(Oops and a smidge of Memory Lane thrown in for fun! - Stacey story alert) I often say to my flock, ”we can hear the singer thinking and if the singer isn’t thinking anything, then we’re not hearing anything!” My daddy thought Wagner was God! I was never convinced about that! Stace used to say, “Wagner composed some of the most sublime music ever written, with the biggest load of twaddle in between.” I loved his story about attending the dress rehearsal of one of Wagner’s monolithic efforts with Charlie Mackerras. After it had been grinding away for about two hours, Charlie saw him looking at his watch (a pocket watch you may recall, so it was always obvious!) which appeared to have gone into a time warp, for only five minutes had passed! He leant over to Stace and said, “I’ve had enough of this, let’s get out of here and into the Lemon Tree.” (The pub in the lane behind The Colly) Stace said he could have kissed him! Ah well. Dickie Wagner did have a point though about imagination, a fancy word for thinking, I’m thinking. 😆 We are what we imagine. Mind you the big stuff happens when we follow up with action. That little butterfly had a big task to bloom from the chrysalis. Love to all and have a wonderful week. Kxx
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Think about it. The movers and shakers of this world are rarely those who think or live conventionally. The ones who act outside the square are those who chance upon a little gem, grubby and kicked to the side of the road, waiting for someone to recognise its intrinsic worth; painstakingly clean it, gloriously buff it and then bring it home into the square as a sacred gift for those who live inside it. Safe in the square, we love their gifts to us, yet often look sidewise at them, maybe roll our eyes as we say, “here they go again, being weird, chasing pipe dreams instead of stopping home like a normal person.” Have a lovely week everyone. Love to all. Kxx https://youtu.be/aR5TO2YdjeY Of course I made some lovely friends there, many of whom I have reconnected with thanks to FB and some fabulous reunions hosted by one of our number, Chris Bracewell. There was one last weekend as it happens. Me, I was stuck here in chilly old Melbs while my mates quaffed beer and made music in the long summer evenings. FOMO! To my chagrin, looking back on my early Trinity years, I did “kiss the boys and made them cry” a bit, until I saw the light and got married! (If you read my mini memoir in January, you will recall how well that went!) I was all over the map really, dumping this boy for that, take away the number you first thought of, vaguely trying to keep myself nice. Too young, too naive and too thrilled to be away from home, foot loose and fancy free. Apologies right now for anyone recalling that behaviour! But I digress. Importantly, my dad and his mate John Lowe put their heads together and decided that since I was going to Trinity and John’s daughter, Ally was going to the Royal Academy of Dancing it would be a fine plan if we were to be roommates. Note “room” mates. Back then very few students in boutique academia (ie, very cute, but not big enough to warrant halls of residence) could afford their own room, so we all buddied up as best we could. Brendan and John pitched the plan for their daughters to perfection as Ally and I hit it off straight away when she turned up a just a couple of days behind me in that Margaret St hostel. Our connection, friendship and love was instant and she and her wonderful husband Peter remain the dearest of friends to this day. So many memories from that time. She and I climbing over the gate at Regents Park having been locked in after closing time. Waiting at tables round the corner at an Italian cafe on Oxford St, Torino’s I think it was. She was much better at it than me, but I got by forgetting everything and tipping lasagne into furious laps, by cracking jokes. Yes, I was good at those to cover my silliness. Probably made me look even sillier really, but hey, you “haf to laf” don’t you? There was a pastry chef there who took a shine to us two skittish kittens, alive with the fun of it all. The place served a dessert called “Profiterole Surprise” - the “surprise” being a little baby profiterole filled with cream, dipped in chocolate, sitting on top of the main game profiterole, also filled with cream and drenched in chocolate! Yum! So this chef (sleaze bag if I’m honest) used to prep the “surprise” so when we came in to dump the dirties or pick up the doomed lasagna, he’d beckon us over and indicate in broken Italian to open our mouths and he’d pop in the surprise. Now I know what you’re thinking; just stop it! That really was all that happened, though I suspect a “me-too” moment could have come of it had we been on a late shift. All those “surprises” were ok for Ally because she could dance off the inevitable, whereas I was a buxom lass and singing wasn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to my growing girth! One weekend we basically didn’t get any sleep at all! Upper slips at Covent Garden (recipe for a crick in the neck, but we saw Nureyev and Fonteyn so you know, mustn’t grumble) followed by a Trinity student party, followed by a busy Saturday waiting at tables (remember we’re talking Oxford St here - perhaps the busiest shopping centre in the world at the time), then another party, probably RAD mates of Ally’s, singing the whole of Tapestry on our way there and back and then we somehow got to church on Sunday morning (more of