Last Thursday I had another lesson with E, and then had my first lesson with private student #2, "M". She has obviously had good teachers in the past, and worked hard, as she already has a lovely voice, but it has been a couple of years since she had lessons. She also has quite a bit of experience in "pop" singing, so it has been a bit of a challenge to get her to move away from some of the vowels that you can get away with in pop or rock, and toward more pure Italian vowels. But we'll see how that goes.
Over the weekend we were pretty busy preparing for the Burns Supper that was held on Saturday evening. Malcolm and Duncan came with us on Friday evening, and were great at helping prepare the hall and move the pews in the sanctuary to clear a space for apero, and with a bunch of other volunteers peeled and chopped the 25kg each of potatoes and yellow turnips to soak in water overnight.
Saturday morning Maggie shopped for the fresh and dried soup ingredients, while I went to the Halal butcher and bought about 4,5 kg of mixed Scottish Lamb. We usually use a combination of lamb necks, shanks, and shoulder, and she went into the kitchen at around 15:00 to get that soup going so that it would be ready for dinner at 20:00. Duncan came after his karate and socialising with Arthur, and then Malcolm and I drove in at around 19h.
tying their Rose clan ties
the kitchen team
our singers, musicians, and speakers
I was to be M.C. again for the third time, and we were trying hard to keep to a brisk schedule, as these dinners have gone on a bit too long in the past. As well I had a couple of extra little things to do this year that are most often handled by others. We are in between ministers at the moment so there was no clergy person to say the Grace. Instead, the four of us Rose-Zadows sang the Selkirk Grace, and taught it to the assembled crowd. James usually carries in the Chieftan haggis for the Address to the Haggis, but he was absent, so I did it for the first time, and Duncan followed with glasses of whisky so that Bruce (the piper) and Roger and I could toast the haggis after Roger recited the address.
Both boys were dressed in their Rose tartan ties and black waistcoats and aprons, and did a great job serving and clearing, with help from fellow team members Tom and Pauline. Maggie did some serving and clearing too, but mostly stuck to the cooking and the plating up, along with help from Dorota, who also was amazing as a continuous dishwasher, keeping the kitchen space organised. Together they handled everything very smoothly, and we had lots of compliments on how efficiently everything went. The singers gave just the right amount of music, every speaker was careful not to exceed their allotted time, and we managed to get the dinner over at or about our intended stop time of 23:00. Then with the help of a few strong volunteers we reset the hall and the pews, cleaned up the kitchen, and got out of there by around 01:00. Here are some more photos:
Len and Maggie singing with Heather upstairs during the apero
the audience listening to Burns songs
Bruce piping the guests downstairs to the hall
demonstrating the grace
singing the family grace with the guests
Roger and Bruce toasting the haggis
The weather has continued to be quite unseasonably warm here. I have managed three 10k runs in the last week, including yesterday, when I took advantage of the sunny weather and 10 degree temperature and got some sun. It was so warm that I had the problem of inhaling midges, which is unusual in late January here in Belgium. The forecast for the rest of this week is for snow and colder, more normal temperatures, so that makes me want to curl up by the woodstove even more...
It's been a busy day or two. We had high winds on Tuesday night, so the chicken coop roof blew off, and the temporary fence that I had put up to keep the hens at the back of the garden was in a tangle, so I had to get out there and re-secure the roof with longer wood screws, and then get out the stapler and make a more robust fence with some wooden pickets and the leftover roll of wire fencing that I had on hand. So far it's seemed to withstand the winds; we'll see how things go. They are still producing their requisite two eggs per day, which is good news.
Our neighbours two doors over weren't so lucky in the storm; Jacqueline knocked on my door yesterday and asked if I could come and help with their privacy fence, which is made of coated steel attached above a low brick wall. The upper section had blown down in the winds, and her husband Maurice wasn't quite up to dealing with the debris: he is 87 and just had a couple of medical interventions, so is less that his normal spry self. Anyway I cleaned things up a bit and it looks like when the weather is nicer we can snap a tight wire along the existing posts, and reuse the coated wire fencing. That house on the other side of them has been empty for a while anyway, so it's not like they need to worry too much about it, as there is no one there to have privacy from.
The weather would have been perfect today to work outside, but instead I took Yoshi for another 10km in the sunny and clear 6 degree weather before driving to school. I had lesson #2 with E., and we spent a lot of time helping her sing in her head voice, and avoid getting stuck down in the deeper chest voice. She is really a very willing student and is working hard to try to experiment with this new kind of singing; she is used to the pop or broadway belting style and so we are trying to see if we can't develop her high voice a bit more. Bruce has been advising me a lot over the phone, as he has lots of experience with female voices. I have had male students before, but there are other things going on with women's voices, and I'm finding it an interesting project. E. certainly seems to find the lessons fun and interesting, and I am looking forward to hearing how her voice develops.
