When this year’s Christmahanukwanzaakah concert was announced, I was ready to do something different.
I’ve done piano stuff for the past three years. In my mind, it was starting to get stale.
This year I decided to (perhaps drink a beer and) sing while I play. Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a singer. This was going to be a potentially horrifying and humbling experience! Can you feel the sizzle?!
I grabbed the guitar chords for this song and got to work. (At the piano. I *have* had dreams during which I’m an awesome cellist, but alas. A string player I am not. (Yet.)) (I know. Some people consider the piano to be a string instrument. Potato, Potahto.)
Get this. I quickly discovered that the key was a bit too high, so I TRANSPOSED it to better suit my inner tenor canary. (I tell you this just so you know how SERIOUS I was.)
Last week I set the camera up and did a trial run. My camera picked up the piano, but not my voice. I moved the camera. Once again, piano, but no voice. I tried again while SCREAMING the song all spoken word style. No luck. With no time to work up anything else on the piano, I let my shoulders sink and decided to skip this year’s concert.
Wait. That link deserves more attention.
Click right here to be taken to this year’s concert. As always, Neil has done an amazing job of putting it all together. (Be sure to check out his contribution, too!)
Yesterday afternoon the girls came home from school and announced that they are playing Christmas songs on the piano at the school-wide assembly. This is the holiday assembly that found me crying and beating my hands against my thighs two years ago. Please know that at approximately 2:00 this afternoon, I am going to be the disaster standing in the back of the elementary school gymnasium. Immediately following the assembly I will need to get myself together so I’m not This Mom at the holiday parties. (Psst. I know he’s not a mom.)
If I can get a decent video of this afternoon’s performances, I’ll share them with you. With that said, please know that I’ve taken about 3,293,493 photos in that fluorescent lighted gymnasium, and none of them have turned out. (I really wish I knew how to work a camera. Goal for 2012. Right after “Make the fingernails feel like you care about them.”) ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
I did that fingernail one last year! I thought manicures were an expense. I would even use it as an illustration of how NOT pampered I am. “It isn’t like I am getting manicures every week!”. So, a regular manicure costs $10 around here. I would go every 2-3 weeks and then paint them myself once in between. $10 ish /month isn’t really that bad and when the cuticles weren’t dry, I wouldn’t pick at them, they wouldn’t bleed and look like zombie hands and I kept them out of my mouth which is a nasty habit anyway. My nails looked nice a lot of the time! I recommend that resolution. I may adopt your camera one. Flash on – dark picture. Flash off – fuzzy picture (when it comes to school auditoriums). That needs to be fixed.
1. For two years my resolution has been this: lotion on hands and feet, chapstick on lips EVERY DAY. I get flak for it, but it’s such a simple thing that I can do that really does make a difference.
2. I got a manicure yesterday but not for vanity. Well, sort of for vanity because we have a family portrait tomorrow. But mostly because I’m knitting with silk and it keeps snagging on my hangnails. Gross.
3. I have sobbed through all 3 Christmas concerts my son has been in. Children singing, even on the radio, and I’m a blubbering mess. I carry kleenex with me everywhere this season because every little bit of Christmas magic makes me cry. This morning my 3 year old and I made marshmallows. When it turned from brown liquid to fluffy white clouds, he said it was Christmas Magic that made it work. I had to turn away so he wouldn’t see me crying.
4. Try tapping out some Dave Brubek time signatures this year. Like Blue Rondo ala Turk, which is in 5/4 and 9/6 (I think).
5. Preschool teachers LOVED their Berocco Link scarves. Thanks for the idea!
6. Merry Christmas!
Aw, darn. There’s always next year.
I like the resolution also. I’m going to learn to work a camera. I got a camera and started carrying it around with the plan to document every moment and…well, that one went by the wayside.
But there’s always next year. Well, not always but you know what I mean.