Has American culture infiltrated Handel?

Another moment in rehearsal. The altos had to sing a passage which involved the Bb (below middle C) - up to Eb - up to Ab, thus making sol do fa. Some of us were really shaky here, so in order to help us, our TA reminded us that this is actually the theme to the original Star Trek series! Some people said that this actually comes from Star Wars. I guess you guys know better than I do...

Also, for added interest, the tenors also had a moment, but this time it was sol (up to) mi, (then back down to) do. What's this? Yup, you guessed right--it's their NBC moment! Actually, the direction is opposite to the one hypothesized in the title: Handel has seeped through American culture.

The moment of truth!

Site: Garnet Sea
E-mail: GCat

Average # of times my computer crashes a day: 2, sometimes more
# of times I say "Agh" when this happens: 100,000,000, sometimes more

I still have Windows 95, so you can guess the approximate age of my computer. I'm so happy that I'm getting a new computer soon though, hopefully by next week. Things will be much better when that happens! Hope uploading stuff on the site will be easier too.

Site: Garnet Sea
E-mail: GCat

Is GC bad for choir?

I was singing in choir last week. We're singing Handel's Messiah (yup, the whole thing) for our concert in April. There was a long passage that had lots of melisma in it (I think it was "And He shall purify----....."), and there was absolutely nowhere where we could catch a breath! However, when we were rehearsing it (I sing in the alto section), I found I could still manage without breathing in the middle. That's good, right? Wrong! This is what our music director said, "Some of you are nasalizing because you're running out of air! Remember to take quick breaths in the middle if you have to!" Oops. That must've been me nasalizing. For your information, nasalizing is lowering the velum so that air escapes through the nasal instead of the oral cavity. The quality of the sound changes so that it's harder for the sopranos to harmonize w/ this sound (at least that's what MD said!).

I think one of the problems is w/ GC(!). Since I'm so used to listening and singing to GC's songs, I must've implicitly copied Yuri's style of singing somewhat. Yes her singing is quite nasalized. Even her "g"s sound like "ng"s. So this means I've to be extra careful in the future! I guess a person has to break and rebuild in order to truly learn...

Site: Garnet Sea
E-mail: GCat

Hmmm, how does writing prose feel? I think I still like lyrics better because ordinary thoughts and words can be transformed through music. I don't think I'm the type of person who can breathe poetic life into prose itself. How do you reach that place?
And will you leap for leap year?

Site: Garnet Sea
E-mail: GCat

La Musique

Music I've been listening to these couple weeks:

John Mayer's No Such Thing
fojimoto - www.fojimoto.com
Bonnie Pink's Kako to Genjitsu (The Past and Reality)
Aimee Mann - www.aimeemann.com

Site: Garnet Sea
E-mail: GCat