Another TSA oops

In another instance of sneaking things past the TSA, I accidentally got through security at the Dayton airport with these tucked in the inside pocket of my carry-on bag.



Oops.


UPDATE: It seems as if the mobile blogging doesn't do links so well....

Catching up -- Sunday, Jan 20, 2008 - The Little Boy & the Lunch!

Back on Sunday, Jan 20, The Trinity Ringers (from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Menlo Park) played for the Children's Sermon of our 10:30 "Joy service".

We played one of Tammy Waldrop's "Ring-a-Story" pieces - "The Little Boy and the Lunch". It's the story of the feeding of the 5,000 told from the POV of the lunch basket, "Cubbie" (for "Common Use Basket" - CUB).

We used some checkered table cloths for our table covers - we used 4 six-foot tables in 2 rows (one on either side of the "stage" space), so the left row had green & white checks, the right row had red & white checks. We had one more blue & white checked tablecloth, which we used as Cubbie's basket liner.

Speaking of Cubbie, the character was played by Gretchen Rauch's daughter Theda. Theda is 17 and has had lots of experience in theater over the years, both through her own church's Children's Musical Theater, as well as via her high school drama program.

Gretchen put her sewing skills to good use & constructed the perfect costume! Using an oval-shaped quilt hoop, she wove brown (3 different shades) strips of cloth around the hoop to create a basket, and braided a handle to hold it on Theda's shoulder.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of this set up that day. RATS!! :-(

We also added some props to the presentation. In addition to the blue & white tablecloth (aka "The Giant Plaid Napkin") to line the basket, we also had 5 loaves of bread on sticks and 2 (drawings of) fish on sticks for the part where Cubby tells us what was in the basket before the miracle happened.

All the kids from the church sat in rapt attention watching the bells and Theda-as-Cubbie. The congregation laughed in all the appropriate places & everybody showered us with high praises after the service!

In short, it was a HIT! :-)

I've also directed Tammy's "Twinkle & the Bethlehem Star" with groups at 3 different churches & it was always very well received, too. So, if you are ever looking for something to do as a presentation for kids - something that the rest of your congregation will love, too - look no further than Tammy's "Ring-a-Story" series! They're all adorable!!

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Ragtime Stew - Sun, Feb 17, 2008

Sonos commissioned a piece from Bay Area composer Ellen Hoffman. It's based on the rags of Scott Joplin, with lots of other musical quotes thrown in - no surprise that it's named "Ragtime Stew"!

Ruben sent me some pics he took at the pre-performance rehearsal:

On the Handbell-L, Jason Tiller wrote this about the piece:

The adjective that I find myself using most about [Ragtime Stew] is "fun." It's light and accessible, with lots and lots of humorous quotes and clever melodic combination. It uses full orchestra, with double brass & woodwinds and an assortment of percussion, although mostly battery stuff (no snare or timpani, for ex.).

The handbell part is definitely in a solo role, although there is collaboration in some measures. The bell part isn't terribly hard, but it is *very* chromatic and highly syncopated - like most rags. Pobably level 4 or 5, if it were rated. The orchestral parts also aren't nasty, but are challenging in the same way.

The only direct Joplin quotes are "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag," but there are a whole host of other tunes thrown into the mix. Add some spice, stir, and you get Ragtime Stew!

Very cute piece. I think it will be a useful addition to the handbells & orchestra repertoire - there's nothing else out there quite like it. If people are looking to get non-Christmas symphony gigs, this piece would go over *extremely* well on a pops series.

I agree! With creative assignments, this piece is VERY accessible and just so gosh-darned FUN! I hope many many groups out there will program it - it deserved to be played a LOT!

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Weekend in Florida - Part 3 - Saturday, Feb 2, after the Festival & sight seeing! plus, Sunday, Feb 3, the flight home

After the Festival, Terry took me sight seeing - we saw all kinds of cool stuff (click on the thumbnails to see the full picture):

After that, Ellen & the other directors took me out to dinner:





Ellen even wrote a poem for me!!

Cross-country flight
To West Palm Beach
Five pieces worked,
How you did teach!

The kids rang hard,
They gave their all,
But, secretly,
They had a ball!

You've been so great!
We've had a blast,
Now, all too soon
This time has passed.

And so we bid
A fond farewell,
Esteemed clinician,
Friend, Michèle.

After dinner, I went back to the hotel. Ellen picked me up at 5am to take me to the airport - I had to be back in the Bay Area by 12:30 so that I could go to Sonos rehearsal Sunday afternoon.

