Enchilada Sunrise » Music

No(t much) Snow

Lou — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 18:02:00 +0000

We’ve had a little bit of snow today, but it hasn’t really settled. Which is good, because it meant that the rails and roads were OK for getting back from the Skunk Anansie gig at Brixton Academy last night. That was fantastic, by the way, and if I can find the words I’ll try to write up some kind of review.

Today, I’ve finally been working on the photo album for this site again. So, as an experiment, let’s try displaying a gallery from it on this post…

Because, baby, it’s cold outside, these are the pictures I took of a much heavier snowfall in April ’08:

[Show as slideshow]

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Things and Stuff

Lou — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:45:24 +0000

Today has been a day of variety, which has been nice! I started out by going up to the Christmas fair for Mum’s church – I got there quite late on, so I helped clear up and carry the remaining stuff back up to the church. I got a few nice cards and nick knacks for gifts, so that was a worthwhile trip. Then I walked with Mum back to her house for a drink and then a lift home.

On the way up to Mum’s place, I stopped off and did a geocache that was en route. It took me a bit longer than I’d planned due to me being disorganised with my stuff, but it was still a speedy one. Not a micro one this time, but a still small one. So not big enough to put the travelling monkey into, yet. Poor monkey! I’ll move him on soon, by hook or by crook!

After visiting at Mum’s for a while, we came back here and had dinner – stir fry followed by cupcakes! Then Mum went home and I’ve been knitting and watching Strictly Come Dancing. I’m still working on the Travelling Woman, but hopefully I’ll be done soon. Maybe tonight? Maybe tomorrow.

And then I’ve been playing with Blip.fm – I’ve put a widget linking to my account there in the sidebar, and I think it’s possible to play some tracks directly from here? I’m not sure, I’m still figuring it out. That’s not what I’m using it for, anyway. Mostly I’m listening to the songs my friends have playlisted. Is that even a word? Probably not, but I know what I mean, and I’m sure you do too. Anyway, I thought I’d put the widget up here because in the first place I can, and also because I’m trying to get all my web stuff better linked together. Integrate my web presence. Oh how pretentious. ;-)

NaBloPoMo Sept 2010 – Art

Lou — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:25:58 +0000

Although I’m a couple of days late in starting, I’ve decided to have a crack at NaBloPoMo this month. The theme is art, and I reckon that one way or another I’ve got plenty to say about various arts and crafts, so let’s go for it. Tomorrow, for example, I’m going up to London to watch a couple of Proms. I don’t know if we’ll have time to take in any other arty culture, but there will certainly be knitting done along the way!

All Hands on Deck

Lou — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:59:35 +0000

I haven’t blogged much recently because I’ve been knitting. Which means I don’t have enough hands to type at the same time! I should at least be mostly done with the things I’m knitting as Christmas presents. Ahem. I might be completely done, who knows? I probably would have been fine, but Mum asked me for mittens which I then had to factor in… and it all went a little bit wonky. Not too much though.

Other than present knitting, I’ve finished my gloves (pictures soon), done a bit of spinning at the 1066 Spinners group, and of course have been Christmas shopping. There’s an open air ice rink in town for the festive season, so Jo and I are hoping to go down there at some point. Although it’s just started snowing today, so I spose it depends how bad that gets. I also did an hour of carolling at the local hospital last night with choir. I really love singing carols, so that was lots of fun. Even though I did have to stand in the front row where people can – oh no!!! – see me! Happily for my ridiculous stage fright, most people didn’t stop and stare: we were in the foyer, so the majority of the people just passed through.

Anyway, I’d better go and have dinner before KnitJam tonight. I’m sure there was something else I was planning to blog about, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me. If not, it probably wasn’t important!

I killed it!

Lou — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:16:40 +0000

My photo album, that is. Ooops. And yes, this time I think it really is gone – I was attempting to set up the new version of it using the NextGEN Gallery plugin within WordPress, and I guess that clashed somehow with the Coppermine script, because it’s all fallen down and the photos themselves won’t even show up as direct links. They’re definitely physically there on the server, but I’m getting 404s when I try to reach them. I don’t know why that is (though I have a suspicion). So strange.

Anyway, that means that pretty much all of the photos on the blog are broken for the time being. I’m going to try to get that fixed over the next couple of days, but I doubt it’ll happen tonight. I have a concert to sing in! But I might be wide awake after that, so I might make a start then after all. Now, though, I’d better finish getting ready. Concert blacks, here I come…

Is Oratoria the plural of Oratorio?

Lou — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:50:57 +0000

Actually, I’m fairly sure it’s just “Oratorios”. Which is what I’ve mostly been singing lately, now that I’m a member of Battle Choral Society. For any non-local people: no, we don’t wear chain mail, we don’t carry weaponry other than the heavy music, and we don’t make war on other local choral societies (although wouldn’t that be kind of fun? *g*). Just like Battle Wool Shop doesn’t sell combative yarn and needles (although, again…) and Battle Golf Club doesn’t practice an outdoor form of battle chess (I bet there is a Battle Chess Club, though, which may play normal or battle chess), it’s just that it’s based in the small town (large village?) of Battle. Which is so named because it’s where the Battle of Hastings took place, with the abbey being built and then the town growing around that in the last thousand years or so.

