Tirra lira
. . . by the river, sang Sir Lancelot.* I hope he has a better voice than I do. Elizabeth Moon @emoontx and I have been having a little fun on Twitter about singing—those of you with long memories** may remember that it was a long comment from EMoon about having a voice lesson from her choir director that tipped me over the voice-lesson edge last summer, the difference being that she evidently has a voice worth developing and I don’t. I just have a strange lust for humiliation. Well, and voice lessons are doing what they’re supposed to do—they’re giving me a greater and more flexible understanding of what singing is. Whether this is going to have any real effect on my song-composing . . . feh, who knows? *** But I’m having a good time, and that counts for something.
My voice lesson today was way more fun than I was expecting. I went in there absolutely prepared for disaster. I’ve been thumping myself with the Evening Hymn and didn’t seem to be getting ANYWHERE.† My best guess is just that I haven’t tackled anything this early before and there’s more difference in mindset than I had realised.†† One of the surprising things is that the breathing is not (much of) a problem. Almost everything else is, but not the breathing. I said this to Blondel and he said, your breathing has revolutionised since you started last summer. —Yes. That’s even true.†††
But while today I was still horribly dependent on Blondel illegally playing my line to keep me on it I have some hope that by next week I’ll be able to let him play the accompaniment and twiddle away on my own. Just like James Bowman. Well, sort of. And we have to get back to Finzi.
But . . . oh gods I have to sing for Oisin on Friday.
* * *
* http://www.poetry-online.org/tennyson_the_lady_of_shalott.htm
Okay, sue me. I love The Lady of Shalott. I’m reasonably sure that I read the poem first; I was always reading reading reading when I was a kid, and it was years before the concept of pictures that other people had already painted for you—that you didn’t have to make up for yourself—really registered. Then, of course, like millions of other soppy preteens I fell horribly in love with the PreRaphaelites^ . . . and the truth is I’ve never really recovered, although I’ve stopped apologising for it. During my black leather Harley Davidson jacket phase I had so many chips on my shoulder some of them had to fall off^^, and the PreRaphs—and Tennyson—were among them.
But now I’m old^^^ I’ve stopped apologising for thinking Tennyson is a great poet too. This evening I have had the delicious experience of wanting my Collected Tennyson . . . and going into the sitting room and immediately laying my hand on it~. I needed to check on the spelling of tirra lira and was, predictably, immediately ensorcelled into rereading the whole damn poem. I then compounded this error by spending most of the next hour rereading Maud. Anybody else out there Marked for Life by Tennyson’s Maud, long before Night of the Living Dead, let alone Blair Witch?~~ It’s an extraordinary piece of work, and scared me silly when I was nine or so, not only because I couldn’t follow half of it.~~~
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott_(painting) : yes, the Waterhouse one that is, I believe, one of the best-selling posters of all time.+ But much as I love that painting, for representations of the Lady of Shalott I prefer this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HuntShallotlarge.jpg Generally speaking I’m not a big Holman Hunt fan, barring that he’s a PreRaph and I’m therefore obliged to dote; I think his colours are garish.++ But I like this one for the energy of it. She’s pissed off and she’s not gonna take it any more. Reading masses of Victorian literature at an early age probably did me a lot of harm in terms of believing that a girl can grow up to have her own adventures—all those drooping heroines, GAAAAAH—and the PreRaph Brotherhood+++ were no help. I tended to fall on anything that looked like it might be an exception with a desperate glee. It is a combination of the Holman Hunt painting, the Loreena McKennitt++++ song, and the original poem that will, some day, produce Red Sonja of Shalott, which is still festering in my back files, and emerges to bite my dreams occasionally. But first there’s RATPEG and then there’s ALBION and after that . . . I’m not sure. But it’s on the list.
+ I have it on a kitchen magnet. . . .
++ The Awakening Conscience? Ewwww.
+++ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pre-Raphaelite-Sisterhood-Jan-Marsh/dp/0704301695 Yes, I know. And if you type in ‘PreRaph sisterhood’ on google you get a sheaf of sites. But that is now. This was then.
