Something semi-accomplished

[hrj]

For a house project I tackled the last lump of books that haven't been sifted, shelf-checked, and reorganized: the music books. I got as far as sorting through everything, categorizing it, and organizing it in a logical fashion on the shelves, as well as verifying that all the items that are already in the book catalog are actually present and accounted for. I didn't feel mentally up to sifting through and identifying material for discard -- I figured this out because I found myself not wanting to part with some stuff that really solidly belongs in the category of "I have never used this; I am not using it; I am never likely to use it." I pulled a few items (old issues of Sing Out and a few books on handcrafting musical instruments) and then decided to wait for a time when I'm in a more ruthless mood. I don't want to complete the cataloging until I've done the sifting. And besides which, I need to decide whether I really want to catalog all my sheet music and exercise workbooks. There isn't a bright line dividing the reference books from ths music books, but eventually you get down into the folders of xeroxed sheet music thrown together for a particular performance set and then it starts getting ridiculous.

There was one delightful moment: I discovered that I do still have a copy of the barbershop quartet arrangement of Biotech Fantasy (or as I'm wont to call it: the barbarous shop quartet arrangement. I haven't laid eyes on that for years and was afraid I'd have to try to recreate it from scratch if I ever wanted to use it again.

Didn't manage to get the bike tuned up ... I hauled it all the way up to the shop and succeeded only in getting an appointment to get it tuned up. But the guy did tweak a few things that should lessen the gear skipping problem for the nonce.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I can easily imagine that barbershop arrangement -- especially the first three chords. Hmm, I wonder ... if Odd Numbers could just get hold of someone to sing bass ...

[hrj.livejournal.com]

It was always intended to be a barbershop-type tune. It was one of my experiments in composing a tune without having an instrument in my hands, because I'd been finding that the tunes were being too heavily influenced by my level of ability on my standard accompaniment instruments. The fun part with that sort of tune has always been figuring out a manageable accompaniment after the fact. Now if only I could put together that backup orchestra ....

[cellio]

I think I have that barbershop arrangement; I vaguely recall trying to sing it with On the Mark a few times (so you probably gave it to Elsbeth), and I never throw music away. (Finding it, on the other hand...) We didn't have the right voice parts to make it work at the time, alas.