"If you DON'T praise his holy name, then we'll go into D minor, people, and it will be BAD."

It feels like much longer since I've updated here than it actually is. Sorry if it feels that way to you too!

Vaughan Williams is now a long-distant memory, because for the last couple of weeks it's been all Mendelssohn. (Incidentally, I'd forgotten how short Mendelssohn's life was - he died when he was 38.) I really like this piece, quite apart from its personal significance for me (being, as previously mentioned, the first thing I ever sang with the choir). It's a huge sing, though, and it'll be interesting to see whether any voices collapse under the strain, particularly as we're performing it more times than we do most things (we're doing this in Manchester, and at the Royal Albert Hall in the Proms, and in Valencia). My favourite bit is still the 4-part men's chord at the start of "The Night is Departing", but there are lots of other good bits too.

Last week we had a great rehearsal in which we sight-read through the whole thing. I love rehearsals like that (so much so that I gave up my ticket for that night's United game) but that's mainly because I love sight-reading. And yes, even though I have sung it before, it did feel like sight-reading... but bear in mind that it's over 15 years since I last sang it, and last time it was in English and this time it isn't, so there is no muscle memory (if indeed muscle memory works after 15 years!) On the whole the sight-reading was pretty successful - I do think most of the choir are getting better at this. (It occurred to me the other night that there's an easy way to tell - just from watching - who the best sight-readers are in any choir. Just wait for a page turn. There are still many singers (in all choirs) who only turn the page at the moment the music actually REACHES the end of the page. The good sight-readers will have turned several bars earlier.)

This week we didn't do the whole thing, but concentrated on some of the harder bits. There was also a ladies' sectional at which I'd expected we'd do the section where the men don't sing and the ladies are in 4 parts, but we didn't. I'd also expected we'd do the Planets, but we only spent 5 minutes reading through it at the end. Lots of people (who presumably hadn't done it before) seemed quite bemused by it, but I'm sure they'll find it easy enough once they've worked out which line to sing. The sectional was great fun though, as usual. I think it's because there are always far fewer people there than at the Wednesday rehearsals, so the atmosphere is much more intimate.

(They used to always alternate the sectional nights, so that people who have a regular commitment on a particular night, as so many of the choir do, don't always miss out. But recently all the ladies' sectionals have been on Thursdays and all the men's have been on Tuesdays, so any ladies who have to be elsewhere on a Thursday won't have been able to come to any of them. And it's been a pain when I've been trying to schedule rehearsals for my band, because Thursdays are the only nights none of us has any other regular commitment, so we usually rehearse on Thursdays, but since four of us sing in the choir we've found it extremely difficult to fit rehearsals in this year so far, due to the number of choir commitments on Thursdays.) (And even after we HAVE agreed dates, things keep happening to prevent us rehearsing as planned, due to people being ill or having to go into work. There are seven of us and we've NEVER yet had a rehearsal with more than five! One day...)

Anyway, at this week's ladies' sectional, we not only made lots of progress on the hard bits of the Mendelssohn, we were also treated to a one-man performance of My Evaline. (I recognised the tune but didn't know its name - I had to ask. It's from the Yale Songbook, a.k.a. "Songs of Yale", used by the Yale Glee Club.) Why? Because there's a bit in Mendelssohn 2 that is similar to a bit of "My Evaline"! There was also a bit of discussion of the Andrews Sisters (for those who've never heard them, their most famous song is probably Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and there's a documentary about them on BBC4 at 9pm this Friday.). I love rehearsals like that! (And I realise I've now said that about two totally different types of rehearsal - well, I love both types!)

The other choir-related excitement this week was that I've spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning the details of our get-to-Valencia-by-train plan. In the next day or two the tickets will go on sale for the Paris to Barcelona leg of the journey, so I wanted to be sure that we know exactly what we're doing, and at what time, and how long we need for each connection. The plan is now thoroughly worked out, and all we have to do is buy the tickets. I think I'm actually looking forward to the journey more than the concert - well, we'll be doing the same concert at least twice in other locations, but this journey will be a one-off! (In case you're wondering, it will cost about £240 total for each of us - £220 if we stay with friends in London on the Sunday night on the way back and take advantage of the cheap fares on the Monday.)

Anyway, I have a few links to share from the last week or two.

At Sydney Opera House they had a dawn concert for the victims of the Australian bush fires. There is a clip on the BBC news site, although it cuts out just as the choir is about to sing - if anyone finds a link to more of it, please let me know!

Meanwhile, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, they performed an opera in the bar after a power cut in the auditorium.

ACDA (the American Choral Directors' Association) has its own YouTube channel, where you can view lots of videos of choral performances. I've only looked at a few - please let me know if you discover one that you think everyone needs to see. (Thanks to ChoralBlog for alerting me to this.)

Here's a fascinating article about the technical aspects of a project to bring live opera to cyberspace.

From the front of the choir has had a great series of posts recently about "preparing to sing", but the one I found most interesting was the one that explained exactly why physical warmups are so important.

The Really Terrible Orchestra is having problems with other orchestras using its name. I'm very amused by this article: "Their CDs come with complimentary earplugs and their music is bereft of C sharps because it is a note that their principal bassoonist has never mastered." "Sometimes the orchestras' efforts are so excruciating that the conductor will stop a performance to offer his apologies to the audience." "“It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have been discovered to be playing different pieces of music by different composers, at the same time. We are The Really Terrible Orchestra and we shall go on and on.”

A nice story from the MEN about a member of the Youth Choir.

There is a new(ish) band called Fleet Foxes, and I just love their singing. Read this review of a concert they did in London this week. I would REALLY like to hear them live. (More reviews of their gig by The Times, the Financial Times and the Independent.)

Talking of London concerts, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela will be at the South Bank Centre for a week in April. (That's these people, in case you'd forgotten.) I think it was only announced a few days ago, but already all the tickets are almost gone. That's someone else I'd love to see live, particularly as they're doing (amongst other things) Concerto for Orchestra and The Rite of Spring, two of the most exciting pieces there are. (Their conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, has been in London this week conducting the Philharmonia, to rave reviews (Guardian, Times, FT.))

By way of contrast, there's someone who decided to go for a month without music and blog about it.

In the news yesterday: doctors are planning to do voice box transplants. I'm intrigued by this, mainly because I can't help wondering what effect this would have on the singing voice. The article doesn't mention this question, but I hope some scientist is poised to investigate!

In the news today: well, not really news, but further mention of the prevalence of drinking problems in orchestras. I'd be very surprised indeed if it transpired that this was a problem that affected OUR orchestra, but I'd love to know which orchestras they're talking about in the article.

Non-musical stuff: the Big Picture has a great series of photos from this year's Carnival in Rio.

A date for your diary: Saturday 28th March (8.30-9.30pm) is Earth Hour. Get ready to turn your lights out.

I'm fascinated by Twitscoop - a constantly-changing summary of what people are talking about RIGHT NOW, taken from millions of Twitter posts.

And finally - apparently cats are fascinated by this spider, but I haven't been able to get either of mine to look at the screen for long enough to notice it!

EDIT: I almost forgot... the forthcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film (due for release on 17th July) has a new official website, where you can see a trailer and hear the new version of the theme tune. Over four months to go and I'm ridiculously excited!

The night is departing

Very busy week - out every night and have had loads of stuff to do at home too, which has meant not going to bed till... well, now! - so I'll write properly at the weekend. This is just a flying visit to let choir members know that, thanks to the wonderful Sheena, Mendelssohn 2 is now available on my mp3 page (also linked on right of this page). The choir on the recording isn't great, but they're good enough to help with notebashing at least. Oh, and my prediction about what language we're singing in turned out to be correct! Drat!

A demonstration of quality unaccompanied singing

I'm quite impressed with the MEN review of last night's concert, although their perception of what part of our performance was the best is interesting (by which I mean, I don't agree with it!) I really enjoyed the concert (well, our bit at least - the rest of the programme wasn't really to my taste, although the Britten thing was fun). I don't think we sang as well as we were doing last week, but it was amazing after the rehearsal the previous night, which did not go as well as we might have hoped (plus it ended with us receiving some very bad news). People always say that a bad dress rehearsal makes for a good concert, and it certainly worked in this case!

I actually got quite overcome at some point in the Gloria when I realised that the performance was going to be good after all, and couldn't sing properly for a minute or so because I had a lump in my throat. After that I was OK, but I got so excited by the end that I couldn't keep my breath for the very last phrase - a pity, because how often do the altos get to start *and* finish a piece? Oh well.

