Saturday 30 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, where to begin?

The other day I contacted the church warden to enquire whether I could have access to the organ. In short, I arranged to meet her at the church at 10 on Saturday. This morning, I slowly became aware of being awake. I lay there for a while, but eventually I decided I should probably get up. I don’t want to be late, after all. I turned over and checked the clock. 6:30 AM?? Um, why am I awake at this hour?! That’s pretty random.

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Saturday 30 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

And so, another evening of dancing. Only this time, it’s pretty hot before you start jiggling around. Seriously, they need to invest in some real cooling equipment. The silly little fans on the ceiling were quite ineffective.

Not too much else to report. In the Waltz, we (meaning me and my partner) have still yet to come close to mastering the natural turn, and we’re even more hopeless at the spot turn. Despite having expended a considerable amount of time on it. The Rumba is “the dance of love”, so I got to see my partner seriously making eyes at me. (Apparently this is related to her being an actress. Good thing I know she’s kidding! Even so, I’ve always wondered how you actually “make eyes” at someone. Well, I still don’t know the answer, but now I have some idea what it feels like when somebody does! Definitely a new experience for me…)

In the end we ran out of time to go over all the things the instructors wanted to go over, but they did make us do the Barndance Jive. (By this point, huge numbers of people had already made a sharp exit, and there was seemingly a rather large surplus of ladies surrounding us.)

The instructor also pointed out that next week there’s going to be a rock and roll class directly after this class finishes. “And you’re all welcome to join us.” Long story short: it seems I’ve agreed to dancing for two hours straight next week. I must be mad…

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Tuesday 26 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so Sunday night I’m surfing the Internet, reading about pipe organs. As we all know, the Grand Organ of the Royal Albert Hall was the largest pipe organ on the face of the Earth when it was built. And then they made it bigger! That’s hardcore, right there. But today, even bigger organs exist, although the Grand Organ remained the largest in this country until quite recently.

Apparently the largest organ in England is now the one in Liverpool Cathedral. (I didn’t even know it had a cathedral; apparently it has several!) Obviously this cathedral and its organ is worthy of further study.

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Wednesday 20 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

The barndance jive. It’s a bit like speed dating, really.

You dance with your partner, complete a round of the dance, and at the end of the round you walk round to the next person. (Unless you happen to be a lady. In that case, you just stay where you are and wait for the next man to appear.)

Normally we dance this one to Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday. However, if the instructors are feeling particularly crazy, we dance it to Amarillo. Not sure how no fatalities have resulting from the latter, but there we are. Anyway, depending on which tune is played, you swap partners, say hi, maybe get as far as “wow, this is pretty mental, eh?” and then it’s time to move on.

Exactly like speed dating! (But cheaper.)

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Wednesday 20 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK guys, so here’s a close-up of my hands while I’m playing. This also features digital sound (so hopefully less distortion), and I’ve worked on improving my playing. (I had apparently misread several parts of the score. I’ve learned some more chunks of the score. And I’ve worked on being more fluid in my playing.)

YouTube

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Thursday 14 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

OK, so on Tuesday night I did a search of NPOR to find all the best local pipe organs. And it turns out one of them is situated in a church that I’ve actually visited once before (so I know where it is). I drove over there, but at 8:30 at night it was locked and shut. I couldn’t even enter the grounds because the gate was locked. However, looking at the bit of paper stuck to the wall, it appears tomorrow night there’s a charity book sale on until 8. (They also have a website, which is unusual.)

Wednesday night, I returned. This time I got there at round about 7. The gates were unlocked, and there were clearly people inside. Old people.

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Wednesday 13 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

On Monday night, I found myself alone for the evening. I decided to take myself out for a meal. (Yes, I was hoping to see that girl again. But no, she wasn’t working. And no, the girl who was working was nothing special.) Kind of a wasted evening, but the chocolate cake was pretty good.

Upon leaving, I decided to drive home. But before I got there, I changed my mind and drove over to the church to check out the progress of the organ rebuild. The last few times I’ve been over there, it’s been quite exciting; there appears to be an entire rank of new [enourmous] pipes, and you can see parts of the inside of the mechanism and so forth.

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Friday 08 May 2009 by Orphi the AweKid.

Well, our usual instructor wasn’t here this week. Instead of the cheesy guy, we had a militant woman. Damn, she was scary!

However, possibly not as scary as doing the barndance jive at 96 beats per minute! Considering that I’m the youngest person there by a decade or so… man, I was expecting fatalities! And my partner had that crazy look in her eyes. I was holding on to her by her fingertips just to stay clear of the flailing limbs. She was having a great time, but it was pretty scary from where I was standing.

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