Saturday 7 August 2010

Violin lesson, swimming and song




Sitting on cold marble tiled floor out of the reach of the sun’s hot steamy rays this day. No-one to teach today – hooray, a proper weekend!

And I did the usual walk down to Mikros Mourtias a little later than usual having ignored our cat Moaner’s plaintive cries to be fed at 6.30am and slept in for another 2 hours...

Despite my late arrival, there was no-one there. Spiros and I had the place to ourselves for a whole hour. I swam gently over to the quay remembering what I had learnt in my violin lesson with Angela.

Angela comes here every year with her daughter and busks in the evenings. It turns out she knew our cello player on the teachers course, and they hadn’t seen each other since the Royal Academy days x years ago. (That is not unusual on this island for old connections to be discovered. Our busking guitarist Akis turns out to be a friend of a friend living in Lamia.)

Anyway, I have a desire to learn the violin. It’s good for the brain apparently to learn an instrument, and I have always loved it. I had a go at 16 and got on very well – twinkle twinkle little star- but let it lapse. So I treated myself to 2 lessons with Angela, and discovered the essence of non-doing, how the bow will play the violin all by itself if I let it. I learnt with joy of my wings and the balance of the bow. I allowed myself to move, my arm to flow through space and lo and behold beautiful music came from the instrument! Very very Alexandrian approach, although Angela has only has 20 lessons in the Technique herself yet her teaching is the very essence of FM’s work, not end-gaining, and sticking to the means-whereby.

And as I swam this morning I heard Angela telling me gently ‘You’re doing too much’ and I effortlessly moved in the water till I arrived at the quay. So violin lessons can improve your swimming it seems!

During Chi Kung I sang. No-one was there so I could quietly sing Bach-type fugues affirming my bones as strong and dense and flexible, a singing meditation to keep my poor old bones healthy.

After Chi Kung I lazed on the beach as others gathered and dipped in and out of the cool clear waters, before heading back up the path continuing this sense of non-doing. Although always a huff and puff particularly in the heat of the day, yet I was walking as easily as I could, taking my time and enjoying the fragrance of the pine and herbs, playing with being present, staring at my clumps of thoughts as they arose....Some of the thoughts were more songs.

On the first workshop we experimented with singing as a way of helping us up the steep path, setting up a rhythm – as many armies do. I began with The Grand Old Duke of York, which was universally deplored, and then we began musical theatre scores.

Today I found myself singing ‘When we go big bug hunting , when we go big bug hunting, when we go big bug hunting, With a gun and a spray and hip hooray! When we go big bug hunting!’

This popped up from nowhere – but was a song from a Cap and Bells Puppet Theatre show I did in the winter of 1978 with Violet Philpott for her tour of Bandicoot stories. We toured junior schools and Mervyn (where are you now?) was the Lion and I did the voice and hand operations for Monkey. Monkey and Lion got up to all sorts of tricks with Bandicoot and each other when Violet and the children weren’t looking.

Funny how the brain works and remembers and associates. I hope I don’t have that banal song on my brain every time I tread the path now!

I am dipping into a very interesting book entitled the Mind and the Brain by Sharon Begley and Jeffery M Shwartz, in particular about quantum theory and how our attention affects things, and can change the hardware. It’s the sort of book that is fascinating for a small amount of time and then my personal quantum brain can’t take any more and needs to check out. To take another choice in the alternative universe of possibility. And now I choose to stop writing and sing my way out of the door.

PS I am teaching a terrific singer of Greek traditional songs. He did a concert at the bus stop last week. I took a video of him and we looked at it together discussing his pull down, and how much is needed for the style and how possible it might be to stay ‘up’ and not pull the head back when singing. I am delighted that he intends to continue the lessons in Athens on his return.

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