Anyway, no more Vaughan Williams for us - next up, Mendelssohn 2 and the Planets. I'm really, really hoping we do the Mendelssohn in English (which will probably guarantee it's in German...) because it was the first thing I ever did with the choir, in 1993, and we did it in English then, so that's the version I've got in my head. (I wasn't allowed to sing in the concert that time due to being "on probation", so this will be my first performance of it.) Does anyone have (or know of) a recording of it IN ENGLISH? I've been looking for one for the past 16 years and not managed to find one... In the meantime, if anyone has a recording in German that they'd be willing to share, I'd appreciate it. (I've never bought one because I've been holding out for the English version.)

Finally, a couple of links: talking of Mendelssohn, there is a sing-a-long-a-Mendelssohn day in May.

From the BBC, the healing power of drumming.

And a composer tries to recreate Neanderthal music.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

As if there weren't enough problems this week caused by the weather (although Manchester did pretty well compared to most enough places - there are still several inches of snow on the ground at my house, but this hasn't stopped me doing anything) I had a difficult day yesterday caused by a student sit-in. Apparently this started on Thursday, but the first I knew of it was on Friday morning when I arrived at the university (where I am currently temping) to find security staff all over the place. I was sent to three doors before they eventually let me in (I don't have a staff card, see, being a temp). Turns out the students had expanded into the post room, and our office is very near there.

So, not only was it a pain to get in (so I couldn't start work on time despite my train being early for once), we didn't receive any post and couldn't send any (there was one package that apparently HAD to go yesterday, so I spent a while after work trying to find a postbox with a wide enough opening, having bought stamps at lunchtime only to find that the package was too big for the nearby postbox, and I didn't have time to go in search of a post office). And by lunchtime, our part of the building was deserted, with only one security guard left, who said that if I went out he wouldn't be able to let me back in, so I had to arrange for someone to come up and meet me... I found out later that apparently the university had emailed everyone in that building to tell them to go home. They certainly didn't email me, nor anyone else in my office (at least I don't think so, because they stayed there all day too), but it's probably just as well because if I'd had to go home I would have lost half a day's pay!

And I didn't even see any of the student sit-in, despite having to go right past it - the many, many security guards kept people shielded. Oh well.

Anyway, choir this week was particularly good fun. The gig is on Thursday, so this was our last session before joining up with the youth choir (who will be singing the four solo lines - not as solos, just to give a different sound). We did sing every note of the Mass, for the first time (although not in order). I think it will be fabulous. And what made it even better was that we spent the majority of the rehearsal sitting muddled up (i.e. no-one was next to someone singing the same part). I *love* it when we do this, and wish we did it more often! I think it's really good for showing people which bits they need to work on individually. (In every choir I suspect there are a lot of "followers" who don't realise how much they are following - hopefully sitting jumbled up alerts them to this!)

I ended up sitting between Peter and Cliff, both 2nd basses, and it was WONDERFUL. I had never noticed how many glorious low notes they have in this piece - it was spinetingling. Actually, I thought the men in general sounded much better when they were jumbled up - I have a theory as to why this might be, but I will leave you to come up with your own!

On Wednesday we'll be rehearsing in the hall with the youth choir, which I'm very much looking forward to. Then on Thursday it's the concert, which I think will be our best one in a while (and ALL our concerts are great, so that should give you some idea how good this one will be!) I'm very pleased that they've changed their minds about having us sitting in the choir seats during the main concert - so we're back to being a proper post-concert event as originally planned. (I'd hoped we'd be performing on the stage rather than from the choir seats, but it turns out this isn't an option because there is no way we can *rehearse* on the stage, so I agree we should perform as we've rehearsed. It'll still be great!)

I'm particularly excited because not only is my mum coming on Thursday, my best friend and his wife will be there too. He hasn't seen the choir in *years* - and his wife never has - so I can't wait to hear what they think!

Anyway, hopefully there'll be a lot to say about the concert, but in the meantime I have, as usual, a few links.

On an Overgrown Path talks about unusual performance spaces (including Belle Vue) prompted by a concert he went to in Great Yarmouth.

The BBC Music Magazine tells us about opera singers in the crowd at rugby games.

There's a nice audio slideshow about the Soweto Gospel Choir on the BBC website today.

The Soweto thing is uplifting, but this is quite the opposite: Time magazine tells us about the increasing use of Auto-Tune software to improve vocal performances. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

Oh, and I applied for a music-related job this week. I've actually applied for this particular job three times in the past 18 months - I got an interview the first time, but not the second. So I don't hold out much hope, but I think I would be great at it, so I wasn't about to give up! I'll let you know if I get anywhere...

If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy

I've had a bit of a mixed week in which some good things have happened, but far more things have not gone according to plan. I spent far too much time chasing a certain organisation to get them to pay me for some freelance work I did for them. I was desperate to get this money by Friday so I could pay this month's mortgage, but it was not to be. They do say they're GOING to pay me, but don't seem in any hurry to actually do so! Argh!

Choir was fun though - not just the fact that we finally did the last few bits of the VW that we hadn't previously looked at, but also because during the warmup there was a great impromptu variation on the regular off-the-voice quiet staccato "hoh-hoh-hoh" thing (choir members will know the one I mean, I hope). This time we were instructed to do a long note every so often and then go back to the staccato. The sound of the whole choir doing this together was amazing!

The VW gig is a week on Thursday and I'm really looking forward to it. It was originally billed as a post-concert event, but now it seems we are part of the main concert after all. I hope they still change the lighting like they did last time, I thought that made all the difference.

I had a rehearsal with my band on Thursday. There was a last-minute rethink about what we were going to be able to rehearse due to a couple of people not being able to make it, but I was delighted that we were still able to try "This Little Babe" (from Britten's Ceremony of Carols) (yes, I know January is not the most obvious time to be singing this, but I only thought of it a couple of weeks ago and couldn't bear to wait 11 months to try it!) It occurred to me that there's no reason why it wouldn't work with guitar accompaniment instead of harp, and in fact it worked really well. Better than you might expect, actually, given that the three of us who were singing it all knew it very well, but we'd all previously sung the alto part. Since the other two are both 1st altos, though, I decided it made more sense for them to sing the soprano parts and me to stick with the alto part. To be fair, it only goes high right at the end... Anyway, I thought we sounded fabulous! The most amusing part was that I'd sent my guitarist an mp3 because he's never heard the song before, and he said he'd found it difficult to practise to due to the "weird echo effects on the recording". It took me a moment to realise that he meant the canon! I had to show him the vocal score to explain that what was going on in verse 3 was entirely down to Britten :-)

(The other amusing part was that we instructed him to pay no attention to us as we would put him off, which was fine until it got to the last line and his chords were supposed to alternate with ours... Despite that, he did very well for a first attempt, given that he doesn't really read music (he was playing from a chord sheet I'd created, as usual). Next time we'll be trying "Balulalow" as well - that needs 4 singers and we only had 3 on Thursday.)

In non-musical news, the Vendee Globe has been won, although only one competitor is home so far - the rest are a long way behind him. The winner is Michel Desjoyeaux, who also won it the year Ellen MacArthur came second (which is what originally made her famous). It's not been in the news at all, but maybe that's because there have been no British sailors with any chance of winning after Mike Golding and Alex Thomson had to pull out. Oh well. Maybe in 4 years' time!

A few links to finish. The Guardian tells us of how Argentina and Uruguay have been arguing about the history of the tango.

Someone at Manchester Confidential went to her first classical concert.

Boston.com has a theory about a sensitive female chord progression. I'd be more convinced if they'd quoted more songs I actually know (and I do know LOTS of songs!)

Boston.com is also responsible for the Big Picture, which I've mentioned before, but recently they had a great series of photos of London from above, at night.

It was a spreadsheet in my case!

At one point during this week's Vaughan Williams rehearsal, we were told that we needed to think of whatever had made us happiest so far that day, so that our singing would sound livelier. (Note to any non-singers reading this: this may sound ridiculous, but it does actually seem to work.) I was amused to realise that my happiest moment of the day was caused by a spreadsheet I'd created. It was the conditional formatting that did it, I love that :-)

Not much to say other than that, and I'm on my way out of the house, so let's see if I can quickly share a few links.

I'm very, very amused by The Choral Conductor's Flowchart (courtesy of ChoralBlog). Some of the language might be NSFW - be warned.

From the Guardian, a great article about why Guitar Hero is such fun. If you've never tried the game, and/or never heard of it, and/or think you would never enjoy a video game - read this.

Also from the Guardian, a great interview with Acker Bilk.

Tomorrow is Burns Night, and it's a special one this year, kicking off the Year of Homecoming. And here's a great article by the wonderful Jackie Kay about Burns.

If you've ever read the fabulous children's book Coraline (by Neil Gaiman), you will be delighted to know that an animated film of it is released next month. and here's a trailer featuring Neil himself talking about it. (This is one of the best books EVER to read aloud to kids; I did so for several classes when I was at Rydings Special School, and it went down very well.) (Also, after reading Coraline you will never think of buttons in the same way again.)

And finally, the Vendee Globe race is almost over - the leaders are in the North Atlantic, and Michel Desjoyeaux is still a long way ahead of the rest - but in the meantime the Big Picture has some great photos of recent sailing events.

Types of cadence

Quick quiz for any of you who have ever studied any music theory: Before reading any further, how many types of cadence can you name?

One of the things I love about choir rehearsals is that they very often remind me of things I once knew and ought to still know, so I have to go home and look them up. Tonight it was English cadences, of which there are many in the Vaughan Williams. When the term was first mentioned last night, I thought I knew what they were, but when the explanation was given I was wrong. Turned out I was getting them muddled with feminine cadences, which are basically cadences in which the final note is on a weak beat of the bar. And while I was looking this up, I got sidetracked and was reminded of Phrygian cadences, and discovered their link with Andalusian cadences - I'd never heard of those before! (Well, not by that name, although the sound of the cadence is very familiar.)

If you mentioned any of these in your list of cadences, you definitely win. However, the four standard ones (that I think are probably on the Grade 5 Theory syllabus, although I could be wrong about that) are Perfect (V-I); Plagal (IV-I); Imperfect (anything-V) and Interrupted (V-VI). If you got all four, give yourself a pat on the back! (Lots more info, as usual, at Wikipedia.)

(Oddly enough, Wikipedia doesn't have an entry for Phrygian cadences - maybe I will write one - but while checking my info elsewhere, I discovered this very useful dictionary of musical terms. Worth bookmarking, I think.)

Lots of singing this week - there was a full rehearsal last night and a ladies' sectional tonight, both concentrating on Vaughan Williams. It's very wonderful and I can't wait to perform it. (My favourite chord is at letter E on page 20 - I *know* you wanted to know that!) Two things I only noticed tonight, mainly because we looked at the Agnus Dei for the first time: The last page of the score is the first time all 12 parts sing at the same time, and the very last phrase of the piece (sung by the altos) is identical (well, apart from a tiny difference in rhythm) to the very first phrase of the piece (sung by the altos). How clever is that?!

I don't have many links for you this week, because I seem to have had no time to do anything. (Oh, and if you're one of the many people to whom I owe email, please be patient and I'll get to you in the end. I had a bit of an inbox explosion after that article appeared in the paper, and I haven't managed to summon the energy to reply to ANYONE yet - so it's not just you!) In fact, the only musical one is one that I saw a while ago (can't remember if I mentioned it at the time) but Dr Liz reminded me of: a load of monks performing the Hallelujah Chorus. (Note: they don't actually sing...) (Further note: it's entirely possible they're not actual monks...) I don't think I've ever been quite so amused by the word "and" - watch and you'll see what I mean! (Hint: fast forward to 1 minute 30, because it's boring until then.)

A totally different video is a physicist describing what it would be like to die in a black hole. (This is half an hour long, and it's all very entertaining, but the black hole bit is just the first seven minutes of it. If you listen to the rest, don't worry - that asteroid is NOT going to hit us!)

The most entertaining bit of my week so far, though, was being at Old Trafford on Sunday to witness United thrashed Chelsea. The funniest part was the reception John Terry (the Chelsea captain) got. Unsurprisingly he is very popular at Old Trafford these days, because it was mainly due to him falling over in Moscow that we won the Champions' League. This meant that he was cheered when his name was read out (which is unusual for an opposing player) and every time he touched the ball. You probably had to be there to appreciate how funny this was!

As good as ever

I suppose it's not ENTIRELY a bad thing if the only mention your role gets in a review is "as good as ever", especially if the reviewer in question has been known, in the past, not to mention you at all. But anyway, in case anyone missed it, the Manchester Evening News very belatedly reviewed our carol concerts.

I was still listening to Christmas music until yesterday, but that's because I have a playlist of "all the Christmas music there is" and once I've started to listen to it, it feels wrong not to finish. Plus, I really like the Zither Carol! This list has grown each year and currently contains 214 tracks (some pop, some classical), so it takes a while to listen to all of it.

Christmas for the choir is finished for ten months or so, though, and this week we started on the lovely Mass in G Minor by Vaughan Williams. (Wikipedia claims it is the first mass written in a distinctly English manner since the sixteenth century, and I must admit I can't think of a counterexample.) We'll be performing this on 12th February, at a late-night performance following an interesting-looking concert whose main work is Schumann's 3rd Symphony, although I love the title of the Colin Matthews piece! Last time we did one of these post-concert events, it was the Tippett Negro spirituals, and the atmosphere was absolutely magical - I hope this one's as good, and I suspect it might be. (That Tippett performance was recorded, and if memory serves I think we heard it in a rehearsal but there was some reason why we couldn't all have copies of it - can anyone remind me?)

Anyway, I enjoyed sight-reading the Vaughan Williams on Wednesday, and am looking forward to starting work on it properly. My favourite aspect so far is that it's for double choir, and the two choirs are sitting separately. This means that us 2nd altos feel even more special, because it's much more obvious how outnumbered we are by the 1sts (I think there were literally three times as many 1sts as 2nds, last time I counted). On Wednesday we ended up totally surrounded by 2nd sops - as in, there was a circle of them enclosing us! We'd been instructed to sit in wedges so that each row contained all eight parts, but the 2nd sops had already filled all the 2nd alto spaces on the second row before any of us got there, so we started at the third row... and then a load of 2nd sops arrived late and sat behind us (and to our right as well) because there were no more seats. As a result I now know the 2nd sop part quite well but couldn't hear the men at all. Still, it'll give me a new experience next week!

I may have posted these mp3s before (we did the Sanctus for last year's vocal assessments) but here they are again anyway for those who want to practise:

Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei

I've acquired a load of links over the last few weeks - I didn't want to include any of them in my Twelve Days of Christmas song posts because I knew I was less likely to keep my vow of posting for twelve consecutive days if I did! (If you didn't read any of those, do go back and look - my readership dropped each day I did them, but I enjoyed doing them anyway so I don't really care!) So, here are some things for you to read.

I suspect there'll be quite a few things about Haydn this year (he died on 31st May 1809) and here are the first: The great Haydn road trip and Long live Papa Haydn; both from the Guardian, the first about a trip to places associated with Haydn while listening to all 106 of his symphonies, and the second specifically about his vocal works.

Also from the Guardian, an article about a new film about Carl Orff, and another about footballers' tastes in pop music.

You may well be aware of last year's story about Joshua Bell busking (I thought I'd mentioned it at the time, but it looks as if I didn't). I was recently reminded of it by, of all things, a Snopes post. (In case you haven't encountered Snopes before, it's an invaluable site for checking the truth of those emails you get that tell you "this is a true story, forward it to everyone you know!") The event was actually an experiment by the Washington Post, and the full story (including a link to the video of his performance) is a very thought-provoking read, as is the followup discussion with the writer, which explains how the experiment came about and why he waited three months to write about it!

Here's a not-entirely-serious Guardian artcile about the effect of Guitar Hero on guitar design.

And some double bass related T shirts.

Another VERY interesting article by David Griggs-Janower, this time about what conductors do in rehearsals and why it's so exhausting. (The followup post, about being a teacher, is also worth a read, and the two posts together explain very well the main reason I gave up teaching!)

From ChoralBlog, a piece about church congregations not being able to sing as high as they used to. (The full original post at Soho the Dog is interesting too.)

MIke Barnes writes in the Guardian about loud noise in music causing tinnitus.

From the J-Walk blog: apparently Microsoft are introducing a thing called Songsmith, which creates an instant accompaniment as you sing. If any of you tries this I would love to hear your reports!

That's the end of my music-related links, but I have a few more non-musical ones to share. Firstly, the Big Picture continues its excellence with some amazing photos from recent events in Gaza.

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, so it's great timing for an announcement that there is to be a dark sky park in Scotland. I'll definitely be visiting that as soon as I can afford the trip. (Talking of astronomical things, if you've been wondering what that very bright "star" is that you can currently see in the south west in the early evenings, it's Venus, and it sets at 8pm.)

I'm currently teaching myself Spanish in preparation for our trip to Valencia in May, and I'm relieved it's not Portugal we're going to, because I imagine it would be VERY confusing to learn Portuguese at the moment - they're changing all their spellings!

