Berberis' World

Sunday, 1st March, 2015.

It’s exactly three years since the email arrived telling me I’d been chosen for the Lewisham Hospital choir. Along with three others workplace choirs, our progress – from nervous auditions in front of a couple of dozen people to confident performers on stage in front of thousands – would be filmed for 20/20’s ‘Sing While You Work’ series to be broadcast later in the year.

It came at the right time; I was over the trauma of being kicked out of the LPC, but still had no confidence in my singing ability. Now, at last, someone did. Whatever the agenda – and I’m in no doubt that they had an agenda – it was an opportunity to prove myself to myself.

At the start, there were 29 of us. We had one fewer bass than the three other choirs – partly a result of there being more women than men working in the Trust – and the soprano section had its mandatory divas. There were a few people with whom I hit it off straight away, and they know who they are. There were also a few with whom I was never going to hit it off. I don’t care if they know who they are.

The first time we all got together was in the Lessof, from which we piled into a bus and were taken to Greenwich. Here, we were put on a boat, plied with drink and taken up river. It was already obvious that there were cliques; doctors with doctors, physios with physios, porters with porters, etc. This didn’t help my mood, which had already dipped with my belief that most of the other women in the choir had better voices than I did.

[This turned out to not be true. However, when a respected choir master tells you that you can’t sing, you are inclined to believe them above someone off the telly.]

Still, back on the boat, and we were – at one point – motoring under London Bridge singing ‘London’s Burning’ as a round. I found out that two of the sopranos had, like me, been members of the LPC, although not at the same time. One of the altos had been in a punk band, one of the tenors had been in an orchestra, and one of the basses was in a barbershop quartet.

Rehearsals were usually filmed, and the oft-repeated instruction to ‘ignore the cameras’ was actually quite easy to do. The few who kept complaining about the presence of a film crew were usually reminded that they’d not been forced to audition so, for the sake of everyone else, please shut up.

To begin with, the songs were simple. I’m used to learning difficult pieces in a short time and it did get a bit frustrating when we were progressing at one bar a minute. It’s like being behind a learner driver when you’re in a hurry to get somewhere; you have to remind yourself that you were also once a beginner.

When we were told we had to dance as well as sing, I was less than enthusiastic. I’d attended a couple of sessions with the Rock Choir in Blackheath and dance ‘moves’ were (pardon the pun) routine with them. Happy to dance. Happy to sing. Not happy to do both at the same time, and even less happy when we were told we had to work out the routine ourselves. At this point, the choir members who liked the sound of their own voices took charge and it became something of a battle of wills. My contribution was mainly to say what I wouldn’t do. I’ll admit that this wasn’t as helpful as suggesting what I would, and there was much flouncing and drama and tantrums. The end result was acceptable. It got us through to the final, anyway.

The semi-final was at the Colston Hall in Bristol. I’d been there twice – once on stage, playing the recorder, and once in the audience at a Gerry Rafferty concert – so going back to sing on stage, even if it was to a silent audience, was pretty special, even though it’s embarrassing to now remember just how often I mentioned this fact. There’s a huge extension, with public areas, office space, rehearsal rooms, and bars, but the old Hall didn’t look much different to how I remembered. Smaller, obviously. Much of the journey there was spent rehearsing the song we were going to sing (before the film crew told us to stop) or warming up. When we weren’t doing this, I’m sure some of us thought about what they’d say or do when we got back, having not made it through to the final.

The journey back was spent drinking and singing as we celebrated the fact that we had.

The day of the final started with an accident.

The coach which was meant to take us to Llangollen was involved in one even before it got to us, and some people saw that as a good omen. It was raining, which was less an omen than a pain in the arse. Pete announced that we would be going by train and we were taken by taxi to Euston to board the 11.15am to Crewe. We even managed to get a 1st class carriage, probably to the irritation of the people who’d paid to be there. We were pretty well-behaved; the table behind me started a discussion about sex (doctors, most of them) and I used the time and the space to let out the seams of my dress.

