a good day for singing a song
Aug. 1st, 2021 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestInteresting weekend!
We spent most of yesterday afternoon installing a laundry drying... I'm gonna call it a butler, because I can. It's an upside-down cradle which is attached to the ceiling here in my craft room, and can be hauled down to load with laundry and then up out of the way.
The pointy ceiling in here is about fourteen feet high, give or take. The wall end worked pretty well with a short extendable ladder, Beast mounted on same and me holding the feet firm on the sticky mat. He had to struggle with the rock-like 'spine' of the roof beams, but got the first pulley in and suitably threaded.
The other end of the contraption was not going to be near a wall.
By an interesting coincidence, 14' is also the height of our mighty ladder, when unextended. (It's sorta overkill, even for our highest gutters.) Wrestling 14' ladder in a room with a triangular roof, a bar across the roof about half-way at normal ceiling height, and a worktop spur, is quite the business. It got mostly-stuck, eventually, in that we could not quite manoeuvre it where we wanted it, but it was in a position from which Beast could do all the drilling, screwing and threading.
And, we managed to extract the ladder, too.
So now we have an elegant laundry butler dangling way above my head as I type. \o/
*
Today, I got to sing! My mixed chorus is looking for new numbers to take to Convention next May, and we'd found a couple we liked the look of. With only four or so days to work at the music, it was a tall order, but four of us met to have a tryout session, and ended up being very pleased with ourselves and the music. One of the songs has a miserable excuse for a tag, and in fact may not be suitable for entering in the competition (barbershop rules are quite strict), but our resident barbershop addict will have a go at producing a nicer tag and we'll keep it in our repertoire anyway. The other song worked very nicely and has a grand tag which we enjoyed very much!
The other three stayed for lunch and a natter, then we sang through both numbers a couple more times, and parted, feeling very pleased with life. It is so nice to sing in quartet, if somewhat nerve-racking.
We spent most of yesterday afternoon installing a laundry drying... I'm gonna call it a butler, because I can. It's an upside-down cradle which is attached to the ceiling here in my craft room, and can be hauled down to load with laundry and then up out of the way.
The pointy ceiling in here is about fourteen feet high, give or take. The wall end worked pretty well with a short extendable ladder, Beast mounted on same and me holding the feet firm on the sticky mat. He had to struggle with the rock-like 'spine' of the roof beams, but got the first pulley in and suitably threaded.
The other end of the contraption was not going to be near a wall.
By an interesting coincidence, 14' is also the height of our mighty ladder, when unextended. (It's sorta overkill, even for our highest gutters.) Wrestling 14' ladder in a room with a triangular roof, a bar across the roof about half-way at normal ceiling height, and a worktop spur, is quite the business. It got mostly-stuck, eventually, in that we could not quite manoeuvre it where we wanted it, but it was in a position from which Beast could do all the drilling, screwing and threading.
And, we managed to extract the ladder, too.
So now we have an elegant laundry butler dangling way above my head as I type. \o/
*
Today, I got to sing! My mixed chorus is looking for new numbers to take to Convention next May, and we'd found a couple we liked the look of. With only four or so days to work at the music, it was a tall order, but four of us met to have a tryout session, and ended up being very pleased with ourselves and the music. One of the songs has a miserable excuse for a tag, and in fact may not be suitable for entering in the competition (barbershop rules are quite strict), but our resident barbershop addict will have a go at producing a nicer tag and we'll keep it in our repertoire anyway. The other song worked very nicely and has a grand tag which we enjoyed very much!
The other three stayed for lunch and a natter, then we sang through both numbers a couple more times, and parted, feeling very pleased with life. It is so nice to sing in quartet, if somewhat nerve-racking.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 04:57 am (UTC)I hope the new songs work well for the chorus!
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 01:00 pm (UTC)What's a 'tag'?
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 01:23 pm (UTC)A 'tag' is very much a barbershop thing - the end of a song is almost inevitably prolonged and strung out and overdone... It'll be a repeat of the final couple of lines, perhaps, or something very similar, and I suppose it is just tagged on to the end, so, tag. Sometimes, in fact, this is a great way to end a song: one of the ones we were rehearsing yesterday had a great tag which we all enjoyed singing. The other one - "You'll Never Walk Alone", which I would have thought would be hard to ruin, has an oddly downbeat ending.
There is a barbershop Thing which is, singing tags, ie just the tag, without the rest of the song. It can be done quite quickly, because if you only have one or maybe two lines to sing, everyone can learn their part quite fast. Apparently, it's fun. I've never entirely bought into it! But we are looking to re-voice some of our chorus, and will probably sing tags, and then shuffle people around a bit, and sing the tags again with the shufflees in their new parts. Quick to learn, but it gets the harmony going.
I'll stop now!
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 01:25 pm (UTC)I hope so, too! I think they will.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-02 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-08-03 07:03 am (UTC)I almost always find it interesting listening to people talking about things they're really interested in (Okay, except TV and favourite bands and their RPG character - anything 'real world')
I like to learn.
no subject
Date: 2021-08-07 05:15 pm (UTC)Sounds like a very enjoyable singing meet-up!