Early tomorrow morning I will be setting off on a 1400-mile train journey from my house to Valencia. The journey involves five separate trains in each direction, and I am RIDICULOUSLY excited that it's about to happen, having been planning it for so long. My mum has arrived at my house in preparation for her catsitting duties. Really I should start packing, but I have the urge to tell you all the details of the journey (sorry Libby!)
For comparison purposes, I should explain that he main group from the choir is setting off from Manchester Airport at stupid o'clock on Wednesday morning and flying to Alicante, from where they will transfer to Valencia by coach, arriving about 2pm. They are setting off again on Saturday teatime, and will be back in Manchester in the early hours of Sunday. I believe this is costing them about £265 each.
The main reason I started looking for another option was that a deposit had to be paid last autumn, and the rest of the money had to be paid in January. Neither of these was an option for me, so I was encouraged to discover that not only is it possible to make the whole journey by train, but it would be a bit cheaper, and (most importantly) we wouldn't need to pay anything until much nearer the time. As it's turned out, I still don't have any money at all (so I'm EXTREMELY relieved to find out that we will all be given some money for food while we're in Spain - I was quite worried about how I was going to eat!), but luckily I have some nice friends. My fellow altos Alison and Judy and Sue are travelling with me, and the agreement has been that I would do all the investigating and booking etc., and they (well, mainly Alison) would pay for my share on the understanding that I would pay them back when I could. So, I feel a bit guilty that so far I haven't paid anything at all, but I'll feel slightly LESS guilty if it turns out that we get to Valencia with no problems.
It should all be fine - we do have all the tickets, and we know where and when we've got to be at each place. And we will get to spend time in both Paris and Barcelona in both directions, which no-one else will! So, here's my schedule:
OUTWARD:
Tue 26th May
0745 Depart Littleborough
0814 Arrive Manchester Victoria
Walk across city centre
0915 Depart Manchester Piccadilly (Virgin Trains)
1123 Arrive London Euston
Walk or tube to St Pancras
1332 Depart London St Pancras (Eurostar)
1647 Arrive Paris Gare du Nord (Paris is an hour ahead so only 2h15m)
Metro to Gare d'Austerlitz
2032 Depart Paris Gare d'Austerlitz (Trenhotel sleeper)
Wed 27th May
0824 Arrive Barcelona Estaçion de França
1500 Depart Barcelona Estaçion de França (RENFE regional train, along the coast)
1821 Arrive Valencia Estaçion del Norte
RETURN:
Sat 30th May
1000 Depart Valencia Estaçion del Norte (RENFE regional coast train)
1339 Arrive Barcelona Estaçion de França
2105 Depart Barcelona Estaçion de França (Trenhotel sleeper)
Sun 31st May
0900 Arrive Paris Gare d'Austerlitz
Metro to Gare du Nord
1213 Depart Paris Gare du Nord (Eurostar)
1328 Arrive London St Pancras (London is an hour behind so actually 2h15m)
Walk or tube to Euston
1855 Depart London Euston (Virgin Trains)
2111 Arrive Manchester Piccadilly
Walk across city centre
2208 Depart Manchester Victoria
2235 Arrive Littleborough
Total cost: £256. So it's not MUCH less than flying, but in my opinion it's well worth it, mainly because of no-one having to pay anything until much more recently, but also because it will be so EXCITING! The trains themselves will be great (I've always wanted to travel on Eurostar, ever since the tunnel opened) and the chance to spend significant amounts of time in both Paris and Barcelona is just a bonus. Not to mention we get to sing in a concert. Whee!
Anyway, I may as well clear up some links while I'm here.
First, and most importantly, football. (What? You know you were expecting it!) You will no doubt be aware that last year, when United won the league AND the champions' league, there was no victory parade because the council was too scared after Rangers Day. This year, they have relented slightly. They are still insisting that there will never again be any live football on big screens in Manchester, but they have agreed that if - and only if - United beat Barcelona on Wednesday, there will be a parade on Thursday. (I'm sad I'll miss this, but those of you who will be in Manchester may wish to be warned about the road closures.) It does seem a bit mean, though, that if United lose on Wednesday, there will be no parade. If it was any other team in any other city, you can bet there'd be a victory parade if they won ONE trophy, let alone the FOUR trophies that United have already won this season (the Champions' League would make it five). Oh well.
In other Manchester news, I assume most people know that there are no trams running in the city centre till September, but did you also know that there will be no trams on the REST of the Altrincham and Eccles lines for the whole of August?
Music-related stuff now: Have you seen the new Cadburys Cluster advert? I saw it a couple of weeks ago and was very amused. You know I love sleighbells, especially in May :-)
On 18th May, a pianist called Gonzales broke the world record for the longest solo performance: over 27 hours. Here's how he prepared for it.
You probably already know about the Royal Opera House stuff on Radio 3, but the Intermezzo blog has a few more details.
Mendelssohn 2 is on this month's BBC Music Magazine cover CD, and Robert Tear talks about it on their website.
Via ChoralBlog, an interesting post from This Blog Will Change The World, about introverts as performing musicians.
From The Chorister, a selection of remedies for when you have a bad throat but you HAVE to sing.
From The Spectator, an interesting article about authenticity.
And one last non-musical link before I go off to pack: via the J-Walk Blog, a fascinating article about logos with hidden messages. There are lots of extra ones mentioned in the comments - well worth a read!
Hasta luego :-)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Que sera sera, whatever will be will be - we're going to Italy!
Well, I've been saying for ages that the Champions' League Final would be between Manchester United and Barcelona, and so it has turned out. I'm very much looking forward to watching this from Spain - I'm told that Valencia fans hate Barcelona, but whether or not they'll support them in a match where the opponents are English remains to be seen!
As for the title, I was amused at Old Trafford on Sunday when the crowd realised that "Italy" and "Wemberlee" not only rhyme with each other but also have the same number of syllables, which meant that all the songs which include the world "Wembley" could be instantly adapted to become Champions' League Final songs. Recycling is always good!
I didn't sing in the Wagner concert this weekend, but the reviews are impressive - Manchester Evening News, Guardian and Times so far (I'll add others if they appear). Only the MEN mentions the choir, but since the MEN is the one that hardly EVER mentions the choir, that's good!
EDIT: Graham points out a couple of posts on the Intermezzo blog (I used to edit a newsletter called "Intermezzo", but that's a scary amount of time ago!): half-time report and the final score.
FURTHER EDIT: A couple more reviews: Telegraph and Musical Criticism.
FURTHER FURTHER EDIT: Here's the Independent review.
AND ANOTHER ONE: The Spectator is maybe not quite as impressed as the others, but they still liked it!
I went to Thursday's rehearsal because we were due to rehearse music other than just Wagner. As it turned out this only happened in the final five minutes, but never mind. Before that, I did get to sing the 15 notes of Wagner, but because I wasn't doing the concert I had no music. But I hate having to share copies, so I'd prepared by putting the music onto my phone. I wouldn't recommend singing from a mobile phone screen usually, but for 15 notes it was good enough, and it amused me that it was possible! (There were more than 15 notes on the screen - of course I had to add cues...)
I've been at home for almost four weeks now - temp assignments seem to be vanishing along with permanent jobs - but at least I'm well rested and have been able to work on Plan A. My website is ALMOST ready to go - watch this space.
Other stuff: which opera would you say is England's national one?
As you've probably seen, the bells of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral are to play "Imagine".
Here's more news about that Elgar statue I mentioned a while ago (Graham sent me the link at the time but I am very behind with my email).
The ABBA guys have written a song for their staff choir - very sweet of them!
Via Allen Simon on ChoralBlog: Liz Garnett on How much practice do you need?
The always-wonderful Overgrown Path tells us more about the recent goings-on at Snape. (I have recently been reading lots of Harry Potter fanfiction so it took me a few minutes to realise that the Snape in question was not a Hogwarts professor...)
Talking of Harry Potter, anyone who's read the books or seen the films will know about the Weasleys' clock. Well, soon you will be able to buy one!
There's an interesting new initiative to provide free rehearsal rooms.
