The Crab Chronicles

Music for Chilling Out

Remember record albums? I used to love to get a new album. To rip off the plastic covering, and read the back. The inside cover sometimes had the song lyrics on it, and I loved to sit there and pore over the poetry of the lyrics while listening to the songs over and over.

I can still sing every word of every song on Billy Joel's The Stranger, and on A Song for You by the Temptations, and many others.

I would absorb songs, singing them over and over, until they became a part of me.

I miss those days. I miss having that kind of free time. LOL

Anyway, I love music. I love singing. I started singing in choirs in the 5th grade. When I was asked to join a volunteer choir in 2003 and travel to Russia to sing Handel's Messiah, it changed my life forever, because that was when I met my daughter in her orphanage.

My mom was a professional singer in the 1950's, singing for weddings, soloist for the Men's Glee Club at UGA, doing USO shows.

Her parents, Mamaw and Papaw Hasty, were both musical. Mamaw could play the piano and sing. Papaw could play a country fiddle when he was young, and he loved to play music and dance. [He got kicked out of the Baptist Church in Cherokee County for dancing, which always amused him.]

We have had musical talent in our family for several generations now, including my great grandmother Jennie MacMillan's family - Mom said they always sang as a family, in harmony, and it was always fun to visit the MacMillan home when she was a child.

About 8 months ago I had a lovely lunch with my cousin Linda Harris and her husband Bry. They formed the Parrot Island Band a few years ago, and they play Jimmy Buffett and other songs, and generally make a festive island vibe kinda music.

I remember when I first heard Linda was playing that type of music, on steel drums. I remember her practicing piano for hours when we were teens. I thought she was going to be a classical pianist. Didn't turn out that way. She is just a gifted musician, like her parents, who are in their 80's and still singing in their church choir.

Bry and Linda made the long drive from Acworth on New Year's Eve to play for my mom's 80th birthday, which was awesome.

They now have a professionally-produced CD, Parrot Island Ukelele. Bry is a gifted songwriter and it looks to be a wonderful CD to play if you're in the mood to chill out.

If you want to know more, check out Twenty Questions with Bry Harris.

[He is also a Presbyterian minister and really awesome at relating to people in a meaningful way, a gift that many ministers don't have, unfortunately.]

I am pondering getting a ukelele, but I will fall far, far short of Linda or Bry's talent, but I may get one, one of these days...

Beans and Bricks

I got a Tweet from a friend who went to UGA with me and remembers seeing me in The Mikado in 1983! Wow, he has a good memory.

I think that was the show where I was told to basically stand in the back and sing OUT. Well, I have a huge voice, so I could've stood in the parking lot and been heard, but I still was a bit ticked off to hear that.

I don't look Japanese, duh, not many of them have auburn hair and blue eyes. But the show's not really about Japan. The show consists of [usually] white people made up to look Japanese. It's a spoof of English society and has nothing to do with Japan except the costumes and names.

Yes, I know that sounds weird, but when it was written it was very popular.

GIlbert and Sullivan [for those of you not musically inclined] wrote a number of light operas, and The Mikado is one of their best known shows. It's great fun to sing.

This is a video of one of the best-known songs, Three Little Maids from School. The wigs and costumes look like those we wore at UGA:

 

I was working in the costume shop that semester, and I remember making a bunch of "wigs" out of black silk which were a huge pain in the butt to get to look right. The costumes were basically like bathrobes, and we rented them from somewhere, so no big sewing there.

So I was in the weird position of hanging out with both the actors and the backstage folks on that show. Usually, I just worked backstage in some capacity. I only did a couple of shows at UGA where I was onstage acting and singing.

My aunt and uncle drove over from Marietta to Athens [about a 2 hour drive] to see me in the matinee performance of The Mikado. I somehow talked them into going out to lunch with me beforehand at a Mexican restaurant I liked, because the food was cheap and tasty. I always got a big plate of refried beans.