But before the lesson I went to a meeting of the record listening club, "In the Groove". The teacher who leads it had invited me to bring some records, and so I obliged... as it happened I ended up bringing a lot of jazz/blues/funk: I don't have many classical recordings on vinyl, and I just felt like sharing some of these pieces that the kids are unlikely to have heard.
If you're curious, here's what I played...
Back when I was starting out as a gigging musician, I was influenced a lot by Fats Waller, so I started with "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter" (1935):
I explained that a lot of the great songs of the past are based on good poetry, and usually those poems were on topics of loneliness, yearning, and so forth. This song is a great example, but Fats is a genius and his melancholy never gets maudlin; rather it's charming and poignant and romantic without being schmaltzy.
Louis Jordan, along with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, is considered one of the parents of Rock and Roll, so I thought I'd play one of his more fun tunes: "Boogie in the Barnyard", from 1947:
Then I skipped forward a little bit to 1967 and Booker T and the MG's. Booker T, Steve Cropper, Louie Steinberg, and Al Jackson were the original house band for Stax records out of Memphis, and Donald "Duck" Dunn replaced the original bassist in 1965. They played (and got a writing credit) on a ton of top 40 hits, for people like Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and Albert King. I didn't have a vinyl recording of their most famous tune, 1962's "Green Onions" on hand...
... but I did have a copy of "Hip Hug Her" from 1967, so played that instead:
Maggie and I took the boys to see Booker T a few years in Antwerp, and he didn't disappoint.
Then I was thinking a bit about the current political climate, and how the news is so depressing these days. I immediately considered Mose Allison's 1962 album "I don't worry 'bout a thing ('cause nothin's going to be all right)":
But in the end, chose one from the same album that more closely reflects the current state of political leadership in certain English-speaking countries...
Then I changed it up a little bit with probably the funkiest song ever recorded: The Meters' "Just Kissed my Baby". Whenever this comes on the stereo Maggie laughs, because I look like I just "smelled the skunk" (but in a good way). It's the only funk song I know that has a wah pedal guitar AND a slide guitar solo in it, courtesy of Lowell George, of Little Feat, who was a guest on the record.
Then I was a bit of a loss because I realised that I was playing almost all funk. I decided to bring it down a bit with J. J. Cale's 1970 debut album, Naturally. J. J. Cale was a huge influence on Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton, and after the funky business that preceeded it I decided to go with super-understated and laid-back: "Crazy Mama", which has J. J. playing wah-wah and slide at the same time. Interestingly, for this debut album he couldn't afford a lot of studio time or studio musicians, so much of the record's percussion was done with one of the earliest available drum machines, the "Ace Tone Rhythm Ace" (yes you read that right):
I wasn't really sure that the kids were into all of this funk and low-key Tennesee and Oklahoma stuff, so after J. J. I opted to play something more upbeat and completely different, from my favourite AC/DC album.
1978's Powerage is the second-to-last AC/DC record with original singer Bon Scott, and it is the last record that was produced by Harry Vanda and George Young before "Mutt" Lange (of Shania Twain fame) took over for their breakthrough Highway to Hell. As well it is the first record with Cliff Williams on bass; this configuration of Malcolm and Angus on guitars, Cliff on bass, and Phil Rudd on drums came to be regarded as the definitive AC/DC instrumental lineup, whether with Bon or with Brian Johnson as their singer, and it lasted many years.
I was never an AC/DC fan as a teenager; it wasn't until I saw them play in Toronto for the SARSTOCK concert in 2003 that they changed my mind. Definitely a band that you have to see live to really appreciate...
So that was that. I decided to close with another band that I also saw play SARSTOCK: the Isley Brothers. A very funky band in their own right, with their most famous song an anthem about being yourself, from 1969:
It's been a pretty nondescript start to January. I've been keeping up with the running, and that is therapeutic; I've logged about 35 km in the last seven days. The weather has been cooperating, with temperatures usually in the mid single digits, with enough clear periods that I have kept fairly dry. Yoshi certainly appreciates running in the forest on alternate days with me and with Maggie.