++++ http://www.quinlanroad.com/
^^ Despite the added width those black leather shoulders gave me
^^^ I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the wrinkles and the sags and the slowings down and the weird aches in places you didn’t know had the equipment for aching and the loosenings and losses are a big drawback, but everything has drawbacks, and being old beats hell out of being young.+ Penelope and I were talking about this yesterday. The chief drawback, it seems to me, is the lack of future. When you’re young you get to look forward to being old. When you’re old . . . well. It does focus the mind. If you’re going to try it do it now. Voice lessons, say.
+ Some restrictions apply, of course, like the guarantee says. You can really screw up, or you can have incurably bad luck. But for the rest of us, old is better.
~ Bless you, Fiona, Queen of Alphabetization and the Rendering of Heaps.
~~ Neither of which I’ve ever seen, perhaps partly because I was early Marked for Life by Maud by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
~~~ Still can’t. I always assumed Maud herself died, as well as her revolting brother and the fruit loop narrator’s dad, whose gruesome end begins the poem (‘I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood . . . ’) and warns you that this isn’t one of your hearts-and-flowers Victorian ballads+ But it doesn’t really say one way or another. I think. Our nutter just sails off into the Crimean (?) sunset there at the end to an unknown fate.
+ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1hCN3-COYk A great deal can perhaps be explained by my not being prepared, at a tender age, to encompass both the original poem and the fact that someone managed to excerpt a bit of it and do this to it. Don’t go, Maud! He’s a nutter! —Although your revolting brother did strike the first blow. ‘. . . . And he struck me, madman, over the face . . . And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke/ From the red-ribb’d hollow behind the wood/ And thunder’d up into Heaven the Christless code/ That must have life for a blow . . .’ I’d forgotten that the brother, dying: ‘ “The fault was mine,” he whisper’d, “fly!” ’ . . . which our poor nutter does, though little joy it gives him: ‘. . . And my heart is a handful of dust/ And the wheels go over my head/ And my bones are shaken with pain/ For into a shallow grave they are thrust/ Only a yard beneath the street/ And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat/ The hoofs of the horses beat . . . . I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;/ To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?/ But up and down and to and fro,/ Ever about me the dead men go . . .’
** Who clearly need something better to be using them for
*** What I am uneasily aware it’s also doing is making me a terrible snob about other people singing—professionals, I mean, not chumps like me. Which is a self-indulgent rant for another post. But . . . it is also a way of developing your own from-the-inside-out experience of music, which is a good thing too.
† I’ve been reduced to listening to Alfred Deller on YouTube because he sings it almost a minute slower than anybody else. Not a big Deller fan I’m afraid. But his notorious laggardliness is a boon to the feebler student.
†† That and the frelling 3/2 time signature. By the way, you guys who said ‘coloratura’ to me about the Purcell twiddles . . . Blondel started to say today: this is almost colora— STOP, I said. I AM NOT READY TO HEAR THIS.
††† Yaaay Blondel.
Short* NASTY Monday
I got up what passes in my case for betimes today because I was having an early lunch with Penelope and wanted to have hellhounds well hurtled beforehand.
Except that it was raining. Not just raining: RAINING. Rain on a mission to dissolve planet Earth and leave a large muddy spreading splodge in the solar system.**
While I was waiting for either a break in the downpour or the void to open at my feet when both the road and the ground underneath were washed away*** I discovered that I had a dead phone. I had a dead phone because a hellhound had chewed through one of the wires.
Eighteen kinds of panic at this point. He’s eating WIRES???? I know who it is—Darkness, usually my better behaved, more mature hellhound. He does get into random acts of mastication occasionally.† He actually chewed the spines off a couple of books, and the fact that he’s still alive since I discovered this proves what a soft option I really am. I’d caught him having a go at the phone wire a few weeks ago, lectured him SEVERELY and, as I thought, tidied the wire out of reach. But tidied is not really a concept that applies to the cottage and obviously . . . it didn’t stay where it was put. Very like the hellhounds themselves.
BUT . . . HE’S EATING WIRES?!?
We finally got out on our walk. What with rain, wind and appropriate headgear I don’t hear too well and at one point we were slopping along a farm track and I whirled around, convinced that we were about to be run down by one of those tractors with tyres so tall the driver wouldn’t be able to see a woman and two hellhounds down at ground level, especially in this weather . . . and I dropped one of my pink suede gloves and TROD on it.††
It’s barely worth mentioning that the hellhounds shook themselves violently the moment we got indoors again.††† This is not really the best means by which to have your house plants misted.‡ One of the reasons the carpets don’t get hoovered often enough is because I spend so much time mopping the kitchen floor. And walls. And cabinet fronts. And snarling.‡‡
Lunch was a bright spot. Obviously I was under Penelope’s protective aegis for the duration.
