I Guess "It's All Relative"

Our church has far more than her fair share of musicians.  In addition to organ and piano, there are flutes, strings, and various horns.  And the voices!  Plenty of good singers, especially one soprano who is second only to Julie Andrews in my book.  Ahhhhh, lovely!

Sometimes I feel so inferior, so inadequate.  In some of the congregations I've been in, I was one of the top-notch musicians, one of few who could play a little piano and read music.  Here, I keep thinking that I should quit choir so that the rest of the group isn't dragged down by my voice.  (I remember so clearly the reunion of our high school choir, with tapes playing of our concerts.  The girl with the prettiest voice heard the spot on the tape where I had a brief solo, and she wondered who that was and didn't remember anybody with that poor a voice ever being in choir.  That's the kind of thing people don't say to your face, but sometimes the truth spills out accidentally.)

And then I was visiting at my mom's church a few weeks ago.  Heading out to the parking lot with a friend, a stranger stopped us.  "Do you go to church here?"  No.  "Could you?"  No.  "Why not?"  I live in Wisconsin.  My confusion grew as she joked that I commute each week.  Then she explained: "You have a beautiful voice.  It would be great to have you here singing every week."

Weird.

Even though, in my environment, I have a barely mediocre voice, that little comment gives me the courage to remain in choir.

Snow Storm Wins over the Symphony

Big dump of snow today.
Loads of accidents.
Thankfully, Philip made it home from church safely, and Andrew made it safely to work.

Symphony was canceled. 
It was a wise decision.
But I'm still disappointed.
I'm trying not to think about it.

Symphony This Sunday

Our church choirs have a reputation.

(That's kind of cool....)

This Sunday we're singing at the concert for the local symphony. 

At work the other day, I heard a commercial for us.  On a 50,000-watt radio station.  On one of their most-listened-to talk-shows.  A commercial for us.  I was excited!  Oh my goodness -- you can buy tickets for the concert on Ticketmaster.  To me, that's where you get tickets for Toby Keith or Kenny Chesney or Michael Buble.  One of my co-workers said, "I have NEVER seen you nearly so pumped about ANYthing."  No foolin'!

This is going to be fun.



If you're local and want to attend, it's 3:00 on Sunday at Hamilton Fine Arts Center (at the high school).  Information is available at the symphony's website.  The children's choirs are singing a couple of songs without the adults, and I don't know what those pieces are.  The adults (or adults with the kids) are singing:
Once in Royal David's City (Mann/Willcocks/Vierrege)
Up, Good Christen Folk
Praise God the Lord, Ye Sons of Men (Hugo Distler)
Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree
Your Little Ones, Dear Lord, Are We  (David Cherwien) 
Silent Night (Hal Hopson)
See, in Yonder Manger Low (Keith Veirrege)

Real Music

Usually, when someone's making music, you notice the music.  But if a real person is making music with a real instrument, which vibrates a real string or a real reed (as opposed to the sounds made by electronic music), there's something else to hear -- the sound of the person using the instrument.

When a person is playing guitar, there's the sound of the fingers on the strings, sliding from one fret to the next.  When a person is playing organ, someone nearby can hear the ever-so-soft sound of the feet hitting the pedals.  When a person is singing, between lines there's that sound of air being sucked into the lungs.

I used to think those were bad-but-necessary sounds.  Now with all the electronic ways of making music, I'm happy to notice those subtle indicators of real music.

Nursery Rhyme Game -- "Throw It Out the Window"

Have you sung the "Throw It Out the Window" song?  Something came up at work once when we were between customers on a slow day, and I demonstrated the nursery rhyme song that we would use to kill time when we were on a long car ride.  A couple of my co-workers thought it was a crack-up!

Basically you start with a nursery rhyme.  The tune is on you-tube, starting around the 2-minute mark.  You sing three lines of the nursery rhyme and then flip to

threw it out the window, 

the window, the second-story window.

If you can't make it rhyme,

or sing it on time,

throw it out the window.

For example:
Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
and a merry old soul was he.
He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl,
and he threw them out the window.  (Refrain)

Or:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
and threw it out the window.  (Refrain)

Or:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
His wife could eat no lean.
And so between them both, you see,
they threw them out the window, the window, ... (refrain)

Haul out as many nursery rhymes as you can remember.
And have fun!

Private Music

While piano-hunting, the salesmen repeatedly pointed out the benefits of the earphones that can be plugged into a digital piano. They told us how great it is to be able to practice without disturbing the people around you. I can see benefits there. If you live in an apartment, you can play without annoying the people upstairs. If you work odd hours --or if you awaken in the night and want to play hymns for comfort-- the earphones make it possible for you to make your music while the rest of the household slumbers away. If you're learning a piece and embarrassed to be heard, you've got privacy because of the earphones.

