Diverse Ramblings

A Confetti-like WoW

Here's a Word Of Wisdom brought on by this cold weather:

When you carefully wrap and store your thick blankets and duvets in your overhead storage space, do not use the new degradable garbage bags...

A windy WoW

One of my sporadic Words of Wisdom, helping you to become a better person by learning from (or possibly laughing at) the misfortunes of others. (sing it with me now, it's shaaaaadenfreude, people taking pleasure in your pain) (sorry, couldn't resist making a side reference. well, this is diverse RAMBLINGS after all. ok, on with the point of this post...)

If your church is putting on a Christmas Choir for the festive season, and your choir director is abroad, and you are next in line by virtue of knowing music, and you have to lead a choir practice, then you might want to abstain from eating a burger directly beforehand, because when you're on the seventh beat of a twelve-beat sustained note, ain't no way you're going to be able to hold in that burp, and of course it's extra-bad if you're using the split-track with only music and no words and no melody line, so everyone is listening extra-hard to you in order to follow.

A rehearsal WoW

Another Word of Wisdom to enable you to leave the computer just that little bit wiser.

If you're rehearsing and your scene involves you flouncing up and down the stage, you would do well to empty your pockets in advance, because otherwise you will have to stop in mid-flounce, and empty your pockets while the entire cast plus director comments on their contents.

A burning WoW

More Words of Wisdom, from me to you, in honour of the skin on my shoulders, which is currently a very striking shade of radioactive pink.

There is absolutely no point, none at all, in taking very expensive Factor 40 sunscreen with you for a day in Gozo, if you then forget to put it on.

When you sing, you begin with Do, Re, Miiiiii

Monday's Stagecoach session went very well - we had some tutoring time with the singing teacher, and she has officially given us the solos for one of the songs, so Michael and I are singing a duet during Vocal Aid *grin*

We began working on the details and I let Michael and Ruth (our singing teacher) do all the work of figuring out the harmonies. It was very cool that she worked WITH Michael and let him explore instead of just telling him "Sing this and sing that". They came up with some interesting stuff that is definitely going to keep Michael occupied over the next four weeks, and his vocal chords are certainly getting their exercise! Me, I just have to worry about the melody, and about putting enough power into my voice. And not being flat as a pancake on the high notes. And reaching that really low note that feels like it's coming from my stomach. And remembering that bit in the bridge where I always come in late... *meep*

We are practicing like crazy, mostly because we want it to sound good just for its own sake, and we'd work just as hard even for an audience of one, but I'll admit that it's also partly because... well... the Mediterranean Conference Centre seats 1,400 people and that's a LOT of people to mess up in front of! We've both sung and led the singing in church loads of times, but this is a rather different kind of singing, we've never done this before!

So I'm trying to bring out my inner diva (she's still shuffling around in her slippers and dressing-gown, and can't find her glittery eyeshadow) and Michael is getting ever deeper into the weird and wonderful world of harmony and counterpoint.

And today we learnt something that I will share with you as one of my Words of Wisdom (WoW):

If you have a fragile sense of self-esteem, then under no circumstances are you to go to a radio studio and record yourself singing, because hearing all your flat notes, missed cues and delayed slurs will surely have a deleterious effect.

It was a humbling experience, let me tell you...

But it was cool to hear the bits that we are getting right - some of the harmonies especially. We improved a bit with each go-round, and it was fun being able to really belt out the song in a soundproof room without having to worry about the neighbours calling the SPCA re: injured animals ;-)

I'd put a clip here for you to listen to but Michael has declared today's recordings as being unfit for human consumption... maybe after some more practice...

*tra la laaaaaaa*

A behavioural WoW

A Word of Wisdom, just goes to show that even after graduating you just keep on learning new things...

If you are walking in a public place at a not-particularly-late hour of the day, and you decide to give your companion a little re-enactment of previous day's Siege Of The Faculty in which your class was locked out of the building, and which included an impromptu song on the lines of "let us in", and said song was punctuated by a classmate with a well-timed obscenity, then you would do well to not be COMPLETELY faithful in your re-enactment, i.e. if the obscenity was shouted, that doesn't mean that you should shout it too, because all that will happen is that everyone within a 100-metre radius will gasp, and turn, and give you a really shocked look, and you will be, erm, rather embarrassed.

A crappy WoW

Some Words of Wisdom on how to stay excrement-free...

If you are waiting for a bus at the Valletta terminus in the morning, do not stand beside the tall blue lamp-posts, because you are liable to get shat on by one of the pigeons that roost on the crossbar.

And if you do get pooed on by a rat with wings, then be aware that they are capable of hitting more than one body part with the same bowel movement, so even if you think you wiped it all off, you would do well to conduct a thorough examination at some point so that you don't go around your workplace all day with pigeon crap on your back.

P.S. please don't feed the birds.

P.P.S. If you were wondering why some people say it's lucky to get hit by a bird's number two, the reason is that the rest of your day (and week) suddenly gets a lot better because then you can go around saying, "Guess what? I had a hard day but at least I didn't get crapped on!"

