UK Piano Page Piano Forum

Break a leg, Feg!

Big brave girl, Fiona. Just thinking about accompanying makes my tummy turn through 90 degrees!

I heard this funny three-and-a-half minute pop tune yesterday whilst I was eating in an Argentinian restaurant in Birmingham city centre, which I've discovered to be the handiwork of a band called The Feeling. Actually the meal I had in there was very substantial so The Feeling was quite a satisfied one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMMO4Nwidq0

dave brum wrote:Big brave girl, Fiona. Just thinking about accompanying makes my tummy turn through 90 degrees!

I'm at the stage where, much as I'd like to play every note perfectly, I've mentally gone through the music and made certain changes which make little difference harmonically, but reduce my stress levels considerably. As well as playing the piano, I've got to keep an eye and at least one ear on my pupils. There is one piece where they have a tendency to either miss the tied note across the bar line, or in another passage, put a tied note where there isn't one. If either of those things happen, I'm improvising!

If you ever come across Gerald Moore's memoirs, its a great read - called Am I too Loud? Full of tales of accompanying the great and good and the not so great or not so good!

Michael Barratt, Bob Wellings, Luke Casey, Khalid Aziz, not to mention Frank Bough, Sue Lawley and that loudmouthed chap from Strabane would have been proud of me today. It's been 'The Good Word', better known as the theme tune from 'Nationwide'.

That was my lightbulb moment, Feg, at a festival where I was strung out from accompanying. I volunteered to turn for another accompanist and the penny dropped; 'SHE ISN'T PLAYING ALL THE NOTES!!' And what's more nobody a) noticed, or b) died. So now I do the same and, as you say, lower stress levels by about 75%.

Well I survived

The church was cold, surprisingly for our local church, and my arthritic hands were not playing ball, but I didn't fluff too many of the notes and managed to cover when, as expected, my little darlings forgot to tie the notes over the bar and I had a three beat bar then a two beat bar times two to deal with.

I'm happy, the children were happy and the audience were happy. Now to brave the Gala concert tonight. Lots of 'please don't ask the Chair to say a few words' thoughts for me would be appreciated.

You'll be wonderful! Just smile and thank everybody else and they'll think you're the bee's knees. Which of course you are...

Tchaikovsky's Italian Caprice. We had this on 78rpm as part of one of Charlie Kunz' piano medleys on Decca years ago, but it was entitled 'The Echo Told Me A Lie' on there, so it had obviously been made into a pop song.

Yes, I have the 1940s sheet music with Vera Lynn on the front. I learned to play it from that sheet music which was in the piano stool when we bought it, and I got such a shock when I heard it played 'proper'!

An outbreak of Slavonicism in work today, as I came across a Naxos CD of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances in Oxfam Harborne today, that's both sets of Dances. But it's the popular dance no 8 of the opus 46 I've had today.

The old ABRSM Grade 1 Piano pieces from 2009 that was there yesterday morning had gone this morning.

Are you still working in Oxfam? i send all my customers there to look for new music - there are some real bargains to be had!

No. Not since January 2015. But I get all my classical CDS from there. And all my sheet music is in a box waiting to go up there whenever I have a mo.

Yesterday began with 'Love On A Farm Boy's Wages' by XTC then went to Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fucik (ensuring that my spellchecker doesn't omit one of the letters of his surname) and ended with the March of Brian Ború.

Genesis 'That's All'. I kept walking in time to it too.

'C'Mon In', otherwise known as the theme tune to Breakfast Special, which used to go out on the old Light Programme on 1500 metres long wave and VHF after Tony Blackburn's breakfast show began on the new Radio 1, on 247 metres medium wave.

Today - the cleverest song ever made, according to the Guardian, Ebenezer Goode, by The Shamen from the early 1990s.

For some obscure reason, today's earworm has been the theme tune to 'Jackanory' !

Today twas a bit of Glazunov. Autumn from 'The Seasons' which was a ballet. It was also the theme tune from the old classical music programme 'Concert Hall' on Worcester based Independent Local Radio station Radio Wyvern in the 80s, presented by David Hart, who was a music teacher in South Shropshire. From a time when ILR had a mandatory duty by the IBA to provide specialist programmes to minority audiences. I miss the IBA! And I wonder what David Hart is up to, if he's still alive.....?

The theme tune from 'Last Tango In Paris '. I wish the version by Max Greger Senior and Junior was on YouTube, it is very rare.

