Tuesday, April 29, 2008
When he calls me I will be able to meet my family at God's table
For the past two nights at the restaurant there has been this dessert special that I've had quite a romance with. It's a lemon sponge cake (although it's a little bit denser than sponge but the pastry chefs have called it sponge so so should we) with a lemon curt filling, vanilla ice cream, and cherries that have been dehydrated and re-hydrated in a little bit of cherry liquor. As they often do, the pastry chefs try to create some incentive for the servers to sell as many as possible, usually offering a bottle of wine to the person who has the most sales. Sooooo that would be me. I like to think it's because of how I swoon and get all hot and bothered when I describe dessert to my tables and they feel compelled to order it just to calm me the hell down. Anyhow, I'm apparently the first server in the history of Upstairs on the Square to have turned down the bottle of wine, and requested a batch of cookies. And the pastry department complied! So last night there was a little box of still warm cookies, peanut butter, chocolate chip lumps, sesame cookies, snickerdoodles, an lemon thingys waiting for me. I was so happy I even shared with everyone else. Now that's progress.
There's a server named Maggie there whom I like very much- she's going to get her Masters in Linguistics at Emerson starting in the fall, she's very easy going but I get the sense she's pretty morally strict. She's the kind of person who doesn't stress if her food is late or if something goes wrong during service, which I really like about her, but she's pretty quick to say "that's not nice" when someone says something, well, not nice. That kind of bugs me, but overall I think she's pretty great. Anyway, I mention her because for the past two nights she's been preparing for a fast she says she usually does in the spring, beginning with raw foods only and then dwindling down to herb teas with some sort of vitamin infusion. Watching her last night made me crazy in six hundred ways. First of all there I was with my box of cookies happily munching (and sharing, I want points for sharing), and she was eating raw snow peas. We were siting having the equivalent of family meal, though there wasn't really was one because the soiree room chefs don't cook on monday nights so we were all just eating anything we had. In Ketrin's case, a burrito she'd brought, in Maggies snow peas, in my case, cookies. I'd forgotten there was non family meal. Anyway, I was having a really hard time watching her eat these snow peas, and hearing her go on about the fast she was about to begin. Granted the reason she was going on about it was because I was asking her, I tend to get really fascinated by people who can do such things and not have it be a personal disaster, so I wanted to know doesn't she get starving, weak, doesn't she start to crave things she wouldn't ordinarily crave? No, apparently she does alright with it, and it doesn't mess with her head, and she doesn't do it for weight-loss purposes (then why the fuck else would anybody fast??) and she doesn't pinch and pull at her body in the process. The couple of times I've fasted I've discovered that it makes me want to eat anything and everything - other people's leftovers, the yogurt off a discarded lid, a lonely skittle on a bathroom floor- it's all I can think about if the rule is 'no nothing'. I admit, food is often all I can think about, but it's rarely in this panicked way anymore. I found myself getting anxious while talking to her about this; part of it was jealousy, I'm sure, at her self control and cool-headedness around something that is apparently not a huge deal to other people. I also found myself offering her a cookie at every break in conversation. The first two times were accidental - I'd offered them to other people, they usually partook, and I handed them her way as well, but after the first couple of times I began to consciously offer them to her, knowing she'd say no...I think I was teasing. But it didn't seem to bother her at all, and that made me crazy! I went into this maddening, quiet little spiral of angst and self-derision, ruminating on of the strength of her willpower and my hopeless gluttony and lack of self-control, I began to get stuck on this image of her insides like the inside of a straw- white and clean and clear all the way through, imagining mine like some cavernous pipe filled with anything and everything (chocolate pudding cake, fuji and peanut butter lavash, mulch from kate's garden, an old mattress). I was really feeling bad about myself and had to go outside for a little while to put myself back on even keel. This is one of those times when I find it difficult to say 'hey, I guess I'm not like other people when it comes to food, I guess I still have this thing, in whatever shape it's in now'. When I was in LA, I ordered this MASSIVE piece of carrot cake when I was at Coral Tree with Clint, and was delighted to find that I only actually wanted about half of it (though in this case, half of this particular slice amounted to probably a piece and a half of your average slice, but still). It's easy for me to get so excited over progress like that, that I then decide 'hey, I can eat anything, anytime, I can play with my food and its timing and its portions and and and.....' ummmm no. It's not as simple as I just got lucky with the cake, I really do think that's progress, but I don't think it's indicative of being all better. I hadn't wanted to be all better in a while, but hearing her talk about the fast, man that made me wish I could eat like normal people. Or fast like normal people. Or have food just be food just be food.