We haven't signed up for any races yet but plan to do the Bouillonnante with Lawrence and the Hammers this year. I have wanted to do it for a long time but have always had a concert that has conflicted with the date, so have had to miss out. This year it takes place on the 25th of April, so I should be able to get it in before I go to Canada to sing the Vaughan Williams concert with Jurgen. I'm not sure if I'll just do the 15km run or if I will train up for the 29km; I will try some longer runs this month and see how I feel before the registration opens in mid-February. It is quite a tough trail with lots of climbing, much more than any other race I've done, so it's a good challenge.
I gave my first private singing lesson to E. last Thursday, and it seemed to go pretty well. It will be a regular Thursday thing, and I hope that there will be some other students who step forward so that it can be a more efficient use of my travel time.
Malcolm was home on the weekend. He picked up two more guitar repair jobs this week: it would seem that that is turning into a good side-line for him, entirely through word-of-mouth. His various building projects are proceeding well. He has also signed up for an two-week internship with a luthier in Spain sometime this spring. It's not a paying position , but it will be a good learning and networking opportunity for him.
Yesterday I sharpened the chainsaw and set up my sawbuck in the driveway, cut up the last half of the firewood that we collected last weekend, and then split it all up to a suitable diameter for our stove. When Duncan got home we stacked it all inside. I'm not so excited about this wood but it will do for now; it doesn't burn super hot, so I am suspecting that it didn't really dry all that well during aging. My favourite book on firewood, Lars Mytting's Norwegian Wood, warns against the problems of improper wood stacking: if it isn't dried properly in the initial stages, it never really dries completely, and you can get issues with mold and fungus that can affect its heating properties. I think that now that I've got most of the kinks ironed out of my Ryobi chainsaw, that I will go back to the cheaper method of ordering 2-3m long logs so that I can cut and split and stack them myself, like I did a couple of summers ago.
Now it's off to the grocery to see what looks interesting there. Maggie just got a new Lagostina pressure cooker as part of the Delhaize promotions, and so she's been having fun playing with that, but I think that it's my turn to make dinner...
It's now Tuesday evening and we are more or less back in the normal routines.
Sunday was only the 5th of January, so we were a day early taking down the tree (we usually do that on Epiphany) but we wanted to get things sorted on the last day of vacation while we had time. The tree is currently sitting in the driveway waiting until the tree pickup on the 16th, next to a load of firewood that I need to chainsaw into shorter lengths so that it will fit in the stove.
It was nice to get all of the decorations safely packed away, to take the tree outside, change all of the table linens, and get all of those pine needles swept up and thrown into the compost. The cats are indoor/outdoor cats now, and so they gave the tree no special attention this year, which was nice, but even without their help, the needles were everywhere.
On the topic of routines, Duncan has managed to awaken on his own both yesterday and today in time to take the morning bus to school; that's a good sign, as neither Maggie nor I are interested in badgering him to wake up when he ignores his 6:20 alarm clock. He has had some mixed results come in this week from tests that he wrote before the break, so it's back to a more structured studying environment for him, at the dining room table so that we can keep an eye on him... sometimes external authority is a good thing for keeping one disciplined. He is rather focussed on painting tiny models of orcs and knights and dragons, and I get the sense that he would do that eighteen hours a day if he could manage it. He's voluntarily leaving his iphone plugged in downstairs when he goes to bed, to avoid the temptation to stay up late, which is a good thing. I have been doing the same. In my case that means that I have to get up and get dressed and go downstairs if I want to read the news in the morning.
Maggie had a restful holiday and got lots of embroidery time in, so seems to be well recharged. This week she has been in training sessions and meetings yesterday but had students for the first time today. This evening she spent many hours before and after dinner, reviewing the assignments that they just handed in, and so I set her up with the second larger monitor so she could have more computing space. Almost none of these major assignments from her 11/12 year old students are on paper; they are all "written" on computers and submitted electronically, so she likes having a bigger display to read them.
We didn't see much of Malcolm around the end of the holidays; he celebrated NYE with friends, and then was visiting Camille's mother for a couple of days near the end of the holidays. On the last weekend of vacation he had rehearsals with his band in Brussels, and afterwards went straight to Boom to get ready for the resumption of classes. One of the band projects over the holiday was to make a kind of good-naturedly goofy promo clip for their band, kind of like something you would see in the 1960s from the Beatles. "Strawberry Storm" has been on hiatus for quite a while, and now they are preparing for a gig or two in Brussels later on this spring. As well they are hoping to promote themselves more aggressively, so some video is always good... Here's the clip if you are interested. Take note that it's in French; there are no English subtitles as yet but Malcolm is working on them.
