Monday 30 April 2012

Photos

As promised, a random assortment of photos for your viewing pleasure....


The temporary cast from last week

The climax of my big aria in Dido and Aeneas

The boys 'laxing out and channel-surfing

Nan & Tyler
Cousin Rebecca - cool bikie chick


Cousin Stephen

Life with a cast

Tyler returned to Kew Hospital last Friday to attend Fracture Clinic. This usually entails an enormous amount of waiting around in between checking in, getting x-rayed, seeing a specialist and then any cast work to be done, but we were done and dusted in about 2 hours 20 minutes. X-rays show the bones is healing, but the doctor decided that the cast needed to be extended above the elbow to stop any rotation of the elbow making the bones move at the wrist. 

Because the existing cast was working well, they elected to do the fibreglass casting over the top of it and onwards past the elbow. Tyler chose a nice bright yellow. He thinks this will be a good colour for people to write on :)  He has an another check this Friday and assuming all ok, he will be in the cast for another 5 weeks. Thank goodness this didn't happen during swimming and Flippa Ball season. 

On Saturday I had my long-awaited performance as Dido in a concert performance of Purcell's opera Dido & Aeneas. Got my photo in the paper on the Saturday morning. 

After an amazingly good summer and unseasonably-mild Autumn, winter knocked loudly on the door today with wind, rain, hail and thunderstorms. 

I have a few random photos in the camera which I will download soon.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

I can't back out now, my name's on the programme

It's Wednesday and Dido & Aeneas is this Saturday at 4pm. Of course I don't really want to back out but I have, over the last week, been subject to bouts of  'who the hell do I think I am to be singing Dido?' I always wonder at what point someone like Jessye Norman or Pavarotti or any other world-famous singer goes on stage and thinks 'I have every right to be singing this'. Is there a light-bulb moment when they realise that their technique, quality of voice and ability to convey whatever emotion is needed is all there, and they are completely confident in their own ability? When they think 'Yeah, my voice IS so awesome that people will gladly pay a large portion of their weekly income to hear me?'

Obviously I'm a journeyman (journeywoman?) singer in a small city near the bottom of the world so the expectations on me are just a tad lower, but I still angst over the fact that people are using some of their precious time and money to listen to me. They have a right to expect something at the very least competent. And I realise that I'm being overly dramatic (no, really? Me?) because I'm not the only person they're coming to hear. It's just that there's this little song at the end of the opera that Dido sings. The one everyone knows. And because they know it, they know when you don't get the timing quite right, or a note exactly where it should be.

And so this morning, as I practised Dido's Lament in the shower - don't you love shower acoustics? - I thought, to hell with it, I know the notes, I can sing them competently, I'm just going to let go and invest it with all the emotion that I feel when I sing those sorrow-laden words. Maybe I'll come in half a beat late on a  'Remember me'. Maybe I'll forget a bit of ornamentation. But by golly the audience is going to feel my despair! 

Because that's what it's really all about isn't it? Not just pretty notes - it's about making people feel something.

I'll be back after the performance to let you know if I succeeded.

I can't back out now, my name's on the programme

It's Wednesday and Dido & Aeneas is this Saturday at 4pm. Of course I don't really want to back out but I have, over the last week, been subject to bouts of  'who the hell do I think I am to be singing Dido?' I always wonder at what point someone like Jessye Norman or Pavarotti or any other world-famous singer goes on stage and thinks 'I have every right to be singing this'. Is there a light-bulb moment when they realise that their technique, quality of voice and ability to convey whatever emotion is needed is all there, and they are completely confident in their own ability? When they think 'Yeah, my voice IS so awesome that people will gladly pay a large portion of their weekly income to hear me?'

Obviously I'm a journeyman (journeywoman?) singer in a small city near the bottom of the world so the expectations on me are just a tad lower, but I still angst over the fact that people are using some of their precious time and money to listen to me. They have a right to expect something at the very least competent. And I realise that I'm being overly dramatic (no, really? Me?) because I'm not the only person they're coming to hear. It's just that there's this little song at the end of the opera that Dido sings. The one everyone knows. And because they know it, they know when you don't get the timing quite right, or a note exactly where it should be.

