(No Subject)

*crickets*

*crickets*

*crickets*

Um... hello?

*crickets*

*crickets*

*crickets*

**Important Announcement**

Hey! Listen up! We have an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

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Are you ready?

Quick Takes (whatever day I finally post this)

...and I'm sick once again. I should just schedule blogger to auto-post an "I'm sick" post about once a month. It would probably be right most of the time.

The entire family is dying of the Lung Crud. This time, Anthony was patient zero, and I followed shortly after. Odd, though, that Anthony got sick on Friday, when he hadn't been out of the house since the previous Sunday. How are these germs getting in?

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Stations of the cross have been particularly penitential this Lent. I have somehow managed to always end up in front of a family who follows along at their own pace, disregarding the tempo set by Father when intoning the Stabat Mater, and who somehow always end up out of sync with the entire rest of the congregation when reading the other parts. It is a special kind of hell, when you are trying to sing or read and someone else is speaking right in your ear at a completely different speed. It's akin to the torture room described by C.S Lewis in That Hideous Strength, which had patterns of dots on the ceiling and floor, which didn't quite line up. It seems designed to break down your will.

I wonder of the CIA has ever tried that as an "enhanced interrogation technique". That or smearing potential terrorists' backs with bacon grease, waiting a couple days, then popping any back pimples that form. Cause gorram that would make me talk in a hurry.

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Down the Rabbit Hole: Addendum

So, after some encouragement from Dave, I revisited Gregorio. After messing around a bit more, I discovered the reason it hadn't properly loaded and connected itself with TeX Live was that, when the installer was finished, I checked the "display readme.txt" option, which was causing the error message about not finding the TeX Live files (???). When I unchecked that option before completing the install, it appeared to connect up properly and I was able to get Gregorio and TeX Live to compile.

The process is a little tricky, but so, so, so much faster than my other option, which was to use the now-"free" copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with the font Caeciliae. While that method produced very pretty scores,  it took an ungodly amount of time. Using Gregorio, I was able to produce sharp-looking scores in about 15 minutes.

Check them out:

Schola Concert

Well for those of you not privileged enough to live in shouting distance of my wonderful voice, I recorded our concert and uploaded it to YouTube. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.



So far, no one has said I sounded terrible, so that's a plus.

Also, audio quality is terrible. Any suggestions for a cheap, good audio solution for a large, empty space?

Please Stay Tuned for an Important Announcement!

This Smart-Looking Guy has an Important Announcement!

I have an Important Announcement!

Thank you, Smart-Looking Guy! And now we return you to—

I wasn't done.

What's that?

 I said I wasn't done. I still have an Important Announcement!

This Is Why I Joined the Schola

...because we get to sing cool stuff like this:

"Alma Redemptoris Mater" for SATB and sleeping baby by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina.

Messe Secunda, by Fr. Michael Haller

For those of you poor saps who were unable to make it to the concert last night, here is the rendition of the Mass that we performed.



I will upload the other parts of the concert as time permits.

**Update**

The Vox Caelestis women's ensemble's set is also up:

!!Breaking News!!

Did that get your attention? I hope so! The news isn't actually all that breaking, but I just wanted to make sure you were listening.

For those loyal readers (hi Mom!) in the Southern California area, I have an important announcement.

Well, not actually that important. I just want to make sure you're paying attention.

Anywho, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church's Latin Schola, of which yours truly is a member, will be performing our first ever concert on June 24 (the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist) at 8:00pm. The concert will begin with a low Mass in the extraordinary form (in Latin, priest faces ad oriens (that is, he is oriented correctly, in the same direction as the people, so the Mass isn't a staring contest)). This will be followed by actual singing. Our showpiece is the "Messe Secunda" by Fr. Michael Haller, a 19th century Palestrina scholar, who wrote this gorgeous 3-part (SAB) Mass in the style of the great Renaissance sacred works of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Other works we will be performing are: the chant "Ut Queant Laxis", a chant to St. John the Baptist, from which the solfège "do re mi..." originates; César Franck's "Panis Angelicus"; and maybe one or two others (if you're lucky!).

(Did you notice all the bold text? I put it there. It was designed to subtly catch your eye and make you more interested. Did it work?)

So, come and bring a friend, why don't you? Bring ten friends. Bring a hundred friends! You probably won't regret it™! (That's my personal guarantee!)

Oh, yeah, and we also have this cool flyer.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "wow, Joe, that's a cool flyer! How could the concert not be awesome if it has such a cool flyer?" (Yes, I know you think in bold text.)

Well, you, that's a good question. How could the concert not be awesome if we have such an awesome flyer? The answer is: there is no conceivable way the concert could not be awesome with such a cool flyer. This has been rigorously proven by science-type people, like this guy.

This Guy? Tell everybody why it will be awesome:

The concert will be so awesome, because it has a cool flyer. I have proven this scientifically!

You know you can trust him because he wears glasses. That means he's got, like, +5 to science!

And that's why you need to come! You probably won't regret it!™

How 'Bout Some Halloween Music?

Now With Even Less Original Content!

A couple quick things. Firstly, I forgot this in the Friday link dump:

Her California accent sounds almost exactly like The Murloc's cousin.

I used to think that I had a neutral “American” accent, until I recently started doing voice work for my company’s training videos. This involves me recording and listening to my own voice a lot, and I’ve noticed two speech quirks that come through frequently. Firstly, I say “buh-n” instead of “button” and “frinstance” instead of “for instance”. It takes a lot of mental concentration to speak without the accent, and I end up re-recording a lot.

Secondly, go here to listen to the awesome "Gloria" that I heard at a Christmas concert I went to on Sunday. As I told my friend who sang in the choir, I wasn't aware anyone was still writing great sacred music.