An Experiment in Blogging and Music

I thought I'd experiment with blogging instead of Facebooking. I got a little cranky last week when I posted absolutely gorgeous photos of a baby koala and mama we'd seen in the wild and nearly no-one on my Facebook feed saw them - until I posted a sad follow up about people not commenting.

Of course, a blog post feels like it should take longer to write and have a bit more care put into it than a Facebook post, but we'll see how I go.

This morning I'm off to choir practice - if I can get the address and time. It's a once off choir to perform for Seniors' Week, and silly me deleted the email with the details. BUT, I do have the lyrics, safely filed away in my performance folder and sitting in my new choir tote.

It's sad that choirs have gone the way of the dodo bird. Singing is such a natural and instinctive part of what it is to be human. In our modern, busy society we think that only experts or those 'good enough' should be allowed to sing, or least to be heard. (Unless, of course, you're a little tipsy, in which case you are invited to make an absolute fool of yourself at the local pub karaoke.)

I think the advent of recorded music inadvertently destroyed many of our avenues of community singing. Why gather around the family piano listening to Uncle Albert belt out songs with no sense of tune or timing, when you can listen to Buble sing the same songs with true expertise? Why indeed. Because music is not just about the listening, it's about the participating.

We used to be able to participate in church, but by and large, that has also gone along the wayside. In recent history, church music has become "popular" and is now written for the professional, trained singer, not the ordinary Joe.

I once had a run in with someone about whether I sang well enough to lead singing in church. A friend commented to me, "Maybe they should see you as a canary. If, with the training you've had, you cannot sing the song well, then chances are that ninety percent of the congregation can't sing it either." But, sadly, too often the focus is no longer on ensuring the church body gets to sing the song wholeheartedly. The focus on the team at the front sounding brilliant.

My regular choir, Jacaranda Jam Community Choir, is composed of a wide variety of singing abilities. Everyone is accepted. Even if you can't hold a tune in the shower, you're welcome to come along and participate. We work very hard to sound good. But that's the difference - we work hard to sound, we don't expect people to turn up sounding good. We allow room for growth and mistakes. It's a very safe environment to enjoy singing.

Ah, the details of today's rehearsal have turned up. So, I'll be running along shortly. It's a little scary, agreeing to join this group. Apparently, last week they only had four people. Not quite the same safety in numbers as Tuesday's group, but I can guarantee that the audience will be singing out loud and proud, being from the generations that used to sing more.

Choir Tote

Although I always seem to have more bags than I know what to do with, I didn't have a suitable bag for choir. I wanted a dedicated bag, so I wouldn't be chasing up music and pencils and so on every week. I had a bit of a cursory look online for patterns but found nothing that really appealed to me, or met all my criteria:

• big enough for my current folder of music, with potential for more to come
• holder for my water bottle
• pocket for my choir scarf
• pockets for tea, pencils, erasers, and odd bits and bobs

The holder for my water bottle was pretty important; I'm always worried I'll forget to close it properly and it'll spill all through my music. We break for morning about 11am, which is far too late for me to be drinking caffeine, so I always carry my own decaf bags.

Our choir is called Jacaranda Jam (we're on Youtube at a school function, where we were 'invited guest performers' - Song 1, Song 2, Song 3). Our 'uniform' is black and purple with the choir scarf, which is a swirl of blues, greens, and purples. I wanted my bag to reflect that colour scheme.

My plan became to make a simple tote - a rectangular bag, with a quilted outer, lining, pockets and shoulder straps. No fasteners or fancy bits. Just simplicity. I did not take photos as I went but the basic steps I took were:

1. Piece the squares together into a 6 x 10 'mini quilt top'. The bag is just this one piece.
2. Quilt the top and iron-on pellon with a fancy stitch over all the seams. I ummed and ahhed about whether to use bag wadding, which is stiff, but decided I didn't really need the bag to stand up on its own.