Went to office hours for Symmetry, gonna have some breakfast, jump in the shower, go prepare the audition piece for Anthony's private group, hit a noon meeting, hang out with Jess, and then go work the dinner shift. And in the meantime, I hafta pee.
There's a server named Maggie there whom I like very much- she's going to get her Masters in Linguistics at Emerson starting in the fall, she's very easy going but I get the sense she's pretty morally strict. She's the kind of person who doesn't stress if her food is late or if something goes wrong during service, which I really like about her, but she's pretty quick to say "that's not nice" when someone says something, well, not nice. That kind of bugs me, but overall I think she's pretty great. Anyway, I mention her because for the past two nights she's been preparing for a fast she says she usually does in the spring, beginning with raw foods only and then dwindling down to herb teas with some sort of vitamin infusion. Watching her last night made me crazy in six hundred ways. First of all there I was with my box of cookies happily munching (and sharing, I want points for sharing), and she was eating raw snow peas. We were siting having the equivalent of family meal, though there wasn't really was one because the soiree room chefs don't cook on monday nights so we were all just eating anything we had. In Ketrin's case, a burrito she'd brought, in Maggies snow peas, in my case, cookies. I'd forgotten there was non family meal. Anyway, I was having a really hard time watching her eat these snow peas, and hearing her go on about the fast she was about to begin. Granted the reason she was going on about it was because I was asking her, I tend to get really fascinated by people who can do such things and not have it be a personal disaster, so I wanted to know doesn't she get starving, weak, doesn't she start to crave things she wouldn't ordinarily crave? No, apparently she does alright with it, and it doesn't mess with her head, and she doesn't do it for weight-loss purposes (then why the fuck else would anybody fast??) and she doesn't pinch and pull at her body in the process. The couple of times I've fasted I've discovered that it makes me want to eat anything and everything - other people's leftovers, the yogurt off a discarded lid, a lonely skittle on a bathroom floor- it's all I can think about if the rule is 'no nothing'. I admit, food is often all I can think about, but it's rarely in this panicked way anymore. I found myself getting anxious while talking to her about this; part of it was jealousy, I'm sure, at her self control and cool-headedness around something that is apparently not a huge deal to other people. I also found myself offering her a cookie at every break in conversation. The first two times were accidental - I'd offered them to other people, they usually partook, and I handed them her way as well, but after the first couple of times I began to consciously offer them to her, knowing she'd say no...I think I was teasing. But it didn't seem to bother her at all, and that made me crazy! I went into this maddening, quiet little spiral of angst and self-derision, ruminating on of the strength of her willpower and my hopeless gluttony and lack of self-control, I began to get stuck on this image of her insides like the inside of a straw- white and clean and clear all the way through, imagining mine like some cavernous pipe filled with anything and everything (chocolate pudding cake, fuji and peanut butter lavash, mulch from kate's garden, an old mattress). I was really feeling bad about myself and had to go outside for a little while to put myself back on even keel. This is one of those times when I find it difficult to say 'hey, I guess I'm not like other people when it comes to food, I guess I still have this thing, in whatever shape it's in now'. When I was in LA, I ordered this MASSIVE piece of carrot cake when I was at Coral Tree with Clint, and was delighted to find that I only actually wanted about half of it (though in this case, half of this particular slice amounted to probably a piece and a half of your average slice, but still). It's easy for me to get so excited over progress like that, that I then decide 'hey, I can eat anything, anytime, I can play with my food and its timing and its portions and and and.....' ummmm no. It's not as simple as I just got lucky with the cake, I really do think that's progress, but I don't think it's indicative of being all better. I hadn't wanted to be all better in a while, but hearing her talk about the fast, man that made me wish I could eat like normal people. Or fast like normal people. Or have food just be food just be food.
