I wrote earlier about being in a pub and watching the Glee version of "Don't Stop Believin'" come on the big flat screen. If that wasn't enough, I heard Glee again this morning in a coffee shop. Lauren and I are doing our Theology of the Musical presentation of Les Miserables. The presentation has to be an hour and a half long, and we are in a group with two full time students. Since the presentation has to be so long, we decided to start working on it as soon as possible. I'm actually really excited about the presentation, and am even more excited that our group seems very able to work together and willing to do a lot of work for the presentation.
The girls in our group decided that they would bring us on a tour of St. Andrews coffee shops. Thus, all of our meetings take place in different coffee shops. They are really nice people! (I've noticed that all of the UK students here are really friendly and willing to talk to us Americans. It makes the adjustment a lot easier.)
We decided to meet at the Northpoint cafe this morning at 10. This coffee shop has happy hour (yes you read correctly). From 8:30 to 10:00 all of their hot drinks are £1.00. This is a huge deal! Lauren and I arrived early and were able to order during happy hour. I had a very delicious coffee drink for £1. It was awesome. Our group arrived shortly after and we started planning. We all seemed to have similar ideas for what to do with the project. Basically it is going to involve taping interviews with each other in "character" as cast members of Les Miserables. It will be difficult to pull off, but I am excited.
As we were planning, I had to interrupt our conversation to point out that the coffee shop was currently playing a song from Glee. This, of course, caused a digression to discuss the show. One of the girls, Sara, told us she was asked during the last semester if she was a Gleek. The show has invaded the popular culture and vernacular of Scotland! This is great news because it means that when the show returns in April we will be able to watch it! I am very pleased.
We've decided to divide our presentation by theme. We'll present songs that fit into particular themes and show the interviews with the characters who sing the songs under that theme. I think it will work nicely. We are also looking into doing a musical analysis of Les Miserables songs as compared to common church hymns. (Mom, Dad, if this part of the presentation is successful it will mean those two music theory classes I took freshman year paid off). I'm not purporting to know all of the nuances of the pieces and whatnot, but I can identify cadences and chords. Hopefully we'll be able to compare songs in Les Miserables to hymns and find some similarities. Although a lot of the focus of the course is on the lyrics, I think the musical setting is just as important, if not more important.
So Julia, I hope this post was decent enough. I'll have a lot more to write about Wednesday night. My Musical class is going to Edinburgh to see a production of The Sound of Music. I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about!
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