Diverse Ramblings

Eurovision: Do Not Want

We just got home from watching Seascape at the theatre, and Michael is watching the Eurovision Song Contest. Nooooooo...

At least they're already on the eighteenth song so I only have to sit through a few more. *sob* Ooooh wait, France is on and it's actually quite a fun song with a bop-she-wop backing chorus.

I hate the intervals between songs because not only do I have to listen to the lame presenters, but Eileen Montesin on TVM then talks over them in Maltese too, and she's not even funny. Where's Wogan? He's the only thing that can make the torture bearable.

*plugs in the earbuds*

Incidentally, I'm looking forward to the entertainment that gets put on while we're waiting for the voting, it's usually the best part of the whole evening.

A feel-good video *grin*

I came across this video on YouTube yesterday, and I loved it so much that I thought I'd share it with you. It's Smoke On The Water, classical Japanese style...

Drummer lady

I'm excited because tonight was my debut performance as a drummer (I feel so cool).

Last Wednesday at church we were about to start the music and Mike said "Why don't you play the drums tonight?". I replied "But I've never played in front of people before!" and his answer was "Well then this would be a good time to start!".

I chickened out that time, but tonight I went for it.

Photo by Adactio

The very first song was All Over The World. Not exactly hardcore lol. We didn't do it quite like in the video... we had two female singers, me on drums, and Mike doubling on vocals and guitar. The pianist was off at his football practice, you're only young once. My drumming was not exactly inspiring, but I was on the beat except for a couple of times when I got distracted by the fact that I was playing! the! drums!

Then we did a chorus in Maltese (forgot what it was), followed by Come Now Is The Time To Worship. The guy whose drum set it is has the snare set up off to the side and at a fairly steep angle instead of between the knees and flat as is customary. When Mike started strumming for CNITTTW in the key of G, the snare started to resonate, which was a bit unnerving. But anyway, he started it soft and slow, so instead of letting loose with the bass drum like we'd practiced, I just played the snare very softly and let the sticks bounce until they naturally stopped moving. They also slid down the drum because it's inclined so steeply, which was fun to watch. Bounce and slide, bounce and slide.

This sound worked really well with the style Mike was playing, and I liked it so much that I just kept doing it for the whole song, bringing in the bass drum for the chorus.

I've been practicing snare drumming for a few weeks now, working on basic rudiments, usually by using my sticks on a paperback book or a cushion because I don't have a practice pad yet. Mike promised to pick one up for me soon though, yay, which means I'll be able to practice things that rely on the bounciness of the drum.

I've only actually played on the real drumset a few times so I'm not used to the locations and sounds of all the bits and pieces. Better a little done well than a lot done badly, so tonight I confined myself to the bass, the snare and one cymbal. Now I'd better start practicing rhythms at home as though I had a full drumset instead of just a snare, lol.

Anyway, it's been ages since I had so much fun playing a musical instrument. I'm looking forward to Sunday, muahahaha. This morning I informed the rest of the team what the songs were for Sunday, and I accidentally put down the wrong name for one of them, and the singers had already rehearsed by the time I realised my mistake. So instead of doing Light of the World (which we have done a few times and improvise four-part harmony on), we will be doing God of Wonders for the very first time. Oops...

Oh well, Mike has a whole three days to learn the chords, overall song structure, lyrics, rhythm, melody, and to think about any harmonies he might want to throw into the vocals. Just as well he's such a great musician...

Nylon strings and a powerball

Re-stringing a classical guitar is a pain in the neck because, besides being fiddly to do (you have to use special knots because the nylon slips, it's much easier on a steel-string folk guitar), the process also requires a lot of re-tuning of the new strings as they stretch quite a bit under the tension and take several days to settle. Next time I'll pick a night when there's better programs on TV...

Mike's guitar has been in dire need of a new set of strings for ages, and yesterday we finally made it to a music shop (the morning the heavens opened, of course).

By the way, did you know that apparently there are no music shops in Gozo? We didn't take a guitar on our honeymoon and we actually went looking for a music shop while we were there because Mike missed playing - but no-one knew of any, not even the Monti hawkers in Victoria, and there weren't any in the Yellow Pages. How sad.

Anyway, we were in Hamrun yesterday, with very wet feet from the rivers flooding the streets, and we did a xirja at the music shop once we were at it to replace some of our equipment that has become quite worn - besides the strings, we needed a second capo, and a couple of leads, and a shoulder strap and so on.

While Mike was picking out a set of strings, I noticed an interesting gadget on the shop counter that I'd heard about before - a powerball. I was interested because I began practicing my violin again this week (in hopes of some day advancing beyond rank beginner) and I can only play for a couple of minutes at a time because my left arm gets tired. I had tried lifting Mike's lightest set of weights to start building some strength, but it's quite boring, so I thought the powerball might be a more fun way of exercising.

We bought the powerball and I like it so far - I use it while surfing youtube and just switch hands when one gets tired. Definitely cooler than boring old weights.

Whether or not my violin playing will improve remains to be seen.

