Last night's concert was wonderful. Glasgow Hospitals Christmas Carol Concert in aid of CLIC Sargent for children with cancer. The very first line of the very first song thrilled as the warm, harmonious sound filled the auditorium of the Royal Concert Hall. Soprano Colleen Nicoll and baritone Andrew McTaggart sang In The Bleak Midwinter - my favourite carol. BBC Young Musician of The Year Yuanfan yang was stunning, playing his own compositions, Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt. He is fifteen years old. The children's choir brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye.
Don't you love to hear children making music?
December is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Almost ready for the party..
Water features largely in our lives here, living by a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland.
I noticed the dew.. (it could have been early rain) on this poppy as I went out the back door this quiet glorious morning....the water droplets silently evaporating in the sunshine..
I heard the little lapping sound of the wavelets..
and the tiny burbling sound of the crosscurrents as fresh water met salt water.
A bit louder where the river meets the loch..
and louder still as the peaty water flows over a weir.
Past the splashing waterfall,
breathing in all those positve ions!
Further on, almost silent, but for the drip drip from moss and ferns..
and a trickle into a ditch.
Let's not forget the slosh of little wellies in a muddy puddle....
and the best sound of all - the laughter of a two year old.
..to a brilliant concert this afternoon. Swedish conductor Stefan Solyom (wonderful to watch his workout on the podium) drew the very best from the Scottish Symphony Orchestra who were on top form, and Russian born violinist Alexandra Soumm had us spellbound. Liszt, Bruch and Dvorak.
I am in awe of musicians and conductors who give so much, intellectually, emotionally and physically.
It makes painting, and writing, seem very tame!
(Talking of which 5,301 words to go....)
Driving through rural Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire on a sunny winter morning I see a wooded, hedged and farmed landscape, with manor houses, ancient churches and cottages, jays and kites flying overhead.
It has its problems. Too many people! Not enough rain! But it is very beautiful and I love it.
About yesterday's post and self talk....Do you listen when you talk to yourself?
Our lives, says Tim Parks, are all in the head at the expense of our bodies, or as he even more dramatically puts it We have become cerebral vampires preying on our own life blood.
Would you agree?
One of the best things about a holiday is spending a whole day just reading.
I'm riveted, repelled, and very amused by Tim Parks Teach Us To Sit Still . He let's us in on his 'self talk' - that voice in our heads which is often, when we take the time to really listen to it, talking utter nonsense (which we too often believe to be true)....Susan Jeffers in Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway calls it the 'chatterbox'. Byron Katie in Loving What Is suggests you ask yourself what stories you are telling yourself, and Park's guru says 'Always ask yourselves In what way am I contributing to my own suffering?'
A surprisingly good read.
Thanks Lynne.
That was a rather short posting yesterday!
(As children we were told 'I want doesn't get!' We were expected to wait for something to be offered, or at the very least say 'Please may I have.'
But that was the way the thought came to me that I would love to have a piano. I had been talking to someone who was getting rid of one, and I was thinking of the immense pleasure of listening to my daughters playing the piano, and I realised that, actually, I wanted to learn to play.
As parents it wasn't easy finding the money for music lessons, but for my parents it was simply out of the question, and it just didn't enter my consciousness that children had piano lessons. It was completely outside my experience.
And now, all these years later, I suddenly know that I would love to learn to play the piano.
Someone else got the one that was being given away - but I'm looking now....
..do you have any unfulfilled ambitions, musical or otherwise, that you didn't know you even had?....
I went down to the shore sketching in this - exhilerating, but I am so glad I have a cosy home to hunker down in, a good dinner in the oven, and some good books to read - we won't be going anywhere tonight. The noise is wild and roaring with the odd loud crack as a branch or a tree comes down!
I'm listening to my soundscape. Since it takes just 30 seconds, and brings me so beautifully into the present moment, I've decided it's a lovely way to start the day. Thank you Pia Jane Bijkerk.
The tide has turned so there is the rhythmic hsch hsch of the waves coming in, the high pitched sounds of a large flock of siskins feeding in the garden, and the odd cry of a gull or two. A crackle from the fire and the clack of a doorhandle as a door blows open in the draught from the open window, and I hear a door close from a neighbour's house. From the kitchen there's the sound of gently bubbling water from a pan with my egg in it.
Have you read the novel Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty? I loved the way everyday sounds were woven into the story of the main character, Catherine, who is a composer. A lovely read. I read it first for the story, and again for the sound details.
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