Timberliner Outfits

The Rose City Timberliners are looking at adding another outfit to their performing costumes.

Currently, the chorus wears a white long sleeve cotton shirt, khaki slacks and black belt and shoes from Company Casuals catalog for 28$. The logo (not shown here) is red with green lettering. This same shirt is available in short sleeve and many other colors.

While the group is easy-going, they want to look uniform and put-together as performers. Unavoidably though, such groups look like a bowling team or a restaurant staff.

For summer, though, the idea is another more comfortable shirt, short sleeves, square cut bottom wearable outside the pants. Each singer wearing a "Hawaiian" style shirt of any print they chose was discussed, but not generally liked. Casuals sells "camp shirts" in white and celery and other colors. Our logo is already on file with them, so there is no new set-up fee for embroidering this onto the shirts.

One suggested we try a "deep rose" color shirt. Color is not available in camp style at Casuals, but another supplier offers it for a new logo fee. Casuals does offer the deep red in a knit sport shirt that might fit the bill for $18.00. This style also has white, ivory and celery and other colors.

The membership will look at these options and decide what, if any, to add to the uniform requirements.

This from Stephen Zopfi, Conductor and Director of Portland Symphonic Choir, September 23, 2009, while preparing to sing Brahm's "Ein Deutches Requiem"

Let us take as a given that pronunciation for singing is different than pronunciation for speech. (Hence, specialized diction classes for singing)

Let us also take as given that what works for solo singing doesn't always work for choral situations (Hence, we adjust choral pronunciation to find what works for a particular choir in a particular musical situation)

Add to that pronunciation can be modified depending on where a particular note sits in the voice, what sequence of vowels and consonants come before and after, where it occurs in the musical line, and even what musical effect is needed.

Then mix in the fact that no two native speakers of most languages agree on the pronunciation of anything.

Then stir.

Well, you can see that it is a difficult situation. IPA symbols can be tremendously helpful but even with IPA, there is a limit to what they can offer. Like musical notation, IPA can point you in the right direction but no notational system can ever capture the nuance and endless gradations of speech.

Therefore, we do the best we can. We establish a standard and train the best we can. We do our best to listen and to adjust. We practice. For those of you who have had singers diction, have sung the work many times before, or who are native speakers - hang in there. We have a new choir with new adjustments, new standards, new interpretation, new things to listen for, to discover.

In choral singing, performing "as one" is more important than performing "right". Ideally, we can achieve both, but art is in the details.

About Choral Masterworks

This from Stephen Zopfi, Conductor and Director of Portland Symphonic Choir, September 23, 2009, while preparing to sing Brahm's "Ein Deutches Requiem"

Dear Folks,

There is something different about singing a choral masterwork than singing any other repertoire. They feed us on spiritually while reminding us what it is to be human. They are a three course meal of vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, dairy, and so on rather than the fast food of much of what passes for choral music. They are tremendously challenging vocally, musically, physically, emotionally, artistically, and intellectually. It is tremendously satisfying and nourishing on a very human level to sing a masterwork. Not to say I don't like my carbohydrates. I am a fool for chocolate covered mini-donuts and certain arrangements of popular songs. However, it is the Masterworks that feed and sustain us on a very deep level.

Another characteristic of Masterworks is that they have depth. The more you look at one, the more you discover. Was Brahms writing unrequited love music for Clara Schumann, or was it spiritual solace for her on the death of her husband, Robert? I have changed my mind repeatedly about markings. Lately, I have been thinking that the end of the 2nd mvt. has an obvious dramatic spot at m. 336 that benefits greatly from a rallentando. But an immediate return to tempo at m. 333 seems a bit mechanical. All of these ideas can be debated endlessly but that is what makes this masterworks so fascinating:

They have something more to reveal to us each time we perform them.

That might even be the test of masterworks in any genre... they have more to reveal.

Masterpiece (or chef d'œuvre): a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career; a work of outstanding creativity, skill and workmanship.

St. Timothy's New Piano

the Music minstry at
St. Timothy's Lutheran Church
14500 SW Powell Blvd,
Portland OR 97230


Using funds raised from the Ruth Beck Memorial Fund (major contributors to be listed)
purchased


a beautiful Samick Piano 5' 7" Traditional style high-polish walnut with mahogany and mother-of-pearl inlays.

from Ogden Music
4035 Southeast 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97266-2913
(503) 777-2666

by Alice... who sold us a lot of other stuff, too.

in '92 Mr. Orland Odgen bought the baby grand from Samick's display at the N.A.M.M. show in Anaheim, California to display at his Portland store and his personal use. He never sold it... wanting it to go to a special customer that would care for it. On his death in May 2002, his widow discounted the price heavily as the store is slated to close. Originally purchased for seventeen thousand, St. Timothy Lutheran acquired it for a little over seven thousand dollars. The Oregonian Newspaper wrote about Mr. Ogden in March 1992.

More:

The attached manufacturers card reads "Samick Musical Instruments Co Ltd.
316, Hyosong-dong, Pug-go Inchon, Korea
Tel (02) 742-+3330 /4, (032) 526-3321 /40
(SN# IKCGO522, Model SG172D, Color AWMHP) and factory inspection notes.