OoooooooOOOOH sweet child of maiiieeeeeine

I'm not a fan of karaoke bars - I think that until last Friday, I hadn't been to one in years, if ever.

However I will say that if you do go to a Karaoke bar with a bunch of musical theatre students, at least the singing will be in tune, and there will be harmony on the chorus.

Also, some choreography might be perpetrated.

Photographs withheld to protect the guilty.

What a night! What a crowd! Makes you glad! Makes you proud!

This afternoon was the second (and final) performance of Vocal Aid 2006.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself today, I really did. Yesterday was more exciting (because it was the first day as well as the first time ever that I'd be singing solos) and that was thrilling in its own way, but today I was able to just relax and enjoy it more. I liked both feelings, I can't really choose between them. I certainly am sorry that the show is over, I wouldn't mind doing it a few more times!

Last night I didn't feel so bad just before stepping out on stage for the duet with Michael, partly because there were other people like Miss Emma (our dance teacher) encouraging me, but tonight was awful - I was standing there by myself waiting for the previous song to finish, and I could feel myself getting worked up so I distracted myself by pretending to conduct the song. Then standing in position waiting for the music to start, my stomach cramped just like it did yesterday, but this time I also felt like my whole body was blushing and I was quietly freaking out about the audience, aaaggrrrhhh. But I could see Michael and Miss Emma over on the other side of the stage, and you know, one can't let the side down, so I told myself to get a grip, found the grip, held on for dear life, and stepped out... (oh the melodrama!)

Our song went well, all those hours upon hours that Mike and I spent singing and recording and analysing and criticising ourselves really paid off! It didn't hurt that we are two people who are in love, singing a love song, lol. Apparently our voices go well together, which is cool, and Michael is brilliant at singing second voice, aaah! And then at the very end, he kisses me on the cheek and the audience goes "awwwwww" *grin*

In rehearsal on Monday was when Ruth (singing teacher and choir director) blocked out the song with me (Michael was working) and told me when to look at him, how to stand, etc etc. Then some bright spark in my class said "Oh, can they kiss at the end?" and Ruth just kind of looked over at me and then said that it was OK with her, but up to me and Mike as to whether we wanted to do it. We almost didn't, but I'm glad we did :-)

Tonight I received criticism (in the nicest possible way) from three different people (Da Kween, Miss Emma and Little Sis) and they ALL independently said the SAME THING, lol. You know it's for real when that happens, so next time, yes, I will make a special effort to stand with my shoulders back and not slouch!

As to the rest of the show, I thought it went quite well actually. The choir sounded louder and we made fewer mistakes, which is always a good thing! Also the sound system, judging by reports from friends and family, was better than last night.

In the dance that most of our class participates in, which is to "America" from West Side Story, our final configuration was actually as planned so I wasn't the only person kneeling on stage when it ended, yay. At the end, Michael and the only other male member of our class are standing at opposite sides of the stage, each carrying a girl and spinning her round. The timing is a bit tricky and apparently tonight Michael literally THREW his dance partner into position for the final "OLÉ", I can just imagine him doing it, lol.

Once again the choir pulled off a fantastic "L-Imnarja", complex as it is, and it's now my favourite song out of the whole programme :-)

We had some high drama at one point - there is one song that is entirely given over to our class, the Further Stages. Directly after the interval, the Mini Early Stages (kids aged 4-6) sing three cute songs, and then the curtain closes, and we sing it in front of the closed stage curtain after the interval. The rest of the choir will be getting into position during our song, and we all enter from four different locations - stage right and stage left, and from the two fire exits at the front of the auditorium.

Last night wasn't a problem, but tonight the three of us entering from the right-hand fire exit found that the door was shut - and it can only be opened from INSIDE the auditorium! The Mini Early Stages had already started singing, so we panicked a bit, but Miss Emma came to the rescue as she came to see what was the matter. She led us in a mad dash for the stage so that we could execute Plan B, enter from the stage instead of the fire exit. Backstage, we met Edward Mercieca, who moved to Plan C, "Follow me and hurry!" so we ran off to the other side of the stage with him, thinking that his Plan C included us entering from the other fire exit. But then it turned out that we were actually to follow Plan D, which was Edward somehow getting to the fire exit from inside the auditorium and opening it for us... only now we were on the wrong side of the stage so we sprinted through the cavernous Dressing Rooms and finally, panting, resumed our original positions, having effectively completed an entire lap around two storeys of the stage area. We waited a few heart-stopping seconds and then heard the welcome sound of Edward opening the doors... aaaah!

It all happened so fast (and we sprinted so hard) that we still had a song and a half in which to catch our breath, lol, but I don't think the incident did anything to help our nerves!

At least tonight I didn't have to go to the stairwell and scream at half the school that if they kept making a racket and spoiled our song after we opened the second (non-locking) set of fire doors and entered the auditorium, then I was personally going to visit dire consequences upon each of them. Heh.

One thing that was the same was that, after finishing this song and exiting the auditorium through the fire exit, I then had ONE SONG in which to get from the fire exit below, to backstage, and change into my costume for "America". The problem is that the corridor and stairwell are at the time completely packed with Mini Early Stages kids! So my technique was to run along, hugging the wall and yelling "Move! Move! Get out of the way! MOOOOOVE!" while ahead of me alarmed teachers snatch kiddies out of my path.

