Random thoughts or comments...

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 26 Oct 2016, 15:10

Well there's nothing we can do re rising prices as some chiseller's always out to put up prices - had we stayed IN Europe they would have cited that as an excuse to raise prices. The morons up for election in america don't bear thinking about (A plane containing Hilary & Trump is hurtling to the earth at 110oooooooooo mph out of control. Crash is inevitable - who is saved? america.) So it's no wonder shoppers don't want to hear about it...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 26 Oct 2016, 18:28

But it is something that we SHOULD be talking about as these issues affect our day to day lives. We should not be giving rich celebrities, (famous for what particular reason?) whose situations are a million miles from our own situations, the oxygen of publicity. Like today, for instance we had Talking Heads' 'Psycho Killer'. Is deranged psychotic homicide the sort of thing shoppers want to hear a song about? I think they'd rather discuss the economic implications of Brexit, or how they can get their five portions of fruit and vegetables a day through our fantastic offers and meal deals they can find on our shelves.

It's a classic case of whatever They think we should be interested in, not what we are in actual fact interested in.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 27 Oct 2016, 06:39

...and so I'm thinking, what will go wrong tomorrow and exactly how will it go wrong. Piano + myself = disaster.

(although I may not be able to make it, the weather has gotten colder and the damp has made my vitas gerulaitis come back again)

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 27 Oct 2016, 14:49

Shut up, you'll be fine. And re the music (?) at work - you could well find you're one of the only people who LISTENS to it...I think it trickles in one earole and out of the other for most people, but you being a muso actually hear it properly as music as opposed to background mush.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 27 Oct 2016, 15:19

Music has always been my forte, which is why it mystifies me that I have so much difficulty with playing it on the piano. I have always taken my music seriously.

It was actually our supermarket chain that pioneered the use of playing Baroque and Classical music outside stores to deter groups of poorly dressed unwashed working class youths from congregating outside harrassing customers, and asking them to buy cigarettes, cheap beer, copies of The Sun and Mayfair etc.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 28 Oct 2016, 19:19

Well, how'd it go? Don't leave us on tentpegs!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 28 Oct 2016, 19:46

It was like beginning piano lessons afresh. She took time tailoring her lesson to suit me and my needs, she's written (in very neat writing not physicians' scrawl) a long list of things I must do before I attempt a sight read on an exercise or piece, including to actually breathe! And she has told me whenever I get something wrong never to tell myself I'm crap, rather just stick to the facts and say 'oh, that note I didn't play correctly'. Because theres no room for improvement if you say you're crap. But if you say you played an F instead of an F# improvements can be made.

And it was such an informal experience. I cannot say I've ever had a relaxed lesson with Mabel. So much so I was there for 1 hour and 25 minutes instead of the hour I booked.

And after all of the prejudices I've harboured about younger teachers after my experiences with Fanny Fosdyke! That'll teach me. I even got a text afterwards telling me I was fabulous...no problem with my sense of rhythm or counting.

I don't want to open my big cakehole though.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 30 Oct 2016, 15:24

I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so! Well done! Next lesson booked...?

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 30 Oct 2016, 17:29

Yes, either next Thursday or Friday depending on her gigging schedule.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 31 Oct 2016, 16:59

I'm soooo pleased. As my gran used to say, there's a lid for every pot!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 01 Nov 2016, 17:23

Friday 0930 for an hour. Have to get some practice in later as it's early to bed for me. I'm on an early in the morning and by the looks of the weather forecast I'm going to have to get up at 5 to de-ice the car.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 02 Nov 2016, 19:08

I've seen a few oddities in my time, but a Bernard Manning CD in a classical music store with the talking books....

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 02 Nov 2016, 19:38

Bernard Manning CD? Good grief....

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 02 Nov 2016, 21:01

Yes, Bernard Manning. If it had been one of those low grade gift shops in Weston-super-Mare super Mare or Great Yarmouth, you know the ones that sell gollie dolls etc. then I might have seen the connection, but as it was a classical CD store, with a cultured and refined clientele, I rest my case.

Mr.Manning was in actual fact a show pianist - you would never think it, before the weight of his high carat manual jewellery impeded his ability to play. Who knows, if he had left his bracelets etc. in the drawer at home, he wouldn't have developed a stand up show based on poor use of the English language and a perverse obsession with racialist politics - he might have been writing books on piano technique!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 07 Nov 2016, 22:18

J.Y has popped orf.

I often wonder why Mr.Jeremy Vine (waste of bl00dy space) doesn't 'put on' a Gloucestershire accent so that he 'sounds' like Jimmy Young, as his audience are that averse to change?

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 08 Nov 2016, 16:34

The JY prog was an integral soundtrack to my childhood/yoof. Quite liked his singing too!
NB Heavy jewellery acts as a beneficial weightlifting programme, promoting strong wrists and fingers!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 08 Nov 2016, 17:03

Memories of my mother and grandmother shouting agreements with callers to the Jimmy Young programme that express extreme right wing sentiment. It has always been a forum for conservative old moaning minnies as long as it has been on air, and Jeremy Vine is carrying on that tradition with aplomb. Petroc, Clemmy, Rob and Sarah don't need the contributions of unhappies to sully their very happy programmes on Radio 3!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 09 Nov 2016, 19:56

I have spent the day tuning and retuning my radio to avoid the poxy merkin election - sick to death of it!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 09 Nov 2016, 20:45

America has just trumped and the smell will last for four years. Liberal values, anyone?

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 12 Nov 2016, 19:33

Don't go playing any hymns involving the tune 'Austria' tomorrow, Gill. Lest you forget...

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 13 Nov 2016, 15:50

Nope; He Who Would Valiant Be, O God Our Help in Ages Past and Lord For The Years. I did play a bit of Telemann though...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 13 Nov 2016, 18:07

O God Our Help here too (St.Anne) along with Eternal Father Strong To Save (St.Gertrude), Praise My Soul and God Save The Queen. And two minutes of 4'33" by John Cage at 11.00. Might have been the first two minutes of it, or the last two minutes. Then right at the end at the closing procession, Tracey played Nimrod, which Elgar dedicated to a friend whose nickname was Nimrod. So I heard, anyway. Afterwards, I got chatting to the chairman of the local Royal British Legion. I will be selling poppies next November.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 16 Nov 2016, 09:31

Campanological practice later. We're ringing at a wedding on Saturday, PieJesu from the Faure Requiem and Gounod's setting of Ave Maria based on his Prelude in C, for which Tracey will accompany us. I have to say the line were playing is much easier to follow when you've heavy bells in your hand rather than being sat at a piano. I made a right bum in the air job of the easy Gounod line at the piano with one hand last night. Trace has got the two handed accompaniment that Bach scripted.

And for some strange reason it's in D, not C as Bach wrote it.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 16 Nov 2016, 16:59

I suppose it makes it easier for bells...I looked up my guitar piece on YT, bouree by Bach and found Richard Digance playing it...except he plays it in D with a capo on the guitar. He then segues into Ain't She Sweet and Cockney songs, claiming that JSB came from Plaistow. New one on me!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 18 Nov 2016, 09:52

I went for a wee wee in Fortnums yesterday and I had a thought. Prince Philip could have used that urinal. Things that make you go hmm, as the old song by C&C Music Factory says.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 18 Nov 2016, 20:37

Fortnum & Mason in London? I bet the wee was the only affordable thing in the place...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 18 Nov 2016, 21:35

Yes. Affordable as in free. The last time I used those facilities I found out what was meant by the royal wee.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 19 Nov 2016, 18:51

Never been to F&M despite being in London at college for 3 years. I don't think students were/are encouraged there!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 19 Nov 2016, 19:41

I often get stared at by security when I go in our Harvey Nichols, is it coz I is working class and wear an anorak? Their khazis are palatial as well.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 20 Nov 2016, 18:28

There's one particular shop here where the owner follows you around; very off-putting. We (my friends and I) won't go in there now - so I presume her mission was accomplished and the riff raff were eliminated successfully.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 25 Nov 2016, 18:01

Some unfortunate (not bad) news on the piano front I have to report.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 26 Nov 2016, 19:41

Well????

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 26 Nov 2016, 22:22

I have thrown in the towel again, but NOT because I think I'm sh*t, or that I can't sight read, or that I'm too old, or any of the old pathetic excuses. It is because I simply do not have the time to practice or to go to lessons. My work (which I enjoy very much) coupled with the demands of being married to somebody who cannot read, write, use a computer or drive anywhere other than to her place of work is one thing, but my seasonal affective disorder means that without natural light, now everything is twenty times the effort, so I get tired and exhausted more easier.