And then back to RATPEGASUSBAG. Maybe I’ll just email everybody the ending. You don’t really need all the details, do you?
And because I haven’t had a good practise ring in long enough to feel my fragile grip on [name any method here] slipping I decided I was going to go to Colin’s tower practise tonight. And Niall was even going to come along quietly.‡‡ I was already standing out at the end of the long mews driveway wondering what was taking Niall so long when there was a small breathless voice behind me and Peter had come pelting down the same long driveway to tell me that Niall had just rung to say that Colin had just rung to say that they couldn’t start practise till eight.
So I frelling cancelled. EXTENSIVE AND CREATIVE RUDE GESTURES HERE. I know I don’t go to bed till most people are thinking about getting up, but most of that late time is spent doing stuff. RATPEG or blog or something torturous with the piano, and I don’t dare be out too late or my brain refuses to go back to work. It’s late! it says. I’m not supposed to have to work this late! I’ll have the union on you! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!
And speaking of something tortuous with the piano, I have a voice lesson tomorrow. I haven’t got Evening Hymn anything like learnt, I’ve been so busy trying to learn the wretched thing I’ve not got any further on It Was a Lover AND I committed the CARDINAL ERROR of taping myself singing last night. JEEEEEZUM. What the hell was I thinking of?
* * *
* FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL FRELL I AM SPENDING WAAAAY TOO MUCH TIME ON THE BLOG STILL AGAIN ETERNALLY ETC ARRRRGH.
** In all the dystopian returning-to-a-changed-Earth-after-years/generations/centuries SF I’ve read I don’t recall anyone exploiting the large muddy spreading splodge denouement.
*** Hey! Stop that! I have roses to plant!
† Although it was Chaos—I’m sure I’ve told you this story, but it remains vividly etched in my mind—who bit through the cable plugging my electric keyboard into the wall at the cottage. UNGLEBLARG GLURP. Cheez. I was at my desk, and there was this funny sharp alarming noise, and . . . there was a half-grown hellpuppy smiling at me with the two halves of the severed cable lying over his paws. Why he didn’t electrocute himself I have no idea.
†† It’s actually not ruined. I think. It’s pretty handsomely waterproofed or I wouldn’t be wearing it in this weather in the first place, and the mud is cracking nicely, like Death Valley in August. I think it’s going to brush off. What is really miraculous however is that . . . this being a farm track and all . . . it seems to have fallen in honest mud rather than slurry.
Oh, and no, there was no tractor.
††† Raincoats have no effect on this behaviour. They still shake, and they still irrigate the vicinity.
‡ Maybe the reason I’ve still got a little of a certain three-week-old bouquet left is because it is regularly misted by hellhounds.
‡‡ Relatively quietly. He did tell me that Titus’ wife loves dogs and does not love handbells, that he had told her my flimsy excuse for declining Saturday morning handbells and her response was that if I wanted to bring the hellhounds some Saturday morning she would walk them while I rang bells. I asked Niall how large she is and if she has shoulders like a football player. I am not sure I was satisfied with his answer.
Semi-frozen Sunday
I’m doing my wha’? Huh? on five hours’ sleep today. Sigh. Saturday night has lately become the night I go to bed early because I have to crawl out early for service ring on Sunday . . . good so far . . . and then get overinvolved in the books that just happen to have come to bed with me. There tend to be rather a lot of these.* And since it’s early and I’m still feeling at least half-awake and half-clever I figure I’ll tackle something a bit more substantial than usual and . . . **
Wha’? Huh?***
A surprising amount of this weekend has been spent in the garden despite snow, sleet and freezing rain.† Friday night Peter was playing bridge so we were already locked in at the cottage when the temperature plunged; last night I had the full-bore ice-in-the-mechanism†† car-doors-won’t-open-car-doors-won’t-shut thing when hellhounds and I went back to the cottage from the mews. But the days themselves are making coy little dashes at spring between cloudbursts; I even got up to Third House today to view the situation, which comes down basically to either sprouting or dead. Surprising numbers of both of these.††† But between winter and Atlas—who did a major jungle-bashing for me last autumn—and my own creeping determination to have only plants I like in my garden(s) no matter how well this or that great ugly thug is doing—great ugly thugs have their uses, but as soon as I start running out of room their days are numbered—I HAVE SOME VERY NICE EMPTY EARTH. It won’t last. Every time I hit another bump in the PEGASUS road I go on line and order more plants.
