Fall is here!

And then there was the time that I had Saturday high school football games to attend. Sorry, guys, but not really missing that yet! I am playing in an adult band at Hartt School of Music - challenging music, lots of great players/fellow music teacher friends. Lots of fun sitting on the other side of the conducting baton! A little odd, but can definitely get used to it! You'll be glad to know that I am trying very hard to be a good band member - no talking to my stand partner, no doing homework, no texting (well, maybe during break), and definitely marking and working on my part while other sections rehearse. Lots of fun!

Some things I like about fall -

-clean air
-picking veggies from the garden
-eating veggies from the garden
-not getting up early on Saturdays to drive to football games!
-walking
-putting on and taking off the sweater, cuz the weather is changing
-the changing weather
-the leaves changing - (the best!)
-visiting the scarecrow contest
-apple and pumpkin pies

Vacation over!

Yes, it is true, vacation is over - Prague visited, Berlin visited, Maine visited, step son married (great time!). Pictures will be forthcoming. I guess I will work this week on getting a rhythm - a perhaps a new song! I'll keep you posted on things as they happen, but let's just say for now that (sorry to all my former students--)I really did not miss band camp!

Busy times ---

This is usually the time my stomach starts to tell me to get stressed - busy times ahead. Well, this year it is a little different 'busy'. I used to prepare for band camp (remember 'one day, at band camp?) - sending schedules and notes to students, preparing music, cleaning up the band room, figuring out the fall football schedule, getting the instruments in order, etc. Now I am happy to say that I haven't thought about any of that until just now (that's the big part of the job I won't miss). Instead my 'busy' will be preparing for trip to Germany (during band camp, yay!), my stepson's wedding, cleaning house for other stepson's visit, and making plans for daughter's wedding! The internet is my friend!

To those of you thinking about band camp - good luck and have fun! It may be your last! I never really thought about it being my last, but I can now say, that I won't miss it. I always felt cheated that I had to spend part of my summer preparing for it, and go back to school early to set things up. But there are so many things about the actual teaching that I enjoyed, that I always felt it was a balance. Once the students were on the scene, it was all good!

So while many of you are home hunting down the band shoes, t-shirt and valve oil, warming up the old chops, preparing the instrument (who am I kidding!), I will go on the internet and investigate a trip on the autobahn. Sehr gut!

Music and Baseball

Follow me through to the end of this one, fans, especially if you are Red Sox fans - there WILL be a quiz!

All of you know that I am a big Red Sox fan (remember the day we watched the replay of Red Sox beating the Yankees on the overhead screen in the band room during theory class? (oops, don't get me fired!) I come from a huge baseball family - immediate family, in-laws, outlaws, etc. My two brothers both pitched, coached, one was an athletic director/coach, minor league player. I excelled in softball (well, I played).

My brothers used to (and still do) give me grief about my chosen profession ("it doesn't take much to be a music teacher, just put the recording on at the beginning of class, and that's it") My argument always was that music is involved in almost every aspect of your life - even the passing chime at school was pitched to E, right, Zach? And that without music, life would be very boring, etc. I still got grief. This post is my attempt to prove my point within the area that my family can identify with - baseball and music.

There is of course, the playing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during a baseball game - which I could never understand because aren't you already at the game when you hear this??? And then there's the National Anthem, of course, which I won't get into the many terrible renditions I have heard at ball games. Most people don't really notice, but it is a very difficult song to sing and that is why it is sung so poorly many times, and why the melody is changed around by many people - primarily because they can't hit the notes as written!

There are many other music/baseball relationships, but the one I like the most is the singing of "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the 8th inning at Fenway Park. I'll admit that a big part of it is because the whole crowd is singing to me. But I also like the idea of the whole crowd connecting through music at one of my favorite past times. And especially the part where the music director turns off the music and lets the crowd sing alone (that's called acapella, for you non-musician types). And for you DHS band geeks, this is what I had in mind when I pushed for resting the instruments and having part of "Buttercup" be sung by the band during the football games.

I rest my case - for now!
Good times never seemed so good!


Legend has it that former Red Sox public address announcer Ed Brickley requested the song to be played as a tribute to the appropriately named newborn daughter of Billy Fitzpatrick, who worked in the Fenway Park control room for 20 years.

