But will take a second right now - particularly since an additional THANK YOU is in order to shadesong!

That's right - you can still donate!

Donations close this evening (don't know what time, I think 8pm Central?)

In any case - am finally fully recovered from this weekend *woot* and will be ready to start thinking up new content to add here within the next few days.


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I've mentioned health problems before, and in managing them, I see my physical therapist...regularly. She plays MPR's Classical Station in her clinic, so music is often a topic of conversation - particularly if DVS has a concert coming up.

One day I was lying on her table, and a piece came up that was very confusing to me...I couldn't tell if it had one or two pianos, and so I concentrated really hard to try and figure out what it was.

"Stop that, I can feel you thinking, and I can't continue to work until you relax!"

I laughed so hard, but I couldn't stop thinking until the piece was over, and ultimately we did end up stop working entirely until it was over. Her concentration was broken, and I just couldn't focus on anything except that piece.

I've concentrated on music so many times in her office before, but never like that...I guess it showed, and was reflecting in the way my body was reacting. I was right, though - I did figure out it was two pianos....and the commentator mentioned as much when the piece was over. I can't for the life of me now remember what it was.

---

Oh - and ps - before I forget. *chuckle* Steve, if you're reading...the dj from http://radio.blogexplosion.com wanted to know if we travelled outside our area and if we perform in the Chicago area ;).

First of all. thank you again and again! Thank you for reading. For those that donated, thank youu. For those who commented throughout the night, thank you - for those that sent me IM messages thank you. For those that kept me laughing *way* too much (I'm looking at YOU Team Venture) Thank you. Thank you to my partner in blogging songwind, without whom I would NOT have made it through the night. Thank you to my other housemate ladysea who even though she wasn't here in person, was tremendously supportive in spirit. Thank you to the kids who are my inspiration in everything, and thank you to Spud and the dogs who were incredibly patient and awesome throughout when songwind were busy taking care of blogging and some household projects.

This was my first Blogathon, and it most certainly will not be my last. I was a little worried as to whether or not I'd be able to handle it due to health concerns, and I'm feeling a little unsteady now, but over all pretty darn good considering I only had about a 2 hour nap throughout the entire Blogathon.

So far, we've raised $80 for DVS, but don't despair! It's not too late to donate! There's a 48-hour grace period for donations starting right now! Just click the link that says "Sponsor this blog" ;). But $80 is more than we had before, so I'm not complaining in the slightest. A first year event for any one person is always a "slim" year as people get their feet wet. Besides, it gives me *lots* of room for improvement for next year!

So what happens between now and next year? I certainly don't intend to leave dragonsfordvs lay fallow. I'd like to keep up segments on each of the topics brought up tonight and more. I'd *love* if more DVS members would like to participate as well, but that, of course, is up to them. Don't worry, the volume won't be anywhere near like tonight. I figure I'll probably post a couple times per week...at least that's my goal. I won't speak for songwind as to his plans for the future here or if he has any.

And as an extra bonus, I think I have an extra bonus post in me before the end.

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I need to hurry and get this post written a few minute early - the intrepid travellers should be home very very shortly!!!! Yay!!!!! I've missed them!!!!!!!

Ok...

So Anne McCaffrey's notable in a lot of respects, and a number of her books include music somewhere in them. But two series in particular have music as a central theme, without which the book would be a very different concept.

The Crystal Singer is the first of 3 in a series about a woman by the name of Killashandra, about a group called the Heptite Guild, and about crystal singing in general. Quite literally, the ability to sing is required in order mine crystal, and Killashandra is one of the best.

Again, this was a book I read a very very long time ago, and became a well loved favorite very quickly. I should reread all three of them....

