Gingham, my deer and a word on singing.

I expect, for many a UK-based girl, the sight of Gingham takes us back to Primary school summers and wearing our Gingham sun dresses. It certainly does for me and when I see our girls in their pale-blue and white numbers, I feel rather nostalgic.

 A charity-shopped red gingham-top from two years ago, is one that I chose to wear on a cool Summer's day (not Autumn yet) and it worked well. I was at a choir rehearsal which is being run by the lady who used to run my Primary school choir in year 6. In fact, she used to be the music teacher also at my current school, so I essentially am her now. Funny eh?  It was really good fun to be singing in a choir again. I love singing in female voice choirs and the music is challenging and I really relish sight-singing.   It is very satisfying. I am lucky that I can look at a piece of music written down and sing it straight off without hearing a piano note or anything. The only thing that bamboozles me is occasionally if there are awkward lyrics, although I get the notes right, I may muddle my words. I have often taken this skill for granted but I am aware, being a music teacher, of just what a useful and valuable skill this is. If I am busy and haven't had time to prepare for a choir practice, I know I can just teach the kids straight off.  I realise how much harder I would find my job otherwise, so I am thankful for it, truly thankful.

I don't think I've mentioned it before on here before, and I thought it might be interesting to mention.

It's a funny thing, I have often wondered how it came about. I don't necessarily feel that I have true 'Perfect pitch' which is the ability to just be able to name a note, although I can do that, I do believe it has come about through my continual exposure to singing and playing throughout my life.

My Mum used to take me to church choir practice as a 4 year old and I would sit there listening as she practised and then went through arias with our friend Norma and the choir master. Apparently after a while, this precocious brat used to inform Auntie Norma that she was singing flat and Mummy was singing sharp. It was, apparently true what I was saying.

I began singing in the church choir from around aged 5 and then sang in school choirs, music school choirs, individual singing lessons, and multiple instrumental groups. I don't remember when I started being able to just sing from the music although I could name notes in primary school. I think the sight-singing ability was there from about aged 13, but as I say, it just developed. I wish I could analyse it better and know what it was, as I would love to be able to impart it to my children.

I think, perhaps, my ability to sing music easily, may make me a bit impatient when it comes to singing in choirs, when things don't move as quickly as I would like,  although this is inward, I hope, rather than being overt.   The majority of choirs I sing in are fast-moving which is good anyway.

If I were to offer anyone any advice on developing their singing or indeed playing, I would say, just try to sing and play in ensembles as much as possible, be it school groups, community, church, other.  Just try to take all the opportunities you can,even if they aren't with your immediate peer group.

I'm looking forward to the choir concert on the 1st October.  It is good to enjoy challenging music again.

Hope all is well with you.

xxx

Mixed thoughts and ponderings

I was chatting on the phone to my little sister earlier, discussing school.  I said that I wished children wouldn't be so rude when they don't want to do something any more,  by just not turning up and telling their friends they didn't want to do it anymore. It just makes me cross that they don't know and use the social niceties, especially when they know I get annoyed by other children doing it. For instance, two girls who used to be in many music clubs last year are now not in anything, the last thing they dropped out of was recorder club.  I told them I thought it was really rude that they hadn't bothered to tell me.  I don't mind if they don't want to continue but tell me. Anyway, I was telling my sister about it today and she put forward the thought that perhaps (particularly in the girls' case), the reason they don't like telling me is they don't want to hurt my feelings by not wanting to do it any more.  That is actually a good point. But still, they need to learn to do things the proper way.  Anyway, it did make me think!

I took this photo back at the beginning of September and hadn't shared it. This was a charity-shop find for £2 in a St Francis hospice whilst I tried to keep myself entertained whilst CBC was having a hair cut! It is ridiculously comfy and I love the black collar. Bit of a black-collar fan, it seems.

I used to write lots of book reviews on this blog but since about April, I've struggled to motivate myself to do them- I like it to be a synopsis with my own thoughts but I found this time consuming in an unenjoyable manner which is a shame because I did used to like writing them, but when I couldn't quite remember details and would have to search for whichever pile of mess I left it in, the number build up and I became disheartened. But perhaps I will try to ressurrect this feature soon. The trouble is, I find it very hard to be concise. Anyway, if you are interested in what I am reading at all, I have a book page on my blog here but I have no idea how make it appear as a tab at the top so if you have any ideas how, let me know. I am technologically inept.

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's 'The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents' and I just find him so witty and imaginative.  That said, I can only read one Pratchett at a time, not read them consecutively, but I do think he was a clever man and I'd like to read his final novel.

My choir is going very well so far- having a great time with my now, 21 children, they are singing well and the number is a good, healthy number without being unwieldy.   One really positive thing is how well the year 3's are taking to learning the recorder- they are ridiculously excited about learning to read music and having their own recorder- the beams on their faces when they ask me if they are having a recorder lesson today is great.  A lot of behaviour challenging children are being very positive with only one or two children finding it hard to concentrate- they AREN'T easy to teach, but the enthusiasm is wonderful! One boy took my idea of composing his own melodies and notating them and came in with this immaculate score of his own music! It only consists of B's and A's but he's really dedicated and it looks impressive- I have high hopes for him next year, learning the cornet!

Very excited about the University reunion this Saturday, so excited to see my old professors and hopefully see old friends- we will be going on a boat cruise on the Thames and getting dressed up, hurrah!  I told a couple of friends who are graduates from my Uni but went there a good 10 years and 30 years respectively, before me, so it will be nice to see them too.

Not being doing much craft except for making a few brooches which I will share soon.

It was nice tonight, to do a colleague a favour and adapt some maths investigations for her as she is up to her eyes in paperwork and was very grateful- it's nice if you can do something small occasionally for someone.

CBC made me a lovely dinner of salmon, savoy cabbage in yoghurt, shallots cooked in coconut oil (delicious) and parmesan-encrusted potatoes as a thank you for me cooking for him all week when he's been stressed. The kitchen, however, is a complete pigsty...

How's tricks with you?

x

Back to the blackboard

Another SIA with Salazar inspired by Winslow Homer’s “Blackboard”.   Firstly, I noted the gingham on her overall and the grey of her dress with a little nod towards the hairbow/band.  Decided just to go with that really and the simple palette (plus very schoolish-looking Mary Janes- from Rieker- thank you to the Cobbler in Haltwhistle high street who I bought them from- nice shoes!)  and combine some items.



My favourite swing-dance dress from Lindy-Lou's plus a hairbow I found in the lost property at camp and wore one day then found it in my stuff when I got back home (ooops!) plus a Miss Selfridge shrug (nicely wrinkled, like our inspiration) and grey school-ish tights.  You can hopefully see what I was trying to do!

It was very a very appropriate piece of artwork since I was going back to school this week. I actually only taught on one day- Friday, as the first day the teachers didn't require their PPA. Friday morning, I took year 2 and didn't teach music.  Every child created their own set of number bonds to 10 cards on heart templates,  They were supposed to be making a ribbon and matching the hearts up, e.g. 2 and 8 but there wasn't much space to display them in the classroom so I suggested we turn it into a game and very happily they sat their playing pairs with their number bond cards. At the end of the lesson, we had 'fastest match' with the class to match all the pairs of number bonds and put them in a sequence and I wrote their names down in a hall of fame as they completed it! It worked ridiculously well and I told them they could take them home and play them at home to learn them! 

The afternoon was fun as well. I had year 5 and I was trying to teach them about how to create interesting repeated rhythms as a starting lesson for Cyclic drumming and taught them about syncopation as I really wanted to challenge them to try and create funky rhythms.  They each had to create an ostinato (repeated pattern) based on what they had for breakfast (they could use reality or lie) using words to help them form the rhythm and they'd play it 4 times then the class would join in with that rhythm for about 6 more repetitions. After that I asked them to identify if it was straight or syncopated (emphasizing weak beats instead of strong beats) which they seemed to get the hang of and then one of the children suggested we add an extra dimension to the game by voting whether it was a truth or lie, so I went with it and it added a fun dimension.  One of my favourite moments was when M, a very gifted musician, came up with the most off-beat beat, funky and syncopated pattern imaginable and he sniffed in the rests like I'd done!  And I loved the fact that Z, who A, who sometimes finds it hard to play in time, came up with fun rhythm and managed to play it steadily and well. It was an enjoyable lesson and I'm only sorry I ran out of time with the second class and didn't manage to create  4-layered textures improvised with 4 children at a time.

After school, I spent time trying to film tutorial videos for the music website as a resource the children can refer to.

It was a good day all in all.

Hope all is well with you.
xx

Once insecure, always insecure?

On Saturday, CBC and I travelled to Watford for a day and night of Swing-dance courtesy of JiveSwing, our dance class, which is a big organisation of classes, ours being just one. It was a great day, we had some super classes- the day was held in honour of Frankie Manning's 100th birthday (if he was still alive)- the Father of bringing Swing dance back to the UK in the '80's.

We had two lindy-hop classes, learning a Frankie lindy-stroll and then a dips and tricks workshop. CBC decided he wanted to do some authentic jazz instead so I had to find another partner to dance with and managed to dance with a fun, young guy I met in the queue- it was hilarious as we learned to do these dips. I got the giggles as I had to spend a long time hugging him as we learnt a dip and then a move where I had to swing under his arm. I am suffering today though as my quads are really aching as the move involved rotating in a squat position!

In the evening, I wore the above outfit. I didn't take any photos-crazy for me! CBC just got this slightly blurry one of me- I wore the dress I picked up a while back, worn with my birthday petticoat and a wired headband- I really like these!

Anyway, in the evening, apart from many enjoyable dances together,  CBC was asked to dance lots by lots of ladies. I was asked to dance a few times by some guys although not as many and felt a wallflower at times. It's so silly but the pair of us are so insecure about asking people to dance just in case they think we are rubbish! Everyone else seems perfectly happy to ask other people to dance (it's the way your dancing improves). It's silly because I did spend a some time standing at the edge wishing someone would ask me to dance but like my teenage-self, in my stupid subconscious, didn't want anyone to think that I really wanted to dance, so I didn't get disappointed if they didn't dance.  I am an idiot- I am 33 and should just get on with it.  It's funny though, sometimes I feel much more confident.  Last night, I found myself thinking that the reason is because I always want to do something well and never want to be thought to be bad at something and I am not an expert at lindy and probably never will be, I just love it.

Yet, this morning, I played in my new church for the first time (9am rehearsal after getting to bed at 2am!!!!! I was KNACKERED!).  I KNOW that I am a a capable flautist and I know I play well and I know that when I am in the spirit at church, I will play and worship with my heart and soul. I know from 10 years of playing at my old church that my playing really helps people to worship.  And yet, I was worrying to myself that people would be judging me and didn't want people to say nice things to me just in case they were just being nice, not meaning it! Of all the ridiculous things to think!?!???!!?! Of course they're not, it's just my stupid mind.  Of course, once I started playing, I felt myself fill with the spirit and felt the insecurities fly away.

It's interesting that Stuart, a guy was being baptised today and he talked about how he had faced anxiety in his life and couldn't seem to snap out of it until he gave his life to God. And it struck me, when I feel most insecure and lacking confidence is when I stop praying, speaking to God and reading the Bible, when I've left tiredness and laziness get in the way, just let slip and then all my insecurities come back.  So today, I will reclaim my confidence and be strong in the knowledge that I do have talents that God has given me and I can do well and be strengthened by him in my prayers.  And there may be things that I am not talented at, but they are things I should enjoy because they are God-given and I've been given the freedom to enjoy these! Be the best that I can be but accept that I will not always be the best but I can have the most fun!

Linking to Visible Mondays with dear Patti

Gingham dreams

Nothing like a swirly Dorothy-Style (albeit monochrome) dress for making you feel like spinning! Smoke gets in your eyes? Hair, more like it!

As mentioned, CBC doesn't feel like going Swing-dancing at the moment, so my swing dancing dresses are feeling neglected, so I attempted to be creative with otherwise summery clothes by wintering this one up with sweater and tights and of course, my lovely vintage Jaeger coat, which I glimpsed in Oxfam in a traffic jam in Oxfordshire last February and managed to persuade my friend to purchase for me! It felt like vintage coat day. I got the idea of adding a black sweater from Lauren at Someone like you aaaages ago when she teemed a halterneck polka dot dress with a black turtle neck top.

Speaking of the swing dance- I had a lovely time going up to London last Tuesday and learnt/relearnt another lindy charleston variation which was great fun! PLlus, since I had completed the Beginners' 10 week cycle and the Intermediate 10 week cycle, that instead of doing the Beginners again, I would go to the Charleston workshop with Nikki in the cafe downstairs. It was so fun learning a partnered Charleston routine apart from the scary fact that I got there late, 20 mins to be precise and I had to dance with Nikki as no other partners!!! Eeek.

Speaking of other things mentioned on her, we had a lovely time with J, my mother-in-law staying. It was so nice to see her and spend a bit of time with her. We enjoyed CBC's first Christmas concert at his school and had a lovely meal out. She bought us some lights for our (Landlord's)Christmas tree

We also did some Christmas shopping at Westfield on Saturday after helping an injured relative to the hospital. They have these really cool 'hire wheeled chairs' which were by the entrance of the Royal London, linked together like trollies in a supermarket which you must insert a £1 in order to borrow. Good thing we got one to wheel him in as we seemed to walk miles and miles of corridors in order to find where A&E was and that would have been painfully slow!! Westfield was heaving as was to be expected. I don't really like a closed in mall, especially a big one, I've decided- I much prefer a High Street! Still, it was fine and we got some presents for people.

Tonight, I went round to a friend's house for the evening for dinner. It was really lovely to spend time together and we decided we must do it more! She cooked a lovely Gnocchi, butternut squash, tomato and goats cheese bake which I devoured in large quantities. She's a self-confessed 'non-cook' so she was rather pleased at my 'wolfing down' reaction and said she'd try cooking more. I don't know why she isn't confident, I loved what she served up! She came to the carols last night and I'll see her at the Church christmas meal tomorrow. Amazing the way things come in threes! I was also really happy as my old next door neighbour came to the carol service as well and I've been asking her for 3 years now and she finally made it!

This is the week of my carol service at school. Am excited as usual but always a little nervous that all will not go according to plan. They say never work with animals or children right? I hope the world premiere of Innkeepers' rant goes well! Once it's over, I must actually write the music notation for it instead of winging it each and every time I play it.

Linking up to Visible Monday with the beautiful and florally attired Patti at Visible Monday

Linking up with the super Claire Justine too at Creative Mondays

Crackerswap

Why hello there!  How are you?  Well, I do hope! 
I recently took part in Tracy at Mad about Bags' Christmas Cracker swap 2012. Tracy is the absolute queen of swaps, so it was only a matter of time before she organised her own one! It was a lovely idea, making the cracker!

I was paired with fellow teacher, the lovely Jille

I was overwhelmed with how beautiul her presentation was with her cracker.  Despite being through the post, it arrived immaculate!  A gorgeous patterned cotton material with a light-pattern, it was wrapped in a beautiful piece of organza gold ribbon with a funny joke and a lovely handmade flower brooch made by Jille attached!


Inside, I found this gorgeous  arrange of brightly coloured items, so well chosen for me, she's obviously read my blog to find out what I like:
Starting from top left: fun chilli earrings (I adore novelty jewellery), perfect polka dot and rainbow ribbons I intend to wear in my hair, a beautiful Jille-made flower ring, Jille-made cutest plump robin decoration with polka dot button, beautiful-smelling orange organza bag, choccie bear, the prettiest selection of assorted buttons, ribbon and flower sequins, the most brilliant Jille-made custard-cream keyring and finally, a Jille-made gingerbread brooch! 