Once at Crewe, we were taken by taxi to Llangollen. The weather as we got into Wales was nice and warm, and we started to think that it might last. It didn’t. We’d only been there about half an hour and it started drizzling – within the hour, the ground was soaked and the mud was oozing through whatever it was they’d put on the grass to protect it. Those who hadn’t brought wellies with them bought them pretty quickly.

There then began the seemingly endless process of being dragged here and there and back again to simply stand around. We’d been told we’d have a run through and 2 sound checks. What we found out at the very last minute was that the riser we had to stand on to perform was narrow and very unstable. This meant that the routine we’d rehearsed over and over for the final song was far too “big” for the area available. I don’t know whether this led to the feelings of having been stitched up, and the subsequent below-par performance, but it didn’t help.

It was whilst waiting in the wings to go on for the sound-check that my suspicions that the whole thing WAS a fix became conviction. RM sang ‘Don’t Stop’ by Fleetwood Mac, we sang ‘For Once In My Life’ by Stevie Wonder, and STW sang ‘Feeling Good’. Listen to all three, imagine having to dance to them on a postage stamp and you’ll get the idea.

There was more waiting around, and we were now getting very tired (we’d travelled further than anyone else) and hungry (the only things provided were massively carb-heavy) and the novelty of wading through mud was wearing thin. Eventually, the time for the performance came around and we traipsed off through the mud again to the pavilion. The three choirs all had their Hakka moments, and ours was this:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic”: Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Eddie finished by saying that it had been read at the funerals of the men with whom he’d served, and it would be read at his own. Suzanne cried, and I shed a few tears as well.

RM were first on, with STW second and us third. It was even more obvious this time that STW were going to win, but we went on smiling and gave it our all.

This was at about 8.15pm. We then got a proper meal, and some of us (RM as well) found the beer tent and had a pint, until we were summoned back to the catering tent to wait around again.

It was whilst wandering around this tent that I found, on a table, what looked like a running order for the crew. If it had been left there accidentally they were extremely lucky that no-one else but me appeared to have read it. If it was deliberate, then shame on them. What it said was that, after the whole thing wrapped, STW were to be taken to a different hotel to us and RM.

This was final, and incontrovertible, proof that the whole thing had been fixed, and probably from the outset. When we were finally shepherded onto the stage again at the time of the judges’ announcement – at gone 1am – it was obvious to me that STW were going to win.

I’ll be frank. RM had far more than its fair share of plain people. We had our fair share of plain people. STW had far less than its fair share of plain people. Their line-up included half a dozen tall, pretty, busty young women, who are clearly going to look better on TV.

This and the separate hotel were not the only clues. It turned out that GM had spent the week leading up to the final with them, and a lot of this with their soloist. It showed. With better looking people, better coaching, and a better song, the outcome would very likely have been decided as soon as the auditions were over.

A number of our number were very upset. I was surprised to realise that I wasn’t one of them. Being almost certain that it was a set-up actually softened the blow to the point of it hardly registering at all. This was helped by the copious amount of alcohol that was consumed in the bar of the Wrexham Ramada hotel, where the staff were extremely tolerant, and the RM were hugely supportive and very (in some cases, too) friendly.

The resulting hangover lasted about 48 hours.

Despite all of the little niggles, problems, and outright annoyances, I’m pleased I took part, but I’d think twice about doing anything like it again.

Saturday, 5th July, 2014 to Saturday, 28th February, 2015.

I was sitting in the pew at St Stephen & St Mark in Lewisham waiting for the rest of the Lewisham Hospital Choir to arrive when I finally decided to tell Dan that I wouldn’t be attending any more rehearsals for Lewisham Choral Society’s July concert in Cadogan Hall. The programme included James Whitbourn’s ‘Luminosity’, Vaughan Williams’s ‘In Windsor Forest’ and ‘Serenade to Music’.

