Lesson #324 - why singing from memory is a good idea

I got a last minute request to sing at a Registered Music Teacher's concert and my teacher said "Let's do something from your new repertoire, how about 'Kommt ein schlanker'" and I replied "But but but! I haven't learnt the words from memory yet." However she was keen for me to get a performance of this one under my belt so I agreed that I would do it with the music. I did try to stuff all the words into the small walnut that passes for my brain in the intervening couple of days, but you know, that irritating thing called Life got in the way. 

Being of a certain age, I now frequently have to resort to reading glasses which is disconcerting. If I sit them firmly on my nose, the audience looks blurry and I feel as if I have lost connection with them. Sit them further down so I can use normal eyesight for the audience and I look like a caricature of a dragon-lady librarian. Alternatively I could grow my arms another 6 inches and problem solved. So learning things off by heart is definitely the better proposition.

The concert was being held in a large room of our local museum. Carpeted with a lowish ceiling. I figured this would swallow the sound, especially when filled with an audience, but it was actually very nice acoustically. When it was my turn I stepped up to the piano (teacher accompanying) and discovered that a) the lighting was feeble and b) my folder clearly didn't have non-reflective plastic. Nothing to be done but soldier on. 

Fortunately I had the opening couple of pages off pat so things started well. Just as I was mentally patting myself on the back for putting my glottals in the right place and actually making the trill sound like a trill instead of a wobbly vibrato, disaster struck! I glanced down at the page to pick up the next lot of words and couldn't see them properly. Have you ever tried making up something on the spot in a language other than your own? Me either. But I did. It's entirely possible that instead of saying Sollten ja sich Blicke finden (If you should catch his glance) I said something like  Meine Katze sitzt auf einer Keksblume (My cat sits on a biscuit flower).

The rest of the aria passed without incident. So here's what I learnt from that experience:

1. If you're going to make up words, do it in front of an audience that neither knows the language you're singing in nor the aria you are singing.

2. Don't let any flicker of panic cross your features and no one will be any the wiser that your cat sits on a biscuit flower.

3. Avoid having to do 1. by memorising the dang aria!

Lesson #324 - why singing from memory is a good idea

I got a last minute request to sing at a Registered Music Teacher's concert and my teacher said "Let's do something from your new repertoire, how about 'Kommt ein schlanker'" and I replied "But but but! I haven't learnt the words from memory yet." However she was keen for me to get a performance of this one under my belt so I agreed that I would do it with the music. I did try to stuff all the words into the small walnut that passes for my brain in the intervening couple of days, but you know, that irritating thing called Life got in the way. 

Being of a certain age, I now frequently have to resort to reading glasses which is disconcerting. If I sit them firmly on my nose, the audience looks blurry and I feel as if I have lost connection with them. Sit them further down so I can use normal eyesight for the audience and I look like a caricature of a dragon-lady librarian. Alternatively I could grow my arms another 6 inches and problem solved. So learning things off by heart is definitely the better proposition.

The concert was being held in a large room of our local museum. Carpeted with a lowish ceiling. I figured this would swallow the sound, especially when filled with an audience, but it was actually very nice acoustically. When it was my turn I stepped up to the piano (teacher accompanying) and discovered that a) the lighting was feeble and b) my folder clearly didn't have non-reflective plastic. Nothing to be done but soldier on. 

Fortunately I had the opening couple of pages off pat so things started well. Just as I was mentally patting myself on the back for putting my glottals in the right place and actually making the trill sound like a trill instead of a wobbly vibrato, disaster struck! I glanced down at the page to pick up the next lot of words and couldn't see them properly. Have you ever tried making up something on the spot in a language other than your own? Me either. But I did. It's entirely possible that instead of saying Sollten ja sich Blicke finden (If you should catch his glance) I said something like  Meine Katze sitzt auf einer Keksblume (My cat sits on a biscuit flower).

The rest of the aria passed without incident. So here's what I learnt from that experience:

1. If you're going to make up words, do it in front of an audience that neither knows the language you're singing in nor the aria you are singing.

2. Don't let any flicker of panic cross your features and no one will be any the wiser that your cat sits on a biscuit flower.

3. Avoid having to do 1. by memorising the dang aria!

He's Crumpy, I'm Barry

Easter Monday we hopped in the truck for an Adventure Day. We headed up to Garston and then turned off to take the Nevis Road. This involved a steep ascent on a windy, dusty road frequently with 6 inches between us and a swift decent to the bottom of the valley. As Chris' truck is not 4WD he took this road at a fair clip to ensure that we kept moving in a forwards-and-upwards direction rather than a sideways-and-downwards one. There was a lot of bouncing and skidding. But the bouncing, skidding, sheer drops and general scariness of the ascent left Chris unfazed and for some reason unfathomable to me, he felt it was perfectly acceptable driving behaviour to remove one hand from the wheel for the purposes of pointing out various bits of scenery. 

Those of you of a certain vintage will remember a series of Toyota ads involving Barry Crump and his passenger Scotty. This example pretty much sums up both our ascent and the subsequent descent:

The descent was a lot less hairy in terms of steepness but in place of that were the obstacles of stream crossings and large rocks to negotiate. Chris did a great job of picking the right places and only once did he confess that he was unsure if we were going to get through a particularly deep crossing.

See the shadowed side of the hill behind me and Tyler? Chris and his mates rode their dirt bikes up that recently!

We stopped at the Bannockburn pub for lunch in the sun and then went on to Queenstown where we took Tyler up in the gondolas and then did the luge. We followed that up with a round of indoor mini golf. We headed home well satisfied with day's activities.

We had Tyler's parent-teacher interview last Monday. The teacher goes through each subject and Tyler has to say what his current goal is for that subject and the teacher explains what he is working on. We started with reading comprehension and in terms of where he's at, he's way ahead of the standard and she said his results in the PAT test (yes, they still do those!) puts him in the top 10-15% of NZ. He gets that from me. She said everything else he is fine in, no concerns at all. Although he can get distracted sometimes. He get's that from his father. :)

Only a week till the end of school term so Tyler's touch, t-ball and summer soccer have finished. My netball has started and we are yet again going to spend the entire season outside - rain, hail or shine - due to the continued delays with the reconstruction of the Stadium.

We are still dealing with the uncertainties of a potential closure of Tiwai, but life goes on in the meantime and we have a holiday to the Gold Coast to look forward to later this year.