Walking to school to meet the coach I made a brief stop at a newsagent, to stock up on essentials such as crisps, chocolate and my all time favourite soft drink. Not many people reading this will remember or even know about Tizer but it was the soft drink of my childhood and I loved it.
Once we were all registered and aboard the coach set off and we immediately started doing warm up exercises to get throats and vocal chords working properly and then launched into a full scale A cappella rendition of Messiah. The driver assured us that it was one of the most enjoyable trips he’d ever done.
Arriving at South Bank there was a mad rush for the nearest toilets where a very long queue formed but at last we were all ready to be ushered into the hall itself. It was a truly awe inspiring sight, the largest concert venue I’d ever been in, as a performer, by several orders of magnitude.
Once the mundane business of signing in had been dealt with the conductor introduced himself and presented the soloists to us. I can’t remember who 3 of them where but there is one that I’ll never forget. Roger Stalman was an almost cadaverous man who had the most glorious and fully supported bass voice. From that moment he became my favourite bass soloist of all time and I’d see him in concert often as the years passed.
Then the rehearsal started, two and a half gruelling hours of constant interruption and repetition as several hundred children who’d never even seen each other before, let alone sung together, were moulded into a choir worthy of the RFH.
We got an hour’s break, with a buffet lunch and then it was back for an entire afternoon of further work, this time with the full orchestra and the organ. The conductor relentlessly drilled the choir out of the incredibly annoying, but almost universal, tendency to put an inappropriate rallantando into the final Hallelujah of the Hallelujah chorus.
My own choirmaster had already dealt with this irritant during rehearsals at school, pointing out quite correctly that Baroque choral music rarely ends with a rallantando, the final phrase should be strictly a tempo and then the final “jah” is held fortissimo until the conductor decides that it’s gone on long enough or members of the choir start to faint from lack of oxygen.
At last the conductor was satisfied with our performance and we were given a couple of hours to attack the tea that had been laid on and then stretch our legs for a while, with strict instructions not to leave the South Bank complex, there were to be no pupils lost in London! I was quite content to sit and gaze at the river for a while and then study my score to be absolutely sure I was confident about the tenor part.
After a quick wash we put our uniforms on and assembled in the auditorium for some final words of encouragement. It was going to be a long wait as we were to be in place before the audience started arriving but at least we got to sit down. Looking round I realised that the wide range of uniforms on display produced an effect somewhat like a Jackson Pollock painting but I suppose that in 1967 abstract art was quite appropriate.
Our Choirmaster decided to arrange us in order of height with the tallest towards the centre and the shortest on the outside. Guess who found himself on the extreme end of the row completely exposed to the auditorium?
Looking behind me, we were in the very back row, I discovered that I was sitting in front of one of the open 32ft pipes of the great organ; this promised to be an interesting experience later.
Love
That bus trip sounds like it would be so much fun to sing all the way into town. Voices must echo well off the roof of the bus as well too! Kinda like a large moving bath, yeah?
So you were right as in right in front of the organ pipe?? Wow! I cant wait for tomorrows installment!
As for the height thing, I was always either in the middle or on the end, depending on where they wanted us to stand for class photos. So, I understand your pain at being at the end of the row exposed for all to see!
Kind of like a bath but 30 odd kids, three teachers and a driver soaked up a lot of the echoes and reverb. Far and away the best coach trip I’e ever been on.
Love
Mac
I remember the days of the choir. Some of the happiest times of my life. I used to have an amazing falsetto voice (Celine did not have a patch on me). Today I am actually on the look out for a choir to join! I am sur I still havr ti in me some where!
Great post.
Ian
I missed my soprano terribly when my voice finally broke for real.
I’m willing to bet that you do still have singing in you, it’s an ability that only goes away when we allow it to. There must be a choir or choral society around somewhere, most of them I’ve known are usually desperate for men to join.
Love
Malcolm
Presumably you lot didn’t sing the sort of things we generally did if they ever put us on a coach! Heaven help the poor drivers, the things they must have to put up with!
Micky
I shudder to think what would have happened if rugby songs or anything like that had broken out. I probably had more latitude than most with the music teachers but even I knew when to stop.
Love
Malcolm
Hey Miles! You had me with the “Tizer” soda and had to google it to see what it was all about. Once I read that it was a very sweet and fruity drink the appeal to a young person was assured. My nieces and nephews drank some of the sweetest drinks imaginable growing up. I tried sampling some of them, and they were sickly sweet that only a child could love.
The bus ride sounds like a lot of fun with all of the singing going on. The songs I remember singing on a bus would hardly be ones that the driver would be happy to hear again for at least a few years. Bus drivers have to be a tough breed to stand hauling kids around.
Having no musical background at all you also stumped me with “rallantando” and again google to the rescue! I sure wish you had a recording of the performance, it would have been fun to listen to.
Oh no, sitting exposed on the end of the aisle and in front of a huge organ pipe could it get much worse? I can’t wait to hear what happens next. Wondering if you will be able to hear after the pipe organ treatment.
I hope you had a good day and will have a better one tomorrow!
Love and hugs, JR
JR
Tizer was a great drink, the only fizzy pop I ever knew as a child and possibly the biggest single drain on my pocket money each week.
As I said to Micky, those kind of songs would have caused some serious trouble and we were actually quite a serious crowd of kids anyway.
Sorry about the musical terms, I tend to forget that while I’ve been studying music since my 8th birthday and “speak the language” fluently not everybody does. In the future I’ll add links to a resource when I use new terms.
The pipe story is funny even if it nearly ruined a very serious moment.
Things are getting better day by day, I seem to have got my head back together quite well, I just hope it lasts a bit longer this time.
Love
Malcolm
Those must have been some amazingly innocent and pure days of childhood, no?
love
L.
They were, 14 was an island between abuse ending and everything else going wrong when I was 15, 1967 was an amazing year.
Love
Mac
Hello Mac. You mention the buffet given you for a meal. How does eating affect the ability to sing, was it common for you to eat well before performing, or was this an exception. I wish there was a picture available of your group to show us.
Thanks and many hugs,
Scottie
Scottie
Food has never affected my when it comes to singing. Full stomach or empty never made a difference when I was young and I had an enormous appetite despite being over a stone underweight for my age and height.
Would you believe that, to the best of my knowledge, there is only one photo of me from my grammar school years and that was taken when I was 17, for the local paper. I’m trying to get a copy just so people can have a laugh at it. I hated having photos taken and had a sixth sense about cameras being slyly pointed at me.
Love
Mac