The Choir
I hope you’ve been watching ‘The Choir’ on BBC each week when a young highly-enthusiastic musician has bullied and cajoled various groups from around the country to improve their singing skills and join in a public performance of (sometimes) a relatively-difficult piece.
Although the timescale is greatly contracted and the whole thing is intended to make good television, it is still very-interesting to watch what can be done. If you haven’t seen it before, give it a try!
Congratulations, and Celebrations!
Well done, to Fiona, a member of Angelus Singers, who has just graduated with MA (Hons), in Theology and Religious Studies….
R.I.P. Gordon
We record the death of Gordon Moore, (2.1.1927-11.5.2009) someone known to most of our Choir. He was a great lover of church choral music, and in spite of the increasing disability caused by his deafness and Meniers’s, he continued to sing in the St Cyprian’s choir till just a few years ago. Even when the church choir was at a low ebb, he was always there in the back row.
His knowledge of music notation was not good so he learned his part by rote. His records about when and where hymns, tunes, anthems, chants etc had been used previously was often referred-to, to ensure variety in worship.
He was also very good at Scottish Country dancing and the writer was once persuaded to go to an open night. Despite instructions from Gordon, feet, brain, and music failed miserably to co-ordinate, to the consternation of Gordon, who expected that everyone should be as good at it as he was.
Let’s hope that he can find a choir and/or a country dancing group, in the hereafter.
Ballachulish Colourful Choristers
We were very lucky to have Frank Conn with us when we went to join with some local choristers at St John’ for Evensong…as he is a very good photographer! The following two were taken on a miserable wet day, but still have a sparkle about them….. or maybe it is the rainbow colours of choir robes!!
On the Communion Table behind the choir were the Communion vessels allegedly used before the battle of Culloden.
Leaflet
The following is a leaflet in jpeg format. Sorry about the quality but the technical expert (me) is hard at work to get a better image. We also have it on Publisher 2003, and can send it by e-mail if you wish to use it to inform others about us.
CLOSED…hopefully not for ever(!)
In 1867, a company started in Glasgow to sell music and instruments. It was called Biggars, and grew at a time when music hall was popular, and every proud home had a piano and a stool-ful of sheet music. It closed its doors a few days ago. Glasgow’s, if not Scotland’s, most famous music retailer is gone. So where will you get your Steinway piano now?
The Directors, David and Gillian Huthison, had previously owned the electrical company Hutchison’s, which went into liquidation in 2002.
It is believed that the Internet’s increasing involvement in music supply and the decrease in individual music playing must have been responsible. But the accounts showed a healthy profit and stock value. It is to be hoped that a purchaser can be found to maintain the presence, and perhaps keep some of the staff.
I remember spending many hours in the lower floor, hunting about for organ and choral music, and would like to feel that I might be able to return to that at some stage. But with the present uneasy economic climate, I cannot be sure.
SOMETHING FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
An electronic organ with two keyboards and one-octave pedal-board, is available to take away free gratis from Buchlyvie Village Hall, by contacting Sandra McNee on 01360 850220. Give her a buzz, and then take a run out there and try it!
More photos, and some real music….
Have a look on the blog about the recent Evensong at St Aidan’s….some more candid and posed shots of this marvellous event.
Also have alook at the music links on the bottom of the Bach, Handel, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rutter and Allegri blogs. I hope to add more such links in the future and will inform you of these….
Does it taste good?
There has always been a problem defining good taste….no less within Church language and music. If you look at the preface to the Book of Common Prayer there is this enlightened statement ‘There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised or so sure established, which in continuance of time has not been corrupted’.
So even they knew that the striving for quality in all we do is ‘tainted’ (at least as defined by someone else). We can always criticise words or music, or when or how they are used. This is an argument which will never end. Fortunately, as humans, we all come with different attitudes and experiences so we cannot expect two people to have exactly the same ideas as to what is ‘good taste’.
Having come from a Methodist background, we were very constrained in the music we would use in the Church, and Latin would not have formed a part of that. ‘Choruses’ were restricted to Sunday School use. Anything else would have not been considered ’suitable’. The use of the word ‘taste’ was rare. Hymns were of course based round great Methodists such as the Wesleys, and many other wonderful wordsmiths and musicians.
A move into the Episcopal tradition broadened my scope of experience and I was able to look at the liturgical framework and how Church musicians had produced a variety of wonderful music to fulfill the needs of the Liturgy. There was no feeling of good or bad ‘taste’, only an appreciation of quality.
Now, within a cathedral setting most Sundays, ‘eclectic’ is probably a good definition of the music and words we use….ancient to modern, complex to simple, profound to light-hearted, universal to parochial. Over-arching all this, however, is the feeling that the pieces chosen seem to be ‘right for me, for the occasion’.
So maybe, at least for me, this is the best definition I can find for taste…it works as a whole to add to an experience. What about you?
‘I can’t follow a tune!’
We all know someone who has a problem singing. They may love singing and being with other singers, but unfortunately the right notes just don’t come out! Next time you are at a Karaoke night out, just count the number of people who try, valiantly, to follow the ochestral accompaniment, unsuccessfully.
But why should this be, seeing that music seem to be inherent in our brain’s development? Well of course not everyone can play an instrument, learn a foreign language, or speak in public without stuttering, so perhaps it’s ‘just one of those things’.
Several theories have been put forward, including the absence of musical-training, or a difference in the ‘tuning’ of the two ears, where they hear diffent notes and can’t determine which is ‘correct’ to sing. If you know or suspect a different theory, let me know and we can maybe save a lot of potential singers from the grief which they must find when they can’t join-in the fun of singing in a choir.