Here they are altogether


I absolutley adore the items, you chose them so so nicely and carefully, thank you so much!  Who knew you could cram so much into a kitchenroll tube!  Such time and care have been taken with these items, so many wonderful hand-made items!  Thank you Jille!

Here's what I sent to  Jille.


Bag of assorted buttons, Christmas peg, embroidery threads, beaded bracelet, red polka-dot shoe-laces (I noticed on her blog that Jille said she loves red polka dots), a set of gold-patterned scalloped squares for card-making- I thought she'd appreciate the fact that I recycled some Christmas cracker-exteriors from our church-Christmas dinner out to make these!


Photo 2: Sheep zip-puller (Jille seems to love animals, silver ribbon, choccie puddings, beaded keyring, Cath Kidston polka dot handkerchief (which can be used as a scarf!),  
I wrapped the cracker with a piece of Asian material which I hope was of a size that could be used for a stole/scarf (if hemmed) or could be used to make something- I liked the sequins as they seemed festive!

I confess, inspiration was pretty lacking in the making stakes, to my utter shame.  I made a snow-flake felt Christmas decoration, I decided to try and hand-paint some red buttons to give them a polka-dot effect which took ages to do it right- I had to keep wiping off dots that went askew time and time again and repaint without disturbing the 'good ones'.  It was all fine until I decided to paint the other side and just couldn't seem to get it right.   In addition, I made a fanned-brooch with another polka-dot addition.  I adapted the design I tried of this before by scalloping the edges with patterned scissors as well.

Linking up to Lakota's Ta Dah Tuesday with these makes and Annie the Felt fairy's Make a month 2012
Have you done any swaps recently?  Let me know in the comments box, I love having a nosy!!!

Checkmate and Ruby-slipper reminiscences



Dress:  Kush, Heart-shaped fascinator: ASOS, Bag: gift from Sophie, Shoes: Asda
Necklace:  Vintage Maison, Felixstowe,


























Continuing with Hazel's August challenge- Only once, I decided to give this checkered dress and fascinator/mini hat a try.

Again, this dress, I've had for a couple of years but I didn't wear it because it is every so slightly too big for me and is strapless (I'm not so keen on strapless) but I intended to find some check material and make it into a halterneck. Not happened.
I think this would be a nice lindy outfit once it is fitting snuggly, but definitely not right now! Though lovely to wear wandering around placidly in the sun, If I spun and twisted, there would be a serious case of too much underwear on show! Even when wearing the tightest strappy-dress, I end up all askew!

Checked-dresses always remind me of The Wizard of Oz! When I was a little girl, we had a Dorothy-dress, it really was just like the dress, but for some reason it disappeared when we moved house when I was about 5-6.  I'm always sad about this.  We still had a pair of glittery silver shoes though that served as our Ruby slippers when we played Oz, my sister and I.  Whenever we played 'shoe shop' at our new house, the silver slippers were always the ones I wanted to 'buy'!  In fact, I still crave a pair of Ruby Slippers!  I've got my eye on the Red or Dead ruby slippers which I wanted last year during the Autumn-term but feared they were too high.  However, I think it's worth it!!

Did you ever read the Oz books?  Did you know that Frank L Baum actually wrote 14 books in the Oz series, of which The wonderful wizard was number 1? As a child we borrowed, Ozma of Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, The Patchwork girl of Oz and Tik-tok of Oz from a friend who had them- it was so exciting- there are so many exciting places in the land of Oz that the first film doesn't mention. 

It wasn't until I was in my first-year at University and discovered Amazon.com that I found out there were 14 all in all.  I ended up buying ALL the ones I hadn't read there and then on Amazon! I have to say that the first 7 books are much better than the latter ones (some of which are a bit silly) and the ones I read as a child better than the ones bought later, but it was still wonderful reading them after all those years! I always wondered how the Wizard came back to Oz (he was in The Emerald City of Oz) 

I'd like to read them again but I lent them to a little girl from church and I fear she might not still have them!?