Well, all afternoon I was onstage singing and dancing, and.... dealing with flatulence. Let's just say I was very glad there were a lot of percussion instruments in the orchestra and I knew all the music really well...

I was also glad my butt was encased in a heavy kimono.

The next day, I think, after the last performance of the show, a bunch of us went to a bar in Athens called The Dawg House. Cheap beer, and no fancy bar type decorations. The bathrooms were two side by side stalls, one marked Women and one marked Men. You couldn't be modest in that situation. (It prepared me well for going to Europe a few years later.)

I decided to leave on the clown white makeup all over my face and get totally hammered drunk. I was still reeling from the refried beans humiliation of the day before.

I was also Young and Stupid.

The white makeup started running off my face and into my shirt. I get sweaty when I drink beer. I must've looked like a haint. Everyone else was hammered too, thank God, because nobody [I hope] could have a very clear memory of that evening.

I do recall the bricks we threw at other bar patrons.

The most fun people in any Drama department are usully the techies - the folks backstage who make the production run right. I knew and liked all the Techies at UGA, despite the fact that they generally looked down their noses at actors, viewing us as intellectual inferiors - which is true of many actors, I'm afraid.

Anyway, some of the techies took styrofoam bricks to the bar. They looked VERY realistic. When one is thrown at your face and you're too drunk to respond quickly, it's a frightening experience... until it bounces off your nose. And then it's an inordinately funny experience.

You'll have to take my word for that.

I don't think we got thrown out, but we should have. I lived very close to the bar so I walked home.

Anyway, any time I hear the word "Mikado" I have a flashback to wigs, beans, anxiety, and throwing bricks.

All to the tune of "Three Little Maids from School."

Harmonies

Do you ever get to the end of your week and look at your To Do list and think ACK!! where did the dang week GO?!

No? Me neither.

[cough cough]

I whipped through a number of things on my list today, I'm proud to say.

Yesterday was a weird day. I had the school appointment, then a break, then an audition.

When I was young I did a lot of singing and acting, so auditions were no big deal to me. Now, however, I had not even attempted choir singing in about 6 years, so my voice is.... rusty.

I studied voice for 5 years when I was a teen. My voice teacher got mad when I was 18 and he started talking about my Opera Career, and I said basically, um, NO. He was way up in his 70's and I think had forgotten to mention to ME that he thought I should sing opera. I had [and still have] a big voice, close to three octaves.

I love to sing in the shower. I now don't CARE who hears me. Hey, it's a free concert, y'all...

But real singing is different. It's like the difference between playing a game of catch in the backyard and playing in the World Series. The yucky part about being 51 is that now my high notes are sounding wobbly, when I can reach them at all. ACK ACK ACK!!!

I started vocalizing at the piano yesterday afternoon and quickly felt faint. I've always been able to get close to a high C, but I couldn't get anywhere near that thing. Disappointed and horrified are not strong enough words to describe my feelings.

So I went to my audition for the Atlanta Women's Chorus without a prepared piece. I couldn't see singing "My Favorite Things" an octave lower than normal. That would just be creepy.

The audition went much better than I had thought it would. There was only the choir director, assistant director, and me. They were super gracious. I did some warmups, some sight-reading, and then just sang America the Beautiful, acappella.

I am excited to be part of a chorus that's aimed at everyone, not just a church audience. I loved singing in church choirs but I didn't always like the repertoire. I like all kinds of music.

I will be singing Alto, which is a bit of a challenge, but there are audio files available of each part on each song, so it should be OK.

When I was in middle school in Knoxville the choir director, Ms. Gilbreath, made tapes for us of each vocal part and we listened to them many times to learn our part. I learn best by ear, although I can read music.

Anyway, our first concert isn't until June, so we have time...

Just to get in the harmonizing spirit, here is a funny song from the hilarious Steve Martin and the very talented Steep Canyon Rangers [none of whom are women but who cares?!]: