Musicals, My Fair Lady

I’m currently watching ‘My Fair Lady’ a musical based on the story Pigmalion by George Bernard Shaw.

The story is about a flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who is trying to improve her cockney accented voice by taking lessons from Professor Higgins. She is taken in by the Professor who says he will turn her into someone who sounds like a duchess in six months. However his methods are unfeeling and really push Eliza. The film seems to sympathise with the professor rather than Eliza.

Songs like ‘all I want is a room somewhere’, ‘the rain in spain’ and ‘I could have danced all night’.

Audrey Hepburn stars as Eliza. She was able to sing the songs but they were dubbed by a singer called Marni Nixon, whose voice is in about fifty films!

If you’ve never watched it, you may feel the ideas in it are old fashioned, but it is set in Victorian/Edwardian times. The music is amazing and energetic. Worth watching.

Hand cranked music

Using a handle, the owner of this small but pretty organ was playing at the Etruria Canal festival today. The birds on to of the organ sang and whistled too. They could work independently of the organ and it was good to hear their beautiful sound.

I think the mechanism must drive bellows that sends air down the different pipes of the organ. I didn’t look at the mechanism but it probably runs on cardboard/wood slats with holes and slots cut into them to hold the organ stops open for different lengths of time in order to play music. Presumably the music changes speed depending on how fast the handle is spun round.

Jazz melody

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was melody. My melody is Jazz. Subtle juxtaposition of lilting tunes and jagged zinging dischords….

I added gold leaf to add the sparks of musical energy.. I used felt pens for the background. I drew triangles around dots that had bled through from the other side of the page.

And the winner is…

Last year my hubby and I were extras in a film called Humanus. Since its release we haven’t heard much about it but we knew it was going to be entered into a film festival.

Now I’ve just seen this on Facebook. It’s a shame about the font Flicks film festival uses! But the film won in five categories in the August monthly awards. Best Acting Ensemble, Comedy, Romance, Horror and Musical. Wow I’m amazed. Well done to everyone involved.