Six geeeeeeese a-laying

Not for the first time, I find myself trying to type on my laptop while my cat insists on sleeping in my lap. I could move him, yes... but he generally crawls straight back there. And he's so cute!

Last week didn't entirely go according to plan, but it was very great fun. We started at FC United, where we discovered that the other band had cancelled, so we offered to sing some extra songs to help out :-) Oddly enough, although these went down very well, there was a totally different atmosphere to the one in previous years. Usually their request is for two specific football chants ("Pride of All Europe" and "The Twelve Days of Cantona" (both of which we have a cappella arrangements of) plus "Fairytale of New York" (which they love us to sing because it amuses them when posh people sing rude words - no, I have no idea why they think we're posh!) plus a couple of general Christmas songs. So it's usually a set of five songs, of which at least three are quite rowdy, and by the end, we generally end up singing along to the crowd rather than the other way round! But this time, we did a load of extra Christmas (non-football) songs, and they asked for the football ones to be at the end. The unexpected result was that they didn't join in at all, until the very last verse of "The Twelve Days of Cantona". I think the earlier songs put them in a listening mood. I still can't decide whether this was a good thing or a bad thing!

One thing that was definitely good was that as a result of singing for longer in the bar, we weren't carolling outside for as long, so we didn't get as cold as usual (plus it wasn't a very cold day anyway - unlike today! Brrrrr!) I'd managed to almost lose my voice by then, though, as a result of being too enthusiastic with my Slade shouting (i.e. the "IT'S CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!" bit at the end of Merry Xmas Everybody). And Claire was just recovering from a sore throat, so the fact that we sang the chorus of the Champions' League Anthem three times didn't help her at all, as the soprano part is quite high and very exposed. (You can hear the whole anthem on the official UEFA site.)

We left Gigg Lane just as the match started, by which time we'd sung "The Twelve Days of Cantona" THREE TIMES - it was the best song for getting fans to put money in the collecting tins. (The money wasn't going to us, I hasten to add - it was all in aid of the club's Development Fund, with which they plan to buy their own ground.) Traffic into the city centre was predictably horrendous, but we still got to the City Library (the new one, on Deansgate) in plenty of time for our 4pm performance. The librarians were actually waiting for us at the door, which was very nice, and there was a bigger audience than we've ever had there. It was a really nice gig - we ended up adding an unplanned a cappella carol to the set when our guitarist broke a string and needed a few minutes to fix it, and then (even though we'd gone well over our time as a result of this) they insisted on an encore. Claire wanted to repeat 'O Holy Night' because her husband had arrived late and missed it, and it's his favourite, but I could hardly sing at all by that point, having just done the Slade shouting AGAIN. (I did consider asking someone else to do it, but I do look forward to shouting in a library, and usually no-one else WANTS to do it!) So we went with 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town', because our kazoo player could cover me in that :-) (I think my favourite thing in the whole performance was the kazoo solo in Merry Christmas Everyone (that's the Shakin' Stevens one). We really need to record that with her there!)

(Which reminds me: Radio 3 are hosting a concert for Red Nose Day next year, and every member of the audience will be given a kazoo. Excellent.)

I had a carol service on the Sunday at which I'd agreed to sing, and by Saturday night I was thinking I wouldn't be able to. It wouldn't have been the end of the world, though, because there were several other altos (it was only Saturday when it would have been a real problem if I couldn't sing). But by Sunday afternoon I felt quite a bit better (it helps that I live alone, so I didn't have to talk to anyone other than the cat) and it turned out I could sing OK. But maybe I was incubating something anyway, because on Monday and Tuesday I felt like death warmed up (well, not even warmed up all that much!) I went to work, because I don't get paid if I don't, but on both days I went to bed as soon as I got home and slept for 12 hours (well, interrupted by regular instances of sitting up to blow my nose). By Wednesday I felt a bit better, but that's the day the cough began. I went to choir anyway (although I didn't attempt to actually sing), partly because I wouldn't have been able to sing in the carol concerts if I hadn't, but mainly because I didn't want to miss the return of Jamie!



I felt much better by Saturday, but hadn't actually tried singing until that afternoon. It turned out to be mostly OK, although the annoying tickly cough kept coming back from time to time, most often when I was humming. Once I realised this, I just had a rest in the humming bits, and it was much better. The other strategy was to keep a cough sweet in my mouth throughout the whole of each concert (not the same sweet, obviously!) because if the tickle came, I found that putting a cough sweet in at that point didn't work fast enough to suppress it. The only downside of this is that it's quite hard to sing with a cough sweet in your mouth - if you've never tried it, you may be surprised to hear that the main problem is excess saliva! Particularly in songs with lots of words (The Twelve Days of Christmas caused a bit of dribbling, between you and me...)

The carol concerts have been great fun so far, though (and quite eventful, what with projectile vomiting in the children's choir and someone passing out in the main choir - paramedics had to be called, but thankfully she is fine now). I imagine everyone's highlight is the children's choir singing Santa in Waikiki - with actions and acting and accessories! It is the best thing EVER, and I wish I could have a video of it. (I can't find anything out about the song - which apparently is by Stewart and Albrecht, arranged by Alwyn Green - or any recordings of it -does anyone know anything?) I love our world premiere of On Christmas Night as well, though, and I also really like The Crown of Roses. And of course Sleigh Ride is as fabulous as ever - this year the trombones have bought themselves special red instruments just for the occasion!



Oh, and everyone was in awe of Libby's hat:



(There wasn't a LOT of silliness in the orchestra - the red trombones is about as silly as they got - but I have faith that they'll redress the balance at the last concert tonight!)

And if you haven't seen the FABULOUS sparkly stags in my photo at the top of this post, do go and examine them next time you're in town. They're in front of the new council offices at First Street, and I think they're great. It's POSSIBLE that they're supposed to be reindeer, I suppose, but they are so very like Harry Potter's Patronus charm that I can't believe it's just a coincidence. Here's what they look like in daylight and then from the same angle at night. (They twinkle perfectly, because most of the lights stay on all the time while a few of them go on and off randomly. That's how twinkling should be done. Look, someone even took a video of it!)





The Big Picture doesn't have our stags, but it does have lots of other great Christmas photos.

Carol Ann Duffy introduces a whole load of new poems which may well become the carols of the future. Some of them are very lovely.

Bob Stanley, in the Guardian, has a guide to writing the perfect Christmas pop song. Step 3 is the most important ("Use sleigh bells!")

Hurry down the chimney tonight

Not sure where the last month has gone, but I'm here now! *waves* Actually, I do know where it went. A much-higher-than-usual proportion of it was spent singing, and it feels as if all the rest of the time was spent either on buses, typing letters for psychiatrists, or going to bed early with a hot water bottle in order to warm my feet. Oh, and trying to sell my house. The repossession order has now been given, but because the house was already up for sale (on the advice of the CAB) before the final court date, the judge allowed me three months before the repossession comes into force. So if I can sell the house before 28th February all is (relatively) well - if not, that's when I get evicted. Fingers crossed.

As for singing, it hasn't all been choral, but most of it has. We did the Cherubini Requiem on 11th November, and it went very well - not that that was ever in any doubt, when Lovely Markus was conducting. He gave us an inspiring speech during the warmup before the concert, which I wish I'd recorded, because I can't remember a thing he said now - just that it was inspirational! Also, I will long remember the bit at the start of whichever movement it was (probably the Dies Irae) that had the surprising gong. The image of Lovely Markus standing with one arm pointing upwards until the sound died away will stay with me for quite a while.

(There were a couple of reviews: Manchester Evening News and Music Web. And the Times, but I can't link to that.)

A couple of weeks later, I went to Poole for the weekend, at the invitation of the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir. I've done a few arrangements for them this year, and they were performing a couple of them at a concert at the Lighthouse in Poole, so they asked me to go along and listen. After I agreed to this, they also asked whether I could be persuaded to sing a couple of songs, and I was absolutely thrilled. No-one EVER asks me to sing on my own (well, I can think of one time a few years ago, but on that occasion I was asked to stand in for someone else - I wasn't the first choice) - it's always "Jocelyn, could you sort out a group of singers?" So, with (as always) lots of help from Maggie, I spent weeks preparing. I don't think I've ever practised so much as I have in the past month.

I wasn't nervous until I got there. But when I saw the size of the venue - and heard that 750 tickets had been sold - I was a little freaked out! But then I had a bit of an epiphany. My panicked mind had been screaming "I'VE NEVER SUNG IN SUCH A BIG HALL! OR IN FRONT OF SO MANY PEOPLE!!!" But then it occurred to me that of course I *have* sung in a much bigger hall (many, many times) and in front of considerably more people (many, many times). And the technical skills I use when I'm being a choral singer are more or less the same skills required to sing a solo. So all I had to do was to just sing as I usually do, and ignore the fact that there was no-one standing next to me. (The thing that our ex-choral director used to do, in which he made us spread out until we all had space around us in the performance, REALLY helped with this - I wish we still did that.) This train of thought made all the difference, and my nerves vanished. (I won't say that my performance was spectacularly good, because I'm not - yet! - a spectacularly good singer. But I enjoyed it, and I think it was OK.)

I really enjoyed listening to the rest of the concert, too. It was billed as "A Festival of Male Voices" (I did NOT know that when I agreed to sing, and I felt quite uncomfortable when I found out! But I apologised to the audience for being female, and I think they forgave me.) and consisted of four male voice choirs, who performed separately and together. I was pleased to find that the Bournemouth Male Voice Choir (my hosts) were by far the best (in my opinion), and I loved hearing them sing my arrangements. Here's an interesting thing, too: all the other choirs were a bit out of tune, and I had in fact never in my life heard a male voice choir that didn't sing a bit flat. (Well, apart from occasionally Only Men Aloud.) But Bournemouth were in tune just about all the way through, and I believe that a large part of this was due to the fact that they sang "jumbled up", i.e. people on the same voice part were not all physically grouped together.

(Also, not only were they the only choir that didn't have entirely white hair, one of their tenors - a 16-year-old boy - had BRIGHT BLUE hair, and it looked great!)

The singing didn't stop there. Last weekend was Messiah with Stephen Layton, and I think most of us agreed that it was the best one in years. There were quite a few new ideas, but the main thing that made it so good was that he insisted that people WATCH him, and refused to go on until they did. This broke people out of the autopilot mindset that so often pervades Messiah, and by the time even the SOPRANOS had realised that they couldn't look down at their scores as often as they usually do, it was starting to sound amazing!

It went very well on the night. The only thing that made it not perfect was that the Hallelujah Chorus was spoiled (for me) by the fact that (like so many conductors) he gave the audience a signal to stand, rather than letting them do it if and when they felt like it. I can understand the reason why conductors do this, but the fact remains that it ruins my most favourite moment: when the audience stands up without any prompting, in small non-simultaneous groups all over the hall, it always moves me to tears, and I'm usually still wiping my eyes by the end of the whole work. But when the audience are INSTRUCTED to stand, I remain completely unmoved. Yes, it makes that much difference.

However, he almost made up for spoiling my favourite bit by what he did at the end - a BRILLIANT idea that I can't believe no-one's thought of before. For Messiah, you see, we don't sit in the choir seats - we sit on the actual platform with all the musicians, because it's only a small orchestra. The organist usually sits on the platform too, rather than up on high at the organ console - they have a chamber organ that they wheel in specially. Well, when we started on Sunday there were TWO organs on the platform: the chamber organ, at which the organist was sitting, and another much larger portable organ console, which appeared to be connected somehow to the big full Hall organ. The organist remained at the chamber organ for almost the entire concert, and the audience (if they were paying attention) must have wondered why on earth the large extra console was on stage at all. Their curiosity was only satisfied at the very end. On the LAST PAGE of the Amen Chorus, the organist stopped playing the chamber organ, went over to the full organ console, and played just the very last few bars of the piece with full organ. The effect was AMAZING - I loved it. (Needless to say, those people who believe Messiah should only ever be done with one to a part thought it was awful, but what do they know? Stephen Layton said that he does it with both small forces and large, and since we had a large choir on this occasion, it made sense to him to go for a large sound. I think it was an inspired decision.)

Even more singing this week. On Tuesday I was in Macclesfield with Pleiades for an open mic night at Ronnie's Bar. Unfortunately they'd decided to start an hour later than usual, and we couldn't wait that long, but we asked whether we could sing a couple of songs unplugged to the people in the bar before the event started - since we'd gone all that way specially! - and they agreed. So we did get to sing a bit, at least. Such a pity, though - that's the first time we'd managed to get everyone there at the same time (we'd been before with fewer of us), and I doubt we'll manage it again - people won't want to go all that way for something that might be cancelled or postponed. Oh well.

Tomorrow's a huge day. At lunchtime we (Pleiades again) are singing for FC United, who have been much in the news lately. Sadly they went out of the FA Cup this week, but they did so with their heads held high, in front of a home crowd of 7000 - not bad for a non-league club! (There's another good article about their history here.)

We won't be able to watch the FC United match tomorrow, because just before it starts we will have to stop singing and dash to town for the annual Henry Watson Christmas Music Day. This year it's actually in the new temporary City Library on Deansgate, of course. The musical bits of the day are happening on the first floor (the music library is on the second floor, but there's not much room there) and we're the finale, starting at 4pm. Do come along and listen if you're in town - it's very informal, so you can pop in and out as you choose. I'm very much looking forward to it - particularly the bit where I get to shout!

The following weekend has the choir's series of carol concerts, but I'll try and post again before then. We're VERY pleased that our ex-choral director is coming back to conduct them, though!

Right, I'd better give you some of the links I've got saved, so I can delete some bookmarks.

Alison turned up on Messiah day wearing an all-purple outfit, so I mocked her for obviously being old. This led to the realisation that apparently not everyone knows the poem about old ladies wearing purple, so here it is: Warning, by Jenny Joseph.

I'm sure you've all seen this by now, but in case you haven't: Food Court Choral Flash Mob.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) hates choirs that dress identically. It's a thought-provoking post, and I can't say I really agree with it, but I haven't had time yet to articulate my objections in a comment. I will one day, though, Chris! I'm much more in agreement with another post of his, though: this one is about why people think they can't sing.

Two more practice tips from Stephen Hough: even if you only have a few minutes, you can still do some useful work, and scales and other exercises really can help.