that aberration of judgment in a mo’!); did belated homework on Sunday afternoon and fell into bed, only to laugh so hard that the girl next door who we tipped as an old maid, although she was probably all of 25, thundered on the door for us to stop! We just laughed all the harder, of course! A couple of things it’s important to note here is that my sister Helen had been at the RAD, graduating in 1972, so she had left London by the time I turned up that September. She was no small talent musically and all the time she had been in London she had done the rounds of the gospel singing circuit. So when she vacated the scene I picked up her song sheet and went for the ride in her place. What this meant though, was that despite the woe of my solo studies at Trinity, I continued to sing with my guitar, apparently bringing many to the Lord through my voice; such that one pastor called me a “gem for Jesus!” (I know……..?) It was so easy for me. Easy too to create this whole other raft of friendships from the rent-a-crowd that IS the church. That said, my voice loss in second year did effect that too. It was really terrible. By this time Ally and I had moved into a bedsit in Notting Hill Gate round the corner from Portobello Market. A grand old house, chopped up into mini-kitchened, two bedders; four rooms per floor, sharing a bathroom and toilet between eight people therefore, with nary so much as a “good morning” between them. Cold and so excruciatingly damp that when warming my clothes by the gas fire, in order to comfortably dress, steam arose from them. So I got sick and stayed that way. No wonder Dickens’ tales were littered with consumptives! Because of this Christianity on the side, I don’t think I really got stuck into Trinity as I might have done. All those bible studies and prayer meetings! I loved singing with my friends, especially in the small ensembles, but overall my insecurities saw me sort of withdraw. Reconnecting with some of them has been a real joy, albeit mainly here on FB. But in that reconnection is the sense that I withdrew from something really important. A growing up that might have happened through music rather than the church, which I ended up dumping anyway a few years later. It would have saved me so much confusion! And in reality, because I felt unable to fully embrace the Trinity opportunity, I left with the feeling that I couldn’t really sing outside the safety of the Gospel. But we can’t wind back the time. I’m just so grateful for so much, then, since and now. In my last year I was elected Senior Student by the professorial staff. Heaven knows why! To me it was as much a miracle as that acceptance letter! When my baby marriage inevitably fell apart, the first thing I did was grasp my singing and hold it tightly to my chest in the fondest of embraces and all that I had subliminally known all along, began to flow again. I found a lovely couple who taught singing, friends of my folks. Their kindness restored me, their faith in me bolstered me, and their encouragement took me back to Trinity to present for my Fellowship in performance. Thank you for being with me. Thank you to my Trinity mates, to Ally, to John and Angela, those lovely singing teachers and to the many of you who have cheered me along my way through the years and through this little wander down Memory Lane. So we have to have Carole’s Tapestry don’t we? https://youtu.be/aR5TO2YdjeY youtu.be/Pt19nrxdVb4?si=aBB64a4tD72HBR95 The truth is I was hopelessly out of my depth! I’d had music all around me, subliminal and otherwise of course, but my teens were spent mooning around with my guitar singing soulful folk songs and gospelling around the countryside; Both Sides Now, What A Friend We Have In Jesus, a few bit parts in my dad’s shows thrown in and that was it. But I just knew how to do that singing thing. Once at Trinity, overwhelmed and intimidated, within a few short weeks I discovered that I didn’t. So many petty mortifications litter my recollections of my early days there. My assigned singing teacher was a no mean tenor at Covent Garden. The upside was that I scored freebies to dress rehearsals and got to see Placido as Don José and Kiri as The Countess. The downside was that he was probably strapped for cash and doing the teaching thing on the side. When I first sang for him, (“The Singer” again) he looked disdainfully at me and with a supercilious curl of his upper lip said, “well, it seems that you can sell a song.” Maybe he was charmed and I misread him…. I have been known to say, “we can hear the singer thinking, and if they’re not thinking anything, we’re not hearing anything.” And I could hear him thinking loud and clear, “what have they sent me this silly little girl for?” I guess we did some mindless voice exercises and then he asked what sheet music I had brought. I know this is kind of weird, but it hadn’t occurred to me to bring sheet music to London. I suppose I didn’t really have any of my own. All our song books at home belonged to my mum. Anyway, he was astonished at my lack and rolling his eyes suggested that since I was at an international conservatoire, I should acquaint myself with the library and choose a song before my next lesson. So off I went into that bewildering labyrinth of fusty corners and dusty shelves, walking up and down the aisles, pulling out this book, that volume and the other collection. I espied Schubert! Schirmer edition. A-ha! The same one as my mum’s. There was a god after all! (Oops, yes, I forgot that I