Karaoke night, and quite a night it was. Present from midway through were the vast majority of the Beggar's Opera cast and production team - including Helen (who had a small role with group singing and a few solo lines), Lyndsay (director), Chris (musical director, played an electronic keyboard set to sound like a harpsichord) and goodness knows how many others. Also present were a number of the musical theatre group, including CE. That's relevant.

By that point I'd already sung a couple of things; Frozen went oddly well, Wind Beneath My Wings suffered from a technical problem that caused the backing track to fade and die, although I kept singing for a while unaccompanied. Cue jokes about it sounding like an audition for The Why Factor; I was more thinking of a audition for the musical theatre group. Of which our host is a part...

(Tangentially: I have had it suggested that I should apply to be next year's host, and I am extremely tempted. Am working on the assumption it won't happen, but we'll see. First thing that will change; new songs. The last song list update was in November 2005. No, really.)

CE comes along. I suggest singing a duet with her at some point, because, you know, I'm writing a duet for myself and her. She suggests that I pick a song and she'll join me midway through it; I'd worry about picking a song that she couldn't sing, but we're talking about someone who can handle the role of Elphaba here, so frankly there is not a concern on that front. I consider possible songs, contemplate Relight My Fire with CE to take the role of Lulu, reconsider on the grounds of not being quite able to remember the verse (when in fact the correct reason was concern over it being too high), consider some more. Get approached by a random blonde to sing a duet. Decide it's worth it, consider options, wind up opting for When You're Gone. Split it up slightly differently, I took the first verse and her the second, and she was given the main melody for the final chorus while I harmonised. Was quite amusing, though by her own admission she wasn't that good.

So, then, I waited to sing with CE. And waited. And waited some more. During this time, I chatted to Lyndsay, and contemplated the viability of writing musical theatre parts for high female voices; I proposed G(a)linda as the template, Lyndsay pointed out much depended on the singer. (The unspoken: high female voices in musical theatre are indeed a bad fit, unless you're Kristen Chenoweth.) I chatted to Helen also, elaborated on the strategic plan, laughed at someone singing When You Say Nothing At All moderately badly (it was, I think, the first song I learned with Gemma, and I told Helen that), and generally had good conversation.

I then got called again. Oh, I was excited now. CE remained off the stage, she would emerge at the appropriate moment. Namely the end of the first chorus, for we were singing Against All Odds, and the strategy here was for me to sing the first verse and CE the second.

I honestly think I sung rather well. I was nervous as CE remained talking for some time, and audibly called her up a good three lines before I needed to. She came along. She started singing. Her first line was somewhat dodgy, and the microphone was rather further away than certainly I would put it. To the point where I didn't know if she could be heard.

Then I realised.

Giving CE a microphone is like giving NuLab the ability to remove the Human Rights Act. It adds power when there's more than enough already. This was hinted at when she utterly drowned out Surge and backstage techie Andy in a duet of Everything I Do, and was evident again here. Once she got going, she certainly got going, and I was very impressed. I harmonised in the extended final chorus, and all in all it quite worked.

Beckie - who is singing with CE in the SSAA piece I have written for our choir's concert later this year - told me, with no obvious irony, that I was better than her.

Frighteningly, I didn't immediately argue back. Granted, CE was probably drunk, but she sounded an awful lot better than last week when she certainly was highly inebriated...

Finally I was able to believe in myself. About time, too.

Spoke to Lyndsay again afterwards, asserted that an adversarial duet (Defying Gravity being the example I used) would work well, and that CE could do 'angry' quite brilliantly. Said the same to Joey too, and enquired about the new writers' showcase that the university's straight drama group put on annually, this year in May. (Last weekend was their improv-driven variety show; would have gone, but was warned that the techies would resort to Big Shinies given any chance whatsoever, and settled instead for sticking around after Duel for Thank God You're Here, which left me unexpectedly cold - perhaps because of being quite a comedown from the previous hour - but I'm quite willing to give it another try.) Sketches are around ten minutes' each; I'm trying to decide what to do with mine. Something satirical, that's for sure, and a parody of the game show genre through a contestant drawn in by an Edmondsesque host has room for making points about psychological pressure and individuality, which obviously is home territory for me.