And so this morning, as I practised Dido's Lament in the shower - don't you love shower acoustics? - I thought, to hell with it, I know the notes, I can sing them competently, I'm just going to let go and invest it with all the emotion that I feel when I sing those sorrow-laden words. Maybe I'll come in half a beat late on a  'Remember me'. Maybe I'll forget a bit of ornamentation. But by golly the audience is going to feel my despair! 

Because that's what it's really all about isn't it? Not just pretty notes - it's about making people feel something.

I'll be back after the performance to let you know if I succeeded.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

The blog post that came back to bite me on the posterior

So you remember the post where I talked about lettings kids do what kids do and not being a helicopter parent? How I said that there likely to be more broken bones in Tyler's future? Um, yeah, should have got a firm grip on a large piece of wood as I wrote that. It went like this....

Tuesday afternoon, about 4:15pm the phone rings and a lady from the OSCAR Holiday Programme was attending said "We think Tyler has broken his wrist". I shot down to the school where they run the programme and one look at the wee dude's face was enough to tell me that he not feeling too good at all. They had rigged up a sling for him, and gently pulled back the edge to show me the kink in his wrist. 

Off we sped to A&E, where they quickly weighed him and gave him a dose of paracetamol. This didn't even touch the sides of the pain so they squirted a morphine-type substance up his nose with the advice that he would probably be a bit woozy. Five minutes later he was talking non-stop, telling me a very involved story about something he saw on tv. All the time he was waving his non-damaged arm in the air because he said the place on his arm where they rubbed numbing gel felt strange. He had two lots of x-rays, which showed the complete break in the ulna, with the bone on an angle, hence the kink in his wrist. Skip this picture if you're a bit squeamish....


Eventually the doctors sedated him and straightened the bone. He was out to it for about 20 minutes and then woke up rather startled. By this time Chris had arrived. The doctors were concerned about swelling inside the temporary cast, so they cut it all the way down on one side so that we could gently widen it if needed to release the pressure. Eventually they released him with a sling and a prescription for pain medication. As we stopped to get some paperwork from the nurse, a baby started squawking in the cubicle next to us. Tyler exclaimed "Someone's just had a baby in there!" which had the nurse giggling. 

After a quick stop at McD's for some food as we were all starving we drove home and tucked Tyler into our bed (thank goodness for Super-King-size bed). It was a bit of a restless night for all of us. Fortunately Chris was home today on his in-between day and I am off tomorrow and Friday so we can give him plenty of love and attention.

Next week he'll get a proper cast - he reckons this one is going to be pale yellow. And so he is maintaining his '1 broken bone for every 2 years of life' average.

Thursday 12 April 2012

This and that

It's been a long time between posts - Hi Dad! - so I better catch y'all up on the household doings.

Term 1 has finished and Tyler is on holiday. He's had a sleepover at a friend's place and got two Easter Egg Hunts, one on Good Friday at home and then another on Easter Sunday at his friend's. Remarkably he still has quite a bit of his booty left. He has had a couple of days at OSCAR and will spend some days with Chris, some with me and a few with both of us. 

He came out with a little gem the other day, as we were snuggled up in bed. "Mum, do you know what a snuggle is? It's a cuddle where you get really comfy together." Couldn't have put it better myself.

Softball season finished on a high for Chris, who is captain of the Wallacetown team which plays in the Premier B division. They won their grade, and Chris played a blinder, with a homer and great fielding. The team also won the Conduct Award and the award for the team with the least runs scored against them.    Rugby starts this weekend (Senior C division, playing for the Hawaiian Delights) as he gets match fit for his big trip to Hawaii in September. My netball starts this weekend although I am not officially playing for the season, just covering the first three or four weeks for one of the girls who's overseas.

I've had plenty of singing with the church choir over Easter and then a funeral I was honoured to be asked to sing at yesterday. At the end of the month I sing the role of Dido in a concert performance of Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas' as part of the Southland Arts Festival. As usual, details of my singing adventures can be read here.