Today after I made it through the horde, I sprinted along the width of the stage and slid to a halt in front of my costume. The only problem was that my jazz shoes slipped on the wooden boards, both feet flew out from under me and I was completely airborne before slamming down into the floor with a resounding *boom*. Horrified bystanders helped me to my feet but I didn't have time to check for injuries, I just grabbed my costume and started changing. I don't think I was hurt anyway, wooden floors are very forgiving. It was more the mortification, lol (it was dark, there weren't TOO many people who saw my spectacular arrival). That was probably my quickest costume change ever, because one of the people who helped me up also helped me with the clothes so I was ready in plenty of time!

I think that was about it as regards incidents. We didn't have any fainting fits, unlike yesterday. Some of it was genuine, and some was an attack of diva-itis, lol. So we didn't need to use any of the water that I had stashed backstage and afterwards I distributed the remaining bottles rather than lug them all the way out of Valletta again (just being energy-efficient).

One thing that was funny afterwards was that Michael and I had completely different reactions to finishing the show. He was hyper and wanted to go and do something to celebrate, and I was drained and just wanted to go home and be quiet. Chalk and cheese, chalk and cheese, but somehow it works :-)

Anyway, performing in Vocal Aid has been a fantastic experience and I've really enjoyed it. Roll on the next one!

Either way, it will be entertaining... for you...

In case any of you had any doubts as to my vocal prowess, I thought I'd share with you that today in rehearsals while singing my solo, I managed to be both sharp and flat in the same song. That's quite a feat, but I managed *grin/sigh/sob*

Speaking of which, have you bought tickets to come and see Vocal Aid 2006? It's a huge singing concert, huge as in about 500 children (and a few adults) on stage. There will be singing! There will be dancing! And all proceeds go to Dar tal-Providenza!

There are two performances; this Saturday (27th May) at 7:30pm, and Sunday (28th May) at 5pm.

Come and be one of the one thousand four hundred people in front of whom I will attempt to sing in key... tickets are available from the Mediterranean Conference Centre by phoning 25595750/1 or by emailing bookings@mcc.com.mt.

ANYTHING to avoid press-ups

Now that the English exam is over, I no longer spend my lunch break trawling through study guides.

I could dig out my sudoku book again, re-join the chess club, the possibilities are endless! For now I'm enjoying re-reading some of my favourite books (it's like meeting an old friend again) but mostly I'm working on preparing for the Vocal Aid concert (proceeds go to charity!), which is in *gasp* two weeks.

Our singing teacher said that we should be singing sans lyric books by Saturday's rehearsal, "Bring your books just in case, but you're to sing from memory!", but our dancing teacher, who was less than impressed with us during Monday's lesson, employed a different tactic; "For every person in this class who does not know the words next Monday, there will be PRESS-UPS for the WHOLE CLASS!".

I hate press-ups, I can barely manage one - if I have to do press-ups on Monday, I will at least make sure that none of them are because of ME.

So I have buckled down to the task of memorising the words to the nineteen songs, including learning which parts of which song are assigned to my class to sing, and which bits are not.

There is one song in particular that is extremely demanding - it is the only non-pop-song that we've got, it's very classical in style. Not your typical verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus structure, so lots and lots of words to memorise.

It's long.

And a capella (no music to help you pitch the notes).

With lots of interplay between the three classes who will sing it.

And most of it doesn't rhyme.

And it's got bits that are singing without words.

And some of those are syncopated.

And did I mention that it's in Maltese?

*grin*

Some of my rather freeform notation for this song

I got some very funny looks yesterday as I walked down from Valletta to Floriana, lyric book in hand, singing under my breath in Maltese... such are the sacrifices that one must be prepared to make for one's art...

Evolution of Dance

One good thing about watching absolutely hilarious videos in an Internet cafe is that I'm getting better at laughing silently...

Found via BoingBoing (a directory of wonderful things!) here is one of the funniest skits I have ever seen, Evolution of Dance, performed by Judson Laipply.

It was so good that I watched it twice... there were a couple of moves in there that I was guilty of perpetrating in public in my younger days *cringe*

When you sing, you begin with Do, Re, Miiiiii

Monday's Stagecoach session went very well - we had some tutoring time with the singing teacher, and she has officially given us the solos for one of the songs, so Michael and I are singing a duet during Vocal Aid *grin*

We began working on the details and I let Michael and Ruth (our singing teacher) do all the work of figuring out the harmonies. It was very cool that she worked WITH Michael and let him explore instead of just telling him "Sing this and sing that". They came up with some interesting stuff that is definitely going to keep Michael occupied over the next four weeks, and his vocal chords are certainly getting their exercise! Me, I just have to worry about the melody, and about putting enough power into my voice. And not being flat as a pancake on the high notes. And reaching that really low note that feels like it's coming from my stomach. And remembering that bit in the bridge where I always come in late... *meep*

We are practicing like crazy, mostly because we want it to sound good just for its own sake, and we'd work just as hard even for an audience of one, but I'll admit that it's also partly because... well... the Mediterranean Conference Centre seats 1,400 people and that's a LOT of people to mess up in front of! We've both sung and led the singing in church loads of times, but this is a rather different kind of singing, we've never done this before!

