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shalannaI'm giving up rejection for Lent.
*ba-dump CHING!*
No, seriously, folks. Thank yew. Than kew verymuch. But all seriousness aside, I hope you've chosen something you don't really like that much to give up for Lent. I'm not even Catholic*, but I'm going to give up chocolate. Every time I sneak a handful of chocolate chips or eat a piece of one of those diabetes-friendly (ha) chocolate bars, the nausea comes on almost immediately. And it lasts for some time. Like try about five hours or so. Also gives me a stomach ache. I end up guzzling Mylanta. I even tried some mini chips in a spoonful of CarbSafe peanut butter, but still, a few minutes later, barf-O-rama. If I don't want to be sticking myself with needles soon, I'd better just give it up. Thank God for Glucophage and other oral meds.
I'm also giving up rejection. To commemorate this, I'm entering three songs I wrote some time ago (one of them about ten YEARS back) in the Richardson Wildflower Festival Performing Songwriter contest. Stop laughing. See the Offishul Roolz at http://www.wildflowerfestival.org. The only thing I'm really worried about is how the hell I'll ever get a decent-sounding tape. I tried tonight with my Neuros Music Playing Thingie, but its built-in mike doesn't pick up the piano and I didn't want to drag out the MiniDisc player to be its front end (it acts as an amplified mic input as well as making the recording to MiniDisc, which is the reason I got it and the Neuros, but I haven't really found the Neuros all that usable as a Music Player, 'cause when you try to broadcast to a radio frequency, you get TONS of static and hum and the radio stations around here keep stealing back the frequency, even though it's a frequency that the Neuros itself chooses after doing a scan. Ahem.) I had a little better result using my mom's (formerly my dad's) ooooold Sony cassette recorder, circa 1970 or so (my reel-to-reel, which I got for my birthday in 1967, a portable dude that used the 3-inch mini reels and was kick-ass, burned up in Mama's attic the year her house burned). But a piano is notoriously difficult to mike unless you are using professional equipment. Like one of those $300 mikes, or maybe a pair of them, if you want stereo sound. This does not bode well for the quality of my demo tape.
You get three songs, five minutes each (max). One of my songs is an oldie-sounding countrified ballad that starts out with a little theme which is kind of jazz-waltzy. The lyric starts, "You could, but you don't know it . . . you would, but you won't show it. . ." Hubby tells me that's too close to some existing pop song, but I can't find it anywhere, so I don't care. (Or I'm just playing possum about it, 'cause I like my song.) Another is a pop ballad with a chord progression that reminds me of Bobby Darin's "Amy." The third is just squawky fun, with a "hip-hop" style accompaniment that I'll have to do on a borrowed electric keyboard. The accompaniment throbs out, in Morse code about 5wpm, the classic amateur radio "CQ CQ CQ de N5UTI" theme. (CQ is "calling any and all stations," a request for a voice QSO on the ham bands. "de" is "from." N5UTI is me. That's my amateur radio call sign. Good thing I'm not trying to hide, 'cause the FCC can now find me. (*grin*)) I think I'll title it "SeeKew." (Alternate reading: "seek you." Ha!) The irony-meter of the universe being what it is lately (pegged!), I'm sure that if any of my songs is recognized, it'd be that one.
Grump.
* Footnote: I'm a member of the Church of Christ. Not the United C of C, although I admire them for those ads they are running on TV to say that God gets to choose who comes to and joins the church, not men, and that God's door is forever open to all. And certainly not the "C of C, Scientist," which is another group entirely. We're the ones who have no instrumental music in public worship. If you've never heard a congregation singing acappella, you should sometime. Really.
But I'm still going to symbolically give up that demon seed chocolate for Lent.
Even if it's unofficial.
Seventy-three**, all.
** Footnote: "Best regards," to hams. Note that it's not "73s," because then it would be "best regardses." Omit all puns about how dogs love dem 70 trees.
*ba-dump CHING!*
No, seriously, folks. Thank yew. Than kew verymuch. But all seriousness aside, I hope you've chosen something you don't really like that much to give up for Lent. I'm not even Catholic*, but I'm going to give up chocolate. Every time I sneak a handful of chocolate chips or eat a piece of one of those diabetes-friendly (ha) chocolate bars, the nausea comes on almost immediately. And it lasts for some time. Like try about five hours or so. Also gives me a stomach ache. I end up guzzling Mylanta. I even tried some mini chips in a spoonful of CarbSafe peanut butter, but still, a few minutes later, barf-O-rama. If I don't want to be sticking myself with needles soon, I'd better just give it up. Thank God for Glucophage and other oral meds.
