Intermission

Having recently read the work of two friends whom I had the great pleasure to meet last year in Halls, I am somewhat concious of once again, slacking off as far as this blog is concerned!  Once more, I am typing off the top of my head at 1am, but this time I'm sober, and this time it won't be about Organs.  Well.  Not entirely.


Therefore, starting with Organs, I have taken up lessons again!  Be in no shadow of a doubt that I am expressly pleased with this, even if my lessons no longer take place on a III/P Neoclassical essay with a balanced tracker...sigh... But they do in fact take place on a very fine instrument, built at the beginning of the Twentieth century, mechanical stop, key and coupling action, with some fine stops inside as well.  The trumpet, while without the French grandeur in the bass does not lose power in the treble, with the swell strings being nothing but sheer delight.  I have gone back to where I left off material wise, with Langlais' Priere and Prelude Modale, Vierne's Bercuese, and selections from Couperin's Messe pour les couvents.  Today on a short crawl with my teacher however, I sightread the Andante Tranquillo from Mendelssohn's A major Organ Sonata, and not terribly badly either.  I pedalled!  Huzzah!  My next lesson is on Thursday morning, and it's bloody brilliant to be back.

But my teacher?  Well, he follows on from last year's tradtion, of being a highly skilled and musical man, an excellent improviser, in his mid-twenties... but he's getting married?  Certianly not something Saint J of N would be considering?  Perhaps not...
But I will be attending this wedding at the beginning of June, sat way up at the front of the nave of Truro Cathedral, not only watching the ceremony unfold in front of me (rather than being at the stall!), but also, it transpires, participating!  I haven't read in Church since...well, Mancroft, and certainly not at anything as felicitous as a wedding!  I have  new paisley tie at the ready, and it's just shy of three weeks away.  

The squalid Scholary still stands though, despite all we who live therein.  The kitchen needs breaking again, with a rather unsavoury backlog of plates and pans... not withstanding the hob.  As I am still unemployed, I pick the slack up in the day (or plan to, anyway), so at least the plates and cutlery are clean and ready to go.  As ever, the cutlery box is here, but has been plundered entirely of forks!  I plan to reclaim all mine, and see how that leaves us off for cutlery and flatware.  It's a mystery what happens to forks at the best of times.


There are many half finished drafts on my books here.  Some barely started and abandoned as bad concept, and a few complete essays that cannot be published for various reasons.  There are some that have been written in the first flush of anger for instance, that the cooling influence of a computer that sometimes crashes halfway through have saved from public viewing.  I really ought to do something more interesting with my life than wash up, practice, and generally slulk about on the internet.  I haven't even played any ridiculous videogames for a while now!  Life has slowed down somewhat from the whirlpool that almost dragged me under last term...and I am thankful for that.  It's certainly no quieter.  Different.

Anyway.  There'll be some more beardy organ bearding published soon.  Next week I'll be recording a CD of the music of Philip Stopford with Choir, the weekend after that will be the wedding...and after THAT (with a few days rest), I'll be back in Norwich, A FINE CITY.  Upon my return we perform an Orchestral Eucharist in the Cathedral, and then it's into the last part of Trinity, and the end of the year.  A tearful valediction looms at the beginning of July...

Anyway.  Time for bed.  I have a kitchen to clear and preludes to practice and chess games to win.  See you on the other side.

Reconstruction of a Madman

You know, so much has been going on recently that I managed to forget that I've kept this blog active, albiet with several breaks, for two years now!  Happy birthday.  Or whatever.

Things have been really tough recently though, which is why there hasn't been much publicised activity.  I lost my job, my relationship broke down... actually that's kind of it. but in all seriousness when those two things happen within weeks of themselves, you can't help but get battered down.  

Like before, I'm not here to talk about the hows and wherefores of what happened with my relationship.  It isn't right to air it over the net like this, I won't be bothering.  Thing is that things changed, and that's how things have to be.  I'm still in an emotionally unstable state, I'm not going to lie, but I'm doing all that I can to remain balanced, especially in public.  In all honesty though, I loved her with my whole heart, and did everything I could.  I'm so pleased and proud of what we had, so many good things came of it.  While I might be desperately upset, I'll never forget that, ever.  I know that past the pain lies time for cherishing, and so many memories.  

Okay, enough already.



And what about this job then?  I've been in all but full time employment as the Music Administrator (read as Departmental Undersecretary) at Truro School, a private day and boarding school some 800 pupils strong.  It's been far from easy.  Upon starting, I fell to a particularly nasty depressive episode, because unsurprisingly, the incredible gear change from being unemployed for basically your entire life to a full time (8:30am til 4pm, 5 days a week) job is a killer.  There's no middle ground, and BAM you're on all day every day.  Having to learn how to fit in with the system, meeting new and unfamiliar people every single day.  At least I get to wear a suit just like the good old days, right?  Right.  My core tasks involved sitting behind a desk all day, making photocopies, answering the telephone and generally doing as the Head of Department told me to...except on the odd occasion that I said "No".  Let's recount my favourite episode...


Head of Department - "I want you to get all the kids' choir folders, and make sure that every single one of them has each piece of music."


Me - 'No.'


HoD - "What?"


Me - 'Half of them don't turn up anyway, why not leave it to the kids to be responsible for their own music, because then all the people who actually attend will have the right music, and then those who don't come won't have a folder, so there won't be any wasted copies.'




That little exchange went down like a lead balloon.  Anyway.  I started working there in January, on the 5th, literally the day after I got back to Cornwall.  I basically treated myself like I was invincible, not immortal (as of course I am), and fell foul of it.  The strain was immense.  Things leveled out though, and I carried on.  I was an agent of varying success; while things would have gone much worse without me (as a quick fix stand in), everything that could go wrong on my watch did.  Basically!  I was asked by the HoD to seriously consider my job, and if I wanted to continue in employment there over the half term.  I did, and thought (at the time) that I would merrily wish to continue into the summer term, or Trinity as I still know it. Things were moved in powers above my head, however, that confirmed my empolyment would end once my temporary contract had come to a close, on the 30th of March.  The decision had been made by the 9th, and official correspondance signed, which was not posted until the 14th, let alone received until the 16th of the very same month.  An annoyance, but nothing more; the contract stated that I could be given a week's notice, so a fortnight was no problem really...Okay, I was less than pleased to have discovered it especially after the long schlep down the hill from School to the Scholary, but that's how it goes.


Another milestone from my time at Truro School was my playing of the Chapel Organ in a concert, called Organ and the Word.  I opened with the could-have-been-smoother Croft D major Voluntary, and absolutely oafed it out the park with selections from the Couperin Messe pour les Couvents, witch went down like a storm.  YES THE INEGALITE!  The Chapel organ is the ex-Jesus College Cambridge Instrument, originally built by Mander, and therefore christened in the same way as my excellent friend Mr. Harry Macey would, as the Mandermonium (a name that went down like a storm again...har har), and was built in 1971, an early Neo-Classical instrument.  

Now, I would obviously have much preferred an instrument from 1791...but my experience with the Neo-Classical aesthetic drew me, yea like a moth to a flame.  While it may be scaled down immensely from the mighty Collins (which I do miss very much), having a chorus up to a IV Fourniture on the Great was pleasing once again.  There was even a tierce for my characteristic Dutch warmth... Although I never took the Pachelbel G minor Fantasia to play sadly!  The Collins registrations inside my Pachelbel book reveal an eclectic reed building, with a HW of Trompette 8', Oktave 4', Quint 2 2/3', Superoktave 2' and Tierce 1 3/5', with a RP of Dulzian 16', Gedact 8' and Principal 4' coupled up.  Gritty, reedy, earthy and downright nasty, especially in that E flat minor moment, flavoured by the Valotti temperament.  Delicious!  


However.  Now is a time for looking forward.  This may prove more difficult in some circumstances than others, but there's time.  Time is what we all need every now and again.  I need some time to reassess.  I need a job, yes, but a 9-5 desk job is somewhat outside of my power.  I felt stretched to my absolute limits.  The number of days where I didn't want to get out of bed aren't worth talking about, so I shan't bother.  I do need money coming in, to fuel the lifestyle I have become acquianted with, to fund travel hither and yon, and to keep getting past this overdraft.  Originally, the first letter of the title of this post was a 'D', but I figured that it was better to look forward instead.  While I might be cut up right now, I know deep down that I am in a position of many opportunities: emotionally, professionally and financially.


I will never give up, and that maxim reflects on everything - I will certainly never stop trying to improve myself in every way shape and form available.


Watch this space, because with the increased amount of free time I have now I shall certainly be finding time and place to write some more.  I have several drafts to finish (or actually start afresh...), and Lord knows I've got a lot to say.  I'm just so outspoken.

Vignette XXVIX

Who remembers when I said this?

'Let it be said, "The Quality of Mercy is not Strained".  Once it becomes a strain, what is it?  Ruined?  Or maybe a necessary evil, in and of itself.  What truth is in mercy, what mercy in truth?'

I'm thinking of getting that maxim inscribed upon me.  No, not on my jaw like where I learned it from.  But anyway.  On with the show.  It's almost as if history is repeating itself.  

I'm...recovering from the unexpected and compeltely shattering end to my relationship.   While I saw the signs that it might be ending, I never really thought for a second that it would really happen.  I saw a rough patch as just a bit of a bump in the road, not as a prelude to valediction.  I'm broken and shattered.  Now isn't really the time or place to talk about it.  Another expression I've heard for a long time was "Go to bed with a writer, wake up with shit written about you", and I'm not about to perpetrate that.  It'd be petty, for starters.

But still, everything is so strained.   I feel neither mercy nor closure.  I am weak from heartache, from lack of sleep, from lack of food.  From just the sheer lack of everything.

I wish I could do something.  I wish there was something that I could do that mattered.  That could help.  That could even repair damage.  Some wounds may never heal though.   And I'll always feel the same.

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice. 

Vignette XXVIII

I'm adrift.  

I can't tell what the tide will do.  

The waves will surely overtake me?

The method, the meaning, the madness, the maladies, that misfortune is my cousin...

...That in the end, bitterness kills.

The rest?  Is that it?  Is this the course that lies ahead?

If the rest is silence, then now  c r a c k s  a noble heart.







What wrong have I done to you?  What good have I not done for you?  Listen to me.

Vignette XXVII

Time for a Lenten Challenge.

Now I never give anything up, because unsurprisingly, I'm not a quitter.  Sometimes, that makes me angry when other people quail where I would not.  I'm working on it.


So time to take up writing again.  I used to pump out at least two blogs a week.  What happened?  I got depressed and stopped writing for a long time.  I got it back, but then found a lady who is making me whole again; all the parts that were broken are coming back.  I give her all the time that I can.

But what about the time that I can't give to her?  That I'm not at choir, or at work or asleep or eating or drinking or God damn anything else?

Write.  Write again.  I'll probably write that chapter that's missing from my dissertation, but it might be tricky without all those books.


Hmmm.  And...

And I'm going to buy The Wake.  So we'll see where this takes us, shall we?  

MIND THE GAP

One foot on the Gas, one foot in the Grave

So I definitely haven't written for a long time... whoops!

Actually I have been very very busy, all of which I will discuss herein.  I haven't even tried to write, so unlike 6 months ago my entry list isn't littered with half-hearted aborted attempts.  I have simply been too busy!  There are three main articles of business, of interest, of discussion that I will illuminate in the next several hundred words, and they are thus: my new job, my place at the stall, and my wonderful girl.  There's more along the way too...

Basically, I have a full time job now.  I say basically, because I'm technically an hour and a quarter short of FT, but there we go.  As you will see, it doesn't make that much difference in fact, as I'm still killing myself at the end of the day in time for choir.  I am now, and have been since the 5th of January, employed by Truro School, a large private school, as the Administrator of the Music Department.  What this basically means is that I deal with all the queries, all the parents ringing up, all the kids with their questions, sorting out letters, co-ordinating choir and orchestra registers... You guys know the score.  I'm the person who helps make things happen behind the scenes.  The local stable of peripatetic teachers who work with us are a good bunch, most of whom seem to like me a lot (which is always a help!), and if anything the biggest problem I have is the School database, which handles like a sick cow at the best of times.  Trying to mailmerge a set of letters has sent me greyer than... well, greyer than three years in Norwich that's for sure!

It's a good job though, and importantly I am actually enjoying it really through all the griping and early starts and an almost crippling walk up a massive hill to work and back down every day...it's good.  Importantly, the pay is very nice as well, which, with my remuneration from the Cathedral amounts to getting on for nine hundred pounds a month.  My current contract finishes on the 30th of March, and the head of department has asked me to seriously consider whether I want to stay on next term.  The money is very good, and will get me out of that pesky overdraft sooner rather than later...but the issue I have is that of timing.  I get up at 7, or a little later, and usually check in at my office desk after half eight and stay in school til four in the afternoon, at which point I have to charge down to the Cathedral for the rehearsal for evensong.

Now the whole reason I'm down here in the far-off south west is my Scholarship, the business of singing the services, and basically being a worthwhile part of Truro Cathedral Choir.  At the end of the day, I;m absolutely wiped.  What do I get to do?  Go to rehearsal.  I'm basically pulling in a 50 hour week, all told, with very little time off inbetween things, which having gone from last term doing hardly anything has proven tricky, if problematic.   I'm getting used to it, which is fine now, but obviously really knocked me over when I first started, and things still aren't perfect, which to be perfectly honest I feel ashamed about!  There's a point in the service, usually at the end of the Nunc Gloria and the start of the responses that I dip, and basically that's not good enough!  

OH WELL PEB GET USED TO IT AND KEEP YER CHIN UP EH BOY

As far as the stall is concerned, short of unforseen disaster, I'm staying for a second year!  At the Master's invitation!  How thrilling, and if anything else, sheer confirmation that I'm doing the right things in the right place at the right time.  No more Mancroft-style depression and disheartening.  Countertenoring may still not be the most fashionable thing to do in the world, but I might as well play to my strengths as far as singing's concerned.  While I do still every now anad again miss my treble days, at no point do I ever wish that I was anything else.  I usually describe myself as "the loud one on the end" whenever anyone asks me about my part to play.  I do enjoy flying off the handle every now and again as the situation calls for it (midnight mass descants, for example), but only as and when and Chris knows whats going on.  The next big item on the plate is Sunday morning's anthem, some modern horror.  Did I say that?  Yes, I did.  I hate it for the one reason that it's almost as if I'm blind.  I have no fixed idea of the tonality or form, and it drives me mental.  Having to pull augmented fouths out of the bag is simply monstrous, I don't like it.  Rant over really, as it'll happen, and I'll be spending all my free time tomorrow learning it...and then battle can commence on Sunday morning.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, eh?  

And what about this girl then?  She's just everything.  I know I know, you all probably think I'm just some hopeless romantic...which is absolutely true.  There are times when I stop myself to make sure I am certain about what I say, and I can honestly say there's no one I've felt so sure about.  There's nobody I've ever felt so comfortable with.  Of course it's early days and all, but it certainly feels...natural and relaxed and all sorts of good things!  This past weekend we went for a little break, just the two of us to a hotel on the coast which was absolutely splendid in every way possible, I absolutely treated her (being the weekend inbetween her birthday and valentines), and in fact on Valentines day itself, I trained up to pick her up from University, and generally treat her lots again!  I know this all looks a bit one sided, but it is me writing, and the way she treats me is absolutley brilliant, make no mistake.  I am planning the next holiday, a little further afield of course, and also trips upcountry to Norwich and Derby. 

I suppose one price that I have paid for all this success is the ultimate price of having moved away, and I am basically the worst person at keeping in touch once I've moved out.  I'm sure my friends from Norwich must feel left behind, basically, as I haven't written in an age, and certainly haven't made the trip up there.  It was always my intention to go up in the February half term, which has now been and gone.  Obviously my get-out clause is that I promised to be back this year...not this term.  I'm still coming back, I will keep my promise.  Actually, it now gives me a little in the way of wiggle room as far as saving is concerned; I have a lot of plans outside a return tour to N-Town, I want to be able to afford and manage to do them all.  Some things I need, and some things I want...and some things I think I need but only want!  Such is the material urge.  I'm still on Skype, and Lord knows enough people stalk my Twitter feed these days.  I can be found quite easily these days, which is possibly the biggest change from my youth, once prefering to remain quite hidden when I was younger.  

Hiatus

So I never quite finished this on Saturday night after all.  Welcome to Sunday night paragraphing and posting, but don't worry; the most I've done is tighten up a few corners and add some more.  As ever, I have two feet, and their location is perfectly described by the title of this post.  Some things will always be the same though.  Always.

Going Native

It has been another good long while since I've posted.  Again.  I've been busy, come on!  Also my computer is  very ill beast indeed, I'm quite lucky it's working enough to maintain a stable connection.

So, you know the tagline at the top.  Although perhaps I won't rant.  We'll go in reverse order though, just to keep the excitement ramping up!  

Standing at Can Alto 1 might well ensure that I am the closest Choral Scholar to the Master, but is far away from the poor end of the stall.  In fact, quite the opposite.  

Just last week I was finally allowed to assume the role of John the Baptist in Orlando Gibbons' most famous verse anthem, This is the Record of John.  I've only been singing Countertenor for 7 years, but after all that time I've done the most important solo to me in a Cathedral evensong.  Some things are just too important to miss doing, and there's one.  Perhaps it seems strange that for me, especially as a high Countertenor known for laying on recitals of American art songs, should put so much into this one verse anthem, but seeing as that solo was basically the reason I wanted to become a Cathedral Alto, I think I can be allowed to make a fuss about it.  The upshot is that I was allowed, indeed awarded the chance to perfom this mighty item, which I gave my best shot even though I panicked ridiculously when we got to the service.  Consequently I am on the whole less than happy, but through constant, positive reinforcement am slowly coming round to the idea that actually I did a really good job.

Other than that great and personal triumph, I have been doing pretty well, caning out hymns (because some things will never change) and generally giving as much oomph as I can, because...some other things never change either!  Importantly, I do not recieve complaints from the director, which as I always say, is a welcome change from my last appointment.

I haven't done much in the way of Organ playing though sadly, I am accordingly becoming a little rusty.  Speaking of rust though, the damp climate down here is an absolute killer!  My joints are no longer friends with me accordingly, but at least it's alot better than last year's embarrassment of incapacitation.  While I may have a hefty limp again, at least I can still walk.  The damp in the Scholary is at quite a low level, thanks to having an effetive central heating system (thank God...) at the least.  The constant drizzle means that laundry can be quite difficult to sort out, seeing as my room is so ill-organised that there is nary enough room to stand a clothes horse in here...  There is so much chaos in here that it is in constant danger of tipping the balance but I have it just under control.  I must do a large-scale white was though soon!

My life outside of my scholarship is somewhat looking up though.  I'll be taking up a full time job from the 5th of January at Truro School, as the Music department Administrator, on a temporary contract for the whole of the Lent term for starters, and then with the possibility of renewal for Trinity, and perhaps even full time!  This is very exciting.  I have been working in the Cathedral office since October, filling in for the lunch hour on the phones and passing messages on and being a general dogsbody, you know that sort of thing.  I have cut out several hundred church windows and stars for the Education Officer in order to fulfil the needs of various School visits, and also led a visit all by myself with children who have profound learning difficulties.  I was shit scared about doing that all on my own but came through and even scored some major points through the use of my signing.  Knowing a little bit of BSL can be helpful, especially seeing as the teachers spoke with the children in Maketon.  While I may well be happy with working there, I could really do with more to do and of course, some more money would be very helpful...

Of course, had I said that answering the telephone to random callers would terrify me (which of course it does), I would never have got a job in the office, and would therefore never have got anywhere near this gig at Truro School.  

I am, however, beginning to suffer from a...mutation of the vowels.  Remember how I spent three years in Norfolk without picking the accent up?  Yeah, not so down here.  I do say though, that I will never truly forget my grim northern vowels.  I believe my soft palate is the wrong shape to really sound Cornish.  Just like when I became an honorary Gog though, it is because I want to sound this way, rather than a concious resistance (like in Norfolk).  Anyway, I feel accepted.  I feel like I'm liked and I belong, which is to me more valued than silver or gold.  I will always remember my voice though, there may be some rounding out of certain soft vowels, but after a few jars I should once again regain my incomprehensible upcountry speech.   

But what about the first part of my age-old motto up there?  Well.  What about it?  Let's just say... that I have met someone who makes my world go round.  She's just so lovely, and makes me feel happier than I ever have.  We've been going out for a little while, and things are going well, and I'm seeing her very soon again.  And I'm really very pleased about this!  I feel really lucky.

This year promises to pan out, without a doubt, completely differently from the rest of my life and not just on a musical scale.  Things are looking up in a grand fashion, and, as long as I can answer the challanges as ably as I have been doing so, then I can hold my head up high and feel like a success.  Don't get me wrong, there's a hell of a lot of effort involved, but I know I can do it.  Precious little can really stop the amazing fighting Countertenor...