The RCO are offering a number of free resources during the current COVID-19 situation. If you haven’t already done so, please visit this link (https://i.rco.org.uk/learning-during-lockdown-5-increase-your-repertoire/) to create your FREE iRCO account and explore what is available.
Monthly Archives: April 2020
This week’s RCO online resources
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RCO Online Resources
We are pleased to confirm that due to the Coronavirus the Royal College of Organists is offering free access to all its online learning resources, whether you are a member of not. Click here to visit the website.
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Diocese of Leeds Music – Coronavirus Emergency Music Appeal
Diocese of Leeds Music are continuing to engage children and young people in musical experiences via an online offering during the lockkdown. Please click here to see more information, and if you can, make a donation.
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Online organ lessons – a triumph!
David Baker has taught his first online organ lesson this week and it went superbly. Read below for a glowing review from his student –
“I really enjoyed my organ lesson with Professor David Baker via Zoom. I had my laptop sitting on a plant stand so the camera angle was more at less at shoulder height, which I hope enabled David to see both my face and my hands on the manuals. David was able to teach more or less as normal: the sound quality from Zoom was obviously sufficiently good for him to analyse complex chords and identify wrong notes, and also to suggest adjustments to the registration. If there were any differences from a face to face lesson – apart from the obvious – we relied much more on bar numbers than we would normally, and in order for David to hear the pedal line adequately I sometimes added the Pedal Trombone 16. I greatly value my lessons with David and being able to have a lesson so effectively and enjoyably in these difficult times was a wonderful bit of quasi-normality. I warmly recommend it!”
Please contact David’s PA (pa@davidbakerconsulting.co.uk) if you would like to book your online lesson.
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RSCM Easter Sunday ‘Come and Sing’
The RSCM have planned for a special Festival Service to take place online for everyone, members and non-members, to join in with.
A full set of practice materials are available and then the live-streamed service will be available at 6.00pm on Easter Day. The service will be led by the Very Revd Dr John Hall, RSCM Chair of Council and a selection of choirs have assembled special, virtual performances of the music for everyone to join in with.
You can access all of the resources via this link.
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A message from Prof. David Baker
I hope you are all managing in this strange new world in which we find ourselves and that you are keeping well. I am finding it odd not to be giving any lesson and not to be playing in public. Still, it means that my Music Room is tidier than it has ever been (which means I cannot now find anything!) and I am getting lots of practice in, not least for my all-Bach series at Halifax Minster – whenever that starts (it has now been postponed twice, so let’s hope for third time lucky!).
I have now played for two virtual services ‘at’ St Michael’s, using Zoom. These went well, though, as yet, we have not tried to perform together. We may have a go at some hymns on Easter Sunday but need to experiment first. I have also invested in Zoom for Business and am intending to use it alongside Skype for meetings. I am chairing my first board meeting using Microsoft Teams next week, so wish me luck!
I know that some of my fellow RCO tutors have started to use Skype and Zoom to give lessons, so if any of you would like to give it a go, then just contact Laura and book a time. I am not going out much! And a lesson will be half what you normally pay. I would be quite interested in how it works, as I have only done theory lessons online before (apart from an ‘emergency’ one off with a student about to sit an exam!).
I would love to hear from you anyway as to how you are getting on and what you are up to. And if you want some light reading, I have two novels being serialized on channillo.com. You just access the website and look for ‘A month of murder’ and ‘Broken Eagle’. If you take out a subscription, all proceeds are in aid of Smile Train.
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Stainer’s Crucifixion – Good Friday
Florence International Singing Programme have planned a number of projects for people to engage with during the Coronavirus pandemic. The first of these projects is on Good Friday – Come and Sing Stainer’s Crucifixion Online. Please click here to view more information and register.
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ABRSM new online platform – Play On
ABRSM have launched their new online platform to support and inspire musicians whilst we are all working in uncertain times due to Covid-19. Click here to visit the online resources and learn more.
The ambition for this new resource is that “it will bring you even closer to the music you love and to other musicians. Through regular features, advice and insight we’ll help you to get the most from your playing or singing.”
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A Month of Murder
1 May 1986. Thirteen-year old Margaret ‘Minnie’ Hargreaves is murdered, and her body half buried on a building site at the edge of Holme Hill, a village in West Yorkshire where she lived with her parents. David Harrison, a near-neighbour, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment. He dies in prison.
43 years later, Holme Hill becomes the scene of two more murders. The first to die is Rhys Williams, a lonely old widower, who is found sitting on a bench by the village cricket ground. One week later, as the long-redundant Methodist Church is being cleared out prior to conversion to luxury flats, the verger finds more than he bargained for: Squire Haley, former choirmaster, face down at the keyboard of the chapel organ. Both corpses have a quotation from the Bible pinned to them, along with four dates – the first two the days on which Williams and Haley were murdered, the last two, dates in the future. Dates on which two more people will be killed, perhaps?
Detective Chief Inspector Donald May is called in to head the investigation. Holme Hill was his boyhood home and the chapel the place where his family worshipped. At first, the murders seem inexplicable: two old men who had lived blameless lives – no reason to kill them; but the same murderer by the looks of it, so they must have something in common. A darker past begins to emerge as May and his team of DS Viv Trubshaw and DC Charlie Riggs investigate. Then a third murder, on the date forecast, again with a quotation from the Bible about the body. May knows when the fourth murder wil lbe committed; but who will the victim be and who is the perpetrator?
The Detective Chief Inspector has seven days to stop a murder and catch the criminal. May will discover much more than he expected when he started on 1 May 2019: the victims and the murderer; his own father; the chapel and the village; his marriage and his love for Detective Sergeant Trubshaw. All in one month; a month of murder.
David Baker’s murder mystery novel is now being serialised on https://channillo.com/series/a-month-of-murder/
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