If you have a PS3 in your house, you may be interested to know that you can now get SingStar with wireless mics. (If you've never tried this game, I recommend it - great fun! I've only played it once myself but I did enjoy it.)
I think I already mentioned this, but Usain Bolt will be running down Deansgate on Sunday.
And finally, this isn't anything to do with music (at least, not directly), but I found this 15-minute talk about creativity fascinating. (If you like this sort of thing, there is lots more at TED.)
As for the title, I was amused at Old Trafford on Sunday when the crowd realised that "Italy" and "Wemberlee" not only rhyme with each other but also have the same number of syllables, which meant that all the songs which include the world "Wembley" could be instantly adapted to become Champions' League Final songs. Recycling is always good!
I didn't sing in the Wagner concert this weekend, but the reviews are impressive - Manchester Evening News, Guardian and Times so far (I'll add others if they appear). Only the MEN mentions the choir, but since the MEN is the one that hardly EVER mentions the choir, that's good!
EDIT: Graham points out a couple of posts on the Intermezzo blog (I used to edit a newsletter called "Intermezzo", but that's a scary amount of time ago!): half-time report and the final score.
FURTHER EDIT: A couple more reviews: Telegraph and Musical Criticism.
FURTHER FURTHER EDIT: Here's the Independent review.
AND ANOTHER ONE: The Spectator is maybe not quite as impressed as the others, but they still liked it!
I went to Thursday's rehearsal because we were due to rehearse music other than just Wagner. As it turned out this only happened in the final five minutes, but never mind. Before that, I did get to sing the 15 notes of Wagner, but because I wasn't doing the concert I had no music. But I hate having to share copies, so I'd prepared by putting the music onto my phone. I wouldn't recommend singing from a mobile phone screen usually, but for 15 notes it was good enough, and it amused me that it was possible! (There were more than 15 notes on the screen - of course I had to add cues...)
I've been at home for almost four weeks now - temp assignments seem to be vanishing along with permanent jobs - but at least I'm well rested and have been able to work on Plan A. My website is ALMOST ready to go - watch this space.
Other stuff: which opera would you say is England's national one?
As you've probably seen, the bells of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral are to play "Imagine".
Here's more news about that Elgar statue I mentioned a while ago (Graham sent me the link at the time but I am very behind with my email).
The ABBA guys have written a song for their staff choir - very sweet of them!
Via Allen Simon on ChoralBlog: Liz Garnett on How much practice do you need?
The always-wonderful Overgrown Path tells us more about the recent goings-on at Snape. (I have recently been reading lots of Harry Potter fanfiction so it took me a few minutes to realise that the Snape in question was not a Hogwarts professor...)
Talking of Harry Potter, anyone who's read the books or seen the films will know about the Weasleys' clock. Well, soon you will be able to buy one!
There's an interesting new initiative to provide free rehearsal rooms.
If you have a PS3 in your house, you may be interested to know that you can now get SingStar with wireless mics. (If you've never tried this game, I recommend it - great fun! I've only played it once myself but I did enjoy it.)
I think I already mentioned this, but Usain Bolt will be running down Deansgate on Sunday.
And finally, this isn't anything to do with music (at least, not directly), but I found this 15-minute talk about creativity fascinating. (If you like this sort of thing, there is lots more at TED.)
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo was yesterday. It's a festival that I remember every year but have never actually had a chance to celebrate. Nice that Mexicans have SOMETHING to cheer them up at the moment! (If you can't be bothered to follow the link, Cinco de Mayo is Spanish for 5th May, and is a Mexican holiday which commemorates them kicking the French out of Mexico.)
I'm in a bit of a slow period with my attempt to learn Spanish, because I'd been mainly studying on the train, but I've been at home for the past three weeks, so no train journeys! Must get back to it soon. Three weeks from this moment, my train will have just arrived in Barcelona. Three weeks from today is also the Champions' League Final, which I always knew United would be in because I wouldn't be able to go! (Mind you, I was sure we'd be in the FA Cup Final for the same reason - it's on 30th May - and that didn't work...) It's still very possible that Barcelona will be our opponents - they just need to beat Chelsea (at Chelsea) tonight. (Actually a score draw would be enough, due to the away goals rule.) I do hope it's Barcelona, it will add to the atmosphere in Spain if it is! And just in case you feel the urge to burst into song, here is some music for you:
(Higher quality version here in case you want it!)
