Blog
Happy Pi Day
Posted by Steven on Tue 2006-03-14 07:10:58 UTC #There are nine empty beer bottles and one vodka bottle in my apartment's living room. This explains why my roommates had so many loud friends here on Sunday...
So... tonight was interesting. A couple weeks ago, one of the choir members asked me if I'd be interested in singing for her jazz studies jury thing. I would be in a group of seven people (mostly CSUN graduates or students from Santa Monica College) singing two songs in front of the director of jazz studies. So I first looked at the songs on Friday, then we had rehearsals Saturday and Sunday, and we sang it today. The two songs were Mo' Joe, arranged by the choir member, which is a bebop song that the choir will be learning, and Virou Areia, which is a fast samba. Mo' Joe I had down pretty well, because I was given a recording of the Finale playback, while for the other song I was sometimes just mouthing the words (which was fine, since there was another bass). I got most of it, at least. Anyway, this was a fun experience for me. I've never sung with a group where you're just given music and asked to learn it, and you perform it a few days later. It's so different from the jazz choir experience I've been used to, where you're given music and you go over it with everybody else, for the most part. The ratio of time where you practice alone to where you practice with others is reversed. It's kind of refreshing to move that quickly. And people thought the performance went really well, too. We'll apparently be singing it all again, along with one other song (called Covenant/Recessional; kind of the same style as Episode: Prelude or Sing a Song of Song) at her recital later in the year.
After that performance, I went to our normal choir rehearsal, which had started around the same time as the performance. We went over our songs that we're singing at the jazz festival on Saturday, as well as Like Someone In Love, which we'll starting working on more next week. A couple of the SMC people sang along with us for that last song... always nice to have another bass. Though there was some bad news: we're on the waiting list for Reno, and it doesn't look hopeful that we'll be able to perform, in which case we won't be going. Guess I'll just have to hope that the DP choir's concert isn't in the middle of my finals or something.
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So... tonight was interesting. A couple weeks ago, one of the choir members asked me if I'd be interested in singing for her jazz studies jury thing. I would be in a group of seven people (mostly CSUN graduates or students from Santa Monica College) singing two songs in front of the director of jazz studies. So I first looked at the songs on Friday, then we had rehearsals Saturday and Sunday, and we sang it today. The two songs were Mo' Joe, arranged by the choir member, which is a bebop song that the choir will be learning, and Virou Areia, which is a fast samba. Mo' Joe I had down pretty well, because I was given a recording of the Finale playback, while for the other song I was sometimes just mouthing the words (which was fine, since there was another bass). I got most of it, at least. Anyway, this was a fun experience for me. I've never sung with a group where you're just given music and asked to learn it, and you perform it a few days later. It's so different from the jazz choir experience I've been used to, where you're given music and you go over it with everybody else, for the most part. The ratio of time where you practice alone to where you practice with others is reversed. It's kind of refreshing to move that quickly. And people thought the performance went really well, too. We'll apparently be singing it all again, along with one other song (called Covenant/Recessional; kind of the same style as Episode: Prelude or Sing a Song of Song) at her recital later in the year.
After that performance, I went to our normal choir rehearsal, which had started around the same time as the performance. We went over our songs that we're singing at the jazz festival on Saturday, as well as Like Someone In Love, which we'll starting working on more next week. A couple of the SMC people sang along with us for that last song... always nice to have another bass. Though there was some bad news: we're on the waiting list for Reno, and it doesn't look hopeful that we'll be able to perform, in which case we won't be going. Guess I'll just have to hope that the DP choir's concert isn't in the middle of my finals or something.
Do you like text like this blog better justified or non-justified?
FUN singing!
Posted by JCB on Thu 2006-03-16 06:46:15 UTCYour singing for the jury sounds very challening and exciting! How very cool. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you to be able to go to Reno. Maybe you could go up there by yourself just to visit with the DP gang? You could fly from Burbank to Reno perhaps, rent a car... maybe stay with the DP folks? Just an idea.
Posted by dB on Fri 2006-03-17 17:33:22 UTC
Looks like the DP concert is on May 27th.
Posted by Steven on Fri 2006-03-17 22:09:13 UTC
The weekend right after my finals...
