Joy to the world!

(I walked in on Big Frog watching Monday Night Football on the last night of Fantasy Football playoffs.)
me: Are we winning?
Big Frog: We just need J. Cook to get 6 points.
me: Is that Jay or Jason?
Big Frog: I don't know.  His first initial is J.
ne: What do you think it stands for?
Big Frog: Jeremiah.
me: Jeremiah?  Was he a bullfrog?
Big Frog: No.
me: How can you tell?
Big Frog: I understood everything he said.

Joy to the world, y'all!

PCA General Assembly 2017

If we were Messianic Jews, we would use a shofar¹.  But Presbyterians, it turns out, use a sonnet.
 

1 I miss worshipping at MJAA's annual conference -- 1st week of July at Messiah College, Grantham PA.)

Come to the Table

Our pastor, Randy Edwards, had the honor of opening up the worship session the first night of the 2017 PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) General Assembly with a sonnet he composed. 

Come to the Table
“Come to the table my son, my laughter,
Take wood and knife and let us walk away
Up into His provision.” When Isaac calls after,
“Without a lamb? Do we only go to pray?”
“Come to the table;” stand packed and waiting
Holding your staff, eating pilgrim’s bread
List’ning to the stories of God’s emancipating
Which leaves the darkened kingdom’s firstborn dead.
“Come to the table; long have I waited
To celebrate this Passover with you;
Which I give and pour in love consecrated:
The meal of my body, my body to renew.”
“I am the narrow door, the ram provided, the lamb, slain;
Come you humble, to my table, be filled, rejoice, and reign.”

Randy's blog about it: Backwards Mutters

The video is of the audience (<1/8 of the audience; it was a reeeeeeeeally big room) and the back of Randy's head because I was in the choir loft.  So apologies for recording quality.  It was much more majestic and Mufasa-like in person, both powerful and welcoming.

Hubs and I also were privileged to sing in the "mass choir"² for General Assembly. Using a playlist and some .pdfs shared by the worship leader on Dropbox, with one rehearsal last month and one last night with orchestra, we prepared 13 songs for two nights of worship. And literally, with the opening strings bit of Agnus Dei, I was all over goosebumps. It's no Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, it's just 45 voices and 10 instrumentalists, plus 5 praise team leaders, but there's nothing like the feeling when God shows up.



2 Spoiled by Heart of the Triad Choral Society. But I invited them too!

Tonight was fun. I'm excited to see what's in store tomorrow.

EDIT: Randy also managed to grab a pic of us onstage. I'm in the back row of altos, next to the upright, and hubs is in the 2nd row of guys, right in front of the other post.

Magic Hymnal

Cyberhymnal.org is a wonderful resource.  There are so many verses in so many old hymns that I've forgotten, and even more that I never even knew existed.  If you use your computer to access it instead of mobile, there are even midi files for you to learn the classic hymntunes.

But its most valuable bit is that it's always with me because my phone is always with me.  And so when Big Frog and I were listening to a hammer dulcimer hymns CD on a road trip, and I was chiming in on just the chorus, he called out, "Now for the mumbling part!" and I shamefacedly pulled out the Magic Hymnal.

(On the plus side, even though I couldn't come up with any of the verses of Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus, out of my head, when I saw them, I did know all 4 verses.  Also 7 verses of Amazing Grace, although I would put them in a different order than cyberhymnal had.)

Fight Song a capella - for Hillary

I am so verklempt about this. Choked up. Sobbing. And delighted.
Glass ceiling?  Broken

photo source: DailyKos

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

I went to Howard with a number of truly gifted singers and musicians. One accompanied us in choir and Showcase for perhaps two years before transferring to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. I turned pages for Daniel; that was my skillset.

Recently his grandfather, Rev Eddie F Moore Sr, passed, and as a tribute at the Homegoing, he played the song his grandfather always requested. And he played verse after verse in different styles, each heart-grabbing. God's truth is marching on.

