27 June 2013

The day three years after the night before



What a day.  I don't consider myself a political tragic by any means, but didn't miss a moment of the coverage on the ABC last night.  They acquitted themselves much better than the last time a PM was moved along this way.

Three out of the four press conferences were somewhere on the scale from very good to excellent.  To his credit Tony Abbott took a couple of questions.  They were both about his mooted attempt at a no-confidence vote in parliament.  He claimed not to be into parliamentary games, which just goes to show that his glittering mendacity goes well with Julie Bishop's death stare.  Tony Abbott's generic response to contemporary political issues is to say that we had the solutions in a proverbial yesterday (ie: before 2007), and we owe nothing to tomorrow.

Tony Abbott reckons Labor owes the nation an explanation.  Well, I reckon he's got a few points he might like to clarify for himself.  Perhaps we could start with the 'it doesn't explain nothing...it does explain some things' comment from Julia Gillard's press conference last night.  There can be no doubt Tony Abbott has been at least complicit with some of the ugly gender politicking during Julia Gillard's time.  It would be nice to hear why he felt it appropriate to stand in front of those placards at the anti-carbon tax rally.  Actually, it would be very edifying to hear why he and two senior women from his party, Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella, saw no problem with being photographed in front of those placards.  Ah yes, weren't they serving a higher loyalty?

The lack of policy in the Liberal profile is a problem.  But I think people ought to remember things like the picture above.  I think it is a significant touchstone for where the Liberals have traveled in recent years.  They speak of elevating the tone, but their actions just don't match up to the windy rhetoric.

Sure, there are a lot of things about the last three years of Labor that will endure as generational charges against the Gillard government.  People simply won't forget the vindictiveness towards the unemployed, particularly single parents.  The paradoxical and destructive dithering over same-sex marriage.  The constant race to the bottom to see who can be most inhumane and indecent towards people seeking refuge (and yes, I did hear Bob Carr's comments on Lateline).  Then there are the cave-ins to lobbying from vested interests, starting with the miners.  And yes, there is all the instability surrounding Kevin, and the unnecessary personal slanging by quite a number of the soon-to-be departed.  People in glass houses, stones -- things could have been very different today.

But against these negatives there are quite a lot of positive achievements, of which the carbon tax-cum-trading-scheme, Disability Care and the residual Gonski package (again, for all it's paradoxical features) are two that spring instantly to mind.  In spite of all the idiotic blather of the news media, I think the minority government has been anything but a hamstrung mess.

For what it's worth, I think Labor has done the right thing.  Three years ago the excuse was that a good government had lost its way.  This time round a good government had been consumed by its own strategic and tactical blunders.  Rudd was right to say that the prospect of a Liberal-National government come September should not be assumed, and if there's any fight in the machine, then it should be all out.  There are many things one could dislike about Kevin Rudd, but he has the ability to tell the story about Labor in a way Julia Gillard and her team never quite mastered.  There is a generational change afoot in the Labor party with a lot of opportunities for new members, should the seats of departing luminaries be held after the election.

The reality is that Labor in 2013 has done something the Liberals could never bring themselves to accomplish when they had the chance any time before the 2007 election.  Perhaps it is a measure of their niceness that they are not very sanguine about cutting down a leader whose performance isn't measuring up.  John Howard was unwise in allowing himself to be venerated and pandered to when a more hard-edged approach was required for the good of his party.  For goodness sake, he practically offered them the knife, a well-marked target and a free shot, all on a silver plate, and the people who supposedly wanted the change to occur wouldn't do anything to bring it about.  They were all charmed by the delusion that he would retire at a time of his choosing, just like the dear old Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.  It didn't happen.

By contrast, Julia Gillard called the spill saying that this time it was for keeps, and the looser retires.  She has kept her side of the bargain.  It is honorable, decent, and gives the party a better chance at performing well on election day.  What amazes me is that this is a mystery to anyone.

Kevin Rudd seems never to have had the veneration problem within the Labor party, although he would be quite entitled to it.  The question is whether he has learned a better pattern of behaviours for the new phase of his leadership.  I guess we now get to find out.

26 June 2013

Out and about on Sunday

This week I will be playing at St Aloysuis, Caulfield.

Here's what I have planned.


Grave e serioso (Op. 38, No. 2, II) -- August Reinhard

Fugue -- Gottleib Muffat

Fughetta (Op. 14, No. 3, III) -- Sigfrid Karg-Elert

25 June 2013

Well, that's one way of doing it...

Norman Lebrecht seems to think this is a wedding music disaster.  I'm not so sure I'd go that far.

It's the sort of thing that's guaranteed to touch a few nerves.  But you certainly can't deny that it's a bit different...

24 June 2013

Whiteboards and Warmups

It's been a while since I last wrote anything about the practical side of choir training here, so perhaps it's time to mention something I've been doing in this department recently.

Wherever I go to run a rehearsal, I try to make sure there's a whiteboard in the room.  There are a few things that go on the board right at the very beginning: the session outline, scoreboard for the honours system, and any special notices.  I find it's easier to work through a larger amount of material if everyone can see the order in which it will be taken, which can be very useful when preparing for a busy day in a church choir, for example.  When working with a restless group it helps to keep the focus if there is a payoff, like crossing out finished items from the session outline.

Recently I've been using the whiteboard to achieve some other objectives.  I have a fairly well-established warmup sequence for the beginning of a rehearsal, and I'm conscious of how easy it can be to fall into a verbal rut with this.  Over about six or so weeks I take a 'theme and variations' approach to warmups, which can help to overcome predictability to some extent.

Recently I decided to see if I could run the first seven minutes of a rehearsal without using many words, spoken or written.  The aim was to make the opening of the rehearsal a time of creative engagement, giving stimuli to the choir that would require them to respond in ways that opened up a wider range of tone colour.

So I looked at the whiteboard and started drawing my warmup.
  • Cypress tree -- Oak tree -- Weeping Willow
  • Balloon being blown up (breath placement)
  • S with an upward arrow, then with a downward arrow (breath engagement)
  • Siren (Sigh-ren -- sliding from high pitch to low, and vice-versa)
  • Treble stave with a G
To do the warmup, I pointed to each drawing on the board.  I made sure to interrupt the sequence, so that the routine was made a little less familiar.  Once the pitch was established (and checked, and known to be correct), we then moved on to solfege exercises using handsigns.

It was interesting to see the response.  Many of the older choristers started using the words I use with each action, until I gave a sign that this was not wanted.  The younger choristers began to pay closer attention.  Overall, focus on the task improved.

One benefit of doing the warmup this way is that some different variations can be introduced in a way that allows the singers to own the new task in a more direct way.  More importantly, it helps to cut down conductor talkativeness at the beginning of a rehearsal and achieve at least the same result.

Music from Sunday 23 June


As promised last week, here is a list of organ pieces played at the morning service at St Aloysius yesterday.

Pastorella [BWV 590] -- J.S. Bach
Sarabande from Sonata in a minor (Op. 38, No. 3) -- August Reinhard
Festival Finale -- Malcolm Archer
Hayducki -- Mikolaj Z. Krakowa
Festive Procession -- Paul Bryan
Sortie -- Samuel Rousseau

19 June 2013

Out and about on Sunday

This week I will be playing at St Aloysius, Caulfield, for the 10.30am Pontifical Solemn at the Faldstool.  The event is the diamond jubilee Mass of Archbishop Basil Meeking, an episcopal supporter of the Latin Mass community there. It's quite something to think that the archbishop was ordained in the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

So, as usual for these things, it means a little bit of extra organ music.

I'll post later when I have a complete list of organ music for the day.

15 June 2013

12 June 2013

Out and about on Sunday

This Sunday I'm back at St Aloysius, Caulfield.  This is the first week of a longer than usual stint, so I guess my Church Latin will be much improved over the next few weeks.

Here is what I have planned to play this week.

Fugue -- Gottlieb Muffat
Allegro non troppo (Op. 38, No. 3) -- August Reinhard

05 June 2013

Out and about on Sunday

This week I will be playing at St Paul's, Canterbury. There is a little bit of choir music as well as organ music, so here's what's planned.

Lento (Op. 105, No 3) -- C.V. Stanford
Litany to the Holy Spirit -- Peter Hurford
March -- George Frederick Handel

03 June 2013

Fundraising drive complete!

To the left you can see the chamber organ we hired for the concert yesterday.

The afternoon was a wonderful experience, and many people have sent feedback to say how much they enjoyed the event.

Much of the success of the day was down to the weather.  After two days of nearly-continuous rain, the sun shone and the air was warmer.


The concert played to a full house.  The most joyful moment of the day was when the percussion instruments came out for the last two movements of David and Goliath.  Claves, a drum, handbells, and marraccas were all well-received, but the item that really delighted people was the triangle.

The final result from the fundraising drive was $850.00.  Thanks to the generosity of the following donors, the organ hire, removal, and tuning have been more than covered.

Jessie Boyd
Dr Jeffrey Castles
Reverend David Conolly
Helen Croll
Doris Gordon
Nancy Gray
Alan and Elisabeth Howie
Kate Kelly
Jean Miller
Se-hyon Oh
Anne Richards
Annette Robinson
Geoff and Helen Shaw
Robert Stove
Arthur and Estelle Vale
Professor Garry Warne
Reverend Dennis Webster

Finally, a big thanks to the Early Arts Guild, Bayside City Council, and the clergy and people of St Stephen's Anglican Church and St James' Catholic Church, Gardenvale.