But the books that I feel as a musician, and as a parent, that really set Anne McCaffrey apart is her Pern books. In her Pern books, the concept of music as community building, music in education - heck music as a vehicle for education, music as a unifying force - are all epitomized. The Harper Hall is omnipresent throughout the Pern Books...but there are two where it's really pertinent: The MasterHarper of Pern and Dragons Eye. Though both of these would benefit the most from having been read after reading the founding three books of the series: Dragonsflight, Dragonsquest, and The White Dragon; and the companion YA series: The Harper Hall Series: Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragon Drums

ooooh...and I think I hear everyone!!!!! (only 2 more posts after this!)


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Something I enjoy about going to the movies is listening to the soundtrack. Lately it's become the "Listen for the John Williams" theme game, but well...yeah. When you consider that he worked on the first two Harry Potter movies, and wrote the defining themes for the movies, and then they went on to other composers for the other 3 (two others now, this last one was a new composer again)...and ditto for Pirates of the Carribean, well..it's not surprising that you'll find his themes embedded in and around other composers' works.

What surprised me, however, was when I was watching Transformers last weekend...and in it I could have SWORN that I heard thematic elements from POTC...but nothing else of the sound track sounded even remotely like John Williams, and after *counts on fingers and fails* how many summer pops seasons since 2002 I can tell you I'm becoming fairly familiar with his work!

So I went to trusty old IMDB, and looked up the composer, Steve Jablonksy. Nope, not John Williams, as I had surmised, but darnit, I was CONVINCED that I had heard POTC. So I looked through his credits to determine what else he'd worked on to see if there was a link....

A -ha...There it is...almost half-way down the page, He worked as a composer for additional music on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Oh, and there was another element that I *really* liked, though I couldn't find a link in his credits - he may have put it in for nostalgia purposes. In any case, there is a scene with fighter pilots...and in that scene, he uses music with chord structures almost identical to those used in fighter pilot scenes in Top Gun.

Nice touch!


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This would definitely be a topic I'm passionate about, particularly as I came to my currently chosen instrument as an adult.

Oftentimes, when people find out I play violin, I get asked, "Oh! How long have you played?" And they tend to expect some age early in years. They do *not* expect to hear something around the age of 22 as being when I got my first violin. The next response is then usually along the lines of "Oh wow, I've always wanted to play $INSERT_INSTRUMENT_HERE, but I don't think I could because $INSERT_REASON_HERE". It might be they feel they're too old, not enough time, kids are too young, not enough money, etc...Or, they're afraid to take up an instrument because they're afraid they won't be able to learn it. That the golden window of opportunity has closed forever.

I disagree. I feel that it's never too late to learn an instrument. I feel that there are solutions to *most* ever barrier, but you might have to search for those solutions, or be willing to be realistic on what those solutions might be.

To be continued.....


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The concept of community support for music was ingrained early on...specifically at the middle school level for me. Yes, I was in band in the elementary school level in NJ, but it wasn't until I was in middle school in CA that the concept that community support was critical to the future of music in the schools even became an issue.

To me, at the ripe old age of 8-10, in NJ, music and schools just happened. The string program started in the 4th grade, and the rest of the instrumental program started in the 5th grade. There was semi-private (4 students) half hour pull out lessons weekly and then weekly band rehearsals.

In CA that wasn't necessarily the case. In the Las Virgenes Unified School District, a small school district on the outskirts of the behemoth that is the Los Angeles Unified School District, instrumental music did not begin until the middle school. I don't remember if there was a choral program at the other middle school, but our middle school did not have a choral program at that time (I culminated from middle school in 1987).

Prop 13 was largely bandied at the time as being the reason why there weren't enough funds in the schools for $INSERT_ITEM_HERE. I don't remember enough about California politics to know if that was the actual full scenario, or if there was more going on. I'm always inclined to believe there's more than meets the eye to a story. In any case, funds were short for the music program, and in order to go to band competitions, etc., we needed to do fund raising.

