Ann
A Musical Journey
It is said that when a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, the whole world reverberates. In my small world the butterfly came in the form of a child’s plastic piano, consisting of eight notes, bought for my two little girls by their Great Grandmother from a car-boot sale for 50p. Just to give some extra clarity to my tale, I am starting quite a few years ago.
My father was in the services so we moved to different parts of the country every two or three years. Each school I attended was different so I had quite a patchy, disjointed education. The second from last school was in Scotland. I was there for about a year and my particular class enjoyed singing. We sang in concerts with enthusiasm and gusto and I often sang a solo. Then we moved to Surrey. This was my last school and education in general wasn’t given much of a priority and music, in particular, was just another foreign language to be derided. I think this particular music teacher had just given up trying and, in hindsight, I don’t blame him. I remember my first music class well. The teacher asked us to sing a song (I don’t recall what it was but it was something well known). I filled my lungs, opened my mouth in anticipation of a beautiful unison sound and…. nothing. A tumble-weed moment. No-one made a sound! There was deadly silence. I shut my mouth, and I didn’t open it again to sing for a long, long time. This was not a school where standing-out from the crowd was a good idea (especially not a newby with a Scottish accent) Singing and music (unless the right kind of pop music) was now an embarrassing, humiliating endeavour to be avoided at all cost. Which I did.
Many years later - enter the plastic piano. I played on it all afternoon, my girls didn’t get a look in ‘Oh” I said ‘ Give Mummy a minute and I will play you a tune” When Bill came back from work I couldn’t wait to show him my musical prowess. “Listen to this!” I excitedly cried (picture two bored daughters looking on). I then proceeded to enthral him with ……. Baa, Baa, Black Sheep! He dutifully praised my efforts but that may have been his undoing as it probably created the beginning of a long and expensive journey.
I carried on learning nursery rhymes, stopping when I needed more than eight notes. I didn’t even know that was called an octave and certainly couldn’t read music to expand my repertoire.
Christmas came and Father Christmas brought me a small keyboard. I was so excited - it had more notes and a little book with a picture of the keys and they were numbered so by following the numbers I could play new songs!! It was a whole new world.
Shortly afterwards the local radio station held a charity auction. My husband, Bill, turned out to be very competitive, although he will tell you otherwise, and I have learnt that he really shouldn’t be allowed near an auction. He regards it as a competition and one which he has no intention of losing. Among the lots on offer was the use of a new sports car for a weekend and a local music shop was offering a block of five piano lessons! He ‘won’ them both. The car on his first bid. I think he frightened the other contenders into submission. The car was great fun but the piano lessons were his next mistake.
I started piano lessons and enjoyed them so much I continued. “I’ll have this cracked in six months” I thought “Nothing to it. I will be a maestro, playing everything in sight” It certainly looked easy enough when I watched others. The piano looked like it played itself. Many years of lessons later I have never managed to reach those dizzy heights. I put it down to having no time to practice with a family and husband to look after, and the garden. I would diligently sit down to practice my scales and drift off into what I was going to cook for tea and then the inevitable ‘MUUUUUUUUM!’ would ring out before the start of an argument. Practice over! An unexpected side effect was that I also developed an envious eye for those with long fingers. My short, fat ones are half my problem I’m sure.
Christmas came and Father Christmas brought me a Roland Digital Piano - with headphones! I didn’t ask why these were necessary! After a few years my piano teacher - Valerie - asked if I would like to join a ladies choir that she was starting. Why not, I thought. I wasn’t sure if I could sing as I hadn’t done so for such a long time, let alone in tune, but she seemed quite happy for me to make up the numbers. I was told I would be an Alto. (No, I didn’t know what that was either).
My initial experience of singing with the choir was traumatic. I was given the sheet music - a beautiful madrigal (as I now know) called “My Heart is Offered Still To You” by Orlando Di Lasso. (It’s funny how you don’t forget some things) - Valerie waved her arms like semaphore and they all set off - without me. I was still at the Janet and John stage of learning to read music and had only figured out the first two notes and I definitely couldn’t pitch them. Not only that but they all sang in different directions - like they were making it up (modern Jazz comes to mind). I didn’t know choirs sang in parts. I had only ever sung in unison. Once I got over the shock it was fascinating and I was determined to get better at it. At one point we joined with another choir to perform The Messiah and although it was really beyond me at that time I loved it. I loved the soloists too. They weren’t the overblown really wobbly voiced type, it was just nice and I so wanted to be one of them. At last I knew what I wanted to be when I grew-up! (Isn’t it great to dream?). We moved from Surrey to Essex, we bought a detached house and I found a new piano teacher.