P.P.P.S Did you notice all my synonyms for the subject in question? During the PPS I ran out of inspiration and therefore "crap" appears twice in this post.

The Emperor's New Wow

This week (or at least, two afternoons of it) have been devoted to buying me clothes (aaagggrrrhhhh)... because, you know, now that I'm a professional, I have to dress like one, and almost all my clothes fall into two catagories: 'casual' and 'scruffy'...

Mum and Middle Sis could shop for Malta, and thanks to them (and Dad's financial backing, thanks Dad!) I am now kitted out with some smart togs. All I had to do was stand there and model the clothes they handed me *grin* This kind of marathon shopping expedition generally takes place every couple of years or so, and I have noticed a pattern... first we traipse around half the clothes shops in Malta, and then buy 95% of my wardrobe from one shop in a sidestreet somewhere...

Big props to Middle Sis, because she has been a star - as a shop assistant commented today, she and I are polar opposites, lol, but she is able to take a step back and advise me on what suits me in a style that I like, without forcing her own personal preferences on me. Thanks, sis!

All I need now is for someone to employ me so that I'll have a workplace to wear my nice new clothes to, lol.

Here's some collected Words of Wisdom (WoW) (tm)

• Having a pocketful of change when on a clothes-shopping expedition will inevitably lead to repeatedly having to pick up your twocentsijat from various changing room floors. Tipping them out of your shoes can be fun though.

• Who needs to hire personal shoppers? Just take a relative who has a good eye for colour and cut!

• Forgetting to bring pop socks makes putting on your court shoes every time you try on a suit about as strenuous as running laps around a track.

• The problem with buying a suit as that you can't mix and match sizes for different parts of it.

• It is such a relief to finally come across a suit that was made by someone who appreciates the body shape of your average Maltese woman ;-)

• You can never have too many hangers in your wardrobe... (just watch out for the shopping trolleys) (sorry, that was today's obscure Pratchett reference, heheheh)

A short-grained rice WoW

I am bad news in the kitchen...

When cooking risotto, it's a good idea to TIME it before you wander away... failing that, it's a good idea to have a father around who can save the dinner before it becomes inedible...

A performance-based WoW

Yesterday there was the big (well, relatively big) annual prayer meeting, one of very few occasions when people from many of the different evangelical churches in Malta get together. And since it's organised by people from my church, I get to lead the music, muahahahaha... I was missing a drummer, but had Mike on lead guitar, his brother on keyboard, and a visiting American sang back-up for me.

Well, here you are...

• It is possible to fit an acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 5-octave keyboard, keyboard stand, music stand that is so broken it can't be collapsed at all, a stool, three amplifiers, large stereo, two guitar stands and miscellaneous accessories (music books, guitar tuner, leads, keyboard power supply and pedal, etc) into the back of an old 8-seater van and still have room for a 12-year-old piano-player, although he will have to take his shoes off.

• Carting around gear will always suck, but it does get easier with experience. Where are groupies roadies when you need them?

• When you have just spent five minutes standing in the lobby of a hotel surrounded by a mountain of equipment, waiting for the lift to arrive, be quick to get in when it does, or it will go up again and you get to spend another five minutes hoping that no guests are going to use the lift any time soon.

• The best configuration for loading/unloading equipment into/from a lift is to have one person standing inside, one person standing outside, and one person blocking the lift doors from closing.

• A good lead guitarist is worth his weight in gold.

• Having a choir director sing harmony with you rocks.

• If you intend to make an audio recording of the coolness that is your music, write that down on your hand or something so that you don't forget. *sigh*

• Choir directors often have access to sophisticated audio-processing equipment/software that can also strip the audio from a video ;-)

• If you've painted your nails and therefore have to use a pick, it would be a good idea to keep track of where you put it between sets, so that you don't have 50 people looking at you expectantly while you rummage through your pockets.

• If you suck at barre chords and are too chicken to attempt to play in the key of F#, and therefore need to use a capo for a song, write. that. down. although you will get away with it if you only have to come in 16 bars into the song and you remember about the capo around the third bar.

• If part of your capo is broken/missing and it is a two-minute job to get the thing onto the guitar, you might want to think about buying a decent one for those occasions when you are scrambling to get it clamped in, say, 13 bars' time.

• When playing a new song, it's a good idea to write down directions for yourself, so you don't end up playing the verse progression during the instrumental bridge when you're supposed to be playing the chorus progression.

• When the acoustic guitar player plays the wrong chord progression, and the keyboard player at the same time also forgets and plays the same incorrect chord progression, and the lead guitarist simultaneously also messes up, it actually doesn't sound so bad.

• If you prepare a powerpoint show with all the lyrics for your sets for the night, and it happens to include the most word-intensive, tongue-twisting song in your repertoire, and you wrote it down from memory while doing the powerpoint, it's a good idea to actually check that the words are correct before using the powerpoint.

• If you realise at the very, very, very last minute that you left out an entire verse of a song in your little powerpoint show, don't stress too much, because most likely no-one will actually notice, heheheh. Likewise if you got some words wrong.

Finally, a little advertisement because I was impressed; the people at the Waterfront Hotel are fantastic about setting up for events - ask for Wendy :-)