I’d started practicing these during the rehearsals for Verdi’s Requiem at Croydon and had been, frankly, underwhelmed. However, this wasn’t the main reason for deciding to not participate. The truth was that I’d let the many problems I was having at work affect my not-work life. It seemed easier to ditch the two hours a week I spent doing something I enjoyed for more time doing something I didn’t.

Put like that (and, if I’m going to be honest, this is being written very retrospectively) it sounds mad. I hated ‘African Sanctus’, but went to every rehearsal and gave it my all. I wasn’t even close to hating this programme yet I abandoned it to spend more time in the office. (Cadogan Hall, though lovely, is acoustically dead. This is not a valid reason for not singing there.) Not just that, I was abandoning something that gave me joy for something that was, at the time, quite literally making me ill.

Actually, if that honesty clause is still in effect, it wasn’t something. It was someone. I won’t name them. Not because I’m scared of being sued. I just don’t want to have to type the name and then have to see it in black and white. Or black and blue. (Or is it gold and white..?)

[That last, parenthetical, comment shouldn’t even be here unless I’m time-travelling. Which I’m not. If I could this post wouldn’t exist.]

So, getting back on track. From the start of 2014, the admissions team (which will be referred to henceforth as ‘we’) had had new managers. Both of whom were, by a daily vote with a show of hands, the worst we’d ever known. Ever. Even the one before the one before one of them had been better, and they’d outright lied to us, so that was saying something.

It wasn’t just the emails (each with an unreadable spreadsheet attached) per day, it was that they would then (a) ring to ask if we’d read the emails and the attached unreadable spreadsheet and, after an hour or so, would (b) come to the office to discuss said email and the attached unreadable spreadsheet, now helpfully printed on A4 paper with a font size so small you needed a microscope.

[By ‘unreadable’ I don’t mean it was in a foreign language. That I could have coped with. No, I mean that 95% of the information it contained was irrelevant, and it was set out in such a way that the relevant 5% was almost impossible to find. By ‘helpful’ I mean very, very unhelpful.]

On its own, this was impediment enough to a job that is full-on, head-down, non-stop from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. If you add to this having the one member of the team on whom I could really rely being on various types of leave for six weeks out of the first twelve of 2014, as well as being regularly prevented from leaving on time by a “2 minute” dissection of an unreadable spreadsheet starting at 4.55pm (in reality 30 minutes of the same question being asked over and over again), together with being prevented from leaving the office by someone sitting on the floor with their back to the closed door then you have some idea of the pressure I was under. It wasn’t pretty.

I was, by turns, deeply depressed, extremely angry, and lost-for-words frustrated. In May I fled, in tears, to the HR department where I was almost incoherent in my attempt to try to get someone – anyone – to understand what I was putting up with.

[Just noticed that the word count at the end of that paragraph was 666. If I was superstitious, I might read something into that. I’m not. I do, however, say “Hello, magpie” to solitary magpies. So perhaps I am.]

The cherry on the cake was that, around this time, the one member of team on whom I could really rely told me they were leaving. There would, of course, be a handover to the new team member. Given the complexity of the job and the knowledge which needed to be passed on I suggested two weeks. Not unreasonably, I thought. I was told we could have one. In reality, what we got – what the new team member got – was two and a half days. And that was with the departing team member already doing their new job.

[Later, I learned that, had the incompetent bunglers who called themselves managers and who drew a salary for being thus, the handover could have been four weeks. At this point, I felt that it wasn’t just appalling management, it was an actual conspiracy.]

I took a week off, expecting, on my return, to feel better. I went back and things were, unbelievably, worse.

In August, I learned that a patient with whom I’d had dealings was at death’s door. This is never good to hear, but how much worse it was when I realised that I might have been partly to blame. I was devastated. I’d been asked to do one thing and I’d not done it. And now this patient was dying. It was that simple. It seemed that simple. Of course, these things rarely are and this was no exception.

