BS: The tri choralthon

Subject: RE: BS: The tri choralthon
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 02:22 PM

Great story!

Subject: RE: BS: The tri choralthon
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 09:28 AM

Rock Creek Park is a 26 mile ribbon park that starts in DC near the Potomac river and goes upstream to Lake Needwood in MOntgomery county. It was inspired and constructed by order of Theodore Rosevelt. It harbors beaver, fox, owls, turtles, toads, hawks, black snakes and more than its share of deer.

While the story above is fictional, I hope to inspire an actual singing troupe of walkers and bikers alike for some real annual events. TO this day there is an annual kissathon at ducks in a tpwn in Italy inspired by a picture of suc an event that I made 10 years ago. A friend of mine Mark Driscoll started the annual Rochester NY raft race that persists to this day.

A more detailed version and feel good version of the story will be published late this summer.

Subject: BS: The tri choralthon
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 11 - 09:11 AM

They say it all started with a group of 6 ladies who would take morning walks in the Rock Creek bicycle trail on select mornings. One lady returned some bird calls, another harmonized it and they were soon singing as they walked. Many of the tunes sounded like improvised hymns and over time and seasons popular songs filled the park air and their numbers grew.

Biking families would stop and listen as the group passed by on the narrow two lane trails. Soon enough some biers began a troupe of their own. Andy discovered that a short pice of spoke could be cut , looped around the upper or lower fork and with a primitive spring a string the spole would "marimbize" the spokes of their wheels. Primitive tunes and rhythms wore formed as they drove through the park. It evolved into song forms that featured different sized wheels taking turns in more intricate patterns as some bikers would sing.

After a couple years there some of the first trail singers joined the bike chorus on those third wheel add on devices often used for kids. There were three or four choral leaders besides Andy who specialied in percussion. Some bikes were mounted with sood tubes that were struck with a mallet. One person even had a Celeste mounted on the handlebars.

If you happened to be walking some morning the first thing you might hear was the celest, then slowly a seductive rhythm and spoke music could be heard, then suddenly a blast of voices singing anything from Ave Maria to 4 part American standards could be heard growing ever louder as the came around the bend and streamed past like a parade. For three minutes you could hear the music slowly fade in the distance.

Last July a picnic by the lake was planned after a ten mile ride.
They played and sang all the way as walkers well acquainted with the singing bikers sang with or in competition to the passing chorus on wheels. Whlie there is no swimming in the lake it did not take long on that hot 4th of July before a grand chorus was in the water singing aloing with families on the shore. It was so inclusive that there were only performes and no audience at all.

No one knows but it is said the teenage boat rental agent called the police when the people could not be persuaded to leave the water.
When the cops arrived the wet singers were sig=nging whall we gather by the river, which gave the impression to the police that this was some sort of religious protest and they egan issuing commands and forcefully dragging select people from the lake until one policeman decided that someone had resisted. He apparently did not give a thought to his yellow 59,000 volt taxwer on his belt when he waded in to pull a resentful teenager from the water.

A total of 26 people were severely shocked but no one died. Among them were two of the original trail singers and Andy of the singing bikers. No decisions were made but the memory and rumor of the shocking event gradually diminished the number of trail singers until today when the trail is silent save for the smal bicycle bells that warn walkers on the trail of their approach.

At least there was one day that had a complere trichoralthon of singing walkers, bikers and swimmers.