What are we doing right now? (aside from being on the forum)

[Nutroast]

I'm just about to shut the computer down and go outside to muck out the chickens then I'm going to strim the nettles in the pig sty run. It's all so glamorous!

[Gill the Piano]

I've just come in from a busyish day - only one tuning, but had my hair cut (I can SEE, I can SEE!!!!!) and did shopping for my ma who is stuck in a chair/bed with a smashed ankle, then fed her ('this needs more salt. These beans are underdone.' I'm a piano tuner, not a cook...) and after I've answered a few emus on the pooter I shall have my tea (cooked by the longsuffering and competent Eric) then do some emergency guitar practice ready(ish) for my lesson tomorrow morning.

[markymark]

Working on a literacy scheme - going towards 70 pages! Hope it ends soon!

[markymark]

BTW Dave,

Do you know anything about this?
http://www.piano-tuners.org/piano-forum ... 655#p45655

[Gill the Piano]

Right now, I'm going to go for a wee wee!

God, this is getting like Twitter!
Incidentally, I dunno why I wasted time practising last night. As soon as I sat on the guitar stool this morning my brain turned to porridge and my fingers to bananas.

[Nutroast]

I have never tweeted in my life and no longer have a Facebook account. Am I alone? Maybe that's why no-one talks to me

I've just got back from school which I really enjoyed as usual. I'm about to take my pooch for a walk and then change the batteries in the chickens' automatic door opener I'm back at school later for recorders, else I'd be in a serious decorating-the-house mode.

[Feg]

I lasted a whole 20 minutes on Twitter then deactivated my account - I do not see the attraction

I 'may' have the afternoon to myself - my youngest has taken herself off to college on her motorbike now that the weather is more two-wheel friendly. My eldest is about to take himself off on his motorbike - not quite sure why but he muttered somthing about needing petrol and a Sport Society Fair at Uni. It'll just be Kim (Westie) and me for the afternoon - ah.....peace...........

[Gill the Piano]

How do you deactivate a FB account? Only thing is, there are a couple of word games on it that I like...

[Feg]

I seem to have taken on the role of Co-ordinator for the local primary school's PTA Recorder Club.

I've been the recorder tutor for about 15 years and there is a PTA bod who organises class lists, fees, deals with parents and the school. The PTA bod changes every couple of years with varying degrees of efficiency but this one is down-right incompetent. She's not even invoiced the parents for last term!

When my kids were small and at primary school, I did a stint as Co-ordinator as well as tutor so I know what work is involved. I can't fathom out what she is playing at so all my emails this term have been copied into the Chairperson of the PTA. After a long conversation with said Chairperson tonight, I'm taking over the Co-ordinators role but I don't have to join the PTA (thank goodness).

Needless to say, I won't get paid any extra for taking on the admin but at least it might actually get done

[Gill the Piano]

I like the Portaloo prog too, but had to smile as he was being shown round a private mine and saying how much he admired the miners.
So why did he sit back and let his lot destroy the mines then???

[Nutroast]

I completely agree about the railway programme, and the presenter - hate his politics, love the programme, I just wish it was on at a different time, we never remember to have the box on so early and keep missing the beginning.

It made us chuckle about the irony of the bit about the mines as well.

Sorry Mrs Brum is feeling rough, Dave. Hope she feels better soon.

I'm doing a bit of practice today, let's just call it a Schubert Dab

Boo has her second lesson later on, after the dentist

[Gill the Piano]

Has the management got Norovirus, Dave? That's what ruined my Christmas bank holiday; we were due to go to a friend's for a venison dinner instead ofd which I was in the smallest room getting quite a few sudokus done or talking to God on the big white telephone... Hope she's feeling better soon.

[Gill the Piano]

You only ever needed to be patient about sightreading, Mr Brum! Think of it as learning to read - which it is. Some people pick it up no probs, others take a bit longer.
If I play Squabble in Welsh I'll need special dispensation to use the dictionary!

[Nutroast]

Decorating my days are not complete unless I've wielded a paintbrush.

I have been a piano angel though and practiced on Rosie yesterday, but I've put the ABRSM music theory pink book back on the shelf in a huff, I just couldn't understand what it was saying and I got the grumps!

[Gill the Piano]

Nutty, see if you can get hold of the old ABRSM 'little red' theory book. Far better, more concise and much clearer to my mind. Try Abebooks.co.uk.

[Gill the Piano]

I would have already done them (wrong) by this time.

!!!!!

[Gill the Piano]

Looking at incomprehensible advice on how to change my Tell.com listing.

[gizzy]

Listening to Angela Hewitt playing Couperin on a piano, not a giant harpiskord, unfortunately, but she's just about to launch into the B minor passacaglia. I have my left hand ready to reinforce the bottom F# (ffff#!)

Mysterious Barricades first. I seem to remember from Composer of the Week ages ago that he was a really nice chap, was Francois Couperin.