[I’m not going into detail, save to say that the investigation is nearing its end. The patient reached theirs on Boxing Day, 2014.]

Luminosity, then. Astronomically, 4πd²b. ‘The intrinsic brightness of a celestial object (as distinct from its apparent brightness diminished by distance)’. Or: ‘The rate of emission of radiation, visible or otherwise.’ As opposed to illumination, which is what I badly needed as far as the job was concerned, and which was sadly lacking.

I still have the music. I’ve always purchased scores, only ever hired when purchase – even on the vast-and-getting-exponentially-vaster interweb – wasn’t an option. I may even, as in the case of Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, get to sing it at some point in the future.

[What was the point of this? Hang on.]

Drift. Actually, I’m not sure this has a point, or even that it needs one. I’m listening to the audio book of Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ at the moment. You have always to bear in mind that it was written in 1974, otherwise it’s just some biker dude banging on about how a cheap brand of baked beans is not, can not, and will never be, as good as Heinz.

It’s not. It’s a lot more, and then some. For those who care, I can be found walking to work with a frown on my face occasionally saying out loud “I have no idea what you’re talking about”. I understood most of Parts 1 & 2. It’s Part 3 that has me frowning.

I also finished listening to ‘Catch 22’. I wasn’t sure what to make of this for a long time. Then there was a lightbulb moment when I actually started to care about the characters. I felt sad when they died. I felt happy when they got a break. And just when I wanted to find out more, it ended. Damn you, Heller. Write more next time. And make me care about them sooner, you bastard.

Audio books do force my thought to focus. And it’s only when they focus that things like this happen. A random focussing of seemingly unfocussed ideas amounting to over a thousand words. I wish my other writing was as easy right now. I’ve heard it said that writer’s block happens because a story isn’t ready. There are analogies to which I will not allude.

The source of many of my work woes actually appeared in the office recently. In person. Even though I expressly asked that they be kept away from me. To my surprise, the urge to punch was absent, even if my fingertips tingled ever-so-slightly. I could not, in all conscience, bid them welcome. This, I am pleased to report, was noticed. You? Yes, you. You sweaty, whey-faced, panicky, incompetent excuse for a human being. I am SO over you. I have more space now, and daylight, and fresh air. And I will have a plant soon. One I have propagated myself.

And you have Croydon.

I win.

Saturday, 13th December 2014, Great Hall, Goldsmiths College.

Carols for choir and audience: It came upon a midnight clear / Gloria in excelcis Deo / Stille Nacht / Benedictus from Christmas Oratorio / Sing Joyfully / Susanne un jour / O come, all ye faithful / Deck the hall / In dulci jubilo / A great and mighty wonder / In the bleak mid-winter / Christmas Night / Good King Wenceslas / What cheer? / Nativity carol / Joy to the world! / Snow / Coventry Carol / I wonder as I wander / Hark! The herald-angels sing

Piano: Joshua Kelly
Piano/Organ: Nico de Villiers
Conductor: Dan Ludford-Thomas

Ah, another LCS Christmas Concert! Another chance to ignore the jolliness of the season and be miffed that the sopranos get all the decent tunes and, hence, the glory. That said, I like It came upon a midnight clear, as the altos get a nice line in the last verse, and Rutter’s Nativity Carol is beautiful.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, Fairfield Halls, Croydon.

2331 days since I first sang this with Lewisham Choral Society – 265 since I sang it with the Really Big Chorus at the Royal Albert Hall, and 168 before I hope to be singing it with Crouch End Festival Chorus – I found myself on stage at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon singing Verdi’s Requiem.

