) (4.2 MB)
Lift Thine Eyes, from Elijah (Mendelssohn) (1.9 MB)
Magnificat, 1st movement (Bach) (3.7 MB)
Passion Chorale, from St Matthew Passion (Bach) (2.8 MB)
Ave Maria, from Vespers (Rachmaninov) (4.3 MB)
Sleep Well, from St John Passion (Bach) (9.0 MB)
Oh, and did you all know about the Leek double sunset? It's tomorrow (and every year round about Midsummer Day). I found out about it the day afterwards last year, and have had it marked in my diary since. If anyone sees it, do report back!
So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?
Quick quiz: what song is that line from? (Answer at the end of this post.) I mention it because I sang it tonight in a Pleiades rehearsal. Such fun! And even more fun is the fact that we have to perform I Predict A Riot in our next concert, so I plan to finally get round to writing out the a cappella version :-)
Anyway, my main reason for posting is to put this list online:
1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky) (14.4 MB)
Grand March, from Aida (Verdi) (13 MB)
Anvil Chorus, from Il Trovatore (Verdi) (3 MB)
Gloria, from B Minor Mass (Bach) (2 MB)
Beethoven 9 finale (21.4 MB)
Belshazzar's Feast: The Trumpeters and Pipers (Walton) (1.5 MB)
Lacrymosa, from Requiem (Berlioz) (11.1 MB)
Denn Alles Fleisch, from German Requiem (Brahms) (16.6 MB)
Brindisi, from La Traviata (Verdi) (3.6 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Britten) (4.1 MB)
In the Beginning, from Creation (Haydn) (2.9 MB)
Deep River, from A Child of our Time (Tippett) (4.5 MB)
Fuoco di Gioia, from Otello (Verdi) (3.2 MB)
The Dream of Gerontius: Profiscere anima Christe (Elgar) (6.9 MB)
Soldiers' Chorus, from Faust (Gounod) (3.8 MB)
Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, from Nabucco (Verdi) (5.8 MB)
I Was Glad (Parry) (5.6 MB)
Mahler 2 finale (7.5 MB)
Mahler 3, 5th movement (4.8 MB)
Mahler 8, finale (7.7 MB)
Neptune, from The Planets (Holst) (7.7 MB)
Nessun Dorma, from Turandot (Puccini) (3.6 MB)
Polovtsian Dances, from Prince Igor (Borodin) (15.6 MB)
Chorus of the Scottish Refugees, from Macbeth (Verdi) (7.2 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Verdi) (2.5 MB)
Vivaldi Gloria, opening (3.2 MB)
You see, I have an annoyingly obsessive mind, and it's been bugging me for weeks that we didn't do ALL the "best choruses in the world" last night. So the above is my attempt to redress the balance by at least covering them all on this blog. (Obviously some major works, like Gerontius, should be there in their entirety, so I've just chosen my favourite bit!) I'm sure there are some obvious ones I've missed - any suggestions? (Elijah just occurred to me as I was writing that - will look that up some time soon. I think it's much less well known than maybe it once was, though.)
A couple of other things to point out - has anyone been watching The Singing Estate (Channel 5 on Sunday nights)? It's kind of entertaining in places. (If you've no idea what it is, have a look at their website.) There have been two episodes so far - it amused me that they featured this choir trying to sing Zadok and O Fortuna at more or less the same time we were performing them!
I did discover a few interesting links while exploring the Singing Estate website. Hands up who knew that the Radio One website had loads of stuff about singing? Mainly pop singing, but lots of it is relevant, including a load of vocal warmup exercises - with video to show you how to do them! Have a look, in particular, at Improve Your Vocals, Music Articles and Advice (loads of interesting links), and How to tell if I'm a good singer!
