Since I am working on the upcoming concerts of Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes, and I am also busy with adjusting my life to my new job as a help at home (which I am enjoying very much, and I will talk about it later in another entry), just a short one for you. And don't worry, I am working on another, longer entry as well, but that's not ready yet and I am still not sure whether I should post that or not... Instead of posting that half-baked entry, I will talk about the rules of life, which I compiled recently and I would like to keep it as short as possible, because the more rules you have in your life, the less flexible you get. But before that, let me share with you a little pleasant surprise I've experienced yesterday night...
Yesterday night I was practising The Aspiration by Henry Purcell, a piece I have been studying for almost two years now, ever since Evelyn Tubb suggested me to learn it after I brought to her masterclass another completely unknown piece by Purcell, The morning hymn. The mentioned pieces have the same character, and they are to be found in the same collection, the Harmonia Sacra. Both of them are dealing with sacramental-religious subject and their texts have a sort of penitential after taste (the typical, I worth nothing but God still saved me, so I sing joyfully to him, and stuff like that), and their style is rather monodic, demanding the performer to forget about beautiful melodies. So, I was practising and studying this piece for a while and though I am pretty good at pieces like The Aspiration it still gave me a difficult time whenever I tried to actually sing it, but yesterday (or sometime before that) something happened and suddenly I was able to sing it with much less vocal problems, and finally I could forget about reminding myself about breathing through at certain passages where I earlier always felt my breath simply stops (probably because I was concentrating too hard). I was able to begin to work on the small details, and it was great! I mean... recently I have been practising, because I wanted to go on, but I wouldn't say it was all pleasant and nice. I went on, because I wanted to and not necessarily because I enjoyed it. Oh, how many times Heent told me to enjoy singing a bit more than I seem to! And back then I wanted to enjoy it, but it's not... You cannot enjoy something because you want to enjoy it, but you can keep up the good work and later it will pay off - maybe... or maybe not; who knows?
But back to rules of life! I have a little list on my wall (I burnt the rest of my lists I hanged on my wall after I moved out from my former room), and it contains seven short rules. Now I will share them with you, maybe it will be useful for some of you as well...
1. The nose is meant for smelling.
(Not to bump it into other's life and business.)
2. The mouth is for eating.
(Not for spreading gossips and bad-mouth about others.)
3. The lips and the tongue are for sweet words, kissing and pleasure.
(Again: and not for spreading gossips and such... see above)
4. The hands are for grabbing your opportunities.
(Not for anything else stupid, like any violence...)
5. Only one may have access to the lagoon of mysteries.
(Yes, it is in the language of flowers, but it basically means: don't mess around too much, it won't do you any good.)
6. Self-loathing is just as unhealthy as biting your nails.
(I think, this one speaks for itself.)
7. It is better to fall in love than in despair.
(This is the refined version of an earlier wise-crack we always used with a best friend of mine, which says: it is better to fall on a guy than to fall for a guy - this wise-crack "was born" after I fell on a guy as the tram suddenly stopped.)