Daniel's testimony after the fact:

"I just wanted thank everyone who has expressed their condolences to me & my family by sharing, commenting, and/or liking the video of me paying tribute to my late Grandfather. When I was a kid, it didn't matter whether I was practicing Chopin, Whitfield, or Monk, my Grandfather would always walk by and say, "Play the Battle Hymn of the Republic!" I never really knew why he liked that song so much, but it's the only musical request he's ever made of me. Then the last time I saw him, he said "I thought I was out of here a little while ago, & I told them I wanted you to play The Battle Hymn of the Republic at my funeral." Well Granddad, here we are...

"I think my father said it best, Granddad's passing was bittersweet. We all knew he didn't want to live like that, and we certainly didn't want to see him continue to suffer, but that doesn't take away the pain we feel from his absence in our lives. I'll probably be numb for a little while, but i know he's resting now. As we strive to keep his legacy alive through excellence, consistency, & all the principles of life he taught us, all that's left to say now is..."Glory Glory Hallelujah, His truth is marching on!!""

It ain't NPR

So far I have one station programmed onto my car radio.

It's NPR pledge season now, and I recently heard one new supporter say that she changed the channel because it was all pledge breaks, but had back to NPR because she enjoyed even NPR pledge breaks more than the programming on other stations.

But in Big Frog's car he's got a lot of gospel stations programmed, and not a few bluegrass stations as well.

So we're driving around town and talking, and therefore not really listening to what's on the radio. Unexpectedly, both his and my ears do the auditory equivalent of a doubletake when the singer breaks into a chorus of,

"I'm breaking in a brand new pair of shoes
Don't look at me like you think I've got the blues
'Cause I'm walking 'round and around and I'm seeing most of the town
I'm just breaking in a brand new pair of shoes."

me: Wow.  Just... wow... Wow.
Big Frog, tongue firmly in cheek: Wonder what the inspiration was for that one!
me: Wow...  Wow.
Big Frog: Bluegrass.  Where songs come from life.





There's a lot to get used to, living in the South. Also, this.

On a brighter note, here's an alligator video by one of my favorite children's illustrators, Sandra Boynton:

It is from her awesome book-and-CD, Frog Trouble.

Interpreter accomplishment: Counterpoint: UNLOCKED!

I love counterpoint.

Correction: I love singing counterpoint.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, for example.  Only hymn with a bass lead.  Great song.

But interpreting counterpoint?  I'm not an octopus, and even if I were...
For example, try fingerspelling C-A-T with one hand and D-O-G with the other hand.
It's tougher than you might think.



Today in church we sang "Everlasting God", and at 3:10 by this video, it splits into an call-echo part.  Then at 4:01 it shifts into a verse-chorus counterpoint.  That means different tunes and different WORDS for each part.

I managed to put the ladies' verse part on my left hand and the men's chorus part on my right hand so that, for the first time since I had a coterp that I could have join me for counterpoint songs, I didn't have to say, "I'm with you, and you're on your own."  (That's what I do for You are Holy, and for that matter, Wonderful Grace of Jesus, because there is simply no way.)  When we went from unison to echo I shifted my stance and indicated, "hang on, things are gonna get interesting", and when the counterpoint hit... it was impressive.  I nearly hooped and hollered and jumped around after the song ended.  In a presbyterian church, you just don't do that.  BUT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN UNDERSTANDABLE IF I DID. 

Elton

My Life in 20 Songs Rolling Stone interview with Elton John.


I am such a BTS junkie. I love these insights into the development process.

Fred's song "Sweet Lorraine"

True love.  75 years Fred and Lorraine spent together.  Then a studio's Youtube contest, answered not online but with a handwritten letter, sparks an idea to live out their mission statement to connect with their community.

Watch the Today Show clip with Kleenex handy.

Happy Independence Day!

May I make a confession?
And this is a bit sacriligious as a Murlander.
If I got to choose our national anthem, it sure wouldn't be The Star Spangled Banner.

There are so many great patriotic songs out there to choose from!

Don't just listen, sing along. Yes, you! I don't care if you think you can't sing well. Crank up the volume, and belt it out with as much enthusiasm as you can muster. Great attitude is contagious. Sing as long as you know the words and hum or harmonize those you don't. And listen thru. See how much depth there is to the later verses.