Before I leave football, I can't resist mentioning last week's story from the Newcastle-Portsmouth game - the "swearing opera singer" was one of the soloists when we did St Cuthbert! He was very nice too - I seem to remember he saw me taking pictures and offered to take a photo of the choir for me (on my camera).
I have an mp3 that I'd love to share with you, but I think the people involved might not be too impressed, so I won't! But I do want to mention it anyway. It's a great example of how it's possible for a group of a cappella singers can rescue a song that's gone horribly wrong, just by listening to each other and not giving up! I did a couple of 6-part a cappella arrangements almost two years ago for my band, but for various reasons we never managed to get six of us in the same place at the same time till last week. I had been DESPERATE to try these two songs, but since we had a gig a couple of days later, we mainly had to concentrate on that - but we tried the two 6-part songs right at the end. Unfortunately no-one had had a chance to look at their part - or, at least, maybe they looked when I first gave them the music but forgot in the following two years! This meant that things did not go well.
One song wasn't too bad, because at least everyone knew the tune, but the other was so bad it was hilarious! Despite that, I'm quite proud of the recording of our attempt at sight reading it. Why? Well, the first two notes are fine. Immediately after that, things start to go wrong, but because there was one person singing who DID know their part (me, because I wrote it!), it didn't totally fall apart, just sounded awful. When the song reaches its last verse, there is a complicated key change, which you'd think would make things worse... but the person who has the tune at that point came in very confidently on what FELT like the right note (he had few other options, since most of the notes he was relying on for his cue didn't happen) and everyone else recognised his confidence and pitched their next note from his. Immediately there was audible harmony, which increased everyone's confidence - and the last couple of bars were perfect. To cap it all, when we checked with the guitar, we'd ended perfectly in tune! So the message is: any performance can be rescued, if you trust each other :-)
I have a lot of links to share, but first I wanted to mention All the Small Things, which finished its first series last night. I imagine lots of you watched it - what did you think? I expected to hate it, but actually I really enjoyed it. It even brought a tear to my eye once or twice. There were a few things that annoyed me, though... Mainly, the fact that they made classical music slightly evil. (Well, not really, but if you watched it I'm sure you know what I mean.) The breakaway choir was made to seem more fun partly because they sang choral arrangements of pop songs, and the original choir (with the nasty people in it) was shown singing classical stuff most of the time, except for a couple of occasions when we were plainly supposed to be slightly sympathetic, and then they sang pop! But I suppose this was to be expected from a primetime BBC1 programme.
(Just to be clear, I love pop songs as well as (if not more than) classical, so I'm not saying they should have reversed their portrayal - it just seems a bit unreasonable to give the impression that pop is fun and classical isn't.)
There's also the fact that the main choir only sang one piece of music most of the time (Haydn's Creation) - which I suppose is fairly realistic, because the series didn't last very long - except that they only ever rehearsed one movement of it! And then, at the last rehearsal before the contest they'd been working towards, the conductor abandoned Haydn and gave them a pop song to sight read (not just for fun, they performed it in the contest final). Uh huh.
However, I did really like the fact that they concluded that contests were not the be-all and end-all of choral singing, and also that they showed that even the best singers can fall apart in auditions! And I loved the fact that they filmed the finale on my platform at Victoria Station. I felt so proud to see it! Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next series - maybe they might even learn another movement of The Creation...
(Talking of Haydn, have you seen the official website of the RNCM's imminent Haydn fetsival? And, while we're at it, have you seen what they're doing - non-Haydn-related - at Piccadilly Station on 4th July? I wish I could see that - very mean of them to do it while we're singing elsewhere!)