Have you joined Eric Whitacre's virtual choir yet? I keep meaning to but haven't had time yet. A month ago he pointed out that he'd only received 160 videos despite 11000 people downloading the sheet music. Last week he was up to 300 videos, but reminded us that there's only a month left.

As usual, several interesting articles from Tom Service in the Guardian: carrying a cello could keep you out of the UK; several lost Vivaldi manuscripts have been found recently; there's now a prize for orchestral players who contribute most to the team; Alex Ross wrote an article about why modern classical music is unpopular, and Tom responds; he talks to countertenors Andreas Scholl and Philippe Jaroussky (and there's another interview with Jaroussky in the New York Times); Radio 3 is to play nothing but Mozart during the first twelve days of January, and Tom comments on this; and, finally, he brings us good news: twenty new works, lasting twelve minutes each, which have been commissioned for the 2012 Olympics (you see what they did there?)

Also from the Guardian: Leon McCawley writes about Samuel Barber; Stephen Sondheim gives his opinion of other songwriters (I found this INCREDIBLY fascinating, mainly because he has such a low opinion of so many of them!); an intriguing article by Robert Darnton about singing in the streets of 18th-century Paris; and Esther Addley writes about the history of Christmas carols. (A Cappella News, in fact, says that Christmas carolling was started by drunks.)

Cecilia Bartoli performed at the Bridgewater Hall last week - I'm told it was an amazing concert - and Manchester Confidential talked to her beforehand, about castrati and other things. (They also have an article about the difficult times ahead for our orchestra.)

Did you know there was a choir for homeless people in London? Me neither. They're called The Choir With No Name, and you can see them sing here.

Barbara told me about this: The Virtual Piano. It refused to load for me the first few times I tried, but you might be in luck - and it's very clever. There's a piano keyboard on the screen, and you can play it by clicking with the mouse if you like, but you can also use the keyboard. If you start with the number keys at the top of your keyboard (1 to 0) and then move through each row of letters in turn (from Q to M) you will play every note. If you hold the shift key down as well, you sharpen the note. Clever!

Rachel told me about a fabulous busker that she saw recently on Brazenose Street. She didn't recognise the instrument he was playing, but when she investigated she realised it was a Hang Drum. I may have to go and look.

You'll have seen these before, but they're funny, so I'll mention them again: The Twelve Days of Christmas by John Julius Norwich, and The Twelve Days of Christmas by Brian Sibley. They are very similar, and I have no idea which came first.

Here's a clever thing: the Avian Vocalisations Centre at Michigan State University. It is an online resource containing lots of recordings of birdsong.

Animal Aid are begging people not to give goats (or anything similar) for Christmas: here's why.

The Guardian points out that it makes no sense to grit the roads but not the pavements. I couldn't agree more - I haven't fallen over yet this year, but that's mainly because I've given up trying to walk on pavements and am walking in the road instead - it feels safer. The Royal Oldham Hospital deserves many Brownie points for being the only place I've been this month where the pavements have been kept free of ice. Everywhere else is lethal!

They also have a great article about jokes from other countries, and this appeared on the same day as Boing Boing's article on glorious, elaborate, profane insults of the world.

If you, like me, have always wanted to travel to get a really good view of the Northern Lights, here's a guide that explains your options.

The Big Picture has another set of great snow photos, and also an ongoing Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. Pretty!

NFI

The title of this post has no relevance to anything else in the post - it's just a music industry term which I learned recently from a good friend of mine. I told her I'd listened to her group performing in the Proms but was surprised not to hear her voice, which I can normally distinguish quite easily. She told me she wasn't there that day. "Why?" I asked, surprised. "NFI," she replied.

(If you can't guess what it stands for, I'll tell you at the end of the post!)

It's been a while since I last posted. I've been a bit sidetracked by money-related issues (I was in court for a repossession hearing a couple of weeks ago; currently I'm still in the house, but not for much longer). There's been lots of singing to distract me, though. We had a great time a few weeks ago singing Carmina Burana from scratch with a choir of a thousand - although most of them kept panicking about the huge number of words (however many times Greg told them not to worry about that), and the ones who sat near me said that they didn't sing very much in the performance (when the regular choir members went and sat on the stage). But they had fun anyway, I think. And Greg was an absolute superstar - not only did he lead the whole day, he also conducted the orchestra in Carmina, which must be one of the most difficult pieces there is to conduct, I should imagine, with all its time signature changes.

(We also sang Blest Pair of Sirens that day, but it wasn't the most exciting piece ever, although it was very pleasant. And there was quite a bit of confusion caused by the fact that the extra singers had different copies to the regular singers, and in some places the parts had totally different notes.)

A few days later we did The Planets (with the visiting Houston Symphony Orchestra), and it was possibly the weirdest performance of it I've ever been involved in (and there have been many weird ones before!) We arrived to find loads of headphones on stands in the choir assembly area.




We assumed they must be for us, and were VERY excited. There was a brief letdown when someone official told us they WEREN'T for us, but the someone official turned out to be wrong. However, there weren't quite enough for one pair each, and in any case we soon realised that if we covered both ears, we couldn't hear each other, so it was decided that we'd all just use one ear, which also meant that people could share.



However, all this technology didn't mean that things went flawlessly. The headphones were all connected to an electronic keyboard which was positioned just inside the door to the platform, on which Lovely Jonathan played the choir parts in order to keep us in tune. The plan, we assume, was that the sound of the keyboard would ONLY be audible in the headphones... but Caroline, who ended up with no headphones at all in the performance (some of Choir 1 took the wrong ones, so they had some spare that we couldn't reach, and we didn't have enough), said that she could hear the keyboard quite clearly. Hopefully the sounds didn't carry through the open platform door which was right next to it. Oh, and then we also had the usual TV monitor set up, so that the offstage conductor could see the ONstage conductor. But usually these monitors have the sound turned down (we can hear the sound from the stage just fine when the door is open) - not this one.

Oh well - the audience seemed to love it anyway! BBC Music Magazine described how the concert worked (that piece was written before the Manchester leg of the tour), and there are reviews from the Guardian, Manchester Evening News and MusicWebInternational.

Our next concert is the Cherubini Requiem this Thursday. It's not a piece I knew previously, and it's not particularly exciting, but we DO get to do it with Lovely Markus Stenz, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. He was a BIG hit with the alto section when we last worked with him.

Looking further ahead, I'm sure most choir members are aware by now that Die Walküre is part of next summer's Manchester International Festival... but can anyone confirm or deny whether there's a chorus in it? Dr Liz asked me, and a brief flick through the score suggests there isn't a chorus, but I may well have missed it. (It's a pity if there isn't, especially as our Götterdämmerung won a Gramophone award - one of TWO for our orchestra this year.)

Interesting review at Intermezzo, by the way, of Andris Nelsons' LSO debut. It's interesting mainly because it's the only review of him I'm seen that describes how hard it can be to follow his beat!

Chris Rowbury at From the Front of the Choir always has good posts, but two of my favourites recently have been How to deal with unwanted talking during choir rehearsals without killing anybody, and Song meanings lost in translation.

Here's an interesting precedent to set: when Riccardo Muti was ill and couldn't make it to a gig to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, they did the gig with no conductor. (Via Intermezzo.)

An intriguing Spectator review of a recent performance of Tristan and Isolde.

Via A Cappella News, a story about a Swiss choir that tried to set a world record last month by singing a cow-calling song. My favourite bit of the story is this: "It is said that it was forbidden to sing the song in the presence of Swiss mercenary soldiers as it made them homesick and unable to fight. The composer Rossini used the melody in his famous William Tell overture." I must investigate and find out which bit of William Tell you can't sing in front of Swiss soldiers! I presume it's the cor anglais tune, but who knows?

Tom Service tells us about a newly-discovered Elgar work - I particularly like his description of our own music director's reaction to it. The story relates to a programme that's on BBC4 this Friday night (and repeated a couple of times over the weekend).

From The Chorister, some very sensible points about How to be a great choir director.

From the Boston Globe via A Cappella News, a great review of a Stile Antico concert. This review makes me REALLY want to hear this choir.

Russell Watson talks about how and why his voice has changed.

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: drum your fingers on the tabletop. (Out of interest, work out whether you start with your thumb or little finger - or some other option! - when you do this. Then ask your friends and family which way they do it. I always assumed everyone did it starting with the thumb, as I do, until my best friend told me about an argument he'd had with his wife about which was more common...)

In case you weren't aware, Maurice Murphy died last week. He's probably the most-heard trumpeter ever, and Tom Service explains why.

Via Intermezzo, an article in the Irish Times in which several professional singers talk about voice care.

Composer James MacMillan writes in the Telegraph about how he wrote a mass for the Pope's recent visit, and a Scottish committee tried to stop it being performed.

From BBC Music Magazine, news that a Preston choral society has a new conductor, and he's commuting every week from ITALY.

The Guardian had a 4-part series of articles covering a visit to Skywalker Ranch, where many things to do with the Star Wars films happened. Part 3 is about the recording studio - very interesting.

Here's a fascinating Guardian interview with Guy Chambers (who wrote many songs with Robbie Williams). Most interesting part (to me, at least): the revelation that Brian May will not allow Queen songs to be performed in any key other than the original, which is why Robbie never sang with Queen (he can't sing as high as Freddie Mercury could).

You remember the pop group Squeeze? (They're how Jools Holland first became famous.) They found a novel solution to the fact that they didn't own the rights to any of their own songs - they recorded them all again.

I'm not quite old enough to remember the famous 1929 recording of Nymphs and Shepherds by the Manchester Children's Choir, but I was told the story when I was at school, and I've seen the plaque in the Henry Watson. Well, Victoria Wood has written a play about the occasion for next year's Manchester International Festival. (More info from the Manchester Evening News.)

I'm sure you'll all be aware of Friday's FA Cup shock, in which FC United of Manchester knocked out Rochdale (several divisions above them). The Guardian has some great photos of the previous round, plus a good article explaining the club's history, and a report on Friday's match. (The draw for the 2nd round was made today, and FC were drawn away to either Brighton or Woking. If they win that match, they're in the 3rd round... which is when the Premier League teams join in! Whee!)

Dr Liz has been singing in Sydney, but didn't have as good an experience as she does at home :-(

Google Street View is now available in some surprising locations, and the Guardian has some great photos of these.

Facebook users may or may not be concerned about the latest breach of privacy.

A fascinating article about life aboard the International Space Station.

This really amused me - a grovelling apology from an Australian newspaper that made a factual error about Star Trek in a story.

Here's a free online game for you to play: Electric Box 2. I was addicted to the iPhone version of this for weeks.

The Big Picture continues to have great sets of photos of all sorts of things, usually consisting mainly of photos you haven't seen anywhere else. Here's their set of photos of the Chilean mine rescue.

And finally, via BBC Music Magazine, something that makes me giggle (and takes me back to my childhood, when I used to love this guy on TV) - scroll down to see Victor Borge playing a piano duet.


(NFI = Not Fucking Invited.)

Oh, oh, oh, totus floreo, iam amore virginali totus ardeo

So sorry about the long hiatus. All sorts of bad things have happened this summer - the burglary was just the beginning, but I will try not to whinge about what's happened since, as I'm sure no-one wants to know - and I haven't been in the mood to write anything. I'm still not, really, but I decided I'd better make an effort to try and catch up with stuff.

We had a whirlwind start to our choral season, with two performances of Mahler 8 in Symphony Hall in our second week back. We still remembered it very well from May, of course, but this was with a different orchestra (the CBSO) and a different conductor (Andris Nelsons), so it did need a lot more rehearsal than it might have if it had been a direct repeat. And because of the concerts being on a Thursday and a Saturday, the schedule (including rehearsals) meant us all being in Birmingham on three consecutive weekday nights and then back again on Saturday. This caused huge logistical problems for most of the choir, so it was impressive how many of us were there. I know a few people took the whole week off work specially, but not everyone could do that, so there were lots of exhausted singers! On top of that, I managed to develop a streaming cold at the start of the week, so I had one of those fun concert experiences in which I kept having to wait for loud bits so I could blow my nose. Very annoying. (I blame the air-conditioning on Tuesday's coach - my nose felt far worse after that.)

I enjoyed both concerts, but I didn't think either of them was as good as the Manchester one. I won't go into the reasons here, but I *will* say what I thought was BETTER in Birmingham, and that was the Mater Gloriosa and the offstage brass. Not their actual performances - they were both great in both locations - but their positioning. I think I've mentioned before that my most abiding memory of the FIRST time I did Mahler 8 in the Bridgewater Hall was of the Mater Gloriosa singing her bit from the very highest possible point in the hall. When we did it in May, she was on the same level as the choir, and it just wasn't the same. But in Birmingham both the Mater Gloriosa and the offstage brass were right up near the roof, and I much preferred it. (I felt sorry for the offstage brass, though. The conductor totally forgot to give them a bow on Thursday night, and they stood there waiting for quite a while before obviously deciding to leave when the bows continued and they still didn't get one - they had vanished before we left the stage. So I didn't really blame them for not waiting at ALL on Saturday!)

The reviews surprised me quite a bit, because all the reviewers seem to have viewed the concerts differently than I did. They're all really good, though. Thanks to Martin for sending me a PDF of the Times review - the Times and Sunday Times both now charge for access to their website, so I can't check it any more. (In fact, there was - in theory - a feature about me in today's Sunday Times, but I haven't seen it yet for exactly this reason! I'm hoping someone will have bought it and will show me sometime. I did tell all my friends it was due to be in, but I haven't heard back from any of them, so maybe they haven't read it either.)

(Oh, and before I forget, I'm live on the radio in a few hours' time - in fact, I'll probably have been on by the time you read this, but you can listen on iPlayer if you're interested. I'm a guest on Woman's Hour (which, being a bit of a tomboy, I've never listened to in my life!), although I can't promise I'll have anything interesting to say!)

Other reviews: Guardian, Financial Times, Birmingham Post, MusicWeb, and (with photos and comments) Intermezzo. Oh, and the finale is (very illegally and nothing to do with me!) on YouTube.

(A couple of recent links about Mahler: a fascinating review of a Norman Lebrecht book about Mahler (from which I learned that Mahler is Beyonce's eighth cousin four times removed), and a great Guardian article about Mahler that stems from one chord.)

We're doing Mahler 8 again next summer, but for now our next two concerts are in a couple of weeks' time: a Carmina Burana scratch day on 9th October, and The Planets (which I think might be sold out) on 12th. I haven't done Carmina for YEARS, so that's great fun, particularly as all of a sudden we're joining in with loads of soprano parts and choir 1 bits that I haven't sung before. Very much looking forward to doing it with the orchestra and a thousand extra singers.

I have many links to share with you, but my favourite is this one from almost two months ago, in which lots of musicians (including our own music director) describe their greatest onstage moments.

Those who sang Eric Whitacre's Sleep earlier this year may be interested to know that he's using that song for his next Virtual Choir project. If you want to join him, the instructions are on his website. Also, here's a review of a concert of his - sounds fabulous, wish I'd been there! And also from his website, but other than that not actually anything to do with him at all, an absolutely fascinating short documentary about the making of 10CC's I'm Not In Love in the days before computers.

Those who took spart in my Surprise Spem project will be fascinated by the idea of a whole CONCERT of 40-part vocal music. I'd had this review for a while, but coincidentally the concert itself was on Radio 3 at the weekend, and you can listen to it until Saturday.

The Proms seem ages ago now, even though I know they only ended a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that there wasn't one this year that really blew me away, although three that I did really enjoy were the Rodgers and Hammerstein night, the Jamie Cullum night and the Monteverdi Vespers. The last night just seemed wrong without the Sea Songs, although I know they did it in the 1910 reenactment. (The Radio 3 blog posted a Last Night post-mortem, and Classical Iconoclast had a post-mortem of the Proms as a whole.) (Classical Iconoclast also has a fascinating article about Parry and Stanford - did you know Parry hated Stanford? I didn't.)

Stephen Hough has another practice tip: make sure you look at the original score. He also has a great post about historically-informed performance. And he asks that age-old question: If I had ten minutes with the Pope, what piano duets would we play?

On an Overgrown Path has an intriguing post about a piece of Elgar history. And here's a different piece of Elgar history: he wrote one of the first football anthems (for Wolves), and someone's recorded it.

Here's a great Telegraph article about Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.

From A Cappella News: the King's Singers have a new member. (I thought this was interesting not for who he was - I've never heard of him - but for what sort of person they needed.)

A very sad article about the downfall of Scottish Opera, and more on this from Tom Service.

Slightly alarming thing from Ben Goldacre talking about the fact that how female musicians dress affects how their playing is perceived.

There's a composer who thinks that classical music should be amplified, so that people can talk during the concert, and walk in and out as they choose. Tom Service follows this up with Berlioz's instant feedback method.

Classical Iconoclast brings us news that the Elgar Birthplace Museum in Worcester is having a Gerontius exhibition from now until December, and also a great post about the emotional impact of the piece.

Classical scholars may be able to guess what a lithophone is: it's like a xylophone, but made of stone instead of wood. They've made one out of Lake District rocks and got Evelyn Glennie to play it. More details from the University of Leeds, who made it, and the University of Hull, who composed some music for it.

Chris Rowbury's posts (From the Front of the Choir) are always interesting, but I particularly liked this one about conducting gestures. (I wonder whether Andris Nelsons has read it? Doubt it.)

I don't really care whether or not there's a Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, but it turns out that there was and now there isn't, and I was so taken with the photo of it that I had to show you!

Here's a Guardian article about supposedly offensive lines being cut out of songs. I hate this. Although what I hate even more is when they use sonsg for adverts and cut SINGLE BEATS OUT OF BARS just to get the song to fit into the time limit. ARGH.

Talking of irritating, the only thing I really hate about buses is the fact that invariably there is someone who wants to play everyone their favourite music on their phone. The Guardian has a thought-provoking article about this. (I still hate it, though.)

In a similar vein, the BBC has an article about the proliferation of Autotune.

There was a very odd rumour I heard recently (although apparently it's a very old urban legend) that the original Batman theme (you know, the ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner one) has its vocal lines actually produced by brass instruments, even though they clearly sing the word "Batman!" The ever-reliable Snopes not only tells us that the rumour is untrue, but digs up some interesting information about how they DID do it.

This is kind of fun, and therapeutic: a musical thingy involving circles crashing into each other. Try it and see!

I doubt this will interest any of you, but just in case: McFly are my very favourite band, and the Guardian recently had an article about them. (Their musical skills are considerable, I promise you.)

A few people have asked me about Dr Liz. I mentioned her blog last time, but if you haven't read it, here are a few notable posts: a description of what she's actually doing, some Australian oddities, and news that she's found a choir and will be singing the Berlioz Te Deum in Sydney Opera House, lucky thing. (That's one of my favourite pieces ever, and the venue's not bad either!)

A bit of Manchester news now: we have a house in the city centre built especially for ducks!

The last of the books have finally left the Central Library - the photo is a bit eerie if you know that room well - but there's news about what it'll be like after the renovations.

Biggest current news in Manchester is the filming of a Hollywood blockbuster (Captain America) that's going in in the Northern Quarter. I went to have a look the other day - it's mainly on Dale Street, near the Piccadilly Station end. There are security staff all over the place, but you can get quite a good view of the set. The actors weren't there when I looked, but they are now. Someone's started a dedicated blog that has loads of photos, if you haven't got time to go and have a look yourself.

Yesterday a load of people went swimming in the Manchester Ship Canal! Sounds slightly insane to me.

Other bits of random stuff: I really like this article by Gia Milinovich, explaining how she started to feel invisible after her husband became extremely famous. (Her husband is Professor Brian Cox.)

If you've never used eBay, or you have but you suspect you're not getting the most out of it, this article will help.

If you use the same password for everything, this article might make you reconsider.

I watched this in fascination for several hours last Sunday: two young men attempted to set a new world record for the longest continuous kiss. They broke the record - they did 32.5 hours, with not a single break. They stood up the whole time - in fact, they danced for lots of it - and their lips were attached continuously, so they had nothing to eat or drink. It was very impressive.

Which links me nicely into my Big Picture selections, because the first one is of a selection of same-sex weddings, and I think these pictures are SO lovely. There's also some spectacular new solar system photos, and some great images from Oktoberfest.

And finally, via Londonist, an Ikea advert which involved a hundred cats being released into the store at night and filmed for a while.

Spem videos!

Lots of people have asked about these, and they're finally online so I can share them with you.

The two main videos are both slightly over ten minutes long, but they needed to be under ten minutes to go on YouTube, so I was planning to split off the intros (because the singing itself is JUST under ten minutes), but for various reasons that hasn't been done yet. But in the meantime, YouTube unexpectedly solved the problem themselves, by increasing their video time limit to fifteen minutes, only a few days ago!

These videos are therefore totally unedited. As is always the case, they don't sound QUITE as amazing as I remember it in my head, but they do sound pretty good! A friend to whom I sent the links commented that it almost fell apart in the middle of each attempt, but we expected that - the amazing thing was that we recovered well enough to get to the end convincingly \o/

The first attempt was filmed from behind choirs 4 and 5, whereas the second attempt was filmed from behind choirs 1 and 8, so you can see all the singers in one or the other (most are visible in both).

(I've edited my blog post from the day to include the video links, in case you want to remind yourself of the background.)

Video of Dr Liz arriving

Video of first attempt (preceded by my intro)

Video of second attempt

This is an emergency alarm. Please leave the hall immediately by the nearest exit.

Well, we've done our last concert of the season - the opera gala - and it was great fun. It went very well and I really enjoyed it. There was all sorts of excitement though. The first was that we were told at the piano rehearsal, a few days earlier, that both the soloists had cancelled. We do have a bit of a curse on soloists, as most of you know, but 100% cancellation is still quite rare! I think one of them was ill, but the reason for the cancellation of the other one was a bit of a surprise - I'd better not say it here though. But the soloists we DID get were great. The tenor was John Hudson, who we've sung with before, but new to us was a great Italian soprano called Maria Luigia Borsi. We liked her a lot - the best part was that it was obvious she was really enjoying herself. I hope we meet her again. (It turns out she only made her UK debut earlier this year. Here's a Classical Source interview with her, and another from the Arts Desk.)

Another bit of excitement was that the fire alarm went off just before the second half started! I've never known that happen before. The orchestra and choir were already on stage, but the conductor hadn't come on yet. So the whole crowd of performers and audience had to go outside (luckily it wasn't raining) and hang around for twenty minutes till we got the all-clear. It turned out to have been a false alarm - the manager came out to make an announcement, and mentioned that it had gone off during a rehearsal the previous day as well. Luckily none of the audience left, as far as I could see, and nothing was cut from the programme, although it did finish pretty late. A lot of people had to dash out as soon as the concert ended, and so missed the encore (which was Brindisi), but the ones who stayed gave us a standing ovation. Very satisfying!

I must say I really enjoyed working with our guest choral director for the last few weeks - I'd love it if he became the permanent one, although I know he has lots of other commitments and may not have time to take us on as well. But my fingers are crossed.

I haven't seen any reviews of the opera gala (or any of the other Manchester proms), which is disappointing - have I missed any?

Other news directly relevant to us: the Independent admits that the Bridgewater Hall is still the best concert hall in the country.

And 4 Bars Rest (a brass band website) has an audio interview with our principal trumpeter. (The site was down when I just checked it, but it should be back up soon. And you have to register to hear the interview, but it's quick - and free.)

A friend asked me the other day whether it's true that we're doing The Planets next season. I told her it is (it's on my birthday, so I could even tell her the date without checking), but it was only when I looked on the hall's website to see whether the tickets are on sale yet that I discovered that it's not just a normal Planets performance - the music will be accompanied by NASA images! That's a first for us. And my friend called the box office and was told that it was already nearly sold out, so if you want to get tickets I'd do so now.

A few people have asked me whether I've heard from Dr Liz in Australia, and I have... but you can read her reports yourself, at her blog. So far she hasn't met any ninjas, though, despite living near the scene of this fantastic story!

I'm not having the best of weeks myself - I was burgled the other day, while I was in the house. It was my own fault - I fell asleep with the back door slightly open. I don't think they can have been in the house more than a few seconds, because everything that was taken was within sight of the door... but one of those things was my oboe, which I've had for more than thirty years. I am distraught about this. And needless to say nothing was insured, because I haven't been able to afford insurance premiums for the last year or so. Typical - I paid insurance for years and never got burgled, and as soon as it lapsed they took my oboe!

Anyway, I have a million links to share with you, so let's got on with them.

From the Guardian (mostly from Tom Service): someone performed all nine Beethoven symphonies in one day in London a couple of weeks ago; the Go Compare tenor got himself in trouble on Twitter; there is new advice from the C of E about whether or not it's OK to sing Jerusalem at weddings (more details here); there's a Charles Mackerras obituary (and here's another, from BBC Music Magazine, and one from On an Overgrown Path); there's a pianist who showed off at the Cheltenham Festival by reading the score from his iPad, but Tom Service is very doubtful about this, and (having read the report) so am I; Simon Callow reviews the latest book by Charles Rosen, which sounds amazing (I haven't read that one, obviously, but I've read several of his others, and they're great); there is some uncertainty over the origin of the song Cockles and Mussels; applause between movements is becoming more popular; apparently the Wagner sisters have ended their feud (I didn't know there was one!); here's a nice article about silence (and the lack of it) in today's world; there's a useful list of the best live arts websites; an article about barbershop singing in the UK; I haven't seen any films this year, let alone Inception, but if you have seen it (certainly everyone I know is talking about it) you may be interested to know that the entire soundtrack is very cleverly based on one Edith Piaf song (Je Ne Regrette Rien); they examine why Bach's music is so suitable for being adapted; and why Andris Nelsons is so great with the CBSO (I'm very much looking forward to being conducted by him next month).

Vuvuzelas are still in the news: both the Guardian and the BBC report about various Premier League clubs banning them. What annoys me about this is that no-one is talking about banning air horns, which are much louder and (to me, at least) more annoying. They're certainly on sale at all the stalls outside Old Trafford, and I assume the same is true at other clubs - and more than once I've been temporarily deafened by a kid blowing one near me. (It's worst when they do it on the tram - took my ears quite a while to recover last time that happened.) I asked RNID, on Twitter, why they are making a fuss about vuvuzelas but not air horns, and they said they'd ask their campaigns team and get back to me, but they haven't yet. (I know the answer - it's obviously because there's a publicity bandwagon for vuvuzelas that there isn't for air horns, and their resources are limited - but in terms of damage to hearing, air horns are worse.)

Also from the BBC: they now have a player commentary facility for the Proms; Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band have their first female player; music can help athletic performance; there's an obituary for David Fanshawe (I've only ever heard his African Sanctus, but I love that - it's one of those pieces that absolutely intrigued me when I heard it on the radio, years ago, and I had to go out and buy it); there's also an obituary for Anthony Rolfe Johnson; and I quite like this article about the First Night of the Proms, in which someone asks the organist how much they'd have to pay him to play an E major chord at the start of Mahler 8 (instead of E flat). That would be the funniest thing ever! Pity no-one paid him enough :-) (Which reminds me... if you're on Twitter and you're not following the Royal Albert Hall Organ, you should. He's hilarious. Sample tweet: "First notes of #bbcproms 2010 played by ME! Wasn't I great?")

Classical Iconoclast has a nice post about the silliness of the Proms, and another one about three of the lesser-known soloists in the Die Meistersinger prom. Intermezzo has a review of the same prom, and they both mention the role of the Nightwatchman, which had already been highlighted by On an Overgrown Path. I was fascinated by this - I'd never heard about this role before. Sadly I was only half-watching the prom when it was on, and I missed that bit! But no doubt I'll see it one day.

Peter Phillips wonders, in the Spectator, why there is such disparity between choirs and orchestras.

Stephen Hough has some more practice tips: use a blue pencil and don't always warm up.

The Kings of Leon had to abandon a gig recently due to being bombarded by pigeon poo.

Some Manchester news: I visited the new temporary City Library last week, and was quite impressed. It's bigger than I was expecting (particularly the music room on the top floor) and is very pleasant. It has a LOT of computers for public use, and even a big screen TV (with the sound off, of course) which was showing football when I went in, although I soon realised that it was actually on the BBC News channel, but there was a football story on the news. Most importantly, the music library has a decent bit of floor space, so I'm hopeful that they'll be able to have their Christmas Music Day despite having moved home. The only slightly sad thing was that the librarians no longer stamp the books! There are electronic scanners for you to use to take books out, and you get a printed receipt telling you when they're due back. I think I'd be quite upset if I was a librarian!

But what reminded me to mention that was that Manchester Confidential has details of the refurbishments to the OLD Central Library, and very interesting they are too. Most importantly, it sounds as if my favourite bit of the building will remain intact, which I'm relieved about.

Also, next weekend Piccadilly Gardens will become a giant picnic area.

A few random things to finish off. Firstly, recent events have reminded me that there are still people who never back up any of their computer stuff. If you're one of them, and you've been lucky so far, here are some suggestions from TV writer James Moran - one of them might persuade you.

If you have lots of time to waste at work, you might like this: the Guardian's list of the greatest Internet-based sports games.

Football fans among you will have heard about the new rules regarding how many non-English players teams can have, but if (like me) the exact details of this had bypassed you, you might find the BBC's explanation helpful.

Next week is Perseid Meteor Maximum. I'll probably post again before then to tell you more about that, but in case I don't, here's some info from Universe Today.

Talking of astronomy, I'm sure you're aware of the fabulous Astronomy Picture of the Day website, which I've mentioned many times before, but my favourite recent picture of theirs is actually earth-based: lightning storm in Athens. Amazing!

And I can't talk about great photos without the latest highlights from The Big Picture: the close of the World Cup; a collection of recent stormy skies; and two sets from the Tour de France (part 1 and part 2).

Don't die of shock if there's a new post in the next day or two - I'm currently uploading something that I wanted to mention, but it's not finished uploading yet. As soon as it is, I'll post to tell you about it!

Les voici! voici la quadrille

Well, I did mean to post again a couple of days after my last post, but I didn't have a chance till this weekend, sorry. After the Spem event (which was only two weeks ago, but feels MUCH longer ago) I had another (non-musical) event last weekend in Edinburgh which involved a fair amount of preparation... and I'm still doing the part-time job which involves spending at least three hours a day on various buses. I'm hoping that ends soon, because the travelling makes it feel like a full-time job (so there's very little time or energy for anything else), but my finances are getting rapidly worse as a result of working there. I need to find extra sources of income ASAP.

Anyway, I've done a bit of singing in the past couple of weeks, although not as much as I would have liked. We recorded "Valiant for Truth" by Vaughan Williams a few days before the Spem thing, and I think the result will be great - I can't wait to hear it. (We were supposed to record two Elgar songs too, but (to no-one's surprise) there wasn't enough time in the session. I was pleased the Vaughan Williams was the one we did, because it was the only one of the three I liked!)

Currently we're rehearsing opera choruses for our next concert, which is a week on Saturday. I'm very much looking forward to this - I like all the pieces we're doing (well, the thing from Macbeth is less good than the rest, but that's mainly because the alto part is VERY boring) and I think they'll all sound pretty good. Also, I just LOVE the Aida trumpets! (One of my Great Choral Moments involves the Aida intro. I still think of it every time I hear that piece. Actually, I should resurrect my Great Choral Moments series - it's been a while since I mentioned one.)

(Just to remind you there are mp3s here if you want to practise. I can't promise they're all La Scala, though. (In fact, the Aida recording is US, last time we did it.))

The only thing we haven't rehearsed at ALL so far is Nessun Dorma (although we've only sung once through Brindisi so far), but that won't be a problem as it only involves two lines for the choir (just the ladies, in fact) and we've sung it many times before, although not for quite a few years. Most of the previous occasions were in the Classical Spectacular gigs at the MEN Arena (I'm still distraught that they do those gigs without us these days), in which invariably we had to sing Nessun Dorma in the dark because the spotlight was on the tenor, so we had to memorise our two lines. This wasn't exactly difficult - I can still remember the words even now, and it's years since I last performed them - so I was always a bit baffled at the fuss some people used to make over having to do the memorising. A couple of people just refused, and either didn't sing that piece or sang it to "la"; significantly more people went to a considerable amount of trouble to make sure they COULD see their words even though it was dark. (At least one person wrote the words on a bit of paper using a special pen that showed up under fluorescent light (or whatever sort of dim light it was we had on stage.) I could never understand this, because it seemed to me that they could probably have learned the two lines in the time it took them to sort out their alternative plans! But the choir these days is a lot more professional, so I imagine everyone will just get on with it and spend the two minutes it will take them to learn "il nome suo nessun saprà... e noi dovrem, ahimè, morir, morir!"

A few days ago I went to sing at an open mic night at Ronnie's Bar in Macclesfield. My friend Nigel (the guitarist in my band) lives nearby, and he was accosted recently on his way home from a rehearsal by the organiser, who had noticed his guitar and was keen to get new performers at the event, which they run every week. We want to take the whole band sometime, but we thought it would be worth going with just the two of us at first, so we could see how things worked. When we arrived, the place was deserted, but they had several screens showing the football, so we thought the open mic night might have been cancelled for that week due to the World Cup... but although they started a bit late in order to wait for the end of the match, the event did go ahead, and it was very well attended - lots of people turned up at about 9pm, when the event usually starts. They let us go on first because I was restricted by having to get home by train, and we had a great time. We hadn't expected to do more than three songs (and possibly fewer), but we ended up doing five, at the request of the organisers. They have a great sound system, and they did all the mic adjustments etc., so all we had to do was sing and play. I recommend it to any of you who ever perform pop (or know people who do).

I've also done a fair bit of singing at home, mainly recording multi-track a cappella vocal arrangements. I keep doing this thing where I record myself singing (usually for someone's birthday) and really enjoy myself doing so, but then I listen to it and think "hmm, I thought I sounded better than that. Ouch." ... but, having done it, I send it to the person concerned anyway in the hope that they'll think it's OK. I did three birthday presents this week, but I'm particularly dissatisfied with my singing on all three of them, so although they are all online, and you could find them if you searched hard enough, I'm not going to link them here, sorry!

Anyway, you won't be surprised to hear that I have many, many, many links to share with you. (I actually had a lot more than this, but quite a few are no longer relevant, so I've deleted them.) Firstly, I said I'd put any Spem photos I received online. Here's a link to a zip file which contains all of Caroline's and Martin's. They aren't full-size - I reduced them to keep the file size down - so if you want higher-quality versions of any of them, you should ask Caroline or Martin directly. As for the video, I haven't seen it yet, but Dr Liz has and says it's great. As soon as we get it online (which is still definitely the plan), I'll let you know. There's also a video of Dr Liz arriving (we had to do that separately, because her husband filmed the rest of it, but he couldn't start filming until the secret was out!) which I also haven't seen, but again I'll let you know when it's online.



Most of the links I deleted were about vuvuzelas. I was right, wasn't I? I told you almost a year ago that vuvuzelas would be big news - I hope I can truthfully say "you heard it here first!" Anyway, there are a few I still want to share. Fox News and the Daily Mail both have the story of the woman who burst her windpipe by blowing too hard. Via Intermezzo, the Daily Mail also has Alison Balsom trying to get a tune out of one. And the Guardian tells us that someone wrote a concerto for vuvuzela. This did amuse me, but of course there's a huge mistake in the score - the pitch of the vuvuzela is an octave lower than the one printed. I suppose the composer could claim it's a transposing part, but why bother?

Actually, it's occurred to me several times that the vuvuzela might be very useful for helping singers to develop their pitch memory. Anyone who's watched even ONE match during the World Cup will have that note in their head (the B flat below middle C). Just try it - if you've watched any football, I bet you can hum the vuvuzela pitch right now. (Well, you certainly can at this very moment, because the World Cup Final is on TV as I'm writing this, but you know what I mean!) And if you can remember that pitch, you can use that in the future as a way of working out other notes. (You may have to actually make an effort to do this at first, though - hum the B flat to yourself once a day, and check to see if you're right. After a while it will be ingrained, and you won't need to make the effort any more.) This is more or less how I developed my good memory for pitch (which is what makes people think I have perfect pitch, which I don't) - originally it came from the oboe's tuning A, which stuck in my mind (because I'm an oboist), and I started working out other notes from that.

A few more footy/music links: The band We Are Scientists wrote a great Guardian article about how to write a World Cup song. Tom Service has an intriguing article about composers who were inspired by football (intriguing because I knew NONE of this - e.g. Elgar being a Wolves fan!) (Tom was a bit less impressed at the BBC's Wimbledon coverage, which included a sin against J.S. Bach.) And the BBC Music Magazine has some suggestions for music to inspire some of the teams in the World Cup. (I know it's too late to share this now, but I like it!)

Glastonbury has also happened since the last time I made a full post. I wasn't that impressed with most of it this year, although that may be because I was distracted by non-TV things. But Stevie Wonder was fabulous, and I did like the Kylie guest spot with the Scissor Sisters. Anyway, here's an article by the BBC producer in charge of it all, in which he explains some of their limitations. Both the Guardian and the BBC have some tips for headliners. The Big Picture, as usual, has some great photos. And the Guardian compares Damon Albarn to David Bowie, which hadn't occurred to me before, but I can see their point.

Chris Rowbury (From the Front of the Choir) had a fascinating series of posts recently, in which he describes the sort of music he likes, with many examples. Since I am very unfamiliar with most of the music he mentions, I found this a great way to get to know some new stuff. Start with I may not know much about music but I know what I like, and follow that up with Now THAT's what I call singing! Volume 1 and Volume 2. Also, if you're wondering how he manages to teach these songs without using any written music, he explains that too.

I was very amused by this: grading every country's national anthem, part 1. No further parts have appeared yet, but I'll post links here when they do!

You'll find this interesting if you're a Glee fan: from BoingBoing, an article about copyright law as it applies to a TV programme full of cover versions.

Tom Service wonders whether Dido's Lament is really twice as good as Mozart. He also has an interesting article about El Sistema (in which he disagrees with certain people); some thoughts about minor thirds; an article about composers using codes; a post about the BBC Proms Archive (the Guardian also has an editorial about that); more about the Leonard Slatkin/La Traviata saga; and some great quotes from an interview he did with Anna Netrebko.

You've probably heard that the BBC Phil have a new chief conductor from next year (more on that from the BBC Music Magazine), but did you know that Kent Nagano has been pushed out of his job in Munich? (That news is from Intermezzo, who has more to say about it here.)

Also via Intermezzo, a treat for those of you who can read German: a blog by a journalist who was given unrestricted access to behind-the-scenes Bayreuth. And Intermezzo also examines how much opera directors and composers get paid, and disapproves of a recent situation at ENO. (Which reminds me: yesterday I finally caught up with Gareth Goes to Glyndebourne, which I really enjoyed. Well done Gareth. Only the last of the three programmes is still on iPlayer, but if they repeat it and you missed it, do watch.)

From On an Overgrown Path, an intriguing short post about Stravinsky and technology, although the bit I really liked was actually the news that Beethoven once wrote a Duet requiring Two Pairs of Spectacles. Hee!

Elgar has now vanished from our £20 notes - I'm still angry about this.

The Guardian has a long and thought-provoking article about music being composed by computers.

Gillian alerted me to this: an article in Science News about why some people find sight-reading easier than others.

Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is one hundred years old, and Rob Young takes an in-depth look at it in the Guardian.

This year's Three Choirs Festival is in Gloucester from 7th to 15th August, and Classical Iconoclast has a helpful guide to what's on.

BBC Music Magazine has a short article about the lack of female composers. They've also just launched a podcast, and the first episode features our Götterdämmerung CD.

Paul Woodiel, a violinist who plays in a Broadway theatre, tells the New York Times of his outrage at the decision to cut five string players from West Side Story (which, it turns out, has ELEVEN SEPARATE STRING PARTS) and replace them with a synthesiser.

Latest practice tip from Stephen Hough: start by writing the fingerings in.

The BBC tells us that TV themes have been the most lucrative UK musical exports over the past decade. Sad, but not really very surprising, I suppose. They also have a related article about jingles (we have Wagner to blame for them, essentially, but we knew that).

And there's a new choral work in which the singers sing parts of their own genetic code. *boggle*

I think that's all my musical links, but I have a few more football ones. Don't go away! These are good, you'll like them!

The Big Picture has had several sets of their trademark amazing photos: Preparing for the World Cup, Opening Weekend, and Halfway in. No doubt there will be more after the final.

A British chemistry professor says that FIFA are lying when they claim that the actual World Cup trophy is solid gold.

Football can help people with dementia, a Scottish project has found.

I really like this BBC article about why David Beckham is a really great guy. (I already knew he was, but it's nice when people give me evidence I can use!)

And here's something I never thought I'd see: a football match on the M60.

Let's make the transition to Manchester-related to links via another footy-related link: the site of Maine Road is to be marked with a blue moon. I think that sounds lovely.

Manchester Day has come and gone now, but in the buildup to it the MEN site featured this Manchester quiz. It's harder than you might think! I scored 76784, but I think I could have done better if I'd been thinking clearly. It gives you a map of Manchester and names an event, and you have to click on where it happened. Give it a go.

Also in aid of Manchester Day, Manchester Confidential printed a great list of reasons why Manchester is historically significant. They include a great quote: "Manchester is the place where people do things. Don't talk about what you are going to do, do it. That is the Manchester habit."

I missed the parade (I was singing in Macclesfield at the time) but it sounds as if it was a real spectacle. (That's from the MEN; Manchester Confidential reviewed it here.)

The MEN also tells that we are the third most popular UK tourist city (after London and Edinburgh).

The temporary Central Library is now open - have any of you been in it yet?

And on 22nd August you can take part in a backwards running race in Heaton Park.

A bit more randomness...

If you have an iPhone, and have been alarmed at recent reports warning that the current unlimited-data situation will end soon, this MacFormat article explains how to find to how much data you CURRENTLY use.

I love this story about a vicar who discovered that there was a law giving her the right to call her parishioners together for archery practice.

Language teachers will particularly like this: a Guardian article which discusses the theory that Brits are bad at languages. And here's an article that discusses the changing use of the word "so" in the English language.

Here's a nice story from BoingBoing about how Martha's Vineyard became the birthplace of American deaf (and Deaf) culture.

Most of you will have heard of the TED talks - I'm sure I've mentioned them before - but now the Guardian explains the whole thing in detail, and tells us that TED is coming to Oxford.

And finally (finally!) some Harry Potter news. The Guardian reviews the recently-opened theme park in Florida, and the official website now has the full cinema trailer for the Deathly Hallows film.