It's a small world!

When I started recording my singing exploits within this little ol' blog, the general idea was just to create a kind of online diary. If a few friends and relatives found it vaguely entertaining all well and good.

It wasn't long before it began to grow a bit. I could soon see the potential of using it to perhaps encourage other like minded individuals in the Loughborough area to take the plunge and give the choir a try. Chris Hill could see that possibility too and a link to the blog has now been added to the LMVC website.

So, imagine my surprise to suddenly find a message in my 'Inbox', all the way from New York, USA! To read the message from a guy called Jesse  together with my reply to him, click here.

How cool is that? Hopefully, the choir Jesse is auditioning for will be as welcoming as the LMVC has been to me and he goes on to fulfill his dreams! Great stuff!

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, it's concert preparation time again! Last Thursday's rehearsal saw us run through the songs to be included in the May 29th concert in Queens Park. And it means seven more songs that need learning in just a few weeks. Some seemed pretty straight forward, while a couple anything but. Serious work needed I think! If only I didn't need to go to work. It really does get in the way of the more pleasurable parts of one's life, don't you find? All this singing malarky has made the daily drudgery of working on the A46 widening scheme seem ever more dull. Anyway, I do have a right good 'sing-song' in the car on the way to work, much to the amusement of other road users when stopped at traffic lights!

My last singing lesson with the 'Caz-meister' was, may I be so bold as to suggest, my best yet? By 'best' I mean in terms of relaxing more and singing better. The quality of the aforementioned singing was certainly questionable! Certainly, the Nat King Cole songs went reasonably well, but I sense Caroline now wants to drag me, kicking and screaming, out of my comfort zone and to challenge me a bit. Next up is a piece of Handel with the option of doing it in either English or Italian. Now this was interesting in itself! When I think Handel, I think 'Messiah' - all very English. A quick bit of Googling finds a load of 'Wikipedia' bumf on Handel's Italian operas and arias!  Now, I do like a bit of opera, particularly Puccini and Verdi, but I am also a bit of a traditionalist - I like Italian operas sung in Italian and Carmen sung in French. Sorry, but English translations don't do it for me, I'm afraid. So, it would be a tad hypocritical of me to not go for Italian, would it not?

Yeah! Bring it on Caroline! A crash course in Italian pronunciation as well as Handel now required. Let me know the name of the piece again and I'll have it sorted in time for my next lesson. Or not!?!

Cheers for now!

Alyn.

P.S. GOOD LUCK JESSE!!!