"I disagree! I'm talking about the shape of the horn, not the position."

Well, I seem to have not blogged for ages! I think I was distracted by the FA Cup Final - the buildup, then the weekend itself, then the not-being-in-the-mood-to-do-anything-cos-we-lost. I enjoyed the New Wembley experience, though - it's an impressive place, despite the less than impressive result. (The hand-driers, in particular, are amazing! This may seem a bit of an incongruous thing to say, but if you'd experienced their power you'd understand... I suspect they were specially souped up in order to balance the extreme puniness of the WHGS hand-driers...)

Anyway, here are my Wembley pictures. At least I did get to spend the weekend with a couple of friends I haven't seen in far too long, so the weekend wasn't entirely a disappointment!

Choir-related note: On the tube back into central London (which was so full that no-one could move - we were all packed in like sardines), I ended up in a carriage that was 90% full of Chelsea fans, and unsurprisingly they were in very high spirits. I had my Ronaldo shirt on, and they kept shouting "Ronaldo, Ronaldo, give us a song!" And I chickened out - I felt uncomfortable being on my own, totally hemmed in by these men... plus, one of them had an air horn which he kept blasting right by my ear, and I was actually worried that my eardrums might burst. As it was, I developed a massive headache as a result of the noise. But I kept thinking that in some way I was letting down the choir because I was asked to sing and I couldn't. How stupid is that?!

On a more cheerful musical note, I had a rehearsal last night with my band, which was (as ever) great fun. It was even better last night because our flautist, who moved to the USA a couple of years ago, was back for a visit, and all the songs sound much better with flute. The only sad bit was that Rachel was ill and couldn't make it, and that meant that she didn't get to sing California Dreaming (her favourite song) with the actual flute solo in it! Last night did show the extreme power of muscle memory, though - Anne (the flautist) hadn't played her flute since leaving the UK, and lots of the solos are much harder than the California Dreaming one (we make her play all the twiddly bits in the Abba songs - not for beginners!), yet she played everything practically perfectly! She was more surprised about this than anyone, and said that it must be because she worked so hard to learn those solos years ago when she first had to play them.

Anyway, no doubt some of you are wondering what the choir's been up to. Well, we are still learning The Kingdom. There's an awful lot of it! The concert is a week on Sunday; Wednesday this week was the first time we got almost all the way through it (we finished 10 minutes late and still didn't QUITE get to the end), and I think everyone was aware that ideally we would have liked to spend longer on several bits. Some bits are a lot more familiar than others - the tenors' big tune on page 78 ("he who walketh upon the wings of the wind") is the bit I've had on the brain for weeks, although the ladies' bit just after that ("the Lord put forth his hand and touched their mouth") isn't far behind. (Jamie said last week that that bit "shouldn't sound like Flanders and Swann... but it does!")

There are still an awful lot of wrong notes, which I hope people are going to look at before next week. From the alto point of view, lots of people are still getting "what meaneth this?" wrong on pages 85 and 95, and almost all of them are singing an F instead of a G for the first note of page 23. The most amusing alto mistake, though, wasn't either of these - it's from last week's warmup, and I'm still giggling every time I remember. Maggie was doing that exercise with the runny "nooey nooey nooey nooey nee" where we step and clap at the same time. She indicated which way to move first, and most people managed this, but most of the first altos on the front row were going consistently the wrong way, which very much amused those of us behind them. But even funnier was a minute later when we did the contrary motion scale - sops going up, altos going down - and Maggie said "bend your knees when you get to the top note... that means, of course, that you won't all bend at the same time..." Well, the movementally-challenged front row first altos couldn't cope with this at all, and they all bent their knees on the bottom note.

I realise that this may not sound like the most entertaining thing in the world, but you had to be there :p

(By the way, Maggie had told us, just before this, that the alto section solo in the Poulenc was the highlight of the concert for her and had moved her to tears. 'Exquisite' was the other word she used. Nice to be singled out for a change!)

I think many of the altos were probably cursing me this week. Firstly, at the request of another member of the choir, I asked them all to wait behind at the start of the break (even though Jamie had gone on 10 minutes longer than he'd said he would) so that she could come and speak to them about a concert she wanted some singers for - but she then went to have two conversations while they all sat there waiting for her (quite a few, unsurprisingly, refused to wait and went to have their tea anyway). I presume she'd just forgotten she'd asked the altos to wait! But then, Jamie found me and asked me if Judith and I would have a word with the altos and ask the ones who wouldn't stop chattering to please shut up. Great, I thought, they're already cursing me! (It actually wasn't as bad as it sometimes is - there were only three or four people that were talking as far as I could see - but they did indeed talk practically nonstop throughout the first half, and it was certainly distracting me, so I can imagine it must have driven Jamie up the wall.) But the talking was nonexistent in the second half, so it seems to have worked, and hopefully Jamie was happier. (Quite a few people came up to speak to me about this afterwards. A couple of them said "I don't think that was necessary - I certainly wasn't talking, and I couldn't hear anyone else either"... but the majority said "thank goodness something was said, the chatterers are driving me mad!")

Which leads me, somewhat indirectly, onto Jamieisms! The one in the title is my favourite, but it's the whole exchange that amused me. He was explaining to the sops how they should sing a particular note, and ended up saying "sing it from your rhino horn". Pat said, very seriously, "surely you mean a unicorn horn?", and Jamie, equally seriously, said "I disagree! I'm talking about the shape of the horn, not the position." There then followed an explanation of positions and shapes of rhino and unicorn horns and their respective relevance to singing. It was enlightening :-)

Also last week was a bizarre request to "sing as if you're singing to an alien who's just arrived on Earth and you're trying to explain the difference between men and women". It's bizarre because the passage in question (on page 106) bears no relation to any of this! This week's best one was a request to the sops and tenors to sing as if they were Gonzo the Muppet hypnotizing a chicken.... but I also liked "I've always wondered why 'monosyllable' has so many of them."

"Where are we breathing?" "You know what? I was actually hoping 'never'."

Today's choir rehearsal was almost six hours long (note to self: TAKE MORE THAN ONE BOTTLE OF WATER NEXT TIME IT'S THAT LONG) and I went to bed far too late last night due to World of Warcraft, so I'm now so tired I'm about to go to sleep. But I thought I'd do a quick post first, mainly because I did a quick search to try to find more info on the Eddie Izzard sketch Jamie acted out, and was delighted to find a video of the very thing. It's from this DVD and describes Eddie's experience of learning the clarinet, amongst other things. (This came up because Jamie noticed that the 2nd alto part in several bits of The Kingdom is rather like 'musical polyfilla', much like Eddie Izzard's 3rd clarinet parts...)

Other Jamieisms (plus the one in the title):

"Have you thought about that part of your body today? Why not? ... Because it's WEIRD."

"Ladies, what lovely chests you have!" (to protect Jamie, I should clarify that this referred to our chest register voices...)

"Altos, this is where your chests come into their own." (ditto!)

"Sing the end of the phrase loud, but piano."

"Surprise your voice!" (This was to the sops on page 129... it was a bit visual, you had to be there!)

"1st altos and 2nd sops, try singing that phrase as if you have a mini Hulme Bridge inside your mouth and you're singing over the top of it." (this was on page 153 and referred to this bridge)

"When you've got two notes together which are the same pitch, the first of which is correct and the second of which is not... I'm not sure what I can do to help you."

Sleep now. Need to be up tomorrow to get a few more job applications sorted out before I go to see United collect the Premiership trophy :-)

"In cricket, they have a thing called the TFC award.."

"... It's for players who don't score any runs or make any catches or bowl anyone out - who don't, in fact, do anything at all. It means 'Thanks For Coming'. And, tenors, you are tonight's recipients!"

I'm paraphrasing Wednesday night's only Jamieism, because I didn't write down anything other than "TFC award" at the time. But that's more or less what he said. It was a little harsh, I felt, because it's not as if they did nothing... but they did make us shake our heads in disbelief when Jamie was trying to get them to sing one of their lines slowly (in an attempt to get the notes right) and they went hurtling off at almost double the speed he was beating!

We did the middle section of The Kingdom fairly thoroughly, and it sounded much better by the end. Tomorrow we get to spend most of the day on the piece - maybe we'll manage a full runthrough! Should be possible, since we've done enough note-bashing. We'll see.

Lots of people have written to point out that we got a 5-star review in the Guardian for the Poulenc gig! The Manchester Evening News only gave us 4 stars, but at least they MENTIONED the choir, which they don't always! I haven't seen any other reviews. There have been quite a few more for the Cello Festival (The Times; Daily Telegraph; Independent), but none mentioned our contribution. For that matter, neither of the Poulenc reviews mentioned the Satie encore! I suspect some of these reviewers don't actually attend thw concerts :p

And finally, I'm shocked to discover that there are plans afoot to move part of Chet's! It's only Pal, not the old bit, and it's true that it's falling apart... but that's my teenage years they're demolishing!

