Rise of the Sheep Saver

As I left the funeral, I was full of conflicting emotions. We had had 3 funerals in a very short space of time and I found 2 of them in particular to be quite moving. The sadness I felt at the funeral contrasted strongly with the particularly good mood I was in because for the first time in quite a while I felt I had actually played quite well. It struck me that it had been a long time since I felt that way.

This year I have been really working hard to improve my all round musicianship. In the same way that I am good at cramming for exams, I can pick up things musically but I never retain them. I still have flashbacks to the end of a service at St Mary’s in Dundee. Every service finished with the Threefold Amen which consists of 9 chords. On one particular occasion after chord 3, my mind went blank and I couldn’t even remember the key, let alone the actual melody. Shudder. And despite playing the “Norwegian” Amen twice most Sundays, I still can’t remember how it goes without the music in front of me. As I have discovered at least twice to my cost.

My piano technique has been grim for a number of years (and of course it is a big assumption that it wasn’t always like that) so I decided to download one of Czerny’s exercises books and work my way through that. Every time I sit down to practice on the piano I start with a good session with old Carl and I flatter myself to think that it has paid off at least a little bit. I recently played a piece that required lots of repeated notes and I like to think that that performance was better than it would have been without the benefits of the Czerny exercises. On top of those technical exercises I spend a bit of time transposing all the hymns we sing up and down a tone to try and re-learn that skill.

I can’t remember how much I’ve said about all the organs here, but I do play some vastly different instruments. In Herøy there is a “real” pipe organ with 2 manuals and pedals but without a vast range of different stops or registering aids. But it is a real organ and since the big organ tune last August I’m really enjoying playing it. Nordvik is an electric organ with 3 manuals, pedals, a wider range of stops and aids where I can play “fancy” music and “my hair down” (or at least what’s left of it). Dønnes is another “real” organ but with only 4 octaves and no pedals so repertoire has to be chosen very carefully. Løkta and Hestad have oldish electric organs while a number of the islands have harmoniums raging from horrific to ok. Vandve has nothing so I take the Johannus One keyboard along which can play quite a lot of different styles (well “it” can’t but I can) and while there are no pedals it’s got more notes than Dønnes so the repertoire I can play is a bit wider.

The challenge for the places where there are instruments without pedals, and particularly Dønnes with the added restriction of only 4 octaves is finding music that is interesting and challenging. A fair amount of Baroque music meets this criteria and to make it that little bit more challenging I try and find original copies on the internet and read from them. In some cases this will mean transposing the right hand down a 3rd (or the LH up a 3rd) for the whole piece and in certain editions of ye olde English organ music the notes are not aligned the way they would be today - in one piece there was a note that was to be held throughout the whole bar but didn’t appear until after beat 2. An unforseen problem then does arise sometimes when I start transposing something which shouldn’t be transposed just because my brain sees “olde musikk” so thinks I must play the right-hand down a 3rd. An extreme example of this (which I may end up regretting) is a piece by Scherer where the right hand is in soprano clef and also on a 6 line stave while the LH is in viola clef on an 8 (!) lime stave.

Speaking of the Dønnes organ, it has been a while since it was tuned and it was definitely needing some TLC. Even me with my lack of technological knowledge of the innards of an organ, could tell that a loud bang followed by trembling of the whole organ case was probably not a sign of an organ in fine fettle. We managed to arrange a visit from the organ tuner and things seemed to be much improved by the time we had finished. Hopefully the reason for the “bang” was the fact that the 2 large rocks (!) on top of the bellows had become misaligned.

We missed the ferry back to Sandnessjøen by approximately 1 minute so the tuner and I had a chance to ‘bond’ over coffee while we waited for the next one. We discovered a shared love of certain music - quite proud of the fact that I can be spectacularly boring in 2 languages now!

The thing that gets me down is the fact that despite practicing more (and better) than previously, I don’t feel I’m playing particularly well right now. Or to be more precise, I’m playing really well until the congregation arrives and then it all goes pear-shaped which is not great. So many careless mistakes as well as avoidable things like having my iPad upside down. Obviously the music rights itself which is not a problem but the camera is then at the wrong height for being winked at for turning page which then itself adds more stress.

July was possibly the worst month I’ve had as a “professional” organist. I forgot my iPad for a wedding so had to play the prelude and postlude from my phone - which should’nt have been that big a problem becuase I had played both of them many times but alas….. despite reading the email a number of times, the last time about 15 minutes before I left the house, I ended up on the wrong island for the ferry to Gåsvær - I did think it strange that despite Gåsvær being closer to Herøy the ferry began at Herøy, came to Sandnessjøen then headed back down south. And of course it was strange because the ferry did indeed start at Sandnessjøen. Fortunately Gåsvær is the place with the catastrophically bad instrument so even if I had been there, it was not unlikely that I wouldn’t have been able to play. Unfortunately, it transpired at the staff meeting today, there was a journalist on the trip and my absence was apparently noted. Then there was a private baptism where suddenly in the middle of the service I became aware of my name being called out by Liv-Helga to play responses which I hadn’t been expecting. All round, fairly grim stuff.

On a lighter note I, along with the wedding photographer, did at least bring some joy to a lamb when we were out for a wedding on Husvær - somehow the poor thing (the sheep, not the photographer) had got separated from their flock and was stuck on the wrong side of a fence on a rock face. Between us, we managed to encourage it down the hill and through a gap in the fence that I was making. So at least one good deed - not that the aforementioned sheep showed any thanks whatsoever.

At a separate wedding I was asked to play the Mission Impossible theme tune as the outgoing wedding march. I was asked to keep it hush hush so that it’d be a surprise for all the guests. I never quite established what the significance of the piece was but the troops appeared to enjoy it. And it transpired that Mission Impossible was not the weirdest thing about the ceremony - the couple (well, the bride I suspect) had hidden the wedding ring in the church so when the appropriate moment came the congregation all had to stand up the and hunt for it. It was a bit hairy for a moment as nobody seemed to be able to find it but eventually… To tie in with the talk on practice above I can say hand on heart that I rehearsed for that wedding more than any previously. One of the reasons was that the soloist wanted certain songs in different keys so I practiced them every day for weeks in these new keys. And then the afternoon before when we met she went “oops” wrong keys, can we do them in the original keys? But on the plus side, the next day when I was on the way to church I was spotted by the couple (the GRAEME and DUNDEE on my bag might have been a give away) and they thanked me for my playing which was nice :-)

Away from work I have fallen (intentionally) into a routine of trying to go swimming and the cinema once a week. I started swimming back in January and it has to be said it was fairly grim to start with. At first I forced myself to do 2 lengths at a time (breathing every 2 strokes) with a break in between to ward off the impending heart attack. It was fairly grim watching these old people zooming past me. I have vivid memories of a couple of large ladies doing breaststroke while gossiping overtaking me while I was flat out doing front crawl. Shudder. Things are better now and I’m up to 40 lengths with breathing every 4 strokes (sometimes 6 if I’m keen) I could probably do more but I use the excuse of needing time for a coffee and twix before the ferry back. Not being the sharpest tool in the box I was flattered for many weeks that the staff kept asking to confirm that it was an adult ticket I was buying. I was basking in the glory of thinking that I was aging well until it eventually dawned that they were politely checking that I wasn’t a pensioner. The swimming was particularly pleasant during the summer holidays and it was not unusual to have the whole pool to myself with my own personal life guard. Indeed I once had 2 life guards keeping an eye on me.

I’ve tried to go to the cinema weekly, no matter what the film is. My only criteria are that the film isn’t horror, animation for children or a film where it would look slightly strange if an older single gentleman turned up eg I gave Freakier Friday a miss. There’s rarely many folk there which is always nice so I tend to get “my” row (7) to myself.

After living in Bjørn for 3 years I finally worked out the whole hiking route up behind my house - well, when I say “worked out” I mean somebody set out some orange ribbons which even I am able to follow. It is a very pleasant wee walk (about 75 - 90 mins) and some lovely views from the top. Some hairy moments on the way back down, particularly when it is wet.

However the hiking, combined with the walking and swimming as enable me to shed a fair amount of weight. So much so that I thought I was going to have restock the trousers in my wardrobe as they were all falling down as I walked but it then occurred to me that a belt would be cheaper. Indeed, I was flattered to see a lady trying to take a picture of me one morning at the pool. Or she may have been taking pictures of her kids, who can tell? I was also complimented by the chap at the cafe in Sandnessjøen - I hadn’t been in for a while and we had a pleasant catch up (all in Norwegian, and I’m pretty sure I understood most of it) - sadly he undid his faltery of my weight by asking me if I was a grandparent. I should add that these two subjects were quite well separated in the conversation - he didn’t just go “you’re looking slim but my god you’re looking old”

If I have time after swimming or the cafe, I do like a wee potter round the second hand shop. I have picked up some excellent bits and pieces over the years and was v excited to discover that they had a Norwegian editon of a Biggles book in stock. At the grand price of 15 pence I thought it would be rude not to buy it. You never know when the phrase “Tally ho, Algy” might come in handy! Being bit of anorak that way, I’ve started tracking down the various books in that particular edition. My kids are really going to thank me when it comes to disposing of all the rubbish I’ve collected over the years!

Finrod continues to settle well. He has had all his vaccinations and “the operation” so was finally allowed out. He gave me a big fright when he disappeared for 3 nights but he eventually returned feeling a bit sorry for himself. We’ve since come to an understanding - I will let him out and about and in return he agrees that if I want to go to bed before he gets back, I can leave the window open all night so that I can freeze and he can clamber back in at a time that suits him. We might have to re-negotiate that when the real cold starts. Still, it is very pleasant coming through in the morning to switch on the coffee machine and seeing him curled up on his favourite chair. He still is a very friendly cat - it’s nice coming home and someone to shout “hello” to and he’s v happy squeezing in beside me while I’m reading or on my lap while we watch TV together.