Singing, Handbells, and Undesirable Lateness
How did it get this late? Arrgh. This is why I try to have only ONE extracurricular per day—Fridays, with piano lesson and home tower practise, remind me every week what a good idea this is. But somehow or other I got roped into handbells tonight*—the lure of bob major is very strong**—and about once a month Niall has a handbell party for some of his fancy ringers and the only way I ever am going to ring bob major, which is eight bells, is if I come along to Niall’s Tuesdays. Unless Niall and Colin and I kidnap someone and keep them chained up in the cellar*** with only books of handbell patterns for company.†
But first there was the voice lesson. Whose stupid idea was voice lessons anyway.†† Gods, I so don’t NEED something else to be obsessive about.††† Did I tell you last week that Blondel sent me home to learn It Was a Lover and His Lass from (Gerald) Finzi’s Let Us Garlands Bring, which is where Fear No More (the Heat o’ the Sun) comes from, which was the last thing I learnt‡ before my inadvertent very long holiday?
There are at least two problems here. No, three. One: Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is deadly. It gets you into all kinds of trouble.‡‡ It means I make eager little rushes at all kinds of inappropriate things: ooooh, I like that! Let me try! Two: I think Blondel has either forgotten, or, more likely, never known, how frelling DIFFICULT singing is, and while he is a good and patient and encouraging teacher, if he is confronted by a student saying, ooooh, I like that! Let me try!, he probably will. And third, my lessons tend to run long anyway, so we suddenly notice the time and think, yeep, okay, quick, what are we going to do next week? He could of course make me work harder and longer on individual pieces . . . but I’m actually glad he doesn’t; at my level of non-skill this would quickly become demoralising. He does say things like this song needs more mischief, or more passion, or more something, but I haven’t got mischief or passion I can produce vocally, so better I should do what I can and keep moving—keep being enthusiastic. And I am making progress. I noticed it particularly today, I think because it’s been almost like starting over from the beginning after so long a break . . . except it isn’t. I sound a whole lot more like a singer than I did in August.‡‡‡
Anyway. We got rather past the end of our time last week and . . . quick, what was I going to work on for this week? I’d meant to have a go at It Was a Lover over the break, and didn’t, frelling deadlines and novels and things having got in the way, so Blondel said fine, you can look at that this week.
So I did.
And I thought Fear No More was hard. Well, it is. It Was a Lover is worse. The gods frelling wept. The only thing that saved me from utter humiliation is that I’ve got Bryn Terfel singing Let Garlands Bring§ and I have played It Was over and over and over and over and over and over and over and . . . quite a few more times this week. The wretched song changes key and key signature with mad abandon and the singer keeps coming in just after you think you should, and while Bryn makes it all sound easy as tripping over your own feet§§ IT IS NOT.
I did not, in fact, make an ignominiously inglorious hash of it. It was recognisable. This counts. And Blondel had one or two muttered asides about the accompaniment.§§§ And I am going to work on it some more this week. But when we got to the end this week# he acknowledged that Lover was, in fact, difficult, and maybe I should have something easy to spell myself with this week so I wouldn’t become despondent and decide to take up curling or morris dancing or knitting or something. And he picked a book up off the side of his piano because in fact he does think ahead sometimes but see (2) in the ‘problems’ listed above. He’s given me a Purcell song. So far, so English, so excellent.## It’s called An Evening Hymn. Any of you out there who know it should start falling off your chairs laughing at this point, at the idea that this is supposed to be easy. Well, you don’t have any extremely weird comings-in in weird places in the bar, no###. What you have instead is a lot of the Purcell Twiddles. You know, twiddletwiddletwiddletwiddledeedeedee on the same syllable, bar after bar after frelling bar. This will be very good for your breathing, says Blondel. Gfffghfffzzzzgft!!! Also, ARRRGH!
