I do not know what it is that has prompted me to put fingers to keyboard this morning.

Maybe it was the kind encouragement of a couple of choristers at last night’s rehearsal.

Maybe it is starting to prepare the same music which the Choir was rehearsing when I joined eighteen years ago.

Or maybe it was the article in the current edition of Peninsula Living, espousing the benefits of singing in a community choir.

The latter item refers to the usual mix of “scientific” studies which supposedly prove the claimed benefits of singing.  I have never needed convincing.  Having sung in choirs for most of my life, I simply know that singing in a choir is good for you.

Perhaps most tellingly, there was a time when I had a particularly stressful job, and setting off for choir practice (a round trip of 60km in an English winter, possibly through rain, hail, snow, black ice and fog or any combination of these) was the very last thing I wanted to do after dinner on a Tuesday evening.  But I always went.  I had to go, as I was transport for one of those most valuable of commodities, a First Tenor, who did not drive.  I figured that if it ever came to auditions, they would have to pass me, as if they did not, they would also lose a First Tenor.  Whatever the motivation, without fail I always felt better on the return journey, buoyed up and positive for the rest of the week.

Last week I was part of a conversation about individualism versus collaboration.  Which produces the better society?  There are arguments both ways.  The competitiveness of individualism often drives invention and economic progress.  But collaboration produces social cohesion, a common purpose and sense of looking after each other.  That is what singing in a choir engenders above all else.  We all know our own part, but we are also aware of what everyone around us is doing, and we work together to produce the best possible result.

For my money, singing in a choir is a microcosm of a better life, and as such it’s worth its weight in gold.

The English language is full of pairs of words which have meanings similar to, but not exactly the same as, each other.  In terms of the Choir, two such are “practise” and “rehearse”.  What do we do on Thursday evenings –  rehearse or practise?

For many, the words have the same meaning.  But there is a subtle difference.

“Practise” comes from Latin and Greek words meaning to repeat something several times, improving each time – and indeed the idea of medical doctors “practising” comes from the idea that they use their past experience to perform ever improving diagnostic and surgical procedures on many patients.

“Rehearse” comes from a curious French word “rehercier”, not from anything to do with hearing.  “Hercier” is the French word for to harrow, in the agricultural sense, meaning to break down the clods of earth left from ploughing and examine them before planting the next season’s crop.  So “re-hercier” is do do that a number of times.

Coming back to Thursday evenings, Carlos makes sure that our time is spent both taking the music apart for examination and running through the same section several times, getting better (hopefully!) each time.  So we both “rehearse” and “practise”, in the precise meanings of the words.

Maybe this duality and ambiguity is why I say to Anne on a Thursday evening, simply, “It’s time for me to go to Choir.”

My thanks to Ed Ayres, ABC Classic presenter, who sparked my interest in these words  by a reference to “rehearse” and “rehercier” in his most recent book “Whole Notes”.

Last night members of the Choir assembled in the large hall at CPPS and sang together for the first time since June 2021.  What a wonderful feeling it was to be making music together again, from the discipline of learning new parts to the excitement of bursting into the opening chorus of the well-known Coronation Anthem, “Zadok the Priest”.

What is more, we fully expect to do the same next Thursday evening, and on all following Thursdays, until, at the end of May, there is the frisson of putting on our first concert in over two years.  Suddenly it seems that, despite all the awful things going on in the world around us, there is the opportunity to enrich our own lives and those of others by making music together.

Last Friday Anne and I heard an outstanding performance of the Fauré Requiem given by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Choir.  It was very measured, with the few climaxes standing out starkly against a marvelously restrained backdrop.  It was to have been the subject of this blog, but it was overtaken by the events of last night.

Somehow, the experience of singing together, however tentative and imperfect we may be, eclipsed that of listening to even the best of other groups’  performances.   Snatches of Handel have been with me all night and have been upmost in my mind as I write this piece.

Other choirs may provide us with inspiration to give the best of ourselves, but there is no doubt that the best feeling, the best tonic, the best therapy, is to be singing ourselves.  Long may it continue!

It is hard to believe that next week marks the resumption of MW Choir activities after a seemingly interminable break.  How do you capture the anticipation of the time?  The best word I can think of is “Hallelujah!”

There is so much to look forward to.  Firstly, we can catch up with friends and colleagues of long standing, sharing experiences of lockdown and beyond and enjoying each others’ support.

Then there is the job of making one’s own voice work again after its enforced layoff.  This may be easy for some and more difficult for others.  Perhaps as we get back into shape there will be a spin-off effect giving us all a boost in ability and confidence.

Singing is about joining with other voices to produce beautiful music together.  It is wonderful to think that we have the opportunity to re-create today the sounds which very gifted composers imagined many years ago and which have somehow stood the test of time.

Underpinning all our vocal efforts is Valerie’s supportive accompaniment, without which we would be all at sea, and which itself is often a delight to hear.

For many of us the highlight of rehearsals is listening to Carlos describe the nature of the music and how it should be sung.  Sharing in his understanding of the music is a rare privilege for us Choir members and an essential ingredient to delivering convincing performances for our faithful audiences.

There is so much to look forward to.  Hallelujah indeed!

The City Recital Hall has re-commenced its series of lectures entitled “This Sounds like Science” and one entitled “Coronavirus Music” sounded too topical to miss.

It started with an unlikely premise.  The drummer from an indie-rock group, turned molecular biologist, merging his two interests by creating music from the RNA sequence of the Covid-19 SARS virus.

How?

I only wish I could describe the process called “sonification” with some degree of confidence.  It was something about mapping subsets of the RNA sequence onto musical notes through a set of algorithms.  You try out different mapping techniques and different algorithms until you find a combination yielding sounds pleasing to the ear (whose ear?) and then jam them with a few friends with guitars, a keyboard and a Moog synthesizer.

And the result of all his labours?

Someone once said that if you cannot find anything good to say about something, you should just say nothing.

A number of audience members gave the music an extremely enthusiastic reception, which made me think that perhaps I am missing a gene; the gene necessary to appreciate phrenetic (and, no doubt, very skillful) drumming supported by loads of electronic noise from players whose appearance is soulless and cerebral.  Perhaps readers may like to judge for themselves by looking at some of the lecturer’s music videos on his YouTube Channel:  Mark Temple – YouTube. These give some idea how the musical ideas are derived from the RNA sequence, but do not do justice to the final performance.

However, not all was lost, as my expedition to the City had two purposes.  The other was a huge success: locating a rare second-hand copy of a now out-of-print Australian book for a friend in the UK at a superb shop with extremely helpful staff and a very welcome coffee-shop on site.

Every cloud does indeed have a silver lining.