So I'm trying to bring out my inner diva (she's still shuffling around in her slippers and dressing-gown, and can't find her glittery eyeshadow) and Michael is getting ever deeper into the weird and wonderful world of harmony and counterpoint.

And today we learnt something that I will share with you as one of my Words of Wisdom (WoW):

If you have a fragile sense of self-esteem, then under no circumstances are you to go to a radio studio and record yourself singing, because hearing all your flat notes, missed cues and delayed slurs will surely have a deleterious effect.

It was a humbling experience, let me tell you...

But it was cool to hear the bits that we are getting right - some of the harmonies especially. We improved a bit with each go-round, and it was fun being able to really belt out the song in a soundproof room without having to worry about the neighbours calling the SPCA re: injured animals ;-)

I'd put a clip here for you to listen to but Michael has declared today's recordings as being unfit for human consumption... maybe after some more practice...

*tra la laaaaaaa*

Walk the line

On Friday, Michael and I went to watch a movie.

After looking up each and every film on imdb.com (and dismissing most of them in the process), the clear winner was Walk the Line. It's a biopic about the country singer Johnny Cash. I didn't know much about him but the main draw for me was the music, for the same reason that I wanted to watch Ray last year.

Also, Reese Witherspoon is in it, and she is one of my favourite actors, so there you go, two very good reasons for us to go watch the film.

When we sat down in the cinema, the audience composition was very similar to that when we watched Memoirs of a Geisha, i.e. average age was 50 or so. I suppose most of them were there because they grew up listening to Johnny Cash.

There was a party of five sitting behind us, and one of the people was a woman who just would not shut up. Michael identified her for me as a popular Country singer, but he told me it would be too mean if I told you who she was, in light of what I'm about to say... heheheh...

Anyway this woman was obviously a rabid Johnny Cash fan.

She knew lots and lots and lots and lots of trivia about his life - his family, his relationships, his songs, his looks, everything.

Now, I don't object to her knowing all that trivia, really I don't.

What I object to is the running commentary that she kept up throughout the movie. My goodness. She just would NOT shut up.

For instance, the camera zooms close up on Johnny Cash's guitar, and pans along the fretboard, upon which we see is fixed a dollar bill.

So this woman goes "Iiiiiii!!!!! Id-dollar!!!! Rajtu d-dollar fuq il-kitarra! Rajtuha? Rajtuha? Eh? Eh? Eh?"

Or, during some poignant on-screen dialogue between Johnny Cash and his wife...

"Imma mhux hekk kienet l-ewwel mara ta' Johnny Cash, ta! Ma kinitx sabiħa daqs di, żgur! Il-ewwel mara ta' Johnny Cash kienet vera kerha, ta, imma vera kerha. Ta' dik it-tip illi, tħares lejha u litteralment tinġibed lura. Tinġibed, ta!"

When she first began doing this at the beginning of the movie, I turned around and gave her my filthiest look, but it didn't work because ninety seconds later she started back up again.

I had just had a half-pint of Guinness at O'Caseys by way of celebrating St. Patrick's day, so I was feeling a bit more mellow than usual, so I decided to ignore her. Eventually I almost got used to her, in the same way that you get used to really uncomfortable shoes.

Besides Ms. Motormouth sitting behind me (and her cronies, who occasionally jumped in too), there was another inconsiderate patron sitting at the veeeeeery end of our row, as far as possible from the door. He was wearing a suit, and obviously has an overly-high sense of self-importance, because he was one of those people who, when they are warned to switch off their mobiles at the beginning of a performance, decide that it doesn't apply to them.

His phone did ring at one point, but hey, pacenzja, it wouldn't be the first time that someone's phone has gone off in the cinema. But what he did next was completely unbelievable - he ANSWERED his phone!!! And he had a whole conversation on it in the middle of the film!!!

I'm still trying to decide whether this middle-aged audience was better or worse than having a whole row of teenage louts passing leery comments during any vaguely romantic scenes and chucking popcorn at each other.

Well, one good thing did come of it all...

I wrote a song!

No, wait, before you hide behind the sofa, my sisters have said that it is at least a hundred times better than O x'kesħa, OK?

Given the subject matter of the film, I wrote it as a country song, and, erm, *tried* for an American accent. I pitched it way down low like Johnny Cash liked to sing, and borrowed some vowel sounds off Reese Witherspoon... and I know that the "T"s shouldn't be sounded, but I thought that if I didn't enunciate, y'all might not understand my brilliant lyrics ;-)

The song is as yet without a title, I'm taking suggestions! The song is now titled "Johnny Cash Blues", with thanks to Toni.

Johnny Cash Blues (3.5 Mb, .mp3)

The Plenaries

This evening Mike and I went to listen to a band play at The Labyrinth in Valletta - a band called Smog that hasn't played in thirty-two years and has now been resurrected as the environmentally-friendly "Plenaries".

Reesa and Da Kween were singing back-up (yay!) and also the principal of Stagecoach, Edward Mercieca, plays bass and sings in the band. So between hearing about the gig at Stagecoach and then from Reesa, and lured by the promise of 70's music, we went :-)

Getting there was a bit of a hassle - it would have to be on the weekend when half of Malta descends on Valletta for the Karnival festivities! We parked in Floriana, since between the other cars, the carnival floats on the roads, and the policemen directing traffic away from Valletta, it didn't seem like we were going to find parking any closer. Then we had a bit of a detour... in the rain... because although we were at The Embassy (which is really close to Labyrinth) when it was time for the gig, I mistakenly thought that Labyrinth was at the top of Strait Street, but in fact that's Trabuxu, so then we walked all the way back down again while the heavens opened. Here's a tip, from me to you: the balconies over Strait Street have drainpipes that drip down right in the centre of the street. Urgh.

Finally we arrived, and it was all worth it!

The young people from our Stagecoach class showed up in Carnival costume, which was fun although they had to leave shortly after that to get the bus home. Some of the adult students came and stayed for the whole thing, plus our dance teacher! Speaking of which, Reesa outed my blog to her, so now I have to be careful what I write about the torture really beneficial exercises on Monday evenings... have I ever mentioned that our dance teacher is really, really cool, and the best ever?

The atmosphere down in the (cantina?) of the Labyrinth was great - it seemed like it was mostly a reunion of the people who would have gone to Smog's gigs back then, so there was a sense of "we're getting together to have fun", although there were also plenty of young(er) people there too. More and more people kept on arriving, and it was veritably packed by the end of the evening.

The room is long and narrow, and there was barely enough room for the band on stage - on several occasions, Edward's guitar head whizzed through the air dangerously close to Da Kween's head, but no injuries were reported! I wore my high-heeled boots on purpose, to help with seeing in the crowd, but unfortunately five feet two inches plus one and a half inches is still relatively short. But then our dance teacher had the brilliant idea of kneeling on one of the bar stools, and I did the same - how cool, I had a great view! An hour and a half of that just about killed my knees (they still ache) but it was worth it. Otherwise I would have missed the bit where Reesa and Da Kween whipped out some cottonwool and plugged their ears to save their eardrums from Edward's powerful voice!

The band was very cool, and did extremely well for not having played together in thirty-two years, especially since, erm, they apparently only had one actual rehearsal for last night!

There were a few places where the beat got a little lost, but only a few *grin* and overall it was great. I personally think that it is better to have a good atmosphere coming from the stage than to have technical perfection in the music. The guitar solos (both lead and bass) were funky, the drummer laid down some great rhythms, the strumming was good, and the singing (both from the guys and from the ladies) was souuuuuulful.

I'm more of a 60's girl myself, but I really enjoyed the music. I had never even heard a couple of the songs before, but some were old favourites that you just can't help but sing along to! For she's a hooOOOOOooooOOOOOooonky-tonk woMAN!

Click on the picture above to see a short video clip taken during the gig singing "Mony Mony" - feel free to download (1:31min, .asf file, 4.8Mb). The sound doesn't do the band justice at all, and you can see how much fun it was from the crowd's reaction at the end. Sorry for the shaking, but how could I not be waving my hand in the air for the "yeah"s?

The Plenaries: Paul Sultana on guitar, Remo Mifsud on guitar and vocals, Stefan Frendo on drums, and Edward Mercieca on bass and vocals.

Edward's introductions to the songs were hilarious... e.g. "if you're here tonight, you must have heard it through the grapevine *groan*. For one of the songs, he said something like "This next song needs no introduction - if you're about our age, you definitely know it. Anyone at that time who walked into a music shop to buy a guitar would have played it..." and then here comes the opening riff for "Smoke on the Water"! Heh, us young 'uns know that one too... of all the guitar-playing people that I know of, my age and younger down to the age of 13, we all started out on that immortal riff. Aaaaah!

Another fun part of the evening was that I also got to meet Toni Sant for the first time! I recognised him from his Blogger profile and went over to say hello afterwards. It's a sign of our times, that we first get to know people online, and then recognise them 'in real life' from their blog profiles or Flickr photosets. Although to be fair, I probably wouldn't have recognised Toni if I hadn't already known that he would be there! Anyway it was lovely talking to him, he's got some really interesting stories to tell.

I haven't had this much fun in a while, and prosit to the band and their lovely backing vocalists :-)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to rub some Lasonil onto my knees.

Malta Song for Europe 2006

It's that time of year again, the Malta Song for Europe is tonight, after which Malta's representative for the 2006 Eurovision will be chosen.

Toni's post reminded me about it this morning, actually. I don't have time to sit down and go through all the entries like I did last year, because I am off to have lunch with friends, but I did have time to download all the samples, bung them on my mp3 player, and listen while doing my ironing and general dashing-around-getting-ready (a reminder that hairbrushes and clip-on earphones are a bad combination).