Working at RNID for over a year showed me how much I had to learn about deafness, so it doesn't surprise me to find that there are aspects of blindness that I had no idea about. For example, I had no idea, until I read this, that children learning Braille used to have to do so backwards!

Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture ends tonight, so I thought I'd mention a new banner that's recently been put up at Old Trafford. (Thanks to Republik of Mancunia for the picture.)

And from Manchester Confidential, news of an opportunity to become a hermit for two months at the Manchester Museum!

Finally, I know you've been wondering about the Vendee Globe. (I forgot to remind you about my other favourite yacht race, the Rolex Sydney Hobart race, which takes place every Boxing Day between Sydney and Hobart (Tasmania), but there were no big surprises in it this year.)

The leaders are now on the home stretch, having rounded Cape Horn and being well on their way up the Atlantic, to the east of South America. The leading British competitor is currently Samantha Davies (the one who didn't quite rescue that guy), who's in 4th place of the 12 who are still in the race, but 1800 miles behind the leader (Michel Desjoyeaux, who has won the race before - in fact, he was the winner in 2001 when Ellen MacArthur rose to fame by coming second). There's been more trauma recently, though - two more of the leading competitors have had to withdraw, because one of them (Jean Le Cam) capsized near Cape Horn (in one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world) and then the guy who rescued him (Vincent Riou) was dismasted as a result of damage caused during the rescue. Both sailors are now safely in Chile, but they might easily not have been - this is what happened to Jean Le Cam's boat...

The twelfth day of Christmas: Manchester Rap

To finish with, a song that was never a hit, and was never (as far as I recall) performed on TOTP. If there was a video, I never saw it (and I can't find one on YouTube). It's not on Wikipedia, and googling it merely turns up a few people trying to find a copy of the mp3. (This being the case, I can't guarantee what year it was released - I could dig out my 7" vinyl copy, but that would require more energy than I currently have - but I think it was 1989.) I don't think it was ever even played on the radio... except on Manchester local radio!

The Bosnians - Manchester Rap

It's entirely possible that this song will do nothing for you if you're not from Manchester. It has the same chord - and in fact more or less the same backing entirely - all the way through. The vocal line has no tune - it's all spoken. That being the case, there is obviously no vocal harmony. There are no interesting instruments. Nothing musical of note happens at all.

And yet.... this song makes me giggle every time I think of it. "MAXEEEEENE!"

Anyway, tomorrow, back to normal - I could continue this series forever, but I suspect no-one wants me to (my readership has gone down each day for the last twelve!)

The tenth day of Christmas: Mansize Rooster

Well, yesterday's song was slightly silly. Today's is a bit sillier. (And, just to warn you, tomorrow's is very silly, and the last one is totally ridiculous!)

Supergrass - Mansize Rooster

Supergrass became a very big band, but this was their first (minor) hit; it got to number 20 in 1995. To me, though, none of their subsequent songs was a patch on this one. This song has just about everything! And I must admit I never knew what it was supposed to be about until I looked it up on Wikipedia - and now I know, I still can't see what the lyrics have to do with that!

Apart from the slight silliness, this song does have something else in common with Johnny Remember Me: a galloping horse rhythm on the guitar. But I love the fact that it doesn't do this all the way through - there are different sections with quite different accompanying rhythms, and I particularly like the way the song moves from one to another. For example, in the intro, the drums play on every beat (which makes for a very powerful intro!) but then the drums start galloping to bring us to the first verse.

There's also one bit where all the backing stops totally, leaving the vocals alone briefly - very exciting. My only complaint is that they should have made the end as definitive and exciting as that - they actually fade out... but I can't have everything! However, there are some Jellyfish triplets :-)

As for the vocals - well! Vocal harmony throughout, obviously (and all the harmony is interesting - some unexpected chords! I always love that) but there's also a high howling bit of BV that comes several times. And I also love the way that the last time he sings "crazy" the glissando is twice as long. And he even shouts "ROOSTER!" in a silly voice in the middle! Perfection.

The eighth day of Christmas: My resistance is low

This one was actually written by the wonderful Hoagy Carmichael and was a big hit in the UK in 1976.

Robin Sarstedt - My resistance is low

The singer, Robin Sarstedt, is the younger brother of both Peter Sarstedt ("Where Do You Go To, My Lovely?") and Eden Kane ("Well, I Ask You") This song was his only hit. I could only find one version of it on YouTube, but it doesn't show any of the performers other than Robin, and it misses out the very end!

The end (both the singer's very low note, and the fact that it ends with a whispered "yeah!") is possibly my favourite bit of the song, but there are also fabulous Disneyesque backing vocals, and a full orchestra which has all sorts of interjections to contribute. Also, the intro is one of the best intros ever, and I defy you not to start swaying by the end of it!

The seventh day of Christmas: Sincerely

This is one of my mum's very favourite songs, but few other people seem to know it. However, people I've introduced it to have invariably loved it - Rachel even got me to do an SATB a cappella version to be performed at her wedding!

The McGuire Sisters - Sincerely

Sincerely is from 1955, and was at number one for almost three months in the USA. It was only a minor hit in the UK. It's one of a large number of songs from those days which were originally written and recorded by black vocal groups (in this case The Moonglows) but covered almost immediately by white groups, who then went on to have far greater success with almost identical versions of the songs because there were so many places that wouldn't play music by black groups. Thank goodness things have changed since then. I felt a bit guilty when I found out about this part of the history of doo wop, because I'd never heard (or even heard of) the Moonglows version, and by the time I did hear it, I'd loved the McGuire Sisters version for too long for it to be superseded!

So what's so great about it? Mainly the luscious vocal harmonies. The parts are all really close together, and the fact that the tune is so low in the voice - and that's the TOP part - makes the harmony seem even more dense and wonderful. (The bottom part - which I sing - goes down to the E below middle C. I can usually get this no problem, but I have to plan set lists quite carefully when we're performing Sincerely, because I can't get the low notes if the previous song was at all high...)

There's also a proper big band AND some male backing vocalists accompanying them. The best bit of the backing is undoubtedly the trumpet flourishes (I can't think of a better way to describe them - but listen and you'll know which bit I mean!) but I do also love the bit when the men sing "ba ba ba ba ba ba"... Oh, and I nearly forgot the unsubtle key change! And it all ends on a major seventh chord... what more can you ask for?

The sixth day of Christmas: The king is half undressed

Here's another song which I've loved since I first heard it, but although it's all wonderful, there's one specific moment that gets into onto the Twelve Days of Christmas list.

Jellyfish - The King is Half Undressed

From a UK point of view, Jellyfish were a one-hit wonder, because although this song made the UK chart (just) in 1991, it was the only one of theirs that did. However, they did apparently have a bigger hit in the USA - Baby's Coming Back - but I've never heard their version of this, just the cover by the mighty McFly a couple of years ago.

However, The King is Half Undressed is a perfect pop song. (Its video even won awards.) I like the harmonies - not just your standard three or four chords, there are some really interesting ones. It even starts on a major seventh chord - not many songs do that! And there are some fabulous backing vocals - lots of psychedelic oohs and ahs, and a great "ba ba ba ba!" And there's a HARPSICHORD! (or at least something that's pretending to be a harpsichord...)

But my favourite bit is the lead into the last verse, which starts at about 2:55. The guitar does a thing that I think of as an "emphatic strum" - I can't describe it better than that without either using FAR more words or actually writing out the rhythm, but I love it when guitars do this. And it's extra emphatic this time. Why? Well, the guitar actually does this same emphatic strum right at the start of the song, but there the chord has the aforementioned added major seventh, plus it's only accompanied by the aforementioned harpsichord. For the recapitulation at 2:55, the chord is now straightforward major (no added seventh), and instead of harpsichord, the guitar is accompanied by bass and drums. All of these factors make the emphatic strum SO much more emphatic. But it gets even better, because the strum itself is only my second-favourite bit in this song. My favourite bit is the bit it leads into: a set of triplet crotchets (on an unexpected chord) that are so distinctive in my mind that when they appear in any other song I refer to them as "Jellyfish Triplets". (This really confuses people if I give them a copy of one of my guitar songsheets for any of these songs. Most often this has happened with She Loves You (I'll leave it to you to see if you can decide where in the song the Jellyfish Triplets appear....) but there are others! None as good as Jellyfish though...)

(P.S. She Loves You is far too well-known to make it onto this list, but I can't mention it without pointing out that the G6 chord that appears twice in the song (the very last chord, and the end of the intro) is one of the best chords EVER to sing in a small one-to-a-part group.)

