"Sopranos, if you're struggling with the concept of a minim, let me tell you: it's got TWO BEATS."

Some mp3s of The Kingdom for you all:

page 1 (no choir)
page 9
page 33
page 47
page 56 (no choir)
page 63
page 76
page 108
page 124
page 139 (no choir)
page 151
page 168
page 179

Sorry for not putting those up earlier, they're quite large so I knew it would take a while. Also, I don't think much of the choir on this recording, so in order to avoid libel suits I won't tell you which choir it is (although they're a lot better these days!) I hadn't heard the recording before I bought the CD, and I can't afford to buy another one. It'll do for those of you who want to learn the notes but are unwilling to spend any money in order to do so.

(I hope we're only performing stuff next year that I already have recordings of, because it'll be a while before I can afford to buy any more CDs myself! I sold my car this week, which will save me quite a bit of regularly outgoing cash, although the cheque I got in return would've been much more help if I hadn't immediately had to spend half of it on a new computer! Eek. Anyway, I haven't run out of money YET, but it won't last much longer. I have various plans to deal with this problem, but none of them have worked yet!)

(Of course, this is the worst possible time, financially, for me to suddenly fly off to Italy for the day, but that's exactly what I'll be doing on Wednesday, for the away leg of Man Utd v AC Milan. I just couldn't resist it - the San Siro Stadium is second only to Cape Horn in my list of places-I've-always-wanted-to-visit. Long story why, but it is. I'm so excited!)

Anyway, back to choir-related news... We did most of the Poulenc on Wednesday, with the Youth Choir. I didn't see Katie, but Becky (and I was right, she is called Becky) was sitting right behind me - in fact she was supposed to be next to me, but as usual there weren't enough chairs for everone to follow the seating plan, so no-one was in quite the right place. I liked the Jamieism in the title, but my favourite one was "It's almost as if the composer wrote 'piano, slightly slower, please'..." (describing the effect of us singing a section where we're very confident except for one awkward bar). (Several people told me about one I missed on Tuesday, which was something about "paintbrushes - not those little ones, but the big fat ones you use on a wall". This was towards the end of the last movement, and was, I'm told, followed by "put the lid on on the paint tin reluctantly". I think I see what he means...)

Actually, the thing that's amused me most in the last few rehearsals has been not a Jamieism at all, but what I think of as the "comedy 1st alto moment". This is on the last page of the 3rd movement, and it's where they're supposed to sing a G but tend to sing an F sharp. The first few times we did it, they ALL sang an F sharp, but now quite a few of them have actually worked out what they SHOULD be doing. And the result is that the note now usually starts as an F sharp with a few Gs audible, followed by a huge sudden crescendo from all the people who know they're correctly singing a G and want to drag the F sharp crowd with them, followed by a dramatic slide as all the F sharp people shift to the G together. Luckily the note is 4 (slow) beats long, and now by the 3rd beat it's correct. This is progress :-)

Very sad news today about the death of Rostropovich (obituary here, and another BBC article about his life here). He was originally scheduled to appear at the RNCM cello festival, but that was cancelled (his appearance, not the festival!) when he became ill. However, I just found out that the guy who seems to be doing Svyati with us, Ivan Monighetti, was Rostropovich's last student! So it seems particularly fitting that we're doing that piece, doesn't it? I imagine it'll be a very moving occasion.

Another cello story in the news - did you hear the one about the eight cellists on the train? And a non-cello story that mentions Mark and the Hallé: free concert tickets for schoolkids. Oh, and talking of Mark, Radio 3's Artist Focus features him next week - every night (Mon-Thu) at 10.30 p.m.

You may have seen the news stories the other day about the fact that there's finally a legal song lyrics website, but I can't say I'm too impressed - the two words I tested it with did not produce the songs I know they're in... It'll be better when they've got ALL the record companies on board, but for now the illegal websites seem more likely to have songs you're actually looking for, even though there will be many errors! (I find Lyrics on Demand better than most, if you're wondering.) Actually, if you really need some accurate lyrics, you may be best just asking me - I have thousands of them on disk!

A more impressive music website I discovered this week is Music Map. Again, it's pop rather than classical, but if you're a pop music fan I think you'll enjoy playing with this.

And finally - want to be part of the world's longest canon? It involves recording yourself singing a bit of Kylie Minogue's "I believe in you" and sending it to the Scala Choir. (You may not have heard of them before, but they're fairly famous online - they do great choral cover versions of pop songs. Have a listen to clips from their latest album if you want to know what they sound like.)