* * *
* Every fortnight or so I have a clear-off before the bed-frame breaks.^ You’d think that changing the sheets would force me to grapple with the problem, but not at all. I just put the books, magazines and other people’s manuscripts^^ in tidy^^^ piles on the floor which gives me somewhere off the floor to put the bedding.
^ Having your attic floor reinforced for carrying your and your husband’s professional backlist is one thing. Having your bed-frame reinforced because you are a cheap literary slut+ seems to me a fortification too far.
+ Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton live in separate houses too. Pass it on. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/feb/06/helena-bonham-carter-interview . . . ‘There’s a snoring issue’ . . .
^^ Yes. Very occasionally.
^^^ Sic. So they don’t fall over and let the pillows tumble onto the not-very-recently-hoovered carpet.
** Last night along with the predictable homeopathic quest for my latest gnomic case I decided to have a look at a short easy touch for plain bob doubles. I am a sad, sick person. At least I could be resisting more. I think Vicky or Niall put something in my beer after making me Deputy Ringing Master.
We had another bad turn-out on Friday and spent most of the evening ringing stuff for beginners—although at the end there were just enough people for Niall to ask me to do my Grandsire-calling trick again. We had a beginner on the tenor, which as a result wandered rather, and the treble wandered a bit too . . . aaaugh. No, it’s okay, I got through, but having an AWOL bell going CRUNCH in your ear and then having the treble disappear . . . when you call depends on where the treble is. . . . I remind myself that the truly useful Deputy Ringing Master can soldier on through anything.
After practise Niall came up to me, eyes glinting. He’s never to be trusted anyway, but he’s worse when his eyes are glinting. He said, Titus told me to tell you that you’d be welcome to come ring handbells at his house on Saturdays. I’m going tomorrow. I could give you a ride.
I looked at Niall. That’s nice, I said. Please thank him for me. How far away is Titus?
Oh, said Niall airily. He’s on the way to Frellingham.
Define on the way, I said. Frellingham is most of an hour from here. What time do you ring?^
Oh . . . said Niall, attempting further airiness. Maybe . . . around ten.
TEN O’CLOCK? I said, thinking of the mornings I am barely out of bed at ten. So you leave around NINE? I have hellhounds I have to hurtle first.
But you could do Saturday morning at ten? said Niall, sensing an opening. I’ll see if I can get Titus and Tom to come here some time.
ARRRGH, I said, poised to flee down the ladder . . . but not quite. Hey, I said, you wouldn’t like to come (tower) ringing Monday to Colin’s practise, would you?^^
Niall looks at me. I look at him. Possibly, he says, still looking at me.
Some Saturday morning in my near future, I predict, is doomed.
^ You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t even be asking.
^^ Grind only works when you get to grind. I want to grind at Grandsire Triples, which means there have to be eight bells, five other inside ringers and a treble and a tenor-behind, none of which—except the bells themselves—have prevailed recently at New Arcadia.
*** We had a fairly grim turnout for service ring today too. Niall offered me call changes to conduct but I decided this was dangerous on a Sunday morning. I need more practise calling call changes. Kill me. Please.
† COME ON, GUYS, YOU WEATHER GOD RATBAGS, LIGHTEN UP, WILL YOU?
†† Have I mentioned that the locks on both front doors now have an interesting charcoal-and-bronze streaked patina from being melted open with matches?
††† I want to know what’s gone wrong in the greenhouse though. The geraniums, nemesias, begonias and chocolate cosmos are all croaked. I’ve got a couple of snapdragons left—but snapdragons are perverse: I have at least one each still alive outdoors at the cottage and Third House which is frankly not possible—and two frothy little New Zealand clematis, but mostly the stuff that’s come through is the stuff that is relatively borderline anyway. Tipsy Imperial Concubine looks pretty happy . . . and I have a daylily that is getting ready to flower. It was sharing pot-space with a geranium, now defunct, but I’m afraid if I put it outdoors now the shock will make it cry. Although speaking of crying if my two year old wisteria is an ex-parrot I am going to blacken my face and rend my garments. It does not look at all sappy and burgeoning. Sigh. The flipping plant is supposed to be hardy, it’s the sudden last-minute May frosts that take out the flowers. At the old house, which had a killer wisteria, we had flowers about one year in three. Arrrgh.
