layclerk.org

New Year

Gosh - look at that... it's September tomorrow.  Where did the summer go?

Those lazy Sunday mornings with nothing to do were certainly a welcome novelty for a while there, but I guess that - just like every other cathedral lay clerk out there - I'd better dust down my vocal chords and prepare myself for the start of a new term.

The holidays - such as they were with the dreadful weather we all had this year in the British Isles - are now over, and most of the cathedral choirs will be starting back over the next week.  Frightened-looking young boys and girls will be joining treble lines, equally frightened-looking choral and organ scholars will be finding their feet, seasoned lay clerks will be re-establishing their routine, and directors of music up and down the country will be bracing themselves for yet another year of blood, sweat, and tears in the year ahead.

And why do we all do it?  Well I guess there's any number of personal motivations, but at the heart of it we love all share a passion for church music.

We're all going on a...

Yesterday was the end of term, and the cathedral choir are now on summer holiday for the next 8 weeks.

Not that it feels like summer.  It's been throwing it down with rain for weeks on end, and it's also unseasonably cold and windy.  And there appears to be little sign of an improvement in weather conditions in the near future.

But weather aside, it's good to know that we have some time off from our singing duties.  I can reclaim my weekends, and do all the jobs I've been putting off over the last term.  Although, having said that, I'm just as likely to miss the singing as well.  During the recent half-term break, I ended up getting very bored, and I only had to survive a week without music.

It doesn't help, as well, that almost my entire social life seems to revolve around the choir people.  And without them, I would appear to be a bit of a 'Billy no-mates'.  So I can only hope that at least some of them are going to stick around in the city over the summer.

A few folk - sadly - will not be around, as they're leaving the choir to go on and do bigger and better things.  And we took the opportunity to say goodbye to them after evensong yesterday.  The director of music made a bit of a speech, leaving presents were handed out, and quite a lot of alcohol was consumed.

Of course, come the start of next year in September, we'll be welcoming a bunch of new people to replace the folk that left: a new organ scholar, and various different singers.  One much-heralded arrival, however, looks like it might not happen.  Rumour has it that one of our new tenors may have received a 'better offer' and is currently trying to back out of his contract.  Which would be a shame, as we were all rather looking forward to having a full-strength tenor line again.

Even so, the choir still has many exciting things to look forward to at the start of next term, including two live BBC broadcasts, three concerts, a combined service with another cathedral choir, and three carol services just before Christmas.  It's going to be a fun term.  Can't wait!

Baroque and Roll

Ended evensong in a very good mood today, principally because we had just sung a load of Purcell music.  I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of the stuff.

My current director of music seems to be a fan of early music and modern 20th/21st century music, and very little in-between.  As such, it's a rare treat to get a whole day of early baroque.  The renaissance music we do is also very cool, but I've certain felt a bit deprived of baroque and classical music during this term.

Birthday selection

We had some pretty cool music for Evensong today.

Some months ago at a cathedral event, there had been a silent auction to help raise funds for something or other.  And one of the lots on offer was the ability to select the music for a service.  It's a slightly dangerous offer to make, as anybody could have ended up winning the auction, and they could have chosen a complete load of dross for us to sing.

Luckily the winner was a musician himself, and he ended up picking some rather tasteful, fun, and (as it happens) rather difficult music.  He also chose to have it performed on his birthday, which was today.

After Evensong, he even came and spoke to the choir, and said how delighted he was with our performance - and how the music had managed to both move him to tears and to laugh out loud - but in a good way.

Holidays are coming

With the end of term just a couple of weeks away, it's not long till the summer break. There's no tour this year, so the choir are getting a full eight weeks off without any singing duties. And although I'm certainly going to miss the music (and the social aspects of the choir) during the break, I'm also quite keen on the idea of reclaiming my weekends.

I've already got two long weekends planned during July and August, and no-doubt I'll fit in a few other short trips. But I don't think I'll fit in a proper holiday this summer - I just don't have the money for it. Flights and accommodation are just so expensive at this time of year. Indeed, it's the same old problem that teachers and parents have been complaining since the beginning of time - that holiday prices shoot up during the school holidays.

Oh well, I guess I just might have to prevail upon the (hopefully generous) hospitality of friends and family for this summer, and maybe slip a quick week away in the sun during the October half-term.

Elsewhere

For the first time since I started singing at the cathedral, I'm making the effort this evening to go and hear another church choir in the city.

I'm also feeling the need to recharge my Anglo-Catholic batteries with a bit of high-church worship too. And luckily it's the feast of Corpus Christi this evening, so I'm rather hoping there'll be a huge procession of the Blessed Sacrament (under canopy, of course) around the church.

