John Schultz: June 2004 Archives

Admiral Al Sharpton has a reality show coming out. Before you find out what it's about, think of the possiblities:

"How Many Donuts?" - Contestants guess how many donuts Al can eat. They drive him from store to store as each donut shop runs out of inventory.

"Sharpton Your Rhetoric" - Al coaches up-and-coming demagogues on the fine art of whipping the masses to a froth. One by one contestants are removed if they fail to incite riots, protests and sit-ins at City Hall. Contestants get extra points when more than 3 city blocks are destroyed by fire.

"Al Across the Globe" - Contestants travel with Al to exotic locales where they meet with local dictators, watch military parades and are filmed trashing the U.S.A. Every contestant that makes it back to the plane wins.

It turns out the show is about career counseling. I'm sleepy now.

That is the sound of the economy, and with it the increase in Consumer Confidence.

More news like this and Michael Moore will be forced to make sequels to F/9-11 that feature conspiracy theories about the Bush landslide in November.

I was able to register a new vehicle, get a title and new tags in 14 minutes at the Springfield, VA DMV. If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up.

Amateur singers normally don't sing without breaks in the sound that cut up the flow of the line. In music terms, they don't know how to sing legato.

One cause of non-legato singing is the singer simply doesn't know how to hold his breath while singing. You don't push the air out to make sound, you have to hold your breath. The tension created in the torso is not something your average person is used to. The singer releases the tension whenever possible and that breaks up the line.

The other issue is that singers tend to close to voiced consonants to early. A voice consonant has a pitch: "ng" as in "King", the letter n, the letter m are all example. Instead of giving the vowel the full duration, the sing will close to the "ng" and hold that on a pitch. That works for Sinata but no Palestrina. Even Haugen sounds crappy (crappier?) when not sung legato.

I can normally get good results if I just bring up these two points. It's tough to create choral habits, but legato singing should be one of them.

It's a bee-sting and a paper cut with a dash of salt.

It was a symptom of Bill Clinton's tackiness that he inverted the old axiom that "everyone lies about sex." It's true, gentlemen did lie about sex to protect the honor of women. Bill Clinton lied about the honor of women he had sex with to protect himself.

-Jonah Goldberg on NRO

As some of you know, I'm currently in an MBA program at UMUC. I've learned alot so far and that's helped my company and my customers.

There is one overarching issue in the program related to teamwork. We have a huge amount of social loafing in the teams. The overacheivers want to do a good job and work hard, while some of the folks are content to act busy, deliver something that is inaccurate or rudimentary, and then be first in line for the high-fives when the team gets an A.

One team member is now being called the "Loch Ness Monster." He pokes his head above water on rare ocassions to act like he's engaged, then dives to the bottom of the Loch until the project is turned in.

I'm sure other folks have Loch Ness Monster sightings at work or school. Or maybe more colorful nicknames...

I saw a retrospective of this young fella on the Today Show this morning. I've never read his poems so I can't comment on his message in detail, but he seemed like a wonderful kid who did his best to bring light to the world in the time he had.

Here's the WashPost article.

Cantors have been known to cause heartburn, anxiety, dismay and hearing loss. Everyone could relate a story about the Cantor who made a liturgy nearly unbearable because of the volume, tone or gestures. Did he reach the high note that starts "On Eagle's Wings?" Probably not, and neither did the rest of the congregation.

A cantor is supposed to lead the musical/congregational prayer of the liturgy. I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. I say as little as possible, I only move to bring the congregation in (usually with one arm) and I move away from the mic when the range is such that I don't need the mic and when it's time for the congregation to sing. There's nothing worse than what Thomas Day calls "Mr. Caruso" - the cantor that has the mic planted firmly between his front teeth and is extracting every decibel possible from the parish's shoddy sound system.

If cantors remembers it's all about prayer to God rather than all about themselves, that usually goes a long way to helping the situation.

I could go on and on, but I'm out of time and I'm sure you have opinions.

Michael Moore Kicking Self For Not Filming Last 600 Trips To McDonald's

Nothing screams
"POSTHUMOUS CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT" or
"THE ESTATE WISHES TO LEVERAGE THE MARKETING VALUE OF THE DECEASED"
like this:

J. Garcia Wine Sells Out in 30 Days

Singers sometimes get a little caught up in the music (or themselves) and move around when they sing. You've probably seen the cantor or lone chorister swaying their torso, taking a huge, obvious breath or move their chin up and down based on the pitch. All these things get in the way of good singing and music-making.

Moving too much creates your own rhythm. If you get to swaying, bobbing or tapping, changes are your tempo will be different than the conductor. Don't externalize rhythm - watch the conductor and follow his rhythm.

Moving too much adversely effects your instrument. There's a reason organ pipes are a fixed size - the size and characteristics dictate the pitch and timbre. Same thing with the voice - you can't have a consistent, good sound you are moving your instrument around. The entire instrument, from air in the lungs to the shape of the throat and other areas where there's resonance shouldn't be moved around.

Moving around is distracting. There's no benefit, particularly in a liturgical setting, to drawing attention to yourself in such a silly way. Someone might give you a leotard and a big, curly banner and ask you to lead the liturgical dance ministry.

Moving around means you're probably not paying attention. If you are busy "emoting" you are probably not engaged with the rest of the ensemble.

That covers it. If you stay still, you'll look better, sing better and be a more valuable part of the ensemble.

From FoxNews - Study reports that dogs can understand over 200 words.

I just saw an ad that said, "Congratulations. You are the 1,000th visitor to our web site and..."

I thought, "1,000??? Did the clock turn back to 1995 or something?"

A business school tidbit: The Customer Relationship Management people that write for Harvard Business Review and other publications think it's high time marketers were honest with people so that a real relationship can either happen or not happen.

So perhaps the banner should read:

"We aren't creative enough to come up with a promotion that means something, but why don't you give us all your personal info and we'll add you to a e-newsletter that comes out twice a day and splatters you with all sorts of travel offers. It will make you feel pretty. And we promise we won't sell your e-mail address to the Martians or anyone that has all five vowels in the sequential order you learned them in pre-school in their last name."

I guess that's too big for a banner...

Folk Ensemble Society Annual 2004 Annual Meeting
Folk and Contemporary Musicians in the Liturgy: Quo Vadis?

Add more in the comments boxes, please!

Eternal rest grant to him, and let your light shine upon him. May God grant us the grace to remember how blessed we were with a leader such as Reagan.

Story via the Washington Times.

Why did I think it was going to be a pop-up book?

You think any major US news outlets would run this video? This Op-Ed from the Washington Times.

Ambulances for terrorists?

Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City May 11. The footage shows two ambulances with flashing lights pull onto a street. Shots and shouts ring out during the nighttime raid. A gang of militants piles into one of the supposedly neutral ambulances, clearly marked "U.N." with blue flag flying, which then speeds from the scene.

I found Handlo.com this week, a site that has hundreds of classical choral scores available for download for a small fee. The licensing allows for the duplication of the score for amateur choirs, so for $5 - $20, I can download and print the score for the whole choir.

I bought this Victoria "Veni Sancte Spiritus" (the link is a PDF file of the first page)- if we have enough singers next year we'll do this for Pentecost. It's for double choir which means I need two strong readers on each voice part.

1997 Acura 2.2 CL
Black outside, gray leather inside
Sunroof during the day, moonroof at night
5 speed manual transmission - fun to drive!
Sony 10-disc changer, cassette, AM/FM radio
Power everything
Stylish Coupe
104,500 miles

$6,250 or $6,225 if you show up with a six pack of Miller Lite.

E-mail to js (a) tenor.com if you are interested and capable of coming to the DC-area to check out the car.

I read Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soliders last week. I enjoy reading Ambrose because he's a master story-teller that gets his facts straight and lets history speak for itself. The book includes hundreds of quotes and stories from the people on the front lines.

An interesting nugget for the "Any military engagement longer than 2 weeks is a quagmire" crowd: in the days following the D-Day invasion, certain people in the government and the military were concerned the invasion was "bogged-down" and no progress would be made. In some places it was, but overall it was a tremendous but costly success from a military standpoint.

When I tell the choir something important, I start by saying, "This is one thing you should remember forever, and if I get hit by a cement mixer on the way home from rehearsal, I won't be here to repeat it again." They used to laugh at that, but don't anymore - I need to come up with another untimely death scenario.

At the top of the list is that singers need to open their mouths. From an early age, we're conditioned to keep our mouths closed: "Don't chew with your mouth open" "Shut your mouth or you'll catch flies"

In a choir, a quick way to improve the sound is to have the singers open their mouths while singing. It prolongs the duration of the vowel and encourages legato singing. An open mouth generally leads to a better resonance in the voice and better vowel color. It also encourages concentration on the overall effort.

I have to fight the closed-mouth syndrome all the time because of old habits, but all the fighting pays off and open mouths can help any piece of music sound better.