The hills are alive...

Some weeks ago Toothpaste Maniac showed me a flier for a concert her friend would be singing in. It was a choir concert, and they'd be performing some Renaissance pieces. At one time in the past, this choir was selected to receive an hour of instruction from a particular famous choir director. I was mildly amused. "Ooo, a whole hour!"

A couple of days later it clicked, and I e-mailed TM to ask when and where the concert would be held. Unfortunately, I'd already made a commitment for that day and time in another town, so I wouldn't have been able to attend. I was hoping to hear them, hear how they sound, find out what kind of music they tend to perform (is Renaissance indicative of the norm, or is it an exception?).

Last week, after finding out she wouldn't be attending the concert either, I asked TM if she'd be able to do me a favor. "Could you ask your friend if that choir is looking for new members?"
She shook her head as though she didn't have the answer. "I don't know."
"I know. You'll have to ask your friend. That's why it's a favor. Onegaishimasu (please)," I bowed.
She said she would, so I added, "I sing soprano... but most choirs don't need more sopranos." And then I felt awkward, so I thanked her again and ran off. Which wasn't so strange a reaction as it might otherwise have been, since I was running around the track field after school, and she was keeping time for some students in the track & field club.

An hour later I asked her if she knew what kind of music the choir usually performs. She said she didn't know, then paused. "Most of the choir members are music teachers, or they've sung in choirs for a long time, and they're very good."
"Mmm.... I don't read music so well."
"They can."
Well, this was good news and bad news. Good, cos this sounds like the kind of choir I want to join. Bad, cos this sounds like the kind of choir that might not want me to join. But in case TM thought I'd lost interest, I took a chance and bragged a bit.
"The city of Syracuse has an orchestra, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. They have a choir that sings with them at concerts, and I sang in that choir for a year."

Soooo... yeah. I hope it works out.

A Valuable Lesson

If you tried recently to reach my blog and were greeted with a 404: Page not found, or by a list of Japanese websites and little else, that's because I accidentally deleted my blog on Monday afternoon.

Oh, the humiliation! But more than that, I'd lost two and a half years of public journal in under 2.5 seconds. In a panic, I wrote to Blogger support. It took a few days, but they were able to restore everything, and even return to me my original URL, which had been snagged by a spammer in the interim.

So now the next time I need to change some blog settings from my computer at the Board of Education, I'll remember this: