No funny maths tonight, don't worry. I've switched back to thinking about music. Choir this week will be a very festive affair as we start our run up to Christmas - at least it will, if I can figure out how to arrange the music for it.
It's pretty tricky when my Dad is watching Dracula next door. It's the 1958 version - plum voices, swelling strings that are loud enough to rattle the telly and the occasional screaming girl, taken unawares by Christopher Lee. It's not exactly conducive to scoring out Silent Night for Soprano, Alto and Bass.
My problem is, as always, trying to make the music interesting enough to perform and to listen to, but somehow keeping it simple enough to learn quickly. I realised a while ago that one of the keys is making memorable melodies out of each part. Another is keeping the intervals close together so that no-one has to reach for a sixth or an augmented seventh or some other curious leap. The trouble is, it's those beautiful intervals that make it sound great. I'm so tempted to sneak them in but I know the trouble it causes. Plus, once it's written down in the dots and squiggles, it's pretty much unchangeable. Funnily enough, the tension between these two requirements gets reflected in the tension I feel between really loving it and really going mad with frustration.
I feel a bit geeky this week. Maths, music, Beethoven, la di da. I probably shouldn't go on about anything for a while, especially after confusing myself with probabilities. The truth is I really enjoy finding out about all this stuff - I think the world is an amazing place and there's so much that I want to learn and do and see before I leave it. I may well be a Jack of All Trades rather than a Leonardo Da Vinci Savant, but I hope I can say at least I had a go at all this stuff.
There is always table football. Steve and I had another game today. Thrashed. Four of his points were scored by me, back passing the ball straight into my own goal. I just don't have the kind of co-ordination required. Plus, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, especially to the Finance Guys, but I just don't think I care enough about it. Maybe that's how most people feel about maths and grammar, science and music theory? Hmm.
I wonder if Leonardo would have been any good at table football? He could write backwards with his left hand while writing something else forwards with his right hand, apparently. I guess co-ordination wouldn't have been a problem. The beard might have interfered with his team, and I can see him getting angry and flashing into a rage of Latinate fury when fishing the little yellow ball out of his goal while the Finance Guys look on smugly.
Right. Enough procrastination - Silent Night awaits. Table football? Da Vinci? What am I going on about?
Sleep in heavenly peace, people. Sleep in heavenly peace.
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