"Did you get to the pelvis yet?"

This is from the warm-up at Sunday night's Poulenc gig... Jamie went off briefly to speak to the youth choir, and left us in the middle of our stretches. On his return he said "How far did you get? Did you get to the pelvis yet?"

There was also: "Can we have more sound on the fff bar?... Tenors, that doesn't really mean you..."

and, my favourite, "Can you write 'adrenaline' and then cross it out?"

(While I was looking through my score, I noticed a Markism from the other day that I'd missed: "The 1st basses are up anyway, if you'll pardon the phrase!")

The concert went well, although I don't think it was the best we've done it. I was a little frustrated that some people (mainly, but not entirely, a few of the Youth Choir) seemed to have trouble singing ppp and/or watching Mark (I didn't think we were together in lots of places)... but, as I kept telling myself, singing very quietly is one of the hardest things to do, and singing exactly on the beat defeats many choirs. I think it was good enough that most of the audience wont have thought anything was amiss - I'm just being fussy. In fact, I did get a couple of lovely emails from members of other choirs who were in the audience, and I'd love to tell you what they said, but I asked the first emailer for permission to quote him and he said no, so I'd probably better not quote the second one either (that email arrived later, so I didn't ask them both at the same time). But rest assured it would delight you if you could hear what they said :-)

It sounded pretty good on the radio (well, I say radio - radio reception where I live is practically zero, so I listen via Sky) - if you missed it, remember Listen Again....


Oh, and the Radio 3 announcer helpfully told us that Pascal Rogé's encore was indeed by Erik Satie (which Sue Oates recognised immediately - she knows her piano music!) and that it was the fifth of his Gnossiennes. And here's an mp3 of it (sadly a different pianist, but you can't have everything!)

Couple of things to finish. The Manchester Evening News reviews the Cello Festival, but doesn't mention us. And I only just found out that the Hallé are only doing four Proms this year, because theyre playing in the Manchester International Festival - The Ground Beneath Her Feet with Mark, and The Cunning Little Vixen with Kent Nagano! (and the lovely Ed Gardner)

I discovered this while I was looking up Carl Davis's sport-themed concert, because someone's written a Fantasia on Football Songs which is to be performed at it, and he emailed me to ask if I know the origin of the tune "Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee"... which I don't. Do any of you?

"Sopranos, it's not rocket science...."

"...it's the SAME NOTE YOU JUST SANG. You were totally seduced by Mr Jones on the piano!"

(tonight's best Jamieism, referring to a note near the end of the Poulenc. It was followed by:

"Altos, I have to admit that I was so gobsmacked by what I was hearing on the other side of the choir that I have no idea what you sang.")



Busy night for the choir last night. Orchestral rehearsal for the Poulenc, which went pretty well (seems like ages since we've been in the Bridgewater Hall!) (I'm pleased to report, by the way, that not only are all the 1st altos now singing a G in that place where they used to sing an F sharp, but that the basses are now correctly singing a confident B flat in that place where they used to sing an A flat. I have no idea whether or not the sopranos got their rocket-science C, though - I can't hear them at that point.) Then there was a 2-hour break, during which we all moved to the RNCM, and met again at 10 p.m. to rehearse for our late-night Cello Festival gig. (Am I the only one who's disappointed that there appears to be NO publicity for this in town? There's not even a banner outside the college, unless I've missed it. I know they don't NEED the publicity, since most of it sold out ages ago, but it's a major international event - Mancunians should know about it!)

We were due to go onstage at 10.30 p.m., but I had a feeling it would be much later, and I was right - it was gone 11 p.m. before we went on. We did have a brief rehearsal - without the cellist! - which included the instruction "Maybe don't even breathe. It's too human." After that there was quite a bit of sitting around waiting, but everyone was in a very good humour so it was fine.



I have to say that the highlight of the sitting around was Gladys - we rehearsed in the Opera Theatre, and then sat in the audience seats there while waiting. Anyone who came in to join us (after they'd been back to the changing room, say) had to enter stage right and walk forward across the stage. Gladys was the first to do this, and did an excellent bit of ballet for our entertainment! Sadly I was too slow to get a picture, sorry. But after that, everyone who appeared was greeted with rapturous applause and whooping. Some reacted to this more amusingly than others :p

We did eventually get to perform, and the audience applauded us the whole time we were walking on, which is a first, I think. (I suspect if they'd known how many of us there were, though, they might have stopped sooner!) Svyati was great - it relies so heavily on the men, and they were perfect. (Although, I'm pretty sure one of the basses started his first note on "yo" rather than "oh".... maybe he was thinking about pirates?) Jamie didn't introduce it - I presume he thought the audience would be sufficiently musical that they'd know not to applaud till he lowered his arms, and this turned out to be the case. Hard to tell how much they liked it, but I think they did!

Anyway, Poulenc again tomorrow. Couple of things first, though: firstly, did you know that today is the Hallé's actual 150th birthday? Or that Russell Watson is due to sing the National Anthem at the FA Cup Final? (You'd be forgiven for thinking it's Jon Christos, unless you read that article carefully, but it's not - although he claims he was asked first...) And finally, I think we should get William Eddins as a guest conductor :p

"Gloria - it's a better name than Chardonnay!"

So, tonight there were Markisms rather than Jamieisms, because it was the piano rehearsal for the Poulenc. It went pretty well - in fact we finished really early, so it must've been good! Mark arrived while we were warming up, and as usual a huge grin appeared on his face when we did our tractors - that always amuses him. In fact, he suggested that sometime we should do one of our warmups for the public - he reckons they'd be amazed...

I didn't feel quite as unimportant tonight as I did on Tuesday. I forgot to say at the time, but Tuesday was one of those rehearsals that's really frustrating, because Jamie kept telling *all* the altos off for not doing things that I, and the people round me, were actually doing. This happened so many times that Clare and I started to wonder whether he could actually hear us singing at all! I suppose we *were* heavily outnumbered - in the second half of the rehearsal on Tuesday there were 17 1st altos and only 5 2nds. A few people had left at the break because they weren't doing the Tavener gig, but not many. It's definitely quality rather than quantity in the 2nd alto section these days, but all the quality in the world is no use if Jamie (and therefore presumably everyone else) can't actually hear us!

Anyway, as I said, it was better tonight. Although, we always love Mark's rehearsals anyway! His Chardonnay quote related to a radio play he'd heard in which there was a woman who called her children Wayne and Chardonnay. I'm not entirely sure what made him think of this when trying to explain that he wanted the word "gloria" to sound a bit different, but there you go. Oh, and I was amused that he asked "Why do you sing that quieter?" about the very same bar that caused Jamie to say "It's almost as if the composer wrote 'piano, slightly slower, please'..." :-)

(Mark told us, by the way, that Poulenc's idea of the Gloria is that the words are being sung by "angels poking their tongues out and Benedictine monks playing football" - i.e. slightly irreverent.)

The Markism that got the biggest laugh of the night was actually "It's like first aid, isn't it?" (which referred to Jamie teaching the tenors their notes in the 2nd movement). But I was more amused by "It's a question of finding the music in the coo" ('coo' being the first syllable of 'qui') :-)

I've finally decided what it is that the "Domine fili unigenite" movement reminds me of - it's a song from Oklahoma! called "I cain't say no". I'm not entirely sure why, though - it's not THAT similar...

Now, you'll notice I haven't mentioned my trip to Milan! You may well think that this is because United got hammered, but in fact it's because it occurred to me that I quite often don't get round to mentioning choir stuff till I've written for ages about other stuff, and maybe it puts people off.

Plus, United got hammered :-(

However, apart from the result, it was a great day. I visited the Cathedral and La Scala opera house, both of which were fabulous. But I'd known beforehand that they were there, and had planned to see them. What I didn't know was that the Cow Parade was there! I'm sure most of you will remember it visiting Manchester (in the summer of 2004 - seems much longer ago!), so you will understand how thrilled I was to find it again (not the same cows, of course - they're always specially designed by local artists). Anyway, for those who are interested, I've put my photos online (and they're not ALL of cows!) - go have a look. Hint: if you go for the slideshow option you can see the photos without having to keep clicking, but you'll miss the accompanying text.

I got home at 6.30 on Thursday morning, having got off the plane at 3.30 a.m. (That may seem a slightly long gap, but that's because I got home by public transport, which is not as frequent as I might have liked - but it was much cheaper than getting a cab!) I was quite startled to be met by a row of photographers and reporters when I emerged in the arrivals hall - several of them took photos of me (no idea what papers they were for, though), and I was interviewed by someone from Key 103. This is not because of any special competence on my part - I suspect it's because everyone else put their coats on when they got off the plane, but as usual I was too hot, so I was the only one who was visibly wearing a United shirt :-)

"Put the consonants in... but don't."

Well, I have to be at the airport at 6 a.m. and it's now past midnight, but I'm waiting for one of my cats to come in, so I thought I'd do a quick blog post. If he's not appeared by the time I've finished, he'll be outside till 5.30 a.m. :p

We had a long rehearsal tonight, but it didn't seem that long, because it was in three distinct sections - we started with Poulenc, then John Summers and Geoff Owen came to tell us about plans for next season, then we rehearsed Svyati with Ivan Monighetti. I can't tell you any details of what John and Geoff said, because it's still under an embargo, but I wrote it all down, so I'll post it in a few days when I'm allowed to!

We'd remembered Svyati pretty well, although I still can't do the breathing. Ivan played the last note as a G natural, which is what's printed in our copies AND what's played on the recording I've got. When we did it with Jane, she did a G sharp, and Jamie said that was correct because it was a misprint. I'd love to know who's right! I liked it better with the G natural at first, but now I've got used to the G sharp I think I prefer that...

David Evans told me about a Jamieism from the men's sectional last Thursday. "Gentlemen, present it like you're saying 'There you are. Cottage pie. With broccoli. Don't leave it there, or the pigeons will come and eat it.'" ... I'd love to say that I could tell by the way they sang tonight which bit that referred to, but I couldn't. Maybe it was one of the movements we didn't do tonight :p

(The cat just came in, but I may as well finish now!) David also persuaded me to be a temporary alto rep, standing in for Dr Liz, who's taken a leave of absence till September. I did send a note round the section to see if anyone else wanted to have a go, but no-one did. So I get to not only whinge but also to pass on other people's whinges :-)

All my Jamieisms tonight are from the Poulenc. The consonant one in the title was my favourite, but we also had: "In heaven there are no trains to catch." Oh, and "Mind, body, soul... and goo." But now I must sleep!

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

Some mp3s of The Kingdom for you all:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm pretty sure the other one is called Becky

I went sailing tonight, as I usually do on Mondays, at Hollingworth Lake. But this time one of the Youth Choir altos was there too! I recognised her immediately - at least I thought it was her, but when she didn't recognise *me* I thought maybe I was mistaken. But when I was dismantling my boat at the end she asked me if I was in the Hallé Choir. I was delighted, because she is one of the only two people in the Youth Choir whose names I always remember (because they've been in since the start), so I was just about to impress her by knowing her name, when my mind went blank! Very annoying. I was determined to remember it, but I didn't get the chance because someone else told me it was Katie while I was still thinking. Oh well. Sorry, Katie, I did know really! (She told me it's her birthday on the day of the Poulenc concert, so when people sing "happy birthday" to her, as I'm sure they will, you'll work out who I'm talking about!)

(I thought there were only two HYC people I knew the names of, but I've just remembered James the Red-Nosed Reindeer as well...)

As a matter of fact, I also went sailing during the Easter holidays, with Soprano Claire - she hadn't done it before, and we had a great time. We didn't capsize, but we did crash into a wall (my fault, I wasn't looking where we were going!) We sang some duets afterwards, and played some piano duets. The previous day I'd also played piano duets, this time with Abi - she's REALLY good (much better than me, whereas I think Claire and I are of a similar standard) so we had a bash at the piano duet arrangement of The Planets that Dr Liz bought me a couple of years ago. Unsurprisingly they're really hard, and I've never managed to get very far with them with anyone else, but Abi and I played more or less the whole thing, although some bits were rather more accurate than others!

And to complete the musical-things-I-did-while-choir-was-on-a-break, last Monday we had a Pleiades rehearsal, but we were a bit depleted, so since it was just Rachel, Alison and I, we sang ALL THE TRIOS THERE ARE. (Well, probably.) Great fun.

Lots of singing yesterday, because we had an all-day Kingdom rehearsal, and it was fabulous! Oddly enough there were no Jamieisms that I noticed, despite Jamie being back (well, unless you count "Wonderful pain!" during the warmup), but we sang most of the piece. And we sang lots of it in long sections of sight-reading, continuing for page after page even if almost everything sounded terrible. I know some people hate it when we do that, but it's SO good for improving sight-reading. And I love it!

Anyway. Ladies' sectional tomorrow, which I also love, but unfortunately I'm going to have to miss it because I'm off to Old Trafford. I've been very good and not missed any other choir things due to football, but this is a Champions' League semi-final so I can't bear to miss that!

(Oh, and ladies might like to note that there's, erm, a football match on tomorrow night. Plan your journey accordingly.)

Finally: Hallelujah Nuns. Can you imagine how much fun that must have been to rehearse? :p

He plays on the left, he plays on the riiiiight

Do you recognise that tune? I've had it on the brain for the last couple of weeks. It's called "Optimistic Voices" and is from a really famous film - but which one? Here's a slightly more complete version (with 3-part harmony), and here's the mp3 from the film soundtrack. Answer at the end of this post :-)

I suppose I should write something about this week's rehearsal, but I don't really have anything to say about it. No Jamieisms because it was Fanny. We spent the whole time on Poulenc, and I now know it a lot better than previously, but I really didn't enjoy the rehearsal at all. I think this was probably more to do with me being in a bad mood than anything else - I know there were lots of people who did enjoy it! You'd think I'd be really cheerful, having not had to go to work, and I must say that's certainly pleasant... no luck on the job-hunting though (although that's not really why I was in a bad mood), and what was particularly frustrating this week was that I found the *perfect* job, but it was in Brighton. I reckon it would be possible to do it from home and only visit Brighton occasionally, but sadly I didn't manage to persuade them of that... (I'm hoping they'll rethink that decision when they find that there's actually no-one else in the country who fits the whole of their person specification! We'll see!)

Anyway, I need to be up to go to an all-day choir rehearsal in a few hours, but I seem to still be awake, and I think I need to write a post about football chants. I've been thinking about this for ages - and yes, it is choir-related... more than you might expect!



This chant is the one that started me thinking about football chants from a choral perspective. It looks quite straightforward, doesn't it? But it amuses me every time I hear it, because the crowd NEVER finishes it in the same key in which they start! They start on roughly the same pitch each time (which in itself is fascinating, but that's not what I've been thinking about) and get through the first half of the tune with no tuning problems. But then it goes up.... and the top note in bar 6 is never anywhere near an octave above the starting note! So at that point the crowd changes key, coming down the scale from the top note they actually reached rather than the correct one, the result being that they finish a tone or two lower than they started. Do have a listen next time United are on TV, it's hilarious! (Well, I suppose it's quite possible that it's only me that's amused by this....)

What's even more fascinating, though, is that there are some songs - with octave ranges - that the crowd CAN sing in tune. And at this point I need to refer you to a whole load of examples (tell you what, if you have no interest in what I'm actually talking about, you could always use these for sight reading practice!)

Manchester United chants, sheet music: page 1, page 2, page 3

(I started by writing out the ones that illustrated my point, but then, being me, I got obsessive about it and decided I needed to write out ALL the current chants. I must say I didn't realise there WERE so many different ones in actual usage until I undertook this task, so that in itself was interesting! There are actually a few more, but I wasn't 100% certain of the words so I need to check before I add them. But all these are not only in current usage, I heard them all at Old Trafford TODAY.) (Well, I suppose strictly it's yesterday now.) (And, actually, I don't think I did hear the Ryan Giggs song, but he only played half the game and wasn't very good! But I included it anyway, because it's the one that started the whole thought process.)

Anyway, as I was saying... I find it fascinating that the crowd has such a problem with the Giggs song, because there are many other songs they sing that have a similar range, yet they stay in tune. And I've come up with a theory about why that should be - I think it might be because the tune starts on its lowest note, AND that note is the tonic. To compare, let's look at the other chants that have a range of roughly an octave. Example 2 (Mourinho) goes down to a low F and up to an E, but it starts on the dominant - a helpful pivot point of C. Example 5 (That boy Ronaldo) starts on its lowest note, but that note in this case is not the tonic but the dominant, so the mind (assuming it knows the tune) has an unconscious pivot point (the B flat) which is higher than the start note. Example 12 (You are my Solskaer) is similar (pivot note being the A).