And yet ...

Is that good?

Isn't there something good about all of you hearing the same music? Isn't there something good about learning to take turns -- someone playing piano for a while and then someone else listening to the tv or radio -- sharing the airwaves? Isn't there something instructive about listening to a person learn to play, whether it's the primer book, simple scales, or more complicated pieces? Isn't there something good about the whole family hearing Jill's piece for the recital 287 times in one week?

When we use the earphones, we disassociate with each other. But that's not all. We also take away our exposure to someone's fumbling about while in the learning-stages. And that's not a good thing. Especially in our day of recorded music (where there might have been over 100 attempts at getting the recording Right before the entertainer finds a "keeper") it's important that we experience the process of learning. Children especially need to see that mistakes are made, and that we all do a cruddy job in the beginning phases of gaining a skill, and that it takes work and practice before a piece is smoothed and polished and refined.

I'm not going to toss my piano's earphones into the trash. We will keep them. Sometimes we will use them. But for the most part, earphones seem like another wedge to family togetherness, as well as another way to portray excellence while hiding the path of hard work and the plethora of errors that led to that excellence.

a capella chorales

What is it about singing good, strong Lutheran chorales, in 3- or 4-part harmony, without accompaniment? It's lush and rich. Our choir director (aka, pastor) doesn't like music to drag. And yet, when we sing in parts during the opening for Bible class or during chapel (that is, when there is no organ), the music slows down, almost like we're caressing the chords, enjoying the richness, letting it all soak into rafters and seep into our ears and our hearts.

Sacrifices of Joy

In Psalm 27, David writes, "I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle."

What is that?

A sacrifice of joy? If it's joy, why is it a sacrifice? If it's a sacrifice, then what do we mean by the word "joy"? Why is singing a sacrifice?

Choir Concert

Maggie's been singing with the Academy Choir since November. It's taken a LOT of trips during the school day back and forth to church, but she has improved immensely in her singing ability. And she enjoys it!

This year, for the first time, the kids gave a concert. Here are the academy and cherub choirs.

The kids were excited to get the autograph of Paul Bouman (the composer of many of the pieces they sang this year).

Many thanks to Kathy (the choir director) and the kids at school for letting Maggie be part of the group!

Cats and Joseph and Superstar

The kids attended their friend Matthew's musical this weekend. Matthew played Judah in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

As they talked about the show the next morning, suddenly the songs were resurrected in my mind. When Joseph was first written (and was only about 15-20 minutes long) we learned it in Sunday school. I can't remember whatever happened to performing it; maybe we never did. The songs were still very new at the time; the full show hadn't been developed yet. Until the kids started singing parts of the musical, until we started bopping around YouTube clips of the song&dance routines, I didn't realize I remembered anything.

1. Watching YouTube clips, I couldn't believe how very very very similar Joseph and Cats are. The sound and the whole feeling of Cats, Joseph, and Jesus Christ Superstar make you wonder if you're watching the exact same show.

2. Boy, Joseph has horrid theology. Whenever we work our way through the last quarter of Genesis during chapel or Bible class, I'm offended by the cockamamie theological notions I bear regarding the Joseph story. Watching some of those bits of the opera, I see where my warped ideas come from! PS: Horrid theology aside, Rice & Webber sure produced some fun music!

3. A little memory jog brought all those songs to the fore. Think what that means for those of us who are trying to teach GOOD things to kids. Even if those hymns and Bible verses lie dormant for years --for decades-- they can come back.

Accurate Ears and Intuition

Sandy tells the story of how, when she was little, her uncle would play a game of asking the kids to "sing an A" or "what is an F-sharp?" Sandy has perfect pitch, and she could never figure out what the "game" was; somebody asks you to sing a B-flat and you do; so what's the trick?

When I was in school and the music teacher would have us listen to a concert piece, she would point out, "Do you hear what the oboe is doing in this section?" or "Aren't the violins beautiful here!" I didn't get it. I could hear music, but I couldn't hear individual instruments. Of course, I was the kid who drove my 1st- and 2nd-grade teachers batty when they tried to teach me to spell pen and pin, or are and our. "Can't you HEAR the difference?" Nope. Sure couldn't. (By the way, now that I'm grown up, I can hear the difference in the words, and I usually can recognize the trumpets and the cellos and the flutes in a recording of a symphony.)

When Gary was repairing the deck, there was almost nothing I could do to help during the day while he was at work. He had a picture in his head of what needed to be done, and he worked methodically at bringing that picture to life. But to explain the steps to me? Couldn't do it. He didn't have it all figured out; he just had something in his mind that he was making come about. Paul would do the same thing with Lego castles. They have a mechanical-spatial intelligence that I don't have.