I've still got poxy Puccini lodged in my earole...

Today, it's been the Largo from Dvorak's Symphony No.9. The Scherzo was on the radio on the way into work and also on the way back from work today.

As was the Autumn movement from The Seasons by Glazunov, referred to earlier on. Good old Concert Hall on Radio Wyvern!!

I've had a stupid Russian alphabet song wibbling round the vast empty tracts of my brain. Which would be fine if I could actually remember the names of the letters instead of fizzling out a third of the way through ...

Got 'Dub Be Good To Me' by Beats International on the brian now. I heard it played in a pound shop in Longbridge today, and earlier this week the original version by the SOS Band was on the in-store radio station at work.

'I Am The Beat' by the Look. Love it!

Used to have that 45. When you play it, assuming your deck doesn't have auto return at the end of a record, the 4/4 beat, with the chant 'BEAT!' on the main beat, just goes on and on and on for ever at the end.

Apparently because of that, they marketed it as the longest single EVER. Could be right. I love it though, it's still going through my head today!

Started out with 'London Is The Place For Me' by Lord Kitchener as I'm going there on Thursday. Then it mutated into 'Sweet About Me' by Gabriela Cilmi, which has a highly infectious swingy rhythm.

Some Einaudi drivel that is driving me mad, after a customer's kid played it to me. Grr.

I was going to say yesterday's earworm was, yes it's true, I am happy to be stuck with you, you know I am, I really am, by Huey Lewis and the News. It was played again today as I suffered a mighty avalanche of bakery stock in the freezer crash to the ground.

Blimey - were you all right???

Yes, but everything that could have gone wrong went wrong yesterday in work. It didn't help that I was still creamed from doing Christmas Chopin in central Birmingham the day before so I wasn't firing on all cylinders.

All the shopping centres I went by yesterday were chocker; I HATE Saturdays near Christmas.

Heard 'Hallelujah' twice in 24 hours, the excellent Jeff Buckley cover was booming out of the Joe and the Juice outside John Lewis in central Brum yesterday whilst I was standing outside at five to nine waiting for it to open. Then, some busker was singing it in Sowleyhull earlier on. Despite this, it is not an earworm. The Cooking Carol today. Cooking, Wenceslas looked out.

...and we all know he liked his pizzas 'deep pan,crisp and even'.

The Little Mix song they play in work. I now know it is actually entitled Shout Out To My Ex (Boyfriend). It will always be shut up to my ass, you've really cut me grass. After all, it is not SUPPOSED to be appreciative art?

I've been doing my accounts all day; can only think of Abba Money Money Money, or If I Were A Rich Man...

Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee, which was a hit when we had at least 30 degrees every day for three weeks and subsequent water shortages. On a freezing cold December day when I had to de-ice the car twice.

'The Angel Gabriel' is buzzing through my brain (such as it is) today.

Most highly painted lady.

Doing the housework this morning with ELP Karn Evil 9, so very surprised in my inability to get the Shake and Vac ditty out of my head. But my conservatory smells like a lemon grove in Sicily.

Glen Campbell 'Southern Nights'. Probably written when he was staying over in Bexhill.

The catchy Gato Barbieri theme from Last Tango In Paris. Wish I could get hold of a copy of the version by Max Greger Senior and Junior, saxophone giving way to a mighty psychedelic organ jam. I had it on one of those Polydor 'Best Of Super Stereo Easy Listening 1971' type compilation albums that I had a bit of a thing about in my teens when all my peers were into Simple Minds and Yazz etc.

''Down At the Old Bull & Bush''. Bush Bush!!

Had some queer looks as well!

Slade 'How Do You Feel' on continuous loop in the brain today.

We had Mama Weer (sic) All Crazee (sic) Now on in work today. You see, school standards in Wolverhampton were at a low point even in the 1950s!!

Noddy Holder seems to have done all right for himself though - despite spelling issues.

Yes, he's built a business on being saft. He could teach old Trumpy a thing or two!

Today it's been The Peanut Vendor. Though in my case it should become The Doughnut Vendor, eight bags of jam and custard ones, plus six of each Mondelez Caramel and Dairy Milk ones.

Also the old theme music from ITN News at One/First Report.

Another old curiosity today, Every Day Of My Life by David Hughes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgQxcy-iTZ8

Had 'Skyfall' as my earworm since Wednesday when I played it for the choir. Fed up with it now.