12 days of musical terminology, day 7 - melisma

Very brief post today, because it's New Year's Eve and I need to devote myself to distractions (I get very fed up on New Year's Eve if I allow myself to think about it!)

Melisma is very easy to explain (hence choosing it for today), and it's used constantly in choir rehearsals - so much so that most people must know what it means, but I always wonder whether there might be a few people who don't, and don't dare ask. So this is for those people.

In its simplest (and most commonly used) sense, it just means that a particular syllable has more than one note sung to it. For example, the start of "Where is love?" from Oliver - there are five notes on the word "where", so that's a melisma. The Wikipedia article has a much more thorough explanation (and a Messiah example, which is good because it saves me having to write one out).

12 days of musical terminology, day 6 - Neapolitan 6th chords

I've explained these before (quite a while ago), so some of this might sound familiar if you're a long-time reader...

The Neapolitan 6th chord is my very favourite chord (closely followed by "chord iii", but I'll explain that one another time). I've loved it ever since I first heard it (long before I found what it was called). I even attended a fascinating lecture about it at an Open University summer school several years ago. (The lecture covered the various types of augmented sixth chords (French, German and Italian sixths) as well, but the Neapolitan is better than all of them!)

So, what is a Neapolitan 6th? I'll try to explain as clearly as possible, because once you know what they are, you'll spot them throughout the repertoire. They're most common in baroque music, although they aren't restricted to that period - there are several in Gerontius, for example. They occur more often when the music is in a minor key than major, but either is possible. Now, in any key, you can have a chord based on any note of the scale. (I presume that most of you know that a "normal" chord on any given note consists of the note itself plus the notes a third and a fifth higher within the scale - so that the chord of C major would be C, E and G, but the chord of C minor would be C, E flat and G, because in C minor every E is an E flat. ... If you didn't already know this bit, I realise it's a bit confusing, but at the moment my target audience is people who *do* already understand how chords are usually formed, so if this is totally new to you, I'm sorry!)

Now, in the key of E minor, the scale goes: E, F sharp, G, A, B, C, D sharp, E. That's the harmonic minor scale (as opposed to the melodic minor), and if you've ever wondered why it's called that, it's because these are the notes used in the harmony - as follows: chord 1 (the tonic chord) is the chord of E minor (E, G, B). Chord 2 is actually a diminished chord (F sharp, A, C). Chord 3 is G major (G, B, D). Chord 4 (the subdominant) is A minor (A, C, E). Chord 5 (the dominant) is B major (B, D sharp, F sharp). Et cetera. (The "dominant seventh" chord - very common, and I'm sure you've all heard of it - would be B, D sharp, F sharp and A... why 7th? Because the A is a seventh above the B.) (If you're wondering why some notes are sharp and others are natural, go back and look at the E minor scale - that's why.) (If you're wondering why there's a D in chord 3 but a D sharp everywhere else, that's a good question - a simplified answer is that if chord 3 had a D sharp in it, it would be an augmented chord, which isn't often used in traditional harmony. Or, put another way... the harmony works better if chord 3 is a major chord. Not a very satisfying answer but it's as good as you're going to get for the moment!)

Now, before I explain what the Neapolitan 6th chord is, let me explain what it ISN'T. It isn't a chord based on the 6th note of the scale - it's called "6th" for a different reason. (It's called Neapolitan because it was popular with a Neapolitan group of composers.) So what is it? Well, to make a Neapolitan 6th chord, here's what you do: find the 2nd note of the scale (so in E minor that would be F sharp). Flatten it by a semitone (so it becomes F natural). Form a major chord based on that note (in this case, F major (F, A, C)). This chord is sometimes called a Neapolitan chord. However, it is hardly ever used in that form - invariably it appears as a first inversion chord, which means that although it does consist of F, A and C, it doesn't have the F at the bottom of the bass (which is called "root position"), it has the A instead. (If the C was at the bottom it would be a second inversion.) And it's the fact that it's used as a first inversion that gives it the name "6th" - the 6th is the interval between the A and the F.



Have a look at the example above (from the end of the "Have lightnings and thunders" double chorus of the St Matthew Passion - I was quite startled to put "matthew passion" into YouTube and find that the exact one-minute clip I wanted was the top result!). This section is in E minor. Look at the fifth bar. All the notes are either F, A or C, but the basses have A. That makes it a Neapolitan 6th. (Why is this chord usually used as a first inversion? Because the harmonic progression works better that way. I could explain why, but I've already gone on longer than I intended to, and I imagine some people's brains are hurting already.) Listen to the last few bars until the sound of the Neapolitan 6th sticks in your head - it's very distinctive. (It's at 1:02 in the video clip.)

And finally, one of my favourite pop songs, and not just because it includes a Neapolitan 6th. It's REM's Everybody Hurts. This song is in a major key, but the middle section (starting at about 2:22) is in the relative minor, and the Neapolitan comes at about 2:46. (I think it's probably a root position one rather than a 6th, because of what the bass does, but the sound of the chord is almost identical.) A great moment in the history of pop (and one of the best-ever videos, too - do watch it rather than just listening).

12 days of musical terminology, day 5 - diminished chords

I'm hoping this will take less time to explain than ornaments did!

Diminished chords are more common than most people think. They do sound a little other-worldly out of context, but they are very frequently used in harmonic progressions, for reasons I'll go into in a second. If you're not sure what a diminished chord sounds like, the intro to Ghost Town by the Specials (which got to number one in the UK charts in the summer of 1981 - wow, that makes me feel old!) is the best example I know. It has a series of six consecutive diminished chords, each a semitone higher than the previous one.

I'll explain what a diminished chord actually is before I tell you why it's useful. A proper diminished chord (strictly, I should specify that I'm talking about a "diminished seventh chord") has four notes in it, and each is a minor third above the one below. To create one on the piano, pick any note, count three keys to the right (not counting the one you started with, but counting both white and black keys) and play that note, then repeat. By the fourth repeat you should have reached the note an octave above your starting note. Here are all the diminished chords:



If you've ever done any instrumental exams from Grade 5 upwards, you'll probably be well aware that there are only actually THREE different diminished chords (the Grade 5+ ABRSM exams ask you to play diminished arpeggios). If you haven't, look at the chords above, and it will be obvious. The chords in the first line (C dim, C# dim and D dim) all have different notes, but the others all have the same notes as the ones in the first line, just in a different order. And unlike most other chords, which sound recognisably different if a different note is at the bottom, diminished chords have a sort of uncertain quality, which means that they sound more or less the same whichever note's on the bottom.

This uncertain quality means that composers often use this chord to suggest such concepts as change, distress, restlessness - and of course supernatural elements (as in Ghost Town). One of the reasons for the uncertain quality is that there are very many possible ways in which the chord's dissonances can resolve. In a piece that uses standard classical harmony, there are fewer options than you might expect when it comes to which chord sounds natural after the one you've just had. (That's a terrible sentence, but hopefully you know what I mean!) However, with a diminished chord, there are a LOT of options, so they can be very useful for creating variety, or changing the key altogether. For example, here are a few chords that could follow D dim:



If you play them on the piano, you'll realise that the music would go in a totally different direction each time.

When singing diminished chords, there are a couple of things that are useful to bear in mind. These chords come up in two different ways in a choral context - either you're singing one note of a diminished chord (and the rest of the choir are singing the other notes), or you're singing a vocal line which has a few notes from a diminished arpeggio in it. The former is much more common - in the latter case, the main thing to remember (as always with minor thirds) is that the interval is usually smaller than you think, so if you're coming DOWN a diminished arpeggio, think "Eek! Descending minor thirds!" and hopefully you will channel our ex-choral director and remember not to go flat. Going UP the arpeggio isn't quite as hard, but it's still worth thinking about the tuning.

If you're singing one note of the chord, the most difficult thing is actually coming in on the right one. It's not so bad if the diminished chord only happens when you actually sing it, but there are quite a few examples like the end of the Confutatis Maledictis movement of Mozart's Requiem. I'm talking about the "oro supplex" bit (starting at 1:24 in the linked video). It's probably not too hard for the basses, but I know that the first few times I sang the alto part, I had to really concentrate in order to come in on the right note at the start of each of those four phrases. It's almost impossible to reliably pick it out of the chord that's heard in the first two beats (when the basses come in) - I could easily pick a note that FITS, but if I'm not thinking about it properly, it's quite easy to come in on the tenor note instead of the alto one. I can get it quite easily now, but that's mainly through muscle memory. (I notice he fixes it so the sops just have to remember the same note each time - sensible chap!)