P.S. The song in the title was, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Anyway, my main reason for posting is to put this list online:
1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky) (14.4 MB)
Grand March, from Aida (Verdi) (13 MB)
Anvil Chorus, from Il Trovatore (Verdi) (3 MB)
Gloria, from B Minor Mass (Bach) (2 MB)
Beethoven 9 finale (21.4 MB)
Belshazzar's Feast: The Trumpeters and Pipers (Walton) (1.5 MB)
Lacrymosa, from Requiem (Berlioz) (11.1 MB)
Denn Alles Fleisch, from German Requiem (Brahms) (16.6 MB)
Brindisi, from La Traviata (Verdi) (3.6 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Britten) (4.1 MB)
In the Beginning, from Creation (Haydn) (2.9 MB)
Deep River, from A Child of our Time (Tippett) (4.5 MB)
Fuoco di Gioia, from Otello (Verdi) (3.2 MB)
The Dream of Gerontius: Profiscere anima Christe (Elgar) (6.9 MB)
Soldiers' Chorus, from Faust (Gounod) (3.8 MB)
Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, from Nabucco (Verdi) (5.8 MB)
I Was Glad (Parry) (5.6 MB)
Mahler 2 finale (7.5 MB)
Mahler 3, 5th movement (4.8 MB)
Mahler 8, finale (7.7 MB)
Neptune, from The Planets (Holst) (7.7 MB)
Nessun Dorma, from Turandot (Puccini) (3.6 MB)
Polovtsian Dances, from Prince Igor (Borodin) (15.6 MB)
Chorus of the Scottish Refugees, from Macbeth (Verdi) (7.2 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Verdi) (2.5 MB)
Vivaldi Gloria, opening (3.2 MB)
You see, I have an annoyingly obsessive mind, and it's been bugging me for weeks that we didn't do ALL the "best choruses in the world" last night. So the above is my attempt to redress the balance by at least covering them all on this blog. (Obviously some major works, like Gerontius, should be there in their entirety, so I've just chosen my favourite bit!) I'm sure there are some obvious ones I've missed - any suggestions? (Elijah just occurred to me as I was writing that - will look that up some time soon. I think it's much less well known than maybe it once was, though.)
A couple of other things to point out - has anyone been watching The Singing Estate (Channel 5 on Sunday nights)? It's kind of entertaining in places. (If you've no idea what it is, have a look at their website.) There have been two episodes so far - it amused me that they featured this choir trying to sing Zadok and O Fortuna at more or less the same time we were performing them!
I did discover a few interesting links while exploring the Singing Estate website. Hands up who knew that the Radio One website had loads of stuff about singing? Mainly pop singing, but lots of it is relevant, including a load of vocal warmup exercises - with video to show you how to do them! Have a look, in particular, at Improve Your Vocals, Music Articles and Advice (loads of interesting links), and How to tell if I'm a good singer!
P.S. The song in the title was, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Santuzza wasn't missed
Santuzza is the name of my main World of Warcraft character. (That's because we were rehearsing Cavalleria Rusticana when I first bought the game, see.) Sadly, for various reasons I won't bore you with, she has been unable to make any progress recently, so I've been concentrating on Iolanthe, my main alternate character. So the sight of Santuzza's name all over the Easter Hymn made me a little wistful. However, I'm delighted to say that the performance did not suffer from having our soprano section singing the solo Santuzza line (not that I ever thought it would) - they sounded fabulous :-)
The Easter Hymn was my favourite of all the things we sang tonight, although there were several others close behind. Could have done without Jesu Joy or the Bridal Chorus, and that movement of the Brahms is OK but it's my least favourite from the whole of the Requiem, and I've gone off the Vaughan Williams somewhat. But the rest of it was great! It all went very well, too. A very long day - the rehearsal was more than 3 hours long, and then we didn't have much of a break because we had half an hour of choir photo-taking before we could have our tea. That was quite fun, though, and I look forward to seeing the results.
