Megabytes

I went to Storyland, NH while visiting family recently. It was a hot and humid day, temps in the 90s. I say this because then you will understand why my favorite ride was “Bamboo Chutes.” This is a ride in a bamboo shaped car, or boat. The vehicle glides along a narrow trough of water, bouncing up and down in the waves. Toward the end of the ride, it is pulled up a steep incline and sent rocketing down a steep decline, to splash in a pool of water below.
Oh, yeah. It’s fun. You’re hot. You’re tired. You just want to sit in front of a fan to cool down. Instead, you ride the Bamboo Chutes and get splashed with cool refreshing water. If you want to get really wet - sit in the front.
A photograph is taken of you as you thunder to the pool below.

This past weekend, I was camping on the Lewis River just Southeast of Mt. St. Helens. I’ve camped here almost every year for about 7 years with a few other families. One of my favorite activities is building rock towers using the river rocks that are so plentiful on the river banks, in the river and around camp.
I enjoy the challenge of balancing items that have uneven edges in a vertical format. Sometimes I use only smallish rocks. Other times large rocks. Sometimes both!
There’s a meditative aspect to the process. Selecting the rocks, placing them. I get satisfaction from placing a rock, adjusting it as I place it, to find that sweet spot where the even point surfaces. It takes a steady hand to complete the towers.
I’ve been asked, “Do you offer prayers as you are building the towers?” Not exactly. However, the process is thoughtful.

I ran across a great resource for woodwind players: The Sax Shed. There is a link for the clarinet shed and the flute shed as well as a drummers shed! Well, the drum shed is intended as a joke. Website owner, Skip Spratt just plays the drums as a change of pace from the woodwinds.
I appreciate websites like this; ones that share information and resources and practice routines. I downloaded some nice ii7-V7-I practice patterns that are written out through the complete circle of fifths. It’s good practice to do these types of exercises in your head, but as a step toward that level of skill, I recommend either writing out your own to practice from or working from someone’s written out patterns.
With all the resources on the internet for musicians, one can woodshed all day, every day and not run out of material for a long time.

I didn’t really discover Peggy Lee until just last year when I viewed a PBS special on her life and music. She is most well-known for her 1958 hit, Fever. Not only was she a composer of over 100 pieces; pop songs and movie music, she had feature roles in movies and was nominated for an Academy Award.

When I saw the clip of her performing It’s a Good Day, I found a musical heroine. She held herself seemingly motionless and her gestures were small; but a powerful, pure, musical and sensual energy was emanating from her as if she were a live electrical cable carrying 20,000 volts. If you are unfamiliar with Miss Peggy Lee, I recommend this song as a great introduction to her music.

It’s a Good Day is a bouncy little tune that will bounce you right out of any doldrums you may be experiencing. You just can’t listen to this work and feel blue. It’s one of the many songs Peggy co-wrote with her first husband, Dave Barbour. It was recorded in 1947.

Yes, it’s a good day for singin’ a song,
And it’s a good day for movin’ a - long;
Yes, it’s a good day, how could anything go wrong,
A good day from mornin’ till night.

You’ve got to hear Peggy Lee sing with her soft, lilting voice that is an extension of the pulsating energy I mentioned above. I always feel as if she is bursting with feeling but holds back a bit in her singing. As if to confirm my theory, she once said in an interview, “One of my favorite mottos is by Chief Justice Holmes and he said, ‘The eternal struggle of art is to leave out all but the essentials.’ ”

Yes, it’s a good day for shinin’ your shoes,
And it’s a good day for losin’ the blues;
Ev’rything to gain and nothin’ to lose,
‘Cause it’s a good day from mornin’ till night.

Peggy hit it big with Benny Goodman’s band in 1941. The pop music of the day was swing. Good Day is a bright swing played at about 240 beats per minute. The introduction is a sweet guitar riff (played by Barbour) accented by muted trombones. Then our spirited singer enters. She sings two verses, the bridge and third verse backed by muted trumpets and tightly harmonized clarinets and saxes.

I said to the sun, “good mornin’, sun.
Rise and shine, today.”
You know you’ve got - ta get go - in’
If you’re gonna make a showin’
And you know you’ve got the right of way.

The band breaks with a running sixteenth and eighth note line by the saxes and guitar, trumpets joining in as the line builds to a wailing trumpet solo. There’s a positive driving energy pushing the song. Muted trombones back the soloist with a peppy melodic line. Chock-full-of-notes-solos are heard by the guitar and clarinet before Peggy comes back in with the bridge and last verse to close the song.

‘Cause it’s a good day for payin’ your bills;
And it’s a good day for curin’ your ills,
So take a deep breath and throw away your pills;
‘Cause it’s a good day from mornin’ till night.

Peggy gives the listener the full power of her voice at the end of the song. When she sings, “So take a deep breath and throw away the pills…” she is your personal motivational speaker helping you face the day. You don’t need no stinkin’ pills. You’ve got Miss Peggy Lee!

I grew up on musicals. Early memories are of my mother playing Oklahoma and Camelot soundtracks on the hi-fi system. Her veneered stereo cabinet on legs stood about two and a half feet from the floor, about 18" deep and roughly three feet long. A sliding lid on either end of the top of the unit hid the turntable and radio on the right and a deep cabinet for storing LPs on the left.
My mother is also one of the best whistlers in the East! She didn’t like to sing so much as whistle along with Shirley Jones during her rendition of Many A New Day or with Vanessa Redgrave doing The Lusty Month of May.
With this introduction I produce this list of favorite musicals. Not so much a desert island list as homage to some great composers and lyricists.

1. West Side Story - Leonard Bernstein! Pièce de résistance is the Tonight quintet.
2. Camelot - I know the lyrics to every song. It’s such a classic love triangle, too. And there’s something about the medieval setting of kings and queens and knights, the politically incorrect feudal system, that draws me in. Go figure!
3. Jesus Christ Superstar - C’mon! It was the ’70s and this rock opera provided a great way to rebel during my teeneage years. I pretended the lyric in the title song went like so: "Jesus Christ. Superstar. Who in the hell do you think you are?!" Actual lyric: "Jesus Christ. Superstar. Who are you? What have you sacrificed?"
4. Cabaret - I played in the pit orchestra of both my high school and college productions of this musical. Loved to belt out "Maybe This Time" from the pit during breaks in rehearsals. This serious story about hate and prejudice was unusual for Broadway and musicals at the time.
5. Oklahoma - I learned how to spell Oklahoma to an upbeat country tempo. "I’m just a girl who cain’t say no" - felt no compunction singing this tune during my pre-feminist days.
6. Funny Girl - ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan story. Don’t Rain on My Parade!
7. Mame - so many songs in this musical are great pick-me-uppers. And what a character is ol’ Mame Dennis.
8. Gypsy - Rosalind Russell didn’t sing her numbers in the movie. That was Lisa Kirk in a role that has got to be tough. You gotta sound like the actor you’re dubbing AND you don’t get the billing! Nevertheless, noone else has created a Mama Rose like Russell! I liked Bette Midler’s 1993 version, but Russell has more chutzpah.

Do you have a favorite musical? What makes it special to you?