This is where my father, and a number of parents one year, came together. They formed the Band Boosters, and put together a fundraising scheme to put advertisements in our band program flyers. The size of your ad corresponded with a medal a la Olympics style. My father led the Band Boosters for a while - as did Mr. Odello...and a few others over the years. All of them my friends' parents. Why did they do this? Because without doing that, our program was in danger of failing to provide the things that they had intended to do. It was another instance of the community coming together to support the arts...and it wasn't just about money either, there was a certain amount of pride in being able to support a program that went out to band competitions that did well (and not so well at times).

Southern California Schools Band and Orchestra Association. SCSBOA. They were the organization behind the vast majority of competitions that our school band and orchestra competed in at the middle school and high school levels in the concert hall, on the football field, and on the parade route.

I wonder - does MN have anything like that? They certainly don't at the middle school level, and I know there isn't a parent support organization like the Band Boosters that my parents were involved in. Or if there is, I haven't been able to find it.


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Kritter is the oldest of the 4 of the kids in this house. She was the first to teach us patience with regards to learning music. Having a musician for a parent, she definitely had toddler toys available. "My First Music" kits and such. She had a toy accordion, triangle, drum, etc....

But she started asking about the violin when she was 3 or so (I first received my first violin when she was 2). She officially started asking if she could start learning to play when she was 5. I was afraid she was just asking because Mommy played, and frankly, a) didn't want to be the type of parent who let their child do whatever they wanted and drop it on a whim, and b) wasn't sure if she really wanted to play or if she was saying it because she thought I would be happy at the idea of her daughter playing violin and because Mommy played violin.

After somewhere between 6 months and a year, we relented and got her started with violin. She started with the Suzuki method. She loved it, and she hated it. Her instructor spent a lot of time teaching her songs about how to use the bow and the parts of the instrument, and spent very little time having her actually play. So she got bored, and her attention waned. We made her stick with it though, because that whole, didn't want her dropping it quickly.

When we moved to the South Metro area, we had to find a new teacher. He was pretty good and caught her attention quickly. He moved faster than the other teacher, which was good, and she progressed quickly up until a point...and hit a road block.

She struggled and struggled, and eventually we stopped fighting with her to practice and not move forward, and let her drop it. Her teacher was getting frustrated, we were getting frustrated, Kritter was getting frustrated, and we were afraid that her love of music was dangerously close to going away.

More than a year later, we found out that her road block was likely ADHD. We worked with her to address that, and when she eventually hit middle school, she announced that she wanted to play clarinet. She missed elementary school band, because her class was the first set of 5th graders to graduate, and they hadn't yet instituted a 5th grade band...that would come the following year, in time for Bri. We let her play clarinet (thanks to lexiphanic, she even had an easily accessible clarinet!!!), and since then the difference between her early music experience and now is amazing. She's just flown through learning clarinet. Getting her to practice is a chore, and so her band grade suffers, but she plays beautifully.

So it means that as a parent and musician, we have LOTS of discussions about musicianship and respecting fellow musicians by practicing. Of course, that particular lesson would *probably* go over better if I would practice more *cough*.


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While I was napping songwind initiated discussion about a topic I've definitely been intending to write about this evening, and that is non-performance music education.

In my Lakeville Music for All post, I mentioned that there are currently no non-performance music education classes (at the middle school level) available for students. *ALL* students are required to take a performance music course.

As a musician, you might think I'd be happy about this, but I'm actually not on several levels.

1) Music is a two way communication between music producers and music consumers. The more educated both sides are, the more enjoyable for everyone.
2) Not every child is interested in performance. I'm not really interested in forcing a child into being on stage. Period. Encouraging a child to take on new challenges is good, but I can't imagine that all kids are comfortable with being out there, and to me that's just not ok.
3) The kids that don't actually want to perform and learn music are not going to put as much into rehearsing and practicing as the kids who do want to. This drags down the experience for everyone.

That being said - the music program in the Lakeville School District is incredible compared to what I was involved in growing up. Though I suspect that has more to do with when music was introduced into the schools and the support within the community.