Quilting detail

3. Cut the lining fabric the same size as my finished 'top'.
4. Sew the pockets. All the pockets are double layers; no hems.
5. Sew the pockets to the lining fabric. The bottle holder has no base, and on a side seam. I used my actual water bottle to determine where to attach the sides of the holder. If the holder is sewn flat against the lining, it will pull.
6. Sew the lining into a tube, and partially sew the bottom seam in from both corners (about 4 or 5 inches).
7. Sew the outer into a  bag.
8. Sew the base corners (this site has great instructions for box corners) in the outer and lining.
9. Sew the handles.
10. Pin the handles, outer and lining together and sew around the top opening. Refill bobbin.

This little gap of about 4 stitches is where my bobbin ran out while sewing the outer and lining together.

11. Reinforce the handles. Because they come out from between the outer and lining, I folded them down the outer about an inch and then back up. Over that double layer I stitched a box with x through it.

Handle top-stitching for reinforcement

 12. When I made my box corners, I didn't cut off the extra bit. To firm up the base, I cut a piece of stiff bag wadding, and attached the ends of it to the box corner flaps.
13. Sew up the hole in the base of the lining.
14. Fill with stuff.

Inside

Piano Runner

Tonight, I finished my first new project in my newly finished sewing room. A friend - the wife of the "Energiser Bunny" (the other half of 'They Who Build') recently had a birthday. For her birthday she got a piano, so I finally decided that a piano runner would be an ideal gift. Smaller and faster than a quilt, but still personal. I have a dozen or so table runner patterns saved, but after looking through all of them decided I didn't like any of them - for this purpose. So, I did what I normally do - designed something to a certain point then made the rest up as I went.


My original plan:

I'm not sure how big my friend's piano is, so I erred on the side of too long, rather than too short. My plan is 12 inches wide. The centre section is 60 inches, and the ends are each 12 inches long.

I made one design change from the plan above that I don't like. In the plan above, drawn in Excel (I know that seems odd, but it's a good program for drawing, because it has no page size limitations), the bar lines and music note stems are all perpendicular to the quilt edges, regardless of the wavy staff. In the actual quilt, I tried to align them to the curves of the staff. I don't like it so much. It's not bad; I just prefer to the above look.

As for the other specifics:
- Background fabric is a cream on cream
- The staff and bar lines are couched wool. I 'need' to buy a couching foot for my new machine. I had one for my old machine - it was a simple loop of metal at the front that the wool would travel through, keeping in the centre of the foot all the time. It was quite difficult to guide the wool, and keep the lines parallel.
- Each note head is a different fabric in red-brown colours. They are 2.5 x 1 inch ovals
- Minums are a full oval, with a small (0.5 x 1.5 inch) oval of the background fabric in the centre. The Teen pointed out, after I sewed them, that you should be able to see the staff line through them. I stitched a zig-zag line through them.
- Music stems are rick-rack. In real life, they're maroon; in the photo they look almost black.
- In the final, I left off the slurs (and I forgot the dot, sigh).
- Each note head is top-stitched with straight stitches, about 1/4 inch from the edge and then right on the edge.
- The entire is bag quilted, and the edge top-stitched in maroon.
- I didn't quilt it.
- The backing (there is no wadding) is polar fleece.
- The notes do form a tune (well, part of a tune, I couldn't fit the whole song on).

The finished product. Not the greatest of lighting; doesn't show the colours well.

When I next visit, I'll take a photo of it on the piano and update this entry.

Saturday - outreach

Every winter The Girl heads off for a week of Salvos' creative arts camp - QPAS (Queensland Performing Arts School). The 'kids' (from 13 to 25) choose two electives, focusing heavily on performing arts, but also including painting, preaching, stage tech and other interesting choices. At the end of the week each elective presents a short, 2-3 minute, sample of their learning, in a concert for family and friends.
This year the organising team decided to do something a little different. They organised the use of an area at Southbank and asked various Salvo groups to set up an information/display booth for the day. Instead of one private family concert, there were two concerts open to the public. I thought it was a much more valuable experience for the QPAS kids; far less insular and inward looking that usual.