The audience seemed to enjoy the concert. Not as full as I'd been led to believe it might be, but a pretty good turnout. I only spotted three people who stood for Hallelujah, which was kind of disappointing. But they weren't given much warning, to be fair. Oh, and there was some weird problem with the hall's PA system, which meant that it kept emitting random noises. Very offputting, and it took them most of the concert to sort it (Jamie had to go offstage at one point, it was so bad), but they did in the end.
Not much else to say, actually. Oh, a medical update, though: for those who were asking about Liz L, she's fine but her dad is very ill and that's why she's been missing. She hopes to be back on Wednesday. Lindsay H will be missing for a while, having fallen down some stairs and ended up with a new hip. And Alison, who was very poorly on Wednesday (but came to choir anyway, the fool, although she didn't sing) turned out to have a kidney infection and is much better now it's been treated.
P.S. I missed Abi today - I wanted her to share my ongoing semi-chorus bitterness :-) (The semi-chorus had an extra member today, I noticed. Not sure why that should be. And they made a bit of a mess of that bit they kept getting wrong in April - at least in the rehearsal. They sounded fine in the concert.)
EDIT: I almost forgot the most interesting thing I learned today! It's about Jamie's Oxford Blues Service (live on R3, 4pm Wednesday). I bumped into him in Starbucks before the rehearsal this afternoon, and I asked how rehearsals were going. He told me that it's all great - they've rehearsed with the band, and in the church, but that's when they discovered that they couldn't follow their original plan of using the church organ, as it's not tuned to A=440. So they're going to take in a Hammond organ instead! I told him that's much more rock and roll :p
The Easter Hymn was my favourite of all the things we sang tonight, although there were several others close behind. Could have done without Jesu Joy or the Bridal Chorus, and that movement of the Brahms is OK but it's my least favourite from the whole of the Requiem, and I've gone off the Vaughan Williams somewhat. But the rest of it was great! It all went very well, too. A very long day - the rehearsal was more than 3 hours long, and then we didn't have much of a break because we had half an hour of choir photo-taking before we could have our tea. That was quite fun, though, and I look forward to seeing the results.
The audience seemed to enjoy the concert. Not as full as I'd been led to believe it might be, but a pretty good turnout. I only spotted three people who stood for Hallelujah, which was kind of disappointing. But they weren't given much warning, to be fair. Oh, and there was some weird problem with the hall's PA system, which meant that it kept emitting random noises. Very offputting, and it took them most of the concert to sort it (Jamie had to go offstage at one point, it was so bad), but they did in the end.
Not much else to say, actually. Oh, a medical update, though: for those who were asking about Liz L, she's fine but her dad is very ill and that's why she's been missing. She hopes to be back on Wednesday. Lindsay H will be missing for a while, having fallen down some stairs and ended up with a new hip. And Alison, who was very poorly on Wednesday (but came to choir anyway, the fool, although she didn't sing) turned out to have a kidney infection and is much better now it's been treated.
P.S. I missed Abi today - I wanted her to share my ongoing semi-chorus bitterness :-) (The semi-chorus had an extra member today, I noticed. Not sure why that should be. And they made a bit of a mess of that bit they kept getting wrong in April - at least in the rehearsal. They sounded fine in the concert.)
EDIT: I almost forgot the most interesting thing I learned today! It's about Jamie's Oxford Blues Service (live on R3, 4pm Wednesday). I bumped into him in Starbucks before the rehearsal this afternoon, and I asked how rehearsals were going. He told me that it's all great - they've rehearsed with the band, and in the church, but that's when they discovered that they couldn't follow their original plan of using the church organ, as it's not tuned to A=440. So they're going to take in a Hammond organ instead! I told him that's much more rock and roll :p
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
"What's that piece we've been working on? With lots of humming?"
... said Jamie.
"... The Humming Chorus?" said the choir.
"No, not *that* one..." said Jamie.
