Thursday, May 17, 2012

Chanter

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I love to sing. I love music and despite whatever I may say, I love having a tune running through my head all the time. Right now it happens to be a bit from the Pirates of the Caribbean score.

I have been very privilaged here in Juneau to have found an outlet for all of that musical energy. There is a small, volunteer, no tryout required, and no fee requested choir here called the Bach Society. Apparently the conductor wants to perform every Bach Cantata. I don't think any of us will be around long enough for that, but in the meantime it is very very fun to be in a choir and learn music that I actually have to work at again. I had forgotten how fun it was to totally blunder through this passage and another, completely oblivious to which notes you've got right and which you're totally butchering. And then to go over and over it and find you can actually sing the right notes at the right time and with the correct word in some language you don't understand with the correct pronounciation.

Last winter we teemed up with the Alaska Youth Choir and sang John Rutter's Mass for the Children, which is an absolutely beautiful piece of music.

Then in the spring we enlisted the help of the truely amazing Juneau-Douglas High School Choir to make an attempt at the 1610 Monteverdi Vespers which at times has the two different choirs singing in 5 parts each all at the same time, and all 10 parts are singing something different. Not only that, but they all have to come in at different times all half a beat apart. That was a lot of work, let me tell you. Some of the most fun I've had since I got to Juneau.

This fall they renamed us the Symphony Choir and made us pay 25 bucks to get in, but we got to sing Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Orchestra and that was quite exciting, even if we only got to sing for about 7 pages at the very end of the 5th and last movement.

Right now we're learning Bach Cantata #147 for the 18th and 19th of December, which is the cantata with the Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring corale in it. It's got all these crazy long runs of 16th notes at the beginning which we're slowly making sense of.

***

It's been over a year since I wrote the top part of this post.  Apparently I was feeling rather informative then, and I find my current mood doesn't quite match.  This is me warning you of a change in tone.  Warning complete.

PS.  I case you didn't catch this, the info above can now be considered old news.

***

The thing I love most about singing in the Bach society is running through a section we don't quite know yet.  Maybe we've gone through each individual part once or twice, but by the time you finish with that you've got everybody else's part in you're head and can't for the life of you remember what yours is supposed to sound like.  And the director says, "Now pick a part and let's go."  And he brings up his hands.  The pianist plays a string of notes and you hold desperately onto the one that you're reasonably sure is the one you're supposed to start on.  And the hands come down, and you sing.  Your eyes glued to the little spots that dance up and down their little staircase of lines, and you try to follow them, but you miss more often then you hit and you're wrong more often then you're right but you don't care.  You sing out unashamed.  'Cause everybody's wrong, and therefore everybody's right, and it sounds awful, but it doesn't matter 'cause you're so caught up in the joy of it.  The momentum pushes you along, and you realize you're trying to laugh and sing at the same time while butchering German on all the wrong notes.  And what you really wan't to do is cry.  'Cause this is what being human is about.  It's about being wrong and loving it, 'cause you know you'll work a little harder and a little longer and you'll get it right.  All together, you'll get it right.  And at the concert you'll stand all together and sing out (most of) the right notes with all of your being because you've worked so hard to learn something beautiful.  To present it to others and say, "Is this not the language of the soul?"

On a different note, if you'll pardon the pun, I have a Wendy friend that has been introducing me to the wonders of bluegrass, folk, and old country.  I mean old, old country.  The kind of music that would commonly include a banjo, a fiddle, a string bass, a guitar, and a mandolin, among others.  The kind of music that does not come written down on five straight little lines of perdy little dots.  An oral tradition of story telling in the form of music.  So when we learn a new song, that basically means, she sings it, and then I have to.  And it often doesn't come out all that great, but that's okay, 'cause with folk music there is no composer staring up at you out of a black and white printed page telling you what is absolutely right and that everything else is wrong.  There is no wrong.  You make up your own little version and when you like it, it is right.

Wendy and I have been having a great time playing around town.  We're called 'The Henhouse' and there is a page on facebook if you're interested in keeping track.

Thursday, March 24, 2011


"When we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time."

-- Neal A. Maxwell

Friday, July 2, 2010

Point Bridget






A couple of weeks ago Grandma and Grandpa and I made a trip out to Point Bridget. Lunches on our backs, we made the rather long hike through the glorious but mosquito infested woods. Summer in Juneau is great, until it stops raining and the bugs come out. Another reason to love the rain. Though the view is a little better when it's clear and you can actually see the tops of the mountains as it was on this day at Point Bridget. But there is something to be said about the beauty and mystery of mist enshrouded mountains. Great, green giants reposing in a white, wispy embrace...

Any-who, it was sunny an warm at Point Bridget. No mist enshrouded mountains in sight. Only clear skies and a vast, rolling expanse of glorious wildflowers. The whole meadow was yellow with buttercups, Bright purple with geraniums, dark purple with irises, blue with lupine, chocolate with black lilies, and shot through with shooting stars, and every little bit you could find the pink blossom of a beach pea. All the spaces filled in with each of their unique greenery.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Authority

The other day I was working at the mall store and there was a little boy, probably around 3 or 4, playing with the Schleich animal figures. He was making it impossible for people to walk by without stepping on a zebra or cow, so I went up and squatted down next to him and kindly asked him to either put the animals away or play with them at the table provided for that purpose.

You'd think that would have worked. When I was a kid I remember being completely mortified if some strange adult told me off. You get orders and such from your mother all the time, but if you do something someone else expresses disapproval of, you straighten up right quick. Or at least that's how I remember it.

But this kid... As soon as I had finished my question he looked at me in indignation and said to me "My mom can tell me that."

Luckily his mom was nearby to help out, because in this kid's eyes I had absolutely no authority.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

"Well if you chew them up..."

Some weeks ago Grandma made brownies, and Grandma likes nuts in her brownies, unlike me. When I grumbled about the intruders in her perfectly chewy, chocolaty brownies she turned to me and said something along the lines of "Well if you chew them up, you won't notice them."

I'm still chuckling about it.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Spring Glories

The sights of spring in the yard.

Mountain Ash tree.

Grandma's garden(s).

The onion bed.

Primroses.




More primroses.



Daffodils.


Tulips yet to bloom.

Rose.

Salmon berry.

Blueberries.

Skunk cabbage.


False lily of the valley.

Water skipper bug. :)

Alder trees.

More salmon berry.

The baby ducks are out in the barn now. They've grown a lot.

Geraniums in the kitchen window.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Beadsession



Let me tell you about my new obsession. Beads! Not just any beads, but seed beads for my new bead loom, which I got for Christmas. I'm obsessed, I tell you. It is way too much fun to be healthy.