Raise the Globlet of Bach

Good morning! It is day three of the Bach Festival. Thursday night the festival kicked off with keyboard night in the Dunford Auditorium. That's where Dixie State College of Utah houses it's Bach style pipe organ. The organ has wooden keys -- black full notes and blonde halfnotes. The pipes are directly in front of the organist and are sometimes painfully loud. The blower is housed beneath the organ and is also quite loud.

I'd worried myself sick that I was going to "suck" again this year, so I didn't record the performance. You'll have to take my word for it that I didn't suck. I'd gotten a chance to practice on the instrument and felt that it and I came to an understanding. My kids were convinced that my piece was quite a bit easier than the pieces played by the other organists, and maybe it was but I enjoyed it all the same as I was able to avoid that "muddy" feel -- I kept my lines clean :)


Friday night the festival continued at the Eccles Fine Art Building's concert hall where the Southwest Fretted Philharmonic made its public debut. Becky is so fun. She said when she watched the Ukulele Orchestra I'd put together last year, she had no idea that this year she'd be playing with us. As with my organ performance, I also marked a vast improvement with the fretted instruments. Of course some of the members are still hating on the ukulele. Before the show, Joseph (who now wants to be called Jack because he's never met a Joe that he didn't want to punch in the face) said that ukulele's are the "JarJar Binks" of musical instruments -- See how obnoxious Joes can be?



Becky's son Colton, inspired by her many hours of practice, countered our performance with a variation of Minuet in G (in C) by playing Minuet in G (in C) in G Minor.



I'm excited about the weeks to come. It seems that our performance may have recruited two more musicians for the band...I don't want to say more cause I don't want to jinks anything, but things are going swimmingly on the musical front!