Example 4 (Que sera sera) starts on the tonic, but in this case it's almost the highest note. It's interesting that in this case the pitch actually doesn't drop noticeably by the end of the tune - how often, in choir, does someone have a descending line in which they have to be reminded not to descend too far? If we were asked to learn "Que sera sera", I'd bet large sums of money that at some stage Jamie would demand that the second note be really high, etc. And this brings me on to my other fascination - descending minor thirds. The interval that gets mentioned more frequently than all the others combined. Just look at how many chants are based on it! Let's see - examples 3 (U-N-I-T-E-D), 6 (there's only one Ronaldo), 7 (Rooney), 8 (come on you Reds), 9 (Red army), 11 (Manchester), 13 (Ole)... Why is it that this interval seems to be the one that crowds latch onto, and seem to like to sing - and don't sing too badly - yet it's the bane of choirs' existence?

Anyway, I don't actually have answers to most of my questions, I just wanted to share with you something that's been on my mind for months! If I refine my theories I'll let you know :-)

To change the subject, I'll finish by sharing a load more links:

I found a couple more pages of choir humour. There's some duplication between the two of them, and some stuff that I already had on my website, but there are a few new bits that I think will amuse you: Rehearsal Police etc., and choir aptitude test etc. (on that second page I particularly like this sight reading test!)

I recently discovered a blog that made me cry with laughter. He's doing this thing called "Venn That Tune" - for example, this is the first one . If you don't find that one funny, there's probably no point you looking at the later ones!

Some great posts on the Singer's Life blog recently. I particularly like the one about the value of fluency in languages, but there's also part 1 and part 2 of a post about vocal warmups. Nothing too startling to those of us familiar with Maggie/Jamie warmups, but it's always useful to hear a similar message from a different person, I think, and I did enjoy the tongue-twisters :-)

Barbara points out that there are midi files on the Cyberbass site for those who need assistance with the Poulenc. I haven't tried any of them myself, but they look useful.

You may well have heard of the service that, if you ring them up and play them a song over the phone, sends you a text telling you what it is. Well, it's called Shazam, and seems very clever. Sadly it doesn't work with classical or live music, but never mind! Again, I haven't tried it - has anyone else?

Very interesting article here about a singer who developed Bell's Palsy and suddenly found that certain consonants were much harder than others.

Even more interestingly, a fabulous interview with Mark in today's Guardian. I won't spoil it by listing highlights here, but it made me raise my eyebrows a couple of times! And, talking of the Bridgewater Hall (well, I almost was...), did any of you spot it making an appearance in the last ever episode of Life on Mars? I don't think we saw the doors or name or anything, but I recognised the wall! And just in case there are any Life on Mars fans who are still trying to work out what happened, here's an interview with the writer that explains lots of stuff.

And finally, you may think that I find all this stuff because I spend too long wilfing... but in fact I hardly ever do that - if I look for something online, I tend to find it fairly quickly, but I often spot other things in the process. Also, I have a large number of sites that I check daily (mostly by RSS), and I often find other things via links from those sites. But I admit that if someone other than my cats was watching me do all this, it WOULD look rather like "wilfing" :p

(Oh, and "Optimistic Voices" is from The Wizard of Oz! It's near the end, when Dorothy is dancing down the road in sight of the Emerald City at last.)

"It's the glove compartment we're after."

"... It must be tidy. Dust-free. With a torch in it... that WORKS."

Jamie was on top form last night! I think this glove compartment quote was probably his best (it referred, if you're wondering, to the fact that many of the notes in the Poulenc are almost right, but that lots of them need tweaking). The one that made people laugh the most, though, was one that I didn't write down (mainly because he said it so fast), but it involved him imagining a conversation between the two sides of a bass's brain. (The gist was as follows... Left side: "That note was wrong!" Right side: "Yes, but we can LEARN from it!") YHTBT :-)

Also to the basses, we had "I love the fact that you disagree with one another. ... None of you are right." (Note to 1st basses: Regarding the phrase in question, if you had at any stage glanced at the alto line, you might have realised that we were singing the exact same notes as you. Might've helped!) And, to the whole choir (I forget why): "I don't want you to look like an ill-fed dog!" But my favourite Jamieism of the night didn't seem to amuse anyone else: "ATB, 2 bars before 8. Let's get some groovy harmonies on." (It was the total seriousness in which he said it that tickled me!)

We spent the whole rehearsal on the Poulenc, which is a really fun piece - I haven't done it before. I was slightly distracted by incoming (silent) texts about the United game in Rome (I'll be at the second leg, on Tuesday - should be exciting!) Thank you to those who asked how my throat was - it's still tickly, but not as bad as last week. This week it gets worse when I lie down, for some reason, which makes sleep difficult, but since I currently don't have to get up, I can cope! Thank you also to the many people who asked how it feels to be FREE! Well, it hasn't really sunk in yet - this week just feels like the first week of any school holiday, i.e. I'm catching up on all the housekeeping stuff that there's never time for in termtime, and I feel totally wiped out and am sleeping a lot. And, of course, playing lots of World of Warcraft. I haven't done much jobhunting yet (other than emailing various people to ask their advice, and scanning lots of relevant websites several times daily), but I have a bit of a breather because I still get paid till the end of April. I must step up my money-seeking efforts in the next few days though. I suspect the reality of the situation will finally sink in on 16th April, when everyone else goes back to school and I don't \o/

Anyway, no choir next week, and no Jamie the week after! (I presume he'll still be recovering from his St Endellion week.) I have various bits of non-choir singing planned in the meantime, but for now I thought I'd share a load of links with you. These have been building up for a while! So, in no particular order....

If you've ever wondered what that music from the Lloyds TSB advert is (you know, with the wordless soprano), the Boosey and Hawkes website has the answer.

I forgot to mention at the time, but there are a few photos from before the Ashton gig on the choir photo page. Not great, and not many, but they'll hopefully give a feel of the occasion to those who weren't there.

You may have seen recent news stories about the uproar in Japan caused by incorrect forecasts about when the cherry blossom will bloom. Here's the current official forecast, and while I'm at it I'd like to recommend that you all read Hokkaido Highway Blues, which is one of those books that you'd probably never consider reading unless someone gave you a copy, but it's absolutely fascinating. Plus, it sheds some light on the cherry blossom story! (I've loved cherry blossom trees ever since I was at school, because there were (and probably still are) a load of them in the grounds, on the side near the Cathedral. At least I think they were cherry blossom... they might have been apple blossom... I just spent half an hour trying to find an online photo of that bit of Chet's, but I failed. I did consider going upstairs to dig out my old photo albums, but that would mean standing up!)

Talking of the Cathedral, when Alison and I passed it last night, it was surrounded by dozens of police officers and police cars. "I wonder why. Perhaps the Queen is there?" I said, and then remembered that she was! Well, not at that moment (probably), but she was certainly there today.

Oh, and while searching for photos of the Chet's grounds, I found a Wikipedia page about the emo/goth/mosher gathering place behind Urbis!

Ever heard of a chord hat? No, me neither. But I was quite intrigued by the concept. Before you watch the video, decide what you think a chord hat ought to be, and see if you were right!

Look at this weird tower they're building in Singapore! If the Beetham Tower was like that, I'm not sure I'd dare walk near it :p

They're repeating the Manchester Passion tomorrow night (Good Friday) at 7 pm on BBC3, so if you didn't see it last year, now's your chance. And then go and vote for it in this Radio Times competition!

Have any of you ever played any of the SingStar games on the PS2? I don't own a PS2 myself, but my friend Lindsey does, and a while ago she introduced me to these games. They're a bit like Donkey Konga, but with mics instead of bongos... You have to sing along to songs, through mics connected to the PS2. But although you do get the lyrics onscreen (like in karaoke), you don't get any sheet music. Instead you get a very precise display of when the tune goes up or down, and how long the notes are, and the game analyses what you sing and determines how close you are to what it thinks is the "correct" version. I beat both Lindsey's young sons quite easily (mainly because several of the songs went lower than they could sing, so they lost loads of points on the pitch), but lost to Lindsey on almost every occasion, because I was singing the songs how I thought they should go, whereas she'd played the game before and knew that following the display was more vital. (Plus she's a fabulous singer!) In a couple of songs it turned out that the part I'd always thought of as the tune was actually considered to be a harmony part, so I lost LOTS of points for singing that part, because the game considered that to be "singing off pitch". Meh. Great fun, though!

I'd always thought the longest concert ever was that Messiaen thing we did a few years ago (or did it just FEEL like the longest?) but it seems not - a new record has been set - 182 hours! That's more than a week!

Especially for Meg - a stripe generator to play with :p

Graham E emailed me about this strange piece of music he heard on Classic FM last week. It turned out to have a strange story behind it. Intriguing. Has anyone heard the CD?