People on the autism spectrum don't read faces well. They don't pick up on social clues so as to know what other people are thinking and feeling, or what's motivating the other guy. Then there are others of us who are pretty darn perceptive when it comes to noticing other people's feelings or motivations. When asked to explain how I know what somebody's thinking, I can't do it. But that doesn't mean I don't know -- just like Gary knew what he was doing with the deck but couldn't say why, just like Sandy can pull an on-key pitch out of thin air when other people can't even match a pitch as they're hearing it.

When other people can't see something that is obvious to me, sometimes I try to convince myself that I don't know what I know. After all, I can't explain why I know. I can't prove it. Other people don't see it. So am I nuts to perceive things that other don't perceive? Or is this just like when a 9-yr-old can't hear the difference between pen and pin? Some people detect things that others do not; some people have intelligences that are not as well developed in others.

Practice for tomorrow's Lessons and Carols

A Few Short Items

Do you really need to enunciate on the descant? It's high. It should be okay if you hit the note and just approximate the consonants, right? After all, the congregation is supplying the words and sufficient enunciation.

Andrew and I butchered our first animal on Wednesday. I didn't throw up. Good for me. Lesson #1 -- the knife needs to be sharp. Lesson #2 -- intestines are funny. Lesson #3 -- some lessons are learned easier from a teacher than from a book.

It's snowing on a global-warming conference. Psalm 2: God sits in His heaven and laughs.

The nice thing about having two identical DVD players is that losing the DVD remote doesn't mean you can't use the machine. You just hijack the other machine's remote. (What happens when the second remote goes missing??)

An incident with Glenda's grocery receipt makes for a funny joke for Lutherans and other liturgical types.

Choir

I get to play chimes with Pam and Kara for Lessons & Carols on Sunday. Oh boy! And I get to play the drum for one of the songs. Oh boy! I like being in choir. Yes, I do!

I never played chimes or handbells before. Kara and I have to share one of the chimes, and pass it off between us. Kathy, the choir director, told me it helps to practice with spoons. So yesterday I had my teaspoon, tablespoon, serving spoon, and mixing spoon lined up on the dining room table, "ringing" them according the music. Andrew laughed at me. But boy, it helped a lot! Reading music isn't enough for chimes or handbells. There has to be some coordination too. Yikes -- for that I need practice! But practice with the real chimes (and the real live children's voices) went much better today. Yippee!

Now the question is whether I can sing and play the drum at the same time.

Maggie's Recorder

Did I teach her how to play the recorder? Did one of her sisters?

A friend, Denise, mentioned recently how her daughter was busy teaching herself hymns from Lutheran Service Book. Maggie has been doing that too. She's also been spending time at the piano, plucking out tunes, teaching herself in part by quasi-reading the music, in part by ear, in part by asking questions, and in part by bits and pieces of piano-instruction books. Not your standard way to learn music, but it's working for her. (This is similar to how she learned to read books -- seeing/reading the written words to things she'd already half-memorized. The reading helped out her memory, and her memory helped out the decoding.)

Now, tonight, she uses the piano primer of hymns to start playing hymns on the recorder instead of on the piano. She wanted me to show her the scale again, and then began figuring things out. After a while, she asked about fingering for an F-sharp and a B-flat. And there she went!

Piano Tuning

The piano tuner came today. It's been a while. This was the first time the piano was tuned since we moved, so the tuner was new to us. I liked this man quite a bit. He explained what he was doing, and why, and asked questions about how the piano has been cared for in the past (without being judgmental for the not-as-frequent-as-should-be tunings). I learned two important things.

I didn't used to think it was tremendously important for the piano to be tuned annually. I figured that it was enough to call the tuner when the instrument was sounding bad. Or every now and then, even before it sounded bad. I thought annual piano tuning was for people who really really care about precision in music, or for people who have perfect pitch. Today I learned why regular piano tuning is necessary for all pianos.

1) We learn to sing based on our piano at home. If the instrument isn't kept in tune, our ear attunes to a slightly off-key note. No wonder I've been singing just a little flat for most of my life. And no wonder I've been able to stay on pitch better in the last year: I've been doing more of my singing at church with the choir or the schoolkids (tuned to a pitch pipe).

2) Annual tuning preserves the life of the piano. The tuner today explained the massive amount of forces that the strings put on the piano. He also explained how the higher notes will go out of tune quicker than the low notes, and how this changes the pull on the wood and iron in the piano. If the piano is not tuned regularly, there is slight twisting in the inner workings of the piano. This twisting is what was causing my sustain pedal to be ineffective for the lower octaves of the piano. It has also resulted in some not-too-major cracks in the soundboard in back. The twisting has resulted in some hammers being crooked; the tuner will fix those next time. Eventually, this unevenness and twisting would result in the pegs being too loose to adjust; happily ours hasn't deteriorated that far.