In reality, the song got its start at Fenway Park thanks to Amy Tobey, who was the ballpark’s music director from 1998 to 2004. She was responsible for choosing the music to be played between innings and picked Sweet Caroline simply because she had heard it played at other sporting events.

At first, Tobey played the song at random games sometime between the seventh and ninth innings, and only if the Red Sox were ahead. Tobey considered the song a good luck charm and it soon became something the fans anticipated.

But it wasn’t until 2002, when John Henry’s group bought the Red Sox, that Sweet Caroline become an official Fenway tradition. That’s when the new ownership requested that Tobey play the song during the eighth inning of every game.

Today Megan Kaiser is the person who chooses the between innings songs at Fenway Park, with the 8th inning exception.

Kaiser did add a slightly new touch to the playback of Diamond’s tune, as she turns off the sound during the most popular parts of the song. Red Sox fans know the words by heart now so they don’t need much help with the lyrics, and the song has become an important part of the ballpark atmosphere.
- Song Lyrics -
Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond

Where it began
I can't begin to knowin'
But then I know it's growin' strong

Was in the spring
And spring became the summer
Who'd have believed you'd come along

Hands, touchin' hands
Reachin' out
Touchin' me
Touchin' you

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would

But now I look at the night
And it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt
Hurtin' runs off my shoulders
How can I hurt when I'm with you

Warm, touchin' warm
Reachin' out
Touchin' me
Touchin' you

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would
Oh, no, no

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
I believed they never could
Sweet Caroline

Retired, revamping, reorganizing

Yeah, it is all I can do but take a bulldozer to most of the rooms in my house. Every day as I wander through, I keep saying, "How did this happen?" There is so much junk to get rid of, so much stuff to reorganize, so many trips to goodwill, the town farm, and the curb to make. Anyone out there interested in about 3,000 cds and video cassettes, books, clothes, computer equipment, just stuff! I am trying to reorganize, one room at a time. So far, the family room and closet look great - new furniture, and actually room for coats in the closet. I came across my high school yearbook and that stalled the organizing - I had to look at my skinny self in the band, at the prom (who did I go with???) and being a cheerleader with the flip hairdo! It was cute, then!

I have found some great stuff in the junk drawers too - 47 AA batteries, 65 votive candles, clarinet reeds, my old mouthpiece and ligature, and enough loose change to pay the mortgage next month (I wish!) But seriously, I recommend cleaning out those junk drawers once in a while. You are bound to find at least a couple of things that you didn't know you had that you had just gone out and bought two more of - before you cleaned the drawer!

I am, in general, being very annoying to those people who either live here (which is Scott) or who happen to come by - "can you help move this, would you like this, how can I get rid of this, etc." Also, I have given Scott fair warning - anything that is not nailed down - watch out! He is scared.

Hello???

How come the only comments I get about this blog are from my friend, Bev? I thought you all wanted to hear the meanderings of a retired band director/crazy person? I bet you all thought that I would write a couple of things and then let it drop. Well, that may very well happen, but not yet. Although I will be going silent probably from Germany in a couple of weeks. Although, you never know, it may be boring in Berlin and Prague and I won't have anything else to do. In any case, I am not feeling enough love about this blog! Forgotten so soon, huh?

More bandtrip goodness

One more band trip story- one of the best places to take your high school band is Washington, DC. It has everything, really. Plenty of history, interest, flowers,beautiful buildings, walking, pools, amusement park (okay, so you have to drive a little), etc. It is wonderful to have students visit our nation's capitol. I always learn something there. And there are hard lessons too - like the time one of my student's backpacks was scanned going into a tour of the capitol, and he was caught with liquor in it! Now, tell me, wasn't he just a little stupid to have that in the backpack? Shouldn't it have been hidden back in the hotel room? The guard alerted me and what could I do but call his parents? I mean, really? At that point it couldn't be ignored, right? And then we had to search his room when we got back to the hotel, right? And he had to be upset the whole rest of the day, because, of course this was the first stop of the day. And of course, he tried to tell me that someone must have planted it in his backpack! I mean, really, he must have thought I was a novice at the whole band trip thing. Tough lesson, indeed. Any of you bandees reading this - don't do this!