I have so many favorites. How to choose? But if I were forced to pick one for national anthem, I think I'd go with O Beautiful.

Although Ray Charles sings verse 4 first, I think he has the best version. And hey, learn verse 4! It's a good one!


I've always loved Irving Berlin. What an immigrant success story! What an incredible volume of work¹, and did you know he only played on the black notes? He devised this under-piano modulation lever, no midi in those days, to accomodate different vocal ranges.

So his God Bless America is a very close runner-up for me. And when Kate Smith was looking for something appropriate to sing in this setting, he pulled it out of a drawer where it'd been abandoned by him years ago. And Irving Berlin has never claimed a cent of royalties off it; they all go to a particular nonprofit that, back then, was much less controversial than it has been of late. (Don't comment on it. Just enjoy the song.)

¹ Arrivals at Ellis Island are greeted by Lady Liberty, who bears a plaque engraved with The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." Irving Berlin wrote a song for that one, too, but although the words are stunning, the music's pretty terrible. Oh well. Not everything's a Blue Skies kind of a hit.

Then there's The Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic
I think part of why I like this version is because there are such strong harmonies. Once an alto...


And that great Woodie Guthrie classic, This Land is Your Land, sung here by Peter, Paul, and Mary.


Ah, patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear.


And, although lyrically lacking, Stars and Stripes Forever remains the most singalongable of all of Sousa's marches. In this particular version, watch and see how the backdrop changes to reflect the varied interests of the lead singers.


So, how about you? What would you choose for the national anthem?

TIL Johnny Cash is a stamp!

source: MTV Hive

You can't buy them yet.  If you could, better believe I would've after a laborious trip to the USPS today.  But they'll be released on June 5.  (I seem to show up at the Post Office the week before the coolest stamps are released.  I was in the week before the Cherry Blossom Centennial stamps were released, too.)

How Johnny Cash Became a Forever Stamp tells about the photoshoot for the Cash's Best Of album, back in 1963.

It was a good year for Cash, one of his best in a very long time. Things were heating up with June Carter, the love of his life who later helped get him sober, and his career as a singer-songwriter was finally taking off...

[The photographer] wasn’t thrilled with the black and white photos he took that day, and Columbia ultimately chose a color shot for the album, which seemed just as well. But fifty years later the photo has surfaced again, this time as part of the U.S. postal service’s Music Icons series.

And evidently Ray Charles is next in line. 

source: USPS blog Stamp of Approval

Flavorfest

We love FlavorFest at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire¹.  Free admission, free parking, free wine tastings, and local musicans and artisans -- what's not to love?  I think we've gone every year since its inception in 2008.

¹Like the Farm Show, the Faire can be a location as well as an event. We go to the Renaissance Faire, weekends in August-October, and are particularly glad that our friends Barely Balanced will be returning this year, if only for one weekend of their zany cross-country schedule. But we also love FlavorFest, which happens on the fairegrounds over Memorial Day Sat & Sun. 

We particularly enjoy following local musicians². Our perennial favorites are Indian Summer Jars, and this year we also very much enjoyed Adam Blessing (especially his secret song, #9). We were able to hear parts or whole sets of four additional groups, and we still missed a few. Other years we've delightedly discovered Rising Regina and Vinegar Creek Constituency.

We made it to three of four Indian Summer Jars sets over the weekend, and Sarah and Sarah-Beth responded to my "FB-ed "If you don't have Niagra in the setlist already, I'm going to request it!" by adding a fiddler to take it to the next level. Enjoy!


(I am inordinately proud of how this batch of photos came out. Less pleased with the sound quality, but for a voice recorder on an mp3 player, it's pretty darn good.)

² The first year, however, what actually drew us to the event was the Peasall Sisters, who we knew from their voice work on O Brother Where Art Thou?

And, admittedly, we knew them to be the Peasall Sisters and not just the Wharvey Gals because of their guest appearance on O Veggie Where Art Thou, featuring Bob the Tomato and Larry Cucumber.

