Last night I went to a performance that a friend was playing in, The Seven Last Words of Christ by Theodore Dubois’. It was a small little Easter performance at a Methodist church and it turned out to be quite good, even if the poor clarinet player couldn’t hit a single note. The choir was powerful and had a Johnny Depp look alike that made the perfect addition. There were several baritone and tenor solos, which was rather confusing because the guy that sounded like the baritone was singing the tenor part and vice versa. I would like to get a recorded version of this piece to hear it again, the first and fifth words were my favorite.
My friend Anthony that was performing with the group was playing the timpani. Being a former percussionist myself, the timpani was of course my favorite part. Their sound adds such power and fullness. I think people are generally intrigued with an instrument like the timpani. There were a couple of times when the timpani came in forte, and unexpected and several little old ladies in the church crowd jumped. It was priceless. I enjoyed watching him play and was, as usual, so impressed with his abilities. It is such a treat to watch someone I know perform. I like to see their talent, how they interact with their instrument and respond to the music. I remember watching Anthony at what I think was his senior performance concert. He played a marimba piece that blew me away. (It could have been the xylophone, can’t remember for sure!) I was super impressed and jealous all at the same time. There is nothing like the feeling of performing a piece that you have put so much preparation in to, and when the time comes you nail it. After the show he was talking about tuning the timpani and how he had to keep adjusting for the choir. How does someone tune timpani in the middle of a performance? This is something I could never do. How do you know what note you are on? Even though I’ve been musically inclined my whole life I can’t tune any instrument without a full out advanced tuner, and even then I will be lucky if I get it right.
[...] Friday, I slept in a little, then worked on our checkbook paying bills and such, then met my mom for lunch. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, so that was nice. After, I played some Guitar Hero and WoW until Lisa got home. We went and saw Anthony perform The Seven Last Words of Christ at a Methodist church with this amazing choir. It was quite awesome to see live performance again, something we haven’t done in awhile. Lisa has some great thoughts on the topic. After that, we had dinner with Anthony and Audra at Yen Ching. Since the four of us play a ton of WoW, there was much discussion. I got a lot of teasing because most of my “armor” looks like ladies evening wear. Seriously, the mooncloth robe is a nice piece of gear, but guys shouldn’t wear it. Seriously. [...]