Singing Lessons

After a few hours with two different teachers I am beginning to understand what I don’t know about singing!  It’s like learning anything physical for the first time, like riding a bike or swimming, it doesn’t come naturally. From time to time I hit some resonances somewhere in my body or in my head and the sound comes out effortlessly. At other times it just doesn’t happen and the difficulty that I am having producing the sound has increased my respect for singers with great voices.

Corinne is more formal, with an active performing career. She is very “sympa” and I like her lessons because they are intense. She tries to get you there by using lots of visual images, but I didn’t find that particularly helpful because I needed to hear and feel for myself what she is trying to explain.

The other teacher, is literally very hands on. She likes to poke, prod, push and jiggle you about until you start to relax, or get into the right position. The sessions with her were in the form of a workshop over a weekend in which there were eight students of varying abilities. It was very instructive to watch others struggling to create the sound she wanted, or to interpret a song with feeling. Sometimes that helped me learn a lot, almost as much as I did during my individual sessions with her. At other times listening to the others doing their exercises was tedious or even occasionally intrusive.

She has a wide repertoire of techniques and varies them to suit the individual. At one point she had me marching up and down, stamping my feet and shouting, with a lady either side of me doing the same but better. Quite frankly that didn’t work, and the minute that I stopped moving I immediately produced the sound she wanted. It made me think of the old joke about Gerald Ford, (when he kept falling over it was said that he couldn’t walk and f*rt at the same time). That, of course, caused me to burst out laughing and then I had to try and explain the joke in French!
I was better when I was truly singing, rather than doing voice production, and I surprised myself and the others by singing three of the exercise pieces by Vaccai on the second run through in each case. But I couldn’t do it when she started moving my head about so that I couldn’t see the music anymore.

On the second day she used various members of the group to sing pieces together. Sometimes as a backing for an individual who needed support, at other times in duos or trios. Two of the men in the group sang a Russian song with a superb bass sonority, ideally suited to the pitch and the language of the piece. It really was exceptional and good enough to perform anywhere. Later four of us were spontaneously swaying gently and humming the tune of “Memory” behind one of the ladies who was singing the words.

It was a good group, with a very supportive friendly atmosphere and, although I wasn’t certain at first, I have decided to go to at least one other workshop in March. I will need to prepare something for that. I didn’t know that I should have prepared a couple of solo pieces for this workshop, and she didn’t seem to like me singing the tenor part of the choral pieces that I had brought with me. I have never attempted any solos before but I like the sound of Italian, the vowels are so open and ideal for singing. Although I would like to try some of the Opera classics like “La Donna e Mobile” from Rigoletto or “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée,” from Carmen, when I listened to Roberto Alagna singing those I was very discouraged. I think perhaps my voice is more suited to Mozart and that will have to be transposed down!

I am seeing Corinne again this week; perhaps I should ask her to suggest something less ambitious.

105 Years Old Today - Thanks Dad!

The Tympan at Conques - the Last Judgement

Above the door of the Abbey of St Foy at Conques, about 80km south of here, is a magnificent representation in stone carvings of the Last Judgement as seen through 12th Century medieval eyes.  The original was painted and the vestiges of the colours can still be seen.  Christ in his majesty is at the centre, with his saints on his right hand side and the righteous living under their protection below.  On the left of Christ, behind some guardian angels, are sinners being submitted to violent acts by monstrous creatures.  The Devil is well established in hell below and to the left of Christ.  Entering the gate of hell the sinner has to pass through a monster's mouth and inside hell more horror awaits.  Some of the sinners are being eaten, tortured or mutilated in quite horrific scenes. Around the edge of the arch Les Curieux are peeking through onto the scenes below, pulling back the stone as if it was a curtain.  

In the early medieval period, an era when access to books was limited to a few trained monks or scholars, and common people received the word of god through their priests in latin, the scenes on the Tympan were a vivid and highly graphic way of reinforcing the consequences of a life of sin.  I am sure they were highly effective.

A more detailed explanation of the Tympan is available in English here, courtesy of Augusta Education. A series of panoramic views which show the Abbatiale in 360 degree views is available here.

The embedded flash movie below allows you to zoom in and navigate around the image.  Be patient, it is a big file and slow to load on a rural 512k connection like mine.

Not working? Get the Flash Player to see this flash movie.

Technical note
I stood below the Tympan with a hand held Canon 450D camera and took two rows of overlapping pictures across the Tympan using the 18-55mm kit lens at 55mm.  I later stitched these together using PTGui.  I opened the resulting large image in Photoshop Elements and corrected the perspective by extending the top of the image upwards and widening it.  I then loaded this corrected image into Pano2VR and chose the parameters to create the flash movie.  This was then uploaded to SWFCabin and the code to embed it in Blogger was copied into the HTML of this posting.

Mahler – A Transcendental Experience

Driving round the N104, the Parisian equivalent of the South Circular, on the way home from the exhausting Christmas and New Year celebrations, I turned on France Musique and a Mahler symphony was playing. After a while I recognized Symphony No 2 “The Resurrection” and I was enjoying hearing something that I hadn’t listened to for a long time.

