More All California Convention

Natalia and Inder gave better reports than I could, and there's also some nice comments from out-of-towners on the fasola singings list.

Right now, anyway, you can see my pictures on the slideshow on our sidebar. You can also see my pictures here, and  you can see Chris Thorman's pictures here. 

Inder's First Convention

I second Natalia - San Pedro was pretty dang nice. And loud. I'm so inspired! I want to go to all of the singing conventions all over the country. I think I could manage it. I just need approval from work. And my husband. I'll work on it.

Check out this room!


I took a lot of really bad photos. Here's one of Jim leading:

Here are the Altos - Erica and Susan are the ones I recognize:

Here's Cindy:


Here's Natalia - you can always depend on her to look at the trebles (and yes, that's Richard's nose, which seems to make its way into a lot of photos). Also, I'm doing my best to balance things out after the Linda-blitz:

All-California Convention

Well, the California Convention in San Pedro was pretty dang nice.



Pat Keating (pictured above with Richard's nose) was a gracious and with-it chair, and the L.A. local singers were excellent hosts. Rick Russell and Bruce Hayes arranged; Laura Boyd Russell pitched, with assistance from Richard DeLong.

Mary Rose valiantly tried to keep it green, although L.A.'s recycling regulations didn't turn out to be quite as liberal as originally thought (let's face it; nobody believed for a second that those waxed paper cups were recyclable).

I liked how this convention was friendly to beginners while still keeping things together -- i.e., the front bench always had responsible singers on it, with few gaps.
Several new singers led, and were well supported by the class. The convention also drew visitors from all over, including many excellent leaders who stretched the class (in a good way!).

It was great to see Ted, Anne, Steve, and Lisa from Chicago; Richard from Georgia, Claire from New Mexico; Leyland and Mary Chris from Virginia, Kiri and James from Rhode Island; Jerry, Carla, Carroll, Midge, and Jeff from San Diego; Steve and Karen from Eugene; the Los Angeles singers; and some semi-locals like Cindy and Jeanette, who live nearby but who I don't sing with that often for various logistical reasons. There were just boatloads of people there with whom I'd sung before, and with whom I was glad to sing again. I'm missing tons of names in this list.

Lots of Bay Area locals went down, and it's always fun to see how we behave when not in our Bay Area bubble. Every Bay Area singer led, including Caroline, who claimed she hadn't meant to sign up to lead, but in fact led really well.

I wasn't able to take that many pictures before my camera batteries crapped out, but here are a few.


This is Linda in front of the Korean Friendship Bell in Angels' Gate Park. No, Linda, you can never escape the paparazzi.


Here are a few pictures as the convention was beginning on Saturday:

Mark, Ted, Carolyn, and Carroll (who was also the outgoing chair).


Claire and Susan


Wade from Utah, Cindy, Inder, and Xaris. Xaris, a treble, claimed to be a new singer but sang everything perfectly, including the shapes. Which makes me wonder: how many singers would be willing to make a dark Faustian pact in exchange for sweet Sacred Harp skills? Is that Darlene's secret?


Here are some leaders:


Anne from Evanston, IL -- who always rocks.


Carla from San Diego


Inder!


Kiri


Laura and the dude from the hostel, whose name I did not catch. Also, part of Leyland's face, because that is the nature of taking pictures from the second row.


Susan and, um, Richard's ear.


Betty from Oakland: my sole singing shot on Sunday before my camera ate Linda's batteries.


Here are some random singing shots:


Linda and Chris in the tenor section


Linda and Chris in the tenor section, with Chris taking a picture. He probably has some awesome ones; hopefully he'll post them.


A piece of the tenor section: Richard, Carolyn, and Mary Rose.


Some basses: Ron H., Steve W., James B., and Paul L.


Here are some (poorly taken) photos of the social:


Linda and fellow tenor Kasia


David and Susan, at whom I tried to pitch a truly brilliant film idea while they smiled and nodded and checked their watches


And finally, the Korean Friendship Bell:




In conclusion, why do we have a "Sacred Harp" label? Aren't all of these posts Sacred Harp posts?