I'm with songwind, though. The closest I ever came to any kind of music appreciation class was my ethnomusicology class at CSUN. I *loved* that class, and wish I remembered more of it! I never actually learned much in the way of formal music theory, and this is another thing I'm very impressed with coming out of the Lakeville School District music program....Kritter and Bri already know more theory in their 1-2 years of music instruction than I was ever officially taught.


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This is the first in what was initially 2, but then turned into many books. Elves, magic, mayhem, a bard, Renaissance Faires....and for this book all set in Southern California? What more could a Rennie music geek ask for?

It's been a long time since I've read this one, but suffice to say music is the not tangential to this book. The main character is a True Bard, though he doesn't know it (yet). He's a classically trained floutist who turned his back on Juliard, and left to become a street musician, eventually donning the floofy sleeves and long hair of the life of a Renaissance Faire bard. He lands himself into a world he didn't expect, though, and the book winds its readers around the Southern California Faire site (old Agoura site), around the San Fernando Valley (ah home), and up into Griffith Observatory.

Heh...I can't remember if it was this book or the next book, Summoned to Tourney, but watch for references to They Might Be Giants lyrics from the album Flood...and if you're a Mercedes Lackey fan, she has a number of in references to her other books, which are definitely fun to read.


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I had a topic picked out for this post, I swear I did!

I'll post about the next child in the line up from youngest to oldest is Miss Bri.

Miss Bri is the child with the Curse of the Piano Teacher. *sigh*.

When we bought our house, we decided that we absolutely wanted to have a piano in the house. We went to Groth Music and picked out a digital piano. Less expensive than an upright, and easier to keep in tune. And the nicer ones have a beautiful tone regardless of it not being "the real thing". It's also easier to tuck into a corner in a house overloaded with stuff from two families *chuckle*.

Bri was the child most interested in piano lessons, and as such she is the one who got them. Kritter's violin teacher also taught piano, so he ended up being her first teacher. Kritter dropped out of violin after a while, but Bri kept up with piano. She was *awesome*. She picked up piano like she was born to it, and rapidly assimilated new information.

Unfortunately her piano teacher just disappeared one day. Stopped answering phone calls, and everything.

It took us a while before we found another teacher, and she was sweet. She was primarily a vocalist, but also taught piano....and helped Bri to really push her piano playing a lot farther. Bri was able to get up her courage and play in a community music event I put together for the girls' elementary school's silent auction evening. It was a talent show of sorts. Everyone who wanted to participate was encouraged to participate and got in. There was no competition, and guidance was offered to help move things along. At the end was a choral performance of a selection of a few songs that I put together with volunteers of parents, kids, and teachers. But the point was that Bri performed in it - it was essentially *her* first recital.

But the second teacher stopped showing up as well :(

We haven't found another piano teacher after that. A couple of years later she decided she wanted to become enrolled in the school music program...as a flute player.

WOW. We thought she took to piano quickly. That was nothing compared to flute! Eventually she had to have braces, and not even that really deterred her. She's going on to middle school this fall, and yep, band is on her plate.


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On the Lakeville Music For All post, I received a comment from a fellow DVS member, regarding upcoming opportunities for talented youth in the Lakeville schools:

This coming season we're trying some new things to boost Lakeville school music programs and give talented youth opportunities to perform. We're combining our chorus with the Lakeville North Chorale and performing at the school. Also, we're having our first young artists competition for a chance to perform a solo with the orchestra in April. Two of our most exciting past soloists have been young artists from Lakeville: David Peloquin performed the Schumann Piano Concerto with us when he was a senior at Lakeville North and he was fabulous, and Nicole Swanson has performed viola solos with us a couple times, most recently last season when she was Miss Minnesota, and she did a wonderful job. It will be exciting to hear what new talent takes part in our competition this season! Do you have any stories about music competitions or recitals??

I wanted to post the entire comment because I wanted to make sure the information got out and shared, because it's good information....but there's also a question in there...