(It turned out he meantMahler 3 his psalm from the a cappella concert, in case you're wondering... There weren't many Jamieisms tonight, but the funniest moment was when we were doing the Easter Hymn and he was trying to encourage rolled Rs. The noise he made was highly comical!)
(I don't usually take photos during rehearsals, but the ladies were all sent for a slightly early break while the men rehearsed the Verdi Soldiers' Chorus. They sounded so wonderful that I couldn't resist taking a photo!)
I didn't get as annoyed during tonight's rehearsal as I did during the last one. The main irritation was that, having sung with tenors on Saturday (who always rush) I was back to singing with altos (who always drag). And the latter is far more infuriating. (Well, to be fair, not ALL tenors rush and not ALL altos drag. But the majority of the people around me on Saturday and tonight fitted these stereotypes.)
Nothing else to say, actually, other than that we now know the running order for Sunday, so here's a repeat of the mp3 links in the correct order, this time including the two a cappella pieces.
Zadok the Priest (Handel) (6.8 MB)
Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (Bach) (3.3 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Mozart) (2.2 MB)
Lacrimosa, from Requiem (Mozart) (4.1 MB)
Agnus Dei, from Requiem (Fauré) (6.6 MB)
Soldiers' Chorus (Verdi) (2.0 MB)
Humming Chorus, from Madame Butterfly (Puccini) (3.4 MB)
Easter Hymn, from Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni) (6.2 MB)
O Fortuna, from Carmina Burana (Orff) (3.3 MB)
Bridal Chorus, from Lohengrin (Wagner) (6.2 MB)
Wie lieblich, from German Requiem (Brahms) (8.0 MB)
Nunc Dimittis (Holst) (3.8 MB)
Ave Verum Corpus (Mozart) (4.0 MB)
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Vaughan Willliams) (9.1 MB)
Hallelujah Chorus, from Messiah (Handel) (4.5 MB)
Sanctus, from Requiem (Verdi) (2.8 MB)
Oh, and (totally unconnectedly) one thing I discovered yesterday - if you're a football fan, you might be interested in this BBC page, which lists all the music they use on football programmes.
"... The Humming Chorus?" said the choir.
"No, not *that* one..." said Jamie.
(It turned out he meant
(I don't usually take photos during rehearsals, but the ladies were all sent for a slightly early break while the men rehearsed the Verdi Soldiers' Chorus. They sounded so wonderful that I couldn't resist taking a photo!)
I didn't get as annoyed during tonight's rehearsal as I did during the last one. The main irritation was that, having sung with tenors on Saturday (who always rush) I was back to singing with altos (who always drag). And the latter is far more infuriating. (Well, to be fair, not ALL tenors rush and not ALL altos drag. But the majority of the people around me on Saturday and tonight fitted these stereotypes.)
Nothing else to say, actually, other than that we now know the running order for Sunday, so here's a repeat of the mp3 links in the correct order, this time including the two a cappella pieces.
Zadok the Priest (Handel) (6.8 MB)
Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring (Bach) (3.3 MB)
Dies Irae, from Requiem (Mozart) (2.2 MB)
Lacrimosa, from Requiem (Mozart) (4.1 MB)
Agnus Dei, from Requiem (Fauré) (6.6 MB)
Soldiers' Chorus (Verdi) (2.0 MB)
Humming Chorus, from Madame Butterfly (Puccini) (3.4 MB)
Easter Hymn, from Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni) (6.2 MB)
O Fortuna, from Carmina Burana (Orff) (3.3 MB)
Bridal Chorus, from Lohengrin (Wagner) (6.2 MB)
Wie lieblich, from German Requiem (Brahms) (8.0 MB)
Nunc Dimittis (Holst) (3.8 MB)
Ave Verum Corpus (Mozart) (4.0 MB)
Lord, thou hast been our refuge (Vaughan Willliams) (9.1 MB)
Hallelujah Chorus, from Messiah (Handel) (4.5 MB)
Sanctus, from Requiem (Verdi) (2.8 MB)
Oh, and (totally unconnectedly) one thing I discovered yesterday - if you're a football fan, you might be interested in this BBC page, which lists all the music they use on football programmes.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Are you the famous Hallé blogger?
