The deadline for bringing this journal up-to-date is looming, yet I fear that recounting each workshop is woefully lacking non-existent. This is due to a combination of work being very busy, life itself being very busy, and intermittent fighting of moderate blues - none of which are, by themselves, conducive to long periods of concentration and ( Read more... )

{This is an entry in retrospect but with the date modified in order for the journal to make chronological sense ( Read more... )

Heh, well that was rubbish! We had some time to fill with the first group after team challenge whilst we waited for the second group to finish archery, so I decided to try to teach them Kathy's body percussion / scat thing. To be honest I didn't really set it up properly and my mind kept going blank for which order the words were, and it was a ( Read more... )

Well well well. I almost managed to use Kathy's body percussion thing with the residential group but sort of bottled it. I say 'sort of' because 2/3 of the group were sitting on the steps outside the dining hall waiting for the other 1/3 to come in for tea. They were incredibly noisy and had no instructor to keep them entertained, and the teachers ( Read more... )

It is currently Saturday 3rd July, the day following the final session of Take the Lead, and I am now five sessions and one festival behind. Conveniently, Paul and Charles happened to mention yesterday that August 15th is when they finish their manic summer and have two weeks’ holiday. So I thought maybe it would be good to set that as the deadline ( Read more... )

Well, I haven't continued to write up any of sessions 6-8 yet, but I did give my sister two mini-workshops over the weekend :D Well, it was more like one-and-a-half, but still. She's hoping to be involved with the school's production of 'Guys and Dolls' and wanted me to help her with her audition songs. That was difficult to do as she has no music ( Read more... )

This is one of those guilt-driven entries, to apologise to anyone who may be reading for being so lax with updating - or rather, not updating. I am now two entries behind, and with the next two workshops both happening within the next four weeks I haven't any high hopes for catching up with myself any time soon ( Read more... )

{Oops, I started writing this on 2nd Feb and only finished last night, on the 14th March. Anyway, it's finally done, along with some songs notated, which will follow this post ( Read more... )

Erm, I still haven't written up session 5 yet - I've started, and am quite a way through but as I said to Paul, every time I attempt to finish it my brain turns to mush. (That's what tiredness and fighting off quite serious blues does to the brain, alas ( Read more... )

As it's not really Sing Up, I won't write about the Voces8 launch concert here, but a public post can be found in my other journal here if anybody's interested.

(My being absurdly excited was richly rewarded!)