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Many worklogs
Feb. 2nd, 2017 10:33 pmIt's been a bit of a week and I have struggled to update here!
Sunday:
ULCC sang my Nunc dimittis (YouTube) at St Mary's Eversholt St. It went well, and was well-received. If you want to hear it again in a better version than YouTube, it'll be sung in St Mary's Undercroft Chapel, Parliament, on Tuesday 21st March; I'm not exactly sure what time the service will be.
In the evening I went to St Mary's Addington where they were having the licensing of a curate combined with sung Compline. This combination is sufficiently unusual that I thought it would be worth going, and... well, it was, but it was over in about half an hour, including the bishop preaching. We were using the Common Worship modern language version of Compline, which is in modern-ish blobs notation, and I have to say I do prefer the trad language version with chant notation: plainchant is much easier to read in that version.
Monday:
Did my tax return. This was an entire day before The Last Minute, which isn't bad going really. Besides that? Not a lot of other work-work, though I did do some various bits of healthwork and housework, and a smidgen of composing.
Tuesday:
Medical appointment in the morning (I'm fine).
In the afternoon I had a meeting with Francis about LGQ CD stuff. We met in Sunflower, a little place on Leytonstone High Road that sells crepes, icecream, milkshakes, and various other tasty bits and pieces -- savoury as well as sweet. There's no background music, there's free wifi (ask for the password at the counter), and they've never had a problem with me turning up and working for a few hours.
Choosing repertoire for a CD is a bit like choosing hymns, only with more flexibility. That flexibility can be good or bad; there are over 500 pieces in the LGQ repertoire, and we needed to choose twenty of them. I'ts just as well that we had a short list of pieces that had been suggested by various members of the Quire, and that the CD itself has a seasonal theme so we needed pieces to fit that.
Then, in the evening, I went to Southampton, so sing some music by my friend Gemma who I've known for years. The occasion was a song circle in support of a pilgrimage, and the songs were all to do with Brighid, the Celtic saint/warrior goddess, as it was Imbolc Eve. It was slightly challenging to me to learn the songs without any musical notation, though I have always had a fairly good memory and managed well enough; for some of them I and others improvised some harmonies. And in another lifetime, I could do a PhD in sacred choral music in the context of this modern, pagan/pagan-ish movement which is so often expressed in homegrown, small groups, working with the resources they have and with a shared heritage that is not entirely canonical. But I'm in this lifetime, and taking part in such worship doesn't sit easily with my Christian faith; and observing wouldn't necessarily be welcome. As it was, though, I was glad to be there to support my friend, and her songs were both moving and singable. And I was able to record them when we sang them at the end of the session, which hopefully will be useful.
On the train on the way home I worked on a hymn setting, and put a hymn I'd composed earlier onto Patreon to make sure I get paid this month. I still need to put it on CPDL and my website, and provide MIDI robots and so on.
When I got home I submitted two hymns to the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music -- a day late, as the deadline was actually Monday, but as the form was still on the website I decided to go for it. We'll see. I also made a submission to a Canadian composing competition; this one was within the deadline, thanks to time zone differences (it was well after midnight), but it wasn't the piece I've been working on and which I hoped to submit, as I haven't finished that one. Instead I took another piece, which I submitted to a different competition earlier in the year but hadn't published yet, and re-arranged it for SATB. Well, we'll see.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday I was rather tired. I did review the LGQ CD choices, and send a copy of my Magnificat without the score reduction off to ULCC for printing, and managed some errands, and then there was LGQ rehearsal.
Today has been quite quiet, and a good thing, too. Tomorrow will be fairly busy, and I really needed the more restful day that I had today.
Sunday:
ULCC sang my Nunc dimittis (YouTube) at St Mary's Eversholt St. It went well, and was well-received. If you want to hear it again in a better version than YouTube, it'll be sung in St Mary's Undercroft Chapel, Parliament, on Tuesday 21st March; I'm not exactly sure what time the service will be.
In the evening I went to St Mary's Addington where they were having the licensing of a curate combined with sung Compline. This combination is sufficiently unusual that I thought it would be worth going, and... well, it was, but it was over in about half an hour, including the bishop preaching. We were using the Common Worship modern language version of Compline, which is in modern-ish blobs notation, and I have to say I do prefer the trad language version with chant notation: plainchant is much easier to read in that version.
Monday:
Did my tax return. This was an entire day before The Last Minute, which isn't bad going really. Besides that? Not a lot of other work-work, though I did do some various bits of healthwork and housework, and a smidgen of composing.
Tuesday:
Medical appointment in the morning (I'm fine).
In the afternoon I had a meeting with Francis about LGQ CD stuff. We met in Sunflower, a little place on Leytonstone High Road that sells crepes, icecream, milkshakes, and various other tasty bits and pieces -- savoury as well as sweet. There's no background music, there's free wifi (ask for the password at the counter), and they've never had a problem with me turning up and working for a few hours.
Choosing repertoire for a CD is a bit like choosing hymns, only with more flexibility. That flexibility can be good or bad; there are over 500 pieces in the LGQ repertoire, and we needed to choose twenty of them. I'ts just as well that we had a short list of pieces that had been suggested by various members of the Quire, and that the CD itself has a seasonal theme so we needed pieces to fit that.
Then, in the evening, I went to Southampton, so sing some music by my friend Gemma who I've known for years. The occasion was a song circle in support of a pilgrimage, and the songs were all to do with Brighid, the Celtic saint/warrior goddess, as it was Imbolc Eve. It was slightly challenging to me to learn the songs without any musical notation, though I have always had a fairly good memory and managed well enough; for some of them I and others improvised some harmonies. And in another lifetime, I could do a PhD in sacred choral music in the context of this modern, pagan/pagan-ish movement which is so often expressed in homegrown, small groups, working with the resources they have and with a shared heritage that is not entirely canonical. But I'm in this lifetime, and taking part in such worship doesn't sit easily with my Christian faith; and observing wouldn't necessarily be welcome. As it was, though, I was glad to be there to support my friend, and her songs were both moving and singable. And I was able to record them when we sang them at the end of the session, which hopefully will be useful.
On the train on the way home I worked on a hymn setting, and put a hymn I'd composed earlier onto Patreon to make sure I get paid this month. I still need to put it on CPDL and my website, and provide MIDI robots and so on.
When I got home I submitted two hymns to the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music -- a day late, as the deadline was actually Monday, but as the form was still on the website I decided to go for it. We'll see. I also made a submission to a Canadian composing competition; this one was within the deadline, thanks to time zone differences (it was well after midnight), but it wasn't the piece I've been working on and which I hoped to submit, as I haven't finished that one. Instead I took another piece, which I submitted to a different competition earlier in the year but hadn't published yet, and re-arranged it for SATB. Well, we'll see.
Wednesday:
On Wednesday I was rather tired. I did review the LGQ CD choices, and send a copy of my Magnificat without the score reduction off to ULCC for printing, and managed some errands, and then there was LGQ rehearsal.
Today has been quite quiet, and a good thing, too. Tomorrow will be fairly busy, and I really needed the more restful day that I had today.