The only thing louder than Britten's War Requiem...

OK, this might end up being a bit long :-)

Sorry for the long gap. I know there are hardly any people reading this these days, but it probably didn't help my reader numbers when I vanished for several weeks. Anyway, for those of you who are still here, I'll try to make it up to you.

Life has been a bit overcrowded lately. I went to Italy last month with my mum and sister (my photos are online if you want to have a look). We saw lots of things I've seen before but wanted to see again, and lots of other things I'd never seen but always wanted to, and I got the chance to use my Italian - I'm by no means fluent, but I'm a bit beyond basic, and I spent every spare minute in September revising, once I knew we were going. I can understand a lot more than I can produce, of course. Choir has really helped - we sing in Italian quite often, and even when we're singing in Latin (which is far more common) we are always instructed to pronounce it as if it was Italian - so I'm very familiar (and comfortable) with the pronunciation rules. The trouble turns out to be this: when I know what I'm going to say, I can pronounce it perfectly, and this seems to cause Italians to assume that I *am* actually fluent, so they reply to me with this in mind, and are surprised to find I might not understand every word they say!

We flew to Pisa and returned from Naples, and stayed at several places in between, travelling by train. If you ever want to know ANYTHING about travelling by train outside the UK, I can thoroughly recommend The Man in Seat 61. I'd heard of this website many times before - the guy often writes in the Guardian (e.g. recently he described his favourite winter train journeys) - but I'd never needed to use it before. His information was absolutely spot on, even to the extent of warning that British credit cards don't usually work on the Trenitalia website!

My use of this website had a bonus - not long after I'd used it to investigate Italian trains, travel arrangements for the choir's trip to Valencia next summer were being discussed. Most of the choir will be flying, but that wasn't really an option for me, partly due to the cost but mainly because a large part of it had to be paid immediately, and that was impossible. (A couple of people kindly offered to lend me the money, but I already owe far too much to far too many people, and there are no signs of things improving just yet!) There was at least one other member of the choir (that I knew of) who was keen to investigate non-air travel, although in her case it was for environmental reasons... I'm all for that too, but it was only my second priority. Anyway, to cut a long story short, three of us will be travelling from Manchester to Valencia (and back!) by train next May, following instructions from the Man in Seat 61, and we're really looking forward to the adventure. (I do wish it was a different week though - it means missing both the UEFA Champions' League final AND the FA Cup Final, but it can't be helped.)

My stint as a temp at RNID finally ended on Friday - it was supposed to be for 2 weeks and ended up being 14 months. They have finally appointed a permanent replacement - well, two in fact, because the job has grown so much while I've been doing it (that's how I ended up so stressed!). I don't yet have a new assignment from Office Angels but they hope to get me one very soon. In the meantime I can finally catch up with some stuff of my own. Money is still a major concern - particularly as I have no income until I get a new assignment - but I do have a couple of side projects which may start to make a little bit of money soon, so I'm hopeful I'll survive.

Choir update: hmm, there's loads! So, very briefly: VW Sea Symphony from scratch on 12th October - this was great fun despite me being in an absolutely FOUL mood all day. (It was my birthday, and just about all my friends - except those in the choir - forgot. And I didn't get picked for the semi-chorus again, and even though I'm used to this, I still get really depressed every time it happens, and lose confidence. They did sound fantastic though!) It went really well, and I do like to do lots of sight-reading, especially when the people around me seem grateful that I was there :-)

Mahler 2, a few days earlier on 9th October, was unbelievably amazing. I can't remember the last time I was so overcome with emotion during a concert. I'd expected to have to struggle to stay awake in the movements before we sang, but I was totally absorbed by how well the orchestra were playing, and in no time it was our turn. But I could hardly sing properly at all - just before we were due to sing, I couldn't stop thinking about the people in the audience who DIDN'T know how the piece ends, and imagining the effect of our entry on these people (especially as we remained seated). This feeling grew all the time we were singing, and when we finally stood up, I had such a lump in my throat that I dread to think what I sounded like. I had tears running down my face - so much so that I couldn't actually see anything by the end. Wow! Sadly my name had been missed out of the programme - this seems to have happened to a few people recently, but it's the first time it's happened to me - but I didn't know that until afterwards so it didn't distract me during the concert. (It definitely would have - I hate the way my mind fixates on stupid things like that - so I have resolved never to read programmes before concerts in future!)

Oh, and our Gerontius CD is finally officially released, although I haven't heard it yet!

