instrumental music

ohiblather asked how people feel about instrumental music (playing or listening). (Yes, voice is an instrument too, and probably my best, but that's not the focus here.) Sure, get me going. :-)

I enjoy playing instrumental music, and have composed some and arranged a bunch more. My primary instrument is hammer dulcimer, with which I'm competent. But what I lack in skill I try to make up for in spirit. :-)

For listening, it depends on context. For "attentive listening", such as at a performance, I connect best if I can perceive that the musicians are connecting with it. A great example of this is Homespun Celeidh Band, dglenn's group, but performers don't have to be as physically active as they are to convey that they are into the music, either. I also enjoy music where the sheer intensity comes through, which requires a different performance style. Either way, though, I find it harder to perceive this connection between the performer and the music (even though it may well be there) in larger groups, like orchestras, so I don't generally enjoy performances of classical music. As background music to listen to on a CD, though, I do enjoy it.

And against all my predictions based on the preceeding, I find that I enjoy some modern electronic music even if, for all I know, it's purely computer-programmed or something. I enjoy the works of Christopher Franke, for example, though I have no clue how he produces them. Every now and then I noodle around with my computer in that musical space, but I don't know what I'm doing and I've never produced anything worth preserving.

When On the Mark started we were uncertain if people would sit still for instrumental music at performances, particularly at cons. (In the SCA, sure (somewhat). Cons? Not so much.) We tend to be fairly conservative -- one instrumental piece for about every 3-4 songs, and songs are on average a little longer. We've gotten mixed responses, but some people very much enjoy the instrumental music. I think mixing instrumental and vocal pieces in a concert (or on a recording) works best if your vocal pieces tend to also have rich instrumentation, so it's not as much of a change. We strive for that -- don't always succeed, but we try. This means we're doing less with vocal harmonies because people are busy playing instruments, though, so there are definitely trade-offs.

food fun

The Worship Committee decided to hold a congregational Shabbat dinner on December 31 (ending early enough not to interfere with parties). We decided to strike a balance between cost and "luck of the draw" by serving a main course and having people bring sides. (The main course will be fish, to avoid the meat/dairy problems that would otherwise result.) I asked the person at the synagogue who usually arranges for catering to look into this.

(Time passes.)

Her: It's a holiday; we can't find anyone. Do you think you could get a few volunteers from the committee to cook the main dish? (The clear implication was that she feared this would be too much work.)

What I thought: Cook one dish for probably under 100 people? Sure, I can do that myself standing on one foot! (But won't, because kitchen accidents are bad.)

What I said: I think we can arrange that.

SCA feast experience comes to the rescue again. :-)

(I am not actually going to do it myself, because it's good to involve other people in things like this. My co-chair and I will do it together.)

Thursday bits (protest, DSL, feline antics)

Tonight while driving through Squirrel Hill I noticed a large crowd walking up the sidewalk. As I parked the group reached me and I saw that they were protesting the war ("no blood for oil" being the pervasive chant). I walked with them for a block or so, raising the average age a bit, before veering off for groceries. It occurred to me only later that its placement on Veterans' Day was probably not an accident.

Our usually-reliable DSL service has been having random short outages for the last several weeks. (Usually 10-15 minutes, a few times a week.) I'm not sure how to test whether it's the DSL service itself or our 5-year-old modem, though, short of acquiring a test modem. So I sent mail to our provider asking if they had other reports and/or debugging hints. (I noticed in passing that their service hours now end at 8PM. I've had productive conversations with them at midnight in the past. Oh well. 8PM is reasonable; I'd just gotten used to hacker hours.)

Ok, Embla is capable of making normal meowing sounds, as opposed to that quiet chirpy thing she usually does. It just has to be Important. Like, say, being trapped between the window and the screen on a cold evening. For calibration purposes, the time a contractor sealed her into a wall she was silent for a long time, even though I was in the room calling her.

(What was she doing there tonight? Well, our sink was plugged up, so we had initiated chemical warfare, but the chemicals gave off mustard gas or something, and we had to open the windows to help with dispersion. I didn't notice the cat on the windowsill when I pushed the window closed later. Fortunately, she was quick to alert me.)