Went to office hours for Symmetry, gonna have some breakfast, jump in the shower, go prepare the audition piece for Anthony's private group, hit a noon meeting, hang out with Jess, and then go work the dinner shift. And in the meantime, I hafta pee.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
and we'll have our pearls
Helped Kate mulch her garden all of yesterday afternoon (mulch mulch mulch), then we went to tea followed by a yoga class (not a solid idea to do heated yoga when you have a sunburn...never felt so near suffocation). Then home to shower and out to have dinner with Jessica! Yayyyy dinner with a friend. Wow I'm a nerd. We went to this deli called Zaftig's which is like a Jewish diner but oh so much better than typical diner food. We split a burger and then this awesome salad she raved about, and we split noodle kugel for dessert which neither of us really wanted but we ordered because we thought the other one wanted it and didn't wanna make them feel bad. So. Yeah. Did I mention that I know her from OA?
I woke up around 10 and made myself a lavash wrap with fuji apple and peanut butter for breakfast, and I'm gonna go try out my rollerblades on Boston soil. I return to Upstairs to work dinner tonight which I'm not exactly looking forward to but I know I really need the money, and though that's rarely a motivation it's working for me right now. Off to the Charles with my ipod!
I woke up around 10 and made myself a lavash wrap with fuji apple and peanut butter for breakfast, and I'm gonna go try out my rollerblades on Boston soil. I return to Upstairs to work dinner tonight which I'm not exactly looking forward to but I know I really need the money, and though that's rarely a motivation it's working for me right now. Off to the Charles with my ipod!
Friday, April 25, 2008
he's a little man in an old cat's body
Today I had one of the nicest days I've had in Boston in a long time. It began with my very, very last Symmetry Class (also known as my very, very last math class...ever), during which we prepped a little for the final exam which is weighted just as much as any other test we've had yet. The great thing about her system is that, of the many grades earned over the course of the course (heh) consisting of three exams worth two grades each (including the final), our single section grade (essentially our homework grade), and the term project worth four grades, she averages the best 10 of those 11 grades. First exam was a B+, second is an A (a 98% to be exact), my section grade will definitely be in the A range, and my project is entirely accurate and creative enough to earn a solid grade (B or higher) so what I'm saying is my final exam isn't all that important. So. That felt awesome to realize. After Symmetry I grabbed a turkey bacon subway sammich with Emma and drove her to South Station so she could get a bus to visit her friend, and then drove promptly to Physical Therapy for my knee which was pronounced very healthy and only in need of a few flexibility exercises. Finally, a great prognosis! He said I'd even be alright to run starting today- that I wouldn't do any damage it just might get a little inflamed. I won't, but it was so encouraging to hear that news. I worked a crossword puzzle while we went through the routine. I worked out a little afterwards on the elliptical, after which I raced home to nab a shower, and then rush back out the door to pick up Jessica (my new awesome OA friend who may or may not have been in utero with peter and I). We ended up going to the Chestnut Hill Mall and doing some shopping for a dress for her Masters Degree ceremony; we've got very similar taste in clothing, and share the same distaste for shopping and people who like shopping. She's cynical and talks program but from an experiential place rather than just a literary place; I love how utterly screwed she is with her relationships (very familiar), how self-deprecating she is in darkly witty way I appreciate, and how her blatant honesty about what's going on in her head makes it very welcome for me to share honestly what's going on in mine. We share the food obsession, the body image crazy, the desperate desire to make people see us for the intellectuals we think we are, and the very much recognized character defect of craving validation, and needing to be the center of someone's world in order for getting out of bed in the morning to look worthwhile. That, and she's reading Eat, Pray, Love and she's weeping and underlining the same parts I had. Maybe that books written in such a way that everyone is gripped by those parts no matter what your damage is, but I don't really care. I'm loving spending time with this new friend. When we were getting tea at this luxury tea shoppe we agreed that it was kind of ridiculous how excited we were about each other's friendship. Like, giddy. It was a great feeling. After shopping I dragged her to a Barnes and Noble for a new book where I picked out A Prayer for Owen Meany and then I dropped her off at her meeting. THEN I went to Full Moon, my favorite favorite restaurant to take my book on a date http://www.fullmoonrestaurant.com/
I love it because their food is fabulous- love the salad of roasted beets,arugula and goat cheese crostini. It's gourmet quality foods like polenta, italian sausage, handmade raviolis, soups, beets etc prepared in uncomplicated ways at reasonable prices. I like being in that atmosphere because it's anything but pompous. As you can tell from their website it's meant to be a family restaurant- and it is; they've got a kids play area, crayons and butcher paper over the tables, good quality wines written in colorful chalk on the walls, and a handful of silverware in a mug on each table. There are always families with young kids there, little ones toddling around and the occasional baby screeching, but to me that just makes it feel like a really safe place to be. And the food is so much more delicious and interesting than any restaurant with that kind of atmosphere. I love taking my book in there and eating slowly and looking around me and reading. I especially love their chocolate pudding cake that I almost always get at the end because it's served with killer homemade whipped cream (not over-sweet, in fact almost perfectly unsweetened). I love it. I love treating myself to dinner there. I always feel good when I leave. And I happily tip very well.