This year the sound quailty of the samples was great, unlike last year, but this time we only got 40 seconds (one fifth) of each song instead of the whole thing. Not bad, but in a couple of songs this meant we missed the choruses.

Anyway, here's my impression:

As usual we have quite a few europop songs, with synthesized, uninspiring backing tracks and insipid lyrics that are either about peace and love in all of Europe, or a whiny tirade against an ex-girl/boyfriend.

Then there are some ballads, and unfortunately in most of them the singers are not able to do the song justice. In a ballad the focus is more on the voice, and without power behind that voice, the song flops. Meh.

Also, (warning, pet peeve coming up) I can live with Maltese singers who are incapable of pronouncing "th" as "th", and instead say "t" or "d", because hey, that's a Maltese accent and here we are, Maltese people living in Malta. But I cannot STAND people who instead replace almost every "t" with a "th", as if to show that they can make the sound. It's "truly", not "thruly", ok?

And ANOTHER thing, why the American accents? Eh?

Here's some musical bits I like: the cello at the beginning of 'Echoes of Gaia', the drums in 'I promise you', the music in J. Anvil's 'You Too', the African-style chorus of singers and the hand drums in 'Reachin' Out'.

As regards songs as a whole (i.e. including the voice), Trilogy in "This Heart of Mine" had good music, what sounds like a real piano, rich voices, nice. Not my preferred style, but I will say that it is well-performed, prosit. Likewise for Kevin Borg in 'You're My Dream', both the music and the voice were nice, again prosit.

And the one song that I am raving about, I love it, it's now set to "repeat" on my mp3 player: Nadine Axisa in 'Waves'.

It's got LOVELY music, and that voice is perfect for that song. I have lately been listening to Norah Jones and Katie Melua, and she puts me in mind of them.

Prosit :-)

P.S. I wrote the above without knowing which singer or song any of it was, my notes were based on the numbers showing on my mp3 player, e.g. "7 - poppy". I filled in the names after writing the post, and I was surprised to find that it was Nadine Axisa that I liked, because I'd heard her name earlier in the week but never heard her sing before. Cool.

Grazzi lill-Onorevoli Ministru

Last night was the second edition of "The National Orchestra Goes Pop! (with Vodafone)".

Mike and I had gone to the first one, last year, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and we've been looking forward to this one for a while. I had written a nice long post about last year's performance, but my computer crashed and I lost it, and gave up half-way through re-writing it... this year, I'm using Microsoft (boo, hiss) Word because it can auto-recover ;-)

Once again, the concert was held at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, but with the difference that last year, the hall was half-empty and we got a free upgrade to the front of the dress circle, while this year the concert was sold out days in advance! But since we were canny, we bought our tickets early, and we were in the dress circle anyway, second row and within spitting distance of the Onorevoli Ministru Francis Zammit Dimech (more on him later).

The idea behind "The National Orchestra Goes Pop" is to introduce more people to the orchestra by playing, you guessed it, pop music. Well, "pop" as in popular, not necessarily the genre :-) This suits me fine, because while I enjoy listening to classical music on occasion, I'm not really up for a whole evening of sitting and watching it. I prefer my music to have a beat, and in general I gravitate towards acoustic pop, preferably with violins and cellos in it, so this kind of event really hits the spot.

POP! goes the orchestra

Last year Michael and I went to see "The National Orchestra Goes Pop" and we loved it, so we were excited to see that they're doing it again this year.

Special guests include Nafra, how cool is that?

The concert is at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, at 8pm on Saturday the 8th of October. Seats are Lm5, Lm8 or Lm10, and you can buy tickets from Vodafone (B'kara), Orienta (Paola and Gozo),the Sliema Band Club, or the MCC itself.

You can book by calling the MCC at 25595751 or email bookings at mcc dot com dot mt.

Playin' the blues

Little Sis has had the camera this week, so I figured that since I can't post visuals, I'll post some audio instead :-)

Back in February Michael gave me a how-to book on simple blues for piano, and in March after we watched Ray, I recorded myself playing the piece that is used as an example in the book, with a few of my own variations thrown in.

My piece has evolved since then, (it's alive I tell you! Muahahahaha!) and here's its latest incarnation. Sound quality sucks because my little voice recorder can't really handle music, especially the high part, but hey, the beat is still cool ;-)

Download blueslatest.WAV (623 KB)

And you might like to listen to the original recording first to see how the baby has grown over the last six months from a cute ickle 27 seconds to a 2-minutes-38-seconds monster...

Download beginblues.WAV (110 KB)

You can't stop the music

I've had a very musical afternoon...

First, I discovered that Smash TV and Super One were showing live feeds from the Live 8 concerts this afternoon. I watched for a bit, and figured out that I could get continous coverage by switching to the other station whenever one went into an ad break, heheheh. Then I realised that I had confused my days and that Michael was picking me up in fifteen minutes... eek...

Then music practice at church, which was obviously music, music, music, or at least it was after I managed to find all the overheads and work out the chords for songs whose music is buried in the disaster that masquerades as my music file.

