I've Been Tagged...

Damn you, Chuck!

I usually don't participate in stuff like this much, but for Chuck, well....

tag--I'm it!

The rules are: Once you have been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird or random things, facts, or habits about yourself. At the end, you choose 5 people to be tagged, list their names, and why you chose them to be tagged. Don't forget to leave a comment that says, "You are tagged" on their profile and to read your latest blog. HAVE FUN!

1. I'm a white tornado when I'm overly-stressed or frustrated (moreso that the usual). I blitz-clean everything in my path.
2. I live in my car. I keep everything in there. As much as I hate to have a gas-guzzling SUV, my car is comfy and the storage space is a necessity. If I could afford it, I'd get another subaru station wagon. Until then, I try not to think of the gas prices and just enjoy my nice mid-sized SUV.
3. I eat crap food - and love it. Fried, fattening food is a staple of my diet. Not necessarily just because I love it, but mostly because it's cheap and convenient. Once in a while, I'll go to Subway and get a healthier sandwich with apple slices just so I don't keel over with a coronary.
4. I wear my red Chuck Taylor high-tops with everything, if possible. even got my quartet to wear then in their own colors.
5. I need to get my "have-to"s done before I can relax. I can't chill without knowing there's stuff I'll have to get myself motivated to do later.
6. I'm very possessive about my laptop. It's my new security blanket. I've let Sonya use it a lot lately, but she's the only one I trust with it.
7. I can't let a photo just remain "as-shot". I have to PhotoShop it at least a little. And I'm a wiz at it. Check out my quartet's web page to see: www.codahonorquartet.com
8. If I had the time, I'd probably blog all day long.
9. Now that storage space on my computer is rarely a huge concern, I save alost every file - usually multiple versions - on my computer. I have stuff going back YEARS. Especially documents. But I always file them in an orderly fashion. Conversely, I clean up and defrag my hard drive about every 2 weeks of stuff I'm fairly sure I'll never use.
10. I'm a sucker for peer pressure, apparently.

I herby tag the following:
Sonya - because she has SO much time for crap like this (smirk)!
Charlie - because he hasn't blogged in a while
Lou - I'm curious to see if he can come up with quirks I don't know about
KT - because she just eats this kinds stuff up.
Paulie B. - because he love self-defamation and introspection

Missing old friends…

I've been meaning to get to this subject for a long time...

Every once in a while when I get a moment's peace, I find myself thinking about aspects of my youth that I dearly miss. I've often opined about them here. Topics like missing the concept of truly "free" time, bemoaning adult responsibilities, and the like are frequent fodder for my meandering blogs.

Recently, however, I find myself missing the one aspect of my youth that can't simply be blamed on growing up, and that is losing dear friends.

Now, I'm not talking about untimely death or anything so morbid. I refer to something even more unfortunate and sorrowful. I mean losing touch with or alienating people who mean the world to me, or at least in some way keep me connected to the happy memories of my past, through pride, selfishness, or worse - apathy.

It has often been said that one's life is like a play, with each player having their entrances and exits. I don't buy it. If life is like a play, then I'm the star and director, and I want every cast member to stay on the stage somewhere and end with a full cast finale.

Over the years, I have lost some very dear friends – some who I even consider family – to poor decisions or even LACK of decisions on my part. Through my own actions or inactions, important people in my life have fallen aside, and that's a thought that pains me like no other. Be it by a hasty word said in anger or a simple e-mail or phone call I neglected to return, these souls have drifted from my life like a balloon whose string I lost my grasp on.

The wonders of technology have enabled me to reconnect with many of these people. Family and friends I haven't heard from in weeks, months, and in many cases, years can now be reached by a few simple keystrokes. MySpace, E-mail, instant messaging have all made it easier than ever to regain my grip on many of those balloon strings and tie them to my wrists. Easy enough for the ones who just drifted away, but what of the ones I drove away and thus refuse to return?

There aren't many of them. I may be irritating from time to time, but I rarely anger people to the point of them not wanting anything to do with me. There are a few, though, who I have driven away or have driven themselves away – and their absence hurts most of all.

As time marches on, the reasons for it become irrelevant. Even the details of the situations leading up to our parting ways fade to a vague memory, but the emotional wounds do not as easily heal. I constantly reexamine the reasons why.

Was I wrong?

If so, did I apologize enough?

Sincerely enough? Should I contact them out of the blue and try again, and risk having the door shut in my face again?

In the end, I do what most do. I sit back and wait for the other party to come around. Hoping…praying that they will see what I see: that it hurts far more not to be there than to endure the memories of words that fade into nothing over time.

Friendships – TRUE friendships – are more precious than diamonds, more necessary than air, and more fulfilling than the greatest of selfish joys. I do not discard them willingly. They must be wrestled from me. Torn forcibly from my hands. But I will not force myself on someone. If they choose to discard my friendship, it will always be here for them to reclaim. Tattered and torn a bit around the edges, perhaps, but waiting to be rediscovered and rebuilt for them alone.

By now I'm sure you all surmise that I'm referring to a specific incident/person(s). Why else would someone write a melancholy blog like this. Yes, I've been thinking of a dear, lost friend lately, whom I truly miss.

I'm to cowardly to force myself on anyone, so I wait like a puppy looking out the window, hoping.

Someday, this grand prize of a friendship will be picked up, brushed off, and displayed proudly again.

Until then, one of my most treasured trophies lies in the dustbin

So Much to Blog, So Little Time – Part II: Recreational Frustration

Okay, lately I honestly don't have much to bitch about here. Sonya and the kids went to Pennsylvania just a couple weeks ago to visit her aunt and cousins, leaving me all by my lonesome to tear up the state in a fit of reckless abandon (well, relatively for me anyway). I was able to visit with an old friend, have a nice long rehearsal with my quartet without much time restriction, and even hit the karaoke bar with my best friend.

Usually when I complain about not getting to do the things I want to do, it's because I'm either too busy with work or other obligations or I need to spend every available moment at home with my family, as said "free time" is so sparse in my life these days. This time, however, my "poor me" tirade is primarily based on funding and minor events largely beyond control.

Two weekends ago was the Barbershop Harmony Society's International Convention, this year held in Denver, CO. I have never been to an international convention and I hear stories from friends and veteran barbershoppers alike about how great the performances are, how much fun the afterglows can be, and tales of singing in the hotel lobbies till the wee hours of the morning with barbershoppers from all over the country. Basically everything I enjoy about our Pioneer District conventions, but on an international scale at about 20 times the size.

The biggest barrier to my enjoying such a festival of geektidute, is the prohibitive expense and distance. My dad has been to several of these and has been encouraging me to get to one since I started in the Society several years ago, even going so far as to offer to pay my expenses (not sure he thought that one through very well). All of the usual expenses of my semi-annual trip to whatever in-state location is hosting the district convention are compounded exponentially. Food, hotel, travel costs, tickets, and various miscellany, not to mention the money lost from time off of work, can incinerate my wallet at the mere thought when you double the duration, distance, number of events and ticket costs of the trip.

Thus far, the closest international convention to he has been Indianapolis (which I honestly should have gone to), but aside from the cost and distance, there is the absolutely HORRIBLE timing of the event. They are always held the week of July 4^th...every year.

While I suppose it makes sense to plan a convention of this magnitude during a week when most folks plan for a vacation anyway, those of us who work for a living (as opposed to the tidal wave of retirees that flood such a convention) and have sparse vacation time – if any at all – would like to try and spend some of that precious free time with our families.

If you've ever experienced an addiction like Barbershop or Drum Corps, you know that at these kind of events you want to fly from activity to activity and do every spontaneous thing that comes up. It's stimulation overload, like a kid at a crnival, and being tied to the family and attending to their wants and needs inevitably "cramps your style" in such situations. It usually becomes a choice of doing what you want and force-feeding them your mania, ditching them to do the stuff you love and leaving them feeling abandoned and neglected, or missing what you perceive to be all the cool stuff and feeling like you may as well have stayed home. Neither option is particularly appealing and even compromise can leave both sides disappointed.

Another side-effect of having the convention during Independence Day week is that local festivals get the shaft. Inevitably, I get a several calls a year for our quartet for that week from local events planners hoping to add a touch of old-style Americana to a 4th of July event. As our Lead is always at the international convention, competing with the Macomb Chapter's chorus, I'm forced to decline. When they ask for suggestions, I them to hit the quartet locator on the Society's web page, but tell them it's unlikely they'll find any quartet with a full compliment for the job.

Next year is in Nashville. I'm already planning my funding for it (read: I'm casing liquor stores and pricing ski masks). My dad is already planning to go. My aunt and uncle live a few hours from there, so I can coordinate a trip to see them (for the 2^nd time in about 18 years). I may also have a good friend out that way by then, if he gets the job he's hoping for.

Other recreational frustration involves my journey to see His Royal Weirdness, "Weird Al" Yankovic this past Wednesday in Lansing at the Common Ground Music Festival. A great show, as always, and I enjoyed most of it. There were a million little things, however, that didn't go as I had set up in my mind and led to some disappointment.

I had this great scheme in my mind of leaving work at 4, heading home to help pack up the kids, hit the road at 4:30 (thus just missing rush hour), and getting to the festival at 6. Being 2 ½ hours early for the festival, we could lay claim to a good spot for the general admission, outdoor concert, and enjoy some other aspects of the festival. In that time, I figured I'd hook up with my friend Charlie and we could hang with his family, as he has kids about my kids' age. Plans I apparently should have relayed to Sonya in more detail and with more emphasis than I did.

As it was, I left work at 4 and got home to find the kids mostly ready and Sonya on the computer researching the festival a bit further. My best friend Lou decided to join our carload and arrived about 4:40, which added a bit of brief contention as a deviation from the blueprint Sonya had in her mind. We hit the road about 5:15, and despite having just eaten, the kids were "STARVING" as Liam put it, so we hit the Taco Bell drive-thru. I suggested quesadillas, but they whined about burrito kids meals. Sonya suggested giving them what they asked for so they would actually EAT IT (refference intended). About 5 miles down the freeway, Courtney proceeded to empty the contents of her burrito all over her shirt, pants, and carseat, necessitating a stop. We hit the road again, getting snagged in mild rush hour traffic. We got to Lansing about 7pm and park about 2 blocks from the festival. Lou, Liam and I hop out of the car, and I'm already frustrated and antsy. Sonya, gathering her stuff and spraying un bug spray, clues in on this and offers to get Courtney cleaned up while Liam and I go ahead to scout a spot.

What we didn't realize was that our parking spot, while close to the performance stage, was 5 blocks from the entrance, which was at the OPPOSITE end of the huge park from the stage. We walk about ¼ mile to the entrance, get my ticket and leave Sonya's at the box office in an envelope with her name on it. After a huge line and security check, we get into the park and call Charlie, hoping to find him and thus, the stage.

After a bit of phone tag, we get there and discover that while Charlie was in the 6^th row or so, having arrived at 6-ish (as I had planned to), the only available spots were about 5 light years back, requiring the Hubbell Telescope to see the stage. It was also right next to the playground, which proved convenient at first, but a major challenge after the concert started and Liam kept wanting to run off and play.

Other than that, the only real annoyance was having to have Liam on my shoulders for the entire concert so he could see. He got a better view than I did, as I kept having to bob and weave between heads to see the stage at all.

One thing I hate about summer is that there are always events and concerts I want to go to that I just don't have the time or money for.

Que sera, sera. I better start planning the minute-by-minute detailed itinerary and saving up now for next summer's events...

Wow. For not having much to bitch about, this is a helluva long blog entry. Guess that'll happen when you take a week to write it.

