This corny song was a kind of 'theme song' to my A Level Music class. I haven't thought of it in years but it fits the feel of this blog rather well.
I made two New Year's Resolutions this year – sensible, manageable ones. I did ok with them during January...and now I've forgotten what they were! However, I seem to have subconsciously made a third resolution – Music. It didn't need a coherent sentence from my brain, it was just something that needed to be back in my life and perhaps that's why I've got somewhere with it.
1) Committees I discovered at uni the wonder of being on a committee (or two). It's taken me a long time to feel settled in my choir but this January when the AGM and elections came round I tentatively enquired what positions needed filling and all of a sudden found myself elected as the concert manager. I have a concert in 29 days that should go fairly smoothly despite the massive headache of seating (or lack of it) and I'm currently in panic mode over the fact we don't have a venue for our summer concert. Like I said, I love being on committees!
2) Concerts On the recommendation of a friend from the theatre I've got into the pool of volunteers at Kettle's Yard – a contemporary art/music venue. I worked at my first concert last night – How have I not discovered this beautiful intimate space before?
 | ||||
3) Ensembles Why did I not learn the trombone? Or the Cello? There are so many orchestras and bands in Cambridge, unfortunately there are many many more Clarinettists. I am 59th on the most recent waiting list I've joined! But at least I have been trying.
4) Clarinet At concerts we tend to always include a couple of solo items in the programme from talented prominent members of the choir. Seeing how nowhere else needs a Clarinettist I've got our conductor to agree, in theory, to search out some hidden talent in the choir. So far this has given me the motivation to play a bit more regularly. It's hard though – I've always been very self conscious about other people hearing me practise and in a block of flats I now have the additional worry of who I'm disturbing. I still needing more motivation to play. Sat in Kettle's Yard last night it occurred to me there's no reason why I shouldn't consider taking my grade 7 – at the very least it'd get me back up to a reasonable standard of playing again.
5) Musicology We're singing Fauré's Requiem in choir this term. In one of the movements Fauré seems to forget that altos exist. Our conductor suggested we just sing along with the tenors but I found great satisfaction in coming up with an argument against our conductor's claim that this movement was basically a battle between major and minor (it really isn't!). Every time I'm bored in choir now I'm looking for those fascinating bits in music where the composer has done something slightly unusual or unexpected.
Yesterday I was considering taking on another volunteering role but actually I think I have enough going on for now, especially if I decide to write down some of my analyses...
