My Favorite Holiday

Yes, it's true, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I mean, I love all the other holidays and all, but Thanksgiving holds a special place in my heart. Coming together with family, eating great food, and taking some time to reflect on what we're truly grateful for. It's a true American tradition (and Canadian I suppose). I love this time of year.

Of course, since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, I'm always a scrooge about all that Christmas stuff that comes out before Halloween. This year though, I didn't mind so much. I dunno. I guess I've been too busy to notice. Oh well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Our Concerts this Weekend

This last weekend I got to sing in a concert with BYU Singers and Concert Choir. It was a lot of fun. It was full of ups and downs, but we came out soaring. One of my favorite parts of the concert was our format. When our two choirs perform we don't just have one choir perform than the other and that's it, we actually go back and forth alternating between the two. When one of the choirs isn't performing, they're seated upstage behind the group that's performing. That way, both choirs get to rest between sets and enjoy hearing what the other choir has prepared. I can't really imagine any better way to perform a concert now.

BYU Singers started the concert with two 12th Century Irish pieces, "Armaque cum scuto," and "Christus resurgens," both arranged by Michael McGlynn. To be honest, it wasn't our best, and I wish we could've had another chance at both of these. Overall, it was okay. The percussion we had was really cool though and really added to the effect we wanted.

Next was the set that we've really been preparing for, our pride and joy. We sang Un Soir de Neige (A Night of Snow) by Francis Poulenc. If you're not familiar with this work I encourage you to listen to it, and study it for a bit. It's a remarkable piece that's really hard to learn and even harder to master. We've been rehearsing it since early September and have been continually understanding it more and more till the moment before we performed it. It went really really well.

Next, Concert Choir performed their set of songs called, "Savior of the World." It was magnificent from beginning to end. They performed,
"Salvator Mundi" from Herbert Howells' Requiem
"Dare to Call it Good," by Thomas Tallis,
"Alleluja, Christ is Risen," by Stephen Paulus and
"Jesus, the Very Though of Thee" by Bert Vander Hoek.
It was a moving set of music, especially the "Alleluja" by Stephen Paulus. Concert Choir's interpretation was stunning with their trademark shimmering sound.

After this set, Singers got up and sang a set called "Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum" of four Latin pieces. These are old and new works of familiar latin text. These included,
"Cantate Domino" by Claudio Monteverdi,
"Kyrie in Eb major" by Josef Rheinberger,
"Alleluja, Christus resurrexit" by Colin Mawby and
"Gloria" by Greg Knauf
I could go on for a while about each of these pieces. but I'll just say that our "Gloria" was rockin'. The piece is so dynamic and electric that it's hard to not be caught up in it's tour de force.

Concert Choir sang next a delightful set called "Seasonal Shakespeare." Three Songs of Shakespeare texts set by different composers. They sang,
"It Was a Lover and His Lass," by William Mathias,
"Blow, Blow, Thou Winder Wind," from When Icicles Hang by John Rutter and
"Summer Sonnet" by Kevin Olson
The last piece was my favorite, using the words "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day," the composer set it to a jazzy, rumba theme that just made everyone smile.

We finished the concert with a set called "The Road Home," which included pieces that will be on our fourth PBS concert film. Concert Choir sang, "Shenandoah," by Steven Samertz, and "Ain't That News" by Stephen Hatfield. Singers sang "I Feel Like I'm on My Journey Home," by Dr. Staheli. Then both choirs together sang a brand new arrangment of "Whither Goest Thou, Pilgrim Stranger," by Dr. Staheli that brought the audience to their feet.

It was a really fun concert to sing, and I had a blast both singing and listening. In case you couldn't make it, they taped it to be broadcast again on KBYU next year. So, so if you can catch it then.

Un Soir de Neige

Check it out, I get to sing with these guys!


Rehearsal with the Singers from BYU Singers on Vimeo.

Sunday Ramblings

This week I got sick from too much stress. I don't think I have a heavy workload but when the Music 301 tests come around . . . I feel like I haven't prepared enough (even though I studied till my brain hurt) and I start to worry. Then, when I start feeling my throat get sore my mind starts racing, "No, I can't get sick. I don't want to get sick. I don't have the time to get sick. I hope this doesn't get any worse. What if it does?" and then stress myself into sickness. At least it's not laryngitis like last year.