After dinner there I shot by Hollywood Video and picked up a dvd called 'You Kill Me' in which Ben Kingsley plays an alcoholic hit-man who has just joined AA, and now I'm sitting at my desk, wondering whether I should watch that, or this weeks episode of The Office that was just put up on NBC.com. I think I'm gonna go with the movie. Also, I did something today that was almost as out of character as when I decided to take a Dance 1 class and found myself on stage in front of the entire school in blue spandex. I disabled my text messaging. Dad always makes comments about my constant attachment to my phone, and how apparent my anxiety to be in contact is. Mom remarked when I was home this last week about ho much less present I am when I've got my phone near me. Terri's endorsed me throwing my phone in the river on more than one occasion, and Jessica's agreed to drown her phone with me should I ever be so bold. She wasn't, however, ready to give up her text messaging and I admit I felt pretty proud when I told her I'd done so. I've been reaching for my phone all day, feeling that anxious rush of 'did anyone want to reach me? is anybody thinking about me?' only to realize that my anxiety was unfixable by phone, and that there were ways to attend to it that were right in front of me, that involved my actual life that's happening right now, like actually talking to Jessica while she was in front of me, or finding a swing set, or actually tasting the chocolate pudding cake rather than trying to carry on a typed conversation while I scarfed it. And I liked knowing that I couldn't medicate with instant validation, and had to slowly think through my impulse to get in touch with anyone just out of my own discomfort. I felt much more present today. Hope that lasts.
Tomorrow I've got plans to help Kate mulch her garden in the morning (I dunno if that's a verb but I also don't really know what it means so I'm gonna drop it) make some muffins, and then we're gonna see how her kayak and canoe hold up on the river. Then I'm gonna hit up a yoga class. Maybe I'll even try Full Moon for lunch. Though it's more likely I'll just buy some fuji apples make myself a peanut butter and fuji apple lavash wrap and watch the episode of The Office I'm foregoing tonight. Okay. I'm wearin the blue plaid PJ's mum got me, gonna make a quick call to Terri, flop into bed, and flick on this movie.
I love it because their food is fabulous- love the salad of roasted beets,arugula and goat cheese crostini. It's gourmet quality foods like polenta, italian sausage, handmade raviolis, soups, beets etc prepared in uncomplicated ways at reasonable prices. I like being in that atmosphere because it's anything but pompous. As you can tell from their website it's meant to be a family restaurant- and it is; they've got a kids play area, crayons and butcher paper over the tables, good quality wines written in colorful chalk on the walls, and a handful of silverware in a mug on each table. There are always families with young kids there, little ones toddling around and the occasional baby screeching, but to me that just makes it feel like a really safe place to be. And the food is so much more delicious and interesting than any restaurant with that kind of atmosphere. I love taking my book in there and eating slowly and looking around me and reading. I especially love their chocolate pudding cake that I almost always get at the end because it's served with killer homemade whipped cream (not over-sweet, in fact almost perfectly unsweetened). I love it. I love treating myself to dinner there. I always feel good when I leave. And I happily tip very well.