Croydon’s a bit of a dump, and the venue is far too big for a choral society, even one augmented by sixty or so singers from Derbyshire. When we filed on for the performance, I was a bit worried that we’d outnumber the audience but it was a fair turnout in the end, and enthusiastic. I was expecting Pete to turn up, and kept an eye out for him until the last minute, but he didn’t show. (Turned out he had ‘flu. He was also being bitten by children. I’m fairly sure that this is not a vaccination method NICE recommend…)

You would be right in thinking that I like singing this work. It’s either that or I’m a masochist. That last part’s true – I once ran a half marathon – and, in its way, Verdi’s Requiem is quite similar. However, it’s less a marathon than a series of sprints: a choral ‘fartlek’, if you will. The opening ‘Requiem/Kyrie Eleison’ is – literally – a vocal warm-up at 80-88bpm, but Verdi clearly knew nothing about workouts because the ‘Dies Irae’ that follows doubles the pace to 160bpm until Fig. 9, when it drops back to 80bpm until Fig. 16. Admittedly, this drop in pace is not accompanied by a drop in intensity; the 14 bars of actual singing are at a volume and pitch it would be difficult to sustain for many more.

Back to 88bpm at Fig. 18, and a chance to breathe between ‘Di-es i-rae’s until Fig. 21, when you can sense that the mezzo-sop is building up to something. This happens seven bars after Fig. 21, and we jog along with the orchestra until Fig. 22, when the bpm goes back up to 160 until the low intensity of the last 5 bars when we are allowed to sit down.

The soloists then waltz along at 6/8 time (one dotted crochet = 100). There’s probably a website that would allow me to convert this to bpm but I can’t be bothered to look right now. At Fig. 27, the basses thunder in at ff with ‘Rex tremendae’ at a very stately 72bpm into the ‘Salva me’ which may be slow but is very intense… a bit like Callanetics, if I remember rightly. At 3 before Fig. 32 we sit down again, standing at 8 before Fig. 47 with no chance to warm up for the run that is the second ‘Dies Irae’.

At Fig. 50, things slow down to the speed of a tectonic plate: the 60bpm ‘Lacrymosa’, all grace notes and heartache. At 3 before Fig. 53, the altos come in on a B with the phrase ‘parce Deus’ (spare [me], Lord). At this point in the concert, I lost my voice. Not through over-use, thankfully, but it was a choice between singing or a coughing fit. Luckily, the end of part one was only 8 pages away, and I managed a couple of ‘Requiem’s before the end.

We start the second half seated, leaping to our feet with no warm up for the 138bpm ‘Sanctus’. This ends with the sopranos on a top F. Immediately after this, ‘the Agnus Dei’ calms things down to 84bpm, and this should be a slow and peaceful walk. The solo soprano should float in on a top E, with the mezzo an 8ve down. The second they started singing, Dan’s head turned towards them. They were flat, and not by a smidgen but by almost a whole tone. Had I not heard it with my own ears, I’d have said it was impossible, but there it was.

The ‘Lux aeterna’ that follows is a mezzo/tenor/bass effort, and it was at this point that I decided that I knew which soloist had probably been to blame for the earlier tuning issue. The soprano gets all agitated at the start of the ‘Libera Me’ and even though the choir tries to stay calm we end up following suit with another rendition of ‘Dies Irae’. This is followed by the 80bpm ‘Requiem’. But the Verdi Workout isn’t finished. No sooner do our heart rates slow than the soloist is off again and, this time, we have to keep up because at Fig. 100 the pace jumps to a ridiculous 232bpm, where it stays until the Fig. 114, at which point – if you’re not careful – you can fall of the treadmill.

You need supreme breath control for the last page. Thanks to the previous 24 pages, you probably don’t have it. A proper vocal workout.

8th April update: It turns out that both soloists were responsible for the tuning issue. No-one seemed to notice and Dan wasn’t bothered – “live performance”. So I felt like an idiot for mentioning it at the rehearsal today, where I spent two hours going “Me sir! Pick me! Pick me!”

Sunday, 8th December 2013.

Tomorrow afternoon, just outside A&E, I’ll be taking part at the launch of a single, a mash-up of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ and Cold Play’s ‘Fix You’, which is clumsily titled ‘A Bridge Over You’, and which was recorded at Air Studios in Islington on 3 November.