The Fine Song for Singing

 

I'm so tired I'm considering tying myself to my chair.  I'm supposed to be going on a ringing outing tomorrow but I don't think I'm going to make it.  I think I'm just tired—I think it's not the ME—yet—but I think if I don't behave myself tomorrow it will be the ME.  Well there are worse fates than lying on the sofa covered in hellhounds and . . . knitting.  Or reading about knitting:  my second Yarn Harlot book arrived today.*

            So . . . why am I so tired?  Well, in the first place, a novel that is going well is a whole lot more tiring than a novel that is sitting there like a lump of granite.  I bounce off the lump of granite a few times, sigh heavily, check my bruises, and go do something else.  A novel that wants attention is more demanding than several dozen hellhounds, or a kindergarten class on a field trip.

            Also . . . I had to sing for Oisin today.  The experience of learning The Roadside Fire has been one of those occasions where I rather wished that I didn't have a piano and an old-fashioned attitude, and could learn the freller by singing along to YouTube.  I've moaned to you about this before, haven't I?  It's in five flats.  Five.  I really don't think five flats is necessary.**  And since Vaughan Williams is a Great Composer instead of some dull hack, he doesn't just stay in five flats where you might be able to adjust, he creeps around, making sudden, nasty little forays in other directions.  I'd only got through the first three pages of Roadside Fire for Nadia on Monday, but then since she was busy primping my vowels we didn't need any more.  When you show up to sing with your accompanist (!!!) there is a certain burden of assumption that you're going to sing the whole thing.  This has meant earnestly tackling the final two pages which are suddenly in four sharps.  Except for the very last note, which merrily slews back into five flats again.  What is the matter with the man??  This is very hard on the stressed-out not-very-musical.  It makes us threaten to take up abacus collecting. 

            The learning experience has been further enhanced by my tendency to play the frelling notes wrong***.  I'm only picking out the melody with one finger and I am still getting it wrong—well, I am trying to sing at the same time.  I've already observed with reference to the front row of the chorus in Octopus and Chandelier having much more fun than the back row because they get to shimmy across the stage waving their fins, I can't walk and chew gum at the same time . . . let alone pick out the melody and sing.  So it's a good thing that I had Bryn Terfel† (and YouTube) as back up because my finger has kept trying to teach my voice wrong.  Gaaaaaah.

            So I was banging on my long-suffering piano last night and screaming, I mean singing, and some more of the same today before I had to go . . . uh, face my music.  Oh gods why do I get myself into these things.  But . . . music is supposed to be shared.  That's the deal.  I've done my little tap-dance for you before about how we're hard-wired for music the way we're hard-wired for language, story-telling, and producing the next generation?  It's insane that art and music†† are the first casualties when local governments (this includes school boards) start axing public programmes.  It's like making everybody wear blindfolds or have one arm tied behind them or only eat grey food. 

            Anyway.  Where was I?  Standing trembling on Oisin's threshold.  First he tortured me a little playing Louis Vierne††† as if it were any ordinary Friday afternoon.  And then . . . finally . . .

            Truth is . . . it wasn't too bad.  My place in the New Arcadia Singers is probably not under threat.‡  Probably.  And more to the immediate point, Oisin looked around and said, okay, what's next?  What else did you bring?  So I have to bring something else next week.  I said provocatively, I'd like to get into some Britten.  Great, said Oisin—way too quickly.  You know, I do love singing.  And evidently it doesn't hate me. . . .‡‡ 

* * *

* Relax.  I'm also reading several novels.  And Oisin just loaned me a book on music—on the experience of music, and what it does to you—and refused to say a thing about it.  I'll be very interested in your reaction, he said straight-faced, suppressing his Mwa hahahahahaha.  —Ratbag. 

** I have a theory that the physics that produced the need for musical compromise which in the present day is mostly met by the use of equal temperament tuning . . . proves that this universe doesn't really exist.  Because it makes no sense.  We're all a fantasy.  What is that old conundrum about the Chinese philosopher dreaming he is a butterfly, unless it's the other way around?  I don't believe in a world where the physics of sound is so silly.  And since we're all a fantasy, there will be a small, friendly dragon sitting on Wolfgang's roof when the hellhounds and I go back to the cottage tonight, and three pegasi in the attic—having got in through the window that doesn't fit, but is only accessible to things that fly.  They and the dragon will be instant friends, and will stay up all night exchanging stories about the different parts of this imaginary universe they're from, and giggling.  Pegasi giggles are breathy, but a dragon giggle is quite raspy. 

*** See:  five flats.  Except when it's four sharps.  Or something else entirely, hiding behind injudicious use of accidentals. 

† http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bryn-Terfel-Vagabond/dp/B000001GPD 

†† And sex ed 

††† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Vierne 

‡ Oh, and I have the perfect first gig:  a charity concert toward our tower bell restoration fund.  We'd better get moving.  They're scheduling the work on the bells as soon as they can.  The excitement at tonight's practise was caused when a bell rope broke.  We knew that the ropes needed replacing . . . but we possibly didn't know that the need was quite this drastic.  The broken end of the rope was crumbly, more like pottery than worn hemp.  We thus lost half an hour while we got the other bells down^, and people who knew what they were doing, which would not include me, went up and replaced the broken rope.  I sat down in a dark corner, got out Pooka, and began addressing St Clements Bob Minor.  Arrgh.  When I said yesterday that the three of us original Thursday night handbellers looked at each other and said, Let's learn a new method!, what I meant was, let's make Robin learn a new method!  Colin can ring anything anyway, even if there keep being brief hiatuses while he fails to translate this encyclopaedic knowledge into handbells, and as far as I'm concerned Niall can ring anything on handbells, although he keeps insisting that he's the bottom end when he rings with the big boys.  Well, he's my idea of the top end.  Which means that we'll be able to ring St Clements as soon as I can.  Siiiiigh.  I think I'd enjoy a collection of abacuses. 

^ Never ever ever crawl around in a belfry when the bells are up.  Death wish isn't in it.

‡‡ 'the fine song for singing' is from Roadside Fire.  It's out of the four-sharps section.