Here's a couple of pics of the wee dude deep in philosophical discussion with his big bro Anton. Topic of discussion? How to get to the next level on the Pokemon White Nintendo game :)


Monday 9 April 2012

Once a Day and Twice on Sundays.

I sing with the small choir at St Mary's Basilica in Invercargill, usually every second Sunday. So far, I don't think they have figured out that they have a cuckoo in the nest, me being a Baptist-raised agnostic, although my ingrained version of the Lord's Prayer complete with thou's and trespasses might have tipped them off. Anyway, it is a musical education for me, as I learn all the setting of the Glorias, Amens etc. Every so often I get thrown into the Cantor role, where I have to concentrate very hard. It's a whole different style of singing and at the moment I still tend to sing it as a song rather than as musical speech. But I'm slowly getting there.

The other great thing about singing with this choir (I use the term choir relatively loosely given that on a good day we have one bass, two tenors, two altos and two sopranos) is that there is often solo work to do - an aria from Messiah, the Vicar of Dibley version of The Lord is My Shepherd and so on. We sit up in the choir stalls so are hidden from the view of all but the Priest and any parishioners who dare to risk putting a neck vertebra out of alignment to have a look. That means the focus is on the music and not the person singing which is much more relaxing. The acoustics are great too.

Easter in the Catholic Church is A Big Deal. From Holy Thursday we sang every day and twice on Sunday. I love that we get to sing plainchant and music that has endured for centuries in the same form. It's amazing to think that the notes we sing are the very same as would have been sung by someone in the 12th century. I had quite a bit to do, including Cantor work and two Mozart arias - the Laudate Dominum and the Ora Pro Nobis from Regina Coeli K128. It was the first time I'd sung the Ora Pro Nobis and it appears that it was the first time anyone there had heard it which is a shame because it is the most gorgeous piece of music. The choir also discovered a new talent we hope to retain, Joy Kerr, who sang a marvellous rendition of 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?' 

By Sunday evening I was well and truly sung out and the medicinal application of chocolate and wine was a necessity. And now it is full steam ahead with Dido, reminding myself that I don't have to rush the phrases, that Purcell was very fond of word-painting and I can use that to colour the notes. 

Once a Day and Twice on Sundays.

I sing with the small choir at St Mary's Basilica in Invercargill, usually every second Sunday. So far, I don't think they have figured out that they have a cuckoo in the nest, me being a Baptist-raised agnostic, although my ingrained version of the Lord's Prayer complete with thou's and trespasses might have tipped them off. Anyway, it is a musical education for me, as I learn all the setting of the Glorias, Amens etc. Every so often I get thrown into the Cantor role, where I have to concentrate very hard. It's a whole different style of singing and at the moment I still tend to sing it as a song rather than as musical speech. But I'm slowly getting there.

The other great thing about singing with this choir (I use the term choir relatively loosely given that on a good day we have one bass, two tenors, two altos and two sopranos) is that there is often solo work to do - an aria from Messiah, the Vicar of Dibley version of The Lord is My Shepherd and so on. We sit up in the choir stalls so are hidden from the view of all but the Priest and any parishioners who dare to risk putting a neck vertebra out of alignment to have a look. That means the focus is on the music and not the person singing which is much more relaxing. The acoustics are great too.

Easter in the Catholic Church is A Big Deal. From Holy Thursday we sang every day and twice on Sunday. I love that we get to sing plainchant and music that has endured for centuries in the same form. It's amazing to think that the notes we sing are the very same as would have been sung by someone in the 12th century. I had quite a bit to do, including Cantor work and two Mozart arias - the Laudate Dominum and the Ora Pro Nobis from Regina Coeli K128. It was the first time I'd sung the Ora Pro Nobis and it appears that it was the first time anyone there had heard it which is a shame because it is the most gorgeous piece of music. The choir also discovered a new talent we hope to retain, Joy Kerr, who sang a marvellous rendition of 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?' 

By Sunday evening I was well and truly sung out and the medicinal application of chocolate and wine was a necessity. And now it is full steam ahead with Dido, reminding myself that I don't have to rush the phrases, that Purcell was very fond of word-painting and I can use that to colour the notes.