Category: Music
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In and of itself: the joy of creation
I was reading, just the other day, how a television series might be suddenly abandoned, after one or two seasons. The creator is cast adrift, and the article provided some evidence of their chagrin, their tristesse. Apparently this process happens much more often than one might think. I thought, as I read the piece, ‘Ah…
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This is how singing together feels . . .
I’ve been involved in serving up several video clips of the SongWave Choir’s concert series over the weekend of the 21st of June, and in the course of putting the page (Singing Up A Storm 2024) together, I found this still that seemed to encapsulate the collective joy of our experience. The applause was nice,…
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Storm at Sea
So the SongWave Choir have finished their weekend series of concerts, Singing up a Storm, and we exhausted but energised singers are recuperating. After presenting a huge accumulation of metaphors, relating to sea and sand, water and nurture, hearth and home and shelter from the storm, we’ve sung ourselves hoarse. I believe the concerts, which…
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Embarrassed by the busy bees
We didn’t think the lovely orange ball tree (Buddleja globosa) was in quite such a flurry of blossom last year, but the intense cold, for these parts, seemed to have prevented lots of floribundance. The plants are making up for it this summer. And the bees were as busy on this tree as I’ve ever…
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Bells of joy . . .
It’s been a bit breezy these past few days, here in the GlenKens, so we’ve been enjoying the wind chimes rather a lot. Compared with our previous life high up on a fellside of the bleak and blustery North Pennines, of course, these southwest Scotland zephyrs are like balm to the resting soul. I managed…
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Metaphor and meaning
Sometimes I wonder if the best meanings are most often conveyed through metaphor. I know I’ve not been able, for example, to make any sense of the venality of so many contemporary politicians across the world, without thinking of original sin and selfish lies. But then, my upbringing was built on a foundation of metaphor,…
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. . . come sailing by . . .
Among the eclectic variety of seasonal songs, delivered with appropriate gusto by the SongWave Choir over our weekend of concerts, the lower voices shared in a Humberside version of the carol ‘I Saw Three Ships.’ As related in the programme notes, the connection of the ships to the heralded events surrounding the Nativity was finally clarified…
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Songs of love cannot avoid loss
A good friend, after our concert yesterday afternoon, exclaimed that though the music was about love, it was also about loss. She was absolutely right, and I wonder if that commingled pair of emotions is what conspires in my head to elicit tears at a moment’s notice. The SongWave community performance choir is in full…
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The past co-exists with the present
Our new home is a kind of retro chic. Or possibly, rather more ‘retro’ than ‘chic.’ We are finding, however, that we can accommodate the technology of fifty years past while also revelling in the convenience of the present. It feels like the best of both worlds. When we unpacked the big box of vinyl…
Roads to Joy 