A MUSIC lover from Rossendale has found the key to ensuring some of our most treasured shows are performed note perfect on the stage.

Retired export manager Penny Hood, 66, of Helmshore, has scaled such heights that she has now turned a lifelong passion for Gilbert and Sullivan operettas into a thriving internet concern.

Years of involvement in rehearsals for classic shows like the Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and the Mikado, with the likes of Rossendale and Blackburn’s amateur operatic societies have gone into creating Penny’s website, Notebashers.

Via the website she highlights individual parts so performers can learn their roles before teaming up with others.

Penny said learning your own place in an ensemble piece is one thing but frustration could come when sopranos, altos, tenors and bass must all blend as one.

Her website picks out the notes and pitch each singer must hit in rehearsal before the final piece can be complete.

Penny, of Wood Bank Cottages, said: “Notebashers came out of trying to learn my notes and harmonies for our songs.

“We’d start with the piano hammering out the soprano line. Next it’d be us, the altos.

"By the time the tenors and basses had finished learning theirs we were all floundering and helpless.

“I used to dash home and use a tape recorder to record the notes that I could remember, so I could play them over and over again in the car.”

Penny said the website has been keeping her busy in retirement.

She said: “I originally put the 13 Gilbert and Sullivan operattas into my own computer for the sheer love of it, hoping that one or two people might find them useful.

“But it seems that others share my enthusiasm for learning parts accurately, because I get no end of people asking for specific things.

“I’ve also had to diversify into doing various composers including Mozart, Bach, even a little Wagner.”

Her site, www.notebashers.com, has been endorsed by The Royal Choral Society, and Alistair Donkin, a member of the original D’Oyly Carte Production Company.