The fifth day of Christmas: Tammy

Just to buck the trend a little, here's one that's not from 1978 and has no backing vocals!

Debbie Reynolds - Tammy

This got to number 2 in the UK charts in 1957, but was number 1 for several weeks in the USA. It's sung by Debbie Reynolds, who was always most notable to me as being the mother of Carrie Fisher, but she was also the girl in Singin' in the Rain and more recently she was Grace's mum in Will and Grace. The song itself originally appeared in the film Tammy and the Bachelor, which was not only the first in a series of Tammy films but also featured Leslie Nielsen as a non-comic leading man and Fay Wray as his nothing-to-do-with-King-Kong mother!

Apparently Debbie Reynolds' performance of this song in the film was Olivia Newton John's inspiration for Hopelessly Devoted to You in Grease, and you can certainly see some similarities. The song, as with so many of my favourites, is very simple, and one of my very favourite ones to sing (I even invented some cheesy backing vocals so we could do it with the band!) There's really nothing more to say - just listen and wallow in its wonderfulness. (It always makes old ladies cry when I sing it to them - I hope it's tears of joy they're crying!)

The fourth day of Christmas: Come back my love

This is a song that I know so well - and have performed so many times (and recorded!) - that I'm always quite surprised when I introduce someone to it and find that they've never heard of it before.

Darts - Come Back My Love

This got to number 2 in the UK charts in 1978 (are you noticing a pattern here?!) Darts had quite a few big hits that year (I also love Boy from New York City and It's Raining) but their career didn't last much longer than that. They had a big impact on me at the time, though - I'd always liked what I'd heard of doo-wop music, but didn't often get the chance to hear any (its heyday was before I was born - it was my mum that introduced me to it), until suddenly Darts were performing it on Top of the Pops!

Come Back My Love isn't a complicated song. The main chorus bit comes four times, with a middle 8 that comes twice, and an instrumental break, plus a proper intro and coda. But there is a great saxophone solo, and a great piano bit, and the backing vocals are possibly the most fun backing vocals to sing of any song EVER. They even actually include the words "doo wop"! Not to mention "doobidi" and "wah wah". (I'd show you the music, but it's so many years since I wrote it out that I only have a handwritten version... I must do it properly sometime though, because it looks much harder than it is, so it's hard to introduce a new singer to it!)

The third day of Christmas: Lilac Wine

This one was a UK chart hit - it got to number 16 in 1978 - but I've rarely heard it since, so there's a good chance you won't know it.

Elkie Brooks - Lilac Wine

I didn't actually realise until I looked it up just now, but this version isn't the original - it's actually a really old song. Elkie Brooks was very popular where I grew up, because I grew up in Salford and she's FROM Salford. I suspect she wasn't as well-known elsewhere, but I could be wrong! Anyway, I know quite a lot of people who regard Jeff Buckley's "Grace" as the greatest album of all time, and he covered Lilac Wine on there, but I find his version disappointing compared to this one. (I think that's why, although I find Jeff Buckley's album pleasant enough, I've never been fanatical about it, even though I'm considered ignorant by some for having this opinion.)

I just love the orchestration on Elkie's version. It starts with a bare fifth, and you think there are only a few instruments backing her, but then more join in, until you realise there's a full orchestra there. There are timp rolls and everything! And I love the harmony too. It starts in A minor, but the chorus is in A major - at least until it surprises you by following a D major chord with a very unexpected F major. It gets back to A major in the end - and it's a proper ending. None of this fadeout rubbish! They don't make them like this any more :-)

The second day of Christmas: Ruby Red Dress

Here's another one that wasn't a hit in the UK - in fact, it was never even RELEASED in the UK for some reason, although it got to no. 1 in the USA.

Helen Reddy - Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)

I've always thought of this song as "Ruby Red Dress" and was quite surprised to discover, when I went in search of it, that that isn't actually the title. It was around in 1973, when I was very young, and I remember hearing it a lot on the radio. (Must ask my mum which radio station we used to listen to in those days, because they were clearly ahead of their time by playing songs that were never to be released!)

Again, it's a very simple song, but it's a great one to sing, and the tune won't leave your head any time soon. It starts off more or less in D major, although the fact that every chord is a D7 chord (and there are lots of C7 chords) makes the key slightly awkward to pin down. In fact, you could almost think of the whole verse as a dominant pedal, because at the chorus it finally resolves to G major.

My favourite things about the song, though, are the backing vocals and the brass parts. Both of these only join in at verse 2, and again they're very simple but effective. This is not quite my favourite Helen Reddy song - that would be Angie Baby - but Angie Baby was a big hit in the UK so it's more likely you've heard that one. If you find yourself still singing "leave me alone, won't you leave me alone" this time next week, I apologise!

The first day of Christmas: Say it ain't so, Joe

I thought I'd use this Christmas period to introduce you to a few songs that you might not know. Not classical - I doubt there are any classical songs that I know that are unfamiliar to all of you - but my first love, which is pop!

Murray Head - Say it ain't so, Joe

Some of the songs I plan to write about are songs that did well in the charts but are never heard these days. This one, though, was never in the charts - which amazes me, because I remember it getting lots of radio play at one point. This is the original version, sung by the guy who actually wrote it, Murray Head (best known for One Night in Bangkok). It came out in 1975, but a few years later there were a couple of cover versions - from Roger Daltrey in 1977 and Gary Brooker in 1979. I think it was the Gary Brooker one that I heard first, but I must have heard all three on the radio, because it was many years later that I acquired CDs of them (there were no CDs in 1979!)

The title of the song is a well-known quotation (although, as with so many well-known quotations, there is some doubt over whether or not its origin is an urban legend). It's from the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 - a dark time in the history of baseball - and the Joe in question is Shoeless Joe Jackson. The story was told by the film Eight Men Out, and is also a big part of Field of Dreams. Short version of the story: in 1919, most of the players of the Chicago White Sox baseball team (one of the most successful teams at the time, and still a major team now) accepted bribes to intentionally lose several games, including that year's World Series. They were found out, and all banned from professional baseball for life. Shoeless Joe Jackson was the fans' favourite, and it was never proved conclusively that he was involved in throwing games, but he was banned with the rest anyway. He was the David Beckham of his day, so this was a big deal... and as he emerged from the trial in which he was found guilty and banned, allegedly a little boy said to him "Say it ain't so, Joe!" (In Field of Dreams, the reason Kevin Costner built a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield was because he believed the voice in his head was Shoeless Joe asking him to do this, and as a result the ghosts of Shoeless Joe and the other players did turn up to play there...)

The song itself is very simple, starting in D major with fairly straightforward chord progressions. The thing I love most about it, though, is the section starting at about 1:45. It starts in B minor and goes through a series of fairly obvious chords, but none so obvious that you're ever sure exactly which of them is going to appear next. The progression ends with A minor, and with this we realise that the progression has been leading us through a really long modulation from D major to E major. The song from here to the end remains in E major, but the moment when the first E major chord of the whole song appears - at 2:44 - is one of the most joyous moments in any song. It never fails to cause my face to break into a huge grin. Magical.

On the last day before Christmas, my true love sent to me: four inflatable Santas, three sets of tuned sleighbells, two great Sleigh Rides and a robot

I got a text last night from Dr Liz asking how the concert went, and my answer was that it was too good to do it justice in a text so I'd have to ring her! But she was about to go to sleep, so I said I'd blog about it ASAP.

(I'm currently temping at a company in Salford Quays. I'm covering reception, but the phone didn't ring at all today - very peaceful!)

All of this year's carol concerts have been good, but last night's was far and away the best. So I was delighted that that's the one my mum came to. She says that there were people next to her who'd come up from Devon specially - they didn't have relatives or friends performing, they just came because they knew it would be good! What excellent taste. And Bruce was there too - not seen him for ages!

Anyway, there were many things that happened at last night's concert that didn't happen at any of the others, and since I don't have currently anything to refer to, I might forget some of them. But I know you're all dying to hear what they did for "12 Drummers Drumming", so let's start there!

Our first clue was that there was an unexpected drum on the stage - I think it's called a conga drum but I could be wrong. Definitely Latin American, anyway. This drum hadn't appeared in any of the other carol concerts, and as far as we were aware there were no items on the programme with Latin American percussion involved - exciting! Anyway, it lay dormant until The Twelve Days of Christmas, and then, on the twelfth day of Christmas, we had a whole Latin American percussion break - all the section played, there were shakers and everything - and then Jim the clarinettist stood up and played Tico Tico. Fabulous!