After dinner there I shot by Hollywood Video and picked up a dvd called 'You Kill Me' in which Ben Kingsley plays an alcoholic hit-man who has just joined AA, and now I'm sitting at my desk, wondering whether I should watch that, or this weeks episode of The Office that was just put up on NBC.com. I think I'm gonna go with the movie. Also, I did something today that was almost as out of character as when I decided to take a Dance 1 class and found myself on stage in front of the entire school in blue spandex. I disabled my text messaging. Dad always makes comments about my constant attachment to my phone, and how apparent my anxiety to be in contact is. Mom remarked when I was home this last week about ho much less present I am when I've got my phone near me. Terri's endorsed me throwing my phone in the river on more than one occasion, and Jessica's agreed to drown her phone with me should I ever be so bold. She wasn't, however, ready to give up her text messaging and I admit I felt pretty proud when I told her I'd done so. I've been reaching for my phone all day, feeling that anxious rush of 'did anyone want to reach me? is anybody thinking about me?' only to realize that my anxiety was unfixable by phone, and that there were ways to attend to it that were right in front of me, that involved my actual life that's happening right now, like actually talking to Jessica while she was in front of me, or finding a swing set, or actually tasting the chocolate pudding cake rather than trying to carry on a typed conversation while I scarfed it. And I liked knowing that I couldn't medicate with instant validation, and had to slowly think through my impulse to get in touch with anyone just out of my own discomfort. I felt much more present today. Hope that lasts.
Tomorrow I've got plans to help Kate mulch her garden in the morning (I dunno if that's a verb but I also don't really know what it means so I'm gonna drop it) make some muffins, and then we're gonna see how her kayak and canoe hold up on the river. Then I'm gonna hit up a yoga class. Maybe I'll even try Full Moon for lunch. Though it's more likely I'll just buy some fuji apples make myself a peanut butter and fuji apple lavash wrap and watch the episode of The Office I'm foregoing tonight. Okay. I'm wearin the blue plaid PJ's mum got me, gonna make a quick call to Terri, flop into bed, and flick on this movie.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Bouncing back and forth between the healing and the hollering
god loves ugly
It's been a little under a month since I last posted, and as much as I'd love to pass it off as my life just getting away from me and not having time to write, it's really much more that I haven't had enough of a handle on what I'm thinking or feeling to want to put it into words, let alone to have the language to do so. And I wasn't much interested in doing a basic day-to-day on my schedule. That's kinda dull. Heh. Though it's quite possible my thoughts and feelings are equally dull.
I've still been working with the children's chorus; I'm working with the West End House training choir (those are my little guys, slightly older than the Villa Victoria kids), and with the Premier Choir (much older, much more fabulous), and I'm starting to reap the benefits of the work I've been doing with them all year. By which you'd think I mean that they've improved dramatically and are better musically educated and have an enriched appreciation for what their singing. I like to think that's there too -- in fact I know that's there, only I can't see it as clearly because I've been growing with them. What I mean when I speak of the benefits of working with them is
how it's bolstered my shaky spots musically; things like complex rhythm used to be daunting, even a measure of quarter note eight note pairings would sometimes trip me up (dah-ah dit dah-ah dit). That may be unclear. Or stoopid. Lemme try to explain myself really quick, that's where the first beat of the measure is held over into the first part of the SECOND beat of the measure, then the second part of the second beat is articulated. Okay, that sounded like baby poop I'm sure, lemme do a very rudimentary rhythm lesson (this'll be a really hard exercise for me too)
Each 'beat' represents a quarter note. And a quarter note gets one beat. Here's a regular measure of quarter notes in 4/4 time:
[ beat beat beat beat ] (bears, beats, battlestar gallactica. sorry.)
we would count that measure of quarter notes like this:
[ 1 2 3 4 ]
I can't draw notes here, so I'm going to use the Q symbol for quarter note.
[ Q Q Q Q ]
say it aloud:
[ ta ta ta ta ]
Each quarter can be divided into two eighth notes (there are also sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and so on, but, um, not right now), so one eighth note (E, here) takes up half as much time as one quarter note. Thus idea being that two eighth notes can make up one beat, but you articulate the beats inside the beat. If that makes sense. I promise I'm not this confusing with the kids. Below is a measure that still has 4 beats in it, but each beat is composed of eighth notes:
[ EE EE EE EE ]
So we'd count that measure aloud like this:
[ 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and ]
Yes, we need the last 'and'. It's the second part of beat 4. This is called subdivision, where you articulate two pulses within one beat. If you prefer, maybe this is clearer:
[ tee-tee tee-tee tee-tee tee-tee ] the kids giggle their asses off at that.