already concluded that in Part 1!) Then hurrying back to my hostel I skuttled down to the little piano room and leafed over the pages. My mum had sung these songs in English. That wasn’t so uncommon then, but instinct told me that I’d need to be checking out the German for the playing field I was on. Luckily, we’d holidayed in Germany the summer before I went to Trinity and I’d picked up the lingo pretty well, or the pronunciation of it at least, in that short time. So I puzzled my way through it, painfully working out the melody with my scant O-level music as my only guide. I did my best and was able to go to lesson 2 with something in hand. An Die Musik I think it was and I was right about the German; thank heavens for that little point of redemption and I’d taught myself the melody quite well. In hindsight I suspect it was actually one of my mum’s “kitchen sink” songs so I was probably familiar with it; although I expect I chose it because it only had two verses and the tune was the same for both! To this day, I do not know what he taught me really. Sometimes he’d look up in astonishment at me. I couldn’t be sure, but I think I’d done okay when he did that. He used to mark my music, saying “sing this vowel open, but this one closed” and he had hieroglyphics to indicate this instruction. c for open and o for closed. I still have books with his little pencil markings on the songs I learnt. I’ve been a singing teacher for a very long time now, yet I have no idea what he was talking about! In second year I lost my voice for most of the year. I guess I lost my voice, full stop. But, before we get too gloomy, I must share with you my hilarious experience of sight singing class. Charlie Proctor took the class and he trundled in with a pile of books rescued from Noah’s Ark, dog-eared and yellow paged; harrumphing as he sat his large personage on the piano stool. The grand took up most of one side of the room and we were on chairs lining the other half, maybe a dozen or so of us. Charlie was an imposing man, jowl-jawed, steely blue eyes peering over his half moon glasses; suit, shiny with wear and a dubiously grubby handkerchief tumbling from his breast pocket. I actually don’t think he was unkind, but certainly gruff and scary to me not least because of his teaching “technique.” He glared over the rims of his glasses, scanning the faces of his charges until he alighted on his choice. Drawing an arthritic finger up to point he said, “you; exercise number seven!” And proceeded to plonk down the tonic chord, whereupon one was expected to make mincemeat of the banal dots and finish on doh with a flourish! Except I rarely did! Those who did were invited to leave the room and join the second year class. But I was stuck there week after week, cracking jokes because I was so bad. To his credit I did make Charlie smile from time to time and as I belonged to most of the ensembles, large and small, my musicianship did improve and I started to catch up with my fellow first years, all two years older than me. Some of my fondest memories were of a group of us called the Mandeville Consort, some alumni and some of us still within the hallowed halls of Trinity. Our conductor got us paid gigs in the city of London to do lunchtime concerts, usually in some centuries old church. We’d arrive at 12.00, music would be dished out, we’d top and tail, maybe check out the tricky bits for half an hour, sing the show to the sandwich munching city gents (yes, all gents!); then with our ill gotten gains, we’d hightail to spend the lot in the nearest hostelry before afternoon closing at 3pm. Many love the tale of Mr Toon, my harmony teacher. For that was his name, bless him! Another fine musician who had failed the finer things of his aspiration and was stuck with me presenting my appalling four part harmony, counterpoint and that peak of compositional achievement, the fugue; with all the pretty, petty rules cast aside, scribbled on my lap on the Tube. Well at least, I did it. Which is more than can be said for my school homework (which was routinely eaten by the dog, you may recall!) Well Mr Toon. I may have failed you and caused you to despair, but may you be smiling in heaven at the many KateSongs which have delighted a few sweet souls Downunder. Best we listen to An Die Musik methinks. Dame Janet of course. https://youtu.be/Pt19nrxdVb4?si=aBB64a4tD72HBR95 Ah teddy bear moments! I mentioned one yesterday and then remembered I had done so a few weeks back too. So today I give you the 🧸 moment! “Round and round the garden like a teddy bear…..!” Yesterday I took you to my solo teddy bear performance at Oxford Circus in 1972. These days when gps says “arrived” and you’re in a paddock in the middle of nowhere is a teddy bear moment. 🤣 Other present day teddy bears you can experience in the comfort of your own home. So that extended moment when you’re navigating a website that keeps taking you round in circles. Voice call moments which do the same thing. Hopping between apps and/or open tabs on your desktop. And that one we truly dread when the computer itself has a teddy bear moment. You know the one when the screen goes black and that little cog grinds away and your heart sinks? Hopefully when it’s all done you can have a good laugh after the event as the rhyme suggests at its conclusion! “A tickly under there!” Have a lovely week and may your teddy bear moments be few and well, “bearable!” 🤣😂🤣😂 (Brendan would be proud!) Love to all. Kxx Hope you like Oxana Lashenko’s teddy bear as pictured. youtu.be/oWz-Hfw4fnk?si=xEBNPCKRYrHpnXNe I was very young to be heading off to London as a 16yo country girl, but my parents thought nothing of it. After all, they had lived in London during the war, joining the workforce there as 14 year olds, traveling all over the city to their employment, both of them! You know, like grown ups! So routinely sending us all up there was a snack as far as they were concerned. As a high school student I never amounted to much academically. These days of course, questions would be asked as to why a seemingly bright young thing, routinely lied declaring that “the dog ate my homework.” (Oops……we didn’t even have a dog!!!) Layers of stories about not really fitting in, being set-up and bullied; friendless (except for my beloved Sarah, who was never in my class and had already been spirited away to her boarding school by the time I was in 4th form) and sadly, it was the case that I was bored by all things scholastic except, Music, Art and English. (None of which required me to actually study!) Towards the end of 5th form with “O Levels” looming, I found myself bizarrely in the canteen of a lunchtime, next to the Headmaster who quizzed me about my 6th form subjects. “Music, Art and English of course,” I replied, “and I’d like to pick up History since the timetable deprived me of it at O Level.” He told me that I would HAVE to do a Science subject AND Maths! Laughable really! No way José! By this time I had actually applied to Trinity College of Music to study Singing and when this conversation took place, I was awaiting what I thought was a certain negative response. To my surprise I got in! (Up yours Mr D!) Understand, that whilst it was not uncommon to leave school after 5th form (Year 10) in those days, it wasn’t usual to be accepted into academia until the completion of school two years later, with a slew of fine “A Levels” in hand. I remember my audition well. I think my mum had a feeling there was trouble brewing for her troublesome teen, so she found a singing teacher of sorts and organized for me to do Grade 5 so I had something at least, albeit well below the level expected. I walked into Trinity and sang Michael Head’s, “The Singer” and then accompanied myself on the guitar with “Greensleeves.” Flunked all the scales and aural tests and of course delivered a laughable free-form interpretation of the sight reading. The panel nodded warily, and then tried to persuade me that should I be offered a place, I must consider piano for my second study, rather than guitar as I had stated on my form. Recalling the miserable days at the keyboard with my very genteel, stiff and intellectual piano teacher, (read, spinster of this parish!) so ready with a sniff of disapproval whenever I touched her precious ivories, (I mean, I was just an average grubby hippy, so no, never good mates, Dr. P and I) I said, “no thanks!” “I won’t come if you make me do piano!” I declared to the astonished audition panel. An audition laced with audacity!!! I did tell them that at the turn of the century, my Grandmother had studied piano at Trinity in their Saturday morning music school. Maybe that was what swung it? Suffice to say my future was very uncertain in the tender days of May 1972 when that cosy lunchtime chat with Headmaster, Mr D occurred. Certainly, I believed it was an act of God when I got that acceptance letter from Trinity to start in September! My folks came with me up to London and installed me in my hostel in Margaret St, just behind Oxford St and an easy stroll to Trinity College. We walked there together and somewhere there is murky footage my dad took of me, walking up Mandeville Place and into the lovely parqueted and paneled foyer of the grand old place. On the Sunday afternoon we all went to my Granny’s for tea. She lived out west and so, my parents, heading further westward to get back to Glastonbury, dropped me off at Hangar Lane to catch the Tube for my journey into London alone. Platformed and mini-skirted, I got off at Oxford Circus and headed up the grinding wooden escalators to street level. If you’ve ever played around in London, you will realize that there are multiple exits to most of the Tube stations in the city centre; no less than 8 opportunities to pick from at Oxford Circus! When I surfaced the Autumn evening light was waning. Then I started walking round and round Oxford Circus wondering which street would take me in the direction of Margaret St. After a couple of teddy bears, (round and round the garden….!) I did figure that Margaret St was within two blocks of Oxford Circus, so if I walked that far and hadn’t come across it, I could simply go back to Oxford Circus and try the next one. Beginners luck! I was right first time! So, home I was, and though alone at this point I wasn’t at all flummoxed by it I have to say. Just excited by this new London life opening up before me. As is my wont - here’s a little something dear to my heart. I like the idea of the country girl Lovely Joan and the probably more worldly city dweller of Greensleeves, (versions of me perhaps?) sitting side by side in Raph’s simple evocation of England. youtu.be/oWz-Hfw4fnk?si=xEBNPCKRYrHpnXNe Most of you are back into it this morning I realise. Thinking of you all as you and yours head out the door. I guess I’d be right in thinking that most of us were conceived in love. That’s where the magic of Love began perhaps. To my mind the miracle of Life and the miracle of Love are entwined from the moment of