Super Jumbo + Madrigal Singing + Rams

Mega Super Jumbo Sized Tired on a Sunday night. I don't know if that is more tired or less tired than Tired Beyond Measure, the category I have checked in with on recent Sundays, but it sure is Super Duper Ding Dang Double Dog Tired any way you look at it. :)

Been goin' all day, and runnin' on three hours sleep. First to church (or "choych" if you are from New Joyzee). We sang a fun one today, a show-bizzy sounding tune called "Think What He'll Do For You". It sounds like a Broadway song, and you can really belt it out. But now in rehearsal we are learning a song with a midsection that sounds like a Madrigal - now that is some different kind of singing. In the middle of the song, it breaks into three different counterpoints, three voices in three different rhythms. Our director explains Madrigal singing as being a big deal for people several centuries ago because 1) they did not have recorded music they could listen to, 2) live performers were rare, 3) most people did not own a musical instrument, but 4) what everyone did have was a Voice, and so singing was a very, very big deal. It was a way to make music, and a way to hear music, and you had to do it yourself (with your church group or family or friends) because that was the only way you were likely to hear music in those days. Orchestra concerts and the like were reserved for wealthy folks, and anyway Madrigal singing goes back farther than orchestras.

So what happened is that ordinary folks got really, really good at singing, because singing was their music, and music was important to them, as it has always been. And because contrapuntal music was en vogue in those days, people got really good at it. Regular folks! And with Madrigals, you would sometimes have a song break up into many different "voices", four to eight or even more. And everyone would be singing a different line that, as a whole, would fit together like the gears of a watch.

So that was Madrigal singing in the 1500s or so, and we are learning a little bit of it in a middle section of a new song. It's only a few lines worth, but it's fun to learn and it sounds really cool when everybody hits their parts.

Anybody wanna try some Madrigal singing with me? It'll be fun - we'll go back to the Middle Ages, maybe run into Ritchie Blackmore and his wife Candice while we are there.....    :)

After church I drove straight out to Burbank to take my sister Sophie shopping. Got back home by 3:30pm and had a few minutes to chill before heading back to Pearl's. I turned on the Rams game, not knowing what to expect (because they have been terrible in recent years), and.......wow!......they were doing an Old Fashioned Butt Whipping on the Colts : 46 to 9!

So, despite Sports being an admittedly mindless pursuit, but for some reason still meaningful, it was pretty awesome to see the Rams break out of their funk for the first time in ages.

So yeah : How 'bout them Rams?!  :)

No movie tonight, but I did watch and episode of "The Prisoner" with Patrick McGoohan. It was Episode 12 in a seventeen episode series, so I have five more to go. And I would still take McGoohan in a Cage Match over Wilford Brimley and Brian Dennehy. I'm stickin' to my guns on that one.

Nearing the Event Horizon of the Black Hole Of Tiredness........

See you in the morning.  :):)