Life was simpler in Maine, where I had gigantic sculptural boulders in the back garden, a fabulous sugar maple that went flame-red in autumn in the front garden, a stream that went past the porch, and huge overgrown lilac bushes everywhere.
The good news however is that the heeled-in roses from last autumn all look dormant as opposed to deceased. The soil at present is that delightful combination of squishy and still frozen, so I’m not planning on a huge lot of planting right away, but soon. . . .
Guest post by Southdowner and AJLR
Training Tails, or, An evening out with two mods
(Narrative by AJLR, Footnotes and Photos by Southdowner)
Back last autumn, in one of the journeys round parts of England that are required by my work, I knew in advance that I would have an overnight stop in Southdowner’s home city. During a conversation with her about this the week before, I was delighted to be invited to go with her to a puppy class she would be running that evening at a local vet’s premises. The idea was that we would then go on after the class to have a snack in one of the city’s noted Indian restaurants. Southdowner, puppies and curry – a much better way of spending an evening than sitting in a hotel, I’m sure you’ll agree. Mind you, the last time we’d met for an evening, in similar circumstances, I’d been forced – whimpering with fear – up some vertiginous and body-misaligning* stairways into a bell-ringing chamber for a half-hour.* Could I trust my friend not to take advantage of my diffident and yielding personality** on this new occasion..?
The evening arrived and Southdowner also duly arrived, to collect me from the hotel. It was off to the puppy class. On the way there, as I was being briefed on the situation and make-up of this class, I noticed that the warm and charming person I know Southdowner to be was becoming overlaid with an extra steely glint of determination and will***. The iron glove was being donned over the velvet hand. Obviously, I thought, this particular puppy class required something like method acting preparation in order for it to run smoothly^. Southdowner was transforming into She Who Must Be Obeyed and the impact was palpable!
We arrived at the vet’s place to find what I was assured was the usual class at this venue. There were five puppies, ranging in age from 8 to 20 weeks old, and in size from very small to rather large. Four of the puppies each had two owners with them, the remaining one (a nice little Yorkshire Terrier^^) had just the one (rather nervous) lady^^^. I sympathised with the nervous lady^^^^ and sat myself down on a chair as far out of the action zone as seemed practicable. I found that I was sitting in an alert posture, and everything seemed new and distracting. For some strange reason, I found myself looking to Southdowner for reassurance that I was doing the right thing and could feel myself relax slightly when she made eye-contact and smiled.+
Waiting for the class to start
The first exercise++, after Southdowner had recapped on what the group had been doing the previous week and asked for feedback on how the homework with the puppies had been going, was to encourage the puppies to really focus+++ on their owners#, using tiny treats of food to reinforce success in each case.
A really intense focus in action
I’m sure I could feel my own focus on Southdowner sharpening with each repetition, for some reason…. Then it was on to a variety of activities, from staying put when the owner(s) moved a small distance away, to being at ease around the other members of the class, to searching## when the owner hid and then called their puppy’s name. It finished up with a few generous handfuls of treats being scattered around one part of the floor and the puppies – by now much more comfortable and relaxed around each other – being let loose to each hoover up as many treats as they could manage###.
Mmmm, treats for relaxed puppies
I was, by now, thoroughly relaxed and those treats started to look really good. I was sure Southdowner didn’t mean to leave me out of the party…maybe if I’d crouched down a little further and sidled along the wall I could have snaffled a few####. I wouldn’t do anything to upset Southdowner though, not for the world…
After the class had finished, with lots of smiles, applause, and a certificate for each family (this was the final class of six, for that group) Southdowner and I walked over to her van. When the doors were unlocked I could feel myself tensing slightly. Would I be allowed up on the front seat? Yes! I had obviously been A Good Girl during the class~. Curry, here we come!
