All Hallow�s Eve becomes Allerseelen

Hallowe�en has come and gone again. I missed all the early trick-or-treaters since we had our first new music ensemble rehearsal today and Hubby and I didn�t arrive home until 6:00 p.m. We got set up in the hall starting at noon, when church was letting out. Yes, it�s true. As a source of revenue to the university, the concert hall is rented out to a congregation every Sunday morning which doesn�t have a church of its own in which to worship. It makes it tough for us guys who want to rehearse in there, but they were very good about getting out of there as close to noon as they could today.

We started off with Hubby�s piece and, as expected, had technical difficulties. When it was going well, it was sounding pretty exciting. Unfortunately, it crashed several times, and we never did get to play the whole thing through. Hubby is going to go into the studio tomorrow and take the program apart with a fine-tooth comb to figure out what exactly is going wrong. He thinks that perhaps running the projector is draining too much power from the computer itself and causing it to get stuck. He also thinks it may be because I type too quickly. But it happened when I was typing slowly too. So, hopefully he can find out what the problem is and fix it. If not, and if we experience a problem during the performance, the solution is for the players to keep playing while I reboot the program and try to pick up where I left off. What else can we do?

The Cacci0p0 was interesting and fun. Since I don�t have perfect pitch and wouldn�t be able to pick my notes out of the air anyway, we have decided that I will not even bother using a score, but will ad lib. I don�t think it matters. During the free improvisation section I do what I want anyway, and we were really doing some fun stuff today. The Riley piece went very well, albeit a little too quickly. We�ll slow it down for the next rehearsal, repeating the fragments for longer periods before moving on to the next, and also leaving spaces, dropping out and back in for more varied texture. I had an interesting time using a microphone, having to back away from it when I had sudden high notes. I must remember to do that, or else it overloads and sounds terrible.

Before going out this morning I carved my jack o�lantern. Both Buddy Boy and Little Princess carved one each, but Hubby never had time to do his. So we are left with an intact pumpkin which I will use for food, I guess. Why waste it? After a quick pizza supper with Buddy Boy and his friend Gabby, we watched a movie they had rented, White Chicks, which was really bad, but funny nonetheless. Now everyone is home, the children are nestled all snug in their beds, and that is where I am headed too, right after I leave you with a picture from last year�s Hallowe�en when Hubby dressed up as Death and scared the children in the neighbourhood when they came for their handouts.

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