OF MOZART AND DORKINESS

Hope this finds you as well as you can be under the circumstances! All is relatively well in my world, and because I’ve been slow to write this month’s message, I have several things to share with you in this order: Mozart, Dorkiness, and sad news about Lark Camp. Here we go!

WHEN I LAST WROTE, I mentioned that I’m reading Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Haupt. As I pedaled my stationary bike while reading, effectively killing two birds with one stone (sorry - a bird joke was irresistible!), I encountered an interesting passage about recursion - the revisiting of familiar segments of a tune. Haupt describes what is attractive in the song a male starling uses to attract a mate. The lovesong must be interesting, but there is a magic sweet spot where the right amount of complexity and “habituation” wins the lady starling. To put it in human terms: if the male’s song is too complex, it becomes a challenge to pay attention; too much familiar tune patterning (recursion), and the lovesong is, well…boring. In either case, the rejection buzzer sounds, and the girl-bird flies off in search of better talent. The author points out that Mozart had amazing instincts about using recursion, but the concept also resonates for me (and I ain’t no Mozart!) It’s the reason we love familiar recurring choruses intertwined with the verses in a song - a payoff of patterning. Predictable bits that permit the listener to participate, combined with interesting new lyrics and melody with each verse as the song tells its story. I’m really enjoying the book!

HERE’S ANOTHER REASON I’m late with writing this month: I made a dorky video. A couple of us dared Eamonn Flynn to sing Delilah (as sung by Tom Jones, not the Plain White T’s) for a Facebook Live performance. I said if he did it, I’d accept his dare to do a version of any song he chose. He did a really good Delilah (suitably dark), AND for me, he picked Escape (aka The Piña Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes. I decided to enlist my son and his girlfriend’s help with the video, and here’s the result:

NOW FOR THE SAD NEWS. As you could easily guess, the board of directors for Lark Traditional Arts, the nonprofit that runs Lark Camp, has had to do the only responsible thing and cancel camp for 2020. It’s impossible to social-distance at workshops and crowded evening dances, and we need to protect everyone. But behaving like grownups is hard - we were SO looking forward to being there. The good part is that we’ll be set to go for 2021. If you were contemplating coming this year, several instructors will be offering online instruction, so visit the site to see the list of these fine folks, and there’s a virtual cabaret being planned, so watch for details. Better yet, sign up for the Lark Camp mailing list to hear more - I write the newsletter!

I’ve been sharing funny videos (there will be more!) but this time, here are some Celia videos. I’m still super proud of my song, I’ll Just Lie About It, and farting around on my recent birthday (whee! I’m 63), I made a video (warts and all) of Ye Banks and Braes by Robert Burns.