tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post6845833998502268981..comments2024-03-28T07:13:10.797+00:00Comments on TONE DEAF: The thrill of DIY music - part twoRoderick Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-38138963130511635162011-12-04T07:22:56.334+00:002011-12-04T07:22:56.334+00:00Lucy: I hope you were able to approach Tone Deaf w...Lucy: I hope you were able to approach Tone Deaf without the technical irritations you mentioned earlier. As far as I can see, these have been cleared up.<br /><br />You touch on a point that the sonnet doesn't address and which will recur as long as this blog continues. How does music's appeal arrive? Imagine these vapid, barely sentient lengths of gristle, who would otherwise be listening to Dick Barton, Special Agent, turning up voluntarily for practice and (even less likely) for matins as well as evensong. One thing I'm pretty sure of: they weren't answering a religious call.<br /><br />My dear Lucy, you flatter me. I can't read music now let alone then, although I can infer one or two things from a score. As a choirboy I did everything by ear. This is quite surprising on reflection, since throughout my brief tenure we rehearsed a quite longish oratorio or cantata by Stainer, huge tracts of which I was able to sing by memory for years afterwards.<br /><br />What I can remember is how hungry I was after choir practice, hence the Marmite toast.Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-14426327615506159122011-12-03T18:47:56.002+00:002011-12-03T18:47:56.002+00:00Choirboys amaze me, how they can be so rapt about,...Choirboys amaze me, how they can be so rapt about, almost possessed by what they're doing, at such an age and stage, when concentration and submission to rules and general seriousness is not the norm, and the sound that comes out of them seems quite impossible too. <br /><br />There was a radio programme a while ago about the early boys choirs, and how maltreated they were, half-starved, otherwise uneducated, not given any discipline or other training and when their voices broke, more or less thrown out on the street without a future (in England anyway, where the castrati option didn't exist). It was Victorian reformers who protested about this and developed and elevated the role of the choir schools.<br /><br />Did you read music when you sang, or was it just by repetition? I liked singing as a child but foundered later as just not musical enough. I very much liked that poem before; the mourning for a lost gift undervalued when one had it is very poignant.Lucyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09764296105901909328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-1165468705127322862011-12-03T07:01:25.093+00:002011-12-03T07:01:25.093+00:00The Crow: I think it has and I hope it does. One p...The Crow: I think it has and I hope it does. One pernicious aspect of being BB was that if I imagined I'd been neglected for a while I could rush out a crowd-pleaser. There were simply no restrictions. Unfortunately this unchained sense also extended to the comments I scattered about which led me to over-doing it, as we saw.<br /><br />Music is a huge subject but even the lesser pieces, such as the ones here, require some discipline. Once I get into my stride and try to tackle harder stuff - communicating the nature of music as I see it - the need for discipline will grow. Although I will do my best, and employ lightness wherever possible, the blog is likely to become predictable and the interest will drop away. Not everybody wants to be "taught" even though I am hardly qualified to be a teacher. In any case I will be the one who's doing the learning.<br /><br />Although this is a very grandiose comparison, there are parallels between Blest Redeemer (in which a woman searches for redemption which will arrive in a form only she can recognise) and this blog (which has a sort of self-improvement theme). All this sort of stuff sounds ridiculously pretentious but, to be brief, I think you're right. "Who would fardels bear?" asks Hamlet. Tone Deaf, if it works, will be a willingly assumed fardel (ie, burden).<br /><br />Thanks for the comment.Roderick Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16828395545197001637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6644918126688721788.post-57571072717918988022011-12-03T01:03:32.877+00:002011-12-03T01:03:32.877+00:00How ruefully poignant this sonnet reads now from b...How ruefully poignant this sonnet reads now from before, though I liked it then, too.<br /><br />Is it my imagination, or has changing your blogonym altered your personality a bit? Your blogging personality, I mean?<br /><br />There is a difference here in the tone of your posts and responses, Lorenzo, mi amore, as if the British reserve of your former incarnation has opened the door to the graceful Italian charm of Signore da Ponte.<br /> <br />Or, could it be because you are now devoting your blog to music, one of the great loves of your life?The Crowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04846997590157958766noreply@blogger.com