Lots of interesting stuff on this Nikon website about sizes of stuff. Wait for it to load (it can take a while, even with broadband) and then click on everything!

Still the usual searches coming in all the time, but I was amused that there was one for Russian gibbon recently, and then today someone was looking for second tenors are not geeks! This made me giggle, and also caused me to investigate what the person might ACTUALLY have been looking for... which led me to an amusing song! I found the answer here, but since for some reason the author of that blog seems to think it's a good idea to have grey text on a black background, I've pasted the text here. For maximum enjoyment, listen to the mp3 before (or while) reading the lyrics, it's funnier that way!

MANLY MEN'S CHORUS EXTRAVAGANZA, composed by Kurt Knecht. Recording is of the 2002 NY All-State Men's Chorus. (The first few pages of the score are online too.)

We are men and we like to sing
In big block chords and close harmony.
Our songs all sound the same,
And most of them are really lame;
But though we may not always inspire
At least we’re not a women’s choir.

First tenors have the highest voice,
for most of us it’s not by choice
Singing still at twenty-three
Like we missed our puberty,
When our pitch turns sour
We just sing a little louder
Tight underwear’s the key
To singing a high C.

Second tenors are not geeks
We’re just first tenors with poor techniques,
But should you love us any less
Just because we crack when we try to sing an F?
We don’t sing too high and we don’t sing too low
And we’re not as arrogant as the first tenors we know
We want you to love us like the rest
Of the “Pips” and “Garfunkels” who are second best.

Baritones are by far the sexiest.
Feast your ears upon our vocal studliness.
We will sing when we’re just forty-five
With vibratos five miles wide.
If God came down and took our brains away
Then they would sing “la donna mobile.”

We are tired of root progressions,
Walking bass lines, record sessions
Where all we sing is that stupid
“dip di dip dip dah”.
We try so hard with all our mights
To sing so low we shake the lights.
We wish we had voices like
James Earl Jones or Barry White,
But we’re just human, our throats are hurting
And our low singing sounds more like burping,
But we’re the basses we keep singing, ‘cause...

We are men and we like to sing
In big block chords and close harmony.
Our songs all sound the same,
Like bad rewrites of “There is nothing like a dame”
And though our repertoire consists
Of drinking songs and sailor songs
And barbershop quartets,
We thank God every day
From our head down to our toes
That we are not sopranos or altos.
Amen.
(Or tenors).

---

And finally, an mp3 I thought I'd posted ages ago, but it seems I haven't. It's Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre. If you haven't heard of it, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It was only written a few years ago (in 2000, I think), and is hugely popular in the USA, although not that many people over here seem to know it. (It's the last track on this CD.) I'd love us to sing it sometime. (The first part of the score is online here.) The title means Light of Gold, and the music depicts (at least, I'm sure I read this somewhere) heaven at night. It's very lovely. Happy Easter!

"I'm the worm. You are the blackbird. Watch me!"

(This was Jamie's instructrion to the sops in The Music Makers just before Friday's gig. It was preceded by him telling them that they should be "Like a very excited blackbird who hasn't fed for two days and has just seen a worm.")

I haven't sung as much as I would have liked to, in the last week. I've had a sore throat and a tickly cough which has been driving me up the wall. I actually had it before the Ashton gig, and I think it would probably have been sensible, in hindsight, not to sing in that, but I thought I could just about manage. It would probably also have helped if I'd cancelled my singing lesson on Tuesday, and taken some time off work so I wouldn't have to use my voice. But it was my last ever week as a teacher, so I had a huge number of loose ends to tie up. And now I'm free! Just need to work out where to get money from :p

I thought my throat was OK on Wednesday, so I went to the rehearsal (I would have done so even if I'd been ill, because I'd promised Maggie I'd provide her with the 500 Miles CD - and before you ask, it was her idea, not mine! I thought it went down very well - fun, wasn't it?) (For those who weren't there, I should probably explain that Maggie started the warmup by playing the Comic Relief song for us to do our stretches to.) I discovered after about 10 minutes, though, that I couldn't sing without coughing, so I stopped trying, and at the break I moved to sit at the back to listen. It was particularly frustrating because I *love* sight reading, and I missed the chance to do loads of it! Jamie seemed very determined to get to the end of page 123, because he finished almost 10 minutes late in order to do so, naughty man. And now I know that my sight-reading skills aren't actually as vital as people tell me they are, because the altos didn't do too badly without me! I'm a bit more enthused about The Kingdom than I was - there are some good bits. I'm looking forward to learning it.

My throat wasn't much better by Friday, but I was determined to try to make it through the concert, if only because I'd been looking forward to it for so long (singing on the day I stopped being a teacher - yay!) Typically, it was fine in the rehearsal and the first half of the concert, but as soon as the intro to The Music Makers began, the tickliness came back, and I had a really difficult time trying to hold it in until the first loud bit. I made it to the end, but not without various coughing bouts and the consumption of half a packet of Hall's Soothers. Sorry to anyone who was sitting near me and had to put up with the fidgeting.

(Does anyone know, by the way, why a tickly throat always becomes more tickly at moments when one needs to be silent and still? Is it just psychological or is there some other reason?) (And, also - is there anyone who has ever actually tried CAYENNE PEPPER to cure a sore throat? It seems a bit unlikely to me, and I'm not quite brave enough to experiment - but this page of sore throat cures suggests it's the best one!)

The concert went well, I thought, and I loved singing in the Cathedral again - it's one of my favourite buildings, and I haven't sung in there for many years. There were various hassles beforehand - a huge number of people were really, really late, which meant that the seating took absolutely ages, because Jamie arranged people and then had to keep rearranging as more people turned up and had to be accommodated. Unsurprisingly this meant that the actual rehearsal started very late indeed, which resulted in Jamie still rehearsing at gone 7.20 p.m., at which point lots of the audience were in their seats. Maybe he didn't realise. The seating was then messed up even further by at least one person (and possibly more) turning up to sing in the concert but not having been in the rehearsal. I presume this was the cause of poor Lizzy being without a seat. No-one would move for her, so she had to sit in the only seat available, which was next to me on the back row of the 2nd altos - but she's a soprano! We tried to get someone to swap with her so that she was at least on the FRONT row of the altos and hence just behind the sopranos, but the two people in those seats wouldn't swap - I'm not sure why. Maybe they didn't realise why we were asking and thought they wouldn't be able to see if they moved back. But the result was that poor Lizzy had to sing the Bach as a soloist - at least, that's how it must have felt to her, surrounded by 2nd altos. Thankfully, after the Bach we did manage to get one of the altos in front to switch with her - just as well, because in the Rachmaninov the 2nd altos spent most of it humming, so she would have stuck out even more!

Anyway, I don't seem to have any Jamieisms from Wednesday or Friday, apart from the worm/blackbird one. I did have one from the previous week, which I don't think I've quoted: "Otherwise it sounds like a lovely crust with no pie. Gentlemen, you are the pie." (This was in Svyati, and referred to the tenors at the beginning and similar bits. Which they did perfectly on Friday - yay!)

Finally, though, I wanted to mention my favourite moment of last week's rehearsal, because I forgot to do so at the time and only remembered this week. It was in the warmup, when Jamie had us arpeggiating on a chord (I think it was C major, but I could be wrong). That in itself was lovely - I like it when we do that! But then he asked us to all shift up a semitone (continuing to arpeggiate) and then down a tone, and finally back up a semitone. So the resulting chord progression went C - Db - B - C. And when the whole choir shifted from Db to B - mmmmmmmmmmmmm :-)

"Is it from the Queen?"

Just on my way out to tonight's rehearsal of The Kingdom. I put my "I'm blogging this" T-shirt on, and then realised that I haven't blogged about Saturday's concert! Oops!

It went very well. We even got to sit down at one point, to listen to Jonathan's organ solo. And they'd rigged up a camera and monitor so that Jonathan could see Jamie. Poor Maggie still had to sing from a raised pulpit with a canopy, which meant she was very visible and audible but she couldn't actually hear anything else when she was singing! I certainly couldn't tell, though - she sounded great. So did the choir, I thought - the tenors still didn't quite manage to sing their bare fifths in the Tavener (someone kept singing G sharps where there should only have been an E an a B), but apart from that I thought everything was pretty good. And it was a full house, too, which is always great to perform to. Hopefully there'll be even more people to hear the repeat performance in Manchester Cathedral this Friday (starts at 7.45 p.m., tickets available on the door - I think they're £10 each, concessions £6).