(There was also a new turkey hat for our conductor in The Twelve Days of Christmas - one of several that were produced during the concert. Sadly Petroc never got one for himself, but he was excellent apart from that!)

Mozart's Sleigh Ride was as wonderful as ever as far as the sleighbells were concerned. Ric wore his antlers again, and they fell down again. Our conductor made us giggle again with his dreamy look while conducting the audience. But the new addition was that John the timp player did an impression of a robot in the bars when he wasn't playing. Not everyone could see this, but it was very amusing to those of us who could! It's hard to describe what he actually did - probably the easiest way is to say: you know when someone does a mime of being a robot? That's what he did!

Then, at the start of the second half, the horn section had us all crying with laughter. I remember a few years ago when one of them brought the house down by wearing an inflatable Santa suit - well, this year ALL FOUR OF THEM wore inflatable Santa suits, and they could hardly walk, so they had to help each other get onstage. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much! And of course the audience probably thought this had happened every night, but it hadn't, and we had no warning so we were as surprised as they were. I'm really cross I didn't have a camera with me though. If anyone magically managed to get any photos of the horns in costume, please send me one! I'll be forever grateful!

There were no other extreme costumes in the orchestra, although there was a lot more tinsel - and more Santa hats and antlers etc. - than on previous nights. However, the trumpets and trombones made up for their sartorial restraint by being very wonderful indeed in the Sleigh Ride encore. They stood up for the jazzy bit again, but this time they didn't play just the printed notes - they really jazzed it all up. And the percussion section joined in the fun by making the most of the fact that they had Latin American instruments available! And the horns, not to be upstaged, stood up in their Santa suits to play their traditional Rudolph excerpt. I'm sure Leroy Anderson would have loved it all!

What else? Ooh, I nearly forgot Santa. Not the inflatable horn Santas but the other one. When Petroc was introducing something or other, Santa came onstage - carrying not a sack, but a violin - and interrupted him . He (Santa) was unimpressed at the way he'd been portrayed and wanted to correct this. He also wanted to audition for the orchestra! He got out his violin to show what he could do, but quickly found that his beard got in the way when he played it the usual way - so he held it in front of him and played it like a cello. He gave us a quick burst of Hava Nagila, but although I thought this was very impressive, it didn't impress the leader of the orchestra enough for her to invite him to join the violin section. She decided he'd be OK with the violas (!)... but there were no empty seats. In fact, it turned out that there was only one empty seat in the whole orchestra - the timp chair. So Santa was sent over to sit behind the timps, and it was only then that I realised that Santa was in fact John the timp player (who'd been a robot earlier). A versatile guy!

Anyway, a great time was had by all (although I do rather wish the coughers had stayed at home - they got louder each day!) I need to sleep now. However, I do have a vague plan of doing a 12 Days of Christmas feature here, starting tomorrow - I haven't entirely decided what form it will take, but do watch this space!

P.S. I've just realised I've ended every paragraph with an exclamation mark. Sorry. But it was just an exclamation-mark-type concerts :-)

P.P.S. Almost forgot - the annual American military's Santa-tracking site is now live - do have a look if you've never seen it - plus, if you're losing track of the date, my favourite website will help....

O hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing

This is my favourite line in any carol, so I'm always slightly disappointed when the verse is split and only the men get to sing that bit. But I realised today that it's actually probably better this way, because I never used to be able to sing it without a lump in my throat anyway! (In one of today's concerts we were asked to vote for whether the ladies or gentlemen of the audience sang this verse better. I would have voted for the men anyway because of them singing my favourite line, but they (helped, of course, by the men from the choir) did sound rather splendid when they sang it!)

I have loads of things to say about today, but I must start with the Vendee Globe because I didn't quite get to it before. (Sorry if you're sick of me going on about it!) If you've forgotten what I'm talking about, see towards the end of this post for a brief description which includes my reasons for cheering on two competitors in particular, and then updates in just about every post since then. Well, this week the race finally made it (briefly) onto the front page of the BBC News website - but not for the reason I'd expected! One of the competitors broke his leg - a big deal when you're alone on a boat EIGHT HUNDRED MILES from land - and what finally made the BBC take notice of the race was not actually this fact, but the fact that one of the British racers was asked to go and help him.

But even then, all the reports are misleading - Sam Davies didn't rescue Yann Elies, and it was never likely that she would. There was another competitor who was far nearer than her, and he was the one who threw supplies to the injured man and kept him company until the Australian Navy got there. Sam was only asked to head that way for moral support until the Navy arrived, but they got there faster than expected and she never actually got anywhere near the injured man. She and the other competitor who helped out have not even been disadvantaged in the race - they are to receive a time credit.

I'm telling you all this because I'm annoyed that THIS was the story that made it onto the front page, when what they SHOULD have been telling everyone is WHAT HAPPENED TO MIKE GOLDING. You may recall that Mike Golding and Alex Thomson were the two competitors I was rooting for, because of all the bad luck they've had in the past. You may also recall that Alex Thomson's curse struck again and he had to retire from the race a few days after the start. And if you've REALLY been paying attention, you'll know that last time I updated you, Mike Golding was in second place. Well... early last week he finally took the lead for the first time... and only THREE HOURS LATER, his boat was dismasted! I'm distraught - but I doubt I'm as distraught as he is. Another FOUR YEARS before he can try again! And I bet he's even angrier when he finds that the media were more interested in reporting that another competitor set off to provide moral support to a friend! (Well, he seems like a level-headed guy, so he'll probably take it in his stride. But I'm furious on his behalf!)

Anyway, there are several British sailors still in the race, of whom the aforementioned Samantha Davies is currently doing best, in 8th place at the time of writing. I'll keep you updated from time to time, but both my favourites are now out. Maybe next time I won't announce I'm supporting them, I'm good at cursing people by doing that!

So, to change the subject... carol concerts! Three down, one to go (of the main choir ones, I mean) and they've been great fun so far. The silly hats are getting sillier and more numerous, and the number of fairy lights being worn by choir members is increasing. And our conductor did indeed get a selection of hats to wear today. The experience of being conducted by a man in a turkey hat is one that will stay with me for a while! (Talking of head gear, I did manage to go onstage for the first half this afternoon with a pencil in my hair, and I didn't notice until just before the interval!)

The only obvious flaw with the concerts that still needs to be rectified is that Petroc Trelawny didn't have a silly hat to wear! I'm sure someone will find a solution to this problem :-) I've been quite impressed with him so far, actually. He sounds (unsurprisingly) as if he actually knows what he's talking about, and more importantly he hasn't just made exactly the same introductions, read from a card, like some presenters do - it sounds much more natural. I must admit I'd expected him to be possibly a bit boring, but he's not!

I'm thrilled that the march from The Nutcracker is on the programme, but it occurred to me that it's the only time I've been disappointed that the orchestra is arranged in their customary formation with all the violins at the front (1sts on the conductor's left, 2nds on his right) and the violas and cellos in the middle. The Nutcracker march has a rising scale that moves all the way through the strings, and with an orchestra that's arranged in the traditional way (cellos on the conductor's right, etc.) it produces a great visual effect, with all the bows moving a bit like a Mexican wave! This visual effect is lost with the cellos in the middle. Still sounds great though!

I just tried - and failed - to find something on YouTube to show you what I mean. But I did find a copy of the full orchestral score, and it seems that the strings don't actually do quite what I thought they did! The bit I'm talking about appears for the first time on page 12 - letter F - and it ALMOST does what I thought it did, but the 1st violins have a rogue phrase that breaks the visual pattern! I must have been so entranced last time I actually saw an orchestra play this that I didn't notice...

Talking of visual patterns... Last week I sang in a carol service, helping out a friend's choir. I hadn't been to a rehearsal for it, but most of the stuff was very familiar, and the stuff that wasn't was easy enough to sight-read. However, there was one carol that I'd never heard of before, by a composer I'd never heard of before. I've already forgotten both the title and the composer's name (although the title might have started with "Sleep"...) but it was one of those carols in which there are quite a few verses, and all the lyrics after verse 1 are printed at the bottom of the page, miles from the music. Not too much of a problem for those singing the tune, but I was amused, at the time, at the thought of anyone filming the faces of altos singing a piece like this... very good for the eye muscles, though, moving up and down the page so much! I was reminded of this by As With Gladness Men Of Old, which is on the programme for our current concerts. The alto part consists of repeated Ds for 90% of the time, but I don't know the song well enough to remember when it's not D, so the rapid eye movement sets in!