This is what a guy said to me today as I went past him to get to my seat at the Bridgewater Hall for the BBC4 People's Chorus thing. Needless to say I was delighted :-) Mind you, I was wearing my "I'm blogging this"> T-shirt, along with (like everyone else) a sticker with my name on, so I guess it was a bit of a clue!
The whole event was pretty fabulous. (There was a Guardian blogger there too, btw - see here and here.) I nearly didn't go - I was so tired when I woke up, plus I still have a sore throat and a cough, plus... footy! But I'm glad I did, because it's not an experience I'm likely to repeat any time soon. (I was surprised to hear that one Hallé singer left at lunchtime because she wasn't enjoying it, because everyone else I spoke to - and I counted 14 Hallé people, but there may have been more - was loving it as much as I was.)
The standard was much higher than I was expecting. So either the BBC were really good at selecting people, or only really good people applied. And it sounded as if most people had practised, because there were hardly any problems with notes, even where Tallis had done one of his clashes. (I have to admit I hadn't even looked at my music - I was relying on my l33t sight-reading skills (I had to resist the urge to type "skillz" then, I must admit...) and luckily they didn't let me down.) I started off with choirs 3 and 4 (I was singing tenor in choir 3, along with Paul and Richard; Dr Liz was singing alto in the same group) and we were joined by choirs 1 and 2 after the morning coffee break and choirs 5, 6, 7 and 8 after lunch. (Lunch involved the choir 3 Hallé group going to the Rain Bar to watch the first half of the England game while eating. We had to go back to the hall at half time, but I got text updates (silently!) after that - very helpful of England to not do anything interesting in the second half!)
The most fascinating thing in the hall was actually the camera in the picture above. We think it's called a boom camera, although when I just looked that up, it seems that the proper term might be jib camera. Whatever it's called, it was fascinating. There was just one guy controlling it, and he could make it go anywhere and point in any direction, seemingly effortlessly. And all the movements were so smooth! It was almost like an alien lifeform - it reminded me of the Martian in The War of the Worlds. I'm sure I wasn't the only person who spent most of my unoccupied minutes during the rehearsal just staring at it open-mouthed. So if I'm gaping when I'm on TV, that'll be why!
The music was the highlight, though. Spem in Alium sounded just wonderful. The first time we sang it with all 8 choirs together, spines were well and truly tingled. It was the spatial aspect that made it so magical - they'd arranged the choirs so that 1 to 4 were in the stalls, and 5 to 8 in the circle, with 5 above 4 and 8 above 1. That meant that when the choirs came in in order, which happened several times, the sound just gradually swirled round the whole hall. And sitting in the middle of it all, it was... what's the 8-part version of "quadrophonic sound"? Each of the choirs - including the one I was part of - reached my ears from a different direction, and I'm not sure I can adequately convey in words what an amazing effect it was. Wow.
Everything went so well that we actually finished early. We might have finished even earlier if one of the audience hadn't forgotten to turn their phone off - it rang in the worst possible place, i.e. one of several general pauses in the piece. So we had to perform it again. It was much better the second time, though, so it was just as well. (That reminds me of a Great Choral Moment that I meant to post ages ago, actually. It was when we were rehearsing Mahler 2 a couple of years ago. You know how when the choir comes in, it's marked ppp? Well, we'd spent a while trying to get it quieter and quieter, and Jamie finally pronounced himself satisfied, but asked us to do it again one more time to see if it could be even quieter. And that's when Alison's phone rang - and not just any ringtone, but the opening of Night on the Bare Mountain (you know the really fast, high triplet quaver bit), which was one of my creations. Hee! I was extremely amused.) (I used to make lots of ringtones for people, but people have got better at finding their own, so I don't often do it these days.)
