17/04/2002 - 7:26 p.m.

It's not over till the fat lady sings!

The grass is green around here. I noticed it on the way home, it's seriously green. Not brown the way it is all fall, not even dirty green the way it is all summer, it's Seriously Green. Very pretty.

I was at the Drake Invitational Choir Festival from 7-11 today, so, with the 90 minute early release from school I went to a class period and a quarter. This is the equivilent of saying I did absolutely nothing in school today. Of course, what's new, but, yes.

We saw Waukee's choir- very big on consonants, or something. They've been taught to say consonants in songs that don't need the sound. They were singing this very very pretty song, and doing a good job, but the word that started the phrase began with C. (It was Italian, so probably CH, but, C none the less.) The phrase was staggered through the choir, so one part would sing it and it was followed up by the rest of the parts. It sounded like a train. Rythmic harsh consonant C's over this pretty song. Sing any song with a slow beat and then make train-chugging noises over it- you'll have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Then we got to go watch two Master Classes. I have to ask why we had to watch. I guess they were supposed to be helping us all, or maybe showing us what college professors will make you do. I don't know. All I saw was some pudgy bearded tenor guy teaching Bethany how to scream correctly (actually, she was second, and there was a guy from Chamber who went first, he was good, but the guy didn't do anything particularly odd to him).

Bethany is, well, she's our token operatic soprano. She's very large, very loud, hits very high notes, and basically looks as though she's waiting to audition for Tosca. I say this giving Bethany a good deal of respect. She is good, and I recognise her as such.

Anyway, she was singing Non so piu cosa son, cosa faccio (I don't know anymore what I am, what I'm doing) from The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart- the man was a genius), and it's a good song. It also has a lot of silly Italian words in it. My favourites are

The song is also, in the best of operatic tradition, extraordinarily high (It is considered, however, a mezzo soprano piece. If that's the case, then I'm a second alto). So, the little tenor man would scream (on pitch, mind you, not an octave lower) and then Bethany would scream, and then he would say "no, like this", and repeat the action.

Fun times.