Stories about music competitions or recitals? Unfortunately no stories about recitals. I've never actually performed in any kind of recital, ever...and the only recitals I've been involved in are the dance recitals that my daughters are involved in...well...I take that back. I've performed with DVS when we've supported and played with and for a local music school during their Spring recital (I'm blanking the school's name right now). But never my own. Which is probably a good thing given my stage fright when it comes to performing solo...and here's where the story with regards to music competitions comes into play (well, there are several).

When I was in middle school, we had talent shows...more like competitions. I chose to sing Somewhere Out there, a cappela. Somewhere in the middle of the song I lost my place. I was singing and going along fine, but all of a sudden I realized that I had no idea where I was in the song. No clue what I'd just sang, or where I was going, or anything. It was like I'd woken up from a bad dream, only I hadn't, and it was real, and I was surrounded by a real live audience. I froze, and stopped singing, and ultimately just walked off the stage. From then on, I had a hard time playing or singing solo. Accompanied? Just fine. Solo? Nope.

Though, I never really had a problem auditioning...and I did go on to audition for honor bands and other shows, and was able to get in them just fine. My favorite was the All Valley Honor Concert Band through Cal State University Northridge, under the direction of Dr. Pratt. (this was before the story that I wrote about earlier. So I did actually know a little of what it was like to perform under the guidance of Dr. Pratt).

solcita has asked me to create a concert on the theme of of Courage.

I have had my notes (websites) and in my numerous computer restarts tonight they got lost...

Sooo...I'm working on it. I have thoughts. Lots of them, and it will be posted sometime tonight - I just have to recreate it all!

Ack! What happened to the time? Ok - so this is a content-less post because this past half hour has been spent a) begging for a mic, b) talking with the folks over at http://www.blogexplosion.com - go listen! They rock! This one wasn't affected by the technical issues because this interview was taken care of by phone.

So for this post - (I hope I get everyone) I'll point out other friends who are blogging tonight.

Ok - I'll post some for now - and more later...or I'm never going to get this posted.

Andrew Reed is blogging here for So Cal Bulldog Rescue
featherjean is blogging for Komen for the Cure
fading_xhopex is blogging for Doctors Without Borders
seimaisen is blogging at http://www.consequencefree.net and is blogging for the Angel Foundation
shadesong is blogging for Boston Area Rape Crisis Center
slipjig is blogging for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society
starbarnkitty is blogging for Shangri-la Therapeutic Academy of Riding
My monitor who doesn't have an LJ is blogging here for the RUF Campus Ministers Crisis Relief Fund





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(Another interview is in the works at http://www.blogexplosion.com !!!)

Ok...so...Music in our community has been identified has a really important thing. A few years ago, the Lakeville school district identified a strong need to readjust the budget. And legitimately so. Tax income was not growing, and expenses were. Necessarily this is a problem. But what they wanted to do was significantly reduce (slash) the music and physical fitness programs in the schools. The district also wanted to implement more literacy programming into the school system at the middle school level, adding a Communications block, creating 2 hours per school day of literacy.

The communitied rallied in support of music in the schools - not to mention physical fitness - and formed Lakeville Music for All. They brought in an outside consultant who did an indepth analysis of the school music program, and identified how, where, why music impacted the school system in beneficial ways in terms of dollars and sense in addition to test scores.

Surprise! It made economic sense to keep music programs in the schools. You could have more students in a single class room for less money per seat. Wow.

The school district opted for a compromise. For the first two middle school years, band and PE would be taught to students on alternating days. As music is now a core subject per No Child Left Behind, music education is mandatory for all middle school students, but they are given a choice between instrumental and vocal music (there are no choices for non-performance musical education, which IMO, is a topic all on its own) ensembles. 8th graders have music and PE daily. 6th and 7th graders have to choose between instrumental or vocal music, but 8th graders may take both, but they will have to have an alternating schedule in order to take both.

The school district also wanted to remove music from the elementary schools entirely - thankfully the community strongly voiced their opinion in support of keeping band in the elementary schools...and it is still there. (More on this one later).

Music and community - it really does go hand and hand.


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This is where we will call home: The Burnsville Performing Arts Center.

This is an *exciting* move for us. It's something that's been discussed and talked about for years, and now there's actually a date, and hey - groundbreaking was July 12!

While LAAC has been good to us, it's still not a good stage for an orchestra and chorus like us. Being a rennovated church, it has a very narrow stage, albeit very deep. The acoustics are great for Church, not so great for music. The fact that we're squished together on stage sometimes makes life really interesting, particularly when we have to get a full sized harp, harpsichord, or grand piano up on stage. Talk about feeling like you're teetering over the edge of a precipice!

The next year concert wise will be geared towards leading up to the move into the new venue, and it's going to be excitng! I'll post more notes later, particularly since I need to update the website anyway :).

[sorry this was late - the girls + my other housemate, ladysea are intrepid travellers today and called with a travel update!]

I'd like to take a moment to mention our home venue: Lakeville Area Arts Center.

LAAC has been awesome in giving us a home. Prior to LAAC our concerts were scattered all over Dakota Valley (ie., Burnsville, Lakeville, Apple Valley general area). It was inconsistent, and kind of confusing. With LAAC, we've been able to say "All of our concerts are at LAAC".

Our rehearsal space is at a local middle school during the regular season, but for summer pops, our rehearsal space is LAAC as well.

LAAC is a renovated Church, and is a great community center. They offer all sorts of community classes such as pottery, painting, beading, other arts & crafts, and are host to a number of community arts, dance and music events. In addition to Dakota Valley Symphony, they have been host to Holiday On Main put on the Lakeville City Business Association, where local dance studios and other businesses take the stage.

This year we were slated to perform 4 Summer Pops concerts:

Antler Park, Stillwater 4th of July, Caponi Art Park, and MN Zoo as part of Dakota Electric's Customer Appreciation event.

songwind has already written about Antler Park. I'd have to say that's among my favorite venues as well, probably because it's so close to my house *chuckle*. But it's a good park, and shade for musicians, shade is good!

I've performed the Stillwater performance a couple of times, but for a number of reasons, I've had to bow out of that one pretty much permanently. Between transportation, parking, family, and standing plans that do not change around the 4th of July - I just can't do it. However, *that*, it an incredible performance. It's set along the banks of the St. Croix just next to the bridge in Stillwater and the gazebo. It's a beautiful setting, and it is by far our largest attended concert of the year.

Caponi Art Park is the setting of our third concert. This is the location I must be fated to never see. Unfortunately it's also the one I desperately want to play at considering I'm an artist as well as a musician! How cool to play in and amongst all that art! (Speaking of I should probably fix my website and get my art back up there). This year, I was all psyched to play the Caponi Art Park concert, but alas, it was rained out, and the rain date, the 15th of July, was right in the middle of when I would be in California. Woops.

The MN Zoo is the site of our 4th concert this season. Unfortunately, it too, was rained out, and this one did not have a rain date set aside. We need the rain in MN, so I can't complain too hard, but still...it would have been nice to play that concert (even though I was in no shape to play that particular day having fallen down the stairs the night before).

I wish we had more performances this summer. We had to good of a program to only play it 4 (well, 3) times. It was Cartoon Classics this summer, and we had Looney Toones favorites, and Flinstones Meet the Jetsons. Of course, it wasn't all cartoon music - we performed an early John Williams' piece entitled Midway March and one of my favorites: Star Trek: Through the Years....and Suppe's Light Cavalry Overture. Cowboys and space...*grin* gotta love it...oh wait...wasn't that a TV show *big wink*? I keep saying - we need to do a concert with Firefly/Serenty in it.




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*dreamy look*

This piece.

*happy*

This is a piece I have wanted to sing for years, but was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to sing it. They sang it in the University Chorus the semester after I left...and sang it in the group I sang with in Muncie, IN (not Ball State) just before I got there. By the time I moved up to MN, I wasn't regularly singing with a chorus anymore....and then when I joined Dakota Valley Symphony and realized that there was a chorus that was part and parcel of the organization (another thing you don't normally see as part of a community symphony organization, folks, I'm telling you, this organization is special and unique), I promised myself that if we ever performed the Carmina Burana I was going to sing in that concert!

The 2005-2006 Season saw that dream/hope/opportunity come to life. Our March concert, we were going to be performing excerpts from the Carmina Burana as part of our annual fundraiser concert with silent auction. I asked permission to sing for that one piece for that concert, and as given the ok, encouraged to please play violin for the rest, as violins were needed for the rest of the concert. At that point I think I would have happily played a harmonica or tambourine for the opportunity to sing the Carmina Burana.

That concert was not without its challenges. I had been diagnosed with seizures in November 2005, and had my license taken away for 6+ months due to a seizure in September 2005, so I needed to arrange transportation with a fellow chorus member. I also didn't have the energy to go to rehearsals twice a week as rehearsals were on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights, so I was allowed to make arrangments to split time.

But it came together. We had a special guest for that concert. Mindy Ratner from MPR was our special guest announcer. She did so with the request that she also sing with us for the Carmina Burana as the Minnesota Chorale was *also* performing the Carmina Burana not just that season, but within the next few weeks! She also loved that piece, and would love the opportunity to sing it with us as well, could she? So not only did I get to sing with the tremendously talented chorus members of DVS, but also with Mindy Ratner. What a gracious lady.

As were our soloists for the Carmina Burana. My goodness. Wow! Amazing amazing voices. Wonderful people.

And I can definitely say that about our special guests. They have all been really wonderful musicians, but wonderful people too. A number of them have returned time and time and time again. Ariana Kim is one in particular who returns to us often.

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I had someone post anonymously in my journal asking if I would write about singing, and in particular singing with DVS and the Carmina Burana.

I'll write about singing in this post, and about the Carmina Burana in my next post. *chuckle* The Carmina Burana deserves a post all on its own.

I've mentioned before that I've sung throughout the years, and I have. I've sung in my Church choir in middle and high school, and some in college, culminating in singing in 3 Masses/services between 2-3 Churches per week. Then I sang in the University Chorus at USC, and took Class Voice. But I was not a music major. Why? I don't know. I had my heart set on being Marine Biologist (funny that, I didn't end up doing that either ;) ). My whole life to that point had revolved around three things: music, science, and math....

I went to USC through the Resident Honors Program. It was a program by which you enter college your Senior year of high school. I did not go to Calabasas High that year, rather was a full freshman at USC...only returning to CHS to walk through graduation. I was still under 18, so I felt that when my parents said I couldn't be in band, I had to listen. So I bargained with them to let me be in University Chorus. I figured if I couldn't have band, I *had* to have some kind of music in my day.

I started off in the 2nd Alto section, but didn't stay there. Dr. Wilson rapidly moved me into 2nd Soprano, and then eventually 1st Soprano. Apparently my voice just needed working out. It's not that I couldn't sing 2nd Alto anymore, it's just that I wasn't comfortable there, and I was easily singing the higher notes.

There' s a story about the Rodney King riots, Stop Day, class vocalizations, "All I Ask of You" from Phantom of the Opera and Class Voice in there somewhere as well. *chuckle*. It was *wonderful*. It was my escape, and I *still* hear the soprano who sang most of the solos singing in my head near Christmas time. I've mentioned Dr. Wilson before - he encouraged an 80 piece chorus of non-music majors to stretch our wings and sing difficult choral works. We sang Hovanness' Magnificat, and Pinkham, and gosh, lots of stuff and didn't think twice about what we should or shouldn't have been able to do.

(So when, at Ball State, I was faced with a director who would present us with nothing but unison 2-3 part harmony works, needless to say, I was less than impressed)....that being said - under a different director at Ball State I found someone who was more like Dr. Wilson who challenged each one of us to sing to our fullest capabilities.


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