One of my churches - Sunnyvale Presbyterian - takes donations of hotel-sized toiletries & gives them to a local homeless shelter, so I always grab those things wherever I travel. I did that this time, just out of habit, and tossed them into the lid of my suitcase.

I had forgotten that I was NOT checking a bag, just going with my carry-on.

However, TSA did not find the bottles. Here's what I "snuck" through security - Oops!:

More mobile blogging!

.. And this post was sent from my mobile phone via email.

Now I can post to my blog from ANYWHERE!! hopefully this means that I can post more quickly & more often! YAY!

-Michèle (from my mobile phone)

Mobile blogging? This post is being sent from my phone via MMS text messaging.

Weekend in Florida - Part 2 - Saturday, Feb 2, the Festival

Wow, sorry for the delay of this post - I meant to post this a week ago!

Anyway, back at the inn:

The innkeeper of the Mango Inn came in early on Saturday morning to make breakfast for me. Normally, breakfast is served starting at 8am, but Terry was scheduled to pick me up at that time, so I needed breakfast early. The innkeeper was wonderful - she set me up with a variety of cereals, yogurts, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese. Yum!

Terry arrived a little late, after having some issues with his home security system. The festival was supposed to start at 9:00 (the kids having arrived at 8:30 for setup) and at 8:57 Terry's phone rang. It was Ronnie, one of the other directors asking where we were.

Terry replied with some intersection that I thought we had passed a good 20 minutes earlier, which confused me. Then he said, "What's the problem? It starts at 9, right?"

I looked at the clock to see that it was 8:59. I also noticed that we seemed to be turning into a school parking lot. That's when I heard Terry say to Ronnie, "Turn around; I'm right behind you!" Then he said, "It's not nice to call me names." LOL!

You know those old rock 'n' roll "documentary" films where the camera follows the rock star as they get into the limo & drive to the concert venue, then get out of the limo & go right up on stage & start performing? That's how this felt -- I got out of the car, walked into the room as Ellen was introducing me, hopped up on to the podium & we were on!

Let me tell you, these kids were FANTASTIC!! They had just had some concert performances in December, so they'd been working on this music since resuming school in January -- and this is not easy music!

Here's the music they were working on, in the order that we did them Saturday (as near as I can remember):

• "Rock Around the Clock" arr. by Carol Lynn Mizell, published by Choristers Guild - LEVEL 4

When I got this score, I was confused by Carol Lynn's description of the "trombone smear" technique. So knowing Carol Lynn is on the Handbell-L, I sent a note there asking about it. Carol Lynn replied explaining that there is a mis-print in the instructions in the music & correcting that. Based on her explanation, I was able to demonstrate to the kids how to do the technique. I also printed out Carol Lynn's email so that all the directors could have copies to file with their music for future use. I also plan to make a short video clip of it, which I will post here.
The kids just needed some work on some of the rhythms in this piece & for negotiating the page-turn/key-change combo near the end. Other than those minor things, they were well on their way to having this piece down pat!

• "Spanish Dance" by Kevin McChesney, published by Jeffers - LEVEL 3

Kevin has a knack for writing rhythmic music that youth really love to play and this is no exception. For this piece, the kids had the malleted rhythm down, so we worked on dynamics (bringing the malleted parts down in volume and the melodic stuff up a bit) as well as on direction (phrasing and flow of the melody).

• "Toccata" by Kevin McChesney, published by Jeffers - LEVEL 5

Part of the "Raleigh Ringers Series" of publications, this piece features time signatures that change almost every measure. The kids & I talked a bit about macro-beats and micro-beats and the different empheses each beat (and subdivision of each beat) get. After we had worked through a few pages, there was a section notated in 6/8 where the bass had six 8th notes & the treble had 3 quarter notes. This was followed by a couple of measures in 3/4 where the bass had six 8th notes & the treble had 3 quarter notes. I posed the question, "Why do you think this measure is in 6/8 and the other is in 3/4?" One young man raised his hand and answered, "Because of the macro and micro-beats?" YES!