. . . I’m going to have to pack this entry in despite everything I haven’t told you about yet~; the kitchen lighting at the mews has always been possessed by demons and the light immediately over the kitchen table where my laptop and I sit communing keeps dying off and then coming back on again a second or several seconds later with a kind of rush like someone nodding off during a lecture or a concert and trying to pretend they aren’t. Peter rang the electrician yesterday who was kind enough to stop by on his way home after work today . . . and of course the miserable thing stayed on perfectly. It was flashing like bloody Morse code~~ at lunch and again now and my eyes are rebelling. And I’ve Fiona coming again tomorrow to organise me and it would probably be a good thing if I were not only up and dressed and caffeinated but had possibly even swept the flooooor. . . .
* * *
* I only just started voice lessons on Tuesdays again last week after something awful like two months
** I am crazy
*** I don’t think any of us has a cellar
† And lots of chocolate. It wouldn’t be a bad life, you know, being our handbell slave.
†† A common shriek in this household, with minor variations: Whose idea was hellhounds! Whose idea was handbells! Whose idea was a third house with a weight bearing attic floor for storing backlist!
††† Especially with this voice.
‡ make that ‘learnt’
‡‡ Hellhounds. Handbells. VOICE LESSONS.
‡‡‡ If I went on making progress at this rate I would be opening at the Met just before I died of old age. I suspect however that a final plateau of physical possibility will be reached rather sooner.
§ I’ve posted this before, haven’t I? The Vagabond & other songs by Vaughan Williams, Butterworth, Finzi, Ireland; DG, 1995. One of my favourite albums. And I want the coat he’s wearing on the cover. I think I’ve also said that it’s actually easier listening to a baritone to die for than a mezzo to die for. I don’t expect to sound like a baritone when I open my own mouth, and the ‘to die for’ shock is therefore somewhat tempered.
§§ Or a hellhound
§§§ Hee hee hee. There’s nothing like watching a teacher struggle for cheering up a student. Never mind that I’m thirty years older than he is. He’s still the boss.
# Because it is late and I am brain-fried and chronology is never my best trick anyway, I have neglected to tell you about arriving for my lesson in the pouring rain and discovering Blondel standing in it, staring at his car and looking dismayed. I’ve lost my visitor’s permit, he said, rain trickling down his forehead. He lives in one of these overcrowded Park Here And Die areas, and visitors have to display large flashy visitors’ permits on their dashboards or expect to find a small blot on the pavement when they come looking for their illegally parked car. He had used his permit on his rental car while his own was in the shop, and somewhere between the garage and home the permit had disappeared. After we had both stood around in the rain for a few minutes he devised the impromptu plan of going to the cathedral and using their practise room which, he said, midafternoon on a Tuesday, would probably be empty. I was in the process of (a) following him the mysterious back way to the cathedral (we’re turning right here??) and (b) working myself up into a state of extreme panic at the idea that the room might not be absolutely one hundred per cent soundproof OR that we would not be allowed to have a PADLOCK on the door and someone might COME IN while we were there when . . . he pulled over, got out of his car, ran back to my car (it’s still pouring with rain, by the way), and said, I’ve remembered what I did with the permit.
So we turned around and went back. Whew. Except for the part where he said, you know, we should book to go to the cathedral some time. It would be good to practise somewhere different occasionally.
Eeep. And here I was almost used to the idea that he has neighbours.
## I’m not going to be let off German forever. Just for now.
### Although I notice the singer has to come in alone occasionally, my favourite thing in the world as we know
~ Like ringing the trebles to bob major on handbells, which I’ve not done before. On the rare occasions I’ve rung major at all, I’ve clung to the seven-eight which are the easiest pair. The trebles in a plain course are the hardest, but I’m only half-crazy really, and the trebles suddenly become the easiest as soon as people start calling touches.
~~ Help help I’m being kept prisoner in a cellar and being made to ring handbells. No, on second thought, ring the boss and say I quit. It’s not a bad life being a handbell slave and there’s plenty of chocolate.
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