Speaking of home territory, here's one for the irony books: the jazz/gospel choir I chose not to join on sensory grounds are performing later in the year... in Weymouth.

Upon arriving home, I wrote alternative lyrics to (part of) a melody that our main reader will be familiar with, relating to a current event; I will post said lyrics ifwhen this comes to pass.

---

Incidentally: when did Millionaire stop using 'it's only easy if you know the answer' as a catchphrase? I'm sure I've not heard it in a long time.

Of course, as dropped catchphrases go, Deal or No Deal dropping 'the show that gives real people a real chance to win real money' stands out as the most telling. Was that the moment that show jumped the shark?

Choral rehearsal tonight, a short one due to exams; the new piece for the night was For Good. Yay.

Until I started singing it.

Overcome by emotion - and that takes some doing - I burst into uncontrollable tears, and was ushered away by our excellent President Matt, who sings with the basses in rehearsals (for that is his part) and helps out at other points. Waiting for things to happen. Things like this.

He kept reminding me that I really have made it here, to a good university, one that 'doesn't accept dossers' (and pointed out that it was only a significant event in Year 13 that stopped him from going to Cambridge, for he had received a conditional offer but circumstances prevented him from attaining it - instead, he took his insurance option of Southampton or was sent there by clearing, it was not clear which, and says he has still felt stimulated), and that the issues of independence had perhaps gone away.

All true. And all, in this case, completely missing the point.

Had this been, oh, any of the other Elphaba songs that make me cry, that would not have been so. But For Good is altogether different, relating as it does to a certain guilt in such detachment, of reflecting upon what has been gained from attachment, and it was that which made me cry. (Now, Defying Gravity, that be another matter. And Popular, another matter again. See posts passim.)

I now know the ranges of all four people in the acapella group. They are far too similar for comfort, and for the person who can sing A5 and the person who can sing F3 to be the same (CE) is not good... CE might end up as a second alto, and that is arguably a waste of her talents.

She can shine instead in her other performance, showing up yours truly in a duet...

(I'm going to have to re-tag everything at this rate...)

Non-singing stuff out the way first.

( A glorious incentive to use public transport, and a timely reminder of why I need to be more open with my family sometimes )

( Now the singing stuff, and some greatly unexpected developments on the composition front. Read 'Part 2' on the Mennyms audition first, for much of this builds upon that. )

So, The Mennyms. Auditions this week.

I only went and did one. I was hoping to glean information on how these worked, and also on the musical itself and its writing.
( At one end of the South Hampshire conurbation, Havant and Waterlooville were ready to shock the country. At the other, I was merely about to surprise myself. )

A most interesting post, and one that certainly points out the fallacy of 'high culture' and 'pop culture'.

As someone whose primary artistic involvement (and certainly field of knowledge) is in music, and specifically singing, that's the angle I'm going to reply to this from.

( And it's a reply that goes on a bit )

(Desperate witty post title for post 101, there.)

Someone has sent me an mp3 of Defying Gravity, as performed by Menzel (yay!).

First couple of listens, yesterday... yup, it's over-the-top in every sense, and it just about gets away with it, probably more clearly so in context.

Last night, I found that my freezer door was left open at one point (it's awkward to shut and evidently I used insufficient pressure). That's a whole bunch of food needing to be thrown out and I hate myself for it. Very brief suicidal ideation at that point, for I am still that vulnerable.

This morning, a room inspection a week earlier than was planned, but by mentioning the original date, I managed to persuade them to revert to it. Good thing too, I'd have failed badly; in this emotional state of mine lately, maintaining a clean space has just not been happening.

I then listened to Defying Gravity again, hoping something so dramatically excessive would cheer me up... hang on. This song really is talking to me. Oh good grief this is practically a flashback to life at the Fortress. And then, as the song's lyrical emphasis shifts in the second half of the song, I am reminded of my successful detachment in 2006, and the most unexpected support from Weymouth thereafter, and the last two minutes passed in a flood of stinging, yet comforting, tears.

Not since January have I had such a powerful emotional response to music. The thematic similarities between the triggering songs is utterly beyond coincidence.