I didn't grow up in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, but stumbled upon it somewhat by accident in later life. And since then, I've grown to love the sumptuous imagery cultivated in the high-church rituals. For me, it makes for a much more spiritual experience in church, and (handily) provides the perfect backdrop for presenting equally-sumptuous sacred music.

I've not been to this particular church before - nor have I heard their choir - but I did check out their web site a couple of days ago, and the music list seems quite promising… a bit of Viennese splendor and some French late-romantic music. Who could ask for more?

Extra service

The employment contract for the cathedral is very clear... there are a set number of services to sing each week, plus a list of named additional services during the year - at times such as Christmas, Holy Week, Ascension, and so on.  But I don't remember there being any mention of today - particularly as today's no more special than being the first Friday after Pentecost.

Any yet, there's the extra sung service today of Compline, which should last all of... erm... about 20 minutes.  And according to the afore mentioned employment contract, this should be classed as an 'extra engagement', which should in turn demand an additional fee.  Hmmm...

Singing lesson

I had a singing lesson last night with a new teacher. I've not had many lessons before; only three, in fact, about 8 years ago. And so, I wasn't really sure what to expect. Was I expected to have prepared a piece to sing? Would I be expected to talk with great authority about fancy things like coloratura (a word I find difficult to pronounce, never mind understand), or know how to compose a tierce de picardie (yes, I just had to look up the spelling)?

Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about any of that. We just ran through a few simple exercises to do with breathing and voice production. And she gave me some general advice about what I should be doing between lessons, when I'm singing at home or in the cathedral.

I guess I already knew some of the stuff that we talked about. It's just that I hardly ever remember to put the good technique into practise. For instance, I know that I should always be supporting my breath from the diaphragm (so that when I breathe in, my belly moves out rather than my chest), but when I'm in the middle of evensong - perhaps performing an unfamiliar piece of music - thoughts of good technique tend to escape me, because I'm too busy worrying about singing the right notes.

Luckily, when I admitted this last night, she said that I'm no different to everyone else. In fact, she likened it to learning to drive a car. At first, you're very conscious of the three pedals, mirrors, steering wheel, and gear stick (not to mention the other cars), and when stressed you sometimes forget what to do. But eventually it all becomes second nature and you don't even think about it. Well you should think of me as being someone who's just had their first driving lesson, and is still potentially a danger to other musical traffic.

Full choir

We managed to field a full-strength choir on Sunday, for the first time in quite a while. 

Normally we get by with just a few voices per part - indeed on some days the ensemble is deliberately limited to just 2 to a part, which can be great fun (if a little scary).  But it was even better to see the choir stalls groaning with bodies on Sunday, because we had quite a lot of big two-choir music to do.

We even managed to field four tenors, which is a real luxury as we currently only have two full-time tenor layclerks (and for a while before Easter there was only one).  Thankfully our deps are top-notch, and are coming in regularly over the rest of this term to help fill in the gaps, until two more tenors arrive in September.

In my previous parish church existance, with an amateur choir, getting enough people to show up to do big music was always a problem.  The director of music could have put in months of preparation, but at the end of the day, he would be at the mercy of whether people could be bothered to get out of bed on a Sunday morning.  And so, many's the time in the past that we struggled through a piece with key people (and sometimes, entire sections) absent.  But you just got on with it - hoping all the while that it didn't get so bad that you had to cancel or change pieces at the last minute.  And with a few decent voices you can just-about get by.

But that kind of approach isn't obviously good enough for a professional cathedral choir.  The singers are paid to turn up, and if they can't make it, are expected to find someone else to deputise for them.  Which is quite refreshing for me - as I no longer have to worry about being asked to sight-sing the bass line at a moment's notice.  I don't have to worry about whether other singers are going to show up, and instead can concentrate on my own part.

Wednesday

Today's the end of the singing year for the girls' choir. Following this afternoon's evensong I believe there's some kind of leavers' presentation and a bit of a party, and the lay vicars choral have been invited along to witness the carnage, along with the girls' parents.

It seems awfully early to be marking the end of the term. Easter was only a few weeks ago, and the end of the school year must be at least a month off. So I'm not quite so sure why the girls are finishing so early. I'm guessing that it might be something to do with avoiding school exam time, but I'm not really sure.

But as for the rest of us, we've got another seven weeks to go till we finish for the summer. Our last sung service of the year is on the 8th July, and there's a lot of music to get through between now and then. Indeed, we've got some pretty exciting stuff coming up in the next few weeks, including two brand new compositions that we'll be premiering. One is a commission from a local eminent composer, and the other is the winning entry from a music composition competition. Both are exciting works, and also quite challenging to perform.