{"id":39,"date":"2011-02-23T02:05:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T02:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fanagrams.net\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2011-03-20T18:37:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-20T18:37:55","slug":"a-wedding-and-a-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/a-wedding-and-a-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"A Wedding and A Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been mistaken for an accomplished musician two times now, with predictably disastrous results.\u00a0 It is perhaps understandable since I became the family custodian of my mother\u2019s two octave set of brass carillon bells, which she used in her various musical endeavors, including family bell ringing at Christmas time.\u00a0 I get calls at holiday times, \u201cOh, Bobbie, can you and Nick come for dinner, and by the way can you bring the bells, we had so much fun when your mother would help us play Christmas Carols.\u201d\u00a0 I felt like the klutzy kid who always got to play baseball only because he had a back yard big enough for a pick up game and a freezer full of popsicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I was happy to supply the bells and music, which my mother had carefully color coded so that even the tone deaf could participate.\u00a0 I had learned enough at our family bell ringing events that I qualified for participation in a real church choir \u2013 but only because I brought my own markers to color my music and because I could count out the measures, compensating for my lack of any intuitive feel for the music.\u00a0 However, I certainly didn\u2019t know the names of the notes, and had only a marginal understanding of musical notation \u2013 arpeggios, formatas, martallatos were all beyond me.\u00a0 But my rudimentary skills were adequate for after dinner entertainment.\u00a0 In this setting the only goal was get the mildly inebriated \u201cchoir\u201d to produce a Christmas Carol that was vaguely recognizable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Wedding<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Mary Washburne\u2019s request was different.\u00a0 \u201cBobbie,\u201d she said, \u201cDo you think that you could play the bells at my wedding?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0While honored at such a request, I quickly pointed out that I was not a musician, but that I could certainly bring the bells and music as long as someone else organized the group.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cOh that\u2019s fine,\u201d she said \u201cOne of the ushers is a professional musician, and my sister is very musical along with some of the other guests.\u00a0 If you can just bring the bells up to Michigan, we can take over from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

I readily agreed to her plan and we decided that the \u201cpick up\u201d choir would play \u201cJubilate\u201d as the guests arrived and \u201cOde to Joy\u201d at the end of the ceremony.\u00a0 There were a few disturb points that I hoped would fall into place once I got there.\u00a0 The first was that the wedding was in mid-June in the upper peninsula Michigan, at the absolute peak of bug season.\u00a0 Ringing bells requires both hands, and thus there would be no opportunity to shoo away the likely hordes of mosquitoes or flies, or both.\u00a0 Secondly, the ceremony would be performed along a remote lakeshore.\u00a0 There certainly wouldn\u2019t be any music stands, and I was worried that the music could just blow away.\u00a0 I had faced this issue years before when some friends and I had attempted to be street musicians with the bells, playing Christmas Carols along State Street in Chicago.\u00a0 We solved the problem by pinning the music to each other\u2019s backs and then standing in a tight circle so that everyone had a back to read from.\u00a0 However, Mary envisioned that our choir would stand around a picnic table.<\/p>\n

I dutifully arrived with bells and music but was horrified to learn that the musical usher was a last minute no-show, and that I was his secret understudy.\u00a0 The wedding weekend was so event filled that we had time for only one rehearsal, where we practiced while wearing the mosquito netting that Mary had thoughtfully provided to the entire bell choir.\u00a0 Since the dense netting made vision difficult, most decided to risk it and go without.\u00a0 I was also concerned about the eighth notes in Ode to Joy. I had learned from prior bell parties that the slightly faster pace of eighth notes could really throw people off.\u00a0 I carefully explained to my choir that if anyone missed a note, they must resist temptation to go back and correct the error, since this could be the flick that would send the dominos falling – everyone would be at a different place on the piece with a resulting atonal chaos.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

