#choirupdate

"You Need to bE LOUDER!" proceeds to conduct through stomping and faux-screeming to improve the sound.

"Don't worry I'm just thinking" he says with a scrunched up face or biting on a pencil/pen.

"So a few notes" he says while flipping through pages of his journal.

"Let's hear it a-ccapella" he says mostly to himself.

"Stand please." *Que several groans*

"Altiods!" (His Nick name for Altos)

Says things in a Ukrainian accent or just plain Ukrainian.

Sings women's part in a Bass octive, then plays it on piano. Then does both at the same time.

Uses his hands for everything. He can't speak without them.

Plays the piano whenever he's around it. The pour guy can't help it, it's like a beacon of light.

The goat story. The pig story. Any Ukrainian story from his childhood in general. Masha? Dasha? They are names I think?

My old Choir Director at one point on a trip we took, was very kind to me (I had previously had a mild anxiety attack and he came outside to check on me, when I was trying to catch my breath and then proceeded to wait inside until I was finished sobbing for 15 minutes) and so I was showing signs of a second anxiety attack, so He had me chill with him and his wife, and for almost 6 hours (we were only at Great America for 9 hours) we sat in Starbucks. He was worried about me I guess because he hadn’t seen me eat at all that day, so he proceeded to buy me tacos, of which I only ate one because I always feel bad when people buy me things, and I will now share with you some things that happened during the entire exchange:

“Eat your Taco”

“Mr. K, please stop saying that, I’m not hungry”

Moments later, out of no where...

“Do you like tea?”

“Camomile.”

“Maria(Mr. K’s wife), will you get a small camomile tea?”

“NO MR. K PLEASE!”

“Maria, go.”

“Please no.”

“Avery.”

“Mr. k, please. stop.”

At this point his wife left to get Mr. K a drink. So he looked at me, and I shyed away, and avoided eye contact.

He said “Avery, what’s wrong?”

“It’s your money and you really shouldn’t spend it on me, Mr. K...” I replied.

“Is that what your concerned about? The money?” He asked.

I nodded.

“Avery, it is my money. I get the freedom to choose how I want to spend it. If it just so happens to be on you, than it’s my problem to worry about, not yours.” He announced with a smile.

“I’m always worried about money, Mr. K. Especially if it’s not mine to spend.” I stated shyly, still avoiding his eyes. He sighed and shook his head with a smirk.

“Now Avery, I’ll tell you what, If you truly don’t want it, I won’t get it for you. But if you do, consider it my treat, okay?” He asked. I nodded slowly. “So I’ll ask again. Do you want some tea?”

“Yes please.” I replied, finally meeting his kind gaze.

“Eat your Taco.”

“WHAT ARE YOU MY FATHER??”

“As of right now yes. Now eat your food.”

Mrs. K joined in at this point in getting me to eat.

“Are you gonna eat that taco Avery?”

“Mrs. K not you too. I have 3 moms, I don’t need a 4th... no offense... 😥”

I discovered a lot of parallels between me and my Choir Director as well that day. I guess we had more in common than I thought.

I think about those moments a lot whenever I need a reminder that there are kind people in the world.

In choir, last night being my last performance in high school, everyone says that I do a great job. But there’s no way you can pick out my voice in my section. Let alone the choir.

We work really hard on rich, blended, and full sound.

We listen to each other so that no one sounds out of place.

We pride ourselves on balanced and powerful sound.

And it really shows when we go out to preform.

This was our defining song last night. David’s Lamentation. If we were ever working towards anything in Chamber Choir to accomplish as far as sound and execution and word correctness, this was it.

This was our Directors choice song of the night. We learned this song in two weeks and worked vigorously to make sure it would be up to par with our Directors standards. And let me tell you, it was not easy.

However, I am not at all disappointed at our performance. It being my very last high school choir performance ever, I couldn’t have asked for a better end to my Choir career than what we did last night.

And I think we did our Director proud in staying “as smooth as chocolate butter”

Which is a Ukraineian delicacy traditionally served on toast. Unfortunately we only had garlic bread so those of us that did try it, licked it of spoons and, I can assure you, it tastes as bad as it sounds by itself.

It’s the consistency of butter but has a slight hint of chocolate.

The Director got it at his “Local Russian Store” which I guess is close but I wouldn’t know...

All to say, I am going to miss my Choir. They are a second family to me and our Director is like the father of all 32 of his kids.

To all who are in my choir, I wish the best of luck in all your future endeavors and I’m so sad to be leaving you all this year. 😭 Thank you for all the good memories and songs.

Day three of the 3x3 Theme Song Challenge

Day 2, Theme Song Mystery: The Simpsons

Again the rules are; he has no idea what the music’s title is (to meet this requirement, the title and the web link have been scribbled on), he’s never seen this specific peice of sheet music (the list I’ve compiled is specifically created so that there is no way he’d have seen it before), he also doesn’t know who’s putting them on the piano (Surprise it’s me, it takes me a minute to get to class and he takes 7 so, I put it there since no one else is in there), he doesn’t know what comes next or how long it will go on for (the answer is 9 days and a random selection of theme songs).

So... I might have... printed out some sheet music... and then scribbled on the title and the website where I got it from... and the wrote on the sheet music “Play to discover song”... and then my Choir Director did... and then I recorded it? And he had no idea what he was playing??? But he just read it and played it?? It was the office theme song... And so... now I’m sorta in a non-disclosed challenge competition?? And so I printed out 9 Days worth of Mystery Sheet Music for him to play?? And scribbled out all the titles and stuff?? And so I’ve made the songs increasingly challenging? Starting from the Simpsons theme song and ending with Nyan Cat?? And the are songs in there like the Gravity falls theme song and Harry Potter and Zelda and Sonic and Crash Bandicoot...

Also I guess I didn't happen to mention that I got into Chamber Choir. It weird. I remember writing about it. But the draft never got saved.

I'll talk more about it later.

But I did get in and now I have Chamber in my schedule.

So we just got off stage at our final Preformance, and right as we got off stage, Boom, our Choir Director is at the Door, and I was the first one to come out, right?

Well he's at the door, and he scared the crap out of me and surprised me at the same time. So I turned around and walked away, covering my mouth so I wouldn't scream because we were still back stage.

And his son is adorable. He brought his son backstage too. And he was so shy. He kept hiding behind our Choir Director. In fact our Choir Director took a step away from his son, and he just hid behind him again.