Great day, although unfortunately I felt quite ill by the time I got home - Manchester was just so hot, and I'd been too hot almost all day (thank goodness for the air conditioning in the Bridgewater Hall, but I wasn't in there all day, and all the time I wasn't, I just felt faint and dizzy from the heat). Bear in mind that I'm usually too hot at WHGS, even on days when most of the rest of the choir are keeping their coats on and asking for the heating to be turned up. So you can imagine how hot I felt on an actual hot day! I was going to go to bed as soon as I got home, but Doctor Who was just starting, so I thought I may as well watch that while I cooled down, and by the time it had finished - and I'd been in my nice cool house for 45 minutes - I felt fine :-)
What did everyone else think of the day?
EDIT: To change the subject completely, just noticed someone searching for "how to pronounce pie jesu" and not having much luck. It's pee-ay yay-zoo.
EDIT 2: The Guardian blogger posted again and reminded me that I forgot to mention the "We've come from Barnsley" moment :-)
EDIT 3: It seems this post is now the number one Google result for "how to pronounce Jesu"! This being the case, I should clarify that the pronunciation is yay-zoo if it's Latin (e.g. 'Pie Jesu') but Jeez-you (or sometimes Jee-zoo) if it's English (e.g. 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring'). Hope that helps :-)
Monday, June 05, 2006
Shoop shoop shoop shoop
I just updated my online choir schedule. (I see the official one's still offline...) Bit depressing that almost all the bits that said "venue tbc" - and got my hopes up that we might not be going to my least favourite place - now say "WHGS tbc". Boo.
I also had a look through my music to see what Jamieisms I wrote down last week. There actually weren't any - except a visual one, when Jamie went over to the piano to demonstrate something. I think he took David by surprise, because David didn't move from his seat, with the result that he sat there for a couple of minutes with Jamie's bum right in front of his face. His expression was picturesque!
Jamie did say "keep the tiller in the water" again, so I decided I'd better put him straight once and for all! He claimed he did actually know it was the rudder that went in the water, and just got mixed up... yeah, right :p
Anyway, I was going to tell you about the Pleiades. This is a group of stars in the sky. It's also the name of my band, which has been in existence for 9 years now. Membership has varied in that time, but the singers are me, Alison P, Rachel B and a friend of mine (not in the Hallé) called Lindsey, together with my friend Nigel (who also plays guitar). I play the keyboards and the oboe from time to time instead of (or as well as) singing. There is also a bass player, drummer, violinst and flute player who each join us occasionally (although rarely all at once). We sing all sorts of stuff (in 4 and 5 part harmony, naturally) - the core of our repertoire is 50s/60s doo wop stuff, but we also do Commitments, Abba, Beatles, McFly, and everything in between. We don't do many gigs, mainly because we don't often get asked and none of us has time to go out in search of them! We do sing for the kids at my school twice a year, but the last proper gig we did was Sue's retirement party in Oldham last year.
We do have a gig coming up, though - Nigel is getting married next month, and we're singing at his wedding - a cappella stuff during the ceremony, and a regular set in the evening. I've arranged the a cappella stuff specially, and we practised it for the first time last week. (That's what inspired me to blog about the band, see.) As ever with the first run through anything a cappella, it was amusingly bad, but by the second and third goes it was all starting to sound rather lovely. I'm very much looking forward to the day! Anyway, hopefully we'll record these songs at some point, in which case I'll put them up here, but in the meantime here are a couple of songs we have recorded:
Mustang Sally (4.1 MB)
Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (3.4 MB)
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
2 reasons for the long mmmm: 1. As I'd hoped, we are all allowed to sing the Humming Chorus! Yay! (It's written for just sops and tenors... Jamie did say to the altos that we should choose for ourselves where to drop the octave. I believe some of the 1sts stuck it out for quite a while, but all the 2nds I could hear (including me, definitely) sang the tenor part throughout. Not all the basses got the hang of the fact that it would sound wrong if they dropped the octave, so it had to be falsetto in places, but I'm sure they will.) (By the way, for those who were wondering where this chorus comes in the story, see the synopsis here.) 2. Dean Cain. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. (I've been watching DVDs of Lois and Clark.)