They also will be in TONIGHT's movie Ring of Fire, about June Carter Cash.  9/8Central on Lifetime!  Leah Peasall plays teen June, with her sisters Sarah & Hannah as the other members of the Carter Sisters for the teen part of the movie.  Also, their younger sisters Emma and Julia are two-thirds of the child part.  FWIW, Leah grows up to be Jewel.  In my mind, not having seen the movie yet, it's a bit like River Phoenix growing up to be Harrison Ford in Last Crusade.

For more information on the making of the movie, I commend to you Sarah's blog posts Movie-Making Memories and The Story of a Lifetime and Action and other Film Terminology.  I am super excited for them!


We also love artisan demos. Historical Glassworks demoed making a 3-stemmed decanter, which is possibly the neatest hand-blown-glass piece ever. Once the molten glass bubble is blown and elongated, the sides are flattened into a triangle, and then the glassblower inhales to collapse the triangular bubble into three tubes. Wine is therefore aerated while being poured in and out, in addition to having much surface area as it sits in the wide bottom of the decanter.


Slideshow -- all my own images.

Movie songs

The 20 Best Songs Written For Movies | NextMovie

What movie songs do you love?

Some of my personal favorites (in no particular order) are:

• The Rainbow Connection
• Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head
• Theme song from The Natural
• Star Wars Theme
• Indiana Jones Theme
• most of the soundtrack of The Lion King
• most of the soundtrack of The Graduate, although I couldn't make it through the movie

♫ All I want is having you and music, music, music. ♫

Put another nickel in

In the nickelodeon

All I want is having you

And music, music, music.*

* What is a nickelodeon?  All I know is the tv station.  And I expect I'm on the young end of people who know this song.  I'm thinking a nickelodeon must be something in the jukebox family?

I miss vocal music.
Our church choir director up and went to seminary, and has since graduated, but has not returned to Central PA except for brief visits.
And even before that, I wasn't singing in the choir because I was busy interpreting.
And in the Deaf section, there's not much feedback to my vocalizing, even though I usually sing harmony with whatever the praise team is doing. 
And because I'm the only interpreter at NCF currently**, getting in the rotation for praise team isn't a viable option at this point either.

** I would be delighted to get a co-terp!  Accepting applications!

But I've found that, given a choice, I always sing harmony.  Not that I can't sing lead, but that old adage of "once an alto, always an alto" is definitely true in my case.  That being said, it's not so much that I prefer the low parts (although I do), but that I really love singing around the lead, whether high or low harmonies.  Simon & Garfunkel, for example.
The Boxer, high harmony


Sounds of Silence, low harmony ***


***I'm not sure why the youtube embeds only seem to work for one video per blog post.  I'm using their own embed code.  Suggestions?

Today we had the pleasure of hearing our friends Abby & Micah Dunn perform folk/bluegrass at beautiful Fort Hunter Barn****.  There were a number of groups that had original pieces, and some that covered widely known pieces.  And it just made me realize how much I miss singing out loud.  I'm tired of singing quietly enough to not disturb those around me.

**** Barn?!  Well, why not.  Come to think of it, the last music party we went to was at a barn too... but that was for niece K's Makin' Music party.  Best pinata ever -- at one point they tipped over two enormous laundry hampers of instruments for the kids to play along.  Uncle Oreo asked if he could have his birthday party there next year.  We do love a sing-along.

This could be dangerous: the reason I started with Vicki's Tap Pups was because of an existential crisis, that there was no art or music in my life in any form.  Now I'm in my fifth year tapping with Vicki, and loving it*****.  

***** BTW, I never took any form of dance lessons as a child.  And when I went looking for tap classes, I wasn't in search of just any adult classes; I wanted to TAP.  

So, I'm gonna open myself up.  I sing a strong alto, or alternately I enjoy singing the bass line up an octave.  I've sung in church choirs, including solos and small ensembles since 5yo.  In college I was in chorales.  But it's been awhile.  Where can I put that to use?  Let's see what opportunties become available. 

PS I miss LeahRuth's "Sing-ins".  And I miss hymnsings during Lord's Supper service at the church I grew up in.  That might be a softer in than, for example, recording with someone.  But we'll see what God sends my way.