The Times, They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round, people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown,
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone;
If your time to you is worth saving
Then you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics who prophesise with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
But don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come Senators, Congressmen, please heed the call:
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticise what you can't understand:
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapily agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast:
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past,
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a-changin'.

Today was one with more reflection over the past than usual.

Following an average day (swimming then school), I headed off to the State Library to see what they had on the My Lai massacre (HEX). With that accomplished (for the record, they didn't have much of what I was looking for - but then they never do... Fisher Library all the way!!) I was in the city with nothing to do. And since it was a wednesday, I decided it would be an idea to drop into SCC (Sydney Children's Choir) for a visit.

With the annual Christmas choral extravaganza taking place in a week, rehearsal was fully in swing. During the first half I helped the supervisors sort the red choral robes (so unspeakably bad, but yet so good - it's kind of like Stockholm Syndrome: you find yourself inexplicably attached to them) into height order so as to facilitate the allocation thereof.

As the allocation took place, I had an opportunity to chat with choristers whom I hadn't seen since the choir's 21st anniversary concert back in late june. Sitting in on the rehearsal for part of the second half showed me how much had changed in the 18 or so months since I aged out of the SCC - there were new kids everywhere, all the male soprani I remember were now off in the marvellous magical land of Alto 2 (guess which section I was section leader of back in the day...), and about to leave because they no longer really qualified as trebles... It was somewhat depressing. It made me feel old, and I thoroughly dislike feeling old.

I then happened to spot an old friend waiting outside the rehearsal room (Vox, the Sydney Philarmonia's youth choir has rehearsals wednesday evenings after SCC), and so I exited for a chat (but not after Lyn (our fearsome and awe inspiring conductor) noticed me and had everyone say hello... I love getting the alumna treatment).

Angus and I started in the SCC back in 1999 when we were in kindergarten, and both about two feet tall and blond. Now of course, he's still blond and significantly taller, and I'm still stunted and short... And my marvellous Jew-fro is gone... But seriously. He knew me back when I did things like turn up to a rehearsal and announce loudly, and in a tone of indignant socialism "Did you know that they're putting a GST on breast pumps?!" (In my defence, I was five or six. This of course didn't stop Lyn bringing that little anecdote up at the 21st anniversary concert... Luckily she didn't name me. It was only after that I found out she was talking about me. I must say I had completely repressed that gem of a memory). Good times... Good times.

It was great remembering the old days of Opera House christmas concerts with the horrid red robes and the nauseatingly kitschy electric candles we all had to make us all look angelic and such... the days when supervisors stood waiting in the wings to drag the bodies of the choristers who passed out from heatstroke off the stage... back in the day where there were only seven choirs in the SCC structure... as compared with the current 20 or so.

It made me realise just how much I miss being part of choir. Bloody expletiving HSC.

And then this evening, whilst on facebook, I was facebook chatting with one of my friends from my latest hospital stint, and the following was said:
Kelsey: ADELA I thought of that song the other day
You know the times are changing song
And almost cried because I realised how much I missed you

She was referring to Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'" which I spent a lot of time singing whilst we were stuck in hospital (I had a ukelele with me, and I had a repertoire of about six songs... stuff got repeated.), and even ended up calligraphising on a 2 metre piece of paper which now hangs above the door in the classroom (hospital sucks, and it helps to have a reminder that everything is transient, including medical incarceration).

And to be honest, the song affects me the same way. Every time it comes up on my ipod, I remember all the girls I spent 8 weeks living with and how much I miss them.
It also reminded me of just how quickly things change. Change is scary and unfamiliar. To be honest, I wish everything would just stay the same.

I wish I were still a cute little blond six-year-old with socialist tendencies, I wish my blood still did what it was meant to, and most of all, I wish my dad were still alive. The times, they are a-changin', but I really wish they weren't.

Music

I'm a bit of a classical music nerd. I started piano and singing when I was five, cello when I was eight, and tuba when I was twelve. I headbang when I listen to Verdi.

As a result, people are often surprised when they find out that my favourite type of music is heavy metal.

It's really not that surprising - classical music and heavy metal are incredibly similar. In fact they need not even be different things - for example 'Hall Of The Mountain King' by Edvard Grieg, performed by Apocalyptica (four cello players who started off classical, and then diversified into metal).

Listen to 'Dies Irae' by Verdi, and then listen to 'Disposable Heroes' by Metallica. They're practically identical. Stylistically, classical music and metal are practically the same thing. They involve complex instrumental solos underscored with a supporting mix of instruments. Think of a metal band as a chamber orchestra on steroids.

In an orchestra, the viola is the equivalent of a bass guitar. Most of the time they started off as violin (or guitar) players (depending on which side of the metaphor you're following) getting all the - to quote Frank Zappa for a moment - 'bitchen solos', and then as the result of internal politics they get demoted to where they just stand (or sit) there playing sustained notes from here unto oblivion.

Admittedly, every so often, someone bucks the trend - Bach's 'Ciaccona', or '(Anaesthesia) Pulling Teeth' by Metallica - but generally, they're the butt of everyone else's jokes.

The double basses are just like the synthesiser player: they're perpetually frustrated because they're not a violin/guitar player. Their part is alright, but it's never amazingly enjoyable. Or challenging. Or interesting.

Brass players could are quite similar to the lead singer - they leave a lot of spit in the area around them. I'm in a brass band, and the moment rehearsal finishes, you walk with your eyes on the ground so as to avoid the massive pools of spit left by people's instruments. I the same way, lead singers spag. It's a fact of life. Sitting in the orchestra pit of anything is particularly unpleasant if you're a tuba like myself and you're near the back of the pit - right in the middle of the 'wet zone'.

Percussionists (with the exception of mallet and timpani) are just like drummers - half the time they can't read music. The Muppets really got it right when they made Animal the drummer.

Of course, the marvellous thing about metal bands, is there's minimal ponciness in their music. Ponciness is something I thoroughly dislike in music. Debussy was good at ponce. Admittedly late Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Rossini, Handel etc. managed to compose some reasonably hardcore music, but the (in my opinion) good stuff is far outweighed by fluttery little flute cantatas and violin concertos.

There's also minimal postmodernism in metal. Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly like the concept of postmodernism in historiographical study, but I really dislike it in the arts. Listen to Elliot Gyger's 'I Am Not Yet Born' (on the Shall We Dream CD of the Sydney Childrens Choir - I'm pretty sure they're the only ones to ever record it); To Look Yet Not Find by Brett Dean; anything by Paul Stanhope or Joe Twist. Postmodernist music is unpleasant. It's unpleasant to sing (especially I Am Not Yet Born. Singing compound fourths is not fun.) and it's unpleasant to listen to. It's just not nice.

Finally, metal has the advantage of sounding astoundingly meaningful when written out. For the majority of last year, the folder in which I stored my school books had the lyrics from 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' by Metallica and 'On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius' by Matti Hyökki (a good performance of it is by the Tapiola Choir from Espoo, Finland. If you can't find that one, Gondwana Voices sang it in a collaboration with the Tapiola Choir on the New Light, New Hope album). People would read the Metallica and be amazed at how deep it was, did I write it myself etc. I would then rather enjoy their expressions when I told them it was Metallica. Metal, written out, sounds fantastic. I even enjoy the pleasantly ironic juxtaposition of the music with the lyrics - you wouldn't think they could attach a guitar riff to what is in essence rather good poetry, but they manage.

Which brings to mind one final pair of songs which are remarkably similar: On Suuri Sun Rantas Autius and Low Man's Lyric by Metallica. Listen to them. You'll see.