Sorry for not writing till now. I've had emails asking me if everything's OK - it is, I've just been really busy. To be fair, a lot of the last 2 days has consisted of intense World of Warcraft sessions, but that still counts as busy! I meant to write a bit when I got home on Wednesday night, but I was tired and not in the mood. I got really annoyed during the rehearsal. It was one of those rehearsals when everyone loved all the music we were singing, but far too many people were thinking "it's OK, I know this, I don't need to concentrate as hard as if it was new", and not paying very much attention to what Jamie was asking for. Time and time again, he spent several minutes rehearsing a particular point, and then we'd sing it again in context and the majority of people near me would sing it exactly the same as they did before, paying no attention to the work that had just been done, which they hadn't taken in because they were too busy whispering to their friends or writing notes to each other. So poor Jamie's time was largely wasted, as was that of those of us who were trying to listen (because none of these things work unless everyone does them). And it'll be one of those concerts that's absolutely fine, and the audience will love it because the music is lovely and we'll be perfectly competent. But it won't be GREAT, and it could be. This is what annoys me.
I really am insufferably smug, aren't I? Sorry about that. Of course, in an ideal world, everyone in the choir would read this and think "you know what? she's right!" and do something about it, and the concert WOULD be great as a result. But sadly I think most of the people who need to pay attention don't read this blog :-(
Oh, before I forget: two schedule things. Most importantly, there is NO REHEARSAL next week (7th June) due to venue problems. The next week's rehearsal will go on till 9.30 to compensate. And (I'm not sure if this has been announced) that week in July with 3 rehearsals... there aren't really 3. The Tuesday one (4th July) is a ladies' section, and the Thursday one (6th) is a gents' sectional.
I've just remembered three other things that really annoyed me during the rehearsal, but before I do I'd better tell you what we did, which was quite a lot: Brahms Req (well, the end of the movement), Bridal Chorus, Humming Chorus, Jesu Joy, Mozart Req bits, Verdi Sanctus and Zadok. And, interestingly, they handed Lord Thou Hast Been Our Refuge and the Holst Nunc Dimittis out again, so I presume we're doing them in the concert. (It would be sensible if we'd been given back the same copies we had, with our own markings in, but sadly this was not the case.) I presume the semi-chorus will be the same... be interesting to see though! (See, I'm getting bitter again just thinking about it!)
Zadok annoyed me because lots of it is staccato, with definite gaps between the notes (actual quaver rests in many cases), yet there were a couple of people near me who made no effort to make their notes short, and sang lots of the staccato sections legato. I can understand (possibly) someone doing that ONCE, but the fact that these people obviously weren't listening to anyone around them was infuriating.
The Bridal Chorus made me mad because of the German. I cannot believe that the vast majority of the choir don't know how to pronounce German. We sing in German quite regularly, and the pronunciation rules are VERY LOGICAL and have NO EXCEPTIONS, unlike English. So when there are people who've been in the choir for years - in particular, ladies who sang Mahler in German only 2 weeks ago - who STILL don't seem to know, for example, that you pronounce "z" as "ts".... AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. (That's pronounced "AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH", by the way.)
And the dynamics! Come on, people! We're practically a professional choir - why is our standard dynamic mf? Why can people never follow the instruction "pp" until they've been TOLD it's too loud? You see "pp", you should be SINGING REALLY QUIETLY! Just about everything we sang on Wednesday came out mf all the way through. I despair, I really do.
Anyway, must stop ranting, I'm sure you don't want to hear it. I think I did write some Jamieisms down (although not many), but my music is downstairs and I'm not, so I'll try and remember to write more tomorrow. In any case I want to tell you about the Pleiades, because it occurred to me the other day that I never have :-)
Sorry for not writing till now. I've had emails asking me if everything's OK - it is, I've just been really busy. To be fair, a lot of the last 2 days has consisted of intense World of Warcraft sessions, but that still counts as busy! I meant to write a bit when I got home on Wednesday night, but I was tired and not in the mood. I got really annoyed during the rehearsal. It was one of those rehearsals when everyone loved all the music we were singing, but far too many people were thinking "it's OK, I know this, I don't need to concentrate as hard as if it was new", and not paying very much attention to what Jamie was asking for. Time and time again, he spent several minutes rehearsing a particular point, and then we'd sing it again in context and the majority of people near me would sing it exactly the same as they did before, paying no attention to the work that had just been done, which they hadn't taken in because they were too busy whispering to their friends or writing notes to each other. So poor Jamie's time was largely wasted, as was that of those of us who were trying to listen (because none of these things work unless everyone does them). And it'll be one of those concerts that's absolutely fine, and the audience will love it because the music is lovely and we'll be perfectly competent. But it won't be GREAT, and it could be. This is what annoys me.
I really am insufferably smug, aren't I? Sorry about that. Of course, in an ideal world, everyone in the choir would read this and think "you know what? she's right!" and do something about it, and the concert WOULD be great as a result. But sadly I think most of the people who need to pay attention don't read this blog :-(
Oh, before I forget: two schedule things. Most importantly, there is NO REHEARSAL next week (7th June) due to venue problems. The next week's rehearsal will go on till 9.30 to compensate. And (I'm not sure if this has been announced) that week in July with 3 rehearsals... there aren't really 3. The Tuesday one (4th July) is a ladies' section, and the Thursday one (6th) is a gents' sectional.
I've just remembered three other things that really annoyed me during the rehearsal, but before I do I'd better tell you what we did, which was quite a lot: Brahms Req (well, the end of the movement), Bridal Chorus, Humming Chorus, Jesu Joy, Mozart Req bits, Verdi Sanctus and Zadok. And, interestingly, they handed Lord Thou Hast Been Our Refuge and the Holst Nunc Dimittis out again, so I presume we're doing them in the concert. (It would be sensible if we'd been given back the same copies we had, with our own markings in, but sadly this was not the case.) I presume the semi-chorus will be the same... be interesting to see though! (See, I'm getting bitter again just thinking about it!)
Zadok annoyed me because lots of it is staccato, with definite gaps between the notes (actual quaver rests in many cases), yet there were a couple of people near me who made no effort to make their notes short, and sang lots of the staccato sections legato. I can understand (possibly) someone doing that ONCE, but the fact that these people obviously weren't listening to anyone around them was infuriating.
The Bridal Chorus made me mad because of the German. I cannot believe that the vast majority of the choir don't know how to pronounce German. We sing in German quite regularly, and the pronunciation rules are VERY LOGICAL and have NO EXCEPTIONS, unlike English. So when there are people who've been in the choir for years - in particular, ladies who sang Mahler in German only 2 weeks ago - who STILL don't seem to know, for example, that you pronounce "z" as "ts".... AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH. (That's pronounced "AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH", by the way.)
And the dynamics! Come on, people! We're practically a professional choir - why is our standard dynamic mf? Why can people never follow the instruction "pp" until they've been TOLD it's too loud? You see "pp", you should be SINGING REALLY QUIETLY! Just about everything we sang on Wednesday came out mf all the way through. I despair, I really do.
Anyway, must stop ranting, I'm sure you don't want to hear it. I think I did write some Jamieisms down (although not many), but my music is downstairs and I'm not, so I'll try and remember to write more tomorrow. In any case I want to tell you about the Pleiades, because it occurred to me the other day that I never have :-)
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