12 days of musical terminology, day 4 - ornaments

After a rhythmic device and a harmonic device, it seems appropriate to talk about a melodic device today. I mentioned appoggiaturas yesterday, and since I was planning to include them in this series anyway, today may as well be the day. But I think it will be more helpful to talk briefly about ALL the commonly-used ornaments (one of which is the appoggiatura).

Ornaments (i.e. decorations of the melody) have always been very common in music. These days, R&B singers in particular - especially when singing ballads - use ornamentation to an extreme degree. (They even do it when singing the American National Anthem, and no-one bats an eyelid, although it always sounds a bit odd to me.) But this has been the case for hundreds of years - in renaissance and baroque times, in particular, a solo performer wouldn't be expected to play or sing just the notes on the page. They would make up their own ornaments. (Often, in a piece with repeats or a D.C., they would perform the melody more or less unembellished the first time, and then add the ornaments on the repeat.)

Sometimes, the composer would specify exactly what ornaments he wanted, rather than leaving it to the performer (you can see that this makes sense if there are several people performing together!), and symbols evolved for various types of ornament. There were (and are) different ways of interpreting these symbols, varying according to when and where the music was written. In most cases, performers today do not know (for sure) how ANY given ornament should be interpreted, but there are some general guidelines which are usually applied in the first instance, until the conductor specifies something different.

(I'm only going to talk about ornaments used in choral music, but the Wikipedia article has the others, plus fuller explanations of the ones I WILL mention.)

There are two main types of ornaments commonly used in choral music: trills (including mordents), and grace notes (including appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas).

Trill: everyone knows what a trill is, I think. The symbol is tr placed above the note, and this indicates that the performer should alternate rapidly between that note and the one above. (How do you know whether a trill on an A goes to B or B flat? It depends on the key signature. If there is a B flat in the key signature, then a trill on an A goes to B flat; otherwise, it goes to a B natural. If the composer wants to specify a trill to a note that's NOT in the key signature, the trill symbol has an accidental above it.) The trill itself is straightforward enough to interpret; the difficulty is with the start and end of the trill. In general, trills in music written before about 1830 actually start on the note above, and trills in more recent music start on the note itself. The END of the trill usually has a little twiddle involving the note below. (There are exceptions to both rules, but the conductor will specify these.)

The examples below should give you the idea. Note that the number of repetitions of each note will depend on the speed and style of the music - there is not a hard and fast rule that determines how many there should be. Also, the fact that I've put a triplet in the last example does not mean that that's how it would be performed - the notes in the trill are not necessarily all exactly the same length, and I only put the triplet in so I could include all the notes.



Mordent: this is the "squiggle" symbol. Sometimes (particularly in earlier music) this symbol implies a trill, in which case it would be performed as above; however, usually it implies just a single twiddle to the note above, as shown below.



Grace note: these have two general characteristics, plus some more specific ones that I'll mention under each type. The first general characteristic is that they're printed as small-size notes (i.e. smaller than the "normal" notes). The second is that their length is not counted towards the length of the bar. There can be several grace notes, or just one. If there's only one, it will be an appoggiatura or acciaccatura - more on each in a minute. If there's more than one, they're usually just called grace notes.

Mozart's "Ronda Alla Turca" (the last movement of his piano sonata no. 11 in A major, K331) has some good examples of grace notes. Look at the first page. There are grace notes in the right hand on the second line, and in the left hand on the fifth line. (There are instructions at the bottom of the page regarding how to perform these, but they're likely to be written by the editor rather than Mozart himself, I suspect. Also, I've usually heard this piece performed NOT according to those instructions!) In the first bar of the second line, you'll notice that if you ignore the grace notes, the four full-size quavers add up to two full crotchet beats, i.e. a full bar of 2/4. That's what I mean by the length of the grace notes not being counted towards the length of the bar.

I've usually heard the aforementioned grace notes performed like this (I've omitted staccato marks etc. for clarity):



but the editor in this case is suggesting that the correct version is this:



In general, I would say that the first method of interpreting multiple grace notes (i.e. before the beat) is more common, but the conductor may specify the second.

Acciaccatura: this should really be pronounced "atch-ACK-a-toora" but is usually closer to "ack-see-ack-a-toora" or something similar. It's most often translated as "crushed note", and it's the single-grace-note-with-a-line-through-it symbol. It's played as close as possible to the main note. Usually, if a choir has to sing one, they will be instructed to sing the acciaccatura on the actual beat and then move immediately to the main note. This is because if a choir tries to do it the other possible way - i.e. to sing the acciaccatura at the last possible moment BEFORE the main note - the result is usually rather untidy! However, when played on instruments, it's more common to play the acciaccatura before the beat. For example, the intro to The Shepherd's Farewell:



Appoggiatura: pronounced "ap-PODGE-a-toora", and most people can manage that (although you do often hear "a-podge-a-tyoo-ra"). This is much more common in choral music than the acciaccatura. It's the single-grace-note-WITHOUT-a-line-through-it symbol, and it's usually translated as "leaning note". Unlike the acciaccatura, which is always as short as possible, the appoggiatura has a specific length, although (like other grace notes) the length of the appoggiatura does not count towards the length of the bar. Also unlike the acciaccatura (which is usually written as a quaver, however long it actually is), the appoggiatura can be written as more or less any note value, but the written note value doesn't necessarily imply how long the appoggiatura should be! This ornament causes more confusion than all the others combined, I think.

As a general rule, the appoggiatura note is performed on the beat, and the main note comes later (even if the appoggiatura is written before the barline). In most cases the two notes (appoggiatura and main note) are of equal length, UNLESS the main note is dotted, in which case the appoggiatura note is twice as long as the main note (i.e. if it's a dotted crotchet, the appoggiatura will be a crotchet and the main note will be a quaver). As usual, there are exceptions to these rules, and the conductor will specify them. But, to give you an idea of the common practice:





Those two examples are both from "He Was Despised" (Messiah), and (like many things in Messiah) will often be interpreted differently. However, they will hopefully clarify the most common way of performing appoggiaturas if you are given no instruction to the contrary.

I could write much more, but I think I've covered the main bits I intended. (Note to self: stop coming up with ideas that take much long than you expect!)

12 days of musical terminology, day 3 - suspension

Yesterday (hemiola) we had a rhythmic device. Today's is a harmonic device, but it's so ubiquitous that it's been in use from renaissance times to pop songs that are in the charts today. A suspension is actually a discord, but it's one with a very specific structure and purpose.

Here's how it works. Normally, if you have two consecutive chords, they are separate, so that all the voice parts move to the new chord at the same time (e.g. the first bar in the example below). Sometimes, though, one of the parts delays its move to the new chord, so that it hangs onto its old note while the other parts move to the new one. It's possible, of course, that the delayed note still fits with the new chord, but if it doesn't fit at all - i.e. it creates a discord - then that note is a suspension. When it finally does move to the correct note in the new chord, that's called a resolution.

For example, here are the last three bars of Messiah. The soprano part has a suspension in the second bar. The other three parts move to an A major chord at the start of that bar, but the sopranos hold onto their D from the previous chord, and only move to the C sharp (which DOES fit in an A major chord, unlike the D) on the third beat. (I am behaving myself here and not making jokes about the sopranos always being a bit behind...)



(Purists will point out that this is actually an appoggiatura rather than a suspension, because the D isn't actually TIED from the first bar to the second. I'll explain appoggiaturas another day. But if it feels like a suspension and sounds like a suspension, most musicians would call it a suspension.)

The example above is a "suspended fourth", i.e. the suspended note (the D) is the 4th note above the bass note of the suspension chord (A). This is the most common type of suspension, and its resolution consists of the 4th moving to the 3rd. Note also that the suspension itself is on the strong beat, and the resolution is weaker. (You will often be instructed to place a slight accent on a suspension if you are the part with the suspended note, so it's useful to be able to spot suspensions and anticipate this instruction.)

I mentioned that suspensions are also used in pop songs, and if you know any guitarists, they will know all about suspensions... at least, if you ask one to play you an Asus4 chord followed by A, you'll hear the second bar in the Messiah example above. Below is a fairly famous pop example - it's the intro to Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade. The suspension (Dsus4, or a D major chord with the 3rd note (F sharp) replaced by the 4th note (G)) is in the third bar, and it resolves to a D chord in the fourth bar. This same suspension occurs several more times during the song, in the two bars just before the chorus each time. (Listen to it here.)



And I can't finish without pointing out the best ever example of a series of suspensions. Look at the first page of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. This has mainly suspended seconds rather than suspended fourths, but it has one after another, and really ramps up the harmonic tension. Lovely. (EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention the best pop example of a series of suspensions, which is Pinball Wizard by The Who - the suspensions start at 0:18 with Bsus4 followed by B repeatedly, and then there's a proper sequence of them during the verse.)

