Who's Boring Now?

To Hell with it...

The bald truth is that I am afraid of being boring. I have been afraid of being boring all my life. With the major effrect that I become taciturn in the presence of anyone who shows the least degree of self confidence. Here on the internet there are a LOT of people who have the confidence to say things on many and varied subjects. So it has been hard for me to join in. But I want to join in.

I have a blinding memory of me when I was 15. As usual, I was thinking that I was boring because I never had anything interesting to say so I never said much: so I thought I was boring because I never said much. In one of those freakish (and blessed) moments of random thinking, it suddenly came to me that, it didn't matter that I was boring, beause I had friends anyway, and they had no problems spending time with me. So clearly, I was doing something right. It was a wonderful revalation. And it seems that from that moment on, I was far more confident and happy because I accepted my friends and could say what I felt like when I felt like it.

That euphoric self-confidence lasted right the way through the rest of my school days. Unfortunately, it didn't last to university where I was suddenly confronted with a whole lot of strange people with degrees of self-confidence I had never imagined before. I retreated back into my shell then and I don't think I have ever come out again except on a few rather rare occasions.

So here I am 36 years later worrying about what I say on a personal blog. I am about to have that revelation again... It Doesn't Matter What I Say. This blog is for me and if others want to read it then good for them. But I am the one that is writing it so I can say what is important to me. And It Doesn't Have To Be Interesting To Anybody Else.

There.

You have been warned.

Too Darn Hot...

Not too much imagery on the clip, but the singing is good.

Well, I could have picked several songs for today's post, but I settled for this because it is relevant to the last one in some small way.

Update

It is way too hot. We had a brief week of wonderful weather in March followed by a week of snow and ice and and then six or so weeks of almost continuous rain, And now we have summer with a vengeance. Frankly, I would have preferred to work  my way into summer with the weather warming up gradually, but that is not the way these days. I suppose I should be grateful that we have sun at all.

All this means, though, that I have not really managed to spend any time in the garden during a very important time of the gardening year. I sound like a regular gardener, don't I? - well actually, that is some distance from the truth. But we did pay somebody a fair bit of money to get the garden under control last summer and I was looking forward to reaping the fruits (literally) of that endeavour this year.

I did manage to plant potatoes, garlic and asparagus, but that is about all. We do still, however, have a wonderful crop of dandelions. We are struggling to get the lawn under control as well now that we are able to brandish a lawn mower but it is hot and tiring work and I can't do much at a time. Still we make progress. Slow, but progress.

So, why the particular song above? Well, this is by way of being able to say that the Carillon performance went very well indeed - although my voice went completely during the first set.. This was one of the songs we performed to the waiting crowd in the bar before the main concert.

And we were needed, because the orchestra didn't even arrive at the venue until half an hour after the show was supposed to have started (they missed the ferry in the morning) , so we had to keep the audience entertained in the bar for a while until things were ready to start. Of course, they couldn't just get off the coach and walk on to the stage, so the solo pianist (for the Mozart piano concerto) also did his bit by preforming a couple of Mozart piano sonatas while they sorted themselves out.

When the concert proper finally started, the conductor aplogised for the delay and assured us that everyone was now present, however the music for the first piece they were to play had not arrived. So they played something else instead. Altogether, an entertaining evening.

Back to the lawnmower...

The Final Fling

The Song:

Adelaide's  Lament from Guys and Dolls. Actually I think she got the words slightly wrong in the second verse, but I am sure that, if I don't mention it, no-one will notice. She recovered well.

This isn't exactly the most representative version of the song, since it is taken entriely out of context from the musical, but it is difficult to find decent renditions of songs on YouTube and she does perfrom it very well.

 Nearly There...

After months of not having any evenings to myself, I have finally come to the last show for a while which is tonight at Middlesbrough Town Hall. We are going to be the support band for the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. Alright, we are providing the background entertainment in the bar before the show and during the interval.

The relevance of the clip above it that I have developed a cold. If I had to have a cold, I would rather it had waited a week when all this stuff was past, but there you are: these things never seem to ask permission first.

But this is the first time I have really sung with such singiness to the accompaniament of a cold and it makes me a trifle nervous. I have done solo parts in musicals before but that was just me vs the orchestra and I have a certain amount of acting latitude to make up for any vocal shortcomings. This, however, is a small a capella singing group called Carillon - 6 singers, of which I am the lone tenor - and I feel far more exposed. I have been taking advice on how to make sure my voice behaves itself when the time comes, so it should all go well in the end.

Actually I am really loking forward to tonight. I love singing with this group. We listen to each other and now, after a year of working together,we are starting to respond and feed off each other. It is such a long time since I was in a regular musical group that played together rather than alongside each other and that is worth all the colds in the world.

I actually trained as a flautist, not a singist, so I feel very flattered that I can be part of this group. And, now that I think about it, the last group I felt such an affinity with were the wind quintet I was in while at school. There also, we were playing together for several years and, in the end it was just a marvellous experience - it was one of the biggest wrenches of leaving school.

Off to make some more hot honey and lemon....