Minneapolis wedding music

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 May 06 - 09:33 AM

Thanks for the info, Guest.

Wait a minute - you mean there's a SEASON for fishing? Is there a crappie season?

Music thought - if you are ever asked to play outdoors, be sure to drop a package of tape into your gig bag. The wind tried repeatedly to blow the music off my stand during the wedding.

The bride commented that she especially liked the recessional. If you would like to hear and download it, it is on the Internet Renaissance Band site

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/emusic/renaissa.html

I think the MIDI there seems a tad frenetic, but part of that is the fact that MIDI's are mechanical.

Click on Mixed Bransles/Bransle Double. We played the first one.

This piece is one of our gang's favorites.

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 06 - 07:42 AM

Actually, we aren't always blessed with the fishing report. Just on the opener.

Sure, the weather can be great in April. In hot drought years, we can have 80s in March.

But I wouldn't bet my outdoor wedding in May on "it might be nice" and now you know why!

However, we're a hardy northern sort of nut up here, as you observed in our esoteric transportation grids, and your nephew & his bride's determination to 'do it outside' despite the early season date.

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 16 May 06 - 12:13 AM

Did I say my nephew was in his right mind? Joke!

To be fair, the weather had been in the 70's the week before and should be in the 60's this week. It was all Canada's fault.

Minneapolis is the first major city I have been in where they had the fishing report ("Crappie Weather") right next to the weather map.

BTW, a crappie is a fish and is pronounced "croppy." Do not get this wrong if you ever visit the Midwest. They call a sunfish a "sunnie."

Jim: that's right about the glacial erratics. These were old paving stones. We wondered how the old-timers got them into blocky shapes, because here in River City they seem unbreakable. The most common kind here is Sioux Quartzite. We call it the Courthouse Quartzite because when the pioneers got stuck with a huge boulder, they often put a plaque on it and called it a monument.

I stick by my Jackson Pollock opinion, although when we were trying to get from the airport to Minnehaha Falls, M.C. Escher seemed even more apt. We were not helped by Yahoo maps which must have come Through the Looking Glass.

Heck, I should have tried to buy a nickelharpa! Didn't even think of it.

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 16 May 06 - 12:08 AM

G'day leeneia,

I'm glad to hear it went pretty well. I guess that 7(+)ºC does start to qualify as coolish ... 12(+)ºC doesn't really!

I had been intending to pass on one tip in the earlier thread ... but someone else already suggested you could warm your recorders silently by closing your hand over the whistle ... while you blew your warm breath through the instrument.

I often do this with whistles - if & when it gets cold, around here in New South Wales (Australia) ... in fact, I usually cover the whistle with my right hand and use my left hand to cover as many holesas I can. This keeps the warm air working all the way down the whistle. At the end, I give a hard, sharp puff to stir up any condensation. Once I'm playing, I rarely have any appreciable condensation.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: GUEST
Date: 15 May 06 - 08:14 PM

Who in their right mind would schedule an outdoor wedding for MN in May--especially fishing opener weekend (notorious for cold, rainy weather)???

Good fishing this weekend though.

Subject: RE: Minneapolis wedding music
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 May 06 - 07:14 PM

The "multicolor igneous rocks" you saw (Did they look sorta like this?) were probably what the locals call "fieldstone" and what geologists call "glacial erratics." Glaciers brought them. The bedrock it came from is somewhere up in Canada. They are found all over Minnesota and Wisconsin (except in the "driftless zone") but especially in eskers.

Jackson Pollock? That's a bit harsh. Mondrian, maybe.

Subject: Minneapolis wedding music
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 May 06 - 05:59 PM

Last week I asked for advice on playing recorder at an outdoor wedding when the forecast was for a temperature of 54.

Somebody kindly suggested Dupanol to clear condensation from my instruments, so I went to Loving Music, River City's classical music store. Loving Music hires a lot of dispirited college students who always look at me as if I were nuts, no matter what I ask for. No exception this time. After a lot of staring, the kid asked somebody else and what do you know, they sell it, but the other college student had let the supply run out. So no Dupanol.

Well, it wasn't 54 at the wedding, it was 45. I borrowed a T-shirt from my husband (it came to my knees) and wore a wool poncho and wool hat all day. I wore slacks and kept the mouthpieces of my recorders tucked in the waistband from 12:30 to 3:15. It worked. They were nice and warm and didn't clog while we played two Bransles, Linnen Hall (an English country dance) and a Courante collected by Michael Praetorius.

By "we" I mean me and my very talented brother. He played "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" on the cello for the processional. He played guitar on the other pieces, and my husband did some nice tambourine playing on the Bransles. Since the bride and groom have been Rennies for a long time, they approved of the authentic Renaissance music.

Other observations:

1. The street layout of the Twin Cities must have been designed by Jackson Pollock

2. I saw one piece of litter downtown, a piece of brown paper crumbled against a gutter. The Governor will probably institute a commission to investigate it.

3. We had a delicious dinner at Nye's Polish restaurant, but they had a trumpet playing the polkas instead of an accordion, so we didn't go listen. The trumpet was too loud and shrill. Try the chicken kluski.

4. The bride's grandfather has built a retaining wall of multicolored igneous rocks. The DH and I (hardrockers surrounded by miles of limestone)lusted after it.

5. Why would anyone think that people in a $150-a-night-hotel want to listen to a recording of a guy who sounds like he has been living under a bridge? (throat tight with self-pity, rasping the infected sludge in his throat, mumbling incoherent lyrics)

at breakfast?

PS Not that we actually paid $150. We're not nuts.