My good friend Tonda asked me to sing a duet with her at church in a few weeks. Today we went to Rebecca Shapiro's house to practice. Earlier we'd chosen the song "We Rejoice" from the "Women of Destiny: Songs for Celebrating the Declaration of the Relief Society" song book. It is very pretty and hymn-like. What we didn't anticipate is the difficulty in that the soprano part (Tonda) is the low melody and the alto part (me) is a high harmony. What alto sounds good hitting a high F#? Just wondering, 'cause it's not me. I must say, that song kicked my butt. But with some tweaking of parts, I am working on it.
I want to play my French horn again. Since Tyce is interested in playing an instrument in band or orchestra next year he's been tinkering with my old horn. (He says he's leaning towards the trumpet, or maybe the cello). I showed him how to blow into the mouthpiece and how to play the C scale--which for any brass players out there, you know how hard it is to teach a novice how to "do" it, because it's so much more than just pushing the right combination of valves. It just goes to show how good Tyce is at that kind of thing because he could play the C scale within minutes. Anyway, I took a turn too, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good I still was. Not great, not amazing, but GOOD, which gave me confidence that I could regain my "chops".
Maybe this summer I'll be ready to play for a church function or two, like I used to. I especially love playing at Christmas. By then I might have a some company as Tyce gets better at whatever instrument he chooses.
***Update***
Tyce informs me that he wants to play the trumpet so he'll "get lots of girls." (!!!) I guess that's no different than my un-musical motivation for choosing the French horn at the same age: "Because it's pretty to look at."
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