Frustrations and . . . uh, frustrations

 

We ended up with two for service ring this morning.

            Yes, you read that right.  Two.

            We started out with three . . . and briefly had—four!  Be still my heart!—but the fourth was Monty, so we had to stick to call changes.  I don't think he has ever rung minimus—proper methods, but on only four bells, so your possibilities are a bit restricted—and the change of speed between going slowly out to the back and quickly down to lead is distressingly magnified on only four bells.  I'm supposed to be one of the (semi) competent ones and I still usually find myself pulling frantically to get down to lead fast enough.  For someone still in somewhat erratic control of his bell* and whose ropesight is still a bit . . . ahem . . . ropey, minimus can be a nightmare, even on the easy straightforward treble.  I know—I remember. 

            So we rang call changes for a while, and then Monty had to go pass out programmes**, so then we rang full-pull plain hunt on three for a while, which is one of these semi-methods of desperation and major ringer shortage, and so simple-minded that you can't keep your mind on it which means that even quite good ringers may drift off into their own little hypnotic trance . . . in this case, Roger, who then had the excellent excuse for escape that he had to go sing in the choir.

            Which left Vicky and me.   Do you know how sad two bells sound?  We packed in early and I merely chimed the treble for the last several minutes—that standard single-bell call to church is at least what it is and not so pathetic.  But as a bright bouncy start to the day . . . service ring this morning wasn't.     

            Where, you are asking, were Niall and Penelope? . . . wait for it. . . .

            They're on a ringing outing.  Sixty-seven towers in three days (or so).  Just so long as they don't come back and decide to take up soap-carving or scrimshaw.

EMoon wrote:  . . . started back at choir practice Wednesday, to be faced with a bunch of music, only some of which I'd sung before, and the Maestro . . . was in the mood to fix the choir. We have slipped, he told us, on some basics, and he's going to retrain us. Some shoulders hunched and some spines straightened. 

I'm suffering a slight across-the-board morale lowering, and two for service ring and the knowledge I'm going to be missing the Muddlehamptons' next concert are two, albeit minor, slaps up longside the head I could have done without, thanks.  And one of the things that is niggling at the back of my mind is the thought that Ravenel is perhaps a bit better than the Muddlehamptons are ready for . . . and (perhaps) he'll either drag us up a level or two—or he won't . . . in which case (perhaps) he will thank us politely and move on.  Which is always a problem with volunteer groups of anything, getting them invested, and often more of a problem when it's a small local amateur group of something.  You don't happen to have any idea how your Maestro inspires/harries you into cooperating with his improvement campaigns, do you?  After twenty years in this country I still get most of the cultural signals wrong, so in this case I may be reading standard British politeness as lack of engagement.***

            Meanwhile I have my voice lesson tomorrow, and get to tell Nadia that I'm not singing in the Muddlehamptons' winter concert either.  I've had several people tell me it shouldn't matter all that much, Gordon has told me that I'm still welcome to come to practise, and I joined for the experience (and learning curve) of singing-with, right?  Well, yes, but . . . it's not as though we're learning a wide and diverse selection of music to perform various combinations of at an assortment of venues on miscellaneous dates over a long future.  It's not even like when I was a teenager and used to sing alto in a church choir, and if you missed singing the new anthem the first time, don't worry about it, it'll be back, and chances are, soon.†  The Muddlehamptons learn a specific programme for a single concert and then it's all over.  I feel that if I have something to contribute†† they'll miss me and if I don't have something to contribute††† then they'll wish I'd go away. ‡

            I'm sure it's as a result of this I'm feeling even more than usually frustrated with my voice.  I sang for Oisin again on Friday and while I kept to the frelling tune reasonably well the quality of the noise I was making was pretty much monkey having her tail pulled.  Not only am I intimidated by the fact that Oisin is a professional accompanist‡‡ but the mere fact of singing with a piano confounds me.  Arrrrrrrrrgh.  So I'm so busy hanging on to everything within reach to prevent the piano from bucking me off that my voice, such as it is, shuts down.  I keep reminding myself that Nadia claims she's going to teach me to get the sound out of me that she can get out of me, which would at least move me from the embarrassing category to the merely pathetic.  ARRRRRRRRGH.

            However all is not terror and dismay!  No, wait, yes it is!  Remember I told you that I had foolishly offered to take Bronwen ringing when she comes down on Wednesday, and the only local Wednesday tower that meets regularly that I know of is Forzadeldestino, which is a Venerable Quiddity Maximus tower‡‡‡?  To my credit I have genuinely tried to get hold of the ringing master and it's not my fault if he doesn't answer emails or phone messages.  But my run of good/bad luck ended this afternoon when I met him strolling down the street in New Arcadia—yaaaaaaaaaaah!  How unfair is that!  And hellhounds were busy greeting a new friend, I didn't have time to turn around and run in the other direction and pretend I hadn't seen him. . . . So, anyway, we're welcome to come to practise.  Oh dear. . . . 

* * *

* Not that I'm not still pretty frelling erratic myself.  Especially on Sunday mornings. 

** Sorry, my brain is suffering from end-of-day, running-out-of-vocabulary-itis.  What do you call the little piece of paper with the church service of the day on it, the readings and which hymns to sing and so on? 

*** And any minute now ALL the second sopranos are going to produce fabulous high As, which will leave the first sopranos to soar to high C, and I'm going to cut my hair and join the basses. 

† We were not a very good choir.  If we actually managed to learn a new anthem it was cause for celebration.  And frequent repetition. 

†† A squeaky high A, perhaps 

††† Griselda doesn't need any help 

‡ Forum round-up: 

blondviolinist posted this, for anyone who would like to hear what Cantique de Jean Racine will not sound like when the Muddlehamptons sing it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKwHiGg21KA

Diane in MN:  Serious bummer about the concert date. But I wouldn't miss Gotterdammerung either.

Thank you.  I was expecting a certain amount of heckling, Wagner being something of a minority flavour. What puzzles me is that no one in the Muddlehamptons goes to see the Met Live?  Here we are, thirty or so dedicated classical vocal music lovers and no one^ is an opera freak?

But what's the deal with French anyway? It's another Romance language, it ought to sing itself. It doesn't though.

You don't think so? But Carmen and Faust, to name just a couple, are eminently singable! 

The music is eminently singable, and a good singer can make anything sound mellifluous and as if any minute now you're going to understand what they're saying/singing even if you don't know a word of the language (Janacek or Dvorak in the original Czech, for example!) but to my ear sung French doesn't flow anything like as fluidly as Italian, fellow Romance language or not. 

Harpergray:  How did the audition go? 

Glanalaw:  How did the theory exam go?  And are there any YOUTUBE videos of you doing your stuff that we can all rush to watch and listen to?  

^ All right, no one else.  But I'm not feeling very full-memberish at the moment. 

^^ Oh, and Maren's rr-rolling videos are scary.  I'm going to take them in to Nadia too.  Nadia can roll her rrs.

‡‡ Yes I know how stupid this is.  And your point would be? 

‡‡‡ Fancy ringing.  Lots of bells.  Lots of zigs and zags on the blue method line.