What a grand weekend
I had a wonderful couple of days this past weekend.
Why, may you ask, was it so wonderful? Well...partly because it was busy. I love being busy and having things to go do. It keeps my time focused and keeps me energized somehow. I'm not saying that I don't relish vegging out for FRIENDS marathons, though. That ranks right up there with being busy.
Saturday was really the majority of my craziness. I got up early and rushed off to my parish for a choral workshop with Jeanne Cotter. She had composed some wonderful church music, that I knew...but I didn't realize really how awesome this workshop was going to be. Let me just say this: Jeanne is brilliant and an absolute doll. Quite possibly one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met and an amazing musician.
The first half of the morning session was about how the purpose and meaning of music as a ministry in the church. She pointed out that music ministry is a hospitality ministry in the church and that it serves to expand and enhance the experience provided through the ritual of the mass. Music can say so much more than words alone, but at the same time it does not act alone. If it could, all our masses would just be concerts. Brilliant, I say, Brilliant!
I loved that she also pointed out that while music is prayer is also HAS to be focused upon as a performance. Not in a: 'let us sing for you all and adore our amazing skill' way but more of a 'we need to practice and be at our best and put forth our best rather than saying the Holy Spirit will take care of us.' Wayyyyy to many choir directors, choirs and cantors let ego get in the way and make it a performance instead of a way of leading (losing that hospitality focus!). And many others just send it up on a wing and a prayer and hope for the best...and since it's prayer it doesn't have to be good because God loves it just the same. Well grand and wonderful for God, but in the meantime half the congregation has now been pulled out of their prayerfulness to focus on that bad note/singer/etc. Good music enhances prayer. Bad music disrupts it...and just stinks.
Well, unfortunately I had to miss the end of the morning session and the beginning of the afternoon session because I had a soccer game to get to. Yup, the girl from St. Louis, where soccer is king, is finally getting a chance to play. It's only intramural sports here at the university, but it's fairly competitive and a lot of fun. Oh and our coed team is actually pretty good. So in my first ever soccer game we played against a decent team and while we have some things to work on, we won! We ended the game tied 3-3 and won it in penalty kicks. I took the first kick and ...
Hahahaha...yeah, I'm not as awesome as Brandi...but maybe someday...
It went just high over the crossbar :( But the guys are saying I have a natural talent (good job, Dave, for having me watch all those World Cup games)...but I've gotta work on my stamina (got to go running...a LOT).
After getting squeaky clean I rushed back to church for the last part of the workshop. This part was more about vocal technique and again, Jeanne amazed me. She went over vowel modification and a few other tips and then started having people sing one-by-one so she could give us personal pointers. She basically fixed one of the choir director's nasal singing tendencies, got a lady to work on cutting out her vibrato, and helped people who were constantly below pitch. The main problems she found were with people not singing forward but rather from their throat or nose and people weren't creating enough space in the bell of their mouth. I loved the visual of putting a lemon in the back of your throat to open it up and to lift your soft palate to make a cathedral ceiling in your mouth for better sound - a ping, if you will. I've personally got to work on getting back into choral singing mode with a dropped jaw and lifting that palate...too much Broadway belting in the car for me, I guess. Although, she did say she loved my voice :) !!!!! And complemented me on my tone and the way I used vibrato at the end of long held notes to create a softer and more emotional feel to a piece. Cha-ching! That's something I've been working on for YEARS!!!! I remember being jealous of people in high school who had that ability...I am victorious (while still being humble and focusing on these new pointers ;)
The only other really noteworthy happening from the weekend included a poker game Saturday night, where (Mike & David will both be proud now) I ended up 4th of 9. Not bad considering I hadn't played in many, many months. Next time I take out Fairman as soon as possible....
Otherwise I sang at mass, did some work, baked a Gooey Butter Cake (which none had heard of before but they now all love!), got to know some of the folks down here a lot better, and went to a b-b-q.
Not bad for a weekend worth of fun!
posted by TripleC @ 9:21 PM
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