The rest of the evening was also delightful, with lots of chat and different dishes to try. We had a jug of mango lassi and I could feel my ability to think for myself slowly resurfacing, although it was a near thing when the waiter asked if we’d like a doggy bag to take home – I could feel my upper lip lifting slightly at the thought of him picking up Our food. Once back at my hotel, in my room, I discovered also that the bath and washing facilities looked, strangely, far less attractive than when I’d first checked in…~~
Thank you, Southdowner, it was a lovely evening. :)
************************
*wimp! A broad flight of stairs which the congregation use for balcony access, followed by a teeny tiny spiral of ten steps! AND no one dropped the trap door on your head – it has happened. :P
* Only half an hour?! What kind of cheap cheezy ringing goes on where you are? –ed
**don’t believe a word of this, gentle readers!
*** Mwahahaha!
^ you’d be surprised how much a class of 6 lively puppies not to mention 6-12 (often livelier) owners can take out of you. This reminds me – I must get smarties to click train the owners tonight :)
^^ This yorkie’s owner had been recommended to come by the vet who gave her puppy (Bruiser) his first jab, since it took most of the consult to remove Bruiser from her neck where he was clinging like a cat.
^^^ good dog trainers can tell whether a dog is nervous; excellent dog trainers notice whether the owner is nervous as well. AJLR is perspicacious enough to be my assistant any time…
^^^^ …but please don’t reinforce the negative behaviour!
+ see, knew those smarties would come in handy *g*
++ sneakily, the very first exercise is settling on a short lead while we talk, so that the pups have a skill to use when meeting visitors at home or strangers on the street.
+++ attention span of a gnat at this stage :D
# so useful to do this in a class where there are another 4 huge distractions (not in physical size you understand). Giving up on distractions is the basis of loose lead walking, recall, in fact your whole relationship together. The most common comment I get from owners of teenage dogs is “I only want to teach them to come when called & walk on a loose lead” – (thinks “so that’s the WHOLE relationship that needs adjusting then”?!) I am very tactful to clients – mostly – *g*
## hopefully for the owner, but often for the exit, other people’s treats (that would be the labradors) or other puppies
### Naughty AJLR (though we may have had a labrador puppy, in which case she is excused)! The food (I use toys if I have a food defensive puppy and give the owners a programme to desensitise them) allows the pups to interact with sufficient distraction that they aren’t full on, which causes tears. The first time all the puppies of a course play loose together I have oxygen masks ready for owners :)
#### poor AJLR – we have a late meal each time she visits – it’s either bells (Thursday) or puppies (Wednesday). At least bells can’t make you hungry…^
^ Who says bells can’t make you hungry? –ed.
~ Not just smarties, sultanas, access to all areas…
~~ O.O (covers ears – don’t tell me any more *g*)
How do I . . .
. . . get myself into these things.* Or at least if I have to get into things, couldn’t I get into ones that aren’t going to cause other aspects of my personality to stab me repeatedly with sharp pointed panic? I really should have taken up knitting.** Nobody watches you while you knit.***
I told you that Blondel gave me Purcell’s Evening Hymn for next week. He played and sang it through for me before I took it away and while I was entirely riveted by the eighty-seven bar one-breath Hallelujahs, the time signature itself didn’t impress itself upon me as being too bizarre or anything.† Because I am lazy and irresponsible and doing twenty-seven other things on Wednesday, I didn’t get the hymn out to look at by myself till yesterday. And discovered the freller is in 3/2. Not 3/4 or 6/8 or 3/8 or 2/4 or anything remotely normal. Three two? How the bleeding dranglefab do I count 3/2?††
So I spent a little while confusing myself badly and then thought I’ll take it to Oisin. Which was very sensible of me. Unfortunately I didn’t stop there. I have no idea how I got from this sensible decision to the manifestly lunatic one of bringing my Finzi along too and asking if Oisin can play It Was a Lover and His Lass. I mean, of course he can. He’s an accompanist. It’s one of the things he does. His first love is playing the organ, but he also runs a choir, teaches piano and half a dozen other instruments†††, plays duets and . . . accompanies people. Including singers. So, why would I want him to play It Was? Please remember that I’m the person who was about to indulge in a nervous collapse Tuesday afternoon when it looked like Blondel and I were on our way to the cathedral’s practise room, because it might not be soundproof enough. Or someone might come in while we were there. Yesterday my 3/2-addled brain was groping along some path of non-thought to do with the fact that Blondel struggles with the piano for It Was—he doesn’t struggle nearly as much as I do with the singing, but he’s not having a totally good time—and . . . uh. . . . This is where the breakdown in logic occurred.