So spending money for frequent tunings isn't a hoity-toity thing for fine musicians. It's also for us frugal folks who want our investment in a piano to last many a year.

Singing

I love to sing. I don't have a very pretty voice, though. Just kinda "adequate," good enough to teach my kids to sing the liturgy and hymns, good enough croon to babies while rocking them or nursing them, good enough that I haven't been kicked out of choir yet.

When we had our high-school church-choir reunion a few years back, somebody had put on an audio-tape of one of our musicals. The girl with the prettiest voice in choir heard the part of the tape where I had my tiny little solo one year and said, "Oh, that's bad enough to hurt your ears. WHO was that???" I didn't volunteer the answer, I was so embarrassed. But it didn't surprise me; I actually kinda agreed with her.

But Rachel and Katie have beautiful voices. They sound especially awesome together -- there is, after all, something about genetically similar voices that amplify the beauty of the other. Even when the voices are merely average, they sound more lovely in combo.

Today I heard the same thing from two different people at church: not only does Rachel look like me, but they said that our singing voices are just alike. When Rachel sat behind somebody at church, they were sure it was me behind them. I'm stunned. If I sound like Rachel....
wow....


(I'm sorry if this sounds braggy. But I've been wondering recently if choir would be better off without me, and this makes me think that I can't be dragging them down too terribly. And that is a happy relief because I really really like being in choir.)

Choosing the Choir Director

Back at our previous home, I was missing being in choir. There wasn't a choir at church, and it had been many, many years since I'd been able to sing in a group. I considered joining Sweet Adelines. Eventually, though, I gave up on the idea because of time commitment, dues, and not knowing what we'd sing and whether I'd be okay with it.

Now that I'm in choir again, I'm realizing how important that is. The pieces for choir get stuck in my head. My son goes around the house, singing his bass line. Maggie (who isn't even in choir) has learned the soprano and bass lines for some of our songs for Lessons and Carols, just because she hears them so often. Good grief, I even dream my choir music.

And think about when teens are in a musical at school. How many decades does that music stick with them?

If music has the power to stay in my head that long, and fill my mind so pervasively, I guess I'd better only be in choirs where I know I can depend on the director to give me music that I'm okay LIVING WITH.

Teaching Singing

Some kids just learn to sing naturally. Some don't.

For the last month, my 12-yr-old and I have been spending 5-10 minutes a day trying to have her match the pitch I play on the piano. The first several days we just stuck with one note that was in the middle of her comfortable range. Then we expanded to three notes. After a month, she can hit those three notes right most of the time on the first try. As she got better and better at those three notes, we've slowly expanded to a whole octave now. The accuracy on those new notes (the ones we've only been working on for two weeks) isn't quite there, but it's improving.

We started with steps ("seconds" for those of you who know music) and now have progressed to doing skips sometimes ("thirds"). We've also added "Glory Be to Jesus" because it's a rather simple song musically -- good for starters.

It still astounds me that it can be so hard and take SO much practice to learn where the notes are, and how to make your voice hit a particular note instead of just some note somewhere in the general vicinity. But persistent practice has paid off. I'm proud of what's she's pulled off and how much she's improved!

Pitchy

For over a year, it's been high on the priority list to start teaching some singing. Not teaching songs, but teaching singing. Not all of the kids picked up singing, which I had thought would come naturally. The youngest, with the voice problems and birth defects in the larynx & pharynx is the one who really needs help. I finally started yesterday. First I determined whether or not she could hear pitch differences at all (playing two notes on the piano and asking whether they were the same). Then I asked her to match her voice to a note on the piano. Hmmm. We worked on it yesterday, and several times for a few minutes each today. The good news is that things are improving, and we even got three notes (C-D-E) sung on pitch in a row.

But the thing I find most interesting is how long it takes for her to hear the pitch and think before she sings IF she's going to get it right. If I hit the note on the piano and she la's right away, it will be off-pitch. But if she hears it and then waits a full second or second-and-a-half, she will usually hit the note smack-on right! Kids with vcfs supposedly have problems with auditory processing. What I noticed today about her hearing a pitch and WAITING before she could match it with her voice -- it fits perfectly. (I don't quite know what to do about fixing the problem. But it makes it clearer to me that the time-lag between her ears and brain is more of a problem for her than I want to accept.)

By the way, her next cleft-palate surgery was scheduled today. The date set is August 16.