New paintings and regular art updates.
Can you see this… Sketch of an accordion.. On the back of an envelope in pencil. I loved the curve of it. The way the lines flow up through the instrument and into the knitted jumper. Yes I loved drawing the hands as he played. There is a round table with a half empty glass of bass beer (with a triangular trade mark), a notebook and his mobile phone. Plus a bass beer mat. I am not advertising though. It was lovely and welcoming at the Beehive pub in Honeywall, Stoke-on-Trent.
I tried a sketch
Of this trombone
But halfway through
It was lifted
And played
Right in front of me.
A glorious rendition
Of the Sloop John B
With accompanying
Guitar, Accordion and Cornet.
So I sang along instead…
At the Beehive pub in Honeywall on Wednesday night. I don’t go very often to listen to the Boatband and their cajun and folk music. But it was the day before the 2nd anniversary of a very sad occasion and I wanted to take my mind off it.
The thing was someone had given me a pencil to make some notes with and I had some scraps of paper in my bag, so I decided to try and do some drawings. This was one of them.
I loved the sinuous shape of the violin and the way the musician held it and the bow, and I was transported back 40 years to my younger self drawing and sketching. I’m rather pleased with the result despite my shaking hands.
Today I felt like I climbed a mountain…. I was rehearsing with the choir that is putting on a Christmas show tomorrow in the church. For weeks we have sung in the choir stalls near the altar, which was easy enough to move around. But last night they bought in a stage made of a metal framework and a flat top. It had a step up to it. That’s great but I struggled to climb up onto it. My Parkinsons makes me feel like I’m teetering forward and over balancing, which, added to vertigo, made me feel very unsafe.
The compromise was to sit or stand at the side of the stage, then walk up and round some steps behind the choir stalls to come out by the altar. Three steps, not as steep, but in almost complete darkness, which bought out my anxiety again. I hauled myself up the steps and dropped down them on the way back, making my knees hurt.
After eight or ten of these trips I was shattered. The show is the cast singing big songs interspersed with individual solos. It was very tiring. I felt like I’d climbed a mountain. So as a compromise during the performance I will mostly be sitting in the main church, just moving to the side of the stage for the ensemble songs… As I say I’m shattered!
For health….
My Parkinsons is getting worse so I’m getting some therapy to help keep my voice strong and help my throat muscles.
I’ve joined a few choirs over the years and found out singing is great for lung health, breath control, and keeping your throat clear.
So this week I’m actually going to 4 rehearsals and will be singing with friends at a Christmas show on Friday. My main concern is my poor balance and weakening muscles. Shaking and stuttering isn’t helping either, I need to keep trying to improve. Maybe I need physiotherapy. Thanks for hearing my moaning!
One of the choirs I’m in went to a singathon today. Choirs and performances all day. This is a photo in the cafe. I don’t have permission to take photos of the participants.
It was lovely to join in with the choir, we sang songs from around the world including Tonga, Trinidad, France, Romanian, and Maori. I had to have a chair as I cannot stand for long, which is immensely frustrating. But it was great to be out and about, and driving through the autumn countryside was a bonus.
As we left we heard the theme to “Blackadder” played on recorders through an open window. A really eccentric English moment.
I forgot to post and now it’s 1.04am so I’ve lost my number of days of posting consistently. I have been busy looking after my cat and I went to choir practice. I then fell asleep and I only just woke up. I should really have gone to bed, but the armchair is comfortable and warm. Upstairs is a lot colder because I am trying to save on the energy bill. Anyway, boring post! Goodnight!
Today I went to sing with loud mouth women at Congleton in Cheshire. It’s the furthest I’ve traveled in a year and I had to get a lift from another choir member as I’m not allowed to drive yet and I won’t drive that far anyway.
The photo doesn’t really show it but it’s quite a steep slope at Congleton Physic garden. The performance area was down a grassy slope and over uneven crazy paving type stones. That made me pretty nervous and I had to hang onto an arm to get down there even with my walking stick.
I’d borrowed a collapsible stool so I could sit down when I needed. But I managed to stand up during our performance. We sang a mixture of Croatian, French and medieval songs together with a few more modern songs. There were not many of us so we moved around, some people sang high and then low parts, I sang low and middle. This was strangely our first performance of the year so it was a little anxiety making. But we managed with just a couple of mistakes.
I’m home now and only just feeling a bit less tired. Sitting in a strange car, out of my control made me very tense, but I’m glad I went and I’m glad I sang.
What brings you peace?
I’m not keen on pop music, but I’m finding that as I get older I’m happy and at peace when I’m listening to classical music. Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Mendelson, Holst, and several more. I’m not good at remembering the sonata, or opera, or symphony titles and numbers. But I love the sound.
I’ll sometimes try and sing gentle songs, some religious, some not. It’s the sound and choral tones that affect me. Brings me peace.
I sang in the opera choir and the photos of us singing are now out on the website. People gave permission to be photographed but I don’t have that permission so I have blurred out their images. What a strange world we live in where we can delete or smudge out images if people we don’t want or require? The world changes quickly.
Mallaband-Brown