Thomas Dolby-She Blinded Me With Science by adiis

I think I outfoxed my unruly choir yesterday, blinding them with the science of  my own playfulness and energy and rehearsal technique. A miracle for old man Jupe. By the time the pregame was over, morale was high in the group and people seemed to be looking forward to nailing the service musically.

So the service went well. During the pregame I noticed the A Capella sections of our anthem were sounding pretty good without accompaniment. I told the choir that’s how we continue to rehearse and perform it. This was a bit of musical risk since the sections were not brain dead easy, especially harmonically. Taking a risk within the abilities of a performer is always the best choice. In the performance these sections went pretty well with just a touch of sagging in pitch, but not terribly discernible. I noticed the composer of this anthem, Stephan Casurella, is on Facebooger. I messaged him today that we sang his anthem yesterday and requested to be his Facebooger “friend.” It’s goofy I know, but I think it’s kind of fun to do this kind of connecting. I believe that the weird mixture of cyber communications provides an appropriate way to reach out to people like this. They can easily ignore it. Or respond if they want.

I went a little nuts on an improvisation at communion. Our second communion hymn was “Let All Mortal Flesh.” I have always admired this melody and text since first encountering it. After we sang it I continued with an increasing loud and dissonant improvisation. Eileen said later she didn’t notice it, but one choir member seemed distressed as I improvised. Ah! A Twofer. Good improv and shaking up a choir member.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur for me. Eileen gathered flowers from the yard and made bouquets for Mary (my Mom) and Dorothy (her Mom). We set out for the annual Whitehall Mother’s Day celebration, first stopping to connect with Mary a bit.