So Much to Blog, So Little Time – Part I: Professional Frustration

This weekend has been so mind-numbingly busy, that I have chosen to take one of my morning constitutionals to the coffee shop to play MySpace catch-up. I woke up at 7am, took a quick shower, and got here ASAP to read up on all of the blogs I have missed over the past week or so. In doing so, I have been reminded of the thousand-and-one things I have wanted to blog about over the past week or two, an likely STILL won't have time to write about. After spending 2 hours reading blogs and writing a few comments, here it is, 9:15am. With 45 minutes to get to work, I'll probably barely scratch the surface of what I want to write about, so this will probably be a multi-part blog written over several days.

Okay, professional frustration. There are a bunch of levels on this subject that have been digging under my skin like rabid, mutant ticks lately. At the risk of another whiney blog, latent with complaints and "woe is me" stories, I shall vent thusly:

First and foremost, for the first time in about 14 years, I find myself WITHOUT a marching band job for the fall. The band I have worked with for the past 3 ½ years, like all too many others, hit the budgetary chopping block, and I was the appendage to be severed. Every other staff member has been retained, but I was let go. At first, I disappointedly let it roll off my back, citing facts to myself like, "I was the only staff member that WASN'T a caption head", "the other wind instructor is a T.A. paid by the district payroll and not the band budget", "this is happening all over, I'm not the only one", etc..

Then it started to get to me. I was the only one there capable of running an effective sectional or rehearsal with ANY of the sections without just saying, "play through this number…okay again…okay again…(ad nauseum)". Was there some other reason? I had heard there were some rumblings of dissatisfaction with something I had said or done last year. I got this third party from my advisor at Wayne State when she tried to place me at this school for my practicum and student teaching. I got nothing solid or ANY details (which is the frustrating standard for WSU – particularly the music department), but there was some reason I couldn't be placed there that was political. Beyond that, I was never contacted by the director this year, despite the fact that she had said she'd drop me a line with the season details and schedule in May. I had to contact her.

My biggest pet peeve is when someone has a problem with me, but won't confront me with it and just either lets it stew and fester, or worse, takes it out on me surreptitiously. I'm a reasonable guy and usually very open to constructive criticism. If you have a problem with me or something I did, tell me. I'll do my best (especially in an employment or educational situation) to repair the damage or change my behavior in the future. I'm there to get better at what I do, and adjusting to others' teaching or operating style is part of the job. As good as I think I am at reading people, I misjudge from time to time. All I need is a friendly hint of what to do different next time and, after blushing with a bit of embarrassment, I'll make the necessary adjustments. I'm not prone to blowing up at people (unless the aforementioned festering or surreptitious back-stabbing occurs). The same applies to friendships.

So here I am, the only bit of professional gratification I get for the year (in my chosen field) taken from me, no prospects for other bands, and pretty much every other band fully staffed or under-funded to the point of not being able to pay me what I am worth or would even financially justify the time and gas to do it.

Gives new meaning to "Trickle-down Economics".

If any of you know of a band that needs an instructor – winds, visual, or general purpose – PLEASE let me know! It leads to a crazy busy fall for me, but it's the only chance I get to remind me why I got into Music Education in the first place. The best part of being a lowly band tech is that I get all of the benefits (sans monetary) of the job with none of the hassles. I get to teach students, impart my wisdom, and utilize teaching and performance techniques I have gathered over the years to improve and guide young musicians, but never have to deal with budgets, lesson plans, administration, or (at least so I thought) the political bullshit entwined with the position of band director. The director tells me what needs to be accomplished, and I use my knowledge and experience to get results – and I DO get results.

Things are tough all over, but it never occurred to me that they would end up hitting my fall marching band gig. I suppose I should have gotten suspicious when, for the first year ever, I wasn't contacted about ANY other gigs or camps.

God, I hope this is just about budgets and not about my reputation as an instructor.

Further frustration involves my job at Custom Music. With the boss screaming for a pointless and often discarded inventory, he has decreed that I not bring my computer to work (hence my backlog of blog material and other computer related communication). This is to ensure that I am working on the inventory every possible minute. More likely, it's to quell the complaints from one of the salesmen who loves to hover over everyone's shoulder and check, double check, undo, and redo everyone's work. He then proceeds to complain that he doesn't have time to do his own various duties.