One of our songs tomorrow is 'Amazing Grace', or actually 'Grazzja tal-Għaġeb' since we're doing it in Maltese. Usually we play Amazing grace with a very bluesy feel, like rhythm & blues - it's fairly easy, I just put it in the key of E and stick in plenty of 7th chords, lol. But today I decided "I don't want it sounding country this time" and Mike replied "But we should still do blues!".

So Mike had us doing it very, very, very soft, (usually we go as loud and funky as we dare, heheheh) this was almost-but-not-quite smooth jazz. I detest smooth jazz, but this sounded pretty good. Well, it did after we persuaded the piano-player not to put any rhythm in it, lol. He maintains that this is deathly boring, but hey, can't play fast and loud ALL the time!

The one bad thing is that since this music is really soft, that means that it isn't drowning out my voice like usual... so I can actually hear myself very clearly for a change, and so can everyone else.

*gulp*

So I'm going to have to concentrate on delivering well (I usually just throw the words out there and hope for the best), and I also hope I don't choke on this one! I'm a musician, not a singer - I only sing because no-one else will. On the other hand, this really is a beautiful song and a chance for me to really sing, as opposed to just singing so that people know what they are supposed to be singing along to.

So, yes, overall I suppose it's something to look forward to :-)

And then the music-ness of my day continued while we were walking through Bay Street (I can't get away from it, aaaggrrrhhhh!). There was an American spanish guitar player performing in the rotunda. (The guitar was spanish, not the player, lol). His name was Jim Specter, something like that.

We stopped and watched, took pictures and then went downstairs so we could hear and see properly. Michael has several years of classical guitar training under his belt, while I have, um, more like several weeks, lol. But we were engrossed in figuring out his chord progressions and which keys he was using.

I knew that we would never be able to remember it all, but then I remembered that my camera can also take videos (bad quality, but hey) and my mp3 player is also a voice recorder, so between the two of them we can now go over the songs again.

I have a feeling that next week's practice is going to include some improvised flamenco :-)

Free Napster code

I have a promotional code from Napster for the downloading of one track for free. It's only available to UK residents and is therefore useless to me, so the first UK resident to comment below gets it :-)

The system requirements are: PC only, Windows XP/2000, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01+, Windows Media Player 7.1+, and, of course, Internet connectivity, lol.

They're getting married in the evening

Yesterday was the last written exam of my degree (barring me repeating the year, of course). It was OK, not an unfair paper for a change, lol. I should have passed it although there were some questionable answers. And I worked through two-thirds of a question before realising that I was using density in Kg and metres when everything else was in grams and centimetres. Meh. It was towards the end of the exam and I didn't have time to fix it so I just wrote down that I had realised I made the mistake. *sigh*.

Today a young couple from church are getting married. Mike and I are going to the church to meet with our pastor basically dismantle and transport the sound system. Then we have to set up all the microphones, amps and instruments in the hall where the wedding is being held.

Actually I think they're shooting for an outside wedding in the gardens of the hall which is pretty, but bad for sound (music/singing sounds somewhat flat out-of-doors). And of course it rained a fair amount during the night and the skies are still cloudy... as long the equipment doesn't get shorted by rain then it's ok, lol.

Michael's classical guitar was broken a couple of weeks ago - someone who shall remain nameless allowed a 6-year-old to "play" it. We have a strict no-kids-touching-instruments policy, but this person thought it would be cute I suppose, and we weren't there to stop them.

Well, the guitar fell and the neck snapped off.

Meh.

It's still not fixed, the repair guy has found that it's going to be harder than he thought. So we're using my guitar today, which is also a classical but isn't wired for sound - it can't be plugged into an amplifier. So I have one microphone pointed at my mouth and one at my guitar, and I have to remember that I can't move or shift position or my sound is lost. We also don't have any monitors (an amplifier that is pointed towards the singer/musician so he can hear his own sound) because usually we stand in front of our own amps. I'm just going to have to trust the sound guy on this one.

Oh, wait... we don't HAVE a sound guy.

This is just going to be a little more challenging than usual :-)

Anyway, I'm off to lug around some equipment.

I hope that the piano-player has managed to nail the Bridal March... dum DUM DUM DUM, dah, DUM, DUM DAH...

Surfer Song

Just now I was messing around with some simple blues, and I played four notes that reminded me of something... and I launched into this song which I have never played before but I must have heard plenty of times.

The only thing is, I can't figure out where it comes from. It sounds like it could have been some kind of Beach Boys song, or the theme song to an old TV show, something like that. Reminds me of surfers.

Here it is, and if anyone knows what it's called, PLEASE let me know!!! Thanks because it's driving me crazy now :-)

Download surfer.WAV

Howdy, Ray

Mike and I went to watch Ray on Sunday after canoeing.

We both really enjoyed the music in it, and for me it was added inspiration to persevere with my blues piano playing :-) Michael's birthday present to me was FastForward: Real Blues for Keyboard, a book for beginners which introduces you to a basic riff and then shows you variations to add to it. There's a CD with backing tracks so you can imagine you are a pro, heheheh.

