let me be there in your morning
Oct. 31st, 2021 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestWell, it did indeed turn out to be quite a busy week, but everything went to plan. We now have a Smart meter, blue dots in the back garden where the drilling will go, filled cavity walls, and bit of electrical stuff with approving stickers on them.
Yesterday was the Unconventional Convention, for which I was half the local tech team at our (East) hub. Drove to the vicinity of Cambridge with three others in the car, got there in good time and started to get our laptops positioned to cover the stage and the audience.
At the point of connecting to the site's internet, things went sadly wrong. I followed all the steps and got connected to the central hub about... oh, about a dozen times, only to be dropped before I could even type a quick message to Chat. I asked for attention on the group's WhatsApp, but got none that I could see. Fortunately, my cohort's laptop did seem to connect and as far as I know we were up and available to be part of the general broadcast. It was still live at lunchtime, from our end, but had gone down some time before we finished. I don't think we received a WhatsApp message from the central hub at any point, which was frankly rather odd.
Oh well.
Tech worries aside, we had a lovely day! I ended up with the task of being an announcer, because the person who was orignally down for that had been feeling throaty for days and had stepped down on, I think, Thursday. So I did my stern little biit about wearing masks and so forth, then sat dowm to participate.
We had some fun warm-ups, including one which involved slapping thighs on one word, clapping on another, and finger snapping on another, and there must have been some magic in the air because that went a lot better than you might expect.
Then we embarked on learning a new tag, which is a barbershop weirdness involving singing a couple of lines in four-part harmony. It's usually the overblown end to a song, but sometimes tags are written as tags, and this was the case yesterday. I find I learn music much better if I can see the notes as well as hear them, so tags never want to stick in my head.
After singing a couple of polecats together - oh, so nice to be singing with lots of people! (there were about a hundred) - we had lunch outside in the very chilly fresh air.
After lunch it was more polecats and a revision of the tag, followed by the Showcase, which again, I was introducing. It was really nice! There were two other choruses who sang some beautiful songs, a quartet (from my own chorus), and then a small remnant-chorus who'd joined us on Zoom during the last year came up to the front with my chorus and we sang a couple of songs together. After which, my chorus sang two rather more resplendent songs!
Brief break, and we had a performance from a male quartet, who were.... well, they were good at what they did, but they didn't really fit into the definition of 'barbershop quartet', as they used mikes and quite a bit of beatboxing was involved, which, hmm. Also, any self-respecting barbershop quartet would have worn matching outfits of some kind—even matching T-shirts would have been an improvement. The guys were amusing and entertaining, but I don't think I'd go to watch them again.
And that, after a brief round-up, was the end of our day!
Our organiser had very efficiently put out lists of who was to do what in the clear-up as well as the set-out, and the hall was emptied in about ten minutes, amazing work! Journey home was mercifully in bright sunshine not rain, and we had a very pleasant time chatting.
Chinese takeaway for dinner, and a lie-in this morning. Perfect!
Next week, four consecutive evenings of singing, one of them a performance, my Bun's birthday, and a house viewing on Saturday. Life is definitely picking up speed.
Yesterday was the Unconventional Convention, for which I was half the local tech team at our (East) hub. Drove to the vicinity of Cambridge with three others in the car, got there in good time and started to get our laptops positioned to cover the stage and the audience.
At the point of connecting to the site's internet, things went sadly wrong. I followed all the steps and got connected to the central hub about... oh, about a dozen times, only to be dropped before I could even type a quick message to Chat. I asked for attention on the group's WhatsApp, but got none that I could see. Fortunately, my cohort's laptop did seem to connect and as far as I know we were up and available to be part of the general broadcast. It was still live at lunchtime, from our end, but had gone down some time before we finished. I don't think we received a WhatsApp message from the central hub at any point, which was frankly rather odd.
Oh well.
Tech worries aside, we had a lovely day! I ended up with the task of being an announcer, because the person who was orignally down for that had been feeling throaty for days and had stepped down on, I think, Thursday. So I did my stern little biit about wearing masks and so forth, then sat dowm to participate.
We had some fun warm-ups, including one which involved slapping thighs on one word, clapping on another, and finger snapping on another, and there must have been some magic in the air because that went a lot better than you might expect.
Then we embarked on learning a new tag, which is a barbershop weirdness involving singing a couple of lines in four-part harmony. It's usually the overblown end to a song, but sometimes tags are written as tags, and this was the case yesterday. I find I learn music much better if I can see the notes as well as hear them, so tags never want to stick in my head.
After singing a couple of polecats together - oh, so nice to be singing with lots of people! (there were about a hundred) - we had lunch outside in the very chilly fresh air.
After lunch it was more polecats and a revision of the tag, followed by the Showcase, which again, I was introducing. It was really nice! There were two other choruses who sang some beautiful songs, a quartet (from my own chorus), and then a small remnant-chorus who'd joined us on Zoom during the last year came up to the front with my chorus and we sang a couple of songs together. After which, my chorus sang two rather more resplendent songs!
Brief break, and we had a performance from a male quartet, who were.... well, they were good at what they did, but they didn't really fit into the definition of 'barbershop quartet', as they used mikes and quite a bit of beatboxing was involved, which, hmm. Also, any self-respecting barbershop quartet would have worn matching outfits of some kind—even matching T-shirts would have been an improvement. The guys were amusing and entertaining, but I don't think I'd go to watch them again.
And that, after a brief round-up, was the end of our day!
Our organiser had very efficiently put out lists of who was to do what in the clear-up as well as the set-out, and the hall was emptied in about ten minutes, amazing work! Journey home was mercifully in bright sunshine not rain, and we had a very pleasant time chatting.
Chinese takeaway for dinner, and a lie-in this morning. Perfect!
Next week, four consecutive evenings of singing, one of them a performance, my Bun's birthday, and a house viewing on Saturday. Life is definitely picking up speed.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-31 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-02 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-02 03:42 pm (UTC)But it must have been so great to sing with so many people again.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-02 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-02 06:39 pm (UTC)Sounds like Unconventional Con was lots of fun despite the internet problem.
Good luck with the performance and the house viewing and tell Bun happy birthday from me!
no subject
Date: 2021-11-02 06:48 pm (UTC)I'm hoping the weekend will include House-Finding Saturday! Boy has his inheritance now, he must buy a house!