Busy Bee

Fiorella and Husband had a wonderful afternoon in Austin with Brother and his wife, first at a very nice restaurant, and then at a clever performance of 17th century art songs.   Not only did Fio enjoy a tasty salmon dinner, but she also got a free dessert because it was her three-month belated birthday celebration. Next came the Early Music Project, hosted by the First Presbyterian Church. Of course, Fio and Brother, who took voice lessons many years ago and had actually sung some of the songs, were in their element.
Fio's singing voice is gone now, but it's all for the best. She's got too many irons in the fire as it is. One of those fires is putting up her Halloween decorations--wrapping the plastic skeleton around the mailbox, arranging her cardboard bats on the window, and sticking paper pumpkins around and about. And, of course, she needs to start on the fifth revision of Phillipa's story, clear the fallen branches and rotten limbs out of the south woods, and plow ahead on Spanish.
Too bad she has so much spare time.

Finger Practice

While Austin son and his wife were at the house decorating the tree, Fiorella started thinking about "O Christmas Tree" and "Deck the Hall" so of course she pulled out the carols book and headed toward the piano. She hadn't played any of the carols for a year, but now was the time to start practicing. Surprisingly, her fingers half-remembered the notes, and she even sang a little. This is going to be a good Christmas,

Taxed by Taxonomy

Fiorella has always been an all-over-the-map kinda gal.  Her first talent was art, but she also took to writing: essays, poetry, journalism, novels.  Turned out she had a good singing voice too, and she's always been language-mad.  To top it off, she can exert a certain charisma and is a good organizer. Yes, Fio is a platypus,  hard to classify.

And so are her novels, which is not to her advantage.

Wish her luck.

Fiorella's Ups and Downs

Fiorella has spent most of her writing time this past week getting Lolly's story organized.  She's pulled a thousand or so little scribbled notes out of the back of her tablet and typed them in, put all her ideas in chronological order, extended threads as necessary, and rearranged some action for better flow.  Full steam ahead, Fio.  Remember, you've got to turn out two chapters per week from now on.
*
Oh, joy!  Fiorella's voice pathologist has encouraged her to sing more.  Fio LOVES singing.
*
After three long sessions with the repair shop technician, Fiorelle still has problems with this new hard drive.  Why can't someone invent a permanent hard drive?

Liars, Case #3

Fio was completely taken in by--let's call her M--and so was everyone else.  She was new in town, quite vocal,  and quickly became active in the elementary school.  Her children were smart and well-behaved.  Her husband was a local newscaster.  She told Fio, who wrote her up in the neighborhood column for the American-Statesman, that she sang country-western and that Nashville had offered her a  contract,  but she wanted to wait till her daughter and twin boys were older.

Oddly enough, when Fiorella asked to hear her sing, she said she never sang without a full instrumental back-up.  And her husband seemed confused when Fio mentioned her singing. And, while she claimed her father was a doctor, she went to a chiropractor for all her aches and pains. And the school was concerned because she took a peculiar interest in a certain student and phoned his parents about him several times, then denied doing so.

The next thing Fio knew, M's husband got a better job in North Texas and the family moved--only to be back in Austin within six months because M had developed a crush on her husband's boss and harassed him by telephone.  The family settled in South Austin, as Fio remembers, and M must have been up to her same old tricks, because one evening Fiorella received a call from M asking to borrow one hundred dollars.  M's husband had cleaned out the bank account and run out on her and the kids.

Fio mailed her the check, knowing full well she'd never be repaid.  But she also knew it meant M would never try to contact her again.  Which made the money worth it.

SING!

Fiorella is concerned about so many celebrators in restaurants singing "Happy Birthday" off pitch. And why are they off pitch? Because people may walk around with I-phones glued to their ears day and night, but they themselves rarely sing. After all, those songs they're listening to belong to specialists.

Think about it--your voice is your own special instrument, the original musical instrument of mankind. But using it, like everything else, requires practice. There's no way you're going to get kids to throw away their ear candy and launch into song during school bus trips anymore, and luring them to church just to sing hymns doesn't seem to be the right thing to do. Unfortunately, elementary school music programs seem to focus more on instrumental music than singing. So voice training is up to you.

People, SING to your children. Sing lullabies, nonsense songs, whatever you know. Let them hear a real person's voice in their ears and invite them to join in. Teach them to be active rather than passive, providers rather than consumers, givers rather than getters.

SING!

Caroling, Anyone?

The voice is everyone's own personal musical instrument, the one we are are all born with. In olden times, singing was often the only form of entertainment people had.

What's going on nowadays? What's happened to singing? It's given way to the I-pod. We've become a world of listeners rather than doers.

How sad. There's so much joy in singing, alone or in a group. Fiorella grew up in a singing family and tried to pass the tradition on to her children, but she's noticed that the number of singing venues available seem to decrease year by year.

Welcome to the mute world of music.