Anyway, history lesson over. I’ve been really enjoying being part of the choir, and would have been at rehearsals tonight if not for going down with this stupid cold – I’ve just got to the sneezy part, so I can’t very well go along and germify everyone else. Bah. At the moment we’re rehearsing for Haydn’s “The Creation” – concert at the end of the month! And just a couple of weeks ago was the first concert I’ve done with the choir: Handel’s “Messiah”, which is one of my all time favourites, and luckily something I’ve sung many many times, since much of the practice for it was done before I joined!

Right, if I want to be well enough for KnitJam on Wednesday, not to mention choir next week, I’d better take myself back to bed. I’m tempted to take my knitting with me, but I might be better off just trying to get some sleep. Early night vs knitting? Hmm, we’ll see.

21: Happy Sunday!

Lou — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:12:32 +0000

OK, welcome to Sunday! Ten hours down, fourteen to go. Since I’m feeling all virtuous after having made a monster long post about a bipolar topic, and having done housework, I’m going to go and answer some more comments and hopefully find time to visit some other blogs and comment there.
PS – this song is made of awesome!

—————-
Listening to: Bat For Lashes – Trophy
via FoxyTunes

6: Very Excited!!

Lou — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:00:03 +0000

I’m trying to contain myself from jumping up and down and running around the room in excitement. (Well, alright, maybe there was a little jumping up and down) I’ve just had an email newsletter from Concorde2 in Brighton, and Skunk Anansie (now reformed) are playing there in October! Eeeee!! I’m over the moon, because I was always gutted that I never got to see them before they split. I did see Skin play there a couple of years ago, and it was fantastic. I have got to get a ticket!

(And now I’ll go back to working on a bipolar topic post!)

On different voices

Lou — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:33:09 +0000

Did you know that people have two (at least) voices? “Chest” voice and “head” voice*. I guess most people only use one most of the time, or don’t notice when they switch from one to the other. Mainly, it’s your chest voice that you use for speech. When you sing, you’re much more likely to leap from one to the other, particularly when there’s a large difference from one pitch to the next. A lot of singing training is to do with getting those different sounds to be consistent with one another. Not to have an obvious bridge moment where you suddenly go into high-squeaky mode or back down into your lower register. If you’ve ever played a wind instrument you’ll know what I mean: it’s much the same thing. It’s got to be smooth and without any odd swoops or jags or squeaks.

Anyway! The point is, right now I have very little chest voice. Speaking is all over the place. There are definitely swoops and jags and squeaks. Unless I deliberately pitch my voice into my head register. Singing, needless to say (particularly since I’m a soprano), is perfectly do-able. Not great-sounding for some things, but do-able. I went to Christingle service at my Mum’s church, and she was most surprised. I’m not going to talk in my head register, though, because it makes me sound about five! I’ll get by – I feel pretty much ok, I just sound croaky.

Huh, that was a sudden swerve into music geeking, wasn’t it? Um. Have a Christingle:

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!

* This isn’t breath support: that’s another thing. Which comes from the diaphragm and… oh never mind ;-) I’ll shut up!

Composing Knits

Lou — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:18:06 +0000

I’ve discovered something kind of interesting. To me, anyway. You see, I’d decided I wanted a hat to go with my Fetching wristwarmers. This meant applying the stitch pattern and cables used on Fetching to a hat. Well, with a couple of small variations – aren’t there always? What I’ve discovered is, I approach knitting designing in the exact same two ways I have of approaching music composition.

Usually when I make a hat (or scarf or bag or whatever), I almost completely improvise. Often, I don’t even swatch, I just rely on the fact that I know that I’ll get this approximate gauge with those needles and that weight yarn, and base my number of cast on stitches on that. I’ll keep to approximate guidelines – just like staying within a key (or its relatives) – but otherwise I’ll wing it from there… sometimes even in terms of stitch pattern, although not always. If it works out well, I might go back and record what I’ve done on paper later on.

This time, I used what is actually my other method of writing music: I take a motif that I’ve worked out on an instrument beforehand, then decide on a key, key sig, and orchestration, and write everything else straight down onto paper out of my head. I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to sound, but there’s sometimes the odd surprise *g*. Along very much the same lines, I started the design for my “Tête à Fetching” hat by taking the motif of the Fetching wristwarmers cables / ribbing which I have already knitted and therefore am familiar with the look of it. I swatched, I calculated, and I wrote out the provisional pattern on paper, including variations which didn’t occur in the original motif. Now, I’m knitting it:

I’ll let you know how it goes, and with luck put the finished pattern up when I’m done!