Digging in the archives

Tracking down material for research has just received a boost: a contact in the Colchester audio archives, and a tip that there may be relevant documents in the Museum of Anglian Life in Stowmarket.

Trip to west Suffolk and north Essex soon.

Giggage

Norwich Arts Centre - see the Open Guide to Norwich.

Horses Brawl on 7 January. Free ticket for someone who would like to come with me.

Donington on 4

For several years I've been asking JJ if I can drive his Elise, and last week the tease said come to a trackday... and be passenger. Oh well, better than nothing :)

It was BookaTrack's Christmas event for regular customers, with a few corporates thrown in (literally? well maybe), but because they ended the year a bit low on the finances they also accepted others who wanted to book, making it a bit more crowded than it would have been.

Donington is under the flight path from East Midlands, which means that the place is covered in a film of jet fuel, only washed off by very heavy rain. Drizzle such as yesterday morning's makes the track into a long snaky skidpan. JJ went out once just before I arrived, but it was cut short by someone spinning off. Only the car damaged.
I signed something that gave permission for the bodyparts to be returned to my stated next-of-kin, and was handcuffed with two taglets (one for food and drink, one for Permitted On Track - oooooh). We chatted to various nuttersfriends of JJ, mainly about incidents and accidents and blown-up engines, and it was time for me to don my Roof. Good thing I'm small because JJ had the lid on the Elise - for which I was grateful, it being a bit chilly. JJ repeated the warning about feeling sick ("Let me know straight away - there's nothing worse than puking in your helmet"). It was backed up by another driver who said he'd once made himself sick. Er...

We trundled up to the track, me doing the self-hypnosis thing (I prefer to drive, not be a passenger, so the mantra was "trust; you are not responsible"). Vroom. Not as fast as it might have been. JJ later said he wasn't being careful of me, just not wanting to embarrass himself by spinning, but 100ish, and beginning to get into it as the track dried a little by the fourth lap... and there was the flag. Someone else had dived into the gravel. But it was fun; and I wasn't sick.

A ginormous Christmas dinner. One of them there new pseudo-Rollers arrived and lumbered down to the far end. Ugly beast. We hoped it would be taken out on the track, but no such luck. Now, watching that go end-for-end would really have been something. It would have had to do a 3-point turn to get round Coppice Corner.

Brief break to wander round and admire the assembled kit-cars, tweaked cars, Lotuses, and lesser cars, while JJ went out by himself (I thought it prudent to let the deathbychocolate go down a bit), and I was ready for another go. All strapped in, and... everybody off. One of the Caterham 7s had been topped and tailed and spread over the track. By the time it was cleared the winter dusk was down.

All in all, a very gentle intro trackday - shame for JJ, but there was enough excitement for me :)

JJ's car - Lotus Elise R with replacement Honda engine (197bhp, which is not too bad), seen here going sideways.

And, even though it was as passenger and moreover on too many wheels, I've finally seen one of the tracks on which I've watched friends and been timekeeper for Team UKRM, from the inside. HUGE GRIN!

And then we went to visit Kathryn and Matt and talked about research - their PhDs are on communities on internet (Kathryn, psychology) and origins of music (Matt, bio-geneticist), thus there is quite a bit of commonality with mine.

And here is the evidence, m'lud

Paperface: how sweet it is to be loved by foo
Paperface: (but not bar, bar sucks)

iDunno: Paperface: crikey - an almost geeky joke!

mChicago: bar is better then foo
mChicago: apart from the fact foo rhymes wiht moo

iDunno: no. pub is better than bar, and foo is (occasionally) better than pub.
iDunno: ergo, bar sucks.

pro fratribus perversis

We're doing a few of the original Carmina Burana collection next week, and I'll be singing one of the 14 little solo lines in Carmen Potatorium (In Taberna Quando Sumus). Don't know which one, because conductor will allocate them. So now I'm practising a nasal tone and a German accent with added drunken-ness. Not an expert on any of those.

I'll keep it in the attic

Tonight I was painted, in oils.

It was not flattering :-/

Plumbing

Those of you who have visited here may have noticed something odd about the washbasin taps in the downstairs bathroom. It seems as though they have been fitted on the wrong wossnames.

Well, the taps are fine. It's the pipes that are wrong. That's why the loo flushes with hot water...

I had an email from Kofi Annan!

I was rather disappointed to see that his Swiss education hadn't included using a spell-checker, and his grammar isn't what I would have expected from his public speeches, either.

---------------
From: kofiannan4un004@go.com
Date: 02-Nov-2005 14:35
Subject: CONFIDENTIALITY


I Dr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, would like to ask your partnership in reprofilling funds over $250m in excess, the funds would be coming via a string of selected banks in Europe and Asia.

The Funds in question were generated by me during the oil for food program in Iraq.

I have been getting scandals/ controversy in this regards, you can read more on the links below-

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/anna-a05.shtml

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2003/main042803.htm

You would be paid 5% as your management fee. Please do not write back directly to me via my official email address. All further correspondence should be sent to my private mail box ( kofiannan4un@walla.com ). As soon as you indicate your interest I will give further details.

Remember to treat this mail and transaction as strictly confidential.

I will await your urgent correspondence via my private mail box-

Dr.Kofi Annan.

SECRETARY- GENERAL

kofiannan@un.org
www.un.org

Study-stuff

The long-awaited little chat with supervisor was not so little. Two hours!

So the plan is:

1. Prepare mindmap, using something called Tinderbox

2. Get hold of Endnote, software for organising research notes and citations

3. Spend a day or several reading in Cambridge uni library (because UEA doesn't have many of the books I need)

4. Draft Chapter I, exploring the Reported Cultural Change, i.e. the truth of ideas that
(a) Englanders don't make music together socially compared with other cultures
and
(b) that they used to.

I have two weeks. *Get on with it, you silly cow!*

Scary rides

We went to Alton Towers for part of Kaz' birthday celebrations.
The special deal for charioteers is half-price for me and 2 "helpers"[1], plus wristbands for up to 4 companions. Wristbands mean that I plus 2 of the Companions find the back gate and jump the queue. This makes quite a difference, as those who have queued at Alton Towers will appreciate. Unfortunately I don't like being turned upside-down, or falling (even if strapped in... in fact maybe worse if strapped in), and I have to be with the Companions to get this perk. I felt guilty about not going on most of Kaz' favourite rides :-/

The rest of the band started with something that looked awful. J wasn't happy, but he did it (although according to the board at the front he shouldn't have been allowed on because of height restrictions - amusing to see heightism working the other way). I chickened out, and stayed on the ground with the Bit who told me her name and I promptly forgot it. The photo showed a Kaz in ecstacy and a J curled up in anguish. He really does love her ;)

Missed out corkscrew. Didn't like the look of it because it goes upside-down, but regretted when J described it - seems that the centriwossname means you don't feel upside-down. Must try it next time.

Rita. 0-100mph in 3 seconds and whizzy swoopy bends. Ohhhh yes. When I am rich I shall have one of these in the back garden :))

Hex. Very clever. It only gives the illusion of spinning upside-down. The bars don't quite fit me, though, and the feeling of sliding off the bench while the room spins... ok, I closed my eyes through a lot of it. The story was very silly, but I can still hear the music in my head.

Also closed eyes, under instructions from Ben, on part of the spooky shooty ride, which was great. My shooting score was consequently rather low, but I missed whatever it was that would have upset me :)

Nemesis was definitely not for me, and J needed a break too, so we sat it out.
As for Oblivion - couldn't even watch!

Skyride was interesting, swinging over the valley and the trees. Slight flashback to the terrifying cablecar at Caracas, but this seemed much more reliable, and it's good to expurgate childhood fears, of which I seem to have too many.

Kaz and I peeked into the restoration work; I would love to explore the Towers, and the garden. The whole site is quite hard work for Chariot, though.

Got to go on the monorail at the end of the day. And it really was the end: by running/zooming, we caught the last train back, which is not really for punters, and then the train stopped in treetops a few metres from the station. Motor turned off. Silence. How much food did we have with us? What could we use for blankets? oh-oh, scrub that... where are the loos?! Investigation showed a panel which we could climb through, but it was a looooong way down... anyway, the intercom suddenly squawked, a voice apologised, and we trundled the rest of the way to the platform and back to the lonely car in the empty carpark.

Oh, and the ride to get there was one of the scariest of the day. Ben hid his eyes ;)

[1] "Haven't you got someone with you, dear?" ... *BIFF!*

Madrigals in the Mountains

A Monica Buckland Hofstetter singing weekend in Flumserberg.

We came off the autobahn and onto a road which wriggled up a mountain until our route was blocked by cows coming down off the alp. Big, intelligent beasts with those huge brass bells at their necks, the size (and therefore tone) of the bell denoting their status. The clanging is musical but very loud. As they passed the entrance to the village carpark, one driver scrambled to get his car out before he got stuck behind their march. He only got part of the way through his u-turn, and the cows had to wait. The look of disdain bestowed on him by the boss Cow was pure Queen Victoria.

People gathered, 24 singers plus Mon, and we had a meal before the first rehearsal. Mon is recovering from 'flu and sneezed and coughed much; she drank most of the hotel's supply of whisky and whiskey (her voice echoing round the place: "anyone know which of these four whiskies will be Least Bad?").

The first run-through was a bit painful, especially the mangling of Monteverdi, whose madrigals are the most beautiful in the world but among the most difficult. We also had some easy schmaltzy madrigal-influenced American gleesongs, to give us a break. I do find it hard not to giggle in them.

We were puzzled by the decoration in the rehearsal room. A aquare of blue fabric, topped by a lighter blue scarf arranged in a swirl; flowers and three candles, with crystals scattered in a loose pattern around them. One of the hotel staff, possibly thinking we were some sort of meditation group... it looked good, anyway.

Mon says singing is a sport, and she proceeded to go through quite a tough physical warm-up. Then we hummed and vocalised - pick a note from this chord - in various keys, a lovely rich warm sound, perfectly blended.

It was raining hard (unusually, but Switzerland has even had floods this summer) until half-way through Saturday morning, and then the clouds began to clear from the middle upwards. Suddenly the peaks on the other side of the valley appeared, sharp and wild and looking very close until you saw the size of the houses near their feet. There were still clouds beneath the window; when they faded we could lean out almost over the lake many metres below. Deep and cold - the deepest lake in Switzerland.

Mon stayed in swiss-deutsch almost the whole time, which was hard work for me (I can follow a little Hoch Deutsch but they sound so different - f'r instance, "three" is "dru"), on top of the concentration required for the music.

Magically, by the time of the performance on Sunday we were not only getting through all of it, Monteverdi included, but sounding good!

Monica is a Director of the Tibor Varga Music Academy in Sion, Valais.

The Muse’s Mistress - La Cecchina e la Virtuosissima Cantatrice
Virtuoso songs of desire and devotion by two women from 17th-century Italy: Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi
Emily Van Evera (soprano)
Maria Cleary (double harp)
Eric Milnes (harpsichord)
Erin Headley (viol)
Fredrik Bock (lute)

Emily van Evera has a marvellous voice, with perfectly-placed trills and oranaments. She has done a lot of research too, shown in brief but very informative introductions to each section. There was more Caccini than Strozzi (the reason given is that Strozzi has had a lot of coverage recently and Caccini hardly at all). It's interesting to hear the two in one programme, and appreciate the difference in styles pre and post Monteverdi etc. Strozzi is so much stronger and more overt, both emotionally and musically. The band were superb, and the ensemble perfect. I hadn't realised how big the harp was (old harps are usually quite small, but this was modern concert-size). There was at least one short instrumental in each segment of the programme, of music by composers co-aeval with Caccini.

I adored the Caccini pieces, and would love to sing some (as Selene said goodbye, she said she had been imagining me singing the Caccini, which may have been just her being sweet and encouraging). There is one piece in particular I'd like to try, if I can get it.

Rigoletto

It's a strange story. The plot has never quite made sense to me, although some points of the story do, if taken as cameos. Very dark of course. The set was dark to match, twisted like the plot and distorted like Rigoletto's spine. Clever use of the turntable, so that the scenery never had to be moved.

Paolo Gavanelli - Rigoletto
Beautiful rich voice, and very expressive; there was a touch of wobble on some higher notes (presumably around gear-change, because it didn't appear on the highest), though fortunately not the barn-door effect that mars a lot of big-voiced baritones and basses. He acts well.

Anna Netrebko - Gilda
Gorgeous voice, coloratura, very powerful - a little too much for the part. Superb control on the quiet passages. She wasn't quite suited to the innocent and ethereal nature of Gilda, but was more credible in the last act, weeping against the door; and even more so when she sacrifices herself. I got the impression she was more comfortable in the short hair and breeches and drama of the end of the story.

Piotr Beczala - the Duke
I loved the tenor's voice. Of course, he gets the memorable tune, and a character that is perhaps easier to play than Rigoletto or Gilda.

Marina Domashenko - Maddalena
The mezzo's voice was amazingly rich, and a surprisingly big sound from a fairly small woman. Fair-sized boobs, though - couldn't miss them, falling out of her corset as the Duke took her doggy-style and facing the auditorium.

Shades of Hoffnung

Today I achieved a Minor Ambition. You know, one of those things-to-do-before-you-die. I played a tuba![1]

And in entirely related news, you ain't heard nothin' if you ain't heard Stormy Weather rendered by soprano and tuba with added thundershaker.[2]

No, it wasn't me playing Stormy Weather... good grief, I couldn't even get a recognisably pitched note out of the monster! Mike[3] made a superb job of it.

[1] Well, ok, maybe played is over-stating it.
[2] Thundershaker is now listed on the School of Music budget requirements for next year ;)
[3] Michael Charles. Available, as they say, for weddings, funerals, and bar-almost-nothing.

It lives!

The program runs, after a total failure caused by double declarations.
I'd added a panic module, in case the recording of drums was still not happening (using stored files instead). It seems that if you re-declare anything anywhere in Max, at any level, it silently fails. No error output, just sits there smirking. Cure = delete panic module.

The cross-synth with the live drum recording has never been tested[1], so this was the first time it had run. It doesn't quite work, because the conga drums don't have sufficient of the required spectral envelope, and the resultant noise is a bit... well... never mind, at least it actually happens now.

There is much more for me to do during the performance than I'd realised (what with remembering to click on everything that needs starting at particular times, conducting the drummer, and controlling the volume). I've just had a tuna butty, maybe that will help (mode Wooster).

[1] First attempt, missing studio key; second attempt, system b0rked and no sound out.

The Full Monteverdi

Monteverdi - Fourth Book of Madrigals

I'm reluctant to write anything about the details of the performance, because they like to keep it as a surprise. So much so, that... should I be telling you this? oh, I can't resist :) Two of the performers were at my table. I've seen them before, so I nearly choked when another punter asked the sop what she did for a living. She said she delivered organic produce in London... in a little van...! Afterwards she apologised to the woman for telling her fibs.

It begins with Ah dolente partita. Those semitone-apart entries always thrum along your nerves, but in this context it was so powerful that I wasn't the only one crying. The singers get totally involved: the second soprano (one of my favourite singers, beautiful voice and strong actress[1]) was struggling a little in the last piece because she had cried too. Curiously, I didn't feel as convinced by the actors: they had all the moves and expressions, but it wasn't from so deep inside them. I don't know if that was because they have no lines, no words; or perhaps the music gives an emotional power which is more effective than acting. Even the bass, who though a superb singer is a bit wooden in movement, gave an impression of strong feelings held within. Having said that, the actors were good.

From the Festival write-up -
Imagine yourself in a public space, a restaurant maybe. Without warning a woman near you begins a beautiful lament, joined by others. You're caught up in the middle of one of the most unusual and enthralling pieces of music theatre you're ever likely to see. So much more than a concert, you have stumbled into someone else's emotional drama set to Monteverdi's finest unaccompanied vocal miniatures.
"in awe of the performance. A compelling but upsetting piece of theatre. ...brilliant evening." The Times
"Music theatre hardly comes more visceral than this." The Independent

I took a few surreptitious and not-very-good photos before the performance started, and at the end (tried to get one of Robert Hollingworth as well, but he saw me and bounded over to do a luvvy). I'll put them up somewhere tomorrow.

http://www.ifagiolini.com/projectsb.htm

Huge thanks to Robert for getting a ticket for me. They were sold out months ago!

[1] and she managed to hold a decorated line perfectly during a LSSAAW - acted, not real, of course!

Distant drums

Here I am in the studio, after a heartening chat with Prof John ("never mind, it sounds like enough ideas"), and wishing it would all work by magic. Alex (Fat Cat frequenter) has beautifully soldered two piezo-electric transducers to chopped-up jackplug cables; using them, I have made the Stamping Board. This is to be celebrated, possibly in song later.
MaxMSP is still being unhelpful, but at least it is giving error messages today when it refuses to do things, viz.:
error: couldn't load preferred audiodriver CoreAudio
bonk~ v1.3

It's frighteningly close to the date of the performance.

Someone is practising on the piano next door. I'm not well up in piano sonatas so can only tell you that the piece is romantic period, and it is lovely.

I Fagiolini

I Fagiolini concert was beautiful.

Started with some English madrigals (Tomkins), all very jolly and as Robert Hollingworth explained, providing the fa-la-la bit of the evening. English madrigals were descended from dance songs, which is why all the falals, and mainly for amateurs to sing of a convivial evening. Monteverdi madrigals, which were next, are quite different. For a start, they were composed for pro virtuosi singers, and they are Dramatic. They are also some of the most gorgeous music ever (they sang Sfogava con le stelle, one of my favourites).

Second half - L'Amfiparnaso, one of the group's recent hits. This was the first time they'd done it "authentically", i.e. to Vecchio's instructions that it was to be heard rather than seen. Having seen the masked mimed version, it was easy to follow, but I think even with the translations and intros (wonderfully silly doggerel, and very mucky with it) it would be difficult for an audience who didn't know what was going on. We don't have the background that would have made it obvious to C16 Italians.

Afterwards had a brief chat with Robert, who was really not well but offered some points and a promise of email discussion. Hope he gets better for the 16th, when they are doing the full staged L'Amfiparnaso in Birmingham.

Brilliant evening.

Project

Final-year project is not going well. The initial idea is fine; writing it up is not so good.
Topic - presentation and environment in performances of early music.

There isn't much in the literature, which deals mainly with performance practice, instrumentation, and interpreting scores. What I'm interested in is the different approaches to presentation, ranging from full re-construction to translation of the essence into modern terms to re-create the impact.

Flashmob the Opera

The improvisation gig tonight was short, and because it was a rehearsal night, I missed all but the last 3 minutes, heard through the door. Audience said it was very beautiful and also amazing to see how they created it. Such is life.

Tomorrow there is something I can get to -

Flashmobs and iPods: Interactive Performance, Public Opera and the Democratisation of Culture. Stephen Powell, writer of Flashmob The Opera. A rare opportunity to participate in a current debate incorporating issues from music, performance practice, multimedia and the dissemination of cultural artefacts.

Looks good and very useful.

Blueberry jam

Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, and probably jam today too! (Not eating it, honestly; although the diet is currently suffering a setback as I'm having tortilla chips and guacamole for lunch).

I went to the Blueberry to see what the rock/R&B jam session was like, as I couldn't get to the jazz session on Monday. It started out R&B and blues, but rapidly went jazz because there were rather a lot of brass players there. I was expecting something a bit varied in standard, but it was *all* excellent - better than many paid-gigs. It seems the brass-players were from the Lee Vasey band; and ohhh, were they good to sing with :)