conception. Right there when our journey began. From there we have known many things; distress, joy, the simplest of pleasures and the most complex of challenges; seasons and chapters; been lonely and felt crowded; known love and therefore loss; but that first Love, no matter what happens or where we find ourselves, is omnipresent and omnipotent. I think this is what Rilke meant when he said, “ believe in a love that is preserved for you like a heritage and trust that in that love, there is a strength and a blessing which is not bound to leave you no matter how far you go.” Have a lovely week my dear friends. Kxx It’s been a while since I touched base here. A few things going on/down/up/off and creating the charts for our finale SOS show in November. Yes….. more about that later. Last night it was my privilege to go to the MSO’s tribute concert to our much missed Uncle Archie. So this morning I am pressed to share with you how Australia looked to me, fresh from the UK. Look away from another difficult story coming up. My 1983 sojourn in WA was relatively new when I found myself at a poolside brunch, discovering the joys of ham and cheese croissant, washed down with champagne. My UK life was looking very dull on that sparkling Sunday morning, rubbing shoulders with people my age (all coupled up, mind). The crew looked very squeaky clean and glamorous in a lot of fresh white linen; buffed & tanned with shiny locks; all perfumed and after-shaved. A couple of days before I had been to the WA museum. It’s something I always do in a new place to get the lie of the land a bit. Asking about where I might find the Aboriginal exhibition; I had to ask because there were no signs that I could see; I was directed down some back stairs, round the corner and then some, to find a room about the size of a generous lounge room……. It was paltry and tokenistic at best. So, fresh from that experience, I was chatting to a young man, much traveled as 20 something Aussies were back in the day. He was well educated and articulate on all sorts and so it was to him I addressed my enquiry. “I haven’t been here long, but I’m a bit puzzled about Australia’s Aboriginal people. I mean, where are they?” His handsome face sort of turned inside out with disgust and disdain. I’ve only seen that a few notable times in my life. “Agh!” he said visibly cringing, and with his top lip sneering he said, “they are the ugliest creatures on the face of the earth. If you want to see them you’ll find them drunk as skunks under the trees in East Perth.” I stepped away from him and left the gathering. It’s was so shocking to me I could hardly breathe. I’m feeling exactly that now as I recall that awful encounter. I did go to East Perth as suggested. And wept as I drove away realising that there was something horribly wrong with this country. Something so heinous in its history that wasn’t going to be resolved anytime soon. And here we are 40 years later. How slowly we have traveled in our understanding that only now are we looking at this next step; one that will finally open up real conversations that have the potential to lead us forward at last. “Ngapartji Ngapartji - Pitjantjatjara - to sit round the fire and tell stories and learn from each other. Looking, praying and hoping for a deluge of YES to salve too many broken hearts and lives. Thank you, if you are still with me. Love to all. Kxx Good morning my lovelies. It’s about the chaos bit…… I talked about change last week I realise. Bit of a cracked record then, for which I do apologise. But the chaos is in the ifs, buts and maybes inherent in an overactive imagination in the full flight of change. (Chosen or foisted!) And an overactive imagination is part and parcel of creativity when change throws in the proverbial spanner. Oh and going round in circles might be the moving parts of it, all those little wheels and cogs cranking away. See what I mean? 😵💫 A teddy bear moment. (But I’ll leave 🧸’til next week) Be assured I’m fine as I hope you are, heading into another week albeit a day shorter for most. Step out bravely if you can. If you can’t that’s ok too. Love to all. Kxx Coming up tomorrow…..I promise you a fun night. All done by 8.45 so you can be home sipping your cocoa at a decent hour. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-sound-of-singing-voices-june-2023-tickets-626969722317 Phew everyone! Head down. Holding my breath. Lots that’s sort of scary at the mo’. I say “sort of” because it’s all relative. Nothing life threatening. But a few life changing things which are always a bit unsettling, even if it’s the right thing to do. But I do believe that sometimes if we don’t choose change, change can choose us. There will always be moments beyond our control when change will choose us whether we like it or not. We all had that in 2020! And I had that hugely in 1996. And anyone reading this will know how that feels. That random stuff. But all the more reason to listen when your gut says to choose change and then “feel the fear and do it anyway.” Thumb your nose at it! Have a wonderful week everyone. Love to all, especially to those doing it tough and suffering at the moment. Kxx Btw - there are a few books you don’t need to read once you’ve read the title. Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. The Power of Now. Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck. Any others you can think of? |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2024
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