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Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47162]

Wed, 28 December 2011 20:26

jmeadows
Messages: 3174
Registered: September 2008
Location: Virginia, USA

Senior Member
[Moderator]

Singing and Leftover Turkey

Smooshes!

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47163 is a reply to message #47162 ]

Wed, 28 December 2011 20:48

SarahAllegra
Messages: 31
Registered: February 2011
Location: Los Angeles

Member

Am I the only one whose natural reactions to any kind of flash mobs is to cry? I can't explain why, there's just something about the joyful, giving nature of them that absolutely gets to me.

Sarah

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47164 is a reply to message #47163 ]

Wed, 28 December 2011 21:08

Jacky
Messages: 34
Registered: October 2011

Member

I was not totally honest about the singing thing. Yes we really did this, but there is more.

First, I was born in 1961 - the year "The Sound of Music" came out. This deeply affected my mom, who felt it necessary to buy and learn to play the guitar and to produce an additional 3 (she already had 3) children to sing with. We were sung to constantly. We sang with her at most times. She even wrote us a lullaby or 2.

Unfortunately, even with all this singing, the best of us siblings had at most a mediocre ear and ability to sing. I was always the solid last one in the back row alto. Thank goodnes I was tall.

But what I and my sisters did get from all this singing was that if you wanted it, and worked at it, singing could be a joy to both the singer and the listener. And we could stand having people pay attention to us.

I am sorry that more people don't sing for themselves. Especially not me. But one of my knitting buddies is trying to get me to sing with her chorus, so maybe....

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47165 is a reply to message #47164 ]

Wed, 28 December 2011 21:21

Melissa Mead
Messages: 997
Registered: October 2008
Location: Albany, NY, USA

Senior Member

"FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, WOMAN, YOU NEED TO LEARN TO KNIT."

You're addressing someone who got kicked out of Home Ec on the first day because she couldn't sew on a button (despite being kept after school.) Who once embroidered a sampler- into her leg. And you want to trust me with giant needles? Wink

Member of Carpe Libris: http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47168 is a reply to message #47162 ]

Wed, 28 December 2011 22:56

Julia
Messages: 532
Registered: October 2008
Location: Library School

Senior Member

Quote:

They’re getting holey, but I won’t throw them out.
FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, WOMAN, YOU NEED TO LEARN TO KNIT.

Hey, I'm learning to knit and I can tell you that there's no guarantee that there won't still be holes! The scarf I'm working on is full of them...

(I'm not so good at this knitting thing yet. But it's fun.)

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47169 is a reply to message #47162 ]

Wed, 28 December 2011 23:04

katinseattle
Messages: 377
Registered: November 2008
Location: Seattle

Senior Member

Quote:

Watching these people singing the Hallelujah Chorus this time I was thinking, I bet I can pick out which are the actual choir members and which are the audience singing along.

Funny, I was doing the same thing. What I came up with was, the choir members opened their mouths wide and let it out. Bystanders just sort of moved their lips.

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47170 is a reply to message #47165 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 00:47

Diane in MN
Messages: 2758
Registered: October 2008
Location: Twin Cities, MN, USA

Senior Member

Melissa Mead wrote on Wed, 28 December 2011 20:21

Sewing is ARCHITECTURAL. Sewing is WORK. Knitting is playing with lovely soft generally-friendly yarn. And most knitting needles don't draw blood. Smile

_{"The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough . . . " Louise Erdrich}

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47171 is a reply to message #47162 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 01:03

Diane in MN
Messages: 2758
Registered: October 2008
Location: Twin Cities, MN, USA

Senior Member

She invests what she sings, even when it’s something that she doesn’t herself sing. I don’t invest—even when it’s something I’m (supposedly) working on.

Professionals have to get comfortable wearing their hearts (or their characters' hearts) on their sleeves in front of total strangers. I don't think this is an easy thing for most people to do. As a writer, you do it on the page, but even though you're writing for publication, it seems to me that that's a very different thing from opening up emotionally to an audience that's physically present.

_{"The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough . . . " Louise Erdrich}

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47172 is a reply to message #47171 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 01:20

EMoon
Messages: 670
Registered: March 2009

Senior Member

Yes. And particularly opening up when you're trying to overcome a lifetime's suggestion that you should not be heard.

I had an odd experience in my most recent voice lesson. It was toward the end, and I was telling Svengali about something crazy I'd done with a friend earlier in the day--making up a song to the "Can-Can" music that came on the radio as we were stuck at a stoplight (a very long one, as it involved a train.) And he said "Sing it for me." And I did (only the tune morphed into another one) and he lit up and said "I really like that--you're singing it with feeling and it's very musical." (Considering that the lyrics consisted of "Bad words, I can sing bad words, I can sing bad words, whenever I want to!" with minor variations to fit parts of the original music, I wasn't at all convinced it was musical but he was.)

So over the holiday break, since I'm often singing conversations with Richard anyway (we've done this for years) I started trying to invest them with more emotion and musicality...last night it was the "No more crackers! The crackers, the crackers, are all gone." We had a whole dramatic scene going on in the kitchen, and then we fell apart laughing.

Clearly, when not bothering with anything but trying to stay close to good vowels and "make it musical" I can do something I'm not doing in lessons (or choir.) At least I'm invested in it--conveying the annoyance of waiting a long time at a red light, or the longing for crackers...but can I get that into a song that tells me what emotion to be emoting?

E.

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47174 is a reply to message #47170 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 06:43

Melissa Mead
Messages: 997
Registered: October 2008
Location: Albany, NY, USA

Senior Member

Diane in MN wrote on Thu, 29 December 2011 00:47

Melissa Mead wrote on Wed, 28 December 2011 20:21

Sewing is ARCHITECTURAL. Sewing is WORK. Knitting is playing with lovely soft generally-friendly yarn. And most knitting needles don't draw blood. Smile

Although if they CAN, you can be sure I'll find a way. Wink

My sister did try to teach me to crochet once. Sad...

Member of Carpe Libris: http://carpelibris.wordpress.com/

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47176 is a reply to message #47174 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 10:39

claning
Messages: 266
Registered: February 2010
Location: California

Senior Member

Well, there is no Great Universal Law of the Universe that says everyone HAS to learn to knit. But many people do find it enjoyable, and it's a good way to (eventually) get some really nifty socks.... (Admittedly, argyles are rather an advanced sort of sock, so you'd have to work up to them...)

O Chris Laning <claning@igc.org> - Davis, California
+

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Re: Singing and Leftover Turkey [message #47177 is a reply to message #47162 ]

Thu, 29 December 2011 10:50

AJLR
Messages: 2582
Registered: September 2008
Location: England, UK

Senior Member
[Moderator]

Quote:

She invests what she sings, even when it’s something that she doesn’t herself sing. I don’t invest—even when it’s something I’m (supposedly) working on. I stand there like a little plank with a sort of weak buzzing noise coming out the top end.

This sounds somewhat similar to the difference between my own attempts at playing the piano and that of my piano teacher. Mine always sounds - well, it always is - slightly hesitant and much less sonorous than his. I know this is because I'm hesitant and it therefore comes over in my touch, whereas he is in the music and dedicated to making it complete. I just wish I could get the same tones out of the piano that he does. I suppose it will come, one of these years. Smile

_{"Never let a computer know you're in a hurry."}

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