Coffee Klatch

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Soprano
10 ) The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.

9 ) You can entertain your friends by breaking their wine glasses.

8 ) Can you name an opera where an Alto got the man?

7 ) When Sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.

6 ) It’s not like you are ever going to sing the Alto part by accident.

5 ) Great costumes–like the hat with the horns on it!

4 ) How many world famous Altos can you name?

3 ) When the fat lady sings, she’s usually singing Soprano.

2 ) When you get tired of singing the tune, you can sing the descant.

1 ) You can sing along with Michael Jackson.

Some people at Ford have put together “The Car Music Project,” through which they’ve made an entire musical ensemble out of the parts for a new Ford Focus. Click the link for more information in a brief article or click the embedded YouTube video to watch and listen. It’s pretty cool as a musical composition as well as an experiment in musical instruments.

So I’m driving to work this morning and listening to the Oldies station, 101.9 FM, and they bring up JFK’s “love child,” a guy who was born two days before the assassination and who apparently looks a ton like him. His name is Jack Worthington and he now lives in Canada. He doesn’t want any money or anything; he just wants to know for sure and is asking for DNA samples from the family so he can be tested.

To keep with the theme, and also for Valentine’s Day, the next song they played was “Love the One You’re With.” I laughed through the whole song! What a song to play on Valentine’s Day during a morning show!

Every language has consonants. Some are voiced and some are unvoiced. That means some use the vocal cords and some don’t. I’ve found some interesting ways in which the similarities have been used.

First, a quick refresher. Unvoiced consonants are those like P, T, and S, which make their sound without use of the vocal cords. Which means even someone who is mute could make the sounds. When you use the voice, they come out like B, D, and Z. You can’t use the ‘B’ sound without using the vocal cords.

J.R.R. Tolkien, who was a linguist first and a writer second, used this concept when developing his dwarvish and elvish systems of writing. Voiced and unvoiced consonants of the same “sound” were similar, but voiced consonants had and extra part or stem added on to the runes or letters, indicating they were voiced. The Cirth alphabet is a prime example.

Here’s a quick chart that compares the two types of consonants:

This semester I’m singing with the Butler University Chorale and one of their warmups is an interesting exercise that uses the consonants this way. To warm up everyone’s articulation, they’ll do a rhythmic pattern like this: F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F, V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V, F-V-F-V-F-V-F-V, V-F-V-F-V-F-V-F, and then move on to the next consonant, given them by the director right as the last set ends. It will usually consist of a mixture of four or five of them. So every time I do that particular warmup, I end up thinking of Tolkien’s Cirth alphabet. Kinda funny.

Yesterday was the 2nd annual retreat for the Circle City Ringers. We spend the first half of the day talking, going over our goals for 2008, and hashing out some details for rehearsals. Then the second half of the day was spend rehearsing. With lunch in between brought in by Panera. Mmmm….

We looked at some music that we’ll be playing at the Spring Ring festival in Cincinnati at the end of February and we started working up our newest favorite piece: In The Mood, arranged for handbells by Hart Morris, who is one of handbells’ favorite composers/arrangers of challenging music. He’s captured the original “In the Mood” very well and translated into a playable-yet-challenging arrangement for handbells. All the little sax solo bits are there and everything! Should be a load of fun! And I can’t wait to get it learned so we can take it up a notch.

Well, I’ve officially gotten started. I’m taking Chorale three days a week (right after lunch) and I have Choral Lit on Monday afternoons and History of Baroque Music on Tuesday afternoons/evenings. Those two are just once a week, which is nice on the schedule, and start at 4:00 or later, which means less time to make up from the work schedule. I’m still left with enough hours, though, that on Wednesdays I’ll be in to work by 9:00 and still have to work the Reference Desk from 5-10pm. Wednesdays will be LONG days, methinks.

Still, it’s fun to be taking classes again. At least since they’re in topics of interest to me. Plenty of work to be sure, but still enjoyable overall. Both of my “regular” classes are going to include plenty of student participation every week, keeping us on our toes and contributing regularly. Discussion-oriented classes are always more fun and interesting than lecture-style classes.

If you work with printing out music at all, you probably know about Finale, which is the premier music publishing software available today. There’s even a free version, called Finale Notepad, which has some of the basic functions of Finale proper, including 8 staves, Setup Wizard, MIDI import/export, the SmartMusic SoundFont (128 sounds), and even Human Playback which plays the music taking into account tempo and dynamic changes (VERY nice!). Here’s a chart that compares the features of the various Finale products.

When working with Finale, they have their own Maestro font that is the default font for the musical notations, including notes, tempo markings, etc. There’s also a Jazz font which is quite cool and allows you to print music that looks like standard jazz sheet music. Sometimes, though, you want to use a different font that might be easier to work with for lining up articulations, etc., and that’s where DVM comes in. They have a free font, called DVMarticulations, which handles articulations more smoothly than most fonts.

If you work with printing music at all, this font is worth checking out and playing with. They also have some free demos of a couple other musical fonts that you might be interested in.

Today I auditioned for the Butler University Chorale. I have to have at least one Music Ensemble credit as part of my 30-credit Master’s degree. Since I’ve got some good experience with advanced chorales (4 years in the Cornerstone University Chorale, 3 years in the Bloomington Chamber Choir, 2 years in the Evangelical Choral Society, and about 5 more years in the CU Chorale–that’s 14 years!!), it seemed like the best ensemble fit.

And, yes, I did get in. I’ll be singing Bass II (that’s bass as opposed to baritone). I’ve been told that Butler has been thought of as the Baritone Capital of the Midwest so it will be nice to help build up the lower bass section.

It will be really nice to be part of a group like this again. I heard the Chorale sing a few months ago and found myself thinking it would be a fun group (and a musical one) to sing with. Classes start on Monday, as does the first Chorale rehearsal. How COOL!!

Well, I’m on my way! I’m heading back to school, working on another Master’s degree. This time in Music Composition (my Bachelor’s was in the same thing). I figured that since I’m getting free tuition I might as well put it to good use. I can take up to 6 credits per semester with full tuition remission. Pretty cool! Definitely one of the perks of working at a university.

The Master of Music degree here is 30 credits and I’m taking 6 this spring. Hopefully I’ll be walking in May 2010. Today I got registered for classes, took care of the paperwork, and bought my textbooks (for which I get an employee discount of 10%!). I’m taking a “Music of the Baroque Era” class and a “Seminar in Choral Literature” which is focusing on the Classical Period this semester (Haydn, Mozart, etc.). Plus I’m singing with the University Chorale, which will be fun. It’s been three years since I’ve sung with a university chorale and this time I’ll be doing it as a student again.

Some other classes I’ll be taking will be based on the requirements for degree (go figure!), including a couple of electronic music classes, composition lessons, Music research, and some other Music Theory electives, ensembles, lessons, etc. The “thesis” for a Composition degree is a score of an original work “of a major nature” along with a performance recording if possible. There’s also an oral defense of the thesis/score and a separate comprehensive oral exam that covers all the classes you took in the program.

I think it will be a fun couple of years, since everything I’ll have to do, take, learn, etc., is stuff I really enjoy. I’m still working full time and ringing with the Circle City Ringers (plus being president of the Board this year), so I’ll be keeping pretty busy, but at least it’s all enjoyable. That makes me more fortunate than many people who don’t like their jobs or find schoolwork unpleasant or difficult.

Current music: Soundtrack for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

It’s finally official. After months of website/database development and logo design work, my new handbell music publishing website is LIVE AND READY! It’s called Tinnio Ergo Sum Press and is available at http://tespress.com. (By the way, that translates “I ring, therefore I am.”)

The music published at http://tespress.com typically comes from one of two perspectives: 1) Unique, original, non-traditional, or even jazzy music, or 2) Transcriptions of classical music that maintain the colors and moods of the original works.

While you can order printed copies of any available music, the strength of this website is that every piece can be downloaded and have unlimited copies made for one ensemble. That’s also the most cost effective method of purchase. No PayPal or any other account is required, but when a purchase is made online, you can download it immediately. Each piece also has a couple sample pages available to view while you listen to a Finale-generated audio version of the full piece.

Here are a few examples of the music that is already available from Tinnio Ergo Sum Press:

• The Chicken Dance (4-6 octaves)
• William Bell’s Overture (2-4 octaves)
• Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus (3-5 octaves)
• Holst’s 2nd Suite in F (3-7 octaves)

Anyway, that’s where my spare time has been going for the last few months. I’ve already had my first purchase, which occurred before I’d even officially announced the site to the handbell world. Pretty cool!