Each syllable is an 8th note. Man this is difficult without a chalk board. If anyone's still following this I'm stunned. This is now just for my own deranged pleasure to see if I can explain basic rhythm without music symbols.
'Scuse me, can I have your attention back? Up here please? Chyanne feet down please. Yasmine put it away. I need your eyes up here please and I want to see your finger on your music following the measure we're looking at. I like how Kevin is sitting quietly in position 1, he's ready to sing. Raise your hand when you've found where we are.
So what used to really trip me up (not conceptually but when I was doing rapid sight-reading) was when I saw a measure that went something like this
[ DOTTED quarter - eighth - dotted quarter - eighth ]
I emphasized the first dotted just cause it's new, it's not different from the second dotted. So what the dot does to a note is divide it in half, and add that half beat to the original value of the note. So with a quarter note, the dot cuts it in half (again half a quarter note is an eighth note) and adds the value of the eighth note to the quarter note. This means that a dotted quarter note takes up the value of 3 eighth notes.
So lets say you had an empty measure subdivided thus:
[ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ] Each of those spaces can hold one eighth note.
[ 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ]
There are supposed to be really clear spaces between each of these so you can see how the beats would line up with the counts, but blogger's not helping me out here.
A Dotted quarter note would take up the space of 3 eighth notes, which would be ALL of the first beat (the first two spaces) and HALF of the second beat. So you hold a dotted quarter note for 3 eighth notes. This means you would say "1" and then think "and 2" This means the second half of the eighth note in beat 2 would still be hangin' there, unfilled. I'm gonna fill it in with an eighth note. Make sense? (if not email me)...(if you still care).
So here's the measure I was talkin' about in the first place, the kind of thing that would often trip me up when sight-reading:
[ Q. E Q. E ]
So you'd speak that like this:
[ ta-ah-ah ti ta-ah-ah ti ] See? Each syllable is an eighth note? Say it aloud.
Or as I so feebly attempted to describe it to you at the beginning-
[ dah-ah DIT dah-ah DIT ]
1 (and 2) AND 3 (and 4) AND
When you count it right you can't help but emphasize the hanging eighth note.
Man, I really didn't mean to devolve into a lesson there, I got kind of excited to see if I could explain it using basic terminology and without actual music visuals. I'd kinda curious to know if that was clear at all. Just re-read it. Heh. Not so much.
******
Yesterday I had a small bit in a Chamber Singers concert. I haven't sung with them this year (not an option as I'm only enrolled in the one symmetry class which makes me a part time student and not eligible for the choir), but for this concert Andy invited back some of last years seniors to sing two pieces from last years repertoire, one of which was the Ave Maria I'd conducted. So I conducted it yesterday. We alums were supposed to gather with choir members we sang with last year who haven't yet graduated, but I was the first alum there, everyone else was late, and we decided to start the run-through without them. There's something about singing with a choir that makes you family, especially the older members. Incredible bonding. I didn't develop life-long friendships with these people, but this group of seniors I sang with formed a tight intimacy around the experience of the music itself. We'd done pieces together where it was just the 7 of us and we'd found an internal tactus among us and we were anticipating each other's cadences, shared common breaths without preparation, gave and took where the music begged it and knew one another's voices inside and out.
They hadn't showed up yet, and I stood in front of the rest of last year's choir, gave pitches, and began the Nathanial Dett Ave Maria. There are moments in that piece where I cue individual exposed parts because the rubato gets so flexible, the tenors here, the basses after the alto's pick-up, and so on, and this strange magical thing happened. I'd been totally focused on my sheet music as we sung the first few pages, unsure of myself and reacquainting myself with the piece, that when I looked up to cue in the bass, Andrew was suddenly there, turned to the Sopranos for their lofty entrance and there was Diana, and so on with Daniel and Brett and the rest, as though they'd materialized like ghosts to sing, and the moment I looked for their voices there they were - the first time I'd seen any of them in quite awhile and it was just right that our reunion would be this piece, and that our first reconnection was their cue to sing. I grin when I conduct. And I cry a little. We shared moments of contact in their entrances where I swear fell in love with each of them as we acknowledged and appreciated each other for what we had done and what we were doing now. Relief to be back in the music like that, in the thick of it not just on the sidelines assistant coaching the team. And the concert went beautifully.
