Today we began our classes!!! Our classroom is about a 10 minute walk away from our flat. We meet in the Hyde Park Chapel. It felt strange to walk in there with my jeans and my backpack but, it was nice to feel so at home in our church building in the sense that these surroundings felt familiar and comfortable. We began class with a prayer of course and then kicked right off with reviews of the music we had already heard performed in St. Martin in the Fields and in Wesminster Abbey. My favorite part of class was discussing Handel’s coronation anthems. It was so fun to hear that piece performed in the country for whose monarchs it was composed. (that sentence felt very poorly structured. :) mom, help me out. haha.) We did some form and analysis on Mozart’s “Requiem” which I found exciting because I know so very little about modes, form, and chord progressions. I am learning little by little how to tell one mode from the other but it’s thrilling to listen to Dr. Staheli and many of the students discuss and pick apart each piece of music. The parts of the discussion I enjoyed most were of course the ones that I could contribute to. When we talked about how exciting it was to listen to these pieces performed live students were saying things like, “because it’s pretty” or “because it’s in tune” but Dr. Staheli seemed to be looking for something more specific. He wanted to know the compositional reasons why the music satisfies the listener. I thought I’d throw in the physiological reasons why. There are theories in music therapy that if a tone frequency matches the frequency of an individuals muscle oscillation or the frequency of the blood pumping through the body, that these frequencies can actually cause a healing effect. I threw that out there and that comment was received well.
In class we were also divided into groups for rehearsing our evensong pieces to sing with our respective colleges at Oxford University on Sunday. Just the thought is a thrill. Scott and I were both assigned to be group leaders for our groups and we were assigned to arrange who will clean the bathrooms of the chapel each time we meet for class. The building coordinators of this chapel are intense so we are doing our best to meet their demands and do our part to keep that building looking immaculate and hoping to earn their trust in return...that way we can use the pianos!
Scott and I headed back to make ourselves a quick bite to eat and then head out to experience more of London!!! My roommate told me that the Victorian Hospital Museum (where they have a surgical theatre) was a really worth while place to visit. We took about 10 students with us to see if we could get a group discount but, nay. We decided it would be worth it anyway. Only 4 quid and we were promised that it would be really interesting and worth while. The first room was so interesting. It was full of information about apothacaries and the advances in proscribed medication and plenty of old tools from a variety of medical professions. I really liked the pill maker and the tools of a midwife. Some of those acoutraments looked out of this world. Literally. They left me wondering what practical purpose they could serve in medicine. I’ll post a few pictures of these tools for your entertainment. Another interesting bit was a display on Florence Nightingale who revolutionized the role of nurses and women in medicine. Many have called her the mother of modern nursing. It just so happens that there is a display in the library at BYU all about her. What a wholistic learning experience I’m getting here! We also thought of Sister Hall as we saw a display about Lister who created the formula for what would become a mouth wash known as Listerine! Sister Hall and her obsession with Listerine reminds me of the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he says “just put some windex on it”. She always says within the first few days of each semester and especially here in England “I started feeling a tickle of something yesterday and I sprayed/ gargled my listerine and look at me today, I’m a picture of health”. If that woman was getting a dollar for every time she advertised for listerine...wait...maybe she is!! The coolest part of the museum was the surgical theatre where medical students and nurses could watch procedures being performed. Interestingly, the theatre was right above a church so, they had to build up the floor between the theatre and the ceiling of the church and fill it with sawdust to absorb the blood that would seep through the cracks in the floor below the operation table. Sick....I hope that wasn’t too much detail for you.
After our interesting experience at the museum we headed to Southwark Cathedral. It was only a short walk away. Scott and I walked around the grounds. It was amusing to me because we had been there a week before when we went to see Macbeth. We walked by the cathedral and thought...wow!!! That is a pretty looking castle style building and what do you know...we attended evensong there! Scott and I had some time to walk around the church. I took a few pictures, Scott went into the room for quiet prayer. It turns out that Shakespeare and Chaucer worshiped at this church and the founder of Harvard University was baptized there. It was cool to think of these individuals listening to this same kind of music looking at pretty much the same building as I was looking at for the old part of the church had remained pretty much untouched. The music was much the same as at other evensongs. However, the treble parts were sung by young girls instead of boys. I felt as if this difference really changed the sound. I felt that there was less blend among the alto voices and there was one tenor that really just sang over everyone. Their performance left me feeling no different than I felt when I walked through the door. I thought, oh, this is nice but I certainly wasn’t blown away. This choir sounded less polished than some of the other evensong choirs we have heard. Their sound was still nice, don’t get me wrong. They performed as part of a festival of contemporary church music which was interesting. I didn’t really hear too much of a difference between the repertoir of their evensong and some of the others we’ve seen.
Afterwards, a group of us headed out to see if we could check out the Shakespeare museum and some people wanted to buy tickets to see “Macbeth”. There were plenty of distractions along the road though. It would take Scott and me about less than 10 minutes to get to the Globe from where we were but as always with groups, the mentality was “hurry up and wait”. My father always says that. I’m more like him every day. I feel most comfortable making a plan and then leading the way. There was a little bit of stop and go but, we eventually found the Globe only everything was closed. Scott and I along with Jessica and Nick decided to ditch that gig and do our own thing. We caught a bus on Fleet street. I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a barber to send Scott to. He wants to get his hair trimmed. I’m thinking, what better place! I want to find a place called “Sweeney Todd’s” or something. Speaking of hair, I needed to get some shampoo and towels. I didn’t realize that we needed to bring our own towels! We stopped at Boots for shampoo and such. It’s funny that everything feels twice as expensive in London but my shampoo! I spent less on shampoo, deoderant, and smoothing serum than I spend on one bottle of shampoo in the US. What is that all about? Anyway, we just rode on the upper level of the bus looking out for whatever places looked promising for towels. I just don’t even know where to go to find a towel here! I was thinking it might be because I’m in a foreign country. Then I realized that it’s just because I’m in London. I would probably have the same difficulty trying to find a towel in San Francisco.
No luck on the towel front. But, I got clever. When we got back to our flats, I remembered seeing these bags of clothes just waiting to be hauled off. I started poking around and found towels, bags, shoes, shirts, and skirts...all stylish and best of all FREE for the taking. I had someone check the website on the bags to make sure these clothes really were ok to just rummage and indeed they were going to be recycled anyway. In elementary school in the US I learned all about the three R’s. First is reduce, second is reuse, and third is recycle. Well, obviously reusing is better than recycling! So, I got myself a free towel and only paid 1 pound to wash and dry it. Now that is thrifty!!!
I finished off my night by taking some of my “new” clothes to the washing and bam, spending very little money. I was proud.
No comments:
Post a Comment