The wedding day dawned crisp, cloudless and unbelievably, bugless.\u00a0 What an auspicious start to a wedding.\u00a0 The bulk of the wedding party was hiking to the wedding site, but I arrived early by car to set out the music on the picnic table using small stones from the beach to keep the music from blowing away.\u00a0 There were a few elderly people there who had opted out of the hike, and one asked, \u201cIs this a professional bell choir?\u201d<\/p>\n

What the hell, \u201cYes,\u201d I said proudly, \u00a0\u201cwe are a bell choir all the way from Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wedding party arrived and my intrepid choir assembled, some of them sweating from the hike.\u00a0 I raised my arms to launch us into Jubilate, and then realized that I had no idea how to move my arms as a conductor.\u00a0 But I was relieved to see that it didn\u2019t matter since the entire choir was totally engrossed in their music and any arm waving I did was totally superfluous.\u00a0 I just tried to keep everyone on track by calling out the measures in my best \u201cI mean it\u201d tone.\u00a0\u00a0 I judged the piece a success, primarily since we all finished at the same time.\u00a0 However, I was still nervous about those eighth notes lurking ahead in Ode to Joy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We once again assembled at the end of the service, and immediately got off to a very rocky start.\u00a0 Ode to Joy sounded like some sort of avant-garde piece with a few clashing notes interspersed with total silence and then another little trickle of notes.\u00a0 The responsibilities of a conductor weighed down upon me \u2013 it was time for a \u201clonely at the top\u201d type of decision.\u00a0 I gave the universal symbol for abort with multiple slashing\u00a0 motions across my neck, \u201cLet\u2019s start again,\u201d I hissed.\u00a0 We rebooted and successfully navigated the eighth notes.\u00a0 Aside from the uneven rhythm there were two small glitches.\u00a0 My brother Tim had the simple responsibility of setting down his F major and picking up the F sharp for one note \u2013 just one note \u2013 which he did not do.\u00a0 This wrong note was a grievous error, akin to standing in a group of people and letting go with a major fart, which makes everyone wrinkle their nose in disgust.\u00a0 To his credit, Tim fessed up and avoided an \u201che who smelt it dealt it scenario.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately his confession consisted of a very audible \u201cShit\u201d in the middle of the piece. \u00a0My sister-in-law Jill was doing beautifully, the picture of concentration, but all of a sudden laid down her bells and just stopped playing.\u00a0 Jill was 8 \u00bd months pregnant and her belly hung over the picnic table totally obliterating the last two lines of music; she thought she had finished.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I breathed a sign of relief when the piece was over, clearly recognizable as Ode to Joy.\u00a0 When we played the first piece, the wedding party was filing in and the bells were simply background.\u00a0 But Ode to Joy was the main show, and as I turned around, I realized that everyone was staring at us in various degrees of amused disbelief.\u00a0 On a scale of \u201cWow, what a stunning choir\u201d sliding down to \u201cWhat were they thinking?\u201d I think we fell somewhere to the right of a charmingly quirky performance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0(The missing words in the following poem are all anagrams, i.e. share the same letters (list post, stop, spot).\u00a0 The number of dashes indicates the number of letters.\u00a0 One of the missing words will rhyme with either the previous or following lines.\u00a0 Your job is to solve for the missing words based on the context of the poem.\u00a0 The answers are at the very end of the essay.)<\/h6>\n

Mary\u2019s request to organize a wedding bell choir amongst the bugs and the breeze<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fills me with anxiety and unease but I respond to her —–.<\/p>\n

