Not for the first time, I find myself trying to type on my laptop while my cat insists on sleeping in my lap. I could move him, yes... but he generally crawls straight back there. And he's so cute!
Last week didn't entirely go according to plan, but it was very great fun. We started at FC United, where we discovered that the other band had cancelled, so we offered to sing some extra songs to help out :-) Oddly enough, although these went down very well, there was a totally different atmosphere to the one in previous years. Usually their request is for two specific football chants ("Pride of All Europe" and "The Twelve Days of Cantona" (both of which we have a cappella arrangements of) plus "Fairytale of New York" (which they love us to sing because it amuses them when posh people sing rude words - no, I have no idea why they think we're posh!) plus a couple of general Christmas songs. So it's usually a set of five songs, of which at least three are quite rowdy, and by the end, we generally end up singing along to the crowd rather than the other way round! But this time, we did a load of extra Christmas (non-football) songs, and they asked for the football ones to be at the end. The unexpected result was that they didn't join in at all, until the very last verse of "The Twelve Days of Cantona". I think the earlier songs put them in a listening mood. I still can't decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing!
One thing that was definitely good was that as a result of singing for longer in the bar, we weren't carolling outside for as long, so we didn't get as cold as usual (plus it wasn't a very cold day anyway - unlike today! Brrrrr!) I'd managed to almost lose my voice by then, though, as a result of being too enthusiastic with my Slade shouting (i.e. the "IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!" bit at the end of Merry Xmas Everybody). And Claire was just recovering from a sore throat, so the fact that we sang the chorus of the Champions' League Anthem three times didn't help her at all, as the soprano part is quite high and very exposed. (You can hear the whole anthem on the official UEFA site.)
We left Gigg Lane just as the match started, by which time we'd sung "The Twelve Days of Cantona" THREE TIMES - it was the best song for getting fans to put money in the collecting tins. (The money wasn't going to us, I hasten to add - it was all in aid of the club's Development Fund, with which they plan to buy their own ground.) Traffic into the city centre was predictably horrendous, but we still got to the City Library (the new one, on Deansgate) in plenty of time for our 4pm performance. The librarians were actually waiting for us at the door, which was very nice, and there was a bigger audience than we've ever had there. It was a really nice gig - we ended up adding an unplanned a cappella carol to the set when our guitarist broke a string and needed a few minutes to fix it, and then (even though we'd gone well over our time as a result of this) they insisted on an encore. Claire wanted to repeat 'O Holy Night' because her husband had arrived late and missed it, and it's his favourite, but I could hardly sing at all by that point, having just done the Slade shouting AGAIN. (I did consider asking someone else to do it, but I do look forward to shouting in a library, and usually no-one else WANTS to do it!) So we went with 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', because our kazoo player could cover me in that :-) (I think my favourite thing in the whole performance was the kazoo solo in Merry Christmas Everyone (that's the Shakin' Stevens one). We really need to record that with her there!)
(Which reminds me: Radio 3 are hosting a concert for Red Nose Day next year, and every member of the audience will be given a kazoo. Excellent.)
I had a carol service on the Sunday at which I'd agreed to sing, and by Saturday night I was thinking I wouldn't be able to. It wouldn't have been the end of the world, though, because there were several other altos (it was only Saturday when it would have been a real problem if I couldn't sing). But by Sunday afternoon I felt quite a bit better (it helps that I live alone, so I didn't have to talk to anyone other than the cat) and it turned out I could sing OK. But maybe I was incubating something anyway, because on Monday and Tuesday I felt like death warmed up (well, not even warmed up all that much!) I went to work, because I don't get paid if I don't, but on both days I went to bed as soon as I got home and slept for 12 hours (well, interrupted by regular instances of sitting up to blow my nose). By Wednesday I felt a bit better, but that's the day the cough began. I went to choir anyway (although I didn't attempt to actually sing), partly because I wouldn't have been able to sing in the carol concerts if I hadn't, but mainly because I didn't want to miss the return of Jamie!
I felt much better by Saturday, but hadn't actually tried singing until that afternoon. It turned out to be mostly OK, although the annoying tickly cough kept coming back from time to time, most often when I was humming. Once I realised this, I just had a rest in the humming bits, and it was much better. The other strategy was to keep a cough sweet in my mouth throughout the whole of each concert (not the same sweet, obviously!) because if the tickle came, I found that putting a cough sweet in at that point didn't work fast enough to suppress it. The only downside of this is that it's quite hard to sing with a cough sweet in your mouth - if you've never tried it, you may be surprised to hear that the main problem is excess saliva! Particularly in songs with lots of words (The Twelve Days of Christmas caused a bit of dribbling, between you and me...)
The carol concerts have been great fun so far, though (and quite eventful, what with projectile vomiting in the children's choir and someone passing out in the main choir - paramedics had to be called, but thankfully she is fine now). I imagine everyone's highlight is the children's choir singing Santa in Waikiki - with actions and acting and accessories! It is the best thing EVER, and I wish I could have a video of it. (I can't find anything out about the song - which apparently is by Stewart and Albrecht, arranged by Alwyn Green - or any recordings of it -does anyone know anything?) I love our world premiere of On Christmas Night as well, though, and I also really like The Crown of Roses. And of course Sleigh Ride is as fabulous as ever - this year the trombones have bought themselves special red instruments just for the occasion!
Oh, and everyone was in awe of Libby's hat:
(There wasn't a LOT of silliness in the orchestra - the red trombones is about as silly as they got - but I have faith that they'll redress the balance at the last concert tonight!)
And if you haven't seen the FABULOUS sparkly stags in my photo at the top of this post, do go and examine them next time you're in town. They're in front of the new council offices at First Street, and I think they're great. It's POSSIBLE that they're supposed to be reindeer, I suppose, but they are so very like Harry Potter's Patronus charm that I can't believe it's just a coincidence. Here's what they look like in daylight and then from the same angle at night. (They twinkle perfectly, because most of the lights stay on all the time while a few of them go on and off randomly. That's how twinkling should be done. Look, someone even took a video of it!)
The Big Picture doesn't have our stags, but it does have lots of other great Christmas photos.
Carol Ann Duffy introduces a whole load of new poems which may well become the carols of the future. Some of them are very lovely.
Bob Stanley, in the Guardian, has a guide to writing the perfect Christmas pop song. Step 3 is the most important ("Use sleigh bells!")
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