• "Little Fugue" by JS Bach, transcribed by Michael Kastner, published by Jeffers - LEVEL 4

I have previously played on the original edition of this piece, but Michael re-worked it to add in chimes and other types of bells (P&Fs, WCs, etc.). They did this piece at Distinctly Bronze in New Bern, NC, back in November, so I was familiar with the additions. Ellen tells me that at the Spotlight concert in May, they will have the orchestra bells play along on the chime parts. Just another reason I wish I could be there to see & hear it!
When I said to the kids, "Let's do Bach next" they actually CHEERED! We talked about fugues and how they should sound like conversations between voices rather than walls of sound. I also instructed the kids how to perform the trills. They're notated as shakes on 2 notes (ie. C6 D6 shakes) rather than as trills, but they should still be performed as trills (I am not certain how I feel about notating them as shakes instead of trills, but whatever), that is: starting on the beat, on the upper neighbor. I demonstrated to the kids how to do this & had them repeat it back to me. They were flawless, of course - even those trills which are done across 2 people (ie. A6 B-flat6)! They also got into phrasing those 4-measure long trills, slowly crescendoing to build the tension until it was resolved. Wow - these kids are gonna be totally awesome on this fugue come May, I just know it.

• "Champagne Rag" arr by Karen Roth, published by Jeffers - LEVEL 4

Our final piece for the day, we worked on the syncopations and chromaticisms inherent in a rag, as well as the key changes, repeats, and page turns.

Did I mention that we got all of this accomplished in THREE HOURS, with one 20 minute break in the middle?? That's right - we did five Level 3, 4, and 5 pieces in less than three hours! Not only that, remember that I said they'd only really been working on these pieces since January! I've heard adult groups who didn't have these pieces this good after several more months of rehearsal.

These kids have some OUTSTANDING teachers - teachers who care about the kids and who care about learning music. Teachers who go out of the way to connect the music to the kids' lives in ways that are meaningful and FUN. It was obvious to me from the moment I set foot in that room that those kids were ON FIRE - they love handbells and they love music & wanted to learn as much as possible so they could play these pieces as well as possible.

Watch out handbell world - when these kids become adults they are going to want to keep ringing & we had better be ready for them because they have raised the bar for the rest of us!!

Here's a pic of me with the kids at the end of the festival:



After the festival, Terry took my sight-seeing - that'll be the subject of my next post. Right now, I have to get ready to go - Sonos is playing the World Premiere of a new piece with the Diablo Symphony tonight & I have to gather my things!

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Weekend in Florida - Part 1 - Friday, Feb 1

This past weekend, I was invited to West Palm Beach, Florida, to be the clinician/conductor for a youth handbell festival. I mentioned that on the -L early last week when I asked a question about one of the pieces of music the kids would be playing and got emails from people in Florida asking about the festival.

Well, here's the scoop: Palm Beach County schools have handbells in their curriculum, mostly through the efforts of music teachers Ellen Bredeweg and Terry Whitten Whidden. Each year, the elementary and middle school bell groups participate in the annual "Spotlight on Young Musicians" at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, which is a Kravis Center Community Outreach Event in partnership with the School Board of Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach County Music Educators' Association, and the Youth Orchestra of Palm Beach County. Held in May, this event includes performances from all kinds of the county's student music groups - choirs, bands, orchestras, jazz bands, and handbell groups!

To prepare for this big event, the handbell groups have a festival in early February. They invite a clinician to come in and work with the kids - in past years they've had such people as Kevin McChesney and Doug Benton. This year it was me!

The groups also get together for rehearsals at the end of February, in March, and in April. It's my understanding that they do these rehearsals with their regular handbell teachers, who will be directing them at the Kravis event.

I hopped on a plane on Thursday night and took the red eye from SFO to CLT, then arrived at PBI at noon on Friday, an hour later than scheduled. I was picked up by Terry Whitten, a member of the committee organizing the event and a retired music teacher in the Palm Beach County schools.

Terry took me to lunch and showed me the Kravis Center - the festival was at a middle school, but he wanted me to see the Center. What a beautiful hall it is!

(Sonos played there in December of 2001. I wasn't a member of the group at that time, but that was the tour on which I auditioned - a few days later in New York City.)

After that, he dropped me off at my hotel, a wonderful bed and breakfast inn in Lake Worth near the Intercoastal Waterway called the Mango Inn.

Here are some pictures of the inn -- I've already told my husband that if he & I ever go to West Palm Beach on vacation, we need to stay here! -- click on the pics to bring them up in Flickr and read captions, etc.



Friday evening, Ellen & her husband Dave came by to pick me up for dinner. We went to a place in downtown Lake Worth called "Dave's" where we were joined by Karin, a school handbell director who couldn't make it to the festival on Saturday.



After dinner, I went back to the inn to get a good night's sleep - Saturday was going to be a big day!

Stay tuned for Part 2 - Saturday!

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Christmas Toes - Redux

I was sorting through my pictures from Japan and came across this one:

It turns out that Tess had Christmas Toes, too!