While I'm ill I've started to make some preparations for my junior recital which will probably be early to mid winter semester. I'm trying to figure out how much music to prepare, and who I can share the stage with (junior recitals only half and hour). I'll probably have a few French songs by Fauré and Duparc. German songs by Wolf and Brahms probably. As for Italian and English, I don't really know what to do. Any suggestions?

Yesterday I recorded all the guitar tracks for my recording project. I'm really happy with the results. I recorded an acoustic pretty much the same way I described before, and then recorded my electric with a D.I. box and by putting an EV RE27 on the cabinet. I tried a Sennheiser MD421 on the same cabinet and didn't like the sound. I mean, it was bad. I was just really glad to get all the guitar parts out of the way, now it's just drums, bass and vocal.

I'm still in the process of composing a really cool choral work. At least, I think it's really cool. It's actually the longest piece of music I've written so far. That's why it's taking so long. When I finish it and start polishing I'll write about it here.

Rehearsals are going great and our concert's coming up next weekend. Nov. 14th and 15th. Stop by and check it out. BYU Campus, Harris Fine Arts Center, de Jong Concert Hall.

Just dreaming of surfing. . .

All I'm thinking right now is, "Man I want to go surfing again." I learned for the first time this summer and had a blast. Surfing is as much fun as it looks. Yeah, it's hard and stuff, but it's completely worth it. There's no feeling like it in the world. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. If you've been putting off learning for a while, what are you waiting for? I put it off and regret having wasted so much time. So yeah. Surfing is great.

Awkward Bible Moments

I've been reading through the Old Testament and have been learning a lot. I know this is out of the ordinary from what I usually post but I've come across some very interesting bits in the Book of Second Samuel that I felt I just had to share.

Background: When Saul was being a bad king, Samuel anointed David to be king. David serves Saul for a while and even gives his daughter Michal to him in marriage. Cool stuff. Eventually, Saul becomes jealous and tried to kill David. Michal helps David to escape and live. While David's gone, Saul gives Michal to another man in marriage, and technically becomes David's ex-wife. Awkward.

Okay, Saul dies and David becomes King and marries several other women and somehow still remains Israel's "most eligible bachelor." One day he takes the ark of the covenant into the City of David, sacrifices accordingly, and begins dancing. 2 Samuel 6:14 actually says, "And David danced before the Lord with all his might. . . " which I actually think is a pretty cool verse. But who else is at this party but David's ex, Michal herself! In verse 16 she looks out a window and sees David "leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart." Awkward.

After a while Michal comes out to meet David and says in verse 20, ". . . How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!" Basically she saying, "Hey man, you're looking cool. NOT! Jerkface. You were totally dancing way more naked in front of those girls/groupies than you should've." How would you like it if your ex come up to you and said that? Awkward.

David, of course, shoots back and says in verse 21, "It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house to appoint me ruler . . . over Israel . . . Therefore will I play before the Lord." Essentially, "Whatever. You don't know what you're talking about. I've got your dad's job now, so get outta my face." He goes on in verse 22 to say, "And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in min own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour." Or in other words, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Awkward.

I literally laughed out loud when I read the final verse: "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death." Of course! It seems so logical. I thought it was hilarious. Not sure if you all read it the same way that I do, or even if you thought this was funny, but whatever, I was in stitches.

By the way, "Dr. Awkward" is a palindrome.

Guitar Track

At my work I'm one of the student engineers in one of the school's recording studio. This week I helped start a project for a friend in one of my classes. We laid down the click, the scratch and then the guitar track. We wanted to try out some different techniques and see what we liked. We also wanted options when it came to the mix down.

Basically we took a AKG C414, stuck it aprox. in front of the sound hole (but without getting that low woof typical of directly in front of the hole), put it in omni-directional mode without any roll-off or pad. Then we took a pair of SE3s (pencil condensor), put one pointed at the fretboard, and the other pointed at the back of the guitar's body on the right side of the player. We then panned the SE3s hard left and right. The result was spectacular. Phase wasn't a huge issue in this set up for us, and if we deside that the mix gets a bit too busy for this sound we can take out the SE3s and work just with the 414.

I always find it hard to describe sounds in words (besides actually immitating the sounds) such as "rich," "full," "present," "warm," "squishy," "biting," or "velvety." If you have the opportunity to try this set up and hear it for yourself I really encourage you to do it. It's appropriate for this project, but not be appropriate for other projects. I've taken the same SE3s and X and Y'ed them infront of guitars and gotten great results which work better with other projects. This is one of my favorite parts of working in recording sound: There's not really any wrong answers, there are just better answers depending on the situation.