And Le Rossignol en Amour
And here comes the passacaglia. Growl - kerpow!! (She's being a bit ladylike with that F#...)

Gizzy in Cambridge

[gizzy]

Listening to r3 and eating cereal. Just had Chopin's have-a-banana polonaise. when I switched it on it was a blast from the past. Slow movement of Mendelssohn piano trio.

I played in this when I was at school. not as a piano trio, but a wind quartet with piano. 1 flute and 3 clarinets. I was, and still am, a very, very elementary clarinettist, only played the lower register. The flute was a Swiss boy called Francois (name'n'shame...) who was a lovely player and sex on legs, and I had a giant crush on him. Unfortunately it turned ouot he was also a bully. The middle clarinet player was a big shambling boy called Robin, scientific genius and an expert on doing all the voices in the Gppn Show. A couple of months after we played the Mendelssohn in a music festival, Francois punched Robin in the mouth becasue he was trying to stop him from bullying someone else. Francois was wearing a signet ring. It left a big scar in the corner of Robin's mouth, which he still has. I know, because I married him (about 35 years later, we were slow movers in Zummerzetshire)

I have to spend much of this morning trying to get to grips with a thing called Music Teacher Helper which is supposed to be able to manage all my admin and accounts under one umbrella. I'm still on a 30-day free trial. For the number of pupils I have, it will cost me £20 a month. I did a little bit of calculation and worked out that averaged out through the whole year that will be about a thirtieth of my pre-tax earnings. Still trying to work out if that's a reasonable deal for streamlining my admin. (I'm meant to be retired...)

[gizzy]

Waiting for this persistent rain to stop so I can go out. That and the vocal version of La Maja y el Ruisenor by Granados which has come up at random on my iTunes, making me feel tearful. I used to sing that, it's a very powerful and emotional sing, and nowadays I can't even get my throat round round Twinkle Twinkle in the tenor clef. Ah, no hay cantar sin amor

Ah, <mode=Allan Sherman> Wait a minute, it's stopped raining...</AS>
And not only that, one of my former Objects of Lust has come up next in the random shuffle. Maurice Andre playing Hora Staccato. I always reckoned with a lip like that he must be one hell of a kisser
OK, out to buy chocolate, oops, I mean bread. No, actually I think I do mean chocolate. OK, how about bread AND chocolate?

[Gill the Piano]

Always put chocolate at the top of your TO DO list; that way you get at least one thing accomplished every day.

[dave brum]

Listening to my first Mass, and it's Bernsteins' famous celebration. An ideal first complete Mass, one would think. Miserere nobis, Dominum.

[dave brum]

Eighteen months ago, I was listening to Bernstein's 'Mass, now it's 'Songs From The Wood' by Jethro Tull. The one with Ian Anderson squatting in front of the camp fire.

[Gill the Piano]

Ooo, you going all prog rock on us? Cool man... I've just come home from a Harvest gig at Dibley - I treated them to Telemann fantasias today. Very small notes...hope I got them right!

[dave brum]

I went to an organ recital at a country church last spring and we had one of Lefebure-Wely's Sorties. He did two, one in Bb and one in Eb and I've downloaded them both. Try one of those out on Christmas Eve (which is what the recitalist did last year!)

Would be great to walk out of church to a bit of Telemann on the organ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTk22jyFB8Q

[gizzy]

Eighteen months ago, I was listening to Bernstein's 'Mass, now it's 'Songs From The Wood' by Jethro Tull. The one with Ian Anderson squatting in front of the camp fire.

Bernstein's Mass is amazing. It's the other piece I always wanted to conduct, apart from Noye's Fludde. I'll never do it now - back and eyes will not promise not to let me down.

[gizzy]

Listening to my first Mass, and it's Bernsteins' famous celebration. An ideal first complete Mass, one would think. Miserere nobis, Dominum.

Except it's not EXACTLY "a mass" - it's almost a bit of musical theatre called "Mass" (like "Hair or"Taxi") What is brilliant is that it can be taken on almost any level - I doubt if it's even thinkable to perform it as part of a mess service; but for a Christian it's both affirmative and doubt-raising, for an agnostic or an atheist or particularly a humanist it serves the same purpose. One of the most virtuosic bits of composition I know!

(sorry, I'm reading this thread backwards, so I replied to your next post before this one_

Dave, if you want to hear a REALLY interesting mass, find African Sanctus by David Fanshawe

[dave brum]

It 'follows' the traditional Mass, or Eucharistic Prayer but in a very anti-establishment and contemporary way, such as his use of African American jazz in the Agnus Dei, which I love.

Bernstein, being a Jew, would probably also had been keen on satirising Christian rituals.

Right now, I'm scoffing a plate of wonton.

[dave brum]

Talking about handbells in one thread and Brian Eno in another has prompted me to listen to some of Eno's 'Bell Studies';

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKZ_-WBTDek