And Now a Word From Your Blog Administrator

Just a few points of clarification:

1) If you would like to be an author of this blog (and you, yes, YOU, are most warmly invited to do so), you need to add a comment or send me an email specifically requesting to be added as an author, and you must give me the email address you want me to use. I can only add the authors one at a time, and I don't really want to bother with it for those of you who have no desire to ever post here. 

2) Guidelines for posting and commenting: I sort of feel that what I am about to write is pretty obvious. However, on the off chance that it is not, and to prevent any chance of hurt feelings down the road, here are the guidelines:

• be friendly and inclusive
• remember that the general public may stumble upon things here (don't post anyone's address, for example)
• keep it at least tangentially related to singing and our singing community (get your own blog for politics, religion, family photos, etc. I'll link there in the sidebar if you want, but this is a Sacred Harp blog)

I think that's pretty easy and pretty clear. I reserve the right to un-author anyone who makes a habit of violating those norms. But no one is going to make me do that, right?

3) On the sidebar, I've added links to Sacred Harp singers (including local singers Will, Rebecca, and myself, plus Inder if she ever moves her blog to a place we can actually link to) who have blogs. The blogs vary in their Sacred Harp content, and none of them are exclusively about Sacred Harp. Just so you know.

4) I welcome suggestions of other cool things to post here.

Pictures from Portland, At Last

Flickr has been obnoxious... but I managed to get some pictures of the Portland convention 3 months ago loaded there before my laptop's battery died (it's a very good battery, by the way. Flickr was just three hours worth of obnoxious!). Jessica Beer of Portland has graciously supplied names, notes, and flattering comments.
I'm having trouble getting Blogger to cooperate as I try to post a few favorite shots here, but I think I've found a way to outwit it. Anyway, check out the Flickr link and have fun.

Here's Natalia's shot of Betty:

This one, also by Natalia, was added to Flickr's Global Spirit pool at their invitation:

I would like to repay Natalia for the oh so many shots of me posted here by posting tons of pictures of her. However, I'm really short, and she's not so tall, so all of my pictures of her are obscured by the taller people on the first few rows of the tenor bench. Sigh.

Not all my pictures were terrible, though. Here's one I like:

And this, while not technically perfect, did capture a great moment:

So now we should all be in the mood for the All-California this weekend!

Singing in Santa Cruz

Since Linda initiated this blog, I thought it would be funny to post a bunch of pictures of her all at once.







But actually, there really was a singing on Sunday in Santa Cruz: Rebecca hosted her last singing as a Santa Cruz local, because she is moving to the East Bay. MUAHAHAHA.

I'm a truly terrible photographer; nonetheless, here are some of my photos:

Carolyn Deacy: Sorry, I won't be much help. Driving down friday morning leaving SF at 6am possibly going on highway 1, car full. Going to San Diego on Monday returning to SF on Wednesday. 

All California Convention

The All California Convention is January 19-20 (MLK Day weekend) in San Pedro, CA. Let's coordinate rides and such-- it's more fun and it saves on greenhouse gas emissions. Check out the lodging options here.

Here's what I know about everyone's travel information so far:

Linda, Natalia, Paul:

travel: driving on Friday, leaving East Bay at 12:30 pm, returning Sunday after singing. We might have room for one more passenger if there isn't room in another car, but we'll be a little squished.

lodging: Pacific Inn, 516 W. 38th St., San Pedro (about 1/2 mile from the singing).

other: will go to Sat. social, and can offer ride to/from for at least one other person.

Betty:

travel: flying in Saturday morning, flying out Sunday night

lodging: staying with Marilyn Murata

other: perhaps needs ride to/from airport

Terry B.:

travel- driving

lodging: staying with Marilyn Murata

Caroline:

travel: needs ride

lodging: 3431 MacLaughlin West LA 90066

other: will have car in LA and can offer rides to convention.

No one else has given me definite information yet. Please post to the comments your travel plans/needs, your lodging info, and other information.