The thing I hate about this inventory bullshit, aside from the fact that it is never used for anything other than to give the owner a sense of gratification to see a nice fat stack of paper itemizing what he has acquired, is the time it takes. When we first did the full inventory 3 years ago, it took 3 of us a full 2 weeks of doing nothing but inventory. Now, it's just me doing it in between customer repairs, servicing horns for conventions, designing ads, making web page updates, shipping, receiving and whatever other pointless, redundant, or otherwise useless tasks they interrupt me with. The boss doesn't get that, no matter how many times I relay that information to him, and asks me at least 5 times a day if I'm done yet. I try to chalk it up to the fact that he's 90+ years old, sick, and feeble-minded, but it doesn't make it any less infuriating. Couple that with the brain-dead salesman who can barely tie his own shoes or wipe his own ass, interrupting me to help him with the simplest and most menial of tasks, and I'm ready to tear my hair out. This guy is a combination of Bill Lumberg from Office Space and a whiny, demanding 2-year-old in every irritating way.

Thankfully, Blockbuster is still Blockbuster, and my one (though ill-paying) professional island of adequacy. I'm appreciated and liked by my boss, coworkers, and customers alike, and usually look forward to my shifts. The district manager has yet to follow through with utilizing me for training purposed or reward me with anything but a grateful slap on the back (that and a buck fifty will get me a cup of coffee), but the day-to-day there is still pretty nice.

This ends my professional opining…for now

Coming up next: So Much to Blog, So Little Time – Part II: Recreational Frustration

Weekend at Paulie’s ...

Many of you likely saw my bulletin on Friday asking for volunteers to help me paint the town red (or whatever color was cheapest) this past weekend, as Sonya and the kids headed out to her cousin's graduation party. I received several invitations from friends relatively close by, and a handful of condolences from folks impractically far away. All were greatly appreciated, and a few of them turned into wonderful evenings of escapism for me. I had a great weekend!

Thursday night, I came home from work about 11pm and stayed up until 5am re-recording myself singing my arrangement of Rainbow Connection – all 4 parts – into my computer. As fatigue caught up with me and the empty beer cans piled around me (actually, only 4), my confidence in my new recoding grew. Funny thing about beer, fatigue and confidence… I woke up the next morning about ½ late for work and listened to the recording on my laptop when I got there. Not exactly how I remembered it. No, not a drunken tirade expounding on the merits of Jaleel White's deep and subtext laden portrayal of Urkel or anything, but just not quite as good as I remember. Oh well, I had fun doing it, even if it did end up as a waste of 5 hours.

The next day was my usual Friday schedule: work both jobs from 10am till 10:30pm. Nothing surprising there, though it was pleasantly calm and peaceful at Custom Music for a change. I checked my e-mail on a break at Blockbuster to find an invite from Nyma suggesting I join her and husband Todd to watch her brother's band perform at a bar nearby. I also got a message from Melanie asking for my cell number, to which I replied in kind. Woo-hoo! Stuff to do!

After work, I called Nyma's cell, only to get her voice mail, then headed towards the bar she mentioned by way of Meijer to return a cartful of deposits and grab some bottled water for the next day's quartet rehearsal. I got a quick call back saying they were just leaving, as her husband, Todd, had to be up early for work, and that her brother had just announced his engagement to his long-time girlfriend. I sent my congrats and suggested we do something some other time.

Almost immediately, I get a call from my old friend Melanie suggesting I head downtown to pick her up and we head out for a drink. We reconnected via MySpace about a year ago, but hadn't actually SEEN each other in about 10 years. This was a perfect chance to fill in the gaps of those 10 years, so I head downtown and pick her up. I suggest that we find a nice, comfy, hole-in-the-wall bar rather than a crowded trendy place to sit and chat, and I recall my favorite little bar in Corktown with just such an atmosphere. We headed out Michigan Ave. to Casey's Pub, in the shadows of Briggs Stadium and spent the next 2 hours catching op on our kids, jobs, old friends, high school memories, and life in general. We had a great time laughing, talking, and listening to the choice tunes played by 93.1 Doug FM at a loud, yet tasteful volume. We departed about 1:30am and hit the White Castle on the way to dropping her home. It was just what I needed.