Currently we are in full-on Russian mode, because our next concert is Alexander Nevsky, a week on Saturday. I've never sung this before, but so far it doesn't seem too hard - the Russian is the hardest bit, but it's quite repetitive, and we've been given lots of help from the fabulous Xenia. (By the way, I took the audio files we've been given and created a 6-minute audio file of Xenia speaking the entire text with no repetition - I've emailed it to a few people, but if any other choir member would like it, please email me.)

I'm very excited about Alexander Nevsky, because for years there has been one thing I've known about it.... To explain, I need to give a small amount of background. Quite a few years ago (I suspect it was 1995) the choir performed Britten's War Requiem in Chemnitz in Germany. (I think we've done it again since then, but 1995 was the first time I'd done it.) There's a bit towards the end, in the Libera Me, when the sops sing (in the top octave) G F# G Ab F# (to the words "Libera Me"), and the altos were asked, on this occasion, to sing it with them. Some altos protested - we weren't as used to occasional high notes then as we are now - and John Currie, who was the chorus master at the time, said "Don't worry, when you hear the noise at this point you'll be so scared you could sing a top C. It's the loudest noise in all music.... well, except for Alexander Nevsky."

Well, thirteen years later, I've still never heard Alexander Nevsky, but I do remember how loud that bit of the War Requiem was, so my excitement has been building for all those years! I'll be SEVERELY disappointed if I don't need earplugs. (Note to self: remember to take earplugs!)

I've been busy with my band as well - we've recorded our Christmas set (been meaning to do that for years, but there's never time at Christmas, so this year we did it in September!) and tried some fun new songs. We had a fabulous rehearsal a couple of weeks ago - we were all exhausted when we arrived, and I'd had a really bad day (the worst part of which was, I'd had nothing to eat all day because I only had enough money for one meal, so I'd saved it till teatime, but then I realised - when I was at the till in the sandwich shop, with the sandwich already made - that I didn't have enough money for the sandwich AND the bus fare to Rachel's house, so I had to walk out and leave the sandwich there, which was not only embarrassing but meant I was absolutely starving!) But it was one of those rehearsals that was just fun from beginning to end, and we all left in a fabulous mood - I was still grinning about it for the whole of the next day!

We have various gigs coming up between now and Christmas, but the one I want to mention is the Henry Watson Music Library Christmas Music Day, which this year is on Saturday 13th December. They are looking for more groups to take part this year, so if you have a choir or other ensemble, do consider it - you won't get a fee, but we got several further engagements as a result of our performance there last year, so it's definitely worth doing! If you want to contact them, their phone number is 0161 234 1976, or you can email them.

Anyway, I have about a million links I've been stockpiling for you (only some of which are music-related), so I'd better list them all. In no particular order other than the order in which I saved them....

I was fascinated to learn about Stanislav Petrov - a true hero, and one who deserves to be more widely known.

By way of contrast, a website that helps you to determine how long you might survive if you were chained to a bunkbed with a velociraptor! In my case, apparently 60 seconds - go me!

From ChoralNet: links to a discussion about how best to rehearse the melismas in Messiah. (Just in case there's anyone who isn't sure what a melisma is but can't be bothered to look it up, it's just the name for singing more than one note on any particular syllable - e.g. "we have tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn-ed" - the semiquaver runs on the "tuuuuuuuu" bit are a melisma.)

From Podium Speak: link to a news story about how musicians think differently to non-musicians.

A new part of Classic FM's website (well, it was new to me): HearHere. Interestingly they seem a bit confused about whether it's HearHere or HearHear, but the website seems to be the same whichever way you spell its address.

Mrs O'Malley's Sweet Shop - proper old-fashioned sweets! Lots of it is American, but lots isn't. Anglo bubblies, for example!

A really interesting explanation of how mobile phone networks work, for those who like to know that sort of thing.

Next year's Manchester International Festival is taking shape - Rufus Wainwright has written an opera for it.

Fans of 80s pop will enjoy the literal video on "Take On Me"!

From the Guardian, a review of a new book by Oliver Sacks. (More on this from A Cappella News.) (The book is now available in paperback.)

Also from the Guardian, an article about the recent Bernstein festival that Chet's did (and Maggie sang in).

I've discovered quite a few performers by seeing them for the first time on "Later with Jools Holland", and the most recent one I've been fascinated with was Amy LaVere, who sang while playing a double bass - did anyone else see her? I'm looking forward to hearing more of her stuff.

A ridiculously addictive game called Blocks with Letters On. Starts easy, gets harder very quickly. Warning: don't try it unless you're prepared to lose at least an hour!

From David Griggs-Janower (and Brian Eno), an article about what's good about singing.

John Adams writes about how he came to be regarded as a threat to US National Security.

In case you weren't aware, the Vendee Globe starts on Sunday (9th November). That's the solo round-the-world yacht race that only happens every 4 years (the one Ellen MacArthur came second in, in 2000-2001, which is what first made her famous). There are several British entries this time, but the two I'll be watching out for are Mike Golding, who came third last time despite losing his keel towards the end, and Alex Thomson, who has had an unbelievable amount of bad luck. He had to retire from the race last time after problems with his boat, and a few weeks ago his new boat was accidentally rammed by a fishing vessel, and his team have been working round the clock to get it ready for the race. Also, they both entered the Velux 5 Oceans Race in 2006, and Alex lost his keel in the Southern Ocean and Mike turned back to rescue him (in these races, the competitors travel so far from land that a fellow competitor can usually reach them far quicker than land-based rescue services), and then Mike lost his own mast while they were both on board and had to retire from the race himself. So they're both due for loads of good luck, and I'd be thrilled if either of them won. If you're interested, you can follow the race on the official site.

Great Guardian article about muso moments in pop songs.

The BBC has cancelled Christmas Top of the Pops! Christmas Day just won't be the same :-(

From Londonist, more Monkey news! I haven't managed to find a photo of Monkey on top of Nelson's Column (which apparently he is at the moment) - if anyone else does, please point me to it!

An article about the opening chord to "A Hard Day's Night".

Via A Cappella News, a fascinating New York Times article about the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and their inspirational chorus master. (Read this one soon, because NY Times articles don't stay available for long before you have to register to read them.)

For fans of Last Choir Standing, it seems that Only Men Aloud are hoping to have the Christmas number one single! Pity they won't get to perform it on TOTP if they do...

An anonymous person sent me a link to Cool Conductor.

Much to my surprise, Germaine Greer writes about violas! She didn't mention this area of expertise when she was on Never Mind the Buzzcocks last week...

You probably won't like this as much as I did unless you know the script of Star Wars like the back of your hand, but it's great even if you don't: an a cappella tribute to John Williams. Clever stuff.

I enjoyed watching Dead Set last week (if you missed it, you can still watch it online via that link - summary is that zombies take over the world and the last safe place turns out to be the Big Brother house) but I was even more amused at Simon Pegg's only criticism of it!

Yma Sumac has died. I'm ashamed to admit that I had never heard of her until she was mentioned in a Buffy episode, but it seems she had a unique voice - listen to the stuff on her website, it's very weird indeed! EDIT: The BBC have a story about this today. I suspect that the "experts" they've quoted are either a bit confused or a bit stupid (or both), because I would dispute their claim that "most people are capable of three octaves. The average person could sing within this range with very good guidance from an expert." I think they mean TWO octaves (e.g. the G below middle C to the G on top of the treble stave), but maybe they're calling it 3 because there are 3 Gs in it.... what do you think? And as for Mariah Carey, I know she can sing stupidly high, but I am yet to be convinced that she can span four octaves, let alone five. For example, from the F at the bottom of the bass stave to the F that's a few leger lines above the treble stave is four octaves inclusive, and I suppose some may claim this range "spans 5 octaves" since it contains 5 different Fs. But, while I might have heard her sing that top F, I haven't heard her sing anything quite as low as the bottom of the bass stave... If anyone has any evidence to support her, I'd like to hear it!

I Classici Tifosi made me laugh a lot when I found it. They're a group of classical musicians (soprano, tenor and string quartet) who take Italian football chants and record them in a classical style. The most amusing part is that some of the lyrics are (unsurprisingly) quite rude... but the whole website is in Italian so you may not immediately realise this! I think my favourite so far is Totti Gol, but I haven't listened to them all yet - I picked that one out because I love Francesco Totti :-)

And finally (because I seem to have been doing this all night...) you may have noticed from the addition to the sidebar that I have recently succumbed to the temptation of Twitter. If you choose to follow me there, that would be fun, although I don't promise it will be anything other than meaningless waffle! The beauty of it is that all the updates are necessarily very short, so people tend to update more often. I've deliberately avoided Facebook for various reasons I won't bore you with, and I don't expect to change my mind about that, but Twitter is the next big thing, trust me!