Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Anameim Results
As many of my readers may know already, I've now returned from my trip to California which was partly pleasure and partly barbershop (just kidding... that's pleasure too).
My Quartet, "Chameleon" finished a respectable 37th place scoring our highest overall score ever (and best overall position). If the individual category scores are to be believed, we are pretty good musicians, mediocre singers and piss-poor presenters (I exaggerate at both ends!). I'm also pretty lucky to join a small group of singers who have sung in the international quartet contest on two parts now (bari last year, lead this year), and I believe that I have the current longest running international competitor streak, at 12 years(which includes 10 years as a chorus competitor, one year where I was just a college competitor, and last year where I was just a "regular" quartet competitor)... woohoo!
The chorus (TNL) after a year off returned to the international stage and placed a respectable 5th place (the competition is getting much more difficult).
On the whole, the international convention was good fun. I'll post links to some of my California pictures when I find the time to sift through them (which should be soon, as I'll be a lonely bachelor for a three weeks after Susanna leaves for Taiwan tomorrow night).
My Quartet, "Chameleon" finished a respectable 37th place scoring our highest overall score ever (and best overall position). If the individual category scores are to be believed, we are pretty good musicians, mediocre singers and piss-poor presenters (I exaggerate at both ends!). I'm also pretty lucky to join a small group of singers who have sung in the international quartet contest on two parts now (bari last year, lead this year), and I believe that I have the current longest running international competitor streak, at 12 years(which includes 10 years as a chorus competitor, one year where I was just a college competitor, and last year where I was just a "regular" quartet competitor)... woohoo!
The chorus (TNL) after a year off returned to the international stage and placed a respectable 5th place (the competition is getting much more difficult).
On the whole, the international convention was good fun. I'll post links to some of my California pictures when I find the time to sift through them (which should be soon, as I'll be a lonely bachelor for a three weeks after Susanna leaves for Taiwan tomorrow night).
Monday, July 13, 2009
Seen in California
On a sign in a window in a desert zoo: "Cold Beer, Ice cream".
On another sign in the same window "Closed for summer"
On another sign in the same window "Closed for summer"
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Early to bed...
Last night I collapsed on the couch around 9pm, to be stirred at around midnight to go to bed... where I promptly fell asleep until almost 7 this morning.
I can't remember the last time I went to bed before 10 or maybe even 11. I was tired.
I can't remember the last time I went to bed before 10 or maybe even 11. I was tired.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The smell of impending summer
I smelled it about a week ago for the first time and meant to blog about it, and smelled it again last night and this time have remember to blog about it.
Grass! (no, not that kind of grass) To be specific, the smell of a freshly mowed lawn is, for me, a smell of summer.
Grass! (no, not that kind of grass) To be specific, the smell of a freshly mowed lawn is, for me, a smell of summer.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Anaheim Bound!
We did it again! Chameleon qualified for the international quartet contest again, and are planning to sing at the convention in early July. We had one major change this year... we switched parts earlier this year, and I'm back to lead and Dave is singing baritone. We made the change a couple months ago for a whole bunch of reasons, but one of the big ones is that each of us is back to what is probably our more natural part.
I think we scored a 76.8% which is a bit lower than last year (both our qualifying score and our score in Nashville) which I was pretty surprised with (pleasantly surprised). Things seemed to come together in the last two and a half weeks... if you had asked me if we had a chance to qualify then, I'd have said no way.
It does feel a little different qualifying as a lead versus a baritone, like I'm not riding on any coattails. While I'm sure my quartet mates would say I wasn't, because I stepped into a hole in an already successful quartet, it felt that way a bit. With the part switch, it feels like a bit of new quartet, and I feel like there is more responsibility associated with being the lead singer in the quartet.
The convention was a great one, with a very deep Saturday night contest (7 Ontario quartets scored over 70% and there was one out of district quartet ("Big Time!") that scored a 79-ish). I do realize that the numbers will mean little to most of the people who read this... but 70% is pretty decent.
Another kinda cool thing that happened was that we had a post-contest session with one of the judges who remembered my college quartet from 9 years ago... and, in fact, he remember one of our songs and referred to it as our "hallmark song"... I didn't think we were 'famous' enough to have a hallmark song!
p.s. I know it's been a while... who knows if I'll start posting more often.
I think we scored a 76.8% which is a bit lower than last year (both our qualifying score and our score in Nashville) which I was pretty surprised with (pleasantly surprised). Things seemed to come together in the last two and a half weeks... if you had asked me if we had a chance to qualify then, I'd have said no way.
It does feel a little different qualifying as a lead versus a baritone, like I'm not riding on any coattails. While I'm sure my quartet mates would say I wasn't, because I stepped into a hole in an already successful quartet, it felt that way a bit. With the part switch, it feels like a bit of new quartet, and I feel like there is more responsibility associated with being the lead singer in the quartet.
The convention was a great one, with a very deep Saturday night contest (7 Ontario quartets scored over 70% and there was one out of district quartet ("Big Time!") that scored a 79-ish). I do realize that the numbers will mean little to most of the people who read this... but 70% is pretty decent.
Another kinda cool thing that happened was that we had a post-contest session with one of the judges who remembered my college quartet from 9 years ago... and, in fact, he remember one of our songs and referred to it as our "hallmark song"... I didn't think we were 'famous' enough to have a hallmark song!
p.s. I know it's been a while... who knows if I'll start posting more often.
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