Tuesday Afternoon
. . . has already become Sacred Voice Lesson. Rats. There’s Sacred Home Tower Bell Practise, Sacred Variable Music Lesson Usually Including a Piano, and Almost Sacred Wednesday Tower Bell Practise.* I’ve been taking voice lessons, what? Is it as much as two months yet?** They have no business entering the sacred category this quickly.*** I object. I protest. Okay, listen up, all you regular blog readers. If I ever start saying things like ‘I’d really like to try . . .’, ‘I’m thinking I want to try . . .’, ‘I’m getting old so if I’m ever going to try . . .’ I WANT YOU ALL TO FALL ON ME IN A BODY SHOUTING NO, NO, NO, NO, YOU DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING ELSE. REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU DECIDED TO TAKE VOICE LESSONS. Are we quite clear about that? Dranglefabs. Geez.
So you can take quite a lot of last Tuesday’s entry as read again. I’ve been telling myself I should cancel my voice lesson, blah blah blah, I should cancel everything, blah blah blah, till I get PEGASUS done† (blah blah blah). I was even thinking a tiny sore throat—just the veriest tinge of a sore throat: just to last a few hours of Tuesday morning—just enough for me not to want to risk it, or to risk Blondel††, and cancel, and stay home and work on PEGASUS. As soon as I made the fatal phone call the sore throat could go away again.
I feel fine.†††
So I hurtled hellhounds in a timely manner so I could get down to the mews and run through my repertoire before I had to go pay money to make someone listen to me sing. ‡ Saints preserve us, what a noise. ‡‡
But.
But I noticed . . . when I practise at home, because it’s all so difficult, and there are so many bits to remember, I cut it up in lots of little pieces. One of those little pieces is the frelling Italian. (Or Latin, in Panis’ case.) This week—with doing my exercises and having the occasional run-through of the melodies just so I don’t forget them, which is about as much as I have time for at the moment—I’ve been trying to do something about the frelling words. I do this chiefly by muttering, as I play the piano with one finger. Today I thought, hmm, I should probably have a try, you know, singing the words. Words and music. And one finger dragging me through the tune. ‡‡‡
You need to realise that my muttering is just muttering—it’s just my ordinary voice, which is to say it’s also the voice I used to sing with§, before I started in with Blondel. And I had this revelation this morning, when I moved into singing that . . . something is really happening. I know I said last week that I was producing the occasional note that sounded like a note. It’s not that I’m (yet) producing that many notes that sound like notes. But what is clearly happening is that when I sing now my voice climbs out of my throat and the top of my chest and moves into my belly and the front of my face. I can’t keep it there, and things do keep falling over or closing down or§§ going catastrophically flat—but it’s still clearly something happening.§§§ This is thrilling.¤
And I love singing with a music stand. Even if waving my hands around is kind of one more dratted thing to remember, and I keep getting stuck. I will eventually stop getting stuck because waving my hands around is obviously part of the system in terms of Me Singing.
And he gave me another new piece—after I’d finished bashing and caterwauling poor old Panis and Caro. I’m beginning to think that Blondel, far from being the calm focussed young professional he likes to present as, is just as nuts as . . . oh, as Oisin, say, in his own way. More music! he says. Mwa ha ha ha ha! Keep ’em off balance! Keep ’em moving! Keep ’em from getting too bogged down in what they can’t do yet! Let ’em develop confidence¤¤ and flexibility by having a go at lots of stuff! Today he said cheerfully, I have something from the Messiah I thought you might look at.
The . . . what? —I suppose it depends on how seriously you take your Handel. There are those who think he is sort of the 18th century Elton John¤¤¤. I would not be one of them. I think he is a Great Composer. And I’m in the early stages of deciding he’s a frelling ratbag of a Great Composer—or that Blondel has an Interesting Sense of Humour. Or both. He’s given me ‘He Was Despised’. We sight read it together—ha ha ha ha ha–okay, at least he sang it with me. But the only reason it wasn’t so embarrassing that I had to throw myself out the (open) window£ is because I know the Messiah pretty well because I love it to death, so the absolutely diabolical tune only finished scaring me to death in the places where the singer has to come in alone. Alone! And I know Blondel will be expecting me to sing it by myself next week!
But gods and glory, what a gorgeous piece of music. If Blondel can stand listening££, I daresay I can stand having a go.
* * *
* There’s also Sacred Handbell Practise, but that’s still a bit mutable, to Niall’s unending anguish. And there’s hellhound hurtling, of course, but that’s not really sacred. That’s more . . . preservation of life as we know it. I don’t really want to imagine what a couple of unhurtled hellhounds would be capable of. And one must have hellhounds, of course, if one is a hellgoddess.
And there’s also planting thirty roses, but I’m not thinking about that yet.
** Tactfully disregarding the fortnight’s holiday Blondel took shortly after I began taking lessons. How careless of him.
*** Piano lessons with Oisin did. And look where that got me. Composing^, and . . . voice lessons.
^ And I refuse to disregard Finale, composing software programme Infested with Demons.
† Preferably by the 8th of October. Eeep.
†† There are advantages to external instruments. That you buckle up in cases or close the door on and that never have head-colds. And which you don’t need to use for Loud Remonstrance at offspring/ spouses/ colleagues/ hellhounds/ computers/ rosebushes/ All Stars’ shoelaces/ doorframes/ other drivers etc.
††† Well, my brain is squishy, but I have been working on PEGASUS. I just stopped for two hours this afternoon. I’m also a little short on sleep. I was reading TWICE-BORN last night. Peter says there’s a cameo for a hellgoddess in it. I haven’t got to her yet.
‡ One of Blondel’s few faults is that he has this obsession with fresh air.^ And today it happened. I looked up from my music stand and Blondel’s neighbour was outdoors in his garden hanging up laundry mere feet from Blondel’s open window. Aaaaaaugh. He had a pretty tortured expression on his face too.
^ So do I, of course. I have two or three windows open at the cottage till there are positively ice crystals forming on the glass. But I don’t sing at the cottage. And I close all the windows at the mews before I get anywhere near the piano for any reason.
‡‡ What do you think, whose neighbours start cruising the real estate ads first? Violin teachers’ neighbours or voice teachers’ neighbours?
‡‡‡ This is multitasking of a very high order, words and music and a finger on the piano. –I don’t know how all those self-accompanying singers do it. There must be a Z chromosome or something, X for a girl, Y for a boy, and Z for being able to play and sing at the same time.
§ Chiefly Gypsy Rover, Suzanne, and Green Grow the Rushes Oh
§§ Speaking of the neighbours and estate agents’ ads
§§§ I’m also making more noise. Oh dear. This is not necessarily a good thing. See previous footnote.
¤ Easy endorphin high, remember? That’s me. This body/mind has many drawbacks and weaknesses, but that’s one of its virtues.
¤¤ Well, confidence is pushing it
¤¤¤ Hey, he can play and sing at the same time . . .
£ I would of course try not to land on the laundry-hanging neighbour
££ I’m not sure what we do about the neighbour . . . can’t he get an OFFICE JOB?
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