Christmas 2014

[dave brum]

I've just been having a newshound's eye view of my local Anglican church and I see that it's the Christmas Fayre this weekend, over two days. Wonder if there'll be carols, and who'll be playing them?

Also, it's commonplace for them every Christmas to do carols on Christmas Eve in a public house (the same one). The mind boggles....

ps got the Boar's Head plus the Lingo this morning, ta! The braced treble stave looks a little too hard, so I think I'll go for the top treble stave for the RH, but at least it's in the dead easy key of C.

[Gill the Piano]

Very sensible...but give it a go with 4 parts for fun, won't you?

[dave brum]

Very sensible...but give it a go with 4 parts for fun, won't you?

Well, you know me, VERY sensible, but by no means a killjoy

On the lookout for unusual Christmas songs and carols for the shop. Seen loads but quite a few are either too un-PC or too rude ('My First Christmas As a Woman' which includes the lyrics 'chop it off, chop it off, my penis chop it off, it's no damn use to me....'). Basically I'm after stuff you don't hear in the chops - sorry shops.

So far I've got 3 versions of medieval carol Verbum Patris Hummanatur back to back, the Boar's Head (of course), the one that features on Gizzy's advent calendar on 6/12, lots of jazz and blues ones including Satchmo 'Zat You Santa Claus', the carol of the Two Front Teeth, Dora Bryan's similarly titled one, and ending with Hark The Herald Angels Sing (the version by The Fall). Anyone any ideas??

[Gill the Piano]

The Carol Singers is brilliant, about the village carollers. If I think of any I'll let you know.

[dave brum]

I found it in a charity shop in Worcester two Christmases ago on a compilation and I couldn't stop playing it, it really is one of the best Christmas songs ever written, which is why you DON'T hear it played to death by British retailers in Nov/Dec.

My EFP carol book arrived today and I've already had a go at a few ones.

[Gill the Piano]

I think there's a book two of EFP, but don't quote me!

[dave brum]

I think there's a book two of EFP, but don't quote me!

Yes there is, seen it on Amazon. There are blue bits where there is red on Bk1.

[Gill the Piano]

There are blue bits where there is red on Bk1.

Must mean it's easier!

[dave brum]

There are blue bits where there is red on Bk1.

Must mean it's easier!

I still have to do RH, LH and both together with book 1, but it should take me less time so I can learn more carols. I need alertness and fast reactions, something I don't have due to the antidepressants.

[Gill the Piano]

Are you still reducing them?

[dave brum]

I've decided to remain at my current dosage (30mg per week which was reduced from 70) through the duration of winter and review the situation in March. The darkness and cold of the winter is really the wrong time to further reduce them.

[dave brum]

I made some of these music themed Christmas decorations yesterday. All that needs done to them are holes punched in them, cotton threaded through and they're ready to hang on the tree. I think handmade decorations are so much more homely than shop-bought tat, which seems to be so samey year in year out.

[Gill the Piano]

Brilliant.But the first note on the left either needs to go upside down & back to front or have its tail tucked in the other side under the head. Are you going to sell them?

[dave brum]

Yes, I knew that all along, though a quaver with the stem down and tail in front would look saft hanging from the tree. My labours are all for me, though I was going to make some to give to Mabelcakes.

[dave brum]

Just seen the Christmas TV guides. It's the same old same old year in year out and it's intensely boring. I miss Morecambe and Wise more than ever.

The only thing that interests me is a remastered version of the first Carols from Kings from 1954 on BBC4.

[Gill the Piano]

I want to see the Vicar of Dibley but we have to leave the house for me to play for Watchnight service before it finishes...

[dave brum]

I was going to ask you if you were playing at Midnight Mass or the equivalent. You should be able to watch it on Iplayer on the new PC, though I guess it'll be the one where Alice gives birth, or should that be the Virgin Mary?

[Gill the Piano]

As long as I get sound - I'm back t no sound on YT. It's a new pooter so it's obviously something I've done...
At the latest count I'm playing for 8 Christmas/Carol services.

[dave brum]

Just 'sin' a picture of last night's Carol Service at Fanny Fosdyke's church on their Twittingham feed, there are lots of empty spaces and the roof looks like it's covered in some mouldy substance or other. Exciting or what??

The congregation still have their coats on, in a heated purpose built building that dates from 1951 I find that very odd, especially as we are in a very mild spell at the moment with evening temperatures around 9 or 10 degrees.

The top of Fanny's nut can be plainly seen at the organ on the left of the picture. This is the first picture they have tweeted as their account was only opened earlier this month.

I'm off to become a Muslim now.

[Gill the Piano]

I wouldn't; music is 'haram', or forbidden. One of my customers was quite distressed because a child in her class covered her ears and got upset, shouting 'Haram! Haram!' when music was played. What a terrible existence.

[dave brum]

I wouldn't; music is 'haram', or forbidden. One of my customers was quite distressed because a child in her class covered her ears and got upset, shouting 'Haram! Haram!' when music was played. What a terrible existence.

Ali Farka Toure (Mali), Youssou'n Dour, Habib Koite (Senegal), Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (Pakistan) Dawud Wharnsby Ali (Canada) are Muslim musicians that I can think of, Mohammed Rafi is also an actor. Google 'musicians from (Pakistan, Malaysia, Senegal, Egypt, any predominantly Muslim country) and Islamic artists that do 'nasheeds' (Muslim praise and worship songs based upon Koranic verses). Dawud Wharnsby Ali does them in English!

