Having a junior moment: the sequel


I’m sure that the readers of my blog found my account of my singing-related memory loss to be as thrilling as an extremely thrilling thing, so it only seems fair that I share the sequel – what happened following this nerve-wracking episode?

The sequel begins at the end of the concert.  The church we were performing in likes to make it quite clear that it appreciates our presence, and does so by having an extended period of embarrassment at the end where a speech is made and presents are given to the performers.  Chocolates were handed round the choir, the accompanist got something, the conductor got a bunch of flowers, and the soloists got a little something as well.  Except me.  It seems that somebody had miscounted the number of soloists and had not bought quite enough wrapped chocolate goodies to go around.  And it was assumed that once the supply of chocolate goodies had run out, so had the supply of soloists.  I didn’t mind this at all, as I hate taking curtain calls of any kind, and receiving flowers (for the ladies) and chocolate (for the men) meant that one had to stand up and acknowledge the assembled company.  I was quite happy to be overlooked, particularly since I wasn’t ever supposed to be performing the song in the first place, being a stand-in for someone who couldn’t make that concert.

As it turned out, I did get some chocolate anyway, as one of the men has no sweet tooth at all (how is that possible?  how can one live without chocolate?) and passed their lovely Cadbury’s delights on to me.  So I got chocolate without having to take a bow – best of all possible worlds.

And then…

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2007
07/19
CATEGORY
Ramblings
Singing
TAGS



1 comment

Questions are asked and answered


There is a meme going around, as I’m sure you’ll have noticed, where bloggers interview one another, and end up giving really quite interesting (or in my case, really quite long) answers.  I think the beauty of this meme is in the nature of who is doing the interviewing.  It’s not people that the bloggers know in their day to day life, who would most likely be fishing for particular bits of information that they already know.  It’s also not people completely disconnected from them, who would end up asking entirely generic questions.  These are people who know their interviewees through the blogosphere, a curious form of social interaction which is simultaneously very open and very reserved, as each word can be chosen, pondered and held back.  All of us leave a whole number of gaps in the narrative of our lives as we blog away, and many of the questions and answers I’ve seen have been filling in some of these gaps, which the blog authors may have been entirely unaware of.

So the meme has been floating around, and I’ve seen it whiz through the periphery of  both the comics blogosphere and the theatre blogosphere, and now it has entered the realm of the blogs that I read more regularly.  I finally decided to be brave and ask for some questions following the questions that Aphra posed to Reed.  Reed, or possibly her ever-present Editor, posed five questions, and warned me that they “are all prompted by the fact I am a NOSY woman”.   As a result, this is probably one of my longest posts ever.  If you really don’t want to know about the real Singing Librarian, look away now and come back in a few days when I start wittering about something less personal.

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2007
07/13
CATEGORY
Books & Comics
Christianity
Library
Meta - about this blog
Music
Ramblings
Singing
TAGS















7 comments

The Singing Librarian’s ‘To Do List’


My concert season is coming to an end, with one having been cancelled, one already over and two coming up this weekend, leaving only an excursion on 4th August to look forward to.  This means that with no rehearsals, no studying and no Sunday School to prepare for, I have that strange and wonderful thing called time on my hands.  But what am I to do with it?

Answer Reed’s questions.  For the interview meme that all the cool bloggers are taking part in, don’t you know.  I am still pondering a couple of the answers, and will hopefully post them tomorrow.

Move house.  I’ve gone and got myself on the property ladder, only I’ve bought a dental surgery with three friends and we’re in the process of turning it back in to a house.  We have knocked down walls, put in a new bathroom and ordered a new kitchen.  We are now trying to extract a quote from a builder so that we can make sure the place doesn’t fall down and make it possible for all four of us to move in by the beginning of September, at which point I must have left my current abode.  And there’s the small matter of packing everything up and transporting it across town…

Read.  My pile of books to be read is growling angrily from the corner and demands to be reduced.  So reduced it shall be.  First is The Moonstone, my next book group book, which I really ought to have picked up long ago since The Woman in White is one of my favourite novels.  Then the books that people have blogged about which I have subsequently picked up. The Lies of Locke Lamora, courtesy of Helen and The Night Watch, courtesy of Sol.  Then, if I get through those three without getting distracted, the rest of the pile which ranges from Homer to Neil Gaiman, taking in Eco, Irving and sundry others in a bewildering mix of styles and genres. 

Sing.  I am determined to add some new items to the repertoire of songs I can sing.  I may never perform them to anyone, but I’m sure it will be good for me.  So I shall attack Jason Robert Brown’s ‘King of the World’ for power, Sigmund Romberg’s ‘Serenade’ for high notes and romantic loveliness, Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Marry Me a Little’ for drama and Lerner & Loewe’s ‘C’est Moi’ for comedy (if I can pull it off the way I’d like to), which is as about as diverse a range of songs as I can manage.  I expect I’ll lose at least one of the battles and may well drive the neighbours insane, but the fight should be entertaining.

Breathe.  I haven’t got much leave over the summer, but I shall try to spend at least a couple of days out in the countryside or on the sea front, going for a walk and then just sitting.  Well, sitting and reading.  I need to relax, enjoy this wonderful county, take in the air of the sea and the fields and switch off.

I think that should keep me busy.

2007
07/12
CATEGORY
Books & Comics
Ramblings
Singing
TAGS

3 comments

Having a junior moment


Once people enter middle age, whatever that may be, they seem to feel entitled to put any lapses of memory or outbreaks of bizarre thinking down to a ‘senior moment’.  I’m not sure what age allows entry to the senior moment club, but I’m fairly sure I haven’t reached it, being a spring chicken of 28.  My intriguing memory lapse at last night’s concert must therefore have been a junior moment.

There I was, happily singing the man’s half of ‘I’ll Know’ from Guys and Dolls, when I suddenly realised I didn’t know what the next line was.  I couldn’t stop, and although the music was on a stand nearby, I had no idea where on the page I actually was.  Nobody could have rescued me, so I just had to smile and keep singing.  Anything.  Any old words until I reached a point where I knew exactly what I should be singing and when.  Unfortunately, the point I was aiming for was also the point where my duet partner comes back in to the song, and I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t sure that I’d be on the right words by this point.

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2007
07/08
CATEGORY
Ramblings
Singing
TAGS









7 comments

Music to shed tears to


I have mentioned before that certain songs can make me cry.  Of course, with my mental wobbliness factor, I don’t necesarily need any songs to accomplish this goal, as at my worst somebody saying hello or a black cloud or nothing at all can open the floodgates, but there are definitely songs which can cause me to well up even when I am in a stable mental state.

I have expressed my tearful admiration for ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’ before, and it sits alongside other songs written for Broadway shows before the Second World War which have stood the test of time in both singability and the power to move listeners to tears.  The Gershwin brothers’ ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ and Jerome Kern’s ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ (lyrics by Otto Harbach) are the greatest examples of this for me.  Songs of love either lost or never found in the first place, expressed with simplicity, directness and a velvety melody.  From the other side of the coin, Irving Berlin’s ‘How Deep is the Ocean?’ (not from a show as far as I know), which speaks of a love of incredible depth and fortitude can make me start to well up, as can ‘All the Things You Are’ by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein.

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2007
07/01
CATEGORY
Music
Musicals
Ramblings
TAGS














3 comments

Whales, jumpers and spoons


Communication.  The key to the successful functioning of any organisation or social unit, yet something we seem to be terribly bad at.  Each day is filled with dozens of misunderstandings, ambiguities and missed opportunities to connect in any way.  Something which all trainee librarians learn is that the question being asked by a user is not necessarily the question they want answered, and even if it is, you may not understand it in quite the way it was intended.

The classic example is the librarian sat at an enquiry desk who is asked to help someone find information on ‘migration in whales’.  The immediate response is to send the user in the direction of biological information, specifically the behaviour of Cetaceans [599.51568 or thereabouts in Dewey].  However, it may be necessary to pause a while.  Did the librarian really hear an ‘h’, or did they just assume it?  Their enquirer might well have no interest in the movements of marine mammals, they may be researching economic migration in the United Kingdom, specifically in Wales.  Dewey would class a treatise on this subject with a hideously long number somewhere in the 300s, but journals and collections of statistics would be a more likely source for this information.

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2007
06/21
CATEGORY
Language
Library
TAGS




8 comments

Pom Poms


The moorhens who reside on the pond outside the Library of Doom have been busier than rabbits this year.  Much to my surprise, I spotted two new chicks today, which would be their third brood this year.  Armed with my newly-purchased digital camera, I stalked them as subtly as I could, but never managed to get both in shot.  Here is one of them taking a stroll beside the pond:

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2007
06/19
CATEGORY
Ramblings
TAGS


5 comments

Library Mythconceptions


It strikes me that most people don’t have a clue what I actually do all day at work.  Hopefully my fellow inmates at the Library of Doom have at least a vague idea, but in the wider world my actual activities are about as well known as Chandler Bing’s job title in Friends.  In other words, everyone thinks they know, but nobody really does.  I think this is largely due to a variety of myths, rumours and misconceptions that surround the world of librarianship.  I won’t bore you with the details of exactly what I do, but here are some things which aren’t entirely true.

It must be lovely, being able to read all those wonderful books.  Well, yes, the Library of Doom is indeed full of books, both wonderful and otherwise, and I have handled a large proportion of our stock (getting on for half a million items), and probably seen almost everything, even if only the spine of the book out of the corner of my eye.  However, I don’t get to sit around during working hours perusing this storehouse of knowledge, as, strangely enough, I’m being paid to do more useful things.  The only time when some of us might get to sit down and read is if we’re stuck on a late shift on the issue desk over the summer, when you see approximately one and a half students per hour.  If you’re lucky.

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2007
06/18
CATEGORY
Library
TAGS



8 comments

Jason Robert Brown


One of the most talented people writing for theatre at the moment is one Jason Robert Brown.  I tend to get blank looks if I mention him in real life, though I’ve recently discovered some fellow fans of this amazing man.  He not only writes and arranges music, but he plays piano like a demon (a very musical demon) and has an incredible voice with range, depth and passion.  You can tell this from his printed music, full of twiddly notes in the accompaniment and including long, held notes that probably have tenors the world over cursing his name.  Not me, though, as I’ve not yet attempted to learn any of his songs.

In terms of theatre, he’s written a few diverse musicals, none of which I’ve yet seen, though I have tickets to see Parade in September, at the Donmar Warehouse.  Most exciting.  This is his most ‘traditional’ musical, really, and tells the tragic true story of Leo Frank, who was lynched in 1915 for a crime he did not commit.  His other shows are Songs for a New World, which is a song cycle notable for ‘Stars and the Moon’, which has been recorded by a whole host of female artists; The Last Five Years, a two-person musical telling the story of a relationship from beginning to end and end to beginning at the same time; 13, which has a cast of teenagers and centres around a bar mitzvah; and a chunk of the score for the stage adaptation of Urban Cowboy.  They have little, if anything in common, other than JRB’s gift for composing technically challenging, emotionally revealing, passionate music.

Recently, I’ve been listening again to his album Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes, which is just as excellent, passionate and engaging as his theatrical scores.  I wish I could explain what it is about his music and performance which impress me so much, but I must simply say that it’s well worth checking his work out.  He’s often referred to as a successor to Stephen Sondheim, but that’s not entirely right, as Jason Robert Brown has a unique musical voice quite different to Sondheim’s, though comparisons on grounds of composing talent are entirely justified.  Brown has a great website which includes a bunch of his songs that can be listened to on-line.  There’s also a blog, which he often uses to address questions from his fans in a consistently amusing fashion.  Do yourself a favour and investigate this talented man.

2007
06/17
CATEGORY
Music
Musicals
TAGS

4 comments

A lot of learning to do


Under normal circumstances, the summer tends to be a quiet period for amateur performers.  Everyone goes off on holidays, so rehearsals dry up for a couple of months before gathering momentum with the coming of September.  However, my diary for July, August and early September is peppered with a number of concerts with different groups of people, in sundry locations around the Garden of England and with varying contents.

Somehow, I have managed to pick up quite a variety of solo and duet material in addition to the ensemble work which includes everything from a lovely Cole Porter medley to a stupid (in my opinion) arrangement of ‘Mack the Knife’.  In approximate order of singing, I have ‘I’ll Know’ from Guys and Dolls, ‘Suddenly, Seymour’ from Little Shop of Horrors, the Sergeant in ‘When The Foeman Bares His Steel’ from The Pirates of Penzance, ‘All I Ask of You’ from Phantom of the Opera, ‘Being Alive’ from Company and ‘Agony’ from Into the Woods.  Oh, and possibly singing Marius’ part in ‘One Day More’ from Les Miserables, though I’ve not really agreed to that one yet.

Quite an assortment of pieces, using all of my performance muscles as they cover comedy, romance and drama, and using pretty much all of my vocal range from the deepest depths to those notes which make me want to switch to falsetto.  The pieces, only one of which I’ve sung in public before, were written between 1879 and 1987 and range from songs which the audience will know very well to a couple of numbers which will be new to the majority of people.  I am at least on nodding terms with all of them, but I have an awful lot to learn over the next month or so, getting the words and tunes right and trying to blend my voice to four different duet partners, all with much more musical training and technical proficiency than I have.  Still, I like most of the songs and I enjoy a challenge…

2007
06/12
CATEGORY
Singing
TAGS
2 comments