I've been at it for about 10 days now, and it's fun. I used my handy-dandy-mp3player-slash-recorder to record myself playing 12-bar blues this evening. The variations are mine - I threw in a little syncopation on the right, and some 7th notes, and added the dum-dum-dum-DUM at the end. I'm playing it too fast but I like it that way. I got rhythm baby...

OK, I'm going to have to work hard at my technique but now that smoking in restaurants has been banned, I have decided that being a blues piano player will be my back-up career should the engineering not work out.

Heheheh.

Download beginblues.WAV (110 Kb)

Looks like morning in your eyes

This evening I happened to be watching BBC Prime when it was time for Parkinson... and he had Norah Jones (and band) playing two songs!

First they did one of my favourites, Sunrise and I got to see her playing the piano, which isn't shown in the music video. Then later in the show they played another song I didn't know.

Very cool, interesting chords she played. Did you know that she majored in jazz piano?

Wow.

The Piano

This morning I was improvising some jazz on the piano (very badly, lol) and I noticed that the sunlight had that "thin" quality that you often get in the winter when the sky is a bit grey, so I decided to take the oportunity to photograph the piano.

I've been meaning to take photos of our piano for some time now, because it's not going to be with us for much longer. We have had a piano in the house my whole life, but now that none of us are taking lessons any more, my parents have decided not to keep on paying the rent.

So we will shortly be piano-less :-( although the good thing is that we own an electronic keyboard so we can still play - but there is NO COMPARISON between a keyboard and a proper piano. Oh well.

Here are some of my favourites out of the photos I took this morning. Little Sis had left the camera set to "black and white" and I liked it so I left it that way. The quality of these photos posted is terrible because of the resizing, but some are still striking.

This one's my favourite:

Musical Monday

My mind works in strange ways sometimes - I'll hear a word or a phrase and a song with that lyric will pop into my head and hang around for a while.

For instance, whenever I visit Genuine or even see a link to his blog, my mind pops up

I'll take anything, anything genuine.
Looking up from where I went I could take whatever I get
I'll take anything, anything genuine
(from the song "Anything Genuine" by Smalltown Poets)

Well today being Monday, and me being unhappy about it, a song popped up from my childhood which I remember well. As a kid, the 30-45 minute trip between home and Ghadira seemed to take forever, so I usually used to listen to my Dad's "Million Best-Selling Hits of the 60's" cassette in my walkman. It was my favourite and I love those songs!

So, sing along with me, in honour of my Fluids lecturer making me come in at 8am on a Monday:

Monday, Monday
Can't trust that day
Monday, Monday
Sometimes it just turns out that waaaiaaay
Oh, Monday morning, you gave me no warning,
Of what was to beeeeeeeee
Oh, Monday, Monday
How could you leave and not take meeeeeee?

Every other day (every other day)
Every other day
Every other day of the week is fiiiiiiiiiine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes (but whenever Monday comes)
But whenever Monday comes
You'll find me crying all of the tiiiiiime

Monday Monday...

For the want of an elastic band...

Dad finally got me a replacement elastic band from G&E, for my CD drive! So now I can use my drive for the first time in three months :-D

Currently listening to one of my favourite CD's - Passion: Our Love is Loud.

Next on my list: Rich Mullin's A Legacy, A Liturgy, and a Ragamuffin Band.

Yeah...

*sings along*

Next year, the Eurovision...

The music video was fun :-) we filmed it in a basement, the pastor handled the equipment (video camera, and tape deck) and Mike and I played guitar and sang. I used the tambourine on "Il-Vapur ta' L-Art" :-)

I tell you what, Maltese folksongs are generally pitched to pierce the ear drums. I'm usually what they would call soft-spoken, but on those songs you could hear me a block away (literally, someone did!) Lol...

A visiting American pastor watched us, and now he wants a similar video for Christmas carols, and another American visitor in church today wanted some Maltese songs so I told her to go ask for a copy of the video...

Maybe we should call ourselves something, for marketing purposes. Like... um, I don't know... comment if you have an idea!

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Demille

A church in Australia recently adopted Msida as part of The Village Project. In December they're having a Malta Night, and one of the members contacted us asking for help with putting together some music in Maltese, both folk and religious.

I thought we could work off a folk music tape that one of my pastors has, but that wasn't going to work out, so we decided to video me singing the songs this afternoon... *meep*

So yesterday i was practising "It-Tieg tan-Neputija", "Ceklem Ceklem Karozzin", "Il-Vapur ta' L-Art" and "Viva Malta". We'll probably also do "Fahhruh", "Ejja Wara Gesu", and a couple of other church songs in Maltese.

Michael's going to be there, so I'll rope him in too... maybe have him playing guitar and me tambourine on the folk songs. I learnt these songs when I was in the YMCA, and I still have my songbook with chords - we used to perform them on occasion, dressed up in traditional costumes (not the ghonnella though!). We had even done a simplified version of the Maltija but *thankfully* I have forgotten how to dance it, heheheheheh...

I'd better go make myself beautiful for the camera... *preens*