****
At the moment I'm in Ted's office in Hanover hangin' out with him while he works. Last night we read a story to Eli about a chick that loves to sing, and then gets eaten by a fox, who then discovers he can't stop singing, fox gets eaten by a wolf who finds he has the same affliction, and so on. Then Ted and I played Mario Kart until late at night.
Things aren't perfect, I'm still wrestling the same Boston - LA decision, and my personal life could be better managed by an autistic child, perhaps even Paris Hilton.
But I prayed this morning and felt some connection that I'd been missing for awhile, that hadn't come when I was just going through the motions of prayer. I'm alone and I meant it and it's out of my hands.
It's been a little under a month since I last posted, and as much as I'd love to pass it off as my life just getting away from me and not having time to write, it's really much more that I haven't had enough of a handle on what I'm thinking or feeling to want to put it into words, let alone to have the language to do so. And I wasn't much interested in doing a basic day-to-day on my schedule. That's kinda dull. Heh. Though it's quite possible my thoughts and feelings are equally dull.
I've still been working with the children's chorus; I'm working with the West End House training choir (those are my little guys, slightly older than the Villa Victoria kids), and with the Premier Choir (much older, much more fabulous), and I'm starting to reap the benefits of the work I've been doing with them all year. By which you'd think I mean that they've improved dramatically and are better musically educated and have an enriched appreciation for what their singing. I like to think that's there too -- in fact I know that's there, only I can't see it as clearly because I've been growing with them. What I mean when I speak of the benefits of working with them is
how it's bolstered my shaky spots musically; things like complex rhythm used to be daunting, even a measure of quarter note eight note pairings would sometimes trip me up (dah-ah dit dah-ah dit). That may be unclear. Or stoopid. Lemme try to explain myself really quick, that's where the first beat of the measure is held over into the first part of the SECOND beat of the measure, then the second part of the second beat is articulated. Okay, that sounded like baby poop I'm sure, lemme do a very rudimentary rhythm lesson (this'll be a really hard exercise for me too)
Each 'beat' represents a quarter note. And a quarter note gets one beat. Here's a regular measure of quarter notes in 4/4 time:
[ beat beat beat beat ] (bears, beats, battlestar gallactica. sorry.)
we would count that measure of quarter notes like this:
[ 1 2 3 4 ]
I can't draw notes here, so I'm going to use the Q symbol for quarter note.
[ Q Q Q Q ]
say it aloud:
[ ta ta ta ta ]
Each quarter can be divided into two eighth notes (there are also sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and so on, but, um, not right now), so one eighth note (E, here) takes up half as much time as one quarter note. Thus idea being that two eighth notes can make up one beat, but you articulate the beats inside the beat. If that makes sense. I promise I'm not this confusing with the kids. Below is a measure that still has 4 beats in it, but each beat is composed of eighth notes:
[ EE EE EE EE ]
So we'd count that measure aloud like this:
[ 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and ]
Yes, we need the last 'and'. It's the second part of beat 4. This is called subdivision, where you articulate two pulses within one beat. If you prefer, maybe this is clearer:
[ tee-tee tee-tee tee-tee tee-tee ] the kids giggle their asses off at that.
Each syllable is an 8th note. Man this is difficult without a chalk board. If anyone's still following this I'm stunned. This is now just for my own deranged pleasure to see if I can explain basic rhythm without music symbols.
'Scuse me, can I have your attention back? Up here please? Chyanne feet down please. Yasmine put it away. I need your eyes up here please and I want to see your finger on your music following the measure we're looking at. I like how Kevin is sitting quietly in position 1, he's ready to sing. Raise your hand when you've found where we are.
