Space

After a long battle with unwanted messages, I decided to create a new account. All the friends on my old accound should see my new contact infromation displayed in topic, right next to my name and in my profile.

I might be using this space still, but definately less frequently, some topics will be continued in my new space.

Don’t litter there, it’s a green zone.

Today i managed to do something that I succesfully eluded since the time I got my driving licence. Soem may have guessed, some have probably accused me of drinking and driving and getting cought by a traffic control cop... nah... Wrong!

I locked my car keys into my car.

While I was at the mall.

Yup, I did it and felt so stupid for it! I succesfully threw the key to the front seat, put all my shopping bags there as well and then completely consciously locked and closed. It's a good thing I didn't locked inside my purse as well or thank god I didn't, my cell phone.

I had to call my mum to have my spare key delivered to me so that I was able to get home.

So stupid.

And of course, my Hmster (the fuzzy toy that's supposed be guarding my keys), didn't have any usable training so unlocking the door from inside was in advance impossible.

To the next time I manage to scrue up something...

P.S.: I'd put up a picture of my Hamster, but he wasn't really good hamster lately and didn't take a bath for a veeeery long time. He's just plain dirty!

Yesterday, December 14th, was the International Day of Choral Singing.

It's an "initiative of Alberto Grau from the Latin American Vice-Presidency of the International Federation for Choral Music, proposed and approved by the General Assembly of IFCM held in Helsinki in August, 1990, within the framework of the 2nd World Symposium on Choral Music."

A proclamation has been written for this day and it's to be read during any choral concert happening on this day. According to the IFCM website, it's been translated into eight different languages.

Sing Choirs of the World!

May your voices take springs there where fire burns.
May your songs put roses there where battlefields lay.
Open furrow and sow love to harvest fruits of hope.

Sing to liberty where despot is,
Sing to equality where poverty nests,
Sing to brotherhood where hate prevails.

May your singing direct the world so that peace takes over wars, so that men cherishes earth, so that all race or color discrimination is banished so that we will be fraternal so that this planet rejoices with your voices.

This found it's way to my mail today. It's incredibly funny to read and even hold some truth...

A Concise Guide To The Choir

In any choir or chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.

There are also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, etc., but these terms are mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so we will ignore them for now.

Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes make people act differently?" Indeed, this is a mysterious question which has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the peculiar complexes that go with being tenors, French horn players, timpanists, or whatever.

However, this is beside the point; the fact remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain how.

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists.

Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior: The altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins--nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place -- it's so boring.

Sopranos think tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off.

To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth -- they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune to because they're down in that low, low range -- and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway. One curious fact, however, is that although the sopranos swoon while the tenors sing, they still end up going home (and/or to bed) with the basses.

THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth -- in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching away on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are, too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat.

Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them -- the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.

THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few sopranos or altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors there are always seem to be really good -- it's one of those annoying facts of life.

So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads -- after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high.

Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage.

Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections -- the sopranos, because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos, because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this.

It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing. And it's true what Liszt said: tenors have resonance where their cerebra should be.

THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are solid, dependable people, and have more testosterone and facial hair than anybody else. By the same token, they also tend to baldness more than any of the other parts. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with -- most basses are tuba players at heart.

Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos -- except when they have duets and the altos get the good part.

As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end up at the root of the chord.

I'm a soprano and... Well, some is true, other dangerously close...

Plastic doomed our planet when it was first invented. Well, people did with their (our) wreckless usage and disposing of it. There are two major problems over all: plastic bags and bottles.

Plastic bags problem is slowly being solved, people are becoming more aware and use those huge Mercator bags that are neither 100% recycled, neither completely regradable, but if that brings down the usage of the free, ugly plastic bags (the huge one has nice motives on it), it's something. Bringing the awareness to the people who thought that one person can't make a change.

So the new generation of plastic is on it's wake and will probably end up in garbage sooner or later with everything else that's made of plastic.

Wel, they tried.

Then, how about this new paper bottle? (DVICE)

It's a great I dea, I think. But are we all preapred to use more tree trunks to put our water in paper bottles. And what is it really made of. Soemhow, I have trouble imagining paper holding water indefinately.

And how about all the abuses plastic bottles are capable to put up with. i don't see paper bottles standing up to that.

Again, I think the key is not to use better recyclable materials, but use products that can be re-used. I think that's the key to the cleaner environment.

I don't think I'll be able to as much as look at them in the next weeks. Or anything that reminds me of bananas.

But it's not really banana's fault.

Today I had a performance. Nothing to do with the musical, it was just one of those regular  singing performances with the Classical singing class. I sang Venite inginochiatevi, aria of Susanna from Figaro's wedding, by Mozart.

Susanna's aria  performed by Diana Damrau

It went remarcably well. Didn't forget the lyrics, didn't miss my entrance, got all the hights right and my voice didn't crack. I never believed it'd go so well.

Anyways, a smaller group of singers decided to hand out a little after the performance ad we went downstair in the sweetshop called Europa. A smaller group being two men and two women and the teachers joined us later.

The first thing Helena and me did when we entered was to stare at all the cakes that were on display. That's a natural. We didn't decided on what to have, but there was lots of various fruit as well and it was quite appealing.

By the table we ordered each a cup of tea and Janez was disappointed when he learned that no alcohol was served there.

While we were waiting for our beverages, Helena and me quickly went through the menu and decided on a simple, fresh fruit salad with a ball of icecream and no whipped cream. We told that to the waiter and he told us he understood. Only half a minute later, he returned to ask us if he could put soem bananas in the salad as well.

''Sure.''

Minutes later we got our order - all banana salad, with whipped cream. I was reall optimistic when I dug into the cream to get to the icecream, but... there wasn't any. Only bananas.

I tried to eat some, but bananas and whipped cream made a huge sticking ball in my stomach and that was a reason to call it.

And that's when men come in handy. Especially hungry men.

But I'm still left with uncomfortable feeling.

Banana? - No thank you.