I have absolutely nothing against Elaine, she was genuinely sorry to lose me and she did tell me how much she enjoyed teaching me, something Mabel Mucklethwaite never told me. But she was over 8 miles away in another area of Brum and travelling there was difficult in spite of everything else. Not told Tracey our organist yet.

It always seems to be the case that whenever I go near a piano, something goes wrong, Frank Spencer style.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 27 Nov 2016, 18:19

Nothing to stop you still playing but leave the lessons till spring, then there's no pressure on you.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 27 Nov 2016, 18:32

Well, at least I can't say I cannot sight read, we had the Ancient and Modern New Standard today, which has the music in the words edition, so I could follow the unfamiliar hymns' rhythm (every hymn) and whether the tune went up or down, which helped immensely. Can't convert it into a tune on the piano, but I CAN sight read it! So that's something, I suppose.

The copy of 'Second Feast Of (presumably) Easy Carols' that my wife bought for me the other week, opened, placed on a book stand with tinsel around it in the window would make a fantastic non-run-of-the-mill home made Christmas decoration.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 03 Dec 2016, 06:43

I'm on my fourth early shift today and it really is beginning to take it out of me now, as I'm also doing battle with the lack of natural daylight. Then it's one day off tomorrow and three more shifts, two normals and one early.

I really wouldn't have the time or energy to see a piano teacher.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 03 Dec 2016, 14:40

How are these songs, which are only ever heard in December, 'seasonal'?

'Keeping The Dream Alive' by Freiheit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-MmzB-tnQE

'The Power Of Love' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdnAbtIF3YM

and

'Stay Another Day' by East 17:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykEOf0m5eeQ

Neither of these 'pop' songs actually mention any of these criteria: winter, December, Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, decorations, parties, presents, snow(men), holly, joy to the world, the Nativity, general festive jollity, or even quote the words Christmas or season.

So WHY THE HELL do the powers that be consider them to be only worthy of playing at this time of year and not all year round??

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 03 Dec 2016, 15:21

Wogan used to play Freiheit a lot, all year. And the others. And they feature on radio 2 regularly. Are we still on about Co-op radio? Because we have already established that they are divorced from reality...

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 03 Dec 2016, 18:51

The Freiheit song is a goodie, from 1988, the same year as Sir Cliff 'Mistletoe and Wine', with gifts on the fire and logs on the tree, a time to rejoice in the goods that we see.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 08 Dec 2016, 10:40

I want to type the F word as today, my only chance in 2 weeks of lots of overtime to tidy my garden and prune my roses, hydrangeas etc, what does the weather decide to do?

Actually, I think I will type the F word, in bold type and capitals as I'm so charlied off sat here listening to Vaughan Williams when I should be deadheading my coreopses.

FARAGE!

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 08 Dec 2016, 18:14

You van dead head your corpses another day. I was picking mistletoe in the pouring rain too.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 08 Dec 2016, 18:52

I did manage to get some work done, and the weather cleared to leave a lovely warm day and 14 degrees, but I had a handbell gig to do at 1400 so I did everything but the coreopses and cleared a few loads of autumn leaves from the back whilst lunch was cooking. Tomorrow, it's into town to get my wife's Christmas present.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 11 Dec 2016, 14:44

Just thinking, I could murder some figgy pudding.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 11 Dec 2016, 18:09

Two more weeks and you'll be sick of it!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 14 Dec 2016, 22:42

Just looking through the Christmas TV guides, we're going to be getting the bizarre spectacle of a train guard stepping out of a steam train and shouting 'OILY!!!!' The Flying Scotsman on the Severn Valley Railway.

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 15 Dec 2016, 16:59

Well that's ONE programme I might like...haven't seen much of interest in the guides yet.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 15 Dec 2016, 21:00

Dave Lee Travis, Jimmy Savile, Mike Read etc. would like to offer their yuletide felicitations:

http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/sounds/jin ... y_xmas.mp3

I think Messrs Wogan, Young and Moore wish to join in:

http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/sounds/r280sjingle_54.mp3

Post by **Gill the Piano** » 16 Dec 2016, 21:47

That took me back!

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 17 Dec 2016, 17:58

Originality, eh...Radio 2 had a version of the first link where 1 was substituted for 2, I remember it from when my mother used to have it on.

dave brum · Post by **dave brum** » 22 Dec 2016, 12:25

Thank you for the card Gill, arrived today.