How to use your hands to make music

I know this has been around for a while. In fact, I may have even posted it before. (See previous post on my misplaced Christmas file.)

But it's still a wonderful video, and watching it makes me happy.

I sang in a choir when I was young, at school and at church. I'm not sure why I stopped because there is a sort of magic that happens when you are part of a group where all its disparate members join together to make something beautiful. And if it's a choir, you don't just hear the music, you feel it in your soul when everything just clicks into place. It's electric, it really is.

I joined our high school band for the same reason I sang in the choir.

It was not electrifying.

My instrument of choice was the clarinet which, like my dog Buddy, was a tricky little bugger to master. First step was retrieving a reed from the communal pot. I always gave it a good splosh in the jar of antiseptic solution (which I suspect was there more for show than efficacy, because the same cloudy solution resided in that jar all year, and the reeds were shared amongst all the students, oh the horror.) I then had to soak the reed in my mouth. (I still shudder at the memory.) And all the while I tried not to look around the room and wonder whose mouth had housed it before mine, and prayed it wouldn't split because that meant finding another one thereby increasing my chances of death by coodies.

Anyway, it was all moot because despite my best efforts and love of music, I could not conquer this instrument. I think if I had found a feral cat, wrapped it up in bagpipes and squeezed it like a wet dishcloth, it would have sounded better than the noises I produced. Try as I might, I couldn't avoid the ungodly squeaks and squeals of missed notes. The anticipation made me tense, which made my lips tighten, which produced more mistakes. The music teacher/band leader finally admitted defeat, and asked me to fake it. That's right. I was in the band but forced to "lip synch" with my clarinet. I moved my fingers and swayed in time, but produced no actual music, which was sort of the point of joining A Band. I gave it up after one year. The music teacher ended up getting fired anyway after he slapped a student. I still look at clarinets as instruments of evil.

Anyway, enjoy this choir!



And thanks to all of you who email me often to tell me you read my blog regularly and enjoy it, or in some cases, tell my husband right before he injects your Novocaine. (Yup, telling your dentist you enjoy his wife's blog is just good strategy!)

I'm not sure why so many of you email but don't leave comments. (Not that I mind emails. I love those too!) Are you shy? Is it the blogger policy of asking you to register? (It's free you know, and you can set it up so that it's anonymous.)

I love seeing the comments but mostly I love knowing you're here.