And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know!

I am very much looking forward to this week's choir rehearsal, because there is NO ELGAR scheduled \o/ Please don't think that I don't like any of it, though - there was a bar a couple of weeks ago that I thought was lovely, and then another one last week. I was just hoping for more than two good bars in a piece that's over two hours long!

I've been very busy with my school choir lately. We have two competitions coming up in March. I'm not a fan of music competitions, but since the powers that be expect us to enter, I'm keen for us to do as well as possible. The kids are great, but the problem is that they're all the sort of kids who do everything, plus they all keep getting ill lately, so we rarely have much more than 50% of the choir in any given rehearsal, and this makes it hard to learn the parts. But I think we'll be ready in time. Their strength is that they are all very musical, so they can sing in 4-part a cappella and still be in tune at the end. I'm hoping this will impress the judges! (I strongly suspect that the other school choirs in the competition will not attempt a cappella, and will not split into more than two parts.)

And that's not the end of the current singing. My band is providing the entertainment at a Valentine's Day event at the Summit Inn near Littleborough (on Todmorden Road), so we had a rehearsal for that on Thursday. Such fun! It's always difficult when you're rehearsing for a gig that involves two 40-minute sets, when you only have one possible rehearsal and it's two hours long! We had 32 songs on the agenda (lots of our songs are from the 50s/60s and are very short!) and 29 of them made it onto the final set list... and we did sing almost all of them last Thursday (some of them twice!) There were a few that we all agreed we know so well that we didn't need to rehearse them. It was a very satisfying evening, though - lots of our songs are a cappella, and time and time again I played the chord on the piano after we'd got to the end of the song, and found that we were perfectly in tune every time \o/

Paul Mealor (the guy who wrote Wherever You Are for the Military Wives) has written a new piece which includes a bass note that is believed to have never been sung before. It's certainly got him some publicity, but I'm a bit baffled about why he'd write something that will probably never be performed again! It's not even as if they've got a bass in mind that they know can sing it - they're searching for one (details on the BBC Music Magazine article if you think you can sing that low!)

I hadn't actually realised that Philip Glass had written nine symphonies - I was only aware of one! - but he has, it seems, and the Guardian has an article about the curse of the ninth symphony.

Stephen Hough likes to break the rules: here he wonders why the standard concert formula of overture/concerto/interval/symphony is so invariable.

The BBC has announced the finalists of this year's Young Musician competition. No oboes! Also no violas, no double basses and no euphoniums. But I'm intrigued by the fact that - unless it's a huge coincidence - there appear to be two brothers competing against each other in the percussion section!

This seems amazing to me, but apparently audiences for 'weird modern stuff' are increasing.

In a similar vein, an OAE player writes about the recent gigs they've been doing in pubs.

Some Manchester news: a bizarre decision by the city council to close one end of Deansgate to traffic. I think there'll be chaos!

I like this idea, though: in Bristol, they've launched their own currency.

You couldn't make it up: here is a list of wartime golf rules.

And, for those who have had a stressful day and want to blow things up: this website gives you the chance. (It's not the same explosion every time - keep pressing the button!)