You know how last night I was trying to decide on my favourite moments of the current carol concerts? Well, there are two more contenders that I can't believe I forgot. One is the tuned sleighbells in Mozart's Sleigh Ride. Anyone who knows me well knows that sleighbells are absolutely my favourite thing about Christmas (I spent quite a while searching for a good picture of some sleighbells to put on my home-made Christmas cards, and I generally carry sleighbells in my pocket for at least a month or so before Christmas, merely because it amuses me so much!), so having TWO Sleigh Rides in the same concert, PLUS Jingle, Bells is fabulous. I'd always found Mozart's version quite tame compared to Leroy Anderson's - and it is, really - but this year I've realised how much I like it. Partly this is due to the trumpet part (very simple, yet very difficult due to its height, and played absolutely perfectly, as usual, by Gareth), but mainly it's the tuned sleighbells. For once I'm sitting in a seat from which I can see all the percussion players, and I love watching them play this in particular (there are three sleighbell players, with five sets of bells between them). (Very blurred photo of the sleighbell tray below - the large brown thing in the middle of all the sleighbells is a set of antlers...)



Tonight was even better. First of all, this was the moment when our conductor was persuaded to conduct wearing a turkey on his head. This was hilarious - I could go into more detail but you probably had to be there! Then, Ric (one of the percussionists) put the antlers on, and they kept falling down his face. This made us giggle rather more than it probably should have. But the funniest part - which is still making me giggle now, thinking about it - was when the audience were jingling their keys etc. to help out with the sleighbells part. The dreamy look on our conductor's face while he conducted them - well, I don't know why it was so funny, it just was!

Leroy Anderson's Sleigh RIde was of course the first encore as it always is (there was an outcry the year they didn't play it!) and it was as wonderful as ever. The concert, years ago, when Dave the Whip Guy (aka Principal Percussionist) tricked some of the choir into clapping by pretending to crack the whip in the wrong place - well, that's still my funniest memory EVER, which is unlikely to be repeated because these days everyone claps all the way through. (It was the look in his face that amused me the most!) But the Sleigh Ride encore is still the highlight of my Christmas every year. Tonight's version was the best of the three so far, because the brass stood up in the jazzy bit, which we'd been hoping they would :-)

But I must mention the drum solos. In The Twelve Days of Christmas, our conductor had the idea that in the last verse, just after the words "on the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me", there should be a drum solo before the words "twelve drummers drumming". The instruction - to Dave the Whip Guy - was something like "play a bit of a cadenza, something different every night, and end with a roll". Well, Dave the Whip Guy needed no further encouragement! At the first concert, he was quite restrained - he played a fairly standard marching-band-type drum solo, although it was possibly longer than the conductor had envisioned, because he brought us in while it was still going on...

This afternoon, at the twelfth day of Christmas, Dave started to play the side drum part from Bolero. This was funny in itself, but it was even funnier when the flute player joined in with the tune. Again, the conductor thought he'd better call a halt to this and finish the carol (I have no doubt that the orchestra would have played all 15 minutes of Bolero if no-one stopped them!) but by that point we'd all forgotten what key we were in. I now know (because I just looked it up) that Bolero is in C major, but at the time I was too fascinated by what was going on to think about my next note, so by the time I had to sing it, it was too late! Oh well - we recovered within a bar or two....

Tonight, it was even better. Dave had enlisted the rest of the percussion section AND the brass, and at the twelfth day of Christmas they played the 20th Century Fox fanfare! Sadly the conductor continued the carol before we got the chance to find out whether or not the violins would have played their bit, but it was still fabulous. And this time we managed to come in on the right note afterwards!

I am DYING to find out what they've planned for Tuesday night....

Other stuff: Our lovely Dr Liz finally had a good day, after some unpleasant ones she's had lately. She received a surprise proposal, which she has accepted!



Alison and I walked round the city centre for a while after last night's concert (there was an hour before our train) admiring pretty reflections in puddles and windows. We both took loads of photos but mine are all too blurry to be any good - she was using a proper camera, so hers should be better. I'll put some up here when I can get copies from her. But next time it's been raining, if you're anywhere near the Wheel at night, have a look around you - there are some amazing reflections in all the surrounding glass and puddles.

We also heard a really good busker on Deansgate (outside Kendals). It was a sax player - this used to be rare, but saxophonist buskers are all over the place these days. But not only was this one really good, he played tunes I was surprised to hear from a busker. It was Darth Vader's theme from The Empire Strikes Back that first caught my attention, but then he followed it up with the much lesser-known Princess Leia's theme, and then the theme from Back to the Future! I was very impressed - if I'd had any money, I would have given him all of it!

Today, between the two concerts, I spent a while wandering all over the city centre trying to find anywhere that sells second class stamps (turns out you can only buy them from a post office these days - and yes, I did go to Spring Gardens, but the stamp machine was out of order), and when I was in St Ann's Square I caught the very end of a performance by the Pantonic All-Stars Steel Orchestra. They sounded rather good, and I was disappointed not to have heard more of them. (I've only ever played in a steel band once, a VERY long time ago, and it was great fun - I'd love to do that again sometime!)

Someone asked me the other day what one of the words in Hymn to the Virgin meant, and I couldn't remember, but I think I claimed that lots of the words are flower-related. Now I've looked it up, this turns out to have been a bit of an exaggeration! I'm too out of practice with Latin to translate it confidently myself, but a bit of googling produced this translation, which mentions flowers far less than I thought :-)

While we're doing text files, I found my Christmas lyrics quiz that I created a few years ago. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have seen this before, but if you haven't and you fancy a bit of distraction, here are the questions and here are the answers.

And, in case anyone wanted it, here's the text of A Visit from St. Nicholas. I've been meaning for ages to learn the names of all Santa's reindeer, for quiz purposes - now I have no excuse!

Finally, a couple more random links! Germaine Greer has a lot to say about didgeridoos (all of it interesting). And, via From the Front of the Choir, a Guardian article about vocal harmony.

And, last but not least, Manchester will have official fireworks for the first time in nine years!

Jingle, bells

I always forget, until I come to sing it, that the title of Jingle Bells actually has a comma in it. (Or, for that matter, that Hark the Herald Angels Sing has both an exclamation mark and a hyphen...) The very informative Wikipedia entry about the song doesn't mention the comma - I must edit it sometime!

I'm very tired. Last night was my seventh concert this month (if you count the one on 29th November as "this month", and it certainly FELT like December that day!) - although I'm sure others have had more - and there are still three to go before Christmas, two of which are today. Normally I'd only just be getting up (yes, I know it's gone noon, but my sleeping patterns are a little unusual) but I got up early to watch Man Utd in the Club World Cup Final (it's in Japan, that's why it's in the morning). Five minutes to go and we're winning thanks to Rooney, although Vidic got sent off (somewhat harshly I thought) for elbowing someone in the face (he definitely did it, but I don't think he did it intentionally).

I got a new temp assignment this week, for an organisation whose office is within the University of Manchester. They're closed for the next two weeks, though, so I have a different assignment then. And I had to turn down an extra one for this weekend due to the choir gigs - they wanted me to be an ELF! I would have loved that!

My interview was finally in yesterday's Guardian - so much for them telling me it'd be in, the first I knew was when I got to yesterday's rehearsal and Barbara handed me a copy! As usual there are bits that make me cringe because I would never have actually said them, but other than that most of it is accurate. (Just to reiterate, because I always worry that people will think me very arrogant to keep putting this story forward: I didn't write this article, and I didn't see it until it was printed. It was written by a Guardian writer who interviewed me. And he contacted me, as a result of other times I've been in the media with this story - none of which were instigated by me.)

Anyway, back to music: Last night's concert was good, but unsurprisingly the carol concerts always get better with each repetition. So far the orchestra have been quite restrained in their choice of costumes and silly hats - hopefully that will change! Last night there wasn't even a hat for the conductor - a shocking omission that will no doubt be rectified today. And I'm more hopeful than ever that one day we might get all the alto notes right in A Merry Christmas and It Came Upon The Midnight Clear, because the single note in each song that's always been wrong... well, it's still wrong in both cases, but the encouraging sign is that I can now, after all these years, finally hear quite a few people singing the correct version! The recordings I've heard of both these carols feature the same two wrong notes, though, so it's obviously a perennial problem :-)

I've been trying to decide which is my favourite bit of the concert. I think it's probably the trumpets in Magnificat, but a close second would be the bit in In Dulci Jubilo when the men take us into D minor. (You know the bit I mean!)

So, I seem to have acquired a load of links - let me share them:

Daniel Barenboim writes about international relations within his orchestra.

Apparently last Sunday was the International Day of Choral Singing - was anyone aware of this? I wasn't!

Imogen Cooper writes about Alfred Brendel, and Alan Rusbridger reports from his final concert.