My pal Sultan from the bookshop is a tabla-ist and a drummer.

Even extreme elements of the religion (so-called 'jihadis') use very Westernised rap music as recruiting tools for their cause amongst youth. How 'haram' is that??

I've just remembered Abdullah Ibrahim, the American jazz pianist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mu ... _the_media

http://jazzislam.wordpress.com/

(lots more links)

[dave brum]

And I was forgetting old thingummydoodleton, Yusuf Islam, who still writes and performs as a British Muslim:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens

www.yusufislam.com

There are LOADS of Muslim musicians!!

[Gill the Piano]

So why do some preachers say music is haram then?

[dave brum]

Not being a Muslim, I cannot possibly comment, however I guess it is to do with how conservative or indeed liberal one would perceive the religion one chooses to follow. Everyone knows about Islamic extremism - it's all over the news but there is also Christian extremism, practised chiefly in the Southern Bible Belt of the USA, where hatred (even for disabled people) is openly preached without being challenged even from within, and (Protestant) Christianity is deeply split along racial lines. Compare that with say Justin Welby, who basically says that to have a relationship with God is a human and spiritual need regardless of your race, sexuality/income etc. (his comments on foodbanks have made him top of my admirers list).

Music is an important outreach tool for any religion and any fundamentalist that says that music is of the devil, haram, part of the Jewish conspiracy etc. really needs to take a good hard look at the many musicians who are known as followers of their respective faith before they mount their political soapboxes and expect us to believe their hooley. Like this hijabi female from Malaysia who is an online hit, Ainan Tasneem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG99Q8pXwMA

(wonder if Dolores O'Riordan has seen it?

Two more Muslim piano learners, as an update (look at June 2014 Learners of the Month)

http://www.manchesterpianotutor.co.uk/page8.htm

[dave brum]

So no Carols from Kings either. We have to take our next door neighbours to Blackheath (taxi fares will be unsustainable) and we cannot see it on BBC2 tomorrow as we'll be cooking all this food that we were given. So that's that's that then, given everything that's happened to us the past few months, no money, cannot go to church as Fanny Fosdyke's playing, cannot go to another church as my wife has reservations and so we made an agreement, and now no Carols from bleeding Kings.

Balls. And no toodling down the pub for the annual carol concert there in false beards and wigs just to heckle and annoy Fanny, who'll be leading the church choir. She'll be busy today. Crib Service at 3, Drunken Carols at 6, and Midnight Mass (obviously without the Latin bits) at 11.45. Oh and up early tomorrow morning. Then on Friday, given the fact there will be a service for that particular saint on whose day it will be.

Right. Tell yourself that today is Wednesday. And tomorrow is Thursday, Bank Holiday Thursday and one of fifty two Thursdays we have each calendar year - followed by Bank Holiday Friday. That way, we won't lose our sense of time.

[Gill the Piano]

Happy Christmas, everyone, and a peaceful and healthy new year.

[dave brum]

Happy Christmas, everyone, and a peaceful and healthy new year.

Except for Iain Duncan Smith and all employees of the government department which he is in charge of as between them, the petty nazi filth have ruined this season for myself and my wife. I do hope this Christmas will be their last ones. Oh and of course Fanny Fosdyke.

[dave brum]

Tweeted by my local CofE in the past hour...

Merry Christmas everyone. God bless you and your families. Christ has risen!

I may not be an ordained minister or a doctor of theology but aren't they getting confused with the season of bunnies and eggs??

[dave brum]

It just occured to me that this is the very first Christmas both my wife or myself actually had no presents in our entire lives. Cannot speak for my wife but as far as I'm concerned I really do not mind as I don't want anything material or commercial anyway, well to have gone to church would have been nice, or to have sung a carol or two, or watched Carols from Kings or something cultured, even to have gone out for a lovely walk in the Lickey Hills as it has been a bright day.

If I was not a married man I would have done ALL of those (minus the presents) oh, and she doesn't even want to hear me play a carol on the piano either. Soccer AM was far, far more important. What a bloody miserable Christmas.

[dave brum]

I tell a lie, I HAVE had something for Christmas, yet another shock from 'them' delivered via the medium of the internet. Saturday is the earliest I can get the first explanations if they're willing to provide me with any.

[Gill the Piano]

It just occured to me that this is the very first Christmas both my wife or myself actually had no presents in our entire lives.

What about your antique carol book then?

[dave brum]

It just occured to me that this is the very first Christmas both my wife or myself actually had no presents in our entire lives.

What about your antique carol book then?

If one calls it a present, I call it sightreading grist for the sightreading mill, or stuff to practice to!

[Gill the Piano]

Oh, I rather hoped you'd like it.

[dave brum]

Got my It's Easy To Play Hymns EFP book now, and God Save The Queen. Her Madge was the only Christmas TV I saw this year and I quite enjoyed it, even though I watched it on iPlayer. The footage of her in the Crumlin Road Jail in Ireland looked like she was trying to stop a dogfight about to break out between Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness on both her flanks. I believe reconciliation was the theme of her message this year.

[Michaelcip]

Dusting down my Christmas musical tingz, Steeleyes take on Good King Wenceslas from the Winter album is bosting.

[Gill the Piano]

Blimey, you're starting early! I get teachers moaning about Good King Wenceslas is September! Still forewarned is forearmed as they say...