It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Hanukkah!

Just kidding!

Not that it doesn’t look like Hanukkah or anything.

But Christmas—CHRISTMAS!—is in two short weeks!

You always know it’s getting to be the holidays when stores start playing Christmas music all the time. What I don’t entirely understand is, why don’t they play GOOD Christmas music? They always seem to pick the most horrible carols, sung by the most awful singers of all time. I can sing better than some of these people.

So, to go along with last year’s favorite Christmas Carols post, this one is about least favorites.

Yesterday I was in Shoprite (I do not reccommend going to Shoprite on Tuesday because that is apparently Large Quantities of Elderly People Run Over Your Toes With Their Shopping Carts Day) and they were playing an average bad Christmas album, when “Deck The Halls” came on. Deck The Halls, as I have always understood it, is a fairly peppy tune, which is meant to be sung as follows: “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalalaaalalala” etc. If you are like me and have speed issues, you may wish to sing it like this: “Deckthehallswithboughsofholly, falalalalalaaaalalalala”. Either of these renditions is perfectly acceptable.
The man on the intercom, however, was not singing it like that. He wasn’t even singing it slowly. He was singing at approximately 32bpm, which is as slow as my metronome will even GO. As far as I can tell, this is a man who was out late at a holiday party and had a LOT of eggnog before he decided to make this recording. See actual rendition:
Deck…the…halls…with…boughs…of….hollllyyyy….
fa…la…la…la…laaaaaaaaaaa…la…la….la….la…..

PLUS he sang it in a nasal voice.

So why won’t stores play decent Christmas music?

These are the main songs I heard while out shopping:

-All We Are Saying is Give Peace a Chance
-Jingle Bells
-Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer
-Baby It’s Cold Outside
-Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
-Frosty the Snowman
-Carol of the Bells
-We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I don’t really even like most of these songs. Especially not Give Peace a Chance.

So, do any of you have a Christmas song that you just can’t stand?

And, Happy Holidays!

That was a joke, but last Sunday at the band concert our director (Yes, this is the cosmos man) said, quote, “Our last tune is We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and we do hope that you have a happy holidays, no matter what you believe.” And he was dead serious.

Randomness

The Friar Chuck Update: Friar Chuck versions 1,2, and 3 have been dispatched. Dad finally bought a Havahart trap to catch them. They promptly figured out how to lift up the trap and get the bait. It’s a constant battle.

In other news, Mom is in the process of staining the armoire, which is a long hard slog. Our kitchen is stain central, and the fumes are going to everybody’s heads.

Last weekend Mom took me to see Mamma Mia, which is a musical based on the songs of ABBA. Mom and Dad went to see it for their anniversary this year, and she liked it so much she took me too. It’s actually a really cute movie. Plus, it has Meryl Streep, and Peirce Brosnan, and Colin Firth* and Julie Walters, so how can you NOT see it? Dad got Mom the soundtrack, so now we are all listening to ABBA nonstop. Mom has even decreed that it’s unamerican not to like ABBA.Take a chance on meeeee….

I have gotten Facebook and become addicted.

I have also started school. Grr. BUT, hopefully I will be able to take December off the way I did last year! A&P is going super so far, and so is Latin. Math is just really really annoying, especially today’s lesson where all Dr. Shorman is was yak on and on about the area of transversal laterals or something. Brit Lit is OK, but Sonlight, so involved. I’m done with Beowulf and onto Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I just started Logic, and I haven’t begun French yet, although I have a new resolution to work harder at it after being to Taize. It comes easily to me but I haven’t been studying it the way I should. Orchestra and whatever band I end up with starts next week.

More on Taize tomorrow.

Um, that’s all the news from here I guess…boring boring end of summer…

*Incidentally, he has a really high voice. Like in Manly Men, the first verse, only actually very true.

Friar Chuck Redux/Recital Time

Friar Chuck!!! Adorable, but unfortunately he has been eating most of Mom’s garden over the last few days. Any advice on how to get rid of woodchucks would be appreciated; we’ve already spread pepper around. Plus, we have a pellet gun and a pellet pistol at the ready. Plus, rodent eradicating gas bomb things, PLUS Ben and his slingshot. Mom was talking to someone today whose friend caught them in HavaHart traps and then shot them.

Interesting shot of Ben and I on a hammock, pointing in a strange, semideranged manner.

And the recital photos I promised on Wednesday:

This is me doing my solo piece, Adagio from Handel’s Fourth Violin Sonata. I hit the fourth note wrong, but other than that it was pretty good.

The BACH DOUBLE!!!! Which was relatively mistake-free! We stayed together during the entire thing, which was practically a first. I had one major rhythm mistake but that was it. So happy to be done with that!

Hopefully, some type of contest thing coming tomorrow. Or this weekend at least. Or, possibly next month, unless I get my butt in gear.

Various

Guess why this is named “various”?

 

That’s right! It’s a completely random collection of thoughts and scenes from my day!

Ben and I were messing around in the kitchen, and I asked him a question about a drill bit. Something really inquisitive and thoughtful, such as, “Is that a drill bit?”. To which he replied, “No duh, Taylor!”, so that is my new catchphrase. It stems from the movie Drillbit Taylor, which we haven’t seen, but hey, it’s a change from plain “No duh” or the more-used “No duh, Sherlock”, so what the heck?

Dad taught Ben and I to shoot a pellet gun tonight. (goodbye, Friar Chuck) On my first try I don’t even think I hit the target, but on my last one it was right on the edge of the smallest little yellow circle. Pellet guns require an insane amount of pumping and adjusting of bolts, etc, before you can fire, so if you were in a situation in which you were being attacked and you had to defend yourself with a pellet gun, you had better aim carefully the first time. By the time you reloaded you would be dead. Hey, that’s probably why soldiers don’t use pellet guns, right?

Recital tommorow! Pictures will be coming on Friday, assuming I like the way I look in them. Otherwise, you’ll just have to take my word for it. Friday the Thirteenth is graduation in our town, which seems kind of forboding to me. Friday the thirteenth, I mean, not graduation itself. There were photos of the graduates in the paper today, accompanied by amusing advertisments that say things such as, “Chili’s wishes to extend best wishes to the class of 2008″ and “the Crew at Balch’s Family Fish House Congratulates Jamie, Ryan, Anthony, and the entire Class of 2008″, and a great one from the county electric company urging all graduates to replace their lightbulbs with new energy efficient ones, and best of luck in all future endeavors. Sophie went through all the pictures and assigned animals to various people (if Bob were an animal, he would be a shark, and so on).

This afternoon I was singing the Oscar Mayer Song (yes, I have too much time on my hands). When I got to, “And if you ask me, why I’ll say……” but before I could yell “B-O-L-O-G-N-A” Ben screamed, “BOOYAH!!!”.

And JK Rowling’s prequel came out!!!!! It’s only two pages but you can read it typed here, and in Jo’s handwriting here.

Genius.

 

Go Red Sox!

 

Party Time!

 

Guess who’s getting braces in three short days?

Hint: It ain’t him.

Not them either!

Yup. It’s me! Unfortunately.

So obviously I must eat tons and tons of candy to make up for all that time I will lose in the next year.

Braces are depressing.

I keep trying to take my mind of them, but it’s not working so well.

For example, I had a long arguement with Ben over who was taller, Frank or Joe. (the Hardy boys. Yes, I do know that they’re fictional.) Frank is obviously the taller one, because I distinctly remember that at the beginning of each book Frank is the tall, dark, thoughtful one, whereas Joe is “blonde, (pick one: slightly stocky/heavierset/more muscular) than his brother, and more impulsive”. Ben refuses to believe that. We now have candy riding on the outcome.

Then I distracted myself by listening to Ben sing, which was pointless because he was singing “Goodbye Toby” to the tune of “Goodbye Stranger”, which is one of the most annoying songs on the planet. Except for “Seasons in the Sun” and “It’s a Small World”.

So ultimately I distract myself by eating more candy, which brings my thoughts back to the reason we have so much candy in the first place, namely braces. So I am forced to fall into a deep depression and watch “Foul Play” for the fifth time.

 

If you see me tomorrow, and I seem more hyper that usual, this is why.

And Two And ONE…

High school orchestra: three words that strike fear in the hearts of anyone with ears.

And it’s our concert tomorrow night! I’m chair number 5, not bad but better than I expected considering how well I played in the audition, and I sit pretty much exactly where I sit in the band concert, so if I screw up, everyone notices. The only good thing about this chair is: a) it’s the top of my grade, and b) I don’t have to turn any pages.

 

We will be butchering playing many famous recognizable pieces, including Beethoven’s Fifth. This is actually the piece I’m worst at, I believe. In the words of my friend, “It’s going to sound like a cat got stuck in a piano!”.

Our opener is Russian Easter Overture, by Rimsky-Korsakov, I think, but my folder’s at the school so I can’t check. It has about four solos, all of which I’m trying out for in the hopes that I’ll get one. There are 8 people who also want them, so I figure I have a fifty percent chance of succeeding.  This song is very repetitive, and it’s also fourteen pages long.

The next song on the program is (guess what!) Disney Classics! I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

Then we have three more strings-only songs, in one of which I have a sort-of solo moment (he’s having the first six people come in one at a time, and then chairs seven-twenty join them.)

Our symphony opener is Russian Sailor’s Dance, which is extremely famous and featured in many beginner books as a way of teaching staccato. Other notable songs include Beethoven’s Fifth (“and two and one”), Pirates of the Caribbean (“It’s the same damn melody over and over for four pages!”), and Mussorgsky’s Promenade and the Great Gate of Kiev (“Kiev. Isn’t that chicken?”). (Quotes thoughtfully provided by various random orchestra friends)

Our closer will be Lord of the Dance, which is fun.

 

Hopefully, it will not go too badly.

I (heart) Cheap Books

Today was the Friends of the Library Book Sale, which is a semiannual event at which you can buy used books extremely cheaply. I went to the early sale (they charge you $10 to get in an hour before it opens to the public) and got a box and a bag full of books for $26. I now have a stack of mysteries, a stack of sort-of literature, and a stack of random chapter books to work my way through.

Sort-of literature is defined as The Prince, “Peanuts” in French, an English textbook from fifty years ago, a book on the teachings of Rami, etc. Last year Ben got a HUGE unabridged dictionary for $1. It’s great. We also got some assorted videos. When I say “assorted” I mean “assorted”; they are: The Santa Clause, Jurassic Park, the Muppet Movie,  and Lord of the Dance. From puppets to killer dinosaurs to Irish dancing. Please notice that I managed to work both a semicolon and a regular colon into that last sentence.

I find the name “Friends of the Library” funny, partly because there is a large group of people who are apparently on amicable terms with an inanimate object and partly because it has a branch called the “Friends of the Children’s Room”, which could lead to all sorts of spinoffs, until eventually we are befriending the dark closet in the back where they keep the oversized books. Can’t you just see the news releases they would send out? “The Friends of the Dark Closet in the Back that Contains the Martyn Freed Collection would like to announce that their annual Talent Show and Karaoke Contest will be held….”

There were also several books I was tempted to get but did not, such as “An Idiot’s Guide to Ferrets” and the “Official Cookbook of the Detroit Junior Women’s Symphony”. The latter one is intriguing: the official cookbook? Do they often get people publishing unofficial cookbooks? And why “Junior”? Does that refer to their age or their size? Who even knew that there was a Detroit Junior Women’s Symphony? I can’t find it on Google but I swear that’s what it said. Not to mention that it was bright fluorescent pink. I would have bought it but all the recipes were for things like hotdish. And there were an incredible amount of books about a) the Kennedys and b) the Royal Family.

Anyhow, that was my morning.

Music Musings

You know you’re a music geek when:

• Your stand partner tells you he plays the psaltery. You say, “plucked or bowed?”.

 

• You spend valuable time arguing essentially worthless points, such as where to shift, whether to use a fourth finger or an open in measure 135, and the merits of French bow versus German bow…

 

• …and you enjoy it.

 

• You know which composer was the bridge between the Classical and Romantic Eras

 

• And you know the distinct differences in style between those eras and the Baroque Era, as well as which came first.

 

• No matter how sensitive and mature of a musician you pretend to be, you know, deep in your heart, that faster is more fun.

 

• You own your own soprano sax.

 

• You can play the harp

 

• You regularly ask and answer questions such as “do you have perfect pitch?” and “do you have a guitar pick?”

 

• You know all the verses and the violin riff to “Braes of Killiecrankie“, despite not being Scottish and therefore not having any idea what the words actually mean.

 

• When you’re bored, you practice.

 

• You know that in beginner books, they call the William Tell Overture “Go Tell Bill”, and this bothers you deeply.

 

• You know La Folia by heart, even though it’s the most boring repetitive song that ever was, and you know who it was written by and which number sonata it is.

 

• Speaking of violin sonatas, you know the difference between Handel’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth, and you will never admit that yes, they all sound sort of alike.

 

• Your high school ambition is to learn “The Devil’s Trill”.

 

• You can transpose by sight and yet you are NOT a French Horn player

 

• Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov? Similar names, yet totally different.

 

• REAL orchestras tune to an oboe.

 

• You find Fiocco Allegro “fun”.

 

• You LOVE the Bach Double.

 

• You can tell viola jokes.

 

• When you screw up, you become mildly obsessed and play the offending section 50 times a day until it’s perfect.

 

• You feel that the portrayal of Mozart in Amadeus was disappointing.

 

• You actually watched Amadeus?

 

• You can sing Psalm 133 in Hebrew at the age of 12

 

• Bedrich Smetana: good or bad?

 

• Pachabel’s Canon? Three violins, one cello, a piano if you’re feeling reckless. That’s it.

 

• You’re sitting with twenty other people just like you; all holding small wooden boxes in the same manner; all watching a middle-aged guy wave a stick; all looking at a page full of little black dots with tails; and you all know exactly what to do. Enough said.

 

I am actually guilty of an astonishing number of these.

 

 

 

 

Ethel the Singing Cow Redux

This is a video I took of Ethel, the Singing Cow. Yesterday, I posted pictures, but apparently that is not enough to capture the true essence of the Singing Cow.

Taking a video is a long, involved process. I had to find the camera. And then I had to find my brother, because he has the best voice. And then I had to drag my brother away from the all-important task of peeling boiled eggs to help me find the right setting for video on our new camera. And then I had to send my sister to fetch Ethel from the basement, where she was learning to play dress-up. Then I told my brother what I would prefer for him to sing.

• Nothing in a foreign language
• Nothing that he made up involving everyday tasks such as passing the ketchup or applying conditioner
• And NOT It’s a Small World

He of course began humming It’s a Small World. And then he queried me as to why he couldn’t sing Psalm 33 in Hebrew. Who even knew he could sing Psalm 33 in Hebrew? So I said he could sing that if he wanted. And he asked if he could sing in Jamaican. I pointed out that he doesn’t know any songs in Jamaican so it was moot. So we decided on a chorus song. But of course he couldn’t find his folder! So we took a break and I ate a cracker.

I have food issues.

We filmed three or four different songs. This one is my favorite, but I might post the other one later, and the rest were scrapped because of technical difficulties. Orchestra people will reconize this as the extremely uneventful opening to “By Loch and Mountain”.

 

 

 

And I didn’t even mention how long it took me to upload.

Ethel The Singing Cow

 

This is a cow puppet. Her name is Ethel. After Ethel Merman, and also my great-grandmother Ethel who gave us our piano. She likes to sing songs from “The Sound of Moosic”. Yes, I am easily amused.

 

 

Usually Ben is the voice of Ethel, and I am the hands. Because Ben has a gorgeous voice, and I have amazing hand-eye coordination.

Just kidding about the coordination. The other day I walked into the orchestra room door.

 

 

 

The hills are alivvvvveeeeeee…….

With the sound of mooooooooooosic…..

With songs they have sunnnnnnnggg

For a thousand years…..

The hills fill my heart….

With the sound of moooooooooosic…

My heart wants to sing every sooo-onng it hears….

 

Yes, I am pretending a cow puppet can talk. Wanna make something of it?

 

AND I am in a really good mood because I finished English today! And it’s the weekend! And we have Seinfeld coming on Netflix! And I got my horn back! Life is good.