12 days of musical terminology, day 2 - hemiola

This one comes up so often that I imagine most people must have worked out by now what it means, but I'll explain just in case there are some that haven't. A hemiola is a rhythmic device used in triple time (e.g. 3/4) in which 2 bars of 3 beats are effectively replaced by 3 lots of 2 beats (i.e. the accents are placed differently). It has the effect of making the music seem to hurry along a bit quicker. and therefore increases the excitement (for want of a better word) at a cadence.

It's used more in Baroque music than later, particularly dance movements such as minuets (although there ARE hemiolas in non-Baroque music - for example, there are even some in Gerontius). The Wikipedia article has a good example written out, but there are lots of very familiar ones in Messiah. Any movement in 3/4 time will have several. For example, in And the Glory of the Lord, the first one is at the end of the intro, just before the altos start. Bars 9 and 10 are still in 3/4, but the notes are actually three groups of two, and those bars would be performed with accents every two beats rather than every three. (In my copy all the hemiolas are actually marked with square brackets above and below the stave - not sure if this is the case in newer editions.) Sometimes conductors actually change their beat at a hemiola - i.e. they beat 2/4 instead of 3/4 - but in my experience this confuses too many people!

Other Messiah movements with hemiolas are "Thou art gone up on high", "Let us break their bonds" (not as obvious in this one, but they ARE there), "Thou shalt break them", "I know that my redeemer liveth", "The trumpet shall sound", and "If God be for us". You will be able to spot hemiolas in other works yourself - any Baroque piece in 3/4 will have some, plus many others. (There are also a few works in 6/8 that have hemiolas (i.e. there's a bar with three accents instead of two) but America from West Side Story is NOT one of them - it's in 6/8, and it does have alternating bars of two accents and three accents, but there are no proper hemiolas in the sense of "rhythmic device whose purpose is to lead to a cadence".)

12 days of musical terminology, day 1 - dominant pedal

Lots of people I know online have been doing daily posts throughout December, following various themes. I didn't have the energy for that, but I do like the idea of another Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts. And what I have the urge to share with you is musical terminology.

I hope this doesn't seem too patronising - I apologise if so. I'm not talking about BASIC terms - I'm thinking more of the more specialised terms that might not come up in grade 5 theory but often get mentioned during rehearsals. I'm always aware of quite a few blank looks around me when one comes up, so I thought I'd try and give a series of very brief explanations of a selection of terms. (I've explained some of them here before, so I hope you'll forgive me if I copy and paste a bit so that everything's in one place.)

I decided that the obvious one to start with is the term dominant pedal, because it's in my blog URL!

A dominant pedal is a kind of aural clue that we're reaching the end of the piece (once you know what they sound like you'll be amazed how many pieces have one). A "pedal" is any long held note, lasting several bars, usually in the bass line (and often also played on an organ pedal, hence the name). A dominant pedal implies that the pedal note is at the dominant pitch, i.e. the 5th note of the scale. For example, I mentioned the one in the descant verse of O Come All Ye Faithful. The carol is in G major, so the dominant note is D, and there's a long D in the bass starting halfway through the descant verse.

Another example is at the end of the Amen Chorus in Messiah - it's in D major, so when the basses get an A that they hold for several bars, there's your dominant pedal. (There are loads in Messiah if you look.) There's a similar example at the end of part 1 of The Dream of Gerontius, with a long held A, and another one near the end of the big C majr chorus (look for a long held G) and another couple of not-quite-so-obvious ones near the end of the work.

I could give you more examples, but if you can recognise the ones I've already mentioned, you'll be able to spot your own.

More terminology tomorrow!

He heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of bells

Click here! Go on, you won't regret it, I promise!

Many of my friends have realised by now that it amuses me greatly to wander round for the whole of December with sleighbells in my pocket, so that I jingle slightly when I walk (and even more when I run). I was just thinking today about two incidents from my past that are probably responsible for this habit.

At the first school I taught at, I worked closely with a lady called Marilyn, who ran the woodwind ensembles. One year, she had two boys in her class who were beginner percussionists, and they were so keen that she let them both join the senior ensemble even though there was often nothing for them to do (they wanted to play the drum kit, but there was an older boy who did that). At Christmas in their first year, she rewarded their patience by allowing them both to play the sleighbells in any piece requiring them. To save time, she told them each to keep their sleighbells in their tray (the school had those desks that have a removable tray underneath the writing surface) rather than having to go to the percussion storeroom every time they were needed. However, Michael and Mark both soon realised that the slightest movement, while they were sitting at their desks working, would result in a slight jingle... and every time this happened, Marilyn would jump, and look round wildly to see where the noise had come from. (She'd forgotten the boys had sleighbells in their trays.)

After a while, they took to carrying the sleighbells in their pockets when they weren't in the classroom, so that if they saw her in the corridor they could wait till she'd passed them and then jingle from a distance while hiding. I think the poor woman was losing her mind by the time Christmas came!

Several years later, I was teaching in a special school, and we always ended every day by reading aloud to our classes for ten minutes. One year, I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to them, and when I was getting to the bit where the White Witch first appears (heralded by sleighbells) I remembered I had a set of sleighbells in the bottom of my desk drawer. I surreptitiously sneaked the drawer open, just enough for me to be able to reach the sleighbells, and I shook them at exactly the right moment, and then quickly withdrew my hand and kept a straight face while reading on.

The effect on the class was fabulous. They'd obviously all heard the jingling, but because I hadn't mentioned it, and (as far as they could see) there was no-one who could have caused it, they all started looking round the room and out of the window. When I got to the end of the chapter, I responded to "Did you hear that, Miss?" with "Hear what?" and didn't admit anything. I went home giggling to myself, reminded of Michael and Mark and Marilyn.

For the rest of the book, I used the sleighbells at every relevant opportunity - far more often than they were actually mentioned in the text! - just because it was so funny. The kids did catch on eventually, and seemed quite amused that I'd fooled them for so long. But ever since then, the idea of random jingling has made me smile throughout December.



Back to the present day. The last carol concert was the best of the four, I thought. It was certainly the best attended, but most importantly all five horns wore inflatable Santa suits! And I think the whole of the 2nd alto section - and probably some of the 1sts (you'd think it'd be the other way round, but I bet it wasn't) - sang the descant in O Come All Ye Faithful. It was a bit of a strain but GREAT fun - we can do a brilliant top G, as long as (a) it's allowed to be fortissimo; (b) the vowel can be fairly approximate; and (c) we don't have to sing much afterwards. (Good training for Mahler 2, of which more in a minute.)

(The descant verse of O Come All Ye Faithful, by the way, has one of the best examples of a dominant pedal there is. At the "O come let us adore him" bit, the organ and the bass instruments all hold a long D for several bars. This heightens the buildup to the end of the carol.)

I'm watching the Carols from Kings thing on TV as I write this, and it includes the Rutter arrangement of O Holy Night. Nice to hear it from the front - the altos don't get the tune anywhere in it, so we got a bit of a skewed perspective. I must say the King's boys don't get the top B flat anywhere near as well as our sops did! (It wasn't in the radio version, which I heard this afternoon. Does ANYONE know why there are always so many differences between the radio and TV versions? I've always wondered. The TV one doesn't look live - at least, they never show the congregation - so I guess they record it earlier... but why not just televise the radio version?)

(Huh - they just got to Personent Hodie, which WAS in the radio version, but it was in Latin on the radio and English on the TV! Bizarre!)

Just one final carol-related thought for people for next year. I've noticed that most people in the choir spend quite a bit of time attaching paperclips and various coloured slips of paper to their copies of Carols for Choirs, so that they can flip instantly to the next carol on the list. I used to do this, but then I became lazier and just wrote "go to page 246" (or whatever the next page is) at the end of each carol. This worked fine. Then I became even lazier, and just wrote the page numbers on the running order. I've found that there's plenty of time during the concert to find the correct page just by looking at the running order, although I sometimes ease my way a bit by using the sheet music as bookmarks for the first few carols. Just something you might like to try next year if you can't be bothered to faff around with post-it notes.

Anyway, I mentioned Mahler 2. This is our next concert, on 28th January, and I know a few people are already getting a bit anxious about singing it from memory. I've therefore updated my mp3 page, and it now contains not only mp3s of the relevant bit of the symphony, but also PDFs of the vocal score (both full and for individual parts), and a copy of the German text. I've also included an mp3 of me reading the German, in case new people don't know how to pronounce it. I hope this is useful, particularly as I don't think there's any Mahler on Cyberbass. (I could produce Cyberbass-style learning files for Mahler 2 if necessary, but let's see how you get on with what I've already done. I did this other stuff last time we did Mahler 2.)