I’m pretty sure I told you I’d asked Oisin . . . quite a while ago now, if he’d play for me to sing to some time and he agreed much too readily. I wasn’t planning on getting to this point however for . . . oh, years yet. Years and years.‡ But I think I’ve painted myself into the corner. I think I have to come to my next . . . er . . . music lesson with Oisin prepared to sing.‡‡ Hey, we could have a crack at Fear No More while we’re at it. AAAAAAAUGH.‡‡‡
Meanwhile I think the lullaby from PEGASUS is more or less finished. My printer is giving me gyp but I need to get it printed out since scrolling down and across your computer screen while you’re trying to play the piano is not ideal and even Oisin is slightly confounded. I want to test out the playability of the accompaniment (!) on me before I release it to a semi-waiting world. Maybe next Friday.
* * *
* No dabble setting is how. I’ve told you this story, haven’t I? Except I can no longer remember if it was Hannah or Merrilee who first came up with the ‘no dabble setting’ as the explanation of my personality. I do remember that whoever it was promptly told the other one and Peter and they’ve all been quoting it at each other and laughing like drains for fifteen years or so. VERY FRELLING FUNNY. HA HA HA. So what’s wrong with being enthusiastic about the stuff you do? Maybe slightly too much stuff? Maybe slightly too enthusiastic? It’s the sign of a lively and wide-reaching intelligence that you have bookshelves on all your walls^, subscribe to 1,000,000,000 magazines and journals on 1,000,000 topics, and never get to bed till at least mmmph o’clock in the morning because you can’t tear yourself away from one or twelve of them any sooner. This last possibly exacerbated by your having been out pursuing one (or twelve) of them earlier in the day.
I suppose deliberately gaining possession of two puppies who could be expected to grow up to require two hours of hurtling a day—when you live in town—might also be the result of a dabble-free personality. Three and a half years ago I didn’t know just how bad the menopause/calorie situation was going to become. I’m glad I didn’t decide on goldfish. Although dabble-free goldfish would probably require excessive struggling with large heavy aquaria etc. But I imagine hurtling is a more efficient calorie-burner.
^ I’ve even managed to put together an entire shelf of books on change ringing. This takes some effort. There aren’t a lot of bell ringing writers.+
+ Yes. Hmmm. THE BELLS OF MAZAHAN is probably after ALBION which is probably after PEG II. But don’t count on it.
** Note past tense. It’s too late. Yes it is. Although I got another Ehrman’s catalogue a few days ago. Remember Ehrman? http://www.ehrmantapestry.com/ Sigh.
*** Or if they do you can tell them to stop because they’re being weird.
† Actually I did notice on Tuesday as I was watching over Blondel’s shoulder that while the notes themselves looked all right there seemed to be kind of funny collections of them between bar lines. But I was busy being riveted by the hallelujahs, and I tend to go into a trance when Blondel sings anyway.
†† I keep telling you I’m not musical. I just like the noise. And I like clubbing myself senseless with unsuitable challenges.
††† If he ever replaces his flute, I’m first in line to nail the old one. For my copious free time.
‡ So, I was wrong. Enthusiasm is bad for you.
‡‡ The rest of the day I’ve been hallucinating with bitter and harrowing vividness that moment some months ago when I had to come in for the first time on a note all by myself in He Was Despised while the piano—and the pianist—just sat there. It’s going to be like that but worse.
‡‡‡ Maybe I keep doing stuff like this to myself because it makes such good blog material? But the thing is . . . I really enjoy messing with music. I love playing the piano. I love composing. I even . . . well . . . I even love singing. Somehow or other I have got to get over this crippling sick-making stage fright nonsense. I’m not asking to be Marilyn Horne or Maddy Prior^. Or Angela Hewitt.^^ I’m just trying to have some fun. I do this for FUN.
You are used to really bad singers, aren’t you? I said skittishly to Oisin. Oh, absolutely, he said, way too cheerily.
^ Or Bernarda Fink, whose album of Schubert lieder I’m listening to as I write. Mmmmmm.
^^ Or Hildegard of Bingen. Or Amy Beach.