I went running yesterday for the first time since New Years' Day; it was absolutely gorgeous out, seven degrees and bright sunshine. Yoshi and I did the shorter 9km route here in Wavre, but it was a good training run: a relatively slow 5:55 per km and my heart rate never hit the top zone, which is ideal. I was fighting something like a cold this weekend so was happy to get outside after a few days off. Kiana wanted to run today, so I went out again on the same route, with Yoshi and Osa. It wasn't as sunny but was maybe a little warmer than yesterday.
Afterwards I decided to do some singing for the first time since the Minimes concert on December 15th, and did a nice long warm-up. It's always nice to do some vocal exercises; it's a bit like doing stretching or calisthenics, just to limber yourself up and make your voice remember what it's like to make sound throughout your entire range. Then I had a brief look through the two Bach cantatas that are coming up in February (they will be quite challenging).
I also also talked with Bruce on the phone about how I should approach teaching my new student, who for privacy reasons I'll call "E". She is one of the talented singers from St. John's, and we have arranged for me to go there and give a lesson starting this Thursday. "E" has been singing a lot in the lower part of her voice but I am hoping to do some exercises that will open up the top of her range a bit. In modern pop music women never sing high, so there is every possibility that she has some notes up there that she rarely uses. I have direct experience of teaching male voices but not as much with female ones, and Bruce had lots of good advice on how to approach female singers. The coordinator has already said that she will do some "advertising" and try to get some more students to do private lessons around the same time, which will make it worth my while to go there.
One good thing is that even in the cold weather when the scooter is not suitable, Maggie has no issues taking the bus in the morning, and then coming home with me by car after lessons are finished at 18:00. So we'll see how that goes in the new year.
Other than that there is little to report. Yoshi is doing fine; he ran with Maggie on Sunday, and with me both yesterday and today, so he is certainly sleeping well! And the cats are liking the fire, which I have going during most waking hours, if I'm home... it does a good job of heating the whole house, in fact...
Just a quick post around midnight on the 3rd of January... sending everyone our wishes for a big HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Everyone else is in bed and I am just sitting here by the fire with Yoshi, and have finished The Midnight Folk by John Masefield. Baritone singers will recognise the author's name from the Vaughan Williams settings of his Salt-water Ballads, published in 1902; the most famous is probably Sea Fever. I already owned a copy of his children's book, The Box of Delights (1935), but realised after I had read it a couple of years ago that it was a sequel to his earlier novel, The Midnight Folk (1927), and so ordered that one this Christmas.
We had an enjoyable time at the Hammer's over NYE, with their family, Lawrence, and a couple more friends. It was quite good weather, clear and fairly warm, so we were able to do our fireworks at midnight without any trouble. That is not always the case here in Belgium; sometimes the weather has been so terribly cold and blustery and rainy that we skip the pyrotechnics. But not this year!
While enjoying some appetisers and socialising in the early part of the evening, we started talking about one of our first NYE parties in Belgium, and the sabreing open of champagne bottles... it seemed like a good idea. As we had no sabres on hand and had to improvise, naturally Lawrence advocated for a machete, while I as a Canadian opted for an axe. Happily both were equally effective...
We opted to go "fancy dress" so Kiana and Maggie were in black and gold; India wore a blue traditional Chinese silk embroidered long dress; Duncan was in a grey suit, Bryan in a white dinner jacket and tie, and Lawrence and I in kilts. We even managed to get Armani to put on Duncan's outgrown tuxedo, at least for a little while.
The next morning we were up around 10:00 and after a nice breakfast casserole and coffee, went out for a nice relaxed 9km run in the countryside. It was good to blow out the cobwebs, and the day was still and bright, although running at around the freezing point meant we had to bundle up. The dogs were thrilled to have a muddy run with a nice big group so that they could run back and forth and keep the "herd" together.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day at home; we did some laundry and cleaned things up around the house, and did our best to work through or dump any left-over food from the holiday festivities.
Maggie, Malcolm, and Duncan all head back to school on Monday. I don't have anything urgently on the calendar but would like to have a look at the music for what is coming up. I just received another contract to sing a St. John Passion in later May 2020 here in Brussels, so I'm happy to add another gig to add to the list. But I haven't sung the two February cantatas before, nor the Homilius Passion, and it's been a while since I last did the Sea Symphony. (In fact I wrote about performing it in one of my first few blog posts, from way back in April of 2007, so that will mark fourteen years between first and second performances of this amazing work).
Those performance dates will arrive pretty quickly; it would be nice to get the jump on learning them while I have some free time, just in case something else happens to show up in the meantime...
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