Southbank Parklands

There is an amazing amount of talent in the Salvos' young people. The Army has always had a proud musical history and in recent years has started to embrace other performing arts. When I was teen, if you weren't musical, didn't have any musical training, you really didn't have a lot of options for creativity. There is still a very heavy focus on music, but drama, dance, and static art are all being featured (although still not so much in the day-to-day church).
The Girl chose "Show Choir" this year. A new elective, it's a mix of dance and singing. Her second elective was drama, which she has done for three years. It was more interpretive dance than 'drama' per se. I'm not sure I entirely understood it; however, I recognise the difficulty of creating a more traditional drama piece for 15 or 20 kids that only takes 2 or 3 minutes and gives everyone fairly even exposure.
The only downside of the day was that I wasn't thinking when I left home. I was wearing a jacket, but no socks, no singlet, no scarf. Thankfully, there are Saturday markets at Southbank and between concerts I wandered along til I found a scarf. Couldn't find any socks or stockings though. Took me an hour or so after we got home to defrost enough to sleep. Once I was in bed, I was warm externally, but shivering anyway.

The week that was

The perfectionist in me says I 'should' post a separate entry for each day this week. The woman in charge, however, isn't listening to the perfectionist.
Monday - we very briefly visited my nana. Crazy really. We drive 3 hours there and 3 hours back; spend so much time stuffing around that we barely manage to squeeze in half an hour with her before lunch. However, she turns 90 in a week, so we're going back down to see her next weekend.

Mum, me, nana and The Girl

Tuesday - was not well. Saw little silver stars while having a shower. Last time I saw those, the doctor had given me some prednisone (a steroid) to get my hives under control. Didn't ask me if I'd eaten before I ripped it out of her hand and gobbled it up (I was a bit of a mess and pretty desperate). Spent the day lying on the couch, generally feeling sorry for myself and moaning about how little the ABC had on iView that was worth watching. I'm pretty sure I remember thinking at some point "this is something positive I could blog about", but I left it too long and it's disappeared.
Wednesday - decided I was well enough to go to work. On the train on the way in I wasn't so sure I'd made the right decision. Then when I thought I was going to faint while waiting for the train to pull into my station, I decided I'd made the wrong decision. Still, I left the platform, thinking if I took some painkillers I'd be fine. After buying the tablets and some breakfast and getting half way out of the station, I had a flash of "you stupid woman", at which point I turned around and caught the next train home. When I got home I put MASH on the DVD player and promptly slept through an entire disc. I do love MASH. We've watched it so often that I don't need to "watch" it to be able to "see" it. I don't sleep during the day, but I find MASH keeps my mind occupied enough to allow it shut off (if that makes sense).

From our USA trip; we visited the MASH location

Thursday - thought I'd give the work thing another go. Survived the day, albeit exhausted by the end. Went to my singing lesson. Almost didn't, but decided it is a bright moment in any week and I needed a bright moment. My singing teacher has given me a lovely piece to prepare for Christmas. Yes, I know, it's only June. But unlike Glee, and a few other groups I've been involved with, she recognises that new material takes some time to prepare. You can't just have a dress rehearsal and then put on the show. I'm really looking forward to learning this piece.

Friday - another day at work. Today I got to send the email to the 'powers that be' on my current project, saying I would be handing over my role to someone else.

Which brings me up to date. Today I'm off to buy new winter sheets, a new cat flap (she broke it going like a bat outta hell through it), a water tank, and possibly a car. Variety is the spice of life.

Thursday 7 June 2012

On Thursday afternoons I have my singing lesson. I've been going to see Angela since 2010 and she is wonderful. Like so many people I grew up with those around me giving me a hard time about my voice. As a particularly vulnerable teenager I took their comments to heart. I have always longed to be able to sing, but a life time of listening to the voices convinced me I couldn't.
Angela has helped turn that around. I am still working to overcome 20 years of negative voices, but slowly I'm winning. There have been some set back; insensitive people with natural talent who seem to think that if you can't sing naturally and easily you shouldn't bother trying.
The latest 'attack' set me back quite a bit and shook my confidence. However, as part of this new decision to enjoy life I decided (frankly) bugger 'em. Who am I going to listen to? My singing teacher - a conservatory trained professional singer? or someone with an inflated opinion of their own talent and importance? or 20 year old voices from insensitive teenagers?
I have decided to listen to my singing teacher. And for the first time in a long time I truly enjoyed my singing lesson and I've been enjoying singing at home a lot more to.

The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. Henry van Dyke