The other main thing I wanted to mention here today is Spotify. I've been hearing about this for ages, but I only tried it a few days ago. Until fairly recently you could only sign up if you had an invite, but this is no longer the case - go to the official page to start an account. I'm very impressed with it - it gives you the option to listen (legally) to full pieces of music (both pop AND classical). Those of you who use iTunes will be aware of how useful it is to be able to listen to 30-second clips of music before buying it... Spotify lets you listen to the WHOLE THING. It also gives you links to buy the music if you want to, but you don't have to. So, what's the catch? Lots of you won't even think it's a catch, because it's just this: you can't save the music to your own computer, you have to go online to hear it every time. But there's no limit to how many times you can do this, and you can save the link so that you don't have to search for the song again. There is one more tiny catch if you sign up for the free account, which is that after every few songs you have to listen to a short advert before you can play your next song. They don't interrupt the song to play an advert, and each time you have a forced ad break it's only ONE advert. I've found it a small price to pay for such a good service. Try it and see!
On a related note, the Overgrown Path blog tells us about things you can download from the British Library. I haven't tried this yet but I plan to do so soon. (I'm also amused by his post about music journalists! But I particularly liked his post about the difference between "lean-forward music" and "lean-back music". Food for thought.)
TV things coming up: I think I mentioned a while ago about the Birth of British Music series - well, it starts this Saturday (BBC2, 8pm). The first episode is about Purcell, and there's also a performance of Dido and Aeneas (from the Royal Opera House) on BBC4 next Friday night (15th May, 8.05pm). (I had an unexpected job interview just after I last posted, during which - amongst other things - I had to identify a couple of musical scores from untitled pages. One of them was Dido, and I knew the others too. Needless to say I still didn't get the job! I must admit I'm curious about whether or not the successful candidate got all the questions correct....)
Oh, and also on Saturday - and also at 8pm - there is a Radio 4 programme about John Barbirolli. Bit rubbish of them to put it on then, but thank goodness for iPlayer! (If you can't use iPlayer, it's repeated on Monday afternoon.)
What else? The blog at ChoralNet has moved, and I didn't realise until Podium Speak pointed it out. I've fixed my link now, but there have been lots of articles posted there in the meantime, of which the ones that caught my attention for longest were the ones about Germanic Latin and singing styles you may never be able to master.
Via Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, this thing about Mahler's markings made me laugh a LOT :-)
Here's a delightful video of a load of buskers round the world playing Stand By Me. Do watch the whole of it, it will put a smile on your face. And, entirely coincidentally, here's another performance of Stand By Me, together with a nice article about the wonderful Gareth Malone, which explains very well what effect a good choirmaster can have on many lives. (I had tears in my eyes watching this video, but that's mainly because I remember crying my eyes out when I saw it at the time, and THAT was because I'd watched what they'd gone through to get to that point - I'm glad that series won a BAFTA, it was great!)
And a few quick links to finish, in no particular order:
Interesting article about the power of live performance (prompted by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, but the point is more general).
Norman Lebrecht wonders how much justification there is for calling London a music capital.
Another alarming article about libraries - this one tells us that some Gloucestershire libraries are to have piped music! Argh!
Not three tenors any more: Placido Domingo has switched to baritone.
An article about playing Bach to hippopotamuses (mentioning our very own orchestra).
Ben Folds has released an album of his own songs covered by university a cappella groups. More pop stars should do this!
The Guardian points out that the UK's last piano maker is to cease production soon. Very sad.
Manchester Confidential tells us of a charity karaoke day in Manchester next Wednesday (13th May): 24 Hour Karaoke People at Tiger Tiger. (They also mention that karaoke was born in Stockport!)
And some non-musical links: the Manchester Evening News says it was 40 years ago yesterday that G-Mex stopped being a train station. Some interesting facts, most of which I didn't know!
Blackle is an alternative to Google which claims to save energy.
And finally, a game for you to try: Foldit. It's a bit of a time sink (like all the best games!) but at least it's all for a good cause (unlike most other games!)
I'm in a bit of a slow period with my attempt to learn Spanish, because I'd been mainly studying on the train, but I've been at home for the past three weeks, so no train journeys! Must get back to it soon. Three weeks from this moment, my train will have just arrived in Barcelona. Three weeks from today is also the Champions' League Final, which I always knew United would be in because I wouldn't be able to go! (Mind you, I was sure we'd be in the FA Cup Final for the same reason - it's on 30th May - and that didn't work...) It's still very possible that Barcelona will be our opponents - they just need to beat Chelsea (at Chelsea) tonight. (Actually a score draw would be enough, due to the away goals rule.) I do hope it's Barcelona, it will add to the atmosphere in Spain if it is! And just in case you feel the urge to burst into song, here is some music for you:
(Higher quality version here in case you want it!)
Before I leave football, I can't resist mentioning last week's story from the Newcastle-Portsmouth game - the "swearing opera singer" was one of the soloists when we did St Cuthbert! He was very nice too - I seem to remember he saw me taking pictures and offered to take a photo of the choir for me (on my camera).
I have an mp3 that I'd love to share with you, but I think the people involved might not be too impressed, so I won't! But I do want to mention it anyway. It's a great example of how it's possible for a group of a cappella singers can rescue a song that's gone horribly wrong, just by listening to each other and not giving up! I did a couple of 6-part a cappella arrangements almost two years ago for my band, but for various reasons we never managed to get six of us in the same place at the same time till last week. I had been DESPERATE to try these two songs, but since we had a gig a couple of days later, we mainly had to concentrate on that - but we tried the two 6-part songs right at the end. Unfortunately no-one had had a chance to look at their part - or, at least, maybe they looked when I first gave them the music but forgot in the following two years! This meant that things did not go well.
One song wasn't too bad, because at least everyone knew the tune, but the other was so bad it was hilarious! Despite that, I'm quite proud of the recording of our attempt at sight reading it. Why? Well, the first two notes are fine. Immediately after that, things start to go wrong, but because there was one person singing who DID know their part (me, because I wrote it!), it didn't totally fall apart, just sounded awful. When the song reaches its last verse, there is a complicated key change, which you'd think would make things worse... but the person who has the tune at that point came in very confidently on what FELT like the right note (he had few other options, since most of the notes he was relying on for his cue didn't happen) and everyone else recognised his confidence and pitched their next note from his. Immediately there was audible harmony, which increased everyone's confidence - and the last couple of bars were perfect. To cap it all, when we checked with the guitar, we'd ended perfectly in tune! So the message is: any performance can be rescued, if you trust each other :-)
I have a lot of links to share, but first I wanted to mention All the Small Things, which finished its first series last night. I imagine lots of you watched it - what did you think? I expected to hate it, but actually I really enjoyed it. It even brought a tear to my eye once or twice. There were a few things that annoyed me, though... Mainly, the fact that they made classical music slightly evil. (Well, not really, but if you watched it I'm sure you know what I mean.) The breakaway choir was made to seem more fun partly because they sang choral arrangements of pop songs, and the original choir (with the nasty people in it) was shown singing classical stuff most of the time, except for a couple of occasions when we were plainly supposed to be slightly sympathetic, and then they sang pop! But I suppose this was to be expected from a primetime BBC1 programme.
(Just to be clear, I love pop songs as well as (if not more than) classical, so I'm not saying they should have reversed their portrayal - it just seems a bit unreasonable to give the impression that pop is fun and classical isn't.)
There's also the fact that the main choir only sang one piece of music most of the time (Haydn's Creation) - which I suppose is fairly realistic, because the series didn't last very long - except that they only ever rehearsed one movement of it! And then, at the last rehearsal before the contest they'd been working towards, the conductor abandoned Haydn and gave them a pop song to sight read (not just for fun, they performed it in the contest final). Uh huh.
However, I did really like the fact that they concluded that contests were not the be-all and end-all of choral singing, and also that they showed that even the best singers can fall apart in auditions! And I loved the fact that they filmed the finale on my platform at Victoria Station. I felt so proud to see it! Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next series - maybe they might even learn another movement of The Creation...
(Talking of Haydn, have you seen the official website of the RNCM's imminent Haydn fetsival? And, while we're at it, have you seen what they're doing - non-Haydn-related - at Piccadilly Station on 4th July? I wish I could see that - very mean of them to do it while we're singing elsewhere!)
The other main thing I wanted to mention here today is Spotify. I've been hearing about this for ages, but I only tried it a few days ago. Until fairly recently you could only sign up if you had an invite, but this is no longer the case - go to the official page to start an account. I'm very impressed with it - it gives you the option to listen (legally) to full pieces of music (both pop AND classical). Those of you who use iTunes will be aware of how useful it is to be able to listen to 30-second clips of music before buying it... Spotify lets you listen to the WHOLE THING. It also gives you links to buy the music if you want to, but you don't have to. So, what's the catch? Lots of you won't even think it's a catch, because it's just this: you can't save the music to your own computer, you have to go online to hear it every time. But there's no limit to how many times you can do this, and you can save the link so that you don't have to search for the song again. There is one more tiny catch if you sign up for the free account, which is that after every few songs you have to listen to a short advert before you can play your next song. They don't interrupt the song to play an advert, and each time you have a forced ad break it's only ONE advert. I've found it a small price to pay for such a good service. Try it and see!
On a related note, the Overgrown Path blog tells us about things you can download from the British Library. I haven't tried this yet but I plan to do so soon. (I'm also amused by his post about music journalists! But I particularly liked his post about the difference between "lean-forward music" and "lean-back music". Food for thought.)
TV things coming up: I think I mentioned a while ago about the Birth of British Music series - well, it starts this Saturday (BBC2, 8pm). The first episode is about Purcell, and there's also a performance of Dido and Aeneas (from the Royal Opera House) on BBC4 next Friday night (15th May, 8.05pm). (I had an unexpected job interview just after I last posted, during which - amongst other things - I had to identify a couple of musical scores from untitled pages. One of them was Dido, and I knew the others too. Needless to say I still didn't get the job! I must admit I'm curious about whether or not the successful candidate got all the questions correct....)
Oh, and also on Saturday - and also at 8pm - there is a Radio 4 programme about John Barbirolli. Bit rubbish of them to put it on then, but thank goodness for iPlayer! (If you can't use iPlayer, it's repeated on Monday afternoon.)
What else? The blog at ChoralNet has moved, and I didn't realise until Podium Speak pointed it out. I've fixed my link now, but there have been lots of articles posted there in the meantime, of which the ones that caught my attention for longest were the ones about Germanic Latin and singing styles you may never be able to master.
Via Eine Kleine Nichtmusik, this thing about Mahler's markings made me laugh a LOT :-)
Here's a delightful video of a load of buskers round the world playing Stand By Me. Do watch the whole of it, it will put a smile on your face. And, entirely coincidentally, here's another performance of Stand By Me, together with a nice article about the wonderful Gareth Malone, which explains very well what effect a good choirmaster can have on many lives. (I had tears in my eyes watching this video, but that's mainly because I remember crying my eyes out when I saw it at the time, and THAT was because I'd watched what they'd gone through to get to that point - I'm glad that series won a BAFTA, it was great!)
And a few quick links to finish, in no particular order:
Interesting article about the power of live performance (prompted by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, but the point is more general).
Norman Lebrecht wonders how much justification there is for calling London a music capital.
Another alarming article about libraries - this one tells us that some Gloucestershire libraries are to have piped music! Argh!
Not three tenors any more: Placido Domingo has switched to baritone.
An article about playing Bach to hippopotamuses (mentioning our very own orchestra).
Ben Folds has released an album of his own songs covered by university a cappella groups. More pop stars should do this!
The Guardian points out that the UK's last piano maker is to cease production soon. Very sad.
Manchester Confidential tells us of a charity karaoke day in Manchester next Wednesday (13th May): 24 Hour Karaoke People at Tiger Tiger. (They also mention that karaoke was born in Stockport!)
And some non-musical links: the Manchester Evening News says it was 40 years ago yesterday that G-Mex stopped being a train station. Some interesting facts, most of which I didn't know!
Blackle is an alternative to Google which claims to save energy.
And finally, a game for you to try: Foldit. It's a bit of a time sink (like all the best games!) but at least it's all for a good cause (unlike most other games!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)