(no subject)
I've been back in Bristol for a couple of weeks, and I'm enjoying it so far. To my dismay, I have one weekly seminar, one fortnightly lecture and hopefully a weekly dissertation supervision. Very embarrassing! Some of my archaeologist friends actually have *no* lectures at all, so at least I can still make fun of someone.
Last week I joined the choir at Clifton Cathedral, singing weekly at Solemn Mass (woohoo, bells and smells, with a lot of polyphony and chant propers!). It's a lot of fun, doing wonders for my sight singing (so far I have failed to get to Friday rehearsal, so have only sung through the music two hours before Mass- interesting moments with the crazynotes Mass last week- oddly fun) and I've been meeting a lot of interesting people. Many Cambridge connections, and one of the conductors is very interested in chant (I objected to chant with organ accompaniment, but it still sounds nice) and his eyes lit up when I said I had my own Triplex. My suspicions have been confirmed about church music- especially if you're a Catholic chant specialist, and even more so if you're a young female Catholic early chant notation musicologist- being a very, very small world indeed. I have found my niche :)
Other things: I've been befriending cats. There's a gorgeous little one, Ted, who's a tortoiseshell who likes to sleep on cars in an adjacent road. He always wakes up, greets me with a miaow and demands lots of fuss when I see him. There's a big cat (male, I think- too stocky to be a female) who appeared at the door one day, pestered me to let him in and then lay down on the carpet, evidently saying it was acceptable and he'd stay. I've also realised I have a total inability to budget, and that it is dangerous for Margaret and I to be allowed into a shop. We bought a stuffed dragon from the baby section of a quite expensive shop, because we *needed* to buy him. He is gorgeous. Just an example there.
Last week I joined the choir at Clifton Cathedral, singing weekly at Solemn Mass (woohoo, bells and smells, with a lot of polyphony and chant propers!). It's a lot of fun, doing wonders for my sight singing (so far I have failed to get to Friday rehearsal, so have only sung through the music two hours before Mass- interesting moments with the crazynotes Mass last week- oddly fun) and I've been meeting a lot of interesting people. Many Cambridge connections, and one of the conductors is very interested in chant (I objected to chant with organ accompaniment, but it still sounds nice) and his eyes lit up when I said I had my own Triplex. My suspicions have been confirmed about church music- especially if you're a Catholic chant specialist, and even more so if you're a young female Catholic early chant notation musicologist- being a very, very small world indeed. I have found my niche :)
Other things: I've been befriending cats. There's a gorgeous little one, Ted, who's a tortoiseshell who likes to sleep on cars in an adjacent road. He always wakes up, greets me with a miaow and demands lots of fuss when I see him. There's a big cat (male, I think- too stocky to be a female) who appeared at the door one day, pestered me to let him in and then lay down on the carpet, evidently saying it was acceptable and he'd stay. I've also realised I have a total inability to budget, and that it is dangerous for Margaret and I to be allowed into a shop. We bought a stuffed dragon from the baby section of a quite expensive shop, because we *needed* to buy him. He is gorgeous. Just an example there.