Some of the Doctor Who writers list their favourite Christmas songs.

Apparently baby birds practise songs while they sleep.

Slightly depressing article about music in advertising.

Classical music education from the Muppets.

Interview with one of the King's Singers who's about to leave them.

From the BBC Scottish SO blog, some reflections on snobbery in classical music.

It seems likely that Hallelujah will be the Christmas number one - but whose version? We'll know by the end of today. I know which I'd prefer...

A performance of Messiah was cancelled for health and safety reasons. I feel very bad for the musicians who'd presumably spent ages rehearsing it. Hope they found somewhere else to perform it.

Scientists apparently plan to test whether sharks enjoy listening to Christmas songs.

On an Overgrown Path reports that not everyone likes Gilbert Kaplan's Mahler 2 performances.

Norman Lebrecht wonders why Mendelssohn is often forgotten.

Tom Service writes about classical crossover.

Eric Whitacre has some advice for beginning composers.

Alfred Hickling tells us about the Fragmented Orchestra. It's not what you might think!

Richard Coles (who used to be in the Communards and is now a curate) has a thought-provoking faith perspective on carol concerts.

And there is a girl band causing a stir in Pakistan.

Non-musical stuff: a sad report about words which have been left out of a dictionary.

Where to see the stars from the UK - although I'd disagree with some of these. (In particular, anywhere near London is NOT a good place to see the stars from!) Many years ago, the Salford Astronomical Society wanted to choose the darkest place in England for an astronomical camping trip. They did this by looking at a photo of the UK from space at night - and the darkest spot then was a place called Fleet Moss, a few miles south of Hawes in North Yorkshire. Also, I have a friend who's an internationally-respected amateur astronomer, and he moved to a remote part of Shropshire several years ago because of the relatively dark skies there.

I wanted to write about the Vendee Globe but I have to be out of the house in five minutes, so it will have to wait till tonight!

Let all the world in every corner sing

No time to write anything tonight - maybe tomorrow - but I just wanted to put some more mp3s up. (Don't say I never do anything for you!)

Vaughan Williams Antiphon
Holst Psalm 148
Mathias - A Babe is Born

(See post below for Bach...)

Alison lost her coconuts!

But don't worry, she's just found them. Several days of panic over! (We need them for Sleigh Ride tomorrow at the library... it would feel really weird to do it with no coconuts.) (Even weirder to do it without sleighbells, but mine are in my bag ready!)

I'm currently watching the Choir of the Year final on BBC4, and getting angry at the usual TV technique of spending half the broadcast time talking to people backstage and at home, rather than showing them performing. This annoys me SO MUCH that I now find I have to mute the sound until the non-performance segment is over. Argh. At least the performances are all pretty good, although since I already know the result I'm watching with that in mind, and I can't say I agree with it! I'll wait till the end before deciding who I *think* should have won, but the choir that *did* win has been on already, and I don't think they were the best (although they were very good).

Two choir rehearsals this week, because there is much Christmas stuff to learn. We're doing a bit of Bach's Magnificat among the carols, and I was quite surprised to find how many people had never done it before. So, for those people:

Magnificat, 1st movement
Gloria Patri

(I do hope we do the whole of the Magnificat at some point - it's many years since I sang it, and it's so very wonderful.)

Normally I'd do my musical links before my non-musical ones, but I must tell you that at the time of writing, Mike Golding is currently in 2nd place in the Vendee Globe, and only 49 miles behind the leader! Still a long way to go, but let's hope nothing goes wrong for him this time.

Norman Lebrecht talks about Gilbert Kaplan's Mahler 2 obsession. Mr Kaplan conducted us in this work a few years ago, and he gave every member of the choir a presentation copy of the choir entry page from the autograph score. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was absolutely thrilled with this gesture and still has it on their wall.

There is a year-long festival next year at Kings Place (the new venue in London) called Beethoven Unwrapped.

The busy Tom Service talks to Steven Isserlis, who I think must have missed out a few years because he's claiming to be 50! I thought he was much younger than that!

Tom Service also has a birthday tribute to Messiaen.

Peter Phillips talks about a cappella singing in Russia.

And, from A Cappella News, we hear of the Tremble Clefs, a choir for those living with Parkinson's Disease.

There are several musicians who are protesting - quite rightly - about the fact that their music has been used as a torture device.

And finally, if you followed my advice and bookmarked The Big Picture, you'll already know about this, but if not, their Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar may make you rethink!

Does your granny always tell you that the old songs are the best?

I found myself writing out a proper (i.e. computerised) version of Merry Xmas Everybody yesterday. I have a handwritten version that I did about twenty years ago, and because it's adequate for showing the harmonies and everyone knows the tune, I've never got round to rewriting it. However, because one of my band's gigs next week will now include a singer who's never sung with us before, and we won't have a chance to rehearse with her, I thought I'd better make the music as clear as possible, and that was the most illegible one! (Singing one to a part is great until someone has an emergency that means they can't be there - normally I'd just amend the set list to include songs with fewer harmony parts, but on this occasion we already had two singers who could never make it. so we were already doing only songs with the minimum parts... hence the need for a stand-in.)

(It seems that a London hotel has banned this song because it's "too irritating". It's not Christmas without it!)

(You may be interested to know, if you didn't already, that my spelling of the song title is correct and that of the Telegraph is incorrect. (Because I'm very sad, I am always amused over Christmas to see how many times this song is given an incorrect title!) Slade used unconventional spellings in lots of their song titles - e.g. Coz I Luv You, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Gudbuy T'Jane, Cum On Feel The Noize. The use of the Xmas spelling is hardly weird at all in comparison!)

Anyway, if you would like to hear us perform this song live, come to the Henry Watson Music Library on Saturday between 1.30 and 2pm. Yes, I get to shout in a library again! (This isn't the gig with the three missing singers - that's a few days later.) There are other groups performing too, but I don't know what time they are - it's an all-day event including stories, crafts, mince pies and a treasure hunt. Should be fun!

(Oh, and for those who ask me where we got the name of the band from, here's a picture of the original Pleiades.)

I always feel as if the musical Christmas season doesn't really start properly until Messiah is out of the way, and now it is. It was on Sunday and it went very well, although it was a REALLY long day! I heard quite a few choir members saying it was their best Messiah ever. It wasn't my favourite one - that accolade goes to the 2004 version, conducted by our own choral director. Although I invariably enjoy the performance, 2004 was the only year I found it EXCITING. But this year was pleasant enough, and as usual Hallelujah really got to me and I couldn't sing the first minute of it due to the lump in my throat!

Tonight we'll be starting on this year's batch of carols - I always love the first carol rehearsal, because it involves lots of lovely sight reading - but in the meantime, here are a few links.

Man killed for hogging karaoke microphone. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. (Which reminds me - I had a go at the vocals on Guitar Hero World Tour a few weeks ago. Very amusing - I must write about it sometime.)

Earplugs to the rescue of music course.

Rows ruin La Scala's big night.

Can you smell classical music?

Folk music trains from Piccadilly.

Tom Service explains why Schubert was a genius.

Yet more nice memories of Richard Hickox.

A report on the Choir of the Year final (it's on BBC4 on Friday night, so if you don't want to know who won, don't read this!)

No reviews of Messiah (there never are for some reason), but there was a fabulous review of the orchestra's concert the previous night.

Fascinating article from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra blog - they don't write often, but when they do it's always a good read. This one's about the music of Stravinsky.

There was some controversy over a film being disqualified from being considered for an Oscar for best original soundtrack because it had "too many composers", but now they've changed their mind.

The Spectator reviews a couple of operas in such glowing terms that I wish I could see them.

If you're in Manchester this weekend, you can put a giant version of your handprint on the side of the City Tower.

Also, Ben Ainslie will be in Manchester on Saturday, but annoyingly it's just when I'll be singing at the library so I'll miss him! (I'm hoping he wins the BBC Sports Personality award, but I suspect it will go to Rebecca Adlington.)

Talking of sailors, Mike Golding is (at the time of writing) 5th in the Vendee Globe, only 50 miles behind the leader. You can see a map showing where they're all up to at the official site (wait a few seconds for it to load the boat positions). You'll see that most of them are now in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

And finally, if you're wondering what happened to my Guardian article, it got delayed due to a rewrite, but I'm told it's still likely to be printed before Christmas - I'll let you know. (It will be in the Experience section - I always assumed that the articles there were actually written by the subjects, but that's not the case with mine (I don't know whether or not it is with the others). If I understand it correctly, the finished article will consist entirely of things I said to the author, but it won't be me that chooses what to include!)