Acappellacizing

MUSIC!!!!! That's how one of the weirdest songs I've ever sung begins - with the whole choir singing in unison, at forte or above, a couple of sustained, majestic notes in praise of, and in an "Ode to [,] Music". (Those of you literary experts who frequent my blog - can you use the brackets that way? Well, either way, I just did... so pretty soon it will be catching on everywhere.) That's what the song is called - Ode to Music. Now, I'm sorry if I'm stepping on the toes of those who happen to think fondly of this particular piece, but personally I find it a little creepy.

Which is what I'm wondering could be the reaction to my music of those people who aren't used to hearing music that's been turned from perfectly acceptable instrumental songs into all-vocal arrangements, or who are used to hearing their favorite hymns minus all the fluff and 'personality'. But all personality aside (which for me is sometimes like trying to stuff a large tent into a tiny container that it only fit in before you bought it and used it), I hope you like the music. I want you to like me. Please.

Obviously, since I'm blogging about it, there were a few things I was hoping to explain about my music. Mainly back-story, and a little fore-story, and just a pinch of contempor-story.

In high school and college a thing I really liked doing was taking old hymns or contemporary 'worship' music and rearranging it, and also recording it myself (or with friends from time to time) on a multi-track recorder, before the advent of the PC. (At the risk of dating myself, I remember as a kid getting really excited about this Commodore 64 program that would take 30-45 minutes to load which, once it was fully loaded, involved a dot on a screen that you could move around and change the colors of - a paint program.) That's more or less what I've got up on MySpace right now. Special thanks to my friend Cory Martin (the number one friend and a member of these guys) for singing with me on It Is Well, my friend Ross King for letting me use his song In Need, my wife-friend Kathryn for singing with me on said song, and finally a certain person who wished to remain anonymous for his contributions. Okay, so now I'm just name dropping...

About eight or nine months ago, I started trying to write original music for the first time. I don't have any examples or demos of this right now, but I hope to develop this over the next little bit of my life, so that all this really cool stuff in my head can get out there on the web and then you can download it into yours. Pretty much all of my first original songs are introspective, reflective. I anticipate that later songs will be more extrospective (actually, I just looked it up - this really is a word), because it's like Jesus said, "Before you start blowing a lot of hot air, brush your teeth." At least, I think he said something like that.

The Difference Between Men and Women (and also my usual sort of quasi-theological ramblings)

Okay World-
Here it is. The definitive word on what really separates the men from the women. You ready for it? Yes? Good - then let's talk about...

Carrots. Yep, that's right. I like 'em cooked, my wife likes to eat them raw. What the helk*? Actually, what really rubs my rabbits about all of this is that I can force down a handful of raw carrots (as I did today), and STILL not have consumed a whole serving. 14 baby carrots. That's what they say is a serving. I reached capacity somewhere around 8 or 9. Oh, and you buy a candy bar, like a bigger one (but still not that big, definitely not "Texas-sized"), and you're probably looking at 2 servings. Bogus. Totally bogus. I'm like 99% sure that the government is screwing with us on this. But to get into that here would test even my limits of appropriate use of tangenting in a blogging event. Plus, you haven't even gotten to the asterisked footnote yet. So I reluctantly digress.

Okay, so that probably didn't have much to do with men and women. But I do still wonder... why this difference between my wife and me? Is it just about carrots, or is it something deeper than that? Maybe y'all can help me with this. Help me broaden my mind. Help me uncover the deeper issues. Any thoughts?


*By the way, those of you who regularly resort to using the word "heck" - thinking that you're somehow better off for euphemistically avoiding the "H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks" word - you owe me a debt of gratitude. You're welcome... for me showing you a better way. It seems pretty apparent to me that more and more people truly value transparency and being "real" to the point of not trying to maintain "appearances" that are really of no substantive value to a person (not cussing, not smoking or drinking, not wearing spandex) - that is, why maintain hypocrisy if you're heart's not right? Aim for the heart, and the behaviors will change, right? So, in the process of making real change, you're left with a difficult decision: Do I keep up the appearances whilst trying to have a real change of heart, or do I throw caution to the wind, let the tongue loose, and potentially lose myself in the process of trying to arrive at a changed self? Friends, I have revealed to you that oh-so-prized middle road: Do both. Take "helk", for example. You're not actually cussing by saying "hell", neither are you pulling that lame act of substituting words that no one really says when they stub their toe in an empty house (thus "heck" or "shoot"). You're doing something much better. You're getting some of the frustration out, while still maintaining a measure of dignity and reserve. And both the sailors and the pew-warmers will know what you mean. Again, and not to sound like a broken record, but... You're welcome.

Frisbicity

I just created a new word. Frisbicity. A combination of frisbee, ability, and capacity. And also whatever I could do to make it sound cool.

It basically describes a person's aptitude for throwing a mean frisbee. I could also have possibly tried for the word fraptitude, but there was actually a search result on Google for that word. So I stick with frisbicity.

Have you got it? Can you chunk the funk?