Naectegale

Happy Birthday Mika!! Enjoy the cliff jumping!

Hello All. Elanorelle - this is a fascinating idea for a thread. I loved "Over my Shoulder" when I first heard it. I loved the vocal harmonies - particularly when two notes are sung a tone apart, creating a feeling of tension, which is then released into a more orthodox chord. (It happens on the word "Cold" as in "cold, drunk" and "cold dry" when the second voice joins in a tone higher than the first) It is the kind of thing that happens in a lot of contemporary choral music and reminded me of a little-known choral work by Gorecki called "Euntes Ibant et Flebant" which my choir sang once. The piece relies on 3 notes - the first, second and third notes of the scale sung together in 12 part harmony, in various odd scrunchy combinations, until suddenly ending up with some nice comforting major chords. Gorecki is better known for his 3rd Symphony, known as the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" - so I was very surprised when I read (somewhere on the MFC) that Mika had planned an EP of "6 sorrowful songs." Is this just coincidence? Is Mika a Gorecki fan, or am I just imagining things? I suspect the latter but it’s fun to speculate!

Thank you all for the warm welcome And Sariflor - don't worry about misspelling the name - it's old Anglo-Saxon for "nightingale", but I don't think they had standardised spelling, and anyway the old Anglo-Saxons are all dead, so can't complain! I chose it because my real name has an Anglo-Saxon root, and I like bird watching and I sing a bit. (I heard a nightingale last May - I've never heard a more beautiful song) XX N

Many thanks to dcdeb for activating my account for me! Let me introduce myself. I'm quite old (mid 40's but Mika makes me feel a lot younger!) and live and work in the South East of England I've been a Mika fan since February 2007. I first heard about him from Brian May's website. When I heard he had been labelled "the new Freddie" I was cynical - I've been a Queen fan since 1975, and no other "pop" act had ever come close - I prefer "classical" anyway. Having acquired cable TV, I was testing the magic interactive red button to see what it did and, seeing his name on the index, decided to check him out. It was the Radio 2 Music Club performance - I was impressed by his vocal range and the variety and originality of his songs. And he made me smile....and smile...He cheered me up when I really needed it (I was ill at the time, undergoing tests and scared of the outcome - thankfully that's all behind me now). I watched the half-hour set repeatedly that week, and was sad when it was taken off. So I went and bought LICM. Having enjoyed the positivity of the concert, I was not prepared for the bleakness of "Any Other World" - it made me cry! And I fell in love with "Over My Shoulder" - the vocal harmonies and the beautiful piano playing. I found the MFC last November, but have only just acquired my own broadband connection, hence the delay in "joining in" until now. I'm looking forward to interacting with you all. XX