Niall the Rotten Ratbag*
We were only six at bell practise tonight, including Cordelia** and Tanya, our beginner. I had got there early because I’d asked Niall if I could have a lesson in teaching beginners, assuming that he’d play the beginner in case of accidents, but he promptly said, certainly, come along early on Friday and you can guinea-pig Tanya.*** So I did, and both Tanya and I survived†. But it’s been a long day†† and having resigned myself to not ringing/disfiguring Grandsire triples or Cambridge minor I thought, hey! He’ll have to let us go early! Great! Maybe I’ll even take hellhounds for a final stroll in the (comparative) cool of the evening—we’re a little behind on hurtling, since it’s been pizza-oven hot all day—maybe I’ll take a quick turn past Third House’s garden and see what’s gasping for a drink†††. Noooooo. We rang the full hour and a half. And three of the four of us nonbeginners rang nonstop—when we were ringing rounds for Tanya, Niall stood out to give support and succour as necessary to Tanya. And as if this was not offense enough, I was (in my exalted position as Deputy Ringing Master) expected to engage intelligently with my Ringing Master on a post-mortem discussion on the practise just past and in what manner we could all be brought on further and more efficiently. . . .
So I’m shattered, and I’m not going to get back to my piano miniatures tonight. There are now three of them, each of them begun some Friday afternoon when Oisin has been late, and I’ve been dranglefabbing around on his piano. I carry manuscript paper with me these days‡ so I can write odd noises down as they come to me, supposing I can figure out which little line(s) to put them on/between, and/or decide whether they’re black or hollow and whether they have tails or not. The problem is that noise-scraps accumulate, and when I sat down with these particular three I had a strange murky sensation that they relate to each other—although whether they are going to relate in any way recognisable to anyone but me remains to be seen. And it hasn’t been a good week for making beautiful connections‡‡.
So I once again went for my weekly cup of tea, which used to be a piano lesson, with Oisin, without anything to show him. Have I told you that he’s now got the most amazing virtual organ? I hope whoever invented the software didn’t have to sell his‡‡‡ soul to anyone inappropriate. But conversations with Oisin are now perilous, because he may reach out a negligent arm at any moment and go BRRRRRRROOOOOOOMMMMMMM. It’s actually pretty funny because there are wires everywhere and various squatty toadlike amp things and a couple of unmatched keyboards Oisin simply had lying around§ and no pedalboard at all, while he waits for his official rack and roll§§ to get built. Plus a loose computer screen that has pictures of organ stops on it and goes ‘ssssh’ and ‘clunk’ when you ‘pull’ them out or ‘push’ them in—and the screen itself, being as jury-rigged as the rest of it, trembles faintly when he taps it—although what the ‘stops’ do is real enough. But to look at it’s clearly a Heath Robinson bodge up.
And then he plays something. Hold onto your hair. Yowzah. And of course the whole works is portable, so when there’s a wedding at one of the many tiny adorable organ§§§-free churches around here he can make a splendid noise for less money than it takes to hire a commercial organ.# And as I have said to him in my glamorous and seductive persona of Evil Cow, he is now equipped to take his Small Select Choral Group on the road. Have I mentioned the Small Select Choral Group? Most of the opportunities for group singing around here are either church choirs or amateur gangs putting on the gruesomely anodyne end of musical theatre. I feel there is a cultural gap, possibly even a niche market.
The first time I brought this up he looked thoughtful, so I added hastily that if I was going to be in it there had to be at least twelve. I mentioned this to a friend with a nasty mind who mwa ha ha ha’d at me and said that he’d start out with twelve and eight of them would mysteriously melt away into the shadows and I’d find myself in a barbershop quartet before I finished learning to mouth the words without making any noise.
I don’t think barbershop quartets generally have organ accompaniments.
* * *
* So what else is new? The backwards bob minor yesterday was his idea too. Of course.
** Although she’s decided to use bell ringing as part of her Duke of Edinburgh http://www.dofe.org/ so she’s suddenly paying more attention. Ah teenagers.
*** Standard set-up for beginners still just learning to cope with the rope is to ask them to come along early and practise on a silenced bell, both so that they aren’t wasting the rest of the band’s time and don’t have to do it with the entire band standing around and staring at them but also so that you’re not driving the neighbours crazy listening to a single bell going dong, which can be the auditory version of the Chinese water torture for susceptible individuals. Tanya is up to doing ‘sets’, which is to ‘set’ her bell a given number of times in a row: first you do ten in a row at handstroke, and then you do ten in a row at backstroke (which is harder). Every time you miss you start over. Tanya, like every beginning bell ringer who has ever lived, believes that she is the worst. She, like (almost^) every beginning bell ringer who has ever lived, is mistaken.
^ Remember Arlo Guthrie on the last guy? “But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody’s got it worst than that guy. Nobody in the whole world.” http://www.arlo.net/resources/lyrics/pause-claus.shtml I often think of the last guy.
† Teaching a beginner chiefly means catching one stroke while they try to make the other one happen at the right time and in the right rhythm. You haven’t got this far on this blog without watching some bell ringing, have you? http://www.cccbr.org.uk/bellrecordings/video/ You see there are two strokes—the one when you grab the fuzzy handle thing called the sally, and the one when you’ve only got hold of the tail. You break this up for a beginner: first they grapple with the backstroke—because it’s harder for them to do any damage on the backstroke—and then the handstroke. You the teacher are yanking the other stroke and trying to counterbalance whatever mayhem the beginner is creating on the opposite one.
†† Got my final superfluous deadline met and mastered^ today, so maybe I can finally get back to my simple life of plants, piano and PEGASUS, not necessarily in that order, and psinging and phellhounds. And a few other pthings. Ppeter ppossibly.
^ ‘Mastered’ is perhaps overstating the case.
††† I’m not entirely mad and I only do little pots at the cottage.
‡ Why not? It’s not like it weighs
‡‡ She says, glaring. A certain winged being preens carelessly and then settles down comfortably for a snooze.
‡‡‡ I’m pretty sure I know it’s a his
§ You may remember he has a whole frelling recording studio in the not-much-more-than-a-crawlspace attic over his music room, which makes finding out what he can actually do up there all the more bizarre.
§§ so to speak
§§§ And bell-
# Did you know there were organ-hire firms? Geeez. What’s left? Hiring the bride?
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