Whilst the last two movements were playing I remembered an occasion years ago when I was at a concert in the Barbican in London. Michael Tilson Thomas was conducting the LSO playing Mahler's 3rd Symphony. It had been a long day and after the vocal part at the beginning of the 5th movement, just when you are expecting the finale, there is a further twenty minutes of orchestral music to finish the 90 minute piece. Slowly I realized that I had somehow entered a timeless space. I was not asleep, I could hear and see everything going on around me, but I was not in a normal state of consciousness. This lasted until the end of the symphony when there was no jerk back to normality, or even a sensation of waking up and consciousness returning, just a transition back to a normal state of mind. I have never felt like that before or since, and I can only assume that it was some sort of transcendental experience brought about by a long tiring day and the intense concentration that an hour or so of active listening requires.

When the France Musique announcer said that the concert was a recording of the Maryinsky orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev I was not surprised. The interpretation and playing were excellent and the solo singers outstanding. Gergiev has been one of my favourite conductors for a while now. He has an understanding of music which lets it speak for itself without imposing annoying personal quirks of interpretation. He also gets the best playing from his orchestra. The downside is his vocalizations!

You could never say that Leonard Bernstein’s interpretations were not personal, but he understood Mahler like no one else of his generation. It was hearing him conducting No 5 with the Vienna Philharmonic on Thursday 10th September 1987 at a BBC Prom that made me aware of the Mahlerian musical landscape and started me off in that direction. That exceptional concert is still mentioned occasionally in Proms programme notes. 

Fortunately, fur bru has somehow found a recording with very good sound quality, probably made by the BBC, which captures this event.

Later in January we are going to London to hear Gustavo Dudamel conduct Mahler’s 9th with the LA Philharmonic. His appearances with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra have wowed everybody and although he is still very young he has impressed the music world, including professionals like Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado. So much so that at the age of 26 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and in 2009 he became Music Director of the LA Phil.

The last time I saw Mahler's 9th in the concert hall was on 25th August 1994 when Claudio Abbado conducted it with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Proms. After he had drawn out the last bars of the fourth movement to an almost inaudible pianissimo, and then held the audience in suspense for at least twenty seconds, whilst we could hear the silence, a packed Royal Albert Hall gave him a standing ovation. That was an experience never to be forgotten and Gustavo has a lot to live up to!
I think he is up to the challenge.

Here Gustavo is conducting the opening of Mahler's 9th.

The Trouble with Physics



Lee Smolin

 I bought myself a book for Christmas called the “Trouble with Physics” by Lee Smolin. He calls into question the physics research of the last thirty years by taking a layman, like myself, on a tour of the five great unanswered problems in physics (**see below), from its inability so far to unify general relativity and quantum theory, to the need to explain dark matter and dark energy.

In fact he starts by representing the lack of fundamental theoretical breakthroughs in the last thirty years as a failure and goes on to undermine much of the current research in physics by describing it as being based on unsound foundations.  He consequently attracts criticism even "flaming” for his challenging views from certain physicists who, in the direction of their research, are committed to what amounts to the new orthodoxy of String Theory.

Perhaps this extract below concerning supersymmetry will help explain why he is sometimes considered controversial.

"In supersymmetry-theory convention, the superpartners of fermions begin with an “s,” like the selectron, while the superpartners of bosons end in “ino.” .........
First of all a theory cannot be partly supersymmetric. If one particle has a superpartner, they all must. Thus, each quark comes with a bosonic partner, a squark. The photon is partnered with a new fermion, the photino. ..........
Not only are there squarks and sleptons and photinos, there are also sneutrinos to partner the neutrinos, Higgsinos with the Higgs, and gravitinos to go with the gravitons. Two by two, a regular Noah’s ark of particles. Sooner or later, tangled in the web of new snames and naminos, you begin to feel like Sbozo the clown. Or Bozo the clownino, or swhatever."

Within the context of a comprehensive review of recent research, he paints a picture of a large highly cohesive group of earnest string theorists unquestioningly following their leaders and excluding alternative views or fields of research. Whilst doing so they are ignoring the basic requirement of a scientific theory, which is to make predictions that are testable by observation and experiment. (Otherwise it is all just metaphysics - my comment not his!)
Towards the end of the book he comments on the sociological aspects of the organisation of scientific research in physics and finds many elements of the same sort of "groupthink" that has unfortunately been seen in twentieth century politics.  In addition he makes the case that academic recruitment to physics research posts in the USA is structured in such a way that the likelihood of scientific visionary thinkers obtaining a post is extremely limited, whilst those researchers committed to extending the work of more senior scientists in the current orthodoxies are most likely to be appointed or given tenure. He implies that without a change in the support made available to visionary theorists the US physics academy will continue to stagnate in terms of a lack of fundamental and testable theoretical breakthroughs. 
The irony is, as he also points out, that the psychology and sociology of these self sustaining groupthink situations, which undermine performance or lead to disastrous consequences, is well understood, particulary by US academics in other disciplines and even in businesses.

I found it surprisingly soothing over the Christmas and New Year holidays after I had had a wisdom tooth removed and whilst I was surrounded by family chit-chat in French.

Here is Lee in entertain and amaze mode!


**1. Combine general relavity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory pf nature.  This is called quantum gravity.
2. Resolve the problems in the foundations of quantum mechanics, either by making sense of the theory as it stands or by inventing a new theory which does makes sense.
3. Determine whether or not the various particles and forces can be unified in a theory that explains them all as manifestations of a single fundamental entity.  The unification of the particles and forces.
4. Explain how the free constants in the standard model of particle physics are chosen in nature.
5. Explain Dark Matter and Dark Energy.  Or if they don't exist determine how and why gravity is modified on large scales.  More generally, explain why the constants of the standard model of cosmology, including the dark energy, have the values they do.  

Ice Sculptures

The centre of Paris at Christmas is impressively festive.  The elegance of the illuminations in the Place Vendome and the extravagance of the facades of the big stores like Printemps and Lafayette really have to be seen to be appreciated. 
All along the Champs Elysees is a Christmas Market set up in wooden chalets which sells everything that any tourist or Parisian could want to buy on a cold winter's day. 
About halfway along is a large insulated tent, which is cooled to -6 degrees centigrade and in which you can see ice sculptures.   The ice is shipped from Canada because to get such clear ice, the water has to be very low in dissolved gases.  The owner, who obviously enjoyed chatting to the crowds in the queue, explained that they used twenty sculptors from many different countries who work for three weeks to create the show and that on 6th January it was all going to be brutally dismantled as it is everywhere they go.  It was clear that the proportions of some things had been distorted to fit the blocks of ice but overall I was impressed with the results.  I hope that the photos below give a good idea of the show.

A Christmas Concert

Here in rural France opportunities for attending live concerts are limited, so since autumn 2009 I have been singing in a small choir.  It's always good to try new things but until I started singing I never understood just how hard it is to to make music yourself and to do it well.  Not knowing how to sight read is a significant disadvantage, which means that I spend many hours in front of my computer learning the pieces. Fortunately the Choir Master is computer orientated and he sends out midi files which I can edit and play on Notation Composer, whilst watching the screen or reading the score. 

The choir likes to sing quite sophisticated music from the 15th century onwards, often in latin or modern european languages.  This is much more interesting to perform, and for audiences to listen to, than the popular songs and show tunes that some other local choirs choose to do.  At least I think so!  It is also more difficult, and at times rehearsals have felt like a particularly refined form of torture while I struggled, along with most of the rest of the choir, to get things right.  Even after I have learnt the music well at home, singing with other people frequently makes things go wrong. A different tempo or the lack of a cue for an entry can easily put you off.  I usually find that I don't know the pieces as well as I thought I did!

On Saturday 18th December we gave our first real concert this year in the Church at Teyssieu. The acoustic is wonderful and it really enhanced the performance, but it was absolutely freezing. I was hiding safely out of sight behind the sopranos where the occasional mistake could not be easily localized.  The programme was quite ambitious being a mixture of sacred pieces and traditional, but very old, Christmas songs together with a vocal quartet and solo items.  For the two principal pieces in the concert two violins, a flute, a cello and a keyboard provided the accompaniment.  



Marc-Antoine Charpentier

We had seven weeks to learn the music, and even though some of the choir already knew half of the pieces, it was barely enough.  But we only had about three hours, spread over several days, to rehearse with the string continuo and that proved to be insufficient. In the performance of the Messe de Minuit by Charpentier the choir missed an entry in the Kyrie, after a passage of instrumental music, and ground to a halt.  The saving grace was that the musicians kept playing, so that only the more knowledgeable people in the audience realised we had gone badly wrong.  By the time we came to the second half we were in our stride and gave a good account of that part of the programme, even though we were all frozen and thinking about the vin chaud which was to follow at Netty's house.  For the obligatory encore, the choir refused the suggestion by the Choir Master to attempt the Kyrie again and he opted for Pastores Loquebantur (by Brixi), an easier but still quite impressive piece. 

The people I spoke to afterwards were complimentary about the performance and particularly the quality of the sound that we produced.  All, that is, except for one ex-chorister who said that the second half was better and he was right!  Whilst drinking a vin chaud, which was excellent and very necessary, in Netty's elegant and warm house, I avoided talking to the ex-Choir Mistress who had retired from directing the choir just before I joined.  I am sure she could have been much more critical if she had wanted to!

I have decided to try taking some singing lessons in January in the hope of learning basic technique and some exercises.  As a minimum I need to increase my range at the top, because I am struggling with notes above the stave, and also to improve my breathing.  It would be nice to learn how to get a real tenor quality in my voice but I mustn’t dream.

The word on the grapevine is that we will be doing another concert in June 2011.  I hope we have sufficient rehearsals to do much better next time!  I also hope that we can pick up some more singers, particularly men, because at the moment I am one of two tenors and there is only one bass!