I got up about 10am the next morning and immediately started cleaning. The guys in the quartet, I'm sure, wouldn't be shocked to find the house in a bit of disarray, as they know I have 2 kids home for the summer, but I wanted the living room to be at least usable and tidy so I wouldn't be distracted by the chores that lie ahead. I spent the next 2 hours putting away toys, rearranging piles of stuff to go through, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, and putting pop and water in the fridge to cool.

The guys show up and we start out on a few standards and polecats (songs most every barbershopper knows) just to make sure we have some kind of repertoire for our upcoming gig later this month. We take a break for a few and start to work on the trickier, less standard stuff we want to do for the Harmony Hideaway a few days earlier. We don't want to get on stage in front of hundreds of barbershoppers, sing songs they all know, and have them sit there thinking, "I could do that better". It's inevitable that they'll think that regardless, but we'd prefer they don't all know the arrangement, at least.

We decide what we need to work on for the next rehearsal after Lou gets back from Internationals, and hit the Oakland Mall to grab some outfits.

I love Steve & Barry's. Good quality, good style, DIRT F*CKING CHEAP. We grab 4 different colors of polo shirts, a nice dressy shirt for each of us, and thankfully, they've brought back the Hawaiian shirt the quartet had before the new guys, so they each get one. The line is long and moving a bit slowly, so of course, we had to sing. We did Down Our Way and Wild Irish Rose as we waited and paid. After that we head into the mall proper. There's a great, echoey chamber just in front of JCPenny. I drag the guys and say, "Okay guys – Darkness". We tanked up and did the Darkness on the Delta tag and rang it like nobody's business! It echoed for at least 15 seconds afterward throughout the mall.

From there we grabbed a bite at A&W, discussed barbershop harmony, the physics of sound, how to ring chords, and the function of overtones. My GOD! I would have NEVER been able to talk like this with the old versions of this quartet! We headed back to our cars, stopping in front of the Coney Island to sing…well, you know. And parted ways. On the way Back, Lou suggested I join him at Crash Landing after work for Karaoke. Perfect! Just want I needed! I dropped Lou at his car and headed to work at the video store.

After work, I head out to Crash Landing, a medium sized bar/restaurant in Madison Heights I was introduced to by a friend when she worked there. I sit down next to Lou and was introduced via shouts and gestures over the loud music to Lou's friends John, Connie, and someone else who's name escapes me. I dig through the catalogue and intentionally avoiding the Sintara section, which is my standard choice, decide on 2 tunes – Zoot Suit Riot (a favorite of mine) and Rainbow Connection.

<

I have a shitty solo voice. I'm great with a group and small ensembles, but alone, I sound like shit, so for Rainbow Connection, I figured I'd break up the flow of drunken tone-deaf hacks and showy divas by doing it entirely in my quite convincing Kermit the Frog voice. It was very well received.

There was one kid who did some song I'd never heard. Something like "The Day the squirrel went berserk in the First Self-Righteous Church" that had me rolling on the floor! Later my assumptions of a kindred spirit were confirmed when he did "White & Nerdy". How the HELL did I miss THAT in the catalogue!? Lou and I caught up with him on the way out and chatted with him in the parking lot for a while. We exchanged tests of geektitude and passed with flying colors. By the time I had stopped by Taco Bell and got home, I had an add request from him on my MySpace.

I had had a great weekend. When I awoke the next day about 10am, I started to realize how much I missed Sonya and the kids. I had a message from Sonya on MySpace that she had had a rough weekend with them, so I figured I needed to spend the day getting the house spic and span so she'd have less to worry about upon getting home. For the next 8 hours, I cleaned the cat box, swept and mopped the floors, changed the bed, did the laundry, weeded the garden, mowed the lawn, cleaned off the kitchen table, tidied up the rest of the house, and spent 3 hours eroding Mt. Dishmore.

They all got home about 10pm. We got the kids off to bed with little trouble, talked for about an hour, and went to bed watching Bowling for Columbine to prepare for seeing Sicko later this week.

Thanks to everyone who made this a great weekend for me! Now I have the next 3 nights in a row (which never happens anymore) to spend with my family and have just as good a time on the other end of the social spectrum with them!

“The Quest for the 4th” – The Conclusion?

Yes, I think it may be! Finally, a happy ending to a long, arduous, tedious tome of seemingly epic length. Coda Honor has found it's 4^th!

The enigmatic bass that I referred to in my last blog – the one who was referred to me by our chorus's membership chairman – is an absolutely ideal fit! Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Coda Honor's newest member – Dave Conrad!

I had spoken with him a few days earlier on the phone and gotten his credentials:

Singing since he was knee-high to nothin'
Former member of the Huron Valley Chorus
Bass section leader of the Langsford Men's Chorus
Musical theater background
Experience in several quartets

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Could this be real? Can the guy be this good? We've had such a HELL of a time finding someone…ANYONE…who adequately fill either bass or baritone, could the answer to our prayer just fall from the sky like this? I was skeptical.

We had our quartet rehearsal yesterday evening at our baritone and resident music guru, Dave Beamer's house. I got there just about on time and Dave C. was already there chatting it up with our High Priest of musical knowledge. Lou arrived fashionably late, as usual. Not late enough for us to be annoyed, but late enough for us to ask "where is he?"

We immediately headed to Dave B.'s office upon his arrival and asked Dave C. what he could dust the cobwebs off of to warm up on.

"Wild Irish Rose"

Ugh. Standard, typical, a bit overdone, but not a bad song and has some room for good, ringing chords.

We sang through it a bit slowly, just to make sure things were locking, and BOY HOWDY, DID THEY EVER! We finished the last chord and I literally collapsed to the floor with a big shit-eatin' grin on my face.

From there, we decided to step it up a notch and try a few things from the vaults. Dave C. mentioned that he did "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" a while back, so I dug the sheet out from my collection of old chorus material. We had done it in the chorus in last year's show, but hadn't touched it since. We worked through it, and most if it was pure gold. Dave B. was reading it for the first time and made an occasional mistake, but nothing major. The bridge does a bizarre modulation we didn't all get quite right, but we recovered for the end and it was amazing for a read-through! The biggest problem Dave B and I had was getting distracted. We had both become so used to listening for wrong notes to fix, we started screwin up our OWN parts! Trouble was - there wasn't anything to fix (at least not on that level). We had to constantly remind ourselves to just SING OUR OWN DAMN PART AND STOP WORRYING!

From there we took a break for water and a breather. After getting back, we decided that we needed to try something that would shake the rafters. Something with a killer tag that belts like nobody's business.
"Darkness on the Delta" – no question.

We did it a few times – each one getting better and louder.

After that, we read down a few of our quartet's standards and stuff the 3 of us had been working on for a bit: Irish Blessing, my rendition of Rainbow Connection, etc. From there we chatted a bit before calling it a wonderful and productive day.

With Dave Conrad on bass, we have the best of all worlds. He not only has a great sound, great ear, and is a quick learner, but with his barbershop experience and background, we have a built-in repertoire of polecats and standards we can expand on quickly. Since he's not in the chorus and has no plans to join (for a variety of good reasons), we won't be tempted to rest on our laurels and just do chorus songs, but if there are ones we like from the chorus, we can add them in quickly and easily.

He's a bit nervous about making too much of a commitment right now because his schedule is in a bit of a precarious state. We assured him that we're all (well, Dave B.'s a bit more free and stable) flying by the seat of our pants with time nowadays and we're used to finagling around busy schedules to find a couple hours to get together. Working around his schedule won't be any more than we usually do, anyway. His personality and direction is a perfect match for us. He's funny, laid-back, eager to try new things, and wants a light-hearted but quality approach to quartetting.

This could finally be it.

The Continuing Saga of “The Quest for the 4th”

This seems to go on forever. Every time we find a final piece to my quartet, something goes wrong.

First, we bid a friendly farewell to our current bass and bair, in order to reform a more cohesive and progressive quartet.

Next, we replace our bass with a guy with a vocal music pedagogy degree. He's enthusiastic, knowledgeable, talented, and helpful. He's awesome. He stuck. He's here. We got him. Bass or bari, he's in.

The trick has been finding the 4^th and final piece to the puzzle.

First, we find a lead with enthusiasm and a great voice willing to try bari, but no ear for the part. He tried. For 2 weeks, he read music, pounded away on his keyboard, and listened to recordings…but just didn't think he could make it. He thanks me for the opportunity, but gracefully says goodbye.

Damn.

Next, we get a seasoned bari, a veteran of this quartet, who sings bari regularly with the quartet at Greenfield Village. The rehearsal goes well, he picks things up quickly, and his personality fits like a glove. Unfortunately, he was also insanely busy and lived ½ hour away. He bowed out after one rehearsal, citing schedule conflicts.

DOUBLE damn!

Next, we move aforementioned pedagogue to bari (where the folks with great and trained ears should be) and insert another veteran of the quartet and close friend of mine to bass. He is also enthusiastic and has a track record of learning quickly, when he puts the time and his mind to it. After 3 weeks, however, there is some, but little progress. The gauntlet is thrown.

I am now given several names and options for other basses that already know many of the songs and who have, presumably, sung them for years. This leaves me with several quandaries:

1. My friend has a GREAT sound and range for the part. His personality and enthusiasm could not be a better match for the group. He is humble (almost to a fault) and INCREDIBLY willing to learn, but can he learn quickly enough? Will he get the notes memorized and accurate enough to be good in time? Does he have the time to work enough on the material to get to where we need him?
   
   
2. One of the names suggested is in our chorus. We are in the dark as to his availability, indeed, even his WILLINGNESS to join a quartet, but if he were amenable, we would have a quartet entirely from the chorus. That gives us an instant and sizable repertoire. His voice is a bit on the quiet side and not exactly what I would want, but he is a nice guy with a lot of experience. There are several 'X' factors with this guy we're not aware of yet, as he is rather quiet and reserved in the chorus. He is, however, prolific in his performances with our own and other choruses and even some short-lived amateur quartets. Further research needs to be done, clearly.
   
   
3. A second name mentioned as a possibility is a complete unknown to me, but comes HIGHLY recommended by our membership chairman (who undoubtedly has the ulterior motive of roping him into the chorus). My initial reluctance to add him is that I thought his affiliation was with the Macomb Chapter, the same as our former bass and bari. The main reason we decided to start again was to find guys closer together, preferably within a few miles of each other or in our chorus, to provide more and easier chances to get together and practice. Taking on this gentleman would open the door to the possibility of "bad blood" with our former quartet mates, by going back on the initial reason for their dismissal. I truly don't want this, as our split was fairly amicable – even friendly – and I would rather not burn any unnecessary bridges. Turns out, he is with the Langsfor Men's Chorus, comprised largely of members of my old university glee club. Hmmmmm...
   

I want the best quartet I can get, and grow impatient waiting for it to even gel enough to sing for close friends or family. My friend is aware of the pressure at this point. I made it clear before the last rehearsal. I WANT him to work out. He's talented, proven his ability to me, and is a genuinely great guy…but this quartet is a democracy and I have to put the quartet first, here. Thankfully, he's a very grounded individual, aware of his own limitations and my responsibilities to the other 3 in the group. I didn't choose him because of friendship or loyalty, but on his ability and talent – and will not keep or dismiss him on any different criteria. Besides, he's gonna be a rock star. A barbershop quartet won't necessarily be a shining star on his résumé.

So, once again, Coda Honor is again in a state of flux, inching (however slowly) toward stability and greatness. We should have a bass chosen by the end of next week (God willing), and be able to focus on our already booked gigs, possible new gigs, the ever-anticipated Slamka Harmony Hideaway, and hopefully the District Convention this fall.

I hate floundering – I wanna SING!

The worst part is, I know several great basses I'd love to get in this quartet. Unfortunately, they all live impractically far away - from an hour's drive all the way to Topeka, Kansas.

...Yes, YOU!