Suzy Q Homemaker

I finally figured it out.  It took weeks of wondering what on earth was making me dread and detest one of the yoga teachers at our Family Y.  The first time I took one of his classes was not on purpose.  He was subbing for my usual (and most favorite) teacher.  His choice in music freaked me out because I was not expecting a lot of contemporary stuff.  I didn’t know any of the songs he played and it bothered me how distracted I was by all the vocals and emo-riffic chord progressions.

You see, I’m a traditional kind of gal.  I like, if I do listen to music during yoga, to listen to something ethereal, calming, and relaxing.  I have a couple of go-to CD’s that I even copied for my favorite yoga teacher.  She has incorporated them into her playlists, too!  I prefer down-tempo, earthy music or just no music at all.  My advanced yoga teacher prefers no music because her class operates in more of a workshop-type mode.  We start the first have with vinyasas at our own pace and spend the last part of the class getting individual attention while working on the advanced pose du jour.  Last night I did my first headstand in nearly eight years.  Hallelujah!

I digress.

After tweeting with a friend of mine who mentioned him busting out the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga when she took one of his classes, it all started clicking into place.  So I looked up one of the songs that I could remember from last week’s class.  It was Muse’s “Neutral Star Collision”…from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  Okay.  I think Muse is alright.  Just not for yoga.  Then yesterday morning I was able to remember another song and looked it up when I got home.

Let me sidetrack again:  I like Cee Lo/Gnarls Barkley.  I do.  I have an old Goodie Mob album that I enjoy listening to and his songs are my favorites, especially this one:

But it totally threw me when I was trying to “float” into downward-facing dog while his voice was resounding throughout the room.  I was thoroughly distracted.  When I looked up that song, it was a non-surprise that this Cee Lo song was from that damned soundtrack, too.  So I put it out of my mind and tried to take care of my work for the day.  I had to do some laundry, finish up a StoryBook for a client, and deal with the many temper tantrums that Timothy threw whenever I couldn’t hold him.  Later that evening I had a Parent Orientation at the boys’ school and I went to Advanced Yoga afterward to make up for my bad experience that morning.

While Jamie and I were relaxing last night, we got to talking about the situation with this particular yoga teacher and I started investigating the rest of the songs from the “Eclipse” soundtrack.  It was immediately apparent that he was using the entire thing for our yoga routine and he opens with a piece by Philip Glass.

In the many years it took me to complete my music degree, I grew and changed a lot.  I learned to appreciate many genres of music.  As a freshman, I hated contemporary music that was “dissonant”, but later developed an appreciation for composers like Argento and Poulenc.  One genre I could never get past,though, was minimalism.  To put it bluntly: minimalist music makes me feel like hurting someone.  There is a list of movies that I hate.  I never quite put my finger on what it is I hated about these movies until the credits started rolling and the name Philip Glass popped up:

• The Illusionist (stupid movie made worse by stupid music)
• Neverwas (ditto)
• Secret Window (ditto)

Suddenly it all made sense.  The irritation I feel during yoga warm-up isn’t because I’m anticipating his random music–it’s from listening to PHILIP GLASS.  From the moment we’ve been trying to focus our breathing for the practice to come, I’ve been trying not to focus on the fact that the piano music in the background isn’t doing anything.  It’s nearly eight minutes of torture that I had been attributing to the fact that it was morning or I had a headache.

While I can no longer put full blame on the yoga teacher, I do believe he should be made aware of my and my friends’ distaste for his musical choices in class.  Perhaps on a comment card that reads:

If Daniel does not stop playing the “Eclipse” soundtrack during yoga class, I’m going to stab my eyes out.

I’m so proud of my little conductor.  Look how enthusiastic his cues are!

I’m going to post videos this week of yesterday’s Choir Camp Sunday service.  The morning was full of many tears and much laughter as I had a rare opportunity to sit in the sanctuary and watch our two oldest children sing their little hearts out.  Most of the laughter came while watching Aiden.  As you can see in this video, he is…a mess.  Oh, he loves to perform, there’s no doubt about that, but I do believe we need to have a little talk with him about “stage presence”.  I’ve already begun praying for the Junior Choir assistants this fall.  He’ll be graduating into the big kid choir.  Just imagine this, but with a choir robe and a cross necklace:

Musically, I haven’t done much for myself over the past few years.  The St. John choir keeps me busy because we have a regular concert series to prepare for every year, occasional out-of-town performances, and there’s always Sunday services.  But he last time I had a solo recital seems like forever ago.

When I was asked to be a part of a summer choir under the direction of Joseph Jennings, I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.  Don’t know who Joseph Jennings is?  How about the world-famous choir Chanticleer?  Well, Joseph Jennings was their musical director for twenty-something years and is now back in the CSRA.

I always find it helpful to occasionally work with other choral directors, to learn their style and develop a musical relationship with them.  Jennings is unique.  He works us hard during rehearsal but never fails to surprise us with off-color jokes or sudden outbursts of “YES LAWD.”  I am in love with all his quirks so far.

The music that we’re to perform at the end of July is challenging, most of which I had never done before.  The two pieces that scare me the most are Harvey’s “I Love the Lord” and an arrangement of Purcell’s “Hear My Prayer O Lord.”  During Monday night’s rehearsal, Jennings asked me to be in the soli chorus for the Harvey piece, so I’ve got some learning to do.  That piece is incredibly dissonant and there are some ethereal, rhythmically difficult lines that I have to sing practically out of the blue.

I’ve definitely got my work cut out for me, so I’m looking forward to this project.

Another project in the works is an all Fauré concert with a couple of musician friends.  Our hope is to have it ready by the end of August or early September.  I love art songs, and so should you.

Every few years, I fall in love with a new (to me) band.  Let me back up.  I am a radio listener when I’m driving.  While I do have an ipod and we have hundreds of cds in the house, I rarely bring them with me in the van because it is pointless to listen to “good music” when I’m spending most of our drives talking to the kids.  It takes us at least 20 minutes to get anywhere from our house and I’d love to listen to my albums from college, but I don’t want to if I can’t sing along.

That being said, when we saw Kings of Leon on SNL, what? a year ago?  or longer?  I think I turned to Jamie right then and said, “Wow.”  You never know what you’re going to see on SNL, and most of the time, the “artists” who appear on that little stage are just big and famous and lip-syncing to their songs with fly girls shaking their asses in the background.  I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after the Kings of Leon finished their second set because they were actually GOOD.  Like, they played real music without a lot of showy hullabaloo and special effects.

I kept forgetting about them, though, until we saw a repeat of that episode of SNL, then there was some commercial with their song, and then the top 40 radio station started playing “Use Somebody.”  Finally I started bugging Jamie to go buy the album for Christ’s sake.  We still buy cds!   With those paper booklets in the cases!

What’s funny about this, too, is that when “Use Somebody” started getting radio time, it instantly became Corey’s new favorite song.  I was thrilled about this because I was tired of turning it up when Taylor Swift’s autotoned voice came on.  Don’t tell Corey, but “turning it up” in the van really meant “fading the speakers all the way to the rear.”  Corey loves singing with the Kings of Leon and he has actually mastered all the vocal idiosyncrasies.  It’s cute.  As soon as Jamie brought home the CD, he told Corey to put it in his CD player and turn it to track four.  So the song started playing and Corey was dumbfounded.

“HEY!  THAT’S THE.  the.  That’s like ON THE RADIO!!!!!!”  And he stared at Jamie in wonder like he was the coolest dad on the planet.

I imported the entire CD to my iPod, and have deemed this album worthy of plugging my ipod into the crazy radio adapter thingie that gets annoying when there’s too much air static.  I can’t say what I like most about the Kings of Leon.  Maybe I love that they actually make music.  You know, with instruments and stuff.  There’s a great drive to a lot of the songs, with wonderful instrumental bridges and solos.  I love it.  “Revelry” is my favorite song on the entire album.  Corey calls it the “Dancing Machine Song”.