Christmas came and Father Christmas brought me a Yamaha Upright - no headphones - must be improving. I gave up singing for a number of years until someone started a local singing group in the village hall and I decided to give it a try. It was very basic but fun and I met someone with whom I became great friends and we still are. We sang duets together and we joined other choirs. I realised that music, both reading and singing, was getting easier and as it became easier it was even better. She suggested singing lessons. It sounds really stupid and naive but I hadn’t really thought that people had singing lessons, I thought you could either sing or you couldn’t.
A few years later after the children left home we moved to Melton Mowbray and spent over two years renovating our new home. We had a large space and not much to fill it.
Christmas came and Father Christmas brought me a Grand Piano. It makes me feel as if I am a great pianist even though I know I am not. I then decided it was time to resume singing and started joining choirs but I was looking for one that was just a little bit special. I think I found it. About two years ago it was suggested that I try the Harborough Singers. It took me me ages to summon the courage to make contact but eventually I did and was accepted (then it became very interesting!?). All choirs that I have sung with have been great, but The Harborough Singers is the best! Thanks to you all…
p.s. Bill sometimes gets a look in his eye and says “That 50p plastic piano has cost us a fortune”. Indeed it has, but the experiences and pleasure we have gained is priceless and now he has bought me a flute - will he never learn????
Thank you to you all! Ann
Maestro’s Musings
Charlie’s Fortnightly Spotlight
Use it or Lose it
First off I want to say a big thank you to Jenny and Kate for pointing us to a whole range of resources and providing some really valuable feedback on the experiences. I know we’d all be grateful if you’ve had a go with any of these and wanted to share your thoughts on how it was, and/or how to get the best out of it. It’s really important to remember that singing is a muscle-based activity and the more you keep it moving and flexing at the moment, the easier it will be when you try to use it again in the way you’re used to.
I’m sure we all remember how it feels in September when you’ve had quite a long stretch away in the summer and suddenly seemingly basic skills which were previously straightforward seem much harder! As I’ve said before, none of the things on offer are going to completely fulfil the desire to sing together with people, but it’s amazingly satisfying after a long time off to just spend 15 minutes working through a warm up session online and blowing the cobwebs off the old vocal folds...
The New Normal
Who knows what/when/how we are going to return! As you can imagine, I’m involved in lots of discussions across various groups, and it seems impossible to come up with any consensus. For one thing, the situation is still incredibly volatile and there is no real way of knowing what restrictions will or won’t be in place in the autumn (and beyond). So many different people have strong opinions, occasionally even backed up with the teeniest nod towards science (!), but in truth no one can say with any certainty how or when activities like group singing can return. The Times published a piece last week by Richard Morrison - fundamentally asking the government for guidance for the 70,000 UK choirs (over 2m singers) that are wondering what the future holds.
One of the few things which people do seem to agree on is that no one is going to tell us for certain that we can meet and rehearse, only how unsafe it is to do so at any given time. With that in mind, we as a choir will need to make a judgment at some point and I wanted to put down some thoughts about how we might first meet up, so you can start to imagine and visualise what it could look like.
Early indications from New Zealand, who are obviously further along the road than we are, suggest that small groups meeting for a shorter period of time could be acceptable within a “Level 2” scenario. People would certainly have to be spread out in a room (no more copying markings over your neighbour’s shoulder!), and the time limit would probably be an hour at most. It’s conceivable that these could run as individual sectional sessions (in other words, four sessions across the day) and could offer an invaluable way to get the voices going again, and quickly learn a whole lot of repertoire.
This all comes with the usual and predictable caveats, not least whether we can access a venue who would be prepared to host us. But it will also depend on who is prepared to attend such sessions. Ideally, we would find a way to perhaps video them so that people who can’t be there can still watch and join in online, but these are discussions to be had down the line I think.
So, lots of bet-hedging at the moment, lots of “if’s”, “buts” and all the rest, and no conclusion of any value that I/we can come to. But I hope it helps you to know how things might look and start to imagine how we can make music together again.