I'm also giving up rejection. To commemorate this, I'm entering three songs I wrote some time ago (one of them about ten YEARS back) in the Richardson Wildflower Festival Performing Songwriter contest. Stop laughing. See the Offishul Roolz at http://www.wildflowerfestival.org. The only thing I'm really worried about is how the hell I'll ever get a decent-sounding tape. I tried tonight with my Neuros Music Playing Thingie, but its built-in mike doesn't pick up the piano and I didn't want to drag out the MiniDisc player to be its front end (it acts as an amplified mic input as well as making the recording to MiniDisc, which is the reason I got it and the Neuros, but I haven't really found the Neuros all that usable as a Music Player, 'cause when you try to broadcast to a radio frequency, you get TONS of static and hum and the radio stations around here keep stealing back the frequency, even though it's a frequency that the Neuros itself chooses after doing a scan. Ahem.) I had a little better result using my mom's (formerly my dad's) ooooold Sony cassette recorder, circa 1970 or so (my reel-to-reel, which I got for my birthday in 1967, a portable dude that used the 3-inch mini reels and was kick-ass, burned up in Mama's attic the year her house burned). But a piano is notoriously difficult to mike unless you are using professional equipment. Like one of those $300 mikes, or maybe a pair of them, if you want stereo sound. This does not bode well for the quality of my demo tape.
You get three songs, five minutes each (max). One of my songs is an oldie-sounding countrified ballad that starts out with a little theme which is kind of jazz-waltzy. The lyric starts, "You could, but you don't know it . . . you would, but you won't show it. . ." Hubby tells me that's too close to some existing pop song, but I can't find it anywhere, so I don't care. (Or I'm just playing possum about it, 'cause I like my song.) Another is a pop ballad with a chord progression that reminds me of Bobby Darin's "Amy." The third is just squawky fun, with a "hip-hop" style accompaniment that I'll have to do on a borrowed electric keyboard. The accompaniment throbs out, in Morse code about 5wpm, the classic amateur radio "CQ CQ CQ de N5UTI" theme. (CQ is "calling any and all stations," a request for a voice QSO on the ham bands. "de" is "from." N5UTI is me. That's my amateur radio call sign. Good thing I'm not trying to hide, 'cause the FCC can now find me. (*grin*)) I think I'll title it "SeeKew." (Alternate reading: "seek you." Ha!) The irony-meter of the universe being what it is lately (pegged!), I'm sure that if any of my songs is recognized, it'd be that one.
Grump.
* Footnote: I'm a member of the Church of Christ. Not the United C of C, although I admire them for those ads they are running on TV to say that God gets to choose who comes to and joins the church, not men, and that God's door is forever open to all. And certainly not the "C of C, Scientist," which is another group entirely. We're the ones who have no instrumental music in public worship. If you've never heard a congregation singing acappella, you should sometime. Really.
But I'm still going to symbolically give up that demon seed chocolate for Lent.
Even if it's unofficial.
Seventy-three**, all.
** Footnote: "Best regards," to hams. Note that it's not "73s," because then it would be "best regardses." Omit all puns about how dogs love dem 70 trees.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-08 09:46 pm (UTC)So Gollum would sign off by saying "73s"? ;)
I am Catholic, and while my church once had a vibrant musical tradition, its reputation musically is not the best these days, and in my experience with good reason, so please pardon me if the thought of a capella congregational singing fills me with a certain amount of trepidation... ;)
73s, 88s, et al
Date: 2005-02-08 10:25 pm (UTC)You'd THINK that a bunch of people singing in all different keys would sound awful, but it really doesn't. The echo from the church building, the sweetness of the elderly voices, the sweetness of the tiny voices, the few basso profundos in the back row who boom out . . . we rock, seriously. (I used to date a basso profundo. In fact, he took me into this church for the first time. I fell in love with him in part at first because of how he sounded on the phone. BUT . . . our idols have feet of clay, and it turned out he couldn't carry a tune. He couldn't even find the tune. He had to just mouth the words, same as my best friend in junior high and her choir partner. Sigh.)
I visited a couple of nondenominational churches last year because they were brand-new to our neighborhood and I thought I'd check them out. They had "praise bands." Man, are those things ever LOUD. I just couldn't get "into" that style of contemporary worship. I suppose God has to put up with it (and may like it just fine), but wow, I just didn't like the songs. Give me those old hymns. "It was good enough for David/Moses/Israel . . . it's good enough for me!" *grin* Not that there aren't a few newer songs that I like. But if I'm going to sing or listen to gospel or hymns, give me Mahalia Jackson, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and/or our old Sunday School class (all grown up now and dispersed, alas) singing those camp songs such as "Where No One Stands Alone," "Oh Lord, Our Lord," (which is a psalm), "Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God," "Victory in Jesus," and "I Know That My Redeemer Lives." Those were so uplifting. For various reasons, I'm not in attendance at that church regularly any more (or anywhere), but sometimes I catch myself humming the songs. . . .