\u00a0After one false start, we play Ode to Joy competently and well<\/p>\n

\u00a0Until brother Tim has a mental —– and plays the wrong bell.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It sounds horrible, and he wants to apologize for his grievous mishit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfortunately, the one word that —– to his mind is an audible !Shit!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Funeral <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0I applied my lessons learned as we planned a memorial service for my mother.\u00a0 While the choir consisted of family members with some musical ability, I decided to hire a professional director.\u00a0 I pulled out Ode to Joy again and assigned the part with the eighth notes to Jay, my most talented cousin.\u00a0 I put my less musical relatives into damage control positions beyond the range of the melody where errors could be easily absorbed.\u00a0 After all, this is my designated spot in my church bell choir.\u00a0 Nancy, the director, showed up for one rehearsal and then informed me that she would not be able to attend the service itself.\u00a0 Once again, I was thrust into the role of conductor, but I insisted that Nancy at least show me the correct way of moving my arms so that I wouldn\u2019t look like a frantic nestling learning to fly.\u00a0 Oh, \u201cthat\u2019s simple,\u201d said Nancy, \u201cjust remember, ceiling to the floor and then out the door,\u201d describing an \u201cL\u201d shaped movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0She took over the rehearsal and whipped the choir in shape.\u00a0 However, I did notice that Jay went absolutely white-knuckled every time the eighth notes appeared, consistently rushing and jumbling them up.\u00a0 Jay is an improvisational musician, the kind of person who shows up at a wedding with a harmonica in his pocket so that he can jump up and jam with the dance band.\u00a0 I realized that these enviable skills were probably not well suited to the rigid demands of a bell choir where you have to play your notes as written; there is absolutely no coloring outside the lines.\u00a0 I think that is why I have found some musical success with bells, I just simply count and follow the rules and am not distracted by any innate musical talent.\u00a0 By the end of the hour, our bell choir was sounding pretty decent and Nancy wished us luck and left.\u00a0 We were so pleased with ourselves that we decided to play Ode to Joy twice, once at the brief family-only graveside event and then immediately following at the formal church service.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We ran into a major glitch at the graveside.\u00a0 We were short one set of music, so I was in the ridiculous situation of trying to conduct a choir without music.\u00a0 Even though I could now move my arms professionally, my choir really only wanted me to call out the measures, which of course I could not do without the sheet music.\u00a0 I was purely a token presence at this point.\u00a0 I started the choir, and immediately noticed that some of my ringers had gone astray.\u00a0 There was no discernable Ode to Joy.\u00a0 The floundering choir members took it upon themselves to call out the measures, but everyone had a different concept of where we were in the music, particularly my cousin Ned who had inadvertently turned two pages at once and was way ahead of everyone else.\u00a0 I was literally facing the music, actually an ideal position since I had my back to the astonished mourners standing around the grave.\u00a0 We limped to a staggered finish line.\u00a0 Fortunately, it was a very forgiving audience, who commented that my mother would appreciate both the heartfelt attempt to honor her legacy in bells and the outright comical result.<\/p>\n

We all headed off to the church, hoping that a bad dress rehearsal would make for a good opening (and closing) night performance.\u00a0 Once again I stood up in front of my choir.\u00a0 They intently stared at me in nervous anticipation, and the large congregation was deathly still behind me.\u00a0 The choir was in my thrall, waiting for my signal to begin.\u00a0 Truthfully it was an exhilarating experience to have such complete control over a moment.\u00a0 I raised my hands and the choir picked up the bells in unison, and we began.\u00a0 Over and over I beautifully choreographed the ceiling to the floor, and out the door movement as I whispered out the measure numbers.\u00a0 I saw Jay clench his teeth again as we approached the eighth notes, but he hit them just right this time, and on we sailed to a triumphant end.\u00a0 In that brief moment, the heavens shone down upon us and I was a conductor.<\/p>\n

As the minister starts the memorial with a few homilies,<\/p>\n

I nervously sit in my pew and murmur silent —–,<\/p>\n

This song has to be a success because the service will only be complete\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the —– of our bell choir are both smooth and sweet.<\/p>\n

We start and I notice that Jay\u2019s face —– as we near the tricky measure,<\/p>\n

But everything goes well, and our hearts fill with joyous pleasure.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\u00a0Answers:\u00a0Poem 1:\u00a0 pleas, lapse, leaps; Poem 2; pleas, peals, pales<\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>Share: \"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been mistaken for an accomplished musician two times now, with predictably disastrous results.\u00a0 It is perhaps understandable since I became the family custodian of my mother\u2019s two octave set of brass carillon bells, which she used in her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVc8-D","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fanagrams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}