(By the way, I've had to transfer my downloadable stuff to a free web hosting service, because the person who used to supply my webspace stopped responding to my attempts to contact him. It means there's a couple of extra steps before you can download things - I hope it's not too offputting. Please let me know if you need any help.)

Other stuff... I was told earlier today that there was a programme on BBC Radio Manchester this teatime that might include bits of our carol concerts, but I listened to it and it didn't. However, there's a similar-looking programme tomorrow (Christmas Day) at 5am, but it's probably a repeat. You'll be able to find it on iPlayer.

Also from the BBC, they've got a composite video of lots of choirs singing the Hallelujah Chorus. As they mention, it's intriguing how varied the pitch is!

This health and safety guidance for the singing of festive songs was read out by Fanny before the last concert. (My sister sent it to me last week, but I hadn't got round to posting the link until now.)

Much to my surprise, on the same night as our last carol concert, the Manchester Cathedral carol service was cancelled due to snow.

The Guardian had a nice editorial about carol singing. Also, they had a lovely article about evensong at St Paul's Cathedral.

In the Telegraph, several famous musicians tell us their favorite carols.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Times asks various famous artistic types what they secretly hate. Who'd have thought that Stephen Hough hates Bach? Or that our own music director doesn't like Belshazzar? (Via Intermezzo.)

Intermezzo also has a review of the best of 2009, which includes our Wagner weekend.

The Telegraph wonders whether classical music can ever be sexy.

ChoralBlog leads us to a post on the Confessions of a Choral Singer blog, with the great title Giving the Choir the Finger (get your mind out of the gutter). This post also links to a great post about body language of conductors. Well worth a read.

Here's a great article I saw a day or two ago, but annoyingly I forgot to make a note of where I saw the link. (Anyone who's reading this and thinks they deserve the credit, please let me know.) It's by Kenneth Woods and is about how some orchestral players can be described as terrorists.

On a very non-Christmassy note, here's yet another article about the vuvuzela, this time about a guy who's claiming he invented it. (I've decided to make it my mission to ensure that before the World Cup starts, everyone who reads this blog knows the name of that instrument!)

Choral Evensong on Radio 3 on Wednesday (30th December, 4pm) is live from Eton College Chapel, and the director of music is Ralph Allwood. And at 10pm the same day, they're repeating the Ukulele Prom, in case you missed it in the summer.

And finally, Venice is currently flooded, and the Big Picture does snow. Pretty!

P.S. Watch out for a series of twelve very short daily posts starting tomorrow, in which I will tell you (hopefully) useful and interesting stuff :-)

In the dead of night, all the world lay sleeping in the blanket of the dark

I've had the subject line of this post in my head for the last three days nonstop. Brownie points if you know what song it's from!

We've had three carol concerts now, with the last one to come tonight. They've been quite fun - not as silly as in previous years, but never mind. Actually, the second and third concerts were much more fun than the first, after we were exhorted to be more festive - I think we rose to the challenge! The orchestra did too - the second concert saw the welcome return of both the moving Santa hat on the second desk of the 2nd violins, and the brass standing up for their jazzy solo in Sleigh Ride; the third concert saw the horns standing, at last, to interrupt Sleigh Ride with a line of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (Sleigh Ride just sounds WRONG without that!)



The choir was quite depleted on Sunday - partly due to illness, partly due to people who'd always had other plans, and partly due to the extreme weather conditions. I can't remember the last time I saw so much snow in the city centre. This probably affected the audience too - there were lots of empty seats (rare for the carol concerts) and lots of people arrived late. A few of the orchestra were delayed as well - in fact the organist didn't arrive until the second half, so the first verse of Once in Royal had to be played on the piano.

Amy wins the prize for the most dedication to the spirit of Christmas, by the way - she left her sleighbells on her seat on Saturday night and they'd vanished when she went back for them fifteen minutes later... so she went out on Sunday morning and BOUGHT SOME MORE (from a shop I've never heard of, but it sounds lovely: Little Nut Tree Toys of Chorlton). There were quite a few sets of sleighbells being used by the alto section, in fact - I must try and get a photo of all of them together!

My favourite part of the concert (apart from Sleigh Ride, which is always great) was the bit when the Children's Choir was singing Babe of Bethlehem by Edmund Walters, and everyone else was asked to hum Away in a Manger in the last verse. It was a magical moment. I noticed that all the brass players (who don't play in that piece) were humming along too, with contented looks on their faces. Lovely!

There's been some debate in the alto section over which is the cutest member of the Children's Choir. We're torn between the dark-haired boy on the end of the front row, and the blondish bespectacled boy in the middle of the third row. Both of them are so engaged with their performance that it's difficult to look away from either of them. (The others in the choir are all great too, but these two are the ones who've caught our eye.)

The Youth Choir are sounding really good, too - in fact, better than they've sounded in years. There are fewer of them than there used to be, but they're really good. (Quality rather than quantity is our unofficial 2nd alto motto - on Sunday afternoon there were seven 2nd altos and twenty-three 1sts. Usually there are more of both, but the ratio is usually about the same - three times as many firsts as seconds.)

I didn't realise until yesterday that Petroc Trelawny, our presenter, has a blog on the Telegraph website. Looking back a few entries, I found a great post he wrote about our very own orchestra.

Talking of great posts, here's one by Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) about the connection between singing and our sense of self. It mentions the Alzheimer's Choir that Amy told me about the other day, plus all sorts of interesting related things.

On a similar subject, here's a BBC News article about how stroke patients were helped by Kenny Rogers songs.

And here's a fascinating one from the BBC News Magazine, about several unusual carol singing traditions in various parts of the UK.

A Telegraph article tells us why Christmas carols make the church feel nervous.

From Tom Service, news that the British Library has put parts of the autograph score of Messiah online. It didn't work when I tried it, though, so I lost interest.

Here's an article from BBC Music Magazine about how audiences are different in different countries.

The MEN tells us that both the Manchester Boys' Choir and the Manchester Girls' Choir have ceased to exist because the council will no longer fund them. The official reason is falling numbers (the girls' choir apparently only had six members), which makes it all the more impressive that our own children's choir had more than eighty members on stage this weekend at each concert. I wondered for a moment whether those two facts are connected, but I think the MBC and MGC were shrinking long before our children's choir was formed.

The MEN also tells us that the new yellow tram is now in operation. I'm quite excited about this - sad, I know!

I mentioned the Duel in the Pool that took place in Manchester this weekend. Unsurprisingly the USA won overall, but a local guy beat Michael Phelps!

I absolutely love this post (from Making Light) about the Christmas lights of Mousehole.

I also love the Astronomy Picture of the Day from Saturday - an aurora AND a meteor.

And finally, in case I don't get round to writing again in time, don't forget the NORAD Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve (especially if your kids have never seen it) and the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race on Boxing Day. And if the days start to merge into one another, Is It Christmas? will help :-)

It's the last posting date today!

For second class post, anyway. I'm sure you all knew that and have already sent all your cards. I haven't, but maybe I will before the end of the day.

There's been a lot of singing for me in the past week. Saturday was the day of the two Pleiades gigs (one in Bury for FC United, closely followed by one at the Henry Watson Music Library). There were complicated plans, not only because we only had an hour between the two gigs and had to get from Bury to Manchester in that time, but also because Alison couldn't make it to Bury (and possibly not to the library either) so we had Amy standing in for her. There was also a possibility that Claire wouldn't be able to make it to the library. And there was the fact that part of the Bury gig was outdoors, with no possibility of cover, which meant that if it rained we could probably still sing (if there was an umbrella to stop our music getting wet) but we wouldn't be able to use our guitarist for fear of wrecking his guitar. So I had several different set lists planned - two for Bury (a fair weather one and a rain one) and three for the library (one for if Claire could make it - that list included the ones with the highest sop parts), one for if either Claire OR Alison could make it (there was one song in which Claire's part was vital but not very high, so Alison could sing it if Claire wasn't there, because Amy was still singing Alison's part) and a third for if neither Claire nor Alison could make it.

As it turned out, of course - and I should have expected it, because something like this ALWAYS happens - all five lists had to be scrapped, because on the day Amy woke up with a sore throat and no voice. This meant that some songs had to be left out entirely, and most of the others involved a bit of part-swapping so that all the parts were still covered. But it wasn't as complicated as it might sound to rearrange everything, because I know all the arrangements inside out, so I actually had the new instructions finished before I changed buses in Rochdale. The Bury gig went very well (although it was almost as cold inside the clubhouse as it was outside - Bury FC had turned the heating off for some reason) and we managed to get to the library with ten minutes to spare. By then, there was a new problem - my revised library set list relied on Alison to get there, but she texted twenty minutes before our slot was due to start, to say that she was stuck in traffic in Altrincham. We could still do most of the songs by using the same voice allocations that we'd had in Bury, but there were a couple that had too many parts. They were both towards the end of the set, and as it turned out Alison got there JUST in time for them. In fact, the only thing that went even slightly wrong during the library set was that Nigel started "This Little Babe" at a speed of about crotchet = 3000, and he was concentrating so hard on playing the right chords at the right time that it was impossible to slow him down. We just about managed to keep up, but an accurate description of the lyrics would be "babbled", I think! Not to worry.

Sunday featured a totally different style of singing - I was helping out Susan Oates by singing in the Oldham Hulme Grammar School for Boys carol service. There were six of us forming the alto section, including my friend Lindsey, whose nephew Aidan turned out to be the treble soloist in Once in Royal David's City (and he did it very beautifully). Lindsey's normally a soprano, and she says she now understands why the altos tend to get things right - she hadn't realised that so many of our parts consist of the same note all the way through!

Wednesday was the piano rehearsal for the carol concerts, and it went well, although there was a bit of a surprise when we arrived to find that And the Glory of the Lord (from Messiah) was on the programme, and we were supposed to be rehearsing it that very night... but we hadn't been told it was on the programme, so none of us had brought our Messiah scores. This was actually really good, because the conductor decided it was worth rehearsing it anyway on the grounds that we probably knew it from memory - and it turned out we did! I think a lot of people were quite surprised at how much they knew, and how good it sounded - and the conductor seemed VERY impressed. I don't think there are many choirs that could have done that, with no warning!

This weekend includes an orchestral rehearsal plus three concerts, with the final concert being on Tuesday. I look forward to seeing whether the silliness matches the standards of previous years!

The first of this week's links is the Manchester Evening News story about Pat - make sure you "view gallery" to see all the pictures.

Judy Paskell had a lodger a few years ago - a singer called Ron Samm. She's kept in touch with him since, and on Saturday she went to see him take the lead role in Otello in Birmingham. I was sure she must have been mistaken when she told me that he was the first black singer to take the role in the UK, but she is absolutely correct. The reviews are great, but do get Judy to describe the experience to you if you get a chance - it sounds amazing. In the meantime, here's a Guardian review, and an extra report from Tom Service, and a Times review, and news (from Intermezzo) that there is to be a TV programme about it.

Talking of opera, I was very surprised to learn that Nikolaus Harnoncourt - one of the mainstays of the historically informed performance movement - has recorded Porgy and Bess. (No reason why he shouldn't - it just seems odd!)

And here's a great Spectator article about various modes of transport used within operas.

Also in the Spectator, Peter Phillips discusses whether or not there is still any need for the term early music.

Tom Service discusses baton sizes.

It seems that El Sistema (the Venezuelan music education system) has begun in England, but you'll be shocked - SHOCKED! - to hear that the organisers are worried about spending cuts.

I'm sure most of you knew this, but if not: While Shepherds Watched used to be sung to the tune of On Ilkley Moor.

I really like this Spectator article about how music can help dementia sufferers.

ChoralBlog has a post that includes a spoof video imagining what musicologists might be able to say about the Beatles in a thousand years' time. The video didn't do much for me, but I found Allen's accompanying comments very thought-provoking - what he says is obvious, but I hadn't ever considered it in quite that way before.

You are probably aware of the current chart battle for the Christmas number one single (if you haven't, the short version is that some people have started a campaign to prevent the X-Factor winner from being the Christmas number one, by urging people to buy a specific different single). Freaky Trigger has an interesting post discussing this.

I've often linked to The Big Picture. This week they've published a selection of 120 of their best photos of 2009. Part 1 is here, and there are links at the end to parts 2 and 3. Spectacular as ever.

The Guardian has a list of some of the new words that have emerged over the past decade. I've never heard of most of these! How about you?

BBC News has some interesting comparisons between British and American chocolate. (I hadn't realised there were ANY differences, but then I've only been to the USA once, and that was over ten years ago.)

I mentioned a London quiz a few posts ago - here are the answers.

I also mentioned "Brick Factor" Lego auditions - well, they had a winner.

It looks as if Manchester will get Oyster cards after all! Yay!

And finally, this report of the recent world pie-eating contest amused me a LOT.

It is our duty to sparkle a little

Singing has been very helpful this week - a welcome distraction from a few very bad days (that included a broken-down boiler AND a repossession letter). Tonight was a frantic (but, as always, fun) rehearsal with my band, which has two gigs this Saturday afternoon and therefore thirty songs to rehearse. Needless to say, there wasn't time to rehearse any of them as thoroughly as we would have liked, but none of the songs are new, so I'm sure we'll be fine. Current favourites: the Carols for Choirs 4 a cappella version of Deck the Hall, and my own a cappella arrangement of 2000 Miles. But we also had fun doing This Little Babe (one to a part, plus guitar) and the old favourites such as Lonely This Christmas and Merry Xmas Everybody. You can hear all of these (and more) at the Henry Watson Music Library on Saturday from 4pm. (The event starts at 2pm, and you can also see City of Manchester Opera and the Cavendish Singers.)

Choir on Wednesday night was almost as frantic, because of course there were many Christmas carols (plus a bit of the Christmas Oratorio) to learn in time for next week's concerts. There was also an extra presentation to Pat for her fifty years in the choir - she got quite a few surprises, and when she said "what a pity you couldn't give me Willard White", it turned out that they'd managed to get a signed photo from him, dedicated to her! Very impressive. Also there were some excellent cupcakes!

The most amusing bit of the rehearsal was definitely the Jingle Bells argument - there's a bit in verse 2 where the ladies are supposed to sing a couple of lines, but in the past the men have done it while we whoop and shout "yee-ha!" etc. After much discussion, that's the way it will happen this year :-) I was also very amused, however, by Ding Dong Merrily - when this was announced, there was a sigh of relief, because the choir knows that one VERY well... but it turned out to be a version we'd never done before, and everyone had to rapidly go into sight-reading mode. I'm not sure quite why this was so funny, but it amused me for hours.

Anyway, a few links. I mentioned Glee a while ago (that new American TV series about a high school choir). Well, the pilot episode is on E4 on Tuesday, so you can see what all the fuss is about, with the rest of the series in the new year. I've seen twelve episodes of it, and I've found it quite silly but occasionally fun (especially the one where they use a Beyonce song to help the football team...)

Most of you will have seen by now that there was a review for our Messiah - pity it has a few errors, but it's a good review despite them.

But this cracked me up - a condensed version of Messiah. Sample: Lift up your heads, O ye gates / And be ye lifted up, ye doors / Unless you are the sort / That are on hinges / In which case / You can open / Normally. Hee!

This story from Intermezzo about Nathan Gunn introduced me to the concept of barihunks. (There's even a blog devoted to them!) Intriguing.

Tom Service has a great review of the decade in classical music which mentions our orchestra. He also tells us that Simon Rattle and the Berlin Phil are coming to London in 2011.

Talking of the Berlin Phil, Intermezzo drew my attention to an article in The Scotsman that mentions how much it costs to book them. See if you can guess before you look!

Great article on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Blog about the standard of Scottish compositions compared to Czech ones.

From ChoralBlog, news of the choral nominees for the 2010 Grammy Awards. I think we've already beaten at least one of them to a major award :-)

A nice thing in the BBC Music Magazine about how church choirs are not just for Christmas.

And, the plans for a Royal Opera House in the North are moving again. (More about this here.)

There will be a load of swimmers that even I've heard of (e.g. Michael Phelps and Rebecca Adlington) in Manchester next weekend, for something called Duel in the Pool. We'll all be singing carols at the time, but it's on TV if you want to watch.

I've seen all sorts of stories about this: a weird spiral in the sky over Norway. Seems to be genuine - I wonder which theory is correct?

There's going to be a festival in Manchester in 2012 to celebrate Alan Turing. About time.

I'm amused by this use of a waxwork of Robert Downey Jr on the London Underground. And, while we're on the subject of London, Londonist has a quiz to see how well you know London.

And finally, apparently redheads can get free travel in Wigan!

It's witchcraft!

Well, yesterday's Messiah was one of the most memorable yet, although not for musical reasons. I hasten to add that I don't mean to suggest it wasn't good musically - I thought it went very well, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. And so did I! It did have the one Messiah feature that I love the most, which is that the Hallelujah chorus was done properly, and just about the whole audience stood up without anyone patronisingly asking them to. Yay!

The soloists were great, too - all four of them. True, it was a countertenor instead of an alto AGAIN, but at least it was a very good one (Iestyn Davies - and I see from his website that he has several more Messiahs to do before Christmas). We also had Sarah Fox (soprano), Benjamin Hulett (tenor) and Derek Welton (baritone).

So why was it memorable OTHER than for the music? Several reasons. First of all, there was the whole falling-off-the-stage thing! This happened TWICE in two days... and it's possible that I might have CAUSED the second incident, with the power of my mind... On Friday, you see, when we rehearsed at the BBC, Margery fell off the stage just before the rehearsal started. I'm not sure exactly how, because I WASN'T ANYWHERE NEAR HER AT THE TIME (I just want to stress that, in view of what happened the next morning...) - I was actually walking into the hall with Dr Liz when the alarm was raised and people dashed out looking for Dr Liz. Luckily Margery was OK - she was just a bit sore, I think. She stayed for the rest of the rehearsal, but sadly didn't come to the concert.

The next morning, we had a rehearsal in the Bridgewater Hall. I was very excited when I saw the seating plan and realised that I'd been put on the end of a row. I absolutely LOVE being on the end of the row, so needless to say I hardly ever am! (Someone asked me at some point WHY I love it so much, and I couldn't give a definitive answer. But it's something to do with not feeling enclosed, I think. I hate crowds.) My excitement was short-lived, though, because Lindsey had a bad cough and wanted to sit on the end so that she could go out with less fuss if necessary. Of course I agreed, but in my head I couldn't help thinking "Oh well. But maybe her cough will get worse before tonight... or something else will happen that means she won't be here". Immediately I was horrified with myself for thinking this, but while I was still on the "I'm a bad person" thought, Lindsey only went and fell off the stage as well! And it was much more dramatic than Margery's fall, because Lindsey's chair went over the edge (she hadn't realised how little room there was, and I think she must have just moved her chair slightly until one side of it was balanced on nothing but air). She fell - with the chair - down three fairly steep steps, and hit the floor quite hard. And, alarmingly, there was quite a bit of blood spilled.

It wasn't as serious as it looked, thankfully, although it's probably just as well that Dr Liz and various other medical people were very near (actually, when Margery fell, even though she ASKED for Dr Liz, there were so many other concerned people gathered around when she arrived that she couldn't actually get near Margery!) Lindsey walked away - with help - and went to hospital to have stitches and checkups. But of course I felt INCREDIBLY guilty! I knew I hadn't really caused Lindsey to fall, but the timing of everything was just spooky. It all worked out for both of us, though, because she recovered in time to come and sing in the concert - and she insisted that I sit on the end. And I didn't fall off the stage \o/

If that had been the only incident, it would already have been the most memorable Messiah in years. But we had a huge surprise at the start of the concert. We were onstage, the orchestra had tuned up, the lights had dimmed slightly - we were just awaiting the conductor and soloists. But instead, our Music Director walked on. This was unprecedented, at a concert in which he wasn't involved. I wondered whether someone had died, or we'd just won some major award in the previous ten minutes, or something... but no. He hastened to reassure us that he was there only to bring good news - and he proceeded to make a lovely speech about Pat, one of our sopranos, who's been in the choir for FIFTY YEARS. He also gave her a commemorative brooch. It turned out that the concert was dedicated to her, and it said so in the front of the programme. Which explains why we weren't given programmes during the warmup as we usually are! Anyway, it was a lovely surprise, not least to Pat, who was as baffled as everyone else when he appeared. (The awards for long service are usually presented in orchestral rehearsals, but there's never been a fifty-year one before!)

Only a few links to share with you today, because I cleared my list on Friday.

There are still reviews appearing for the ENO Messiah, and the Independent actually has two - I think the first reviewer liked it rather more than the second one!

The New York Times has more information about the iPhone Orchestra I mentioned the other day.

From the Front of the Choir has a very interesting post about why basses get confused. It's not quite so relevant to basses who can read music, but several of the points he makes are valid whether they're reading music or not.

I found, quite by accident, a helpful page on the Manchester City Council website (I know! The shock!) which has details of all the Christmas attractions in the city centre.

And finally, I promised to list my most useful iPhone apps. I won't describe any of these in detail, because the links take you to iTunes pages that do that for me. However, if you want to ask me further questions about any of them, please do. (All of these are free, apart from two of them, which I'll indicate.)

My favourite iPhone apps

Music-related (in order of usefulness):

MiniPiano

Metronome

FourTrack (£5.99)

Shazam

SleighBells 3D

Santa's Sleigh Bells

Bravo Gustavo


Non-musical:

Air Sharing (£2.99)

Free Translator

thetrainline

Sudoku (Free)

Sky+


And, last but not least, the best one of all is part of the built-in software (i.e. you don't have to download it specially): Voice Memos. The recording quality (using the built-in mic) is unbelievable, and transferring the recording to your computer is no hassle at all - it does it automatically when you connect to iTunes. When I was voiceless in the last couple of rehearsals before The Kingdom, I recorded the orchestra and choir on my phone using this app, and emailed the results to a few choir friends (I don't have the recordings any longer, so don't ask me for them - it was just an experiment), and they were all rather impressed with the quality, given that it had been recorded on a phone. So, if you've been considering buying some recording equipment... just get an iPhone instead :-)

Mahler 8 is already sold out!

I'm quite shocked about this. Well, not really, because I knew it would sell out early, but the concert's not until 2nd May! Of course I've been telling people about it for months, and encouraging them to buy their tickets ASAP, but neither my mum nor my best friend had got round to it yet, so neither of them will be there, although they were both keen. (I've told them to pester the box office for returns, but I suspect they won't.) Oh well.

In the meantime, this week it's all Messiah, with a bit of other Christmas stuff. More on Messiah in a minute, but before I forget: good news! The Henry Watson Music Library, which (you may recall) cancelled its Christmas Music Day because it was due to close for refurbishment this month, has been persuaded to UNcancel the event now that the closure has been postponed. It's possible that I might have had something to do with this :-) Anyway, it will be on a smaller scale than in previous years, and I'm not sure who else will be there, but Pleiades will be performing at 4pm on Saturday 12th December. Come and see us - there will be mince pies!

Earlier in the day, we'll be singing at Gigg Lane before the FC United game. We did this last year and it was great fun, although I don't think I've ever been so cold. Several extra layers of socks will be in use this year! If you're around, you will be able to hear my arrangement of The Twelve Days of Cantona, with its totally ridiculous descant.

The Messiah gig is tomorrow night, and I'm off to catch the bus to the orchestral rehearsal shortly. But first, a load of links, many of which are Messiah-related.

From The Chorister, news of how someone used the Hallelujah Chorus to escape from a toilet.

Lots of stuff about the recent ENO Messiah, which I've mentioned before. Classical Iconoclast has a review and a discussion about how best to stage the piece. Intermezzo also has a review (this one includes the word "turkey" - you may be able to guess the gist of it...) The Classical Source was a bit more impressed. The Guardian didn't like the visual aspect. I was going to link you to the FT review, but they've recently made changes to their website that restrict how many times you can look at stuff, and I can no longer see it!

Via ChoralNet, a great article about the history of Messiah from the Smithsonian Magazine.

In the Spectator, Kate Chisholm talks a bit about Messiah but mainly about a recent episode of The Choir.

An AMAZINGLY useful article from The Chorister, about how to tell the difference between different voice parts. It even has video clips. And it taught me something - I'd never heard of the term "oktavist" until I read that post.

Via ChoralNet, an interesting post about the fact that lots of professional classical musicians are so miserable and/or pessimistic.

Maggie told me yesterday about the British Voice Association. There's some interesting stuff on their website, such as this page devoted to voice care.

Via my friend Chris Atherton, a theory about a possible biological link between music and speech, specifically to do with major and minor scales. I'm far from convinced by this, but if I start explaining why, I will miss my bus. Short version of my argument: major scales include both major and minor intervals, and so do minor scales. So if they're just looking at INTERVALS there shouldn't be any significant difference whether the music is in a major or minor key. (It's possible, of course, that I read the article too fast and misunderstood what they are claiming, in which case I apologise.)

Interesting article from the Guardian about singing out of tune.

Via Tom Service, Bachtrack have created a classical-music-event-finding app for the iPhone. Bachtrack provide a very useful service even if you DON'T have an iPhone - go and look at their website if you haven't before. (Sadly they don't have any of OUR concerts listed, but I don't have the authority to do anything about that.)

Talking of iPhones, a group of students has created an orchestra out of different iPhone apps. (I must do a list sometime of which musical iPhone apps I use - there are a few!)

Classic FM have a poll for the nation's favourite Christmas carol - is yours on the list? (The Darke version of In the Bleak Midwinter always seems to win these things, but I'm SO sick of it. I much prefer the Holst version.)

Via ChoralNet, a fascinating (and slightly disgusting) video called "Glottal Opera".

I was fascinated to see that there were auditions in Manchester last week for expert Lego artists - Brick Factor!

Via BoingBoing, an interesting account of a meal in the dark at a San Francisco restaurant.

From NASA's Earth Observatory, a photo of a lake with blue-green algae. Not particularly newsworthy - I'm just fascinated by the picture!

Most of you will be aware that ID cards are now available in Manchester, but have you seen one close up? Here's a photo of one. (Unlike many people, I have no real problem with the CONCEPT of ID cards, but I lost interest when I found they were going to cost money!)

A card which WOULD be useful, though, is a Manchester Oyster Card. Manchester Confidential updates us on the plans. (Anyone who EVER travels to London and doesn't have an Oyster card is insane, by the way. Get one immediately. It will save you lots of time AND money.)

The John Rylands Library is cooking medieval food.

If you haven't been past the Band on the Wall this week, you won't have seen their Giant Graphic Equaliser. Go and look!

An interesting report from Snopes (always the best place to check the truth of urban legends) about whether or not hand-driers cause disease. I've heard people argue passionately both ways, so it's good to see some facts.

I'm not planning to buy a games console any time soon, but if you are, you will find this Guardian article invaluable.

Via the Big Picture, the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Fabulous.

And finally, the best seventeen seconds of your day so far: Surprised Kitty.

If he delight in him

More Messiah this week, plus we tried a couple of things for the carol concerts. I actually quite like the sense of panic at this time of year (you know, the "so many concerts, so little rehearsal time" thing). And, just to be clear, I do love Messiah - that is, the piece itself. I like performing it - I just hate the rehearsals for it! I could write a long list of my favourite things about the actual piece. Top of that list would be the start of the Hallelujah Chorus, IF the audience stands uninvited (I hate it when the conductor patronisingly stands them!). (I realised last night that I like this SO much that I actually get a thrill when I turn a page in my score and see that we've reached "Thou shalt break them", because I know that "Hallelujah" is next!)

Also high on my favourites would be: 2. "He trusted in God", if done properly (i.e. with a true Lucius Malfoy sneer); 3. the bass part on the last page of the Amen Chorus; 4. the chords at the beginning of "Thy rebuke"; 5. the fast bit in "But who may abide" (unless they've annoyed me by getting a countertenor instead of a female alto, which seems to happen most years now). (I have no problem with the EXISTENCE of countertenors - although I've never heard one whose voice I've really liked - but it annoys me that there are already fewer opportunities for alto soloists than sopranos, so it doesn't help if countertenors take some of them. I realise this is a bit unfair of me, but I can't help it.)

But that's all in the performance, which isn't until a week on Saturday. My favourite bit of this week's REHEARSAL was right at the end, when we sight-read a bit of the Christmas Oratorio that was new to me - I do love sight reading, and sight reading Bach is more fun than most. Hint to people who find sight reading difficult - well, I've given lots of hints before (you can download some of them from the link on the right), but the single top tip would be: LOOK AHEAD MORE. I was HUGELY amused to see that there was an alto entry immediately after a page turn, and a large number of altos didn't come in because they didn't turn their page until the first barline on the page had already happened. But then I have to admit that when I get bored in a rehearsal because it's a bit where I'm not singing, I like to watch the rest of the choir to see which people turn their pages early and which people turn very late. I find it VERY illuminating.

It turns out that the Manchester Evening News did have a review of our Nocturnes gig - they just took ages to put it on their website.

From a website I've only just discovered - Muso - here's an article about routes into conducting. It includes comments from our ex-choral director. (Pity that the Muso website doesn't seem to have any RSS feeds - that's remiss of them. It means I won't look at it unless I remember, unlike all the sites that DO have RSS feeds, so that I automatically know when they're updated.)

From Tom Service, here's an all-too-rare article about the impact that performing has on the performers.

Many of you will have heard of HC Robbins Landon. I feel slightly guilty that I hadn't actually realised he was still alive until I heard that he'd died. Anyway, Tom Service writes about him.

Talking of things I hadn't realised, another is that Elgar played the trombone - badly (and again Tom Service has more to say about this). If it hadn't been for this story, I wouldn't have paid much attention to the reviews of the recent period instrument performance of The Dream of Gerontius, featuring Elgar's own trombone. As it is, I can tell you that neither the Guardian nor the FT thought much of it, and that apparently (according to the FT review) Elgar is out of fashion in most of England.

I think I linked to a video of a "complaints choir" ages ago, but I've only just discovered that this is apparently now a worldwide phenomenon.

From The Chorister, a really great post about how upset we can get when we get a poor reaction to our singing. I can identify VERY strongly with this.

Via ChoralNet, an article about why everyone in the choir needs to attend rehearsals, however good they are.

Did you know that Halifax is now a minster town? If you've never visited the church in question, I recommend it - it's lovely.

National Geographic had a photography contest, and The Big Picture has some of the entries. Spectacular pictures.

I feel oddly angry that from December the Circle Line will no longer be a circle. (The Times is calling it a tadpole.) It just seems so wrong!

Lovers of the Yorkshire Dales will be delighted to learn that Grassington Moor and Malham Cove will both feature in the final Harry Potter films.

And, finally - I can't seem to make myself read this article properly, because it includes several words that automatically make me glaze over and start skimming, but I find myself fascinated by the table halfway down the page, which compares our use of TV to our use of the internet.

While Luzar and Jim have tea

Brownie points to anyone who knows what famous Christmas song contains the line above (without googling!) It's one of several for which I was working out chords yesterday.

It's Messiah season for the next two weeks, which makes lots of the choir very happy. I'm enjoying it about as much as usual (i.e. not very much at all), but at least it will soon be over. (It's a great piece - I just hate the rehearsals for it, for reasons I've explained in the past and don't plan to go into again. Sorry if you don't agree with me - I know I'm in a minority!)

For choir members that haven't sung it before, I've put mp3s of all the choruses online for you on my mp3 page.

I'm much more excited about Christmas carols and Christmas pop songs. I'm rehearsing with my band tomorrow, and I have four new songs (well, new only in that we haven't tried them before) to give them in addition to the fifty-five Christmas songs already in our repertoire. As usual the main problem will be deciding what to miss out!

Anyway, here's some stuff I've seen online recently. A few musical items, and then lots of Manchester-related news!

Over on ChoralNet, Allen H Simon wrote this article about candy music. I particularly liked the description of Bruckner and Mendelssohn as well-prepared vegetables.

I've mentioned the vuvuzela in the past - that's that trumpet that's very popular in South Africa. Well, it seems that Japan as asked for them to be banned from the World Cup! FIFA's comment is That would mean one would have to take away the cow bells from Swiss fans and ban English fans from singing. I like that they seem to consider our national instrument to be the voice.

Peter Phillips, in the Spectator, gives us an article about music expressing moods that is well worth reading but hard to describe briefly!

I'm amused to discover that Stairway to Heaven was popular with DJs because it's the perfect length for a cigarette break. And there are also toilet tracks.

From Intermezzo, news that a German chamber music group is to give a recital in a brothel.

This might be nice for any amateur guitarists among you: a guitar lesson based on Happy Xmas (War is Over) (another song I wrote out yesterday).

This will mean nothing to people who weren't at tonight's rehearsal, but I wanted to look up a couple of things that were mentioned. To save you doing the same, here's Ralph Allwood's website and his Wikipedia page, and a page about St Peter's Ancoats, and the newspaper article about it.

I'm sure you've all seen the news that Manchester Victoria, the station in which I've probably spent more time in my life than all other stations combined, has been named as the worst station in the UK. (More on this story here, here and here.)

Did you also see that we won the battle over the National Football Museum? And it turns out that the 2012 Olympics could actually start in Manchester. (The Londonist blog mocked us a bit for getting excited by this. I suspect they're probably just a bit jealous.)

Via the J-Walk Blog, fifteen Google interview questions to make you feel stupid. See if you can get ANY of them. I got three, which I was quite proud of. (There were several that I didn't even understand when I saw the ANSWER.)

And finally, here's a place I really want to visit: Galloway Forest Park.

Those duplets and triplets'll get them every time...

Busy few weeks, hence the very long gap between posts - sorry about that. I unexpectedly got three weeks of full-time work (back at RNID, covering for someone who was off sick) which happened to coincide with a busy time for the choir AND several of my part-time things all happening at once. The money is very helpful, and will allow me to pay a bit towards some bills that have been overdue for months, but it's been a very exhausting three weeks. Last night, with it finally over, I slept for seventeen hours nonstop, and now I feel great! Time to get back to all my other stuff. (Things have gradually started to improve lately - I'll explain at some point what I'm actually doing, but not now because this post will be long enough as it is!)

My to-do list for tonight includes a new a cappella arrangement of a Christmas song that I've had in my head all week, but I wanted to do a blog post first, if only because I realised I had more than fifty links to share with you! I'll get to them in a minute. But first, what's been happening with the choir? Well, I know I said I was looking forward to the new Matthews piece, but this positive attitude didn't last very long - it's really quite dreary so far. But we've only got the first part of it, so maybe it will get a bit more exciting in the bit we haven't seen yet.

We've also done a very small amount of Messiah, but mainly the last few weeks has been ladies only, rehearsing Debussy's Nocturnes, which we performed on Thursday night. I haven't seen any reviews yet, but I will post any that appear. (I was a bit outraged to find that the orchestra was repeating the Nocturnes in Nottingham last night, without us, until I noticed that they were only playing the first two movements, which we're not in. Pity though - I would have gone to Nottingham!)

I've done this piece a few times before, and it's always exciting because we are part of the orchestra (rather than being a separate entity) and actually sit on stage next to the instruments. In the past we've sat scattered around the stage, in pairs. I think I sat next to the clarinets last time. This time, there were too many of us for that to work, so we sat in two rows at the back of the stage. We did still sing seated, though, so it felt more as if we were orchestral players rather than a choir that stood up when it was about to sing. I sat behind the clarinets and bassoons, and enjoyed following their parts in the bits before we sang - we used to be able to do that in the Free Trade Hall, when I was usually behind the trumpets or trombones, but in the Bridgewater Hall choir seats we're much further away from the orchestra.

The always-few-in-number 2nd alto section did itself proud. Not that we don't always, but we felt very good about ourselves during this project! There were only eight of us, compared to the twenty-six 1st altos (although only twenty of them were there at the concert), but we kept drowning out the 1sts :-) And there was a bit where we had to sing stupidly high notes, while the 1st sopranos had two bars' rest, and plan B was for us to drop out and let the sops do it. But Plan A was the one that was used in the concert.

Our movement is called "Sirens", and there was much discussion of sirens during the rehearsals. (The Starbucks logo, often seen as a mermaid, is actually a siren - here's an article about how it's changed.) David (the guest choral director) had invented a very convincing (and useful) story about what the Sirens were actually doing in each phrase of the movement. It seems that the consensus is that sirens don't do what you might expect with the sailors once they've lured them - they actually eat them! However, the Wikipedia article suggests a few alternative versions of the legend.

Oh, and I almost forgot - Gianandrea Noseda was at the concert! We were very excited to see him with our principal conductor at the interval. I'm not sure I've EVER seen them in the same place at the same time before - it's great to see that they're friends, and even greater that he was at our concert when he wasn't even conducting it!

Debussy is over now (although I think I'll have that harp-and-muted-trumpet bit from the 2nd movement in my head for a while yet) and next week is Messiah and carols. Also I'm rehearsing Christmas stuff with my band on Thursday. Which reminds me - latest news on the Henry Watson Music Library is that Manchester City Council has changed its plans, and the library is currently NOT going to close in December. The closure has been put back to some unconfirmed date in 2010, probably June. So the library COULD have had their Christmas music day after all, but the librarians told me that the plans have changed so many times that it's still possible that anything might happen! They did also mention that when the new library reopens, in four years' time, it's likely that the music library will be on the ground floor. You heard it here first.

Anyway, are you ready for about a million links? (Well, fifty, anyway...)

First, a great 20-minute video from Itay Talgam about how conductors do what they do. My favourite bit is right at the end, when he shows Leonard Bernstein conducting with just his face, but it's all good stuff. (In fact, if you've never seen any other TED talks, I recommend you explore the site a bit - there's loads of good talks on there.)

One of the most useful sites I've found recently - Chordbook. It's mainly useful for guitarists, but I'm not a guitarist and I've found it invaluable, mainly when I've been working WITH a guitarist and I wanted him to play a chord he didn't know. This site tells you the guitar fingering for every chord you can think of, with or without capo.

Another site that some of you may find useful - mp3 accompanist. I offer mp3 accompaniments as a service myself, so I found this while I was researching the competition. Looks like a very handy site. (They have lots of mp3s ready to sell, whereas I currently only have a few, and I only do them as a sideline, because they take quite a long time to create. So I'm happy to promote this site.)

Here's a story about two churches whose congregations sing too loudly!

And I'm sure you saw the story about the shop assistant who was told she couldn't sing while working unless she had a licence.

From Tom Service, a heartwarming story about Cape Town Opera.

From Intermezzo, news that stagehands at Carnegie Hall get paid more than performers.

A Cappella News tells us that the Vienna Boys' Choir is to admit girls. (EDIT: Allen H Simon, the webmaster of ChoralNet, says this is not true. I must admit I thought it was odd that A Cappella News didn't include a link to their source...)

BBC Music Magazine points people towards downloadable resources for the Sing Hallelujah project.

I've never heard of the Gold Badge awards before, have you? They're for music professionals other than performers.

ChoralNet tells us about a singing teacher who gives lessons using Skype. A great idea - I must try it sometime.

I'm intrigued by the ramifications of this Electronic Rock Guitar T Shirt from ThinkGeek. They also have a Personal Soundtrack T Shirt and a Drum Kit T Shirt. I can see the latter being a bit painful if your friends get carried away!

Talking of geeky things (as you know I love to), someone's found a way to play Guitar Hero without any guitars (plastic or otherwise!)

Also from ChoralNet, news that Leonard Bernstein's annotated scores are to released online.

Thought-provoking article about youth orchestras from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog.

Tom Service writes about Classic FM's recent list of the top 10 classical works loved by children, and a rival (and much more interesting) list from Radio 3. The Radio 3 blog has more about this.

4 Bars Rest is one of the best sites for brass band news, and they often have bits of non-brass musical news I haven't seen anywhere else. Recently they had two stories about anti-brass snobbishness in the musical world.

Haven't seen this anywhere else, but apparently Leonard Slatkin recently had a heart attack while conducting.

From ChoralNet, news of a Philharmonia Orchestra project that lets people experience being part of an orchestra from the inside. As part of the choir, we get to do this all the time (although not often quite so thoroughly as we did on Thursday), and I often grin to myself when I think of how privileged we are.

Here's a guy who tells us about how singing has helped his cystic fibrosis.

Remember that thing about the ENO Messiah project? The Radio 3 blog brings us an update, with a link to the backstage blog, which has stories from the participants.

An interesting article from The Chorister about whether or not choirs should have auditions.

Equally thought-provoking, From the Front of the Choir discusses the use of the word "choir".

The Guardian wonders whether or not Christmas songs can ever be cool.

Those of you not on Twitter yet may not be aware that not only is the world's best orchestra on Twitter, they also tell us useful bits of news there, such as the fact that the Mahler series is to be recorded and broadcast on Radio 3.

The Guardian has some suggestions about how to write a family-friendly opera.

The Spectator has a great article about Murray Perahia.

Here's a great article about artistic masterpieces in English cathedrals.

Manchester Confidential, one of my favourite sites, tells us about the ice rink in Spinningfields, and several other attractions in Manchester city centre this Christmas. They also have some interesting thoughts about the decline of King Street, which was once Manchester's top shopping street.

The Guardian has some thoughts about Manchester's literary renaissance.

BBC news has an amusing story about the difference between the sexes when it comes to gadget-related problems. I'm most amused by the news that "64% of male callers and 24% of female callers had not read the instruction manual before ringing up for technical support". RTFM, people!

The Man in Seat 61 tells us, again, why travelling to European destinations can be better by train than by air. (And members of my choir may be interested to see his explanation of how to get to Prague by train. There has been mention of a possible choir trip to Prague next year, and if it goes ahead I'll almost certainly be doing it this way!)

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks useful - a site that lets you do online optical character recognition i.e. you upload a photo that has text on it, and the site converts the text to a document which you could then edit.

In astronomical news, I'm quite intrigued to hear that there is water on the Moon! And also that NASA's Martian polar lander has survived. Now if only they'd find Beagle 2!

(And, since people often ask me about this: the extremely bright "star" that's currently visible low in the south west sky until about 10pm is Jupiter, and the pinkish (but not quite as bright) one that's visible low in the north-east at 10pm (and increasingly higher in the sky throughout the rest of the night, until it's due south at 6am) is Mars. You can also see Saturn low in the south-east from 3am to sunrise, but it's nowhere near as bright as Jupiter or Mars so it doesn't stand out so much. The brightest of all is Venus, visible low in the south-east just before sunrise.)

Finally, three fabulous recent photo collections from the ever-excellent Big Picture. The one depicting Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy is sobering and rather depressing, but the Berlin Wall collection is great, and the Martian landscape pictures are amazing. But still no Beagle 2!