These days I don’t always rise at 06.25, the duvet may be just too seductive. But on singing-lesson days, always. Sometimes at 06.24, impatient for my other world. Downstairs for a swig of fizzy water from the fridge. As it slices over my palate - painfully – I think about my throat. Will it work? The house sleeps and it’s too early for even a tentative note.
The computer beckons. Time for another post? Why not one about singing which is not really about singing? Comments for other blogs, perhaps? While their authors sleep since some live in the USA and must – despite their mild outrage – lag behind me in rickety old UK.
VR will still be abed when I return to the en-suite. As the green blob of shaving gel morphs into foam, I open my mouth amid all this whiteness. Creating a ragged sort of hole. Can legitimate noise proceed from this void? Briefly I require reassurance.
The car must be backed out of the garage and the document case containing scores chucked on the back seat. The case is heavier now. How many pieces of music sweated over since January 2016? Fifty?
I sit on the couch, waiting. I’m always early. Then out to the roundabout on the A465 which – I’ve never understood why – is free from traffic at this time. The drive on narrow roads takes twenty minutes and passes through heartbreakingly lovely Herefordshire. Farms, sheep in fields, the tiny village of Kings Thorn, the detached houses of the privileged. I’m singing to myself now. The la-la-la-la-la sequence of the warm-up. An easy-ish song, say, Time Stands Still.
Now I’m parked in V’s impossibly steep driveway. I press the doorbell, the dog barks, the door opens...
What breed of dog? One can often glean something of a person's character from the kind of dog they keep.
ReplyDeleteI did a similar post recently describing my pre-walk arising at 6:00 am but it contrasts with yours to include my unmissable breakfast.
Did you see The Proms doing the musicals with a lady singer singing Whip Crack Away? Fantastic, not emulating but favourably comparing with Doris.
The muse was most certainly with you this morning. Love this post. I hope the experience was as inspired and productive as the anticipation.
ReplyDeleteAnd now that you bring it to my attention, it is kind of annoying to realize you are ahead of me always in real time.
Sir Hugh: V has her own private life with hints of its ups and downs. I'm not there to intrude, why would I want to psycho-analyse her via her dog? When I arrive the dog is shepherded elsewhere; I'm told it would otherwise try to "improve" the lesson.
ReplyDeleteThe only Prom I've seen was the Mozart Requiem. The BBC's link man was horribly fussy and talked far too much. Several times he pointed out that the Welsh National Choir would be singing from memory and not from score. It was clear they don't do this regularly; many of the men appeared not to know what to do with their hands.
"lady singer". It grates. Why not soprano?
Colette: Thanks about that. I did rather put my heart and soul into this one. Technical stuff about music is not really a goer in a blog, except in the case of Beth (who sings in a cathedral choir) and MikeM (who writes his own guitar-accompanied songs). But we all have our enthusiasms and I felt there might be some commonality, given the importance of anticipation.
As it happened, the lesson turned out to be mini-momentous.On several occasions V has tried to tutor me towards one of my avowed aims - to sing in a proper duet. The problem is duets (especially those involving men and women) have different singing lines, and the stronger voice (obviously V's) tends to "pull" the weaker off its line. I have only had one unqualified success and that is Bei Männern from Mozart's The Magic Flute.
At the moment we're doing John Rutter's setting of the traditional The Gaelic Blessing. For secret reasons of her own V has turned this into a crash course, having me learn a song (actually it's four parts, but we've adjusted) which I have never seen or heard before in the shortest possible time. I only got half an hour's tuition on the first half and was expected to turn up a week later (the lesson I posted about) with that perfected at home. On Wednesday we then tackled the much harder second half; not only was I learning the notes but singing them against V's line. A bit like running the 100 metres in diver's boots. Underwater. BUT I HELD MY LINE! And V accorded me her greatest praise: "Well done you." So for once in life my sense of achievement matched the anticipation