This is more than a little over due, mainly because yesterday just kind of... spun out of control! You know when even the planned eventualities seem to melt away into an entropic envelope of pure unpredictability? Yeah, that.
Friday the 3rd of May began at 5:30 in the morning for me. I had slept with the curtains open deliberately because I was rather more worried than I should have been about oversleeping (for reasons about to become apparent), but in fact so woefully overplanned that I wound up being awake for almost an entire 24 hours! We, The Scholars, were contracted to sing as the sample demonstration choir for an event at the Hotel Bristol in Newquay, as part of the ongoing International Male Voice Choir Festival that's happening down here at the moment. We were on stage in front of a pretty small crowd of representatives from several of the choirs (it's not as if they were wearing badges or anything), reeling out the samples of arrangements that had been laid on by the featured artistes. I wasn't particularly enjoying myself at the early part of this engagement, not feeling that I was particularly important to the proceedings as a whole, or indeed a necessary part of The Scholars as a group - the latter being a particular recurring problem.
My fortunes changed after the coffee break (where I could at least top up on my flagging tannic acid reserves deep within) and we returned to the stage to discover a small gift in the shape of five new pieces that we had never seen before. The Shock! THE HORROR. This second session was led by a mad Welshman (or a 'mad, Welsh man' if you like), whose arrangements, especially of the five new songs, were much more in a Barbershop style texture, rather than the usual stereotypical Male Voice Choir thick texture, with low thirds and the tune in the 1st Tenor. In fact, the 1st Tenor parts were positively stratospheric at some points! A much better use of bringing a countertenor. Personally, I relished the chance to sight sing like that, and I don't think that the mistakes that we made reflect badly on us; it was understood that we'd never seen them before and we definitely acquitted ourselves with decorum and no small skill. Given a previous rehearsal session and we would have been able to present them with the usual polish and professionalism, of course.
Singing these arrangements reminded me of how much I love that Barbershop sound, and even led to me saying (without a hint of sarcasm) that I'm in the wrong game. I am a highly skilled countertenor, with great breath control and still having control of the top end of my voice, being able to present a top F without it sounding awful, and still having the emergency G and A for, uh, special occasions. However, I digress.
We went to the Beach. That's all you need to know really, the sea air and sandy seats, videoing the other Choral Bollards as they rolled down a sandbank in races, one of which involved them running around the Lifeguard van at the shoreline, presumably to the amusement of the occupants! We returned to Truro not too late in order to join the rest of the Cathedral Choir in a concert as part of... YOU GUESSED IT the Male Voice Choir Festival! Hooray! Once again, I, your first Alto, was all alone for the duration (I bloody love it, singing against a whole choir, I mean, I wouldn't ever be without my fellow Lay-Vicar, but still) and hopefully made a good essay of myself. After this, however, the alcohol began. All the booze. Well, not all of it. But lots of it. At least 4 pints of Theakstons XB (a fine beverage from near home!) went down very nicely, and then a kebab finish... But no, not the end of the night! Sat here, in squalid places, eating my delicious chicken kebab, I was telephoned by a friend and ended up sat up until FIVE O'CLOCK in the morning. Talking and laughing while drinking a LOT of Amaretto and Coke. I managed to stumble home at about 5:10am, meaning that in all probability, I was awake for 24 straight hours. Unbelievable! 24 hours. The resulting hangover from drinking that is actually still raging away really, but I suppose I shall survive. I mean, I've lived through worse, right?
That's all. For now.
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