So what used to really trip me up (not conceptually but when I was doing rapid sight-reading) was when I saw a measure that went something like this
[ DOTTED quarter - eighth - dotted quarter - eighth ]
I emphasized the first dotted just cause it's new, it's not different from the second dotted. So what the dot does to a note is divide it in half, and add that half beat to the original value of the note. So with a quarter note, the dot cuts it in half (again half a quarter note is an eighth note) and adds the value of the eighth note to the quarter note. This means that a dotted quarter note takes up the value of 3 eighth notes.
So lets say you had an empty measure subdivided thus:
[ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ] Each of those spaces can hold one eighth note.
[ 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ]
There are supposed to be really clear spaces between each of these so you can see how the beats would line up with the counts, but blogger's not helping me out here.
A Dotted quarter note would take up the space of 3 eighth notes, which would be ALL of the first beat (the first two spaces) and HALF of the second beat. So you hold a dotted quarter note for 3 eighth notes. This means you would say "1" and then think "and 2" This means the second half of the eighth note in beat 2 would still be hangin' there, unfilled. I'm gonna fill it in with an eighth note. Make sense? (if not email me)...(if you still care).
So here's the measure I was talkin' about in the first place, the kind of thing that would often trip me up when sight-reading:
[ Q. E Q. E ]
So you'd speak that like this:
[ ta-ah-ah ti ta-ah-ah ti ] See? Each syllable is an eighth note? Say it aloud.
Or as I so feebly attempted to describe it to you at the beginning-
[ dah-ah DIT dah-ah DIT ]
1 (and 2) AND 3 (and 4) AND
When you count it right you can't help but emphasize the hanging eighth note.
Man, I really didn't mean to devolve into a lesson there, I got kind of excited to see if I could explain it using basic terminology and without actual music visuals. I'd kinda curious to know if that was clear at all. Just re-read it. Heh. Not so much.
******
Yesterday I had a small bit in a Chamber Singers concert. I haven't sung with them this year (not an option as I'm only enrolled in the one symmetry class which makes me a part time student and not eligible for the choir), but for this concert Andy invited back some of last years seniors to sing two pieces from last years repertoire, one of which was the Ave Maria I'd conducted. So I conducted it yesterday. We alums were supposed to gather with choir members we sang with last year who haven't yet graduated, but I was the first alum there, everyone else was late, and we decided to start the run-through without them. There's something about singing with a choir that makes you family, especially the older members. Incredible bonding. I didn't develop life-long friendships with these people, but this group of seniors I sang with formed a tight intimacy around the experience of the music itself. We'd done pieces together where it was just the 7 of us and we'd found an internal tactus among us and we were anticipating each other's cadences, shared common breaths without preparation, gave and took where the music begged it and knew one another's voices inside and out.
They hadn't showed up yet, and I stood in front of the rest of last year's choir, gave pitches, and began the Nathanial Dett Ave Maria. There are moments in that piece where I cue individual exposed parts because the rubato gets so flexible, the tenors here, the basses after the alto's pick-up, and so on, and this strange magical thing happened. I'd been totally focused on my sheet music as we sung the first few pages, unsure of myself and reacquainting myself with the piece, that when I looked up to cue in the bass, Andrew was suddenly there, turned to the Sopranos for their lofty entrance and there was Diana, and so on with Daniel and Brett and the rest, as though they'd materialized like ghosts to sing, and the moment I looked for their voices there they were - the first time I'd seen any of them in quite awhile and it was just right that our reunion would be this piece, and that our first reconnection was their cue to sing. I grin when I conduct. And I cry a little. We shared moments of contact in their entrances where I swear fell in love with each of them as we acknowledged and appreciated each other for what we had done and what we were doing now. Relief to be back in the music like that, in the thick of it not just on the sidelines assistant coaching the team. And the concert went beautifully.
****
At the moment I'm in Ted's office in Hanover hangin' out with him while he works. Last night we read a story to Eli about a chick that loves to sing, and then gets eaten by a fox, who then discovers he can't stop singing, fox gets eaten by a wolf who finds he has the same affliction, and so on. Then Ted and I played Mario Kart until late at night.
Things aren't perfect, I'm still wrestling the same Boston - LA decision, and my personal life could be better managed by an autistic child, perhaps even Paris Hilton.
But I prayed this morning and felt some connection that I'd been missing for awhile, that hadn't come when I was just going through the motions of prayer. I'm alone and I meant it and it's out of my hands.
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