Jan 12, 2014 #2 - Random musical ruminations

Entry #2 for today, because the one I wrote at 3 this morning was really about yesterday.

I was up until about 7, then tried to get a few hours sleep and get on a normal sleep schedule.  I had slept so much by Friday morning that my back was hurting, and I entered a 24-hr period where I'd be up for 5-6 hrs, sleep for 2-3 hrs, and repeat the process.  Today's goal was to get back on track for a normal work week.

We are still going through boxes of stuff, as I supposed most people are.  We happen to have many boxes of books that don't fit on shelves because I'm a bookaholic.  So I was moving these books from cardboard boxes in the basement to plastic boxes in the basement and came across a box full of familiar-looking binders.  But I wasn't sure why they were familiar until I opened one up and saw sheet music.

Sheet music.  And not just any sheet music, but sheet music for "Axel F", arranged for barbershop quartet.  And "Three Chanteys", arranged by Marshall Bartholomew.  And "Lady Let the Rolling Drums", a musical setting to Tennyson's poem about women allowing their men to go and die on the battlefield.  And "Ward, the Pirate" by Ralph Vaughan Williams.  And close to a hundred others.  Some were arranged by members of my quintet, the Morning Stars.  Some were by pros.  Some are a hundred years old, some are new.

I have really fond memories of rehearsals with that group of men.  They were stand up guys, all of them - Nick, Jake, Evan, Jim, and Christian.  We weren't always a quintet, the lineup changed, like it always does in musical groups.  But we would all take our musical folders, and stand in a circle and sing to each other.  We had a lot of really good times and made some great music.  One of the best investments of my time and energy I have ever spent.  They are the closest friends I've made through Church in my life, with the exception of the Hawkins family.

Another, and much more recent, investment came by chance recently.  I thought my PS2 had broken when it wouldn't work on my new TV.  I tried a new cable, no luck.  Tried the Wii, it was fine.  So I decided to give up on the PS2 thing entirely: to buy some games on the PS3 and start afresh.  And then I saw a PS2 with Rock Band for $40 on Craigslist.  That game was always intriguing, but not worth $200 to get into.  For $40, I'd give it a go.  3 weeks after Christmas, we have Lego, Beatles, and Rock Band 2.  Libby loves the drums, and she'll sing as well.  Aria is our guitarist.  Katrina will sing, but hasn't worked on an instrument.  I'm starting to get the drums, starting to be able to keep a beat with one hand independent of the other hand.  It's a ton of fun.  Libby loves Yellow Submarine.  Jake started playing drums tonight.  He's no good yet, but he'll get there.  Libby keeps trying, and she'll get it, too.  I see an electric drum kit in our near future.

We collect instruments that don't get played like some people collect cats.  We're the crazy instrument family.  We have a lovely piano, a kids electric guitar, an adult electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, an electric piano, a kazoo, a harmonica, and now a set of Rock Band instruments.  The drum kit makes the most sense to add to our menagerie.  For us crazy people, anyway.

But it's just awesome to see the kids have so much fun with a video game that teaches them something.  I love the reductionist way of turning sheet music into colored buttons that come at you.  It's very different than reading sheet music, but tells the same story.  If I could only get the Beatles harmony vocals to give me sheet music notes, then I could sing it better, though.  I'm old school I suppose.

Anyway, music is great.  I'm pretty much over my sickness, got in my first run in 3 days this morning (5 miles, 7:19 pace), down to 203 lbs (down 32 lbs since last May), sorted some financial stuff out, removed the track lighting from the bedroom, and cleaned up the random garbage from the woods.  Then I did 2 loads of laundry, sang some Beatles, helped Aria with some graphing math, and now I'm pretty much ready for bed.  It's a good life.