Similar to this model...Specifications: 683 lbs. 41" Tall, 58 1/4" Wide.
Soundboard Area: 1882 sq. in. #1 Bass string:
51 1/2"



Posted online by
Samick Music Corporation, 575 Airport Road, Gallatin, TN 37066, (800) 592-9393)
M-F 8-5 pm)
info@smcmusic.com or (recommended) email jjones@smcmusic.com with SN and info.


Advice from Alice:

Always use the piano cover, Alice recommends. She is preparing a much nicer cover than the green cloth one for us to use.

To polish and clean, use a soft cloth, like a classic car cleaning cloths. Don't use a normal cloth or wood cleaner. Once a month use a cleaner called _______

If varnish is scratched, hire professional _______ to repair it for you.

The Oregon Song

The Portland Oregon Barbershop Chorus,
"The Timberliners" sings this little ditty often.
We think these words were penned around 1987 by past Timberliners director Mr. Michael Brown.

We're sure you know the tune and lyrics to "O Tannenbaum", but we bet you haven't heard this version.

THE OREGON SONG


Our trees are tall, our scenery's great,
our mountains are exquisite,
But when you come to see our state,
be sure it's just to visit.
Our men all look like lumberjacks.
Our women wear designer slacks.
There isn't any sales tax (yet)
in Oregon, my Oregon.

We've beavers, ducks and fishies here.
We've flora and we've fauna.
We had Baghwans and Rajneeshees here,
and medical marijuana.
When Mount Saint Helen's blows her crust,
we're covered in volcano dust.
We never tan, we only rust
in Oregon, my Oregon.

We save the whales, we fight the nuke,
but buddy, let me warn ya,
If you're some kind of weirdo kook,
go back to California.
From Portland to the Siskiyous,
we ride our bikes and row canoes.
We always wear our Nike shoes
in Oregon, My Oregon.

Harry Warren

The world's first gold record...

The most hits on Your Hit Parade ever...

Over 500 published songs, and his hits are household songs, even 60 years later.

1949 Director of ASCAP...

11 Academy award nominations and three awards for Movie's Best Song.....

And have you heard of Harry Warren?

Success, even in performing arts, is not equal to fame.

Is he a master composer? Yes, without doubt. Is that recognized? No.

Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" reviewed the 2001 revival:

"What better show to install in that theater than -- of course -- a newly opulent ''42nd Street,'' with its finger-snapping anthems to Broadway and Times Square?

Those anthems, by the immortal team of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, remain among the most infectious songs ever written about Manhattan, as energetic, tough-hearted and self-romanticizing as the island itself. No sooner does the orchestra at the Ford Center strike up the overture (beginning with ''We're in the Money'') than you feel yourself grinning."

in 2009, American Songwriter Magazine editor Paul Zollo writes:

"the advent of rock and roll changed the game... He moved away from the short form of songs to write a masterwork - a Latin Mass - completed in 1962. Sadly, there was little interest in it, and it went unheard for a decade until Loyola Marymouth University staged a performance of it. To this day, though, it has never been recorded."

Somebody ought to remedy that.

Harmonic Vocabulary

Dear Hal,

You raised a fabulous question I've been chewing on: "dumbing down arrangements", especially on "Almost". Since I write in a lot of styles, it's a conscious choice for me, and I'll explain why:

it's a matter of using a vocabulary your audience understands.

If the audience was just you and me, for example, we could sing 12-tone rows and poly-chordal arrangements, and groove on those. I've written some of those. Contemporary acapella lovers can go pretty far afield with nameless chords, poly-rhythms and hair-pin changes of style - if that's your audience, you write for them. I suppose the far extreme might be cartoon character Hank (King of the) Hill saying "I like both kinds of music, country AND western." - for Hank's ilk, you don't even sing a 6th chord because they'd hear those chords as "errors"

Kinda like singing in Latin or French - right for the right crowd & wrong for the wrong crowd - depends on how well your audience knows the vocabulary by the time you are done.

Now consider what little we know of the judges of the Forest Grove Barbershop Ballad competition and the opinions of the coach we had who has judged that event. Recall in "Nose to Nose" that his ear objected to the no-fifth chord at the end and wanted a full chord. In "Wink", one sixteenth note of an open fifth chord ("old jalopy") needed a third to be fixed, and we did it and will do it. But this gives us a strong clues on what vocabulary his barbershop audience will understand - and it doesn't include 2 note chords. By extrapolation, most of the audiences we will have will understand BBS style, since our agent Tom's contacts are in that world.

"Almost" uses vocabulary the barbershop crowd will ALMOST but not quite understand: open fifth beginning, (to that ear, making our first sound to sound "wrong") major 7 9 6 chords in tag ("al-most like"), and the swipe ending the intro.

Generally, the mutually exclusive alternatives are:

• present and teach a new language entertainingly.
• let the audience dislike what you are doing.
• cater to the audience's familiarities
  

For this barbershop competition, the choices are

1. re-arrange the tune to the style (I don't like the idea - the arrangement we have has it's own quirky charm, and I personally LIKE those quirks, so we use it in less judgmental moments in performance)
2. accept the distrust the audience will give us by doing it the way we like, but hopefully redeeming ourselves by educating those ears to a new vocabulary (Don't like this risky plan, either) or
3. choose a different tune for that audience.

Simplest and most respectful answer: choose a different tune.

Yours, Gary