I'm sure there must have been some Jamieisms, but I'll look them up later tonight. (I'm particularly looking forward to tonight's rehearsal, because not only do we get to sight-read lots of new Elgar, we also meet the Associate Choir for the first time!) But I do remember the funniest moment, and for once it wasn't from Jamie. We were about to go onstage, and David Evans announced that he had a card to read to us, from a lady (Maggie, it transpired afterwards) who started "To my favourite choir..." to which Bruce said "Is it from the Queen?"

Aggressive Russian Funky Gibbon

From last night's warm-up:

Jamie: Aggressive funky gibbon.
Choir: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Jamie: Aggressive RUSSIAN funky gibbon!
Choir: (with a much darker vowel sound) Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

As with so many Jamieisms, you probably had to be there!

I'm on my way back to Ashton shortly for today's rehearsal and concert, but thought I'd do a bit of catch-up blogging first. (We rehearsed on Tuesday night instead of Wednesday this week, but I haven't had the time to blog since - I don't think there was anything fascinating to say, though.) My feet are still aching from last night. There were no seats - no-one had mentioned that this would be the case - so most of us stood up for an hour and three quarters without a break, followed by another three quarters of an hour after the break. Plus, the rehearsal finished almost 10 minutes late, so you can imagine that lots of us were not in the best of moods by the time we left. I must say, though, that the fact that we did the Bach last really helped cheer me up, because it sounded AMAZING in that acoustic :-)

The lack of seats isn't the only problem at the church. Poor Jonathan is having to play from a position behind the choir, which means that he can't see Jamie AT ALL, and (as he pointed out), when he's playing at all loudly, he can't hear anything either... so I guess we'll just have to follow him and hope! I don't think he's very happy about the situation, but unfortunately I also can't see a solution. It's just as well he's so brilliant, because if anyone CAN perform under such adverse circumstances, it'll be him. (The organ's not spectacularly great, either - plus, as Jamie said, when listing its limitations, "It's just not a violin!")

The thing that annoyed me the most last night, though, was that there was a man there - I don't know who he was, but possibly the teacher of our solo cellist. Why did he annoy me? Well, she was playing from the back of the church, at the end of the aisle from Jamie. And this man, for no reason that I can understand, repeatedly stood up and walked up and down the aisle, i.e. along the DIRECT LINE OF SIGHT between the cellist and the conductor. Even if she could see past him, it MUST have been a distraction. And the guy was presumably a professional musician, so why on earth couldn't he realise that? It was immediately obvious to all of us. Argh. And then, to make matters worse, he listened, along with the rest of us, to Jamie's explanation of why it's ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL that no-one moves a muscle on the last page of the Tavener, and that we need to rehearse that aspect as much as the music. And what did he then do? When we got to the last page a minute later, he chose that moment to get up from his seat and wander across the aisle to sit on the other side. ... Maybe he's just a chronic attention-seeker, but I was shaking my head in disbelief at how ignorant he was.

Anyway, I have no doubt that the concert will be great (assuming Mr Ignorant can keep still, that is!) Jane, the cello soloist, is fabulous (even if she is playing a G sharp instead of a G natural for the last note - I presume it's a deliberate change by Jamie, since she's done that every time and he hasn't commented, but it sounds so wrong!). Maggie, of course, sounds amazing. And I think we sound pretty good ourselves!

"Why WAIT to do that? When you've got THAT in your arsenal?"

This seemed much funnier at the time, mainly because people started to giggle before Jamie got to the end of the word 'arsenal' :p

Ladies' sectional tonight. The quote above referred to the sopranos finally singing the last line of the Bach to Jamie's satisfaction. They fared rather better than us poor 2nd altos, who he compared to "bombers coming over the South Downs" when we did our humming in the Rachmaninov, and a "pneumatic drill" when we got the tune in the Bach! The cheek! (Mind you, I must admitted I was continually irritated by a few people behind me who seem totally unable to maintain the correct German pronunciation despite COUNTLESS reminders. My cheekbones are still aching due to me trying to compensate for them.) (Yes, I know I shouldn't try to compensate, but it's really hard not to!)

We did a bit of Syvati tonight, and a bit of Rachmaninov, and a bit of Bach. And at some point (I think during the Tavener, when he was trying to explain how the E and the F are closer together than a normal semitone), Jamie wanted to know how many of us were string players. It transpired that almost everyone present could play an orchestral instrument (although the brass section was rather under-represented, with only Abi), and Jamie got quite excited at the idea of us forming an orchestra at our weekend course in the summer!

What else was there? Oh, also during the Tavener: "Look at the hieroglyphics above it! ... I know it's not hieroglyphics. I know. That would be little pictures of animals and things." During the Rachmaninov, while explaining how to pronounce the Russian 'd': "Not like Brett Lee - like Shane Warne." (If I'd had Wikipedia to refer to during the rehearsal, that comment would have made a lot more sense!) And finally, during the Bach (probably while explaining how to pronounce 'schöpfer'): "Could you just look at my lips? Just briefly? ... I don't want you staring at them!"

Not much else to say about tonight, other than that (as usual with a sectional) we got lots done and had fun doing it, despite a LOT of people being missing. So, to finish, let's see... I'm sure you've been wondering what our top search terms have been lately, since I haven't mentioned them in ages. Well, there is still a trickle of people looking for the Honda choir advert, but the number one search (that leads to this blog) for ages has been for the Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink Song. Although, in the last couple of weeks there have been a surprising number of people looking for Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices (no, I have no idea why), and also an increasing number in search of the lovely Jeremy Holland-Smith (and I can't say I blame them!)

I'll finish with two funny things I discovered yesterday: some musical jokes (some old, some new), and a 5 minute video clip of Eddie Izzard being amusing about physics and cats. Enjoy!

"It's like the backing vocals from some unfortunate 70s pop hit."

This referred to some noise we produced last night, possibly during the warmup, although I forget exactly what! (I feel a bit guilty that I was at choir last night, given that I was off work ill both yesterday and today. But I felt better by teatime yesterday, and planned to go to work today... until the headaches came back late last night. Better again now, though, so I do plan to go to the ladies' sectional.)

Jamie went on to try to think of an example of a song to illustrate his point, but couldn't. He considered Abba, but dismissed them on the grounds that "they were GOOD!" Judy, who knows that I'm a bit of an authority on cheesy backing vocals, was encouraging me to make some suggestions, but by that point he'd mentioned Abba, and my mind was busily running through all their songs (for yes, I do have them all written out with all the harmony parts - my band sings them!) Most Abba songs don't actually have separate backing vocals, they just have harmony added above and below the tune (e.g. in "Dancing Queen" or "Mamma Mia"). There are a few with 'proper' backing vocals, but I didn't think of them till the moment had passed - e.g. "The Name of the Game" has the "doo doo, doo doo" bit in the middle, and "Voulez Vous" has the "ah ha" bits in the chorus.

And non-Abba 70s pop hits that have distinct backing vocals that aren't just harmonisations of the tune? I was hoping you'd ask :p The following list is by no means exhaustive, but all these songs were top 3 hits in the 70s, and not only do they have 'proper' backing vocals, I have them written out. (I have 5 lever arch files full of backing vocals and guitar chords for songs - my band has a very large repertoire!) Only trouble is... I don't remember singing anything like any of them last night. Can anyone shed any light on what it was that did prompt the 70s comment?

Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elton John - Rocket Man
Donny Osmond - Puppy Love
Osmonds - Crazy Horses
Carpenters - Yesterday once more
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
Rubettes - Sugar Baby Love (the backing vocals for this song are primarily "bop showaddy, bop showaddywaddy" - surely the best generic backing vocals in existence!)
Three Degrees - When will I see you again
Mud - Lonely this Christmas
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make me smile (come up and see me)
Bay City Rollers - Bye bye baby
Darts - Come back my love
John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - Summer Nights
Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No more tears (enough is enough)

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Anyway, if you weren't there, you may be wondering what exactly we DID sing last night, other than cheesily impersonating a forgotten 70s band... Well, we did quite a bit of work on both Svyati and Komm, Jesu, Komm, with the promise of work on Rachmaninov and Elgar in sectionals and in next week's rehearsal. In the Bach, we worked on the start instead of the end for a change, with quite a bit of time being spent on the first two bars... this led up to the most amusing moment of the night (IMHO):

"Right. Bars 1 to 3. WITHOUT STOPPING."

... You probably had to be there :p

Going out now. More later.

"No, no, no - you need some sort of ecstasy, surely?"

Sorry, etc., etc.! (After the next three weeks I will have much more free time and promise to update more often!)

I missed choir last week (i.e. 11 days ago) because I'd been up working for most of the previous night, so by the time I'd been to work as well, I couldn't stay awake any longer. I was almost as tired this week, but I was determined not to miss another rehearsal, and I'm so glad I made it, because it put me in the best mood I've been in for ages. I sat next to Soprano Claire, and we had a whale of a time - we were just buzzing at the end!

I'd got there early for the alto vocal coaching, in which we sang bits of The Music Makers, including singing the last page to each other with our fingers in our ears (a REALLY weird sensation - try it!). Then, in the main rehearsal, we moved onto Bach, with (again) most of the time being spent on the chorale at the end. That produced all this week's Jamieisms: the one in the title, plus "An eternal frisbee right next to God" (I can't remember what that meant!) and "Ladies, can I check your underlay?" (which made us all giggle, which (probably quite rightly) seemed to really irritate Jamie, but it's because we were in a good mood!)

We then sight-read Syvati, which is very lovely although goes on a bit too long. Can't wait to do it with the solo cello. (And the basses sounded magnificent.) And we finished by sight-reading, with very few stops, the whole of the Poulenc Gloria, which we're performing in May. This gave the lovely Jonathan (our pianist for the night) something to do at last. (I see he's updated his website, by the way, but be warned - bits of it crashed my computer!) I've never sung this before, and I really like it - I've just bought the CD (mp3s below). I made loads of mistakes, so Jamie should be very happy. (In my defence, the score is very hard to read, which always seems to be the case with French music for some reason - does anyone know why that is?)

I bought a CD of The Kingdom along with the Poulenc, by the way, and I listened to that yesterday. I've never heard the piece before, and I can't say it grabs me. Mind you, it doesn't help that the choir on the recording is a bit flat in places and I can't make out most of their words. Maybe the piece will inspire me more when we do it properly!

Anyway, two rehearsals for everyone this week, although not all at the same time. I must go and do some work. But first....

Some Poulenc Gloria mp3s:

Poulenc Gloria: Gloria
Poulenc Gloria: Laudamus te
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus
Poulenc Gloria: Domine fili unigenite
Poulenc Gloria: Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Poulenc Gloria: Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris

And, finally, some random links I've accumulated...

You may have heard about this alarm clock, which wakes you up with soothing messages from Stephen Fry. Sadly all the messages are addressed to "sir", but I believe there is a "madam" version coming soon.

I'm sure you were all dying to know how to do harsh death metal vocals. Now you can!

Here's a recent BBC article about why boys don't join choirs.

I recently discovered A Singer's Life - a blog which has a huge amount of interesting stuff on it. I've added it to the sidebar, along with Choralation. Most interesting recent post on the latter was this one about how conductors are largely superfluous. Food for thought!

Oh, and if you're reading this on Sunday, don't forget our Question Time opera is on BBC2 tonight at 10pm :-)

"It's on the edge of what's legal. We should do it sometime!"

This referred to a Schoenberg a cappella piece, Friede auf Erden, which Jamie told us about on Wednesday while going through the German pronunciation for Komm Jesu Komm. I'd never heard of it, but was interested enough to go in search of a recording: here's an mp3 for anyone else who wants to hear it. (It's not very tuneful!)

Talking of mp3s, I did post some for the Bach and Rachmaninov a couple of posts ago, but in light of the discussion about the many radically different versions of the Vespers, you may be interested to know that the one I posted is by a Russian choir, from this album. I bought it a few years ago, and chose it because it's the version recommended by the Rough Guide to Classical Music.

(EDIT: Talking of Russian things, I've belatedly remembered that someone emailed me and asked me to publicise a concert in Northenden on Thursday, by a group of Russian singers. Details here.)

And here are two more mp3s (I do spoil you!): Pearsall's Lay a Garland (which we're not singing, but Jamie mentioned it last week); and Tavener's Svyati, which we are singing, not only in the a cappella gigs but also in the newly-added late night gig at the RNCM as part of the Cello Festival. (And Yo-Yo Ma is in fact in the same concert as us, albeit slightly earlier - and since he's being presented with an award immediately before our bit, I imagine we WILL see him!) (In fact, the list of artists appearing is very impressive. And we're on it!)

I have to admit that my main excitement about seeing Yo-Yo Ma is the fact that he played a central role in my favourite ever episode of The West Wing. I think I will have to rewatch my DVDs in preparation!

Thanks, by the way, to those people who offered me recordings of Svyati and Lay a Garland. And to those who offered recordings of the Bach and Rachmaninov, having not noticed that I'd already put them online! Svyati looks as if it might be entertaining, if a bit too long (especially for the 3rd and 4th bass parts - good luck, guys!) - I love stuff that splits us into millions of parts, and this has every section in 3 parts and the basses in 4. Whee!

I only had a couple more Jamieisms from Wednesday:

"Let's just do the first phrase to a tractor." (the was the chorale at the end of the Bach, which is extremely amusing when sung to silly noises...)

"My spirit's ready for action upstairs. ... Not THAT sort of action!" (this was also during the chorale, when he was telling us what it all meant, but reckoned without our dirty minds!)

(We had an impressive-looking visitor at the rehearsal, by the way, and for those who missed it, it was Andrew Wailes from Melbourne.)

No Jamie next week - don't know where he is - so we'll see Fanny for the first time this year. And coincidentally, the Question Time Opera thing, which several of us sang in thanks to Fanny's invite, now has a broadcast date - it'll be on BBC2 at 10pm on Sunday 11th March. (We also recorded a bit of the soundtrack for the first episode of the series, that's on tomorrow (25th Feb), but you'll only hear us rather than see us on that. Oh, and that's the bit that involved the sopranos being asked to take a quaver out of their bitch!) There's now an official BBC web page about the series, which includes a link to a video feature which features many clips from all the episodes, including ours.

And finally, for those who don't already know: I am really, really, REALLY looking forward to the a cappella gig on 30th March, because 4 hours earlier I will have ceased to be a teacher. FOREVER. Yay! (I can safely say this now because I have officially resigned.)

So, if anyone needs someone to do anything musical (for that's what I'd love to do)... please let me know!

Before I forget....

1. My online choir schedule has now been updated with today's new info. (A gig at 10.30 p.m.! How exciting!)

2. I was about to say that Jamie's Oxford Blues Service is being repeated on Sunday, but I've now realised that it's actually a new thing - an Oxford Blues Matins service, live on Radio 4 at 8.10 a.m.

3. If you can get the Sci-Fi Channel, you MUST watch Heroes, which starts at 10pm on Monday. I've seen 15 episodes of it and it's REALLY good.

"Make more mistakes. Bach's dead. He's not gonna mind."

What a good idea, to put sight-reading hints on the choir website! Wish someone had thought of that before...

(Jamie was giving tips on how to sight-read tonight, and at one point suggested that someone should write them all down and put them on the website for reference. I couldn't decide whether to be smug because I'd already done it, or upset because no-one seemed to know I'd done it! Oh well.)

First post-Mozart rehearsal, and we started on stuff for the a cappella concerts (note to those who can't remember the spelling of that - "two words, two Ps, two Ls"). The Music Makers will form the second half, with Maggie doing the solo and the lovely Jonathan being the orchestra. Also on the programme will be one of Rachmaninov's Vespers, again with a Maggie solo, and my favourite Bach motet, Komm Jesu Komm. I've done that before, but it was a very long time ago - it was the first thing I sang with the Manchester Cathedral Cantata Choir under Stuart Beer, and I can't remember when that was, but it was at least 15 years ago.

Here are some mp3s:

Bach - Komm Jesus Komm, part 1
Bach - Komm Jesus Komm, part 2
Bach - Komm Jesus Komm, part 3
Bach - Komm Jesus Komm, part 4
Rachmaninov - Vespers, no. 2

(I'm assuming everyone has the definitive recording of The Music Makers and therefore won't need mp3s of that!)

Not many Jamieisms (although I liked the one in the title of this post). He did have us doing an amusing warmup which involved the choir split into two halves and then individual pairs, singing "nooey nooey nooey nooey nee" (half a beat apart from each other). Oh, and there was "I'm doing it so loud that the bell's ringing every time but no-one's listening!" (this followed an impression of "the man with the hammer at the fair, and the little thing that gets hit all day", and referred to his downbeats!)

I almost forgot to mention that we spent the whole rehearsal learning Komm Jesu Komm, and it was fabulous, and choir 2 was CLEARLY vastly superior to choir 1 (in terms of sight-reading and following the beat and ACTUALLY COMING IN), yet Jamie failed to acknowledge this fact! We were outraged!

P.S. They're making a Messiah musical!

Spee reet een eet!

JAMIE: Are you still saying 'spiritu'? I don't recommend it. It sounds dull. Say 'spee ree too'.

CHOIR: Spee ree too.

JAMIE: Yes! That's so much better. It's actually got spirit in it.

CHOIR: Spee reet een eet!

---

This was the most amusing moment from a REALLY long and tiring - but good - day today. It was the Mozart C minor mass gig with Mark. We were there at 11.30 a.m. this morning, having also rehearsed last night. And of course we had the piano rehearsal with Mark on Wednesday. And I haven't blogged about any of them, due to various nightmarish non-choir-related reasons that I can't go into here - at least, not yet - but those who don't know may be able to guess if they notice that my profile has changed ever so slightly... Sorry, anyway. I should be asleep now but several people asked me today what had happened to the blog, so I thought I'd better at least post the accumulated Jamieisms and Markisms!

The concert went really well, by the way. We got Petrushka in the first half - not really my cup of tea - and then the stage was totally rearranged for the Mozart. (Mark, ever innovative, had the woodwind right at the front, i.e. in front of the strings. Never seen that before!) The soloists were all fabulous, particularly Susan Gritton. (Although we almost scared her away with our tractors... she arrived in the choir assembly area just as we started warming up, and seemed quite startled!) And I must admit I hardly spotted any mistakes from the choir. The 1st altos got their F# right in the middle of Qui Tollis for possibly the first time ever, although the C-G-Eb-Bb bar in the Credo was still a disaster area for the altos as a whole (very few people got the G) and a scary number of people were still double-dotting in the Gratias - I say 'scary' because of the number of times this was mentioned and practised. But apart from these two aspects, I think everything was pretty good. (Well, apart from the alto seating plan, which has been riddled with mistakes for ages now - every time a new one is produced, we have to amend it by swapping seats with each other so that the firsts are actually all sitting with firsts and the seconds are all with seconds. There are quite a few people who have given up hope of ever being put in the right place. At least everyone was ON the plan today, though, which is a big improvement on the last few rehearsals, so maybe there's hope yet!)

Anyway, a few more quotes from the last week:

Jamie: My favourite joke just happens to involve pandas. (Dr Liz went to find out what this joke was, and it was so rubbish I can't even remember!)

Mark: Ma-éstro! (suggesting that this was a word that we might like to practise in addition to 'Deo'!)

Mark: "Sancto-sss - it's a Spanish word originally. ... I'm lying."

A tenor came in early at one point.... Jamie: "Nice!" (nodding a la Fast Show jazz guy)

Jamie: Sometime we'll have to get a video camera in - you'd be surprised what tenses up when you're singing.

Jamie: Have you had sun-dried tomatoes in the last week? (I can't remember why on earth he said this! But it seemed relevant at the time....)

Must sleep now. Word to the wise: if you have your own copy of The Music Makers, you might wish to dig it out and put it in your choir bag....

Technical problems

The server on which the mp3s are hosted is currently inaccessible. I've emailed the friend who administers it, and he's already on the case, so please try again in a few hours if you want some Mozart (it may well be working by the time you read this). EDIT: Working now. EDIT 2: *Really* working now. Honest.

Sibelius FTW!

Brownie points if you know what the title means without looking it up :p

It occurred to me that I haven't yet posted any Mozart mp3s, and today is his birthday. So, here are all the choruses from the C Minor Mass. (I should warn you that on this recording they use Germanic Latin, so some words will sound a bit odd, but the music is OK.)

Kyrie
Gloria
Gratias
Qui tollis
Jesu Christe/Cum sancto spiritu
Credo
Sanctus/Osanna
(Benedictus)/Osanna

And then I went one better and created some extra mp3s... especially for Libby, who said she couldn't practise the runs properly because they're too fast on her CD and she can't play them on the piano. I have no doubt a few others are in the same predicament! Here's the alto part (only) of the Cum Sancto Spiritu, and the 2nd alto part (only) of the Osanna, recorded at various different speeds. (Don't worry, this didn't take NEARLY as long to do as you might imagine!) I think the crotchet = 200 version of the Cum Sancto Spiritu and the crotchet = 80 version of the Osanna are the closest to the probable concert speed, but you never know! (And sorry for not doing any other parts - as I explained in my last post, my score is different to the one most people have, so I couldn't guarantee the notes would be right.)

Cum Sancto Spiritu (alto part only): Crotchet = 80, Crotchet = 120, Crotchet = 160, Crotchet = 200, Crotchet = 240

Osanna (2nd alto part only): Crotchet = 40, Crotchet = 60, Crotchet = 80, Crotchet = 100

Hope someone finds those of use :-)

Oh, and can I just remind you all again that there's football at Old Trafford on Wednesday night, since my efforts to get this information announced and/or added to the schedule have so far come to nothing? I will be dutifully coming to choir and sending my brother to sit in my seat at the match. Incidentally, when I explained to the guy who sits next to me why I won't be there, I found myself trying to defend the Hallé for not paying the choir - he thinks we should get the same rate as the orchestra! I must admit his argument was very convincing :-)

"If I was changing from a natural to a sharp, I'd be more excited about it than you are."

Oops, I seem to have broken the first rule of blogging again! Sorry about that. January has, on the whole, been not just dreich (I use the word in honour of Burns Night!) but pretty horrible in every way. But I won't bore you with why, because choir has successfully managed to cheer me up \o/ And although I didn't make it to the first rehearsal of the year (which is very rare for me, but that was a nightmare week) I have accumulated many Jamieisms from the subsequent ones, so I thought I'd send them your way.

For those not in the choir, I should explain that we're currently rehearsing Mozart's C Minor Mass, which we'll be performing on 11th February. This is a fabulous piece, which I know pretty well, having done it two or three times before, although not for quite a few years. But I'm finding it slightly confusing, because I have the Breitkopf edition, bought the first time I did it. It is a complete version of the mass setting - Mozart didn't finish the C minor mass himself, so the editors of this version have filled in the missing bits with relevant movements from other (lesser-known) Mozart masses. So it's all proper Mozart, and hence wonderful, and that's the version I first performed. However, I've never been able to find a recording of this full version - all the recordings I've ever seen have just the actual C minor mass bits, i.e. the Credo stops after a couple of movements and there's no Agnus Dei. And the other problem - currently much more of an issue - is that we're using a different edition for this performance, and quite a few of the movements have different parts. For example, in the Osanna, the 2nd alto part that I know is almost entirely in the 1st alto line, and some bits of it don't appear at all. The line that everyone else has as the 2nd alto line is the 1st alto line in my copy, apart from a few bars where I've had to write stuff in, because those notes don't appear in any part at all in my copy. It's really offputting. And you're probably wondering why I don't just use a borrowed choir copy... well, I do like to have my own copies of things, because I write loads of stuff in, and it's a big help when I come to do the same work again years later. And, being a bit broke at the moment, I couldn't justify buying a new copy when I already had one. Oh well.

Anyway, Jamieisms! Some of these are from last Wednesday. Some are from the ladies' sectional this Tuesday. And some are from the open rehearsal in Wythenshawe this Wednesday. (I think the one in the title was from then, actually.)

----

During a warmup, Jamie was doing facial stretches, along the lines of "Can you look shifty? Can you look amused? Can you look startled?" And when he got to "Can you do The Scream?" I was highly amused that almost half the ladies (for this was at the sectional) actually screamed :p

"Just think of this as foreign music. It was written in a weird place, by a weirdo."

"The microphone's going to be about here. Live relay. Just so you know."

"It's got to sound like music somewhere near the edge of what it's reasonable to ask."

"Altos, this is the reason you come to choir." (This was, sadly, the 1st altos, but referred to the "qui sedes" in bar 38 of Qui Tollis.)

"I'm going to stand on that chair." (This preceded a spell of Jamie in fact standing on several chairs in an effort to listen to individual rows of singers...)

"Tenors, listen to more pop music. I prescribe 20 Hail Marys and an album of popular music. Your rhythm SUCKS."

"It's so funky!"

"It's a little bit like a one-legged sparrow. A sad sight." (This referred to the alto jumpy bit bar at bar 177+ of Cum Sancto Spiritu, and was followed by a demonstration of how one-legged sparrows move...)

"Graffiti yourself over the music." (2nd sops bar 98 of Credo)

"Invisibilium - that well-known town near Chester."

"Can you do those two chords again... but with tremolo?" (This was to David, and was intended to illustrate how bar 50 of the Credo is actually Hammer Horror music!)

"Look slightly evangelical for a moment." (This was accompanied by wild hand gestures, in an effort to get a particular tone quality!)

After several minutes of exercises involving everyone singing repeated chords on a D consonant... "We have a first note!"

And, my personal favourite (which possibly had to be heard to be understood) came in bar 67 of the Credo... "Altos - wohhhh! ... That's not a